{"id":2319,"date":"2018-06-22T20:02:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T20:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/?page_id=1072"},"modified":"2019-07-02T14:47:25","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T19:47:25","slug":"international-student-election-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/2018\/06\/22\/international-student-election-reaction\/","title":{"rendered":"International Student Election Reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Brooke Anderson <\/span><\/p>\n

At 11 o\u2019clock in the morning, Nov. 9, in the country of Malaysia, Mariatul Dianah Hidzir\u2019s parents had just received the news of President-Elect Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The news came as both a shock and a surprise to the Malaysian family. Hidzir, program assistant for the Center for Multicultural Education<\/a>, explains how the results of the election left them feeling concerned for their daughter\u2019s safety.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had been texting my parents – they are worried about me,\u201d Hidzir said. \u201cThey ask if I\u2019m going to take this head scarf off after this, because as much as I want to deny it, it really is obvious.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Hidzir said she\u2019s worried about the impression Trump gave his voters when talking negatively about minority groups and immigration.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cGun control on campus might change; somebody a student might come to campus and bring a gun and observe me from afar being different and decide to shoot me at any time,\u201d Hidzir said. \u201cAs much as I want to deny the fact that I\u2019m frightened, I can\u2019t. I am frightened, and anything can happen from this point on.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There is one place where Hidzir explains she feels safe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as I\u2019m on campus, [in] college, my professors are here, and my friends are here, and I really do feel safe in that way,\u201d Hidzir said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other minority groups on campus have also spoken out following the results of the election. CME Program Assistant Alexis Williams says Trump\u2019s win feels like a step backwards for America.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was devastated, I think is pretty much how you would describe that,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI think I was heartbroken not necessarily because he was president, but in America in general because I felt like we had come so far.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Pride Alliance on campus is also feeling the pressure after Trump\u2019s win. Member Kate Chapman says under the leadership of people like Vice President-Elect Mike Pence, who is openly against LGBT members, the future for the minority group is unclear.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just going to be a set back for the entire community as well as other communities that are in the minority, and it\u2019s just kind of sad to watch because there\u2019s only so much you can do,\u201d Chapman said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s victory has left many feeling like America has taken a wrong turn, but that bodes the question: why was he elected? Political Science professor Melinda Kov\u00e1cs explains the workings of Trump\u2019s campaign platform.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very exclusionary, very violently coercively hateful platform, and that platform won,\u201d Kov\u00e1cs said. \u201cNow, it won because of the electoral college.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Electoral College is all states but Nebraska and Maine giving all of their electoral votes to the candidate who wins the majority of the popular vote in that state.<\/span><\/p>\n

The college is made of 538 electors who cast the official votes for the state. The number of electors per state is determined by\u00a0 <\/span>the number of U.S representatives the state has, plus the state\u2018s two senators. This system sometimes ends with a candidate winning the electoral college, but not also winning the popular vote.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe electoral college votes are not really proportionate to the size of the population,\u201d Kov\u00e1cs said.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote over Trump by 219,762 votes, but lost the electoral votes. This happened in the 2000 election when George W. Bush won over popular vote winner Al Gore.<\/span><\/p>\n

Williams says the CME worked hard on encouraging people to vote, but hearing that Clinton won the popular vote but not the presidency makes her feel like their voice wasn\u2019t heard.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cJust to say that she won but she\u2019s still not president, I feel like they were right – our votes don\u2019t matter,\u201d Williams said. \u201cThat\u2019s literally what you told America, that yes you can go out and vote, yes you can go stand in line for three hours, but it\u2019s literally up to the electoral people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kov\u00e1cs says those who feel the same way and have begun protesting Trump\u2019s victory should not be protesting his presidency, but should focus their attention to the Electoral College.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey are not protesting the electoral college, the people who are currently protesting are not running around saying we need to get rid of the electoral college, which is the way I think it should go,\u201d Kov\u00e1cs said.<\/span><\/p>\n

As far as protesting goes, the minority students on campus, like Hidzir, feel Missouri Western probably won\u2019t see any protests on campus, but the student organizations would not be opposed to the idea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf it does happen, I\u2019m not against it,\u201d Hidzir said. \u201cIf it does happen, I would like to see a really safe one. I don\u2019t want to see like fire here, fire there. It can happen, but I don\u2019t want to see anyone hurt.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Other minority groups on campus such as the Pride Alliance say they would also join the protests if one were to arise. Members like Chapman explain how the group would become involved.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t surprise me if we started working with the Black Student Union<\/a> and the NAACP<\/a> organization; if they were to stage something we wouldn\u2019t be opposed to helping out, because it is important,\u201d Chapman said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Aside from protesting, Kov\u00e1cs says it\u2019s important to keep your voice heard in order to make a change and work towards flipping congress, not in the 2020 election, but in 2018 legislative elections.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf I shut up that means that they got to me, that I got silenced because I think voicing, speaking out is the strategy to use,\u201d Kov\u00e1cs said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hidzir says the way to see change is to stick together.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI really do feel that people have to be stronger, I really do feel that unity is extremely important from this point on,\u201d Hidzir said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Brooke Anderson At 11 o\u2019clock in the morning, Nov. 9, in the country of Malaysia, Mariatul Dianah Hidzir\u2019s parents had just received the news of President-Elect Donald Trump\u2019s victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The news came as both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[171],"tags":[447,121,448,130],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2319"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4537,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2319\/revisions\/4537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.missouriwestern.edu\/yearbook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}