Donald Trump apparently not alone in racist ignorance

Donald Trump, a man who made his wealth investing his father’ money in real estate adventures, then “saved” it by repeatedly going into bankruptcy proceedings to avoid paying his debts, recently announced that he is entering the 2016 presidential fray as a Republican. He has of course done this before, his principle campaign agenda in 2012 to “prove” that Barack Obama was not born in this country, despite the evidence of a birth certificate that proved otherwise.  Trump never loses an opportunity to outrage, and his latest “presidential” decree didn’t disappoint on the subject of immigration:

When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best. They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they're telling us what we're getting.

This incredibly despicable and stupid statement that essentially is saying that most immigrants from Latin America, and Mexico in particular, are either mentally retarded, sexual fiends or criminals. If this were said about blacks, Trump wouldn’t survive the wild fire that would erupt. But it was about a group that in this “culture” and in the media is largely marginalized and dehumanized, and “mainstream” reaction has been mainly to attack Trump—not his “message.”

To be sure, the retailer Macy’s cut its line of Trump “ties,” but most of the “pain” Trump has had to endure is from Spanish-language media, Latino entertainers, and some personal embarrassment. But by and large, there has been no “outrage” from non-Hispanics; one can speculate if to a certain degree they “agree” with Trump’s paranoid stereotyping, or simply don’t wish to start on a “conversation” on pervasive racial bigotry against Hispanics, perhaps because blacks might object.  However, Trump’s suggestion that the “golf world” supports him in his racist statements obliged the PGA to release this statement:

"In response to Mr. Trump's comments about the golf industry 'knowing he is right' in regards to his recent statements about Mexican immigrants, we feel compelled to clarify that those remarks do not reflect the views of our organizations. While the LPGA, PGA of America, PGA Tour and USGA do not usually comment on presidential politics, Mr. Trump's comments are inconsistent with our strong commitment to an inclusive and welcoming environment in the game of golf."

Interestingly, the PGA and LPGA did not suggest that they would retire Trump-run golf courses from their tour schedule, which was the basis of Trump’s claims of support. If they had, then it would have made a “meaningful” statement. Instead, the golf world remains what it is: A for all practical purposes exclusionary sport. 

Trump, feeling the need for “damage control,” told CNN’s Don Lemon that  his “concern” about immigration had something to do with his “anguish” over job losses (despite the growth in jobs since 2009), insinuating that it was the “fault” of Mexican immigrants, even though the jobs lost in the past have largely been the result of corporate profit-pirates, the greed of executives (like Trump), the deflation of middle class wages and subsequent consumer movement to cheaper foreign-made goods that American retailers are only too happy to market in order to stay in business. Like most conservative business types, Trump doesn’t understand that increasing the wages of the bottom half of the labor market increases consumer spending while the highest paid in this country simply horde their money, failing to recycle it into the economy which would create more jobs.

Trump went on to insult Hispanics by claiming that "I love the Mexican people. I've had a great relationship with Mexico and the Mexican people." Is this man off his medication or going senile? Lemon challenged the context of his “rapist” claims, to which Trump harrumphed  "Well, somebody's doing the raping, Don! I mean somebody's doing it! Who's doing the raping? Who's doing the raping?...Go to Fusion and pick up the stories on rape. All I'm doing is telling the truth."

First of all, it is highly unlikely that Trump ever “visits” the  Fusion website since it has a “progressive” agenda. Furthermore, the only story that he is referencing was a survey by a couple of American feminist “researchers,” whose veracity or credibility should be taken for what it is. These people have a political agenda, and likely skewed their questions for a very small and self-selective pool of female migrants to lead them to the answers they wanted to hear.  80 percent of migrant women “raped” is almost certainly a gross—or grotesque—exaggeration. I also have no doubt that since these women are “illegals,” it would seem logical to conclude that while certainly some were at least unwilling sexual partners or raped, it is also highly probable that some of these women simply told the “researchers” what they wanted to hear, in the hopes to gain sympathy and improve their legal status. 

Trump also falsely reads into just this one story who it is claimed is doing the “raping”—not fellow male immigrants, but mainly those “helping” to “expedite” the process of illegal immigration for a “price,” such as coyotes, law enforcement and government agents.  Were “favors” exchanged? Why should it be discounted? As an aside, my own experience with Latinas suggests that a great many of them have perverse temperaments, enjoy being the center of attention,  like people to take pity on their alleged troubles (especially if those people can “help” them), and finding ways to injure their male counterparts—combinations that make them perfect candidates to “prove” feminist myths. 

While Trump’s ignorant racism that makes blanket negative generalizations about Latinos—particularly galling in the wake of the Charleston church shooting by a young white supremacist that left nine black parishioners dead—is made no less so than his claim that his statements are based on “facts” offered up by gender advocates that he would likely deride on any other subject, one suspects that this is a popular myth amongst the non-Hispanic population. Yet FBI crime statistics actually show that the sexual assault rate by Latinos is lower than both whites and blacks. 

Trump's total lack of self-control is further illustrated by his flailing about to "justify" his racism in a search for “sources” to bolster his accusing immigrants of being largely criminals, “killers” and “drug dealers." Other than the odd anecdote (like a recent shooting of a white female in San Francisco that is getting excessive press), one suspects who his “sources” are (and from whom he discovered the Fusion story) Right-wing racists like Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan and Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter, who recently parroted her new book on—“surprisingly” enough—the Fusion network. Confronted by host Jorge Ramos for her incendiary and racist diatribes in her book, Adios, America, she outraged (some) audience members by making the following statements about Latinos, all of them either false, gross exaggerations or the usual paranoid propaganda of the ignorant:

"Very easy to avoid being killed by ISIS.... If you don’t want to be killed by a Mexican there’s nothing I can tell you."

"There are cultures that are obviously deficient, and if they weren’t deficient you wouldn’t be sitting in America interviewing me, I’d be sitting in Mexico."

"You fled that culture because it is a crime…..There are a lot of problems with that culture. Hopefully it can be changed, but we can share our culture with other nations without bringing all of their people here."

"When you bring the people here you bring their culture here. That includes honor killings."

"It includes uncles raping their nieces."

"It includes dumping litter all over."

"It includes not paying your taxes."

It includes paying bribes to government officials."

"America is the best in the world and we are about to lose it."

"No country has ever had the respect for women that Anglo-America does, and that is going out the door."

I have to admit I “chuckled” at that last claim, particularly because Anglo-American women like Coulter are just as racist and ignorant about other “cultures” as their men, perhaps even more so. Latinos certainly have more respect for traditional family values than does Anglo-American “culture.” But in general, Coulter is a complete moron, and perhaps that says something about even gender activists who secretly admire her. But how can anyone take her seriously? The unfortunate truth is that there are millions of Coulters in this country. People like herself and Trump seem to develop a remarkable degree of amnesia about the crimes of their own "people," forgetting the likes of Timothy McVeigh, Andrea Yates and Dylann Roof.

Would Trump dare to such things about blacks, and all the hell that would pummel him in its wake? His political career would be over, finished, his reputation irretrievably broken. Yet blacks have by far the highest violent crime rates of any demographic—including undocumented Hispanics. And why not? The vast majority of undocumented workers don’t want to call attention to themselves by committing such crimes. The vast majority of the undocumented  who are in jail are so not because they murdered or raped someone, but on legal status. Yet every time a crime is committed the media (especially the right-wing variety) uses it to paint a broad brush not just over illegal immigrants, but use it to bolster stereotypical attitudes about the “culture” of legal residents  It is an indication of just how ignorant most Americans choose to be, especially the media that perpetuates stereotypes.   

And there are “subliminal” messages in the media. Take for example television advertisements about cybercrime and identity theft, where the criminal always has a vaguely Hispanic appearance. Isn’t it “amazing” how Hispanics, who are generally portrayed as tech “dumb” and don’t know how to do anything but pick fruit or  do the most menial labor, suddenly become tech “savvy” when it comes to crime? Of course, the truth is that it is Russian cybercriminals hacking into computers collecting billions of Social Security numbers, IDs and passwords and selling them to other criminals, activities which these anti-theft companies can do nothing about. But Americans don’t want reality; they already know who the “criminals” are.

The principle problem about all of this for me is the likelihood that such negative generalizations are taken as “fact” by “Anglo” America, without any direct personal knowledge of or contact with the despised group; Trump actually "surged" in polling immediately after his comments. Nothing positive is said about Hispanics in the media, especially about the vast majority who are hard-working without complaint. All most "natives" know about Latinos is what they see in the media (mostly negative portrayals in regard to illegal immigration) or said about them by politicians who issue ignorant propaganda to feed the paranoia of their base. From what I can tell, most make their judgments based on superficial “evidence”—that is to say how they viscerally react to them on sight. This is not “evidence,” it is called racism—and having to “live” with knowing that this is what many people believe as “fact” doesn’t improve one’s view of whites, Nazis or not. And that includes Sen. Ted Cruz, the Hispanic hating white Cuban-American who is supporting Trump.