Trashing ADA-friendly typeface and Somali community are examples of MAGA's intolerance
What does the typeface used on the U.S. State Department’s website have to do with a crowdfunding campaign for a Cinnabon worker fired for using racist slurs?
Both are fallout from the Trump administration’s insidious war on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Most of us don’t pay too much attention to the fonts used on the websites we visit. It’s a different story for those with disabilities like low vision, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or dyslexia. Federal law requires federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology — including websites — accessible to people with disabilities, ensuring equal access to information for employees and the public.
During the Biden administration, Secretary of State Antony Blinken changed the department’s official typeface to Calibri, a sans-serif typeface. As the U.S. Department of General Services explains, "Sans-serif fonts are generally considered easier for people with disabilities, like dyslexia, ADHD, and low vision, to read because their clean, simple, less-decorated letterforms (like Arial, Verdana, Calibri)."
To paraphrase equity consultant Akilah Cadet, this was the federal government saying to people with disabilities, "you matter." Now, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reverted to the old, less accessible typeface, effectively telling people with disabilities, "Guess what? You don’t matter again."
President Donald Trump has been far less subtle in telling people of color and immigrants "You don’t matter," and the recent outpouring of support for a self-described racist shows that his message has taken root.
In the decades before the Trump era, publicly using the n-word and declaring oneself "racist" — especially from someone with a history of erratic and dangerous behavior — would have drawn near-universal condemnation from the American people.
Not anymore. The crowdfunding campaign for Crystal Wilsey, the woman caught on video berating a Somali couple, has raised at least $151,000. The creator of the campaign calls her a "hardworking White mom doing her job." Many of the donors have posted racist and anti-immigrant comments on the campaign’s page.
The incident echoes an earlier one in May: Shiloh Hendrix, caught on video at a playground using racial slurs against an 8-year-old boy and the man who recorded her, created a crowdfunding campaign for herself that has raised more than $800,000 to date. Comments on the page were so virulent that site administrators disabled the commenting feature, prompting donors to express their hatred through their chosen aliases.
The targets of both racist tirades are Somali immigrants, though there is no evidence that either Wilsey and Hendrix was aware of their national origin or immigration status before spewing their venom. They saw only the color of their skin and heard only their accents.
The Somali woman Wilsey berated was wearing a hijab, which — according to a relative who created a crowdfunding campaign for the woman and her husband — Wilsey mocked as "that witchcraft bandana you’re wearing on the top of your head."
The crowdfunding campaign for the couple, intended for their legal fees, had raised just over $16,000 through Thursday evening.
While deplorable, these racist incidents should come as no surprise in the climate Trump has created. He has been demonizing Black and Latino immigrants publicly for more than a decade. But he has focused his hostility on Somalis in recent days, exploiting a social-services fraud case involving Somali nationals to justify canceling deportation protections for Somalis in Minnesota.
Trump's attacks escalated following unsubstantiated accusations that the allegedly defrauded funds were funneled to a Somali-based al-Qaida affiliate. His Cabinet-meeting tirade, calling Somalis "garbage" four times in seven seconds, was shocking even by Trump-era standards.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump’s baseless accusation that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were killing and eating their neighbors’ pets terrorized communities. A year later, Trump is able to weaponize the federal government, using immigration policies and enforcement tactics, to amplify that terror. Congress may not be able to control what the president says, but it can — and must — curtail his ability to destroy people's lives based on his hateful whim of the moment.
Marc H. Morial is president and CEO of the National Urban League and was mayor of New Orleans from 1994 to 2002. He writes a twice-monthly column for the Sun-Times.