From “We Need Immigrants – Especially from Developing
Nations”:
President Trump’s atomic comments Thursday during a White
House meeting with congressional lawmakers about immigration trampled the red
line of racism, bigotry and prejudice — from which there is no return. Until
now, I have been reluctant to label Trump a racist, noting the important
differences between racism, bigotry and prejudice.
Isn’t it ironic that on the eve of two monumental
anniversaries — the mega-earthquake that devastated Haiti and killed at least
300,000 on Jan. 12, 2010, and the birth of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on
Jan. 15, 1929 — Trump asked why the U.S. accepts immigrants from “shithole
countries” in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America rather than people from
places like Norway?
Neither the White House nor Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, a Cuban-American who was at the meeting, disputed the president’s remarks nor condemned them. Why not? Sen. Marco Rubio, who resides in Miami-Dade County, with one of the largest concentrations of Haitians in the nation, has been stunningly silent. Finally, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, an ardent supporter of Trump and would-be candidate for U.S. senator, distanced himself from Trump’s comments, but only conditionally: “If this report is true.”
American values like liberty, equality, self-government,
individualism, diversity and unity do not derive from the benefactors and heirlooms
of enslavement, racial segregation and white privilege; they descend from the
emigrants from the countries Trump disparages: These are the courageous people
who have defended this nation in every war since its inception, even against
the benefactors and heirlooms of white nationalism. I don’t get it: Perhaps
Trump believes that pandering racialized vulgarities to white Nordic folk will
inspire the Norwegian Nobel Committee to create a “Nobel Chaos Prize.” Not.
Let’s agree that the president’s comments do not represent
Americans or American values and ideals. Let’s also agree that we are a nation
of immigrants and that black and brown Americans from countries dissed by Trump
built and defended America in enslaved and segregated circumstances. America
was not built by Nordic Vikings nor their progeny, yet Trump seems to want to
limit immigration to whites who believe in Valhalla and “The Song of the Hooded
One,” not in Jesus and our national anthem.
Read the full op-ed here.