I grew up in North Carolina during the civil rights era. I remember seeing “Colored” and “Whites” signs on the water fountains and on doors to the movie theaters. As a youth, I marched with Martin Luther King. I thought we had finally transcended this period of our history when Obama was elected president. Now we have a president – a racist and misogynist – who says Africans and Haitians are from “shithole nations,” who wants to send Nigerians back to their “huts,” who calls Mexicans “criminals, drug dealers, rapists,” who typifies desperate Syrian refugees as “a Trojan Horse,” who wants to ban Muslims, who mocks the disabled, and who boasts of grabbing women by the “pussy.” This is a man who was unwilling to condemn neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. I am outraged by this man’s words and actions. But I am even more outraged that a huge portion of Americans support this man and that the political leadership of his party is more interested in wielding power than in defending our country’s principles of equality and humanity. When my wife Elizabeth Gore and I travel overseas, we make sure to tell others that there are good people in America who are tolerant and loving. But the truth is that we are heartbroken and ashamed.
