June 23, 2019
Earlier this week, Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was attacked by Chuck Todd and several Republicans when she called the facilities detaining migrants along the U.S. border “concentration camps.” Her critics were weirdly focused on the factual distinctions between Nazi death camps and the unsanitary, crowded, freezing cages where our government is currently holding children, (Source: “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ignited a firestorm after she spent 3 days calling US migrant detention centers ‘concentration camps,” by Eliza Relman, Businessinsider.com, 6/20/19).The semantic gymnastics were a bizarre attempt to distract us from the horror that is being perpetrated right here, right now, on our watch.
The absurdity of their parsing was brought into sharp relief by the story that broke Friday about the actual conditions under which migrant children are currently being held in a facility in Clint, Texas. Children as young as 7 or 8 are caring for infants that they don’t even know. “Toddlers without diapers are relieving themselves in their pants…. .[Detainees] have no access to toothbrushes, toothpaste or soap,” (Source: “‘There Is a Stench’: No Soap and Overcrowding in Detention Centers for Migrant Children,” by Caitlin Dickerson, The New York Times, 6/21/19).
Then, in an argument before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, DOJ lawyer Sarah Fabian tried to credibly argue that the government could meet its obligations to provide children with a safe and sanitary environment, despite depriving them of soap, toothbrushes,blankets, or even sleep (Source: “Detained migrant children got no toothbrush, no soap, no sleep. It’s no problem, the government argues,” by Meagan Flynn, The Washington Post, 6/21/19). Lastly, there was no mistaking the message when DHS announced plans to house detained migrants at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the literal site of a former Japanese internment camp, (Source: “‘Stop Repeating History’: Plan to House Migrant Children at Former Internment Camp Draws Outrage,” by Ben Fenwick, The New York Times, 6/22/19). This administration is many things, but subtle definitely isn’t one of them.
The hand-wringing over AOC’s nomenclature illustrates what Masha Gessen explicated so well here —that the historical lens causes us caricature and oversimplify the perpetrators of past atrocities, such that if a modern day despot is capable of being charming at a dinner party or is an incurious buffoon, we believe that they are incapable of genocide. That tendency, together with our romantic notions of American exceptionalism, which erases the experiences of Indigenous and Black Americans and bleats plaintively, “that’s not who we are,” will cause us to wake up one morning wondering why we didn’t know, “it can happen here.” Hell, it already has.
Any efforts or charities that you know of that we can support? Would love to help provide necessities or whatever is needed. Reading about the conditions is literally sickening. What can we do to help?
RAICES is a great charity that gets lawyers for the immigrants in custody. We can’t send supplies because CPB will confiscate them, rather than give them to children who need them
Ok cool, will check it out. Thanks!