Posted by
Rude One
It's not even surprising anymore when
resident Donald Trump, an angry
pumpkin on top of a very large pumpkin on top of a smaller pumpkin, says
or does something
racist.
He is a fucking racist. If you're a fucking racist, you do fucking
racist shit all the time because that's who you are. If he didn't say or
do a racist thing, we might say, "Oh, look, he wasn't racist in that
moment." But just because a rat in your house didn't shit all over the
floor one day doesn't mean that the rat still isn't a rat. It just kept
its shit to itself for once.
So how are we supposed to react when
we hear and Senator Dick Durbin
confirms
that Trump called, at the very least, African nations "shithole
countries" whose people he doesn't want emigrating here? My gut reaction
was utter outrage and contempt, but I have nothing but contempt for
Trump and everyone who supports him, including each and every
motherfucker who voted for that plague rat.
Trump supporters have been shown many off-ramps where they can get off
this Highway to Hell they've been on. Support for neo-Nazis was one
exit. Condemning black football players who were protesting was another.
Any number of lies could have worked. All along, there have been these
places where they can veer away and turn around. But so many have
decided they are on the road for good, and they don't give a damn what
Trump says about preventing immigrants from poor black or brown
countries from coming to the U.S. in favor of people from places like
Norway. And no amount of my rage at what a savage cunt mite Trump is
will change that because a racist is a racist is a racist.
You know what people from shithole countries do when they get here? They
get jobs, sometimes the worst jobs we have because, like most
immigrants who have ever come here, they aren't thinking of themselves.
They are thinking of the better life they will give to their kids.
That's the myth of this country we tell repeatedly: the immigrants who
come here with nothing in order to have a better life for them and their
families. One of my grandfathers came over from Italy. Do you think he
was a doctor? Or a professional? Fuck, no. He was a laborer. And he
helped build things here because that's what he did. And Italy was a
shithole. Ireland was a shithole. Russia, Poland, many, many countries
were shitholes. All the people in this photo came from shitholes, some
with just their native clothes on their backs, because they wanted to
get out of the shithole.
But let's get more recent than Ellis Island. By any measure, Liberia has
been a terrible place to live for decades. Between horrific wars and
horrific disease, it would be kind to just call it a "shithole." That's
why hundreds of thousands became refugees and why over 60,000 of those
refugees came to the United States in the late 20th and early 21st
century. A whole lot of them settled in Staten Island, which, believe it
or not, is still a borough of New York City. And many of those go to
the college where I teach. I have taught Liberian students for years and
they have been, to a person, kind, smart, engaged, and hard-working.
And that's because they came from a shithole. Many of them were refugees
from that shithole; some of them or their family members were
tortured. They embrace the chance they have here (and are often treated like shit here for their efforts).
Funds are raised for refugees by churches, the real Christian churches,
not the fake ones that promise you salvation for a price. You can read
stories of an Illinois evangelical ministry helping settle Liberian refugees, of a Rhode Island Baptist church
helping recent arrivals from the Congo, of the Nazarene ministry in Missouri that is
assisting
refugees from Syria. In other words, if you stand with your church in
making sure that refugees have a place in the United States, you stand
opposed to the
resident. Or you're a goddamn hypocrite.
You know where else is a shithole? In large swaths of the United States,
including many places where Trump voters live. A United Nations report
essentially
declared
that the U.S. is the shithole of the "rich nations," with poverty so
extreme that it is pretty much on a par with Haiti, El Salvador, and
African nations. And we have one big thing in common with
most of the countries Trump has condemned: no universal health care.
The
resident is a racist. We knew that. Millions of people in this
country are racist. We knew that, too. We also know that many racists
don't think of themselves as racist and sure don't want to be called
"racist." Well, here's another gut check, motherfuckers. If you can
stand with a man who believes what Trump believes, with a man who has
the power over life and death and is wielding that power against people
of color, then you have made your choice to plunge into the shithole
Trump has created and wallow around in his shit, pretending that it's
not shit at all. We are a shithole as long as Trump remains president.
Someone will say that I'm agreeing with Trump because I say some
countries are shitholes. That's getting it wrong. Trump said he didn't
want "all these people" from those nations coming here. But I want to
get people out of there.
If you don't want immigrants from shitholes to come here, it's not because they are terrible people. It's because you are.
(Note: To be fair, Liberia just had a peaceful election, so there is always hope in any shithole.)
(Note: There are lots of shitholes that people call home. Doesn't mean it's not a shithole.)
(Note: And, no, I haven't even gotten into just how big a role the
United States has played in turning many of those countries into
shitholes.)
