The day after Donald Trump's dramatic election victory saw social media flooded with reports of racist encounters, while activists rallied at schools and outside various Trump towers to protest his election.
A number of black, Hispanic and Muslim-Americans shared stories on Facebook Wednesday of racist encounters with individuals who invoked the name or rhetoric of Trump.
A woman in Saint Cloud, Minn., shared images from her former high school on Facebook Wednesday, which show graffiti with messages such as "whites only" and "white America," along with a string of anti-black slurs. The messages were also accompanied by Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."
Another post on Facebook shows the name "Trump!" scrawled on the door to the Muslim Students Association's prayer room, at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering. "Our campus is not immune to the bigotry that grips America," students wrote in a post on the association's Facebook page. "We are still here. We are not going anywhere."
A Florida woman said in a Facebook post Wednesday that several children yelled at her while she was out for a run, saying: "Go back to Africa!"
"You don't know how it feels to be me if you don't GET how enraged and sad I am right now," she wrote.
A man from Utah posted that he heard children in his son's kindergarten class teasing a boy for being Mexican, saying that he "will be going back to Mexico.
A teenage girl of Hispanic ancestry described her own experience at high school on Wednesday, the day after Trump's win. "I heard things like 'you're still here' in the halls," she wrote on Facebook. "I have never felt so embarrassed and angry in my life… This kid laughed even after being removed, yelling 'Trump 2016 build the wall' while walking through the office.
A Pennsylvania man described witnessing three white men harassing a woman while quoting Donald Trump's now-infamous 2005 recording. "When she walks past the group, one of the men yells grab her by the p----. One of the dudes literally then tried to touch the woman inappropriately," he wrote on Facebook. The man said he and three others "literally threw the 3 dudes off the subway" to protect the woman.
And those are just a few of the encounters shared online.
My cousin (born + raised in America) walked past a Trump rally in NYC (where she lives!!!) and was told "go back to your country you chink"
— sannah (@sannahkim) November 9, 2016
As I'm stopped at a gas station this morning, a group of guys yell over: "Time to get out of this country, Apu!"
— Manik R (@ManikRathee) November 9, 2016
Day 1.
My first racist encounter after our new joke of a president, as I am at Wallmart today a woman came up to me and pulled...
Posted by Maha Abdul Gawad on Wednesday, 9 November 2016
Today, I was harassed by an older white man who presumed I was Mexican. "I can't wait until Trump asks us to rape your...
Posted by Rhio Oracion on Wednesday, 9 November 2016
Day 1 Trump. I've had a female friend have her vagina grabbed in public. Muslim friend had a knife pulled on her. When your Prez does it... https://t.co/bT6Ts7gBos
— Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan) November 10, 2016
Anti-Trump protests erupt
A number of protests broke out across the United States in response to Trump's victory.
Demonstrators in Chicago blocked the entrance to Trump Tower, with some dancing, chanting or singing, while others held signs reading "no Trump" and "not my president."
Students in Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania and California also marched to protest Trump.
In New York, documentarian Michael Moore joined a protest outside Trump Tower.
Moore had one of the most popular 'day-after' posts on social media, with a five-item "to-do" list he published on Facebook. The list outlines steps for dealing with Trump's victory over Clinton, which consist of:
- Returning the Democratic Party "to the people" because it "failed us miserably."
- Firing all pundits, predictors, pollsters etc. in the media who "refused to listen to or acknowledge what was really going on."
- Demanding all Democratic members of Congress prepare to "fight, resist and obstruct" Trump in the same way Republicans did against President Barack Obama.
- "Everyone must stop saying they are 'stunned' and 'shocked.'" Moore says those who were shocked need to step out of their own bubble and notice that many Americans are angry at the system and looking for revenge against it.
- "You must say this sentence to everyone you meet today: 'HILLARY CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE!'" Moore points out that Trump was not the choice for a majority of Americans – he won because of "an arcane, insane 18th-century idea called the Electoral College."
Moore's post received 405,000 likes, 186,000 shares and 19,000 comments in the first day after it was posted.