How We See Ourselves As Americans?

As an American I have had the belief that we are a people that seeks to be fair, that we are not cruel, that we are tolerant of our neighbor, that we are justice loving, and we understand what is needed to have and protect a democracy.

When we look back at Nazi Germany and the atrocities that were perpetrated we are filled with horror and disbelief that any persons/group can stand so outside of human morality that it would warehouse human beings and march them into ovens. How could Nazi officers have done the things they did? According to letters written by Nazi officers they saw themselves as decent human beings in regards to racial ideology, they justified their violence and cruelty, and saw themselves as benevolent occupiers. (https://www.europenowjournal.org/2018/11/30/justifying-a-war-of-extermination-identity-and-image-in-hitlers-army/_.

It is clear to us at a distance now, that there was a moral separation from what was really happening, and from how they actually saw themselves. We see this so clearly now, and yet why can't we see that we are on a very similar path of moral degradation. First, we have elected a person to the highest office in this country that has singled out a group/s (Latinos in particular) but certainly not alone as “the enemy,” (so did the Nazis – The Jews! And there were not the only ones – the list was long…). This elected official in his position of authority has repeatedly used his public voice in ways that have incited violence, pointedly insulted female (he is an accused sex offender many times over) elected officials who are people of color insinuating (putting in your head) that they were not even U.S. citizens/all but one were born in the U.S. (while having complete amnesia that two of his wives, and his mother were not born in the U.S.), and he has caused many deaths https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blame-abc-news-finds-17-cases-invoking-trump/story?id=58912889

(while laying the blame on the mentally ill, and still persisting that we have to continue his immigration policies). Hitler also spewed attacks on the ones to be blamed and hated, and he also incited violence against them. https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-trump-s-go-home-invective-echoes-nazi-incitement-against-jews-1.7536063

The current immigration policies are racial in nature. We do not hear of raids in white neighborhoods where there are immigrant enclaves as well. The targets in this administration are people of color. Is this not a form of ethnic cleansing? In Nazi Germany the Jews were rounded up like cattle, and put into concentration camps under inhuman living conditions. Are we not seeing the same at the border? He keeps calling these people coming to our border criminals, when in fact they are seeking asylum, and running from economic hardship. Is he not also criminalizing these immigrants of color that are working, and are actually a part of the U.S. economy? Why the need for the crackdown? There seems to be a need to show these individuals as criminals, and to treat them like criminals. These people were working in a factory/ies, and they weren't committing any crimes. What is the pressing need to round them up? The rhetoric coming from leader of the U.S. has been that they are taking the jobs away from Americans when according to Center for Immigration Studies that in almost all job sectors the majority of employees are actually native born Americans. https://cis.org/Report/There-Are-No-Jobs-Americans-Wont-Do The truth is that the president's own organization has hired undocumented immigrants for years and continues to do so to this day. So, he is not above profiting from the labor undocumented workers, or exploiting them for his own political purposes. https://beta.washingtonpost.com/politics/if-youre-a-good-worker-papers-dont-matter-how-a-trump-construction-crew-has-relied-on-immigrants-without-legal-status/2019/08/09/cf59014a-b3ab-11e9-8e94-71a35969e4d8_story.html?noredirect=on

Many U.S. policies in the past have caused this migration of people, so why don’t we use funds to help stabilize the economies of these countries, where people are coming from because of duress, instead of the conceiving of a wall that is costly and illogical. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/12/21/has-united-states-foreign-policy-central-america-fueled-migrant-crisis-donald-trump/2338489002/ ). Do we really think that people want to leave their families, their homes, with their children, go on an oppressive journey by foot simply because they want to come here to steal jobs? When a person does something like this, it is out of desperation. So, we greet them by locking them in cages that are too small for their number, placing their children in jail conditions (away from their parents, causing psychological trauma/death), knowingly putting them in conditions that will intentionally cause the spread of disease, causing them to die. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/the-inhumane-conditions-at-migrant-detention-camps.html

Seven children have died that we know of within the last year (this is not usual). In the past ten years previous no children have died. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/why-are-migrant-children-dying-u-s-custody-n1010316. In the U.S law there is something called “depraved heart murder,” where someone behaves with depraved indifference towards another human being that causes them to die. It is a knowing that you are committing an act or creating a situation that will or may cause death as a result of your actions or inaction (you cause someone to die because of something you or don’t do). If we step on someone’s oxygen line, because we don’t care, and cause them to die, we are responsible for their death. What we are doing to the people at the border can most certainly be called “depraved heart murder” because we are putting these people in situations where disease will flourish, and especially with young children (who are more fragile) creating an environment where the outcome may cause death, and already has caused death. This precisely same situation occurred when thousands were allowed to die after Hurricane Maria hit the island of Puerto Rico, under this very same administration. People were not killed in an outright sense, but the conditions were allowed to become critical where approximately 3000 died. This is a clever/underhanded way of not killing people outright but just allowing them to die. This is an extermination, a genocide of a race of people. But, even better yet for those that are doing the imprisoning, this is profitable. The Nazis confiscated Jewish property, took the silver fillings out of the mouths of the dead and much more… And we are building prison after prison to lock up people of color, and private companies are profiting by the housing of these children. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-children/first-stop-for-migrant-kids-for-profit-detention-center-idUSKCN1Q3261

We need to see what is happening right here before our very eyes. And we need to not think in our minds “well I am not the actual perpetrator of these conditions, or I didn’t create the laws that are allowing these things to happen.” If we are viewing it, and we are not clear of where we need to stand morally, then the guilt is not off our hands. The people in Nazi Germany may actually have been able to say that they were not aware of what was going on in the camps (because the media was completely controlled), but we are aware, our eyes have been visited by the faces of children suffering, the dead children, the people crowded together like animals, and the parents being taken away in handcuffs. If we support leadership that is causing these things to happen then we support these atrocities, and we support the violence that is stirred up from their mouths, and from collective silence. If we call out in a movie theater that there is a fire where there is no fire, knowing people may die from our words (then, we are responsible for those deaths). If an elected official stirs people into violence, and creates policy structures that cause people to die, then they are responsible for the violence, and those deaths.

We need to look at ourselves and decide who we are. We need to connect the dots of history to what is happening here today to what has happened in the past. We cannot live on Facebook outrage alone, we need to talk to our neighbor (see our neighbor/understand our neighbor), and we need to stand together against what is morally wrong. If we live on an idea that we are somehow superior, and we have a right to do these things, then we have this belief, because we cannot stand strong as individuals knowing that we are all the same under the skin, and we do not feel courageous without the need to crush another (most particularly the vulnerable – children who cannot defend themselves) under our heel. Is this the people we wish to be?

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5

So the last will be first, and the first will be last. Matthew 201:16