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It's sad to think that the 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign has ruined numerous friendships. This was exactly what a UC Berkeley Student and Huffington Post blogger named Ciarra experienced after she supported Hillary Clinton while her friends backed up President-elect Donald Trump.
As a Christian, Ciarra wondered how her evangelical friends could skip over "Trump's insidious, vile, racist, misogynistic, islamophobic, xenophobic, ableist, white supremacist rhetoric." She said her friends' decision to support Trump made her acknowledge that the church has a heart and fear problem, and instead of moving towards progress, they chose to halt and turn their backs on marginalised groups.
Ciarra said she experienced one heartbreak after another during the election campaign, prompting her to write an open letter to all her former friends.
"To my white Christian friends that voted for Trump: Your vote makes you complicit in increased state violence against Black and Brown bodies, increased incarceration of Black and Brown bodies, increased violence against Black and Brown trans bodies, increased violence against Black and Brown Queer bodies, increased violence against Muslim bodies, increased racism towards Black and Brown immigrants, and the list continues," she said.
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And to her Black and Brown Christian friends who voted for Trump as well, Ciarra said they are equally complicit with such alleged "violence."
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She said they should not use the Bible to placate marginalised people's pain and trauma, and that it's time for the church to confront the real issue behind politics and race. Ciarra reminded her former friends that God is not a two-issue God, and His reach goes much deeper than people's sexuality and reproductive choices.
"Nonetheless, the Evangelical church is my home. It is a little beat up right now, the paint is chipping off the walls, the plumbing is leaking, and the pews are racist as hell. But God's love is still for us, and thus, my hope remains," she said.
