Category: Mexico

On Being Safe in America

             The current administration is pushing for billions of dollars to build a wall on the Southern border of this country because he says the country is being “invaded” by what are being  called “bad people.”

In his push for this wall, the president has fed fear into the minds of those inclined to believe everything he says. Nobody will forget how he said, in his bid for the presidency, how Mexico was sending its worst people. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigrants-and-crime/?utm_term=.c7f42d7cfd86) According to him, all that is bad, or much of what is bad about America is because of the “bad” people coming over the Southern border. Because of them, he says, Americans are not safe.

At the same time, to justify his ban on people coming here from Muslim countries, the president is quick to connect terrorism with anyone who is Muslim. He uses the few times in this country that a crime has been carried out by a Muslim as proof for his claim that America must keep all Muslims out.

He is strangely quiet, however, about the young white men in this country who have been radicalized by white supremacist ideology, and he gives little to no attention or verbiage that mass murders in this country are being carried out by these American citizens.

We don’t need to belabor that truth, but what we really do need to pay attention to is the fact that so many non-white people in this country are afraid. We are afraid of these thugs who carry guns and drink beer, ready to attack and kill people of color on a whim, knowing they can do it and get away with it. We are watching white people, filled with hate, spewing the worst of verbal attacks against non-white people, some as young as middle school age. (https://www.ktnv.com/news/parents-demand-more-communication-after-racist-threats-at-las-vegas-high-school) Synagogues and mosques are under attack,  (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/us/active-shooter-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting.html) as well as individual members of the Muslim community. (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/15/assaults-against-muslims-in-u-s-surpass-2001-level/). Dylann Roof, who walked into a black church and killed nine people who had welcomed him to their Bible study, was treated with respect after his mass murder, being taken to a Burger King by police who apprehended him before being taken into custody. Everyone knew he was a murderer who had a gun, and yet he lived; black people are shot in the back when police officers say that they thought the person they killed had a gun. They say and do that over and over – and nobody cares.

Stephon Clark was shot in the back in his backyard by police officers who said they thought he had a gun. He didn’t, but the officers got off and will face no charges. (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/us/stephon-clark-police-shooting-sacramento.html) Years ago, Amadou Diallo was shot in excess of 41 times by police officers who said they thought he had a gun. (https://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/05/nyregion/officers-in-bronx-fire-41-shots-and-an-unarmed-man-is-killed.html) (https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/26/nyregion/diallo-verdict-overview-4-officers-diallo-shooting-are-acquitted-all-charges.html)

This week I had an interesting conversation with my son. He hates guns. When he was a child, he would pray every night that all the guns be destroyed. He is now 30 years old and he said to me, as he said he was considering getting a gun, “Ma, I’m afraid of these white folks.”

Many of us are. Non-white people are walking targets in this country; we cannot count on either the police or the justice system for protection or for justice. While the world is upset about Jussie Smollett, few people are concerned that unarmed black people continue to get shot and killed by law enforcement officers, who are never held accountable.

The history of being targeted by racist and hate-filled people is one known well by black people. From Emmett Till, who was murdered by two white men who were acquitted to Trayvon Martin, who was murdered by George Zimmerman, also acquitted, we know what it is to walk with trepidation.

Black, brown, transgender, Muslim, and who knows what other groups are targeted by radicalized white people who know they can kill us and get away with it. We are not safe. The Southern border and who comes here that way has nothing on the breeding and nurturing of white supremacist terrorists in this country.

My son said he is afraid of “these white folks.” I am, too.

A candid observation.

On the Real “Bad Hombres”

             As the president of this nation pushes the narrative that this country needs a wall on its southern border because people from Mexico and Central America are “bad hombres” who “bring their rapists, their drugs” and other “bad things,” the fact that once again, people of color are being made out to be the “bad” ones does not ring true. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/06/16/theyre-rapists-presidents-trump-campaign-launch-speech-two-years-later-annotated/?utm_term=.8ad954839e89)

While there are likely to be some people who seek to live in this country who have questionable motives, it is clear that the majority of them are seeking a better and safer life. They are not criminals, any more than were people who have historically entered this country from other countries throughout history. (https://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/immigration/italian3.html) People have flocked here looking for work; the opportunities here that they heard about drew them here in mass numbers.

This president has made it an art form to label the people coming across the southern border as “bad” people, and he keeps lifting up his belief (or maybe his political talking point) that these people are bringing drugs, causing the opioid epidemic that is killing people here every day. There is no mention of the role that big pharmaceutical companies has played in marketing, selling and promoting the use of fentanyl, which is reportedly 100 times more potent than is heroin. “Big pharma,” driven by greed, has been intent on making as much money as possible by pushing this dangerous drug. (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/05/insys-subsys-whistleblower-lawsuits/)

At the same time, as so many people of color are languishing in prisons because they possessed a small amount of marijuana, the former Speaker of the House is encouraging people to come to seminars to learn how to become wealthy by selling marijuana. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/irisdorbian/2018/10/19/looking-to-make-millions-from-cannabis-ex-house-speaker-boehner-will-tell-you-how/#15a8e26d7c52)

Who are the “bad hombres,” really, if the definition of the same is those who bring drugs?

Then there is the question of rapists coming over our southern border as if we do not have a real problem with men keeping their genitals inside of their pants. White supremacy, I am finally understanding, is as much sexual as it is racial; men believe they are superior to women and they have been given power by our patriarchal society. The slew of men who have been accused of and/or convicted of sexual impropriety is only growing. In this country, rapists are in the White House, heading major television networks, making films, starring in movies, sitting in Congress, pastoring churches and giving communion to children.

Americans, in other words, have no platform for touting moral superiority. Bad hombres in our country, permeating every aspect of life, are everywhere, even here.

What is particularly distasteful is that our media really does bring out the fact that a false equivalency is being raised by the White House to push its racist agenda. America has always struggled with immigration and has a history of wanting to keep people of color out.  Even though Chinese immigrants were responsible for building much of America’s railroads, the Chinese Exclusion Acts were passed by Congress to keep them out. (https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/chinese-immigration) Benjamin Franklin didn’t think Germans looked white enough and wanted to keep them and others who had “swarthy complexions” out of the fledgling country. (https://qz.com/904933/a-history-of-american-anti-immigrant-bias-starting-with-benjamin-franklins-hatred-of-the-germans/)

The point is that the White House’s claim that “bad hombres” are who are coming over the southern border is a dog whistle for its racist desire to keep people of color out of the United States. There are bad hombres in this administration who, though they wear three-piece suits are engaged in shady financial situations, who are rapists, who use drugs and who are now lining up to sell them legally.

The “bad hombres” label is as disingenuous as it is wrong. America needs to see herself for what she is, bad hombres and all.

A candid observation …