Culture & ArtsDonald Trump election 2016Election Day

J.K. Rowling’s Election Night Tweets Remind Us To Keep Fighting

“We challenge bigots. We don’t let hate speech become normalised.”
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Rob Stothard via Getty Images

J.K. Rowling ― along with other established writers who are vocal on social media ― seemed to have trouble processing the results of Tuesday’s presidential election.

The author took to Twitter, making jokes about America’s nominated president-elect, Donald Trump. “He has the deepest thoughts,” she wrote. “So deep you’ll need a big shovel to get at ‘em. Bigly deep.”

But, perhaps detecting that her readers needed not humor but hope ― or at least license to grieve ― she added a few sincere tweets to her election night commentary. “The easy thing is to be silenced because you don’t want the insults,” she tweeted. “The easy thing is to look the other way when it’s happening to others.”

These aren’t platitudes, but calls to action in response to the election of Donald Trump. Rowling embedded and responded to tweets from her harassers, demonstrating her belief in the power of speech. “We challenge bigots,” she tweeted. “We don’t let hate speech become normalised.”

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