“I Hate You, Dunel Trump”

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the discourse of civility—which goes under the name of “niceness” in elementary schools—as it appears in kids’ letters to Trump during the campaign and immediately following the election. In this version of the emotional intelligence paradigm, teachers and parents advocate writing letters as an exercise to help kids process and name their emotions in a manner that makes them feel like they can do something within the system. These “proper” modes of expression inevitably involve conforming to standards and rules and bodily comportment. The chapter then turns to examples of kids’ artwork from three locations in which teachers gave kids the opportunity to say and especially draw whatever they wanted; in these cultural productions, there is a much greater affective range, illustrating feelings of anger, fear, and hatred in a manner that does not adhere to the discourse of niceness.