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One full week after the 45th presidential election in the United States of America (US) resulting in the election of Donald J. Trump, I was in a Wednesday morning staff meeting at a white, southern, private, elite university. Around twelve of my colleagues and I were seated around a conference table debriefing our responses to the election results. Of the twelve including myself, there were only three Black folk present. Several of my white colleagues cried or were so filled with anger and resentment that they could hardly speak. One white woman colleague had the audacity to imply that somehow, disinterested Black non/voters were to blame for villainising Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign, ultimately resulting in Trump’s ascension to the White House. In response to that implication, one of my Black colleagues erupted (an emotional response which was highly atypical for this particular colleague), reminding everyone in the room that working poor white folks and white women were the primary demographic responsible for the election of Donald Trump (Presidential Exit Polls, CNN, 2016). At that moment, looking around the room, I noticed the angry, tight-lipped indifference on the faces of my Black colleagues, a stark contrast to the tears, shock and dismay of my white colleagues. Later that day, I mentioned my observation to my Black colleagues, to which they replied with a familiar refrain,‘Donald Trump is crazy, but he ain’t nothing new’.

Donald Trump is the product of an institutionalised racism that has waxed and waned since the first enslaved Africans set foot on the shores of the western hemisphere during the Maafa (Swahili for the …