Silence.
Three Batchelor Middle School students sat around a table and tried to think of something they thought was positive about the election results Tuesday.
“Do you think anything good can come out of Trump’s presidency?”
Ryan Bramwell, an eighth grader at Batchelor, said his first reaction to seeing the results was, “Oh, no.”
“I knew something bad is going to happen,” Bramwell said. “I don’t even know. It’s Donald Trump, so something bad has to happen, that’s just how I feel.”
Lauren Ladaker, an eighth grader at Batchelor, said she thinks Trump could persuade as a businessman to get what he wants done.
“However, some of the things he wants done isn’t necessarily helping America.” Ladaker said.
The three students all woke up the next morning with the reality of Donald Trump as their president-elect.
Olivia Washington, an eighth grader at Batchelor, said she does not feel like she can take him seriously. She said she doesn’t think he is the right face for the United States.
She said her mother did not like either candidate, but she thought a lot of people either did not vote or voted for one candidate so another wouldn’t win, not because one candidate was “shining”.
Ladaker and Washington both said they wish they had had a voice in this election. Washington said people just assume the only thing they have heard about politics is what they see on television.
“I would look forward to voting, because then you get a say in politics,” Washington said. “Instead of just hearing your parents talk or hearing the TV, you can make your own opinions about it heard.”
Lat Joor Awa Gaye, a junior at Bloomington High School South, moved to the U.S. when he was six years old from Senegal.
He said the U.S. is the only thing he has ever known, and he said though he is not able to vote, it is important for young people to have a voice.
Gaye grew up in New Orleans in the seventh ward. He moved to Bloomington three years ago when his mother got a teaching job at IU.
He said he has visited friends in West Africa who are outraged by Trump. “Overseas, some people say, ‘Why do you even care about an election that’s not yours?’ and they say, ‘It is ours because we are black people. We are descendants of Africans.’”
He said he FaceTimed his friend in Chicago when the results came out. His friend was trying to keep his cool and laugh, he said.
“It was a very tense night,” Gaye said.
He said he did not believe taking to the streets to protest the results is the best idea right now. He said the people must see how this plays out in the future and see how to move on. He said it is his duty to go out and fight for what he believes in.
“I’ve been here since the first grade. I learned English here. I excel academically here,” Gaye said. “This is where my life is, this is where I will always be.”
Bramwell said when he has the ability to vote in the next election, he is not sure he will do it.
“It’s something, like, I guess was put onto me. My grandparents don’t really care about politics, my parents don’t either,” Bramwell said. “Politics just aren’t much to me.”
Ladaker disagreed. She said she felt she was not counted because of how young she is. She said she was looking forward to being able to vote.
“It’s just being able to have your voice heard,” Ladaker said.
Gaye said expressing a voice is important for young people. He said finding a voice through reading, through social interaction is important. He said he feels threatened by Trump and threatened by people who are compelled to vote for him.
“Bigotry has become the rhetoric,” Gaye said. “It’s not just horrible political figures. Everybody is at liberty to do it now because their president now does it.”
