Immigration from Shitholes

According to my Ancestry DNA, 84% of my ethnic heritage comes from the “Shithole” Africa.  More specifically, a whopping 48% of it comes from Nigeria. I have traced my family roots in America back to slaves on both sides and not surprisingly, there are a few white people (of Scottish, Jewish, and Spanish descent) mixed in.   Mine is the story of America and what it means to be American.  What Mr. Trump espoused was a white supremacist way of thinking that threatens to poison the collective minds and attitudes of vulnerable, ill-informed people. I recall enough of history to point out that Africans were considered sub-human as a “scientific” justification for slavery.  Evolutionary humanism also gave rise to Hitler and his Nazi Movement that sought to rid the world of humans bound to degenerate into sub-humans and to encourage the evolution of  super-humans. The idea was that if the inferior humans were allowed to reproduce and interact with the much more superior white Aryans, humankind would not reach its full potential.  They used this thinking as rationalization to kill Jews, Romanians, Gypsies, homosexuals, and the mentally ill within their grasp.

But this thinking wasn’t limited to the homicidal extremist in Germany.  In the U.S., after slavery and a brief reconstruction, this way of thinking propped up the Jim Crow laws in the south and allowed for widespread discrimination in education, criminal justice, employment, and immigration policies–all of which persist today to some extent.  Americans (of all colors) have not fully overcome their tendency to believe at a conscience or sub-conscience level that whites are naturally better.  We have been so brainwashed with this belief that I’ve personally struggled with an inferiority complex most of my life. The tacit messages of white superiority are everywhere.  For me, my thinking only changed when the evidence of brilliance and talent in people of color (including myself) repeatedly slapped me in the face.  But in our segregated country, too many people haven’t been slapped yet!  Even when a Barack Obama and Michele Obama take center stage, intelligence and talent blaring, some seek to discredit them, refusing to see the evidence.  Remember how Hitler and the Nazis were dealt blows by Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin or the first round knockout of Max Schmeling by Joe Lewis in 1938?

This overtly racist thinking for a time was out of favor after the Nazi’s defeat.  But just as Justin Timberlake brought sexy back,  Donald Trump is bringing racism back in the form of trying to make overt white supremacy acceptable again.  And some folks are embracing it.  I know because I’ve seen it, and not just in Charlottesville.

I’m currently serving on a jury.  During jury selection, two white males, one in his twenties and the other in his sixties admitted in open court that they shouldn’t serve because they were racists.  The older man also said he had a problem with people who couldn’t speak English in America. I’m glad the judge dismissed them, but pre-Trump, I don’t think anyone would have admitted their racism before a packed courtroom, especially after being given the option to speak privately with the judge.  But they did.

This is why the Trump declaration that we should admit more people from countries like Norway is so dangerous.  He is signaling that white is right and white is inherently better.  He ignores the discredited science behind eugenics and all the evidence based information we have at our disposal today.  He instead caters to irrational base human emotions and delusions of white male grandeur.   But just as an aside, people from Norway have no good reason to want to immigrate to the U.S. when they enjoy all the freedoms we have in addition to great healthcare, great infrastructure, paid maternity and paternity leave, and free higher education.

Simply calling Trump a racist isn’t enough.  That just points out what we already know: that he’s a jerk.  Instead, we must loudly discredit him by pointing out the reality of the many contributions of Americans of all creeds and colors who came here from Shitholes around the world.

It’s equally important to point out the real threat his racism poses to humankind.  The lives and livelihood of human beings of color are at jeopardy if his racism is allowed to once again become policy. We already fight lingering disparities in education, criminal justice, and hiring practices.   Imagine if employers were allowed to revert to overt discrimination based on race.  “Coloreds need not apply”.  Whites only restrooms, restaurants, neighborhoods, schools, and swimming pools.   That is America of the past.  If we are not careful, it will be America of the future.  Watch Jeff Sessions as he re-criminalizes marijuana use.  Historically black and brown people suffered most despite equivalent use  by white people.  With police still over-policing people of color and under-policing white people, we could be headed for a resurgence of mass incarceration that destroys families and communities and disenfranchises millions.

Let us remind each other in times like this of the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,  the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” Emma Lazarus, 1883.