In a new interview with The Daily Beast, Aziz Ansari opens up about the overwhelming reaction to his scathing New York Times op-ed, “Why Trump Makes Me Scared For My Family.” The Times published the editorial shortly after the nightclub massacre in Orlando, an event after which Trump quickly congratulated himself on Twitter.
“You know, I put out that article and I thought like, ‘Maybe this will resonate with other brown people,'” Ansari, a comedian, actor, and writer, said. “But it ended up being, like, the most-emailed, most-viewed article on the site for a couple of days. People come up to me — of all different races, all different religions — like, ‘That’s really cool that you wrote that. I really liked that article.'” Clearly, his message resonated on a wider basis than Ansari had ever dreamed possible.
Ansari went on, “I think with Trump, that’s just ultimately how he treats everyone that isn’t someone who looks like him. Blaming them for something, misrepresenting them, making them some sort of strange character that they’re not, not giving them the depth that he would give other white people.” While he acknowledges that people have been responsive to that kind of divisive rhetoric, Ansari isn’t giving up hope. “I think sometimes the people that are more negative, kind of troll-y type people, they’re very loud, but I think they’re a loud minority,” he said. “It’s a strange juxtaposition, but I think there are still plenty of good people. I have hope.”
(Via The Daily Beast)