{"id":12375,"date":"2019-07-17T16:12:17","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T23:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=12375"},"modified":"2019-07-17T16:12:18","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T23:12:18","slug":"trumps-go-back-racist-epithet-oh-so-familiar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2019\/07\/17\/trumps-go-back-racist-epithet-oh-so-familiar\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s “Go Back” Racist Epithet; Oh, So Familiar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

July 16, 2019 by The Progressive<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Jud Lounsbury<\/a> (commondreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\""You<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

“You know how these people lie!” 12 Angry Men (1957). (Photo: Screengrab)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has dived deep into the septic tank before. But, folks, this is truly a new low white person telling a person of color to \u201cgo back\u201d to where they came from (usually Africa) is, unfortunately, as common as it is racist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also such a dumb thing to say\u2014especially in a nation where the majority of us came from somewhere else. It\u2019s an epithet that often issues from the lips of knuckle-draggers who can\u2019t think of a more subtle way to spew their racism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the years prior to Hitler\u2019s \u201cFinal Solution,\u201d his first solution was to tell Germany\u2019s Jewish population to go back<\/a> to their \u201chome\u201d country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Israel? Umm, no. Nazis being Nazis, they held tight to the (incorrect) theory that Jews originated from the island of . . . drum roll please . . . Madagascar!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nazis held tight to the (incorrect) theory that Jews originated from the island of . . . drum roll please . . . Madagascar.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Now we have the President of the United States joining in the fun. The same weekend that Donald Trump had scheduled wholesale deportation raids<\/a> of thousands of undocumented immigrants, he tweeted<\/a> that four \u201cDemocrat Congresswomen\u201d should \u201cgo back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.\u201d He added that, as far as he was concerned, they \u201ccan’t leave fast enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, three of the four Congresswomen\u2014Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, and Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts\u2014were born and raised in the United States. The fourth\u2014Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, born in Somalia\u2014is like the others an American citizen. Literally the only thing that distinguishes them from others in Congress is their non-whiteness, making Trump\u2019s racist intention perfectly clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure, Trump has dived deep into the septic tank before\u2014leading the birther nonsense, calling white supremacists \u201cgood people,\u201d declining to condemn the KKK, and intentionally conflating Hispanic immigrants with violent criminals. But, folks, this is truly a new low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was reminded of the famous jury deliberation scene in 12 Angry Men in which, after two hours of dropping hints, Ed Bagley\u2019s character suddenly explodes in an unequivocally racist rant, exclaiming<\/a>, \u201cThey\u2019re no good, there\u2019s not a one of them that\u2019s any good!\u201d As Bagley continues to spew, each juror gets up and slowly turns away in repulsion, until Henry Fonda\u2019s character famously says, \u201cSit down and don\u2019t open your mouth again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, there are no fellow jurors turning their back on Trump or demanding that he shut up. Most Republicans in Congress could muster nary a peep of protest over the President\u2019s remarks. Virtually the sole exception was Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who, in an interview on Fox News, offered<\/a> this tepid response:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe all know that A.O.C. and this crowd are a bunch of communists. They hate Israel, they hate our own country.\u201d But, he went on to allow, the four \u201care American citizens\u201d who \u201cwon an election.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With defenders like these, who needs racist Presidents?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With defenders like these, who needs racist Presidents?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019d all like to believe that if John McCain was still around, he might be the \u201cHenry Fonda\u201d in the room, but for now, his daughter, Meghan McCain, will have to do. She has bluntly denounced<\/a>Trump\u2019s tweets as \u201cracist\u201d while also decrying the \u201ccowardice\u201d in other Republicans for not standing up to Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhere, Richard Spencer, the white supremacist leader who attended the 2016 Republican convention in support of Trump<\/a> and \u201csipped Manhattans as he matter-of-factly called for removing African-Americans, Hispanics and Jews from the United States,\u201d is smiling triumphantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTrust me. Trump thinks like me,\u201d Spencer told<\/a> AP reporter Steve Peoples back then. \u201cDo you think it\u2019s a coincidence that everybody like me loves Trump and supports him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, Dick, we don\u2019t think it\u2019s a coincidence at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9 2019 The Progressive<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jud<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jud Lounsbury<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0lives on a small farm south of Madison, Wisconsin with his family and writes for\u00a0The Progressive\u00a0and the Uppity Wisconsin blog. Follow him on Twitter:\u00a0<\/em>@JudLounsbury<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

July 16, 2019 by The Progressive by Jud Lounsbury (commondreams.org) “You know how these people lie!” 12 Angry Men (1957). (Photo: Screengrab)\u00a0 Trump has dived deep into the septic tank before. But, folks, this is truly a new low white person telling a person of color to \u201cgo back\u201d to… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12375"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12375"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12376,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12375\/revisions\/12376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}