The Problem With Hatred

The problem with hate is that once you condone it against one group, it becomes okay to allow it towards another group and so on…. But of course, we are always the normal and worthy ones. Where are we now as a nation? There are many that voted for the current president with thoughts in their minds that here is someone who is going to bring economic prosperity as well as recognize and remember forgotten Americans that were left behind when technology came in and factory jobs went out. There are some that voted for the current president because they wanted an end to abortion, or they didn’t believe in the gay lifestyle for moral reasons. They are many reasons that different Americans voted for the current president, but at what cost? It may be easy to forget or separate all the hatred that this president has unleashed from what you believe his policies will ultimately produce, or will they?

When we talk of producing prosperity for the average American, how is that going to be manifested? The current president has not coherently come up with an effective plan. We cannot look back at the past and think we will recreate it by invigorating the coal industry. Dirty energy absolutely needs to be a thing of the past, and clean energy is where we should be headed. The same jobs if not more jobs can and should be created in this sector. When we look at factory labor that has been sent off shore, how can these be regenerated if we take away regulations from the corporations? Corporations will not, out of the kindness of their hearts, bring those jobs back since it was at their instigation that they are no longer here, as they absolutely engorge their pockets with profits from cheap labor abroad.

What the current president has done is to play the blame game, and pit American against American by intimating that jobs are being taken away from Americans by undocumented immigrants rather than think of new and innovative ways to put Americans to work, such as reeducating blue collar workers to work in other industries, or investing in them becoming small business owners. Instead he is going to strap the taxpayer with the cost of a wall to keep people out when it’s been reported that Mexicans are no longer immigrating to this country as before (http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/mexican-immigrants-united-states).

Now let’s look at undocumented immigrants. The current president said we have to get them out of this country because they are criminals. The new immigrant reform memoranda says that any person stopped and cannot prove that they have been in the United States for 14 days will be expedited out of the country. This means if they have been in the country for over 14 days, but don’t have the proof on them at the time of detainment, they will be sent out the country, period. This means anyone that is stopped for a traffic infraction or even jay walking. A traffic violation or minor offenses do not a criminal make, but they will be deported nonetheless. There are approximately 11,000,000 undocumented immigrants in the United States (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States). They are not in our prisons, nor are they running around committing crimes. On the contrary they plant and harvest our food, they bolster the restaurant and hotels industries, they clean our homes, care for our children, and keep small businesses in business because they take on jobs that Americans won’t do (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-11-09/why-americans-wont-do...).

The current president plans to hire 10,000 more security agents to enforce this policy. The raids have targeted Latinos. There are many undocumented immigrants that have overstayed their visas, or entered have been smuggled in and they are not all Latinos, but they aren’t being targeted. This amounts to a bounty on Latinos or the prettier term of “racial profiling.” This gives legal justification to racism against Latinos most especially when you add the monetary incentive of a job, or an increase in your status as a law enforcement officer. Mind you, they have not raided American farms where there are many undocumented immigrants who do much of the farm labor. Why not? Is it because it would disrupt food production and delivery to the markets? If we rely so heavily on the undocumented for our survival, why don’t we just make a way for them to become American citizens? The reason might be that the undocumented can’t complain when there are being treated unfairly by employers, and this continues the cycle of them being paid low wages. So, we as a nation absolutely benefit from their exploitation. I am not saying that exploiting undocumented immigrants is a good thing, but certainly we cannot say that they are not a vital part of our economy.

We have the current president putting his sights onto the Muslims. Let us start with the travel ban to seven predominantly Muslim countries for the sake of making United States safer from terrorism although the countries where terrorists have absolutely come from, Egypt and United Arab Emirates were not included. I am speaking of 9/11. Egypt and the United Arab Emirate States are countries where the current president has financial interests (http://www.businessinsider.com/trumps-muslim-ban-saudi-arabia-911-2017-1). Will this ban make the United States safer? Good question. The attacks that have been on U.S. soil that were perpetrated by individuals involved with Islam other than 9/11 were by disaffected individuals that felt there was discrimination or unjust treatment of Muslims in the U.S., the Boston Marathon bombers included who were from Chechnya, Russia. And yet Russia was not included in the ban. If anything, this adds fuel to the fire of hatred against Muslims and not to the story about safety. And you can veil this bigoted ban with talk about safety, but when the president’s chief advisor Steve Bannon creates a video talking about how “we have to create a church militant, willing to fight for our beliefs for what has been bequeathed to us for the past 2 thousand years.” First of all who bequeathed? And I am guessing “us,” is the Christian church? Steve Bannon has strong beliefs that conflate Christianity and U.S. politics. The first amendment allows freedom of religion and prohibits the government from establishing a religion. We need to ask ourselves what are the true agendas behind policies to block people from Muslim nations from entering our borders?

So, if you are thinking there is a great deal of empathy for the common people coming from the White House, I am just not feeling it. I am talking about the common people that believe in this current president; people who have lost their jobs, are finding it hard to make ends meet, and can’t pay to maintain their health.

How can I feel it when the current president wanted to repeal OBAMACARE? People that voted for him who didn’t have health insurance in the past would have no health insurance in future once again. The plan Paul Ryan put together took precisely 24 million Americans out of the equation. It removed services to those with mental illness and people with addictions, but there were of course tax credits for the wealthy (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/us/politics/obamacare-repeal-tax-cuts.html)

The cost has sprouted three heads of hatred with one against the Muslims, one against Latinos, and one against the poor that can’t afford health insurance. Hatred begets hatred and there will be more on the way, unless we stand up against it. We have already seen African-American churches and mosques being torched, swastikas painted on subways, Jewish cemeteries vandalized, and Muslim women’s hijabs being ripped from their heads just to name a few. If we stand by and do nothing, are we not condoning hatred implicitly if not explicitly? When the Jews in Germany were being sent away, no one said anything. When the Japanese were sent to American internment camps no one said anything. We think of those things as being repulsive, but unless we stand together against bigotry and hatred, we condone it.

We need to come together and not let the hatred that is at the top trickle its ugly tentacles down to us. We need to push our concern and understanding for one another up to the top. We will never see eye to eye on every issue, but hatred against people because of their religion, their race, their legal status or their poverty are not the principles this country has stood for. Nearly, every American is here because their parents, grandparents, or a distant relative came from a distant shore, many seeking a better life. The immigrant and refugee come here to escape oppression, poverty, and fear of horrific violence. If we shut our ears and close our hearts we do ourselves a disservice because we close our hearts to our humanity and to the suffering of others. That is not who we are. We are “the tired, the huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,” and we should never tire in holding up the torch for others (The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus). If the rights of some are destroyed then the rights of all are destroyed. We must stand together or watch the principles of our democracy be eroded and our belief that we are a fair and just people be destroyed.