Politics

Former Childhood Star Nails the Scary Reality Jewish People Face Under the Rise of Donald Trump

November 1st 2016

Former child actress Mara Wilson shared several tweets on Tuesday about what it means to be Jewish in the age of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Wilson started her thread by sharing a drawing she reportedly saw on a New York subway platform that depicted Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton with the Star of David on her forehead:

Wilson explained how visuals like these scare her and make her fearful of telling strangers she is Jewish because she has experienced anti-Semitism. She then weaved in Trump because some of his supporters have expressed anti-Semitic views.

Though Trump has denied allegations of anti-Semitism, and his Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has defended him, Trump's candidacy has emboldened those supporters. Trump himself came under fire over the summer for retweeting an anti-Semitic alt-right meme.

On Tuesday, Trump was endorsed by the official newspaper of the KKK.

Several weeks ago, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found 2.6 million anti-Semitic messages had been posted on Twitter between August 2015 to July 2016, The New York Times reported. From the Times:

"The words appearing most frequently in the Twitter biographies of the attackers were “Trump,” “nationalist,” “conservative” and “white.” Many of the owners of the 1,600 Twitter accounts were anonymous, though at least two are prominent white supremacists: Andrew Anglin, the founder of the website The Daily Stormer, and Lee Rogers of the Infostormer."

The ADL also recently dubbed Pepe the Frog, a cartoon that Trump supporters have co-opted as an unofficial mascot, a hate symbol. Trump himself has retweeted images of Pepe:

[H/T Mic]

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