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Many across the nation, including PCC students and faculty, are in literal shock after numerous polling predictions failed and a stunning political upset caused Donald Trump to be elected 45th president of the United States, at the end of a grueling, contentious election cycle.

The Grio reported that a Yale professor allowed his 115 students to skip their midterm exam due to the shock of the election results.

“I am getting many heartfelt notes from students who are in shock over the election returns (Although as I write the election has not been called). The ones I find most upsetting are those who fear, rightly or wrongly, for their own families. These students are requesting that the exam be postponed,” the email reads.

“On the other hand, I am sure that many students have sacrificed to prepare for the test. Further, it is not easy to reschedule exam rooms at this late date. Finally, postponing the exam would throw off the rest of the schedule as well. Therefore, I am making the exam optional.”

The PCC community has felt the same feelings of shock and bewilderment all over campus. Sociology professor Anthony Francoso spoke to the Courier about what he feels this portends for the future of the country.

“I’m just speechless right now at this point, all the resentment and all the build up of people of color making too many gains potentially, women becoming maybe too empowered … I guess it’s just kind of a backlash of right wing folks who are trying to maintain their last bastion of white privilege, trying to protect what they think is the little bit of safety they have left,” Francoso said.

“White supremacy is making its face very visible again and they’re coming out woodwork.”

According to the L.A. Times students all across the west coast from California to Washington state vented their frustrations last night and today, by walking out of their classes, and marching in the streets in full protest.

“The demonstrations — which mirrored protests from Seattle to Pittsburgh — followed protests in the predawn hours in which crowds openly disavowed the president-elect, with a few protesters resorting to vandalism,” The Times reported.

“At Berkeley High School, about 1,500 students — half the entire student body — walked out of class after first period began at 8 a.m., Berkeley Unified School District officials said and students tweeted “#NotMyPresident” and pledged to unify. Others chanted, “Si, se puede,” Spanish for “Yes, we can,” and waved Mexican flags, according to posts on social media.”

Associated Students president Julia Russo spoke to the Courier about the results. Russo stated that while the AS is nonpartisan and does not back any candidate, AS recognizes that there are many students on campus who feel marginalized by the results.

We know that it is in our best interests to make sure that we address those student’s needs and concerns, for example, our United Without Boundaries (UWB) club, we have Hispanics on campus and there are over 50 percent of Hispanics on campus. We have Muslims; we have all different groups that we pride ourselves on being diverse,” Russo said.

“We’re going to be directly ensuring that we can communicate with those individual groups because we know that there’s going to be a lot of tension and sentiments. We do know that there’s a lot of work to be done.”

Russo further stated that there are a lot of unknowns and ambiguity in terms of how the election will affect the student body and the college, but that moving forward they would be as positive as possible and ensure that the students on campus have a safe space to vent their feelings.

In the aftermath of an unexpected election, the PCC community is now talking about next steps and what they can do to, in their opinion, minimize the potential harm and damage that may be done with a Trump presidency and a republican house and senate.

“It’s time for us to really start organizing, it’s time for us to really start building coalitions focusing on solidarity, start taking back local elections and building to larger elections,” Francoso said.

“Continue fighting at an even more urgent pace now, because we all kinda got lulled with Obama. We need to go back on the offensive and moving forward, not sitting on our butts thinking everything’s cool.”

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7 Replies to “ELECTION UPSET: PCC reacts with America in fear, uncertainty”

  1. Regardless of who governs from Washington DC, we must continue to trust and respect one another. That must not change. Most politicians want us to afraid of some “other”.
    I won’t give up and neither should you. Pretty simple.

  2. Prejudice, hate and racism are powerful actions and words. Unfortunately for PCC, this has been and will continue to be accepted behavior by our Campus Police. There have been ongoing complaints of harassment and targeting of our African-American students, homeless and others, who visit our campus. The culture of the department, led by your new Chief Matchan, and supported by his main hitman, Officer Robins, is to harass and target those of color. Your new Chief, has refused to hire African-Americans for any position of HIS department. He, himself, has been heard numerous times using the “N” . This was reported to the President, prior to Matchan’s appointment, with nothing being done. So, President Trump, if we can still put a person in power, who is a bigot, racist and who hates African-Americans in charge of our Campus Police, then you can serve your country as President.

  3. Yo Lip-See!!

    Thanks for “educating” your readership on the meaning of the 5-letter word UPSET. All good college students should know this 3rd grade word. If PCC must fear……then fear your illegal alien college security chief may be deported. I’m just say’n.

  4. have you guys stop and think why these PCC students “feel scared” ? I personally think the way President elect Trump is projected in the media has scared these kids.

  5. Just a quick note, don’t be like the rest of the major news media being biased on the reporting that is done. Yeah, California and many liberals don’t like Trump, but you cannot say it is an upset because some individuals see it as a victory. Don’t be biased in your news headlines, otherwise, just keep headings like this in the opinion articles.

    1. The word “upset” also refers to the fact that most polls and predictions had Clinton winning the presidency, most with over 70 percent certainty. In that sense, the election was an upset.

    2. Hello. I’m Amber Lipsey the manging editor for the Courier. Thanks so much for commenting as we always want student comments and voices to be heard. In response to your comment, we used the word “upset” by one of its many definitions which also means “an unexpected result or situation.” It’s factually correct that almost all of the polling had Hillary Clinton in the lead and most likely to win. Because Trump won, this was in fact an upset, just like in sporting events. Thank you again for your comments and for reading our paper.

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