Birthright

July 15, 2019

     On Friday, there were 700 vigils around the country which peacefully, but forcefully, conveyed  the message that “Never again means never again,” and that the concentration camps holding migrant children and adults must be closed.  From Foley Square, NY to El Paso, TX; from Pittsburgh, PA, to Portland, Oregon, thousands of people came out to protest, (Source:  “Thousands Across the Country Attend Lights for Liberty Vigils,” by Stephanie Dube Dwilson, Heavy.com, 7/13/19).  Yet despite the scale and scope of the protests, neither The New York Times nor The Washington Post saw fit to include even a two paragraph article about the widespread evidence of Americans revulsion over the despicable human rights violations being perpetrated in our names.  Protests that featured a cross section of people of all races and faiths and that featured speakers such as House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler were deemed insufficiently newsworthy and simply erased.

      Consider what received the lion’s share of press attention this weekend instead.  First, The New York Times amplified the insult that the pugnacious former mayor of Chicago’s hurled at AOC’s Chief of Staff, calling him  a “snot nosed punk,” for daring to point out how those who aren’t racist can nonetheless amplify white supremacy.  The idea that the person who covered up the murder of a Black teenager by a police officer was qualified to weigh in on this is enough to make one’s head explode.  Rahm Emanuel’s schoolyard taunt was further amplified by right wing outlets like The Washington Times and The Gateway Pundit. 

       We were also treated to the supercilious visage of dead-eyed Puritan Mike Pence, assiduously avoiding eye contact with the men crammed into a cage right in front of him, yelling “no shower,” and “no water,” (Source:  “Pence’s Visit To Detention Center Exposes Administration’s Cruelty,” by Peter Wade, RollingStone.com,  7/13/19).  Pence was accompanied by Senators John Cornyn and Lindsey Graham.  All three were dressed in blue blazers and khakis, as if they’d stopped by en route to dinner at their country club.  Pence’s message that there was nothing untoward about brown men in cages was amplified by his claim that everyone in detention told him that “they were being treated well,” and then by blaming Democrats in Congress for the horrible conditions.

        The coup de grace, though, came on Sunday, in the poisonously racist Tweetstorm that Trump unleashed against Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib.  Trump’s reprehensible tweets trafficked in the familiar trope of white supremacy that responds to criticism by demanding that nonwhite people “go back to their country,” This is despite the fact that all of them are citizens, despite the fact that three of them were born in this country and one of them (Ayanna Pressley, the Black one) is neither the daughter, nor granddaughter of immigrants. 

      Those pretending to be shocked have very short memories.  After all, in October 2018, Trump declared his intention to end birthright citizenship by executive order,(Source: “President Wants to Use Executive Order to End Birthright Citizenship,” by Julie Hirschfeld Davis, The New York Times, 10/30/18).  For those who don’t remember, birthright citizenship is embodied in the 14th Amendment.  It is the source of citizenship rights and protections for Black Americans in a country where the Supreme Court declared that the black man had “no rights that the white man was bound to respect,” (Dred Scott v. Sandford, U.S.S. Ct., 1857).  Trump’s actions, as much as his words, make it crystal clear that his definition of “American” doesn’t include anyone who isn’t white. Anyone who supports him, is telling us that it is their definition too.