“Out of Many, One”
I want to Come Correct on this.
I’m very slow to say something is racist these days, because, in my opinion, the term’s getting applied to too many things. As such, it’s losing the power it once held to identify a very particular kind of evil. We’ve even gotten to the point where a celebrity once faked a racial hate crime during Black History Month for Instagram.
The below-reproduced President Trump tweet is actually racist, and I want to explain why.
But first, though, I want to say that when Representative Ocasio-Cortez brought up that Speaker Pelosi was singling out four women of color (“But the persistent singling out…it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful…the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.”) [1], I thought, and still believe, that she was ‘playing the race card’ because Speaker Pelosi has shown no racial animus to anyone, as far as I can tell.
Further, I even thought Senator Harris’s, Senator Booker’s and Mayor De Blasio’s (all old bosses of mine, by the way) criticisms of Vice President Biden’s busing stance was unfair, especially after his eight years of working *under* the nation’s first black president. That is unless they are now going to add federal mandatory busing to their own presidential platforms, which to, my knowledge, they are not.
However, what President Trump tweeted is racist by virtually any construction of the word or idea.
To me, racism is treating someone negatively or thinking less of them because of their race.
This is President Trump’s full tweet:
“So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly……and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how….it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”[2]
I have five questions:
1. When President Obama was in office, did Donald Trump criticize America? Did he “viciously tell[] the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run?”
2. Were these Congresswomen duly elected to run the government? Is there a such thing as a First Amendment right to protest or criticize that government?
3. When President Trump attacked his white opponents, including Jeb Bush, Jeff Sessions, Lindsey Graham, Rex Tillerson, Mitt Romney, James Comey, John McCain, and most recently Paul Ryan, did he ever tell them to go back where they came from? Why didn’t he?
4. Why did President Trump tell “’Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen” to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came” and that they “can’t leave fast enough?” Could it be related to him calling Haiti and African nations ‘shithole’ [3] counties? Could it be related to when he said President Obama wasn’t really an American? [4]
5. Setting aside this hate, why would he, logically, even say this to these “’Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen” (and we all know who he meant), when they are all U.S. citizens and 3 of 4 were born right on American soil?
It has to be singling out people for negative treatment on the basis of their race. It’s racist, and I just want to state that for the record.
And like I’ve always said, racism is fear: nothing but someone who’s afraid of the dark.
We can disagree on the policies of socialism versus capitalism or tax cuts versus government spending, but this is totally different.
It’s the old ‘us versus them’ mentality that talks about a ‘real America’ versus newcomers taking away that ‘real America.’ This is, and has always been, a bankrupt idea.
The strength of America is, and has always been, ‘out of many, one’.
Fact.
The real America is America — and everyone in it.
Fact.
There’s an election coming up!
Fact.
George John Jordan Thomas Aquinas Hayward, Optimist
July 15, 2019
Notes
(2) — https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1150381395078000643