There is a notion that you reap
what you sow, and that has been on full display at recent Donald Trump campaign
rallies. Early on, Trump supporters acted out on his hateful exhortations,
beating on an isolated protestor (usually black) inside the events, and
homeless Hispanics outside them. Did Trump actually believe there would be no
price to pay for this? In California, Trump events have been the scene of
violent confrontations between Trump supporters and no longer cowed protestors
who choose to make their presence in force, rather than isolation. Trump’s
supporters have now been exposed as the bullies and cowards that they are.
Trump’s attraction can be broken
down into three elements: the “Wall,” the “Mexicans” and the “Hispanics.” When
you talk to a Trump supporter, that is all that seems to be on their twisted
little minds. But the obsession with illegal immigration from Latin America is
not only hypocritical in relation to the fast increasing number of illegal
immigrants from Asia which a “wall” won’t stop, but ignores the unspoken economic
“benefits” that the U.S. has reaped for labor that is not “officially”
sanctioned but has filled many labor “holes.” The other “benefit,” of course,
is that Hispanic immigrants can be used by politicians as scapegoats when the
nation’s problems lie elsewhere.
Yet the disturbing question goes
unanswered. Can it be that there are such a large percentage of white voters
for whom nothing else matters but their hate of one particular group of people?
For the tens of millions of Hispanics who are native born US citizens,
Americans just like anyone else, must they walk around knowing that half of all
white people they encounter harbor racists attitudes about them, whether
publicly or privately—most of these attitudes based on complete ignorance?
And ignorance abounds. Trump’s
argument that a judge recuse himself from a case involving him simply because
he has a Spanish surname indicates the cowardly fear of the racist blowhard. His
attack on a Republican female
governor that his campaign manager has lamely and unconvincingly tried to
excuse (admittedly he has the thankless task of defending every idiocy that
comes out of Trump’s mouth) seems to indicate a complete loss of control over
the line between legitimate discussion (illegal immigration) and illegitimate
discussion (exciting racial stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination and racist
paranoia).
But I suspect that a Trump
presidency might be a “good” thing. In the short run it might of course be the occasion
of an outbreak of expressions of racial prejudice both rhetorical and physical,
but in the long run it might unleash a domestic and international backlash that
will require serious self-examination as to why this could have been allowed to
happen. Not just Trump and his
supporters’ racism that should inflame enough minority and “ethnic” groups to
discredit xenophobes and bigots for the small-minded, mean-spirited people they
are, but the role politicians and the
media have played in creating an atmosphere of hate, especially against
Hispanics.
While there are no Hispanics in
the mainstream U.S. media who speak specifically to Hispanic concerns (only a
few with Republican “credentials” are allowed, because the media doesn’t want
to face straight-on the fact of its complicity in perpetuating hate), there may
finally be an “awakening” from the
Hispanic community that demands an end
to the hypocrisy coming from all sides in this country, that they be given a
voice in the media (like CNN), and promulgate lawsuits and other legal actions
to blunt civil rights violations in both the public and private sector. After
all, they are human beings too, the same as everyone else. But if past
experience is an example, divisions with the Hispanic community (usually along
racial lines itself), this might be a difficult task.
In the meantime, I still must tolerate the Trump-influenced opinions of
an Asian co-worker who though he did not like Trump’s attitude toward China, he
once again brought up the subject of his agreement with Trump on building a
wall on the Mexican border, and I again made him uncomfortable by bringing up
the hypocrisy of ignoring illegal immigrants from Asia to focus solely on
“Mexicans,” which I saw as evidence of group-specific racism.
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