Trump slanders Mexicans in racist rant

By Rabbi Ben Kamin

Rabbi Ben Kamin
Rabbi Ben Kamin

ENCINITAS, California — There is a published report that Tywanza Sanders, who was a 26-year-old member of ‘Mother Emanuel’ Church in Charleston, made a plea to the “alleged” killer of nine African Americans studying scripture that day.

Sanders purportedly begged the assailant to spare the lives of the people in the room.  Evidently, the attacker responded: “You are raping our women and taking over our country.”  He then shot Sanders, a man holding a Bible

This 400-year blood libel against black folks—who never immigrated to America but were originally dragged over in chains—was always the philosophical buttress of the Ku Klux Klan.  During Reconstruction (following the Civil War) the white supremacists in their ghastly hoods were driven to terrorize, pummel, lynch, and (paradoxically) rape black people because they were, in the words of commentator Jelani Cobb, “defending white women from the sexual menace of newly emancipated black men.”

The blood was about to stain the floor of the African Methodist Episcopalian Church when Donald Trump incorporated the same contemptible, racialist madness into his opening statements as a candidate for president.  In a self-indulgent mixture of narcissism and xenophobia—a kind of bombastic hate crime—Trump blared:

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”  [Washington Post, June 17]

“They’re bringing crime?”  They’re rapists?”  “They?

What is the difference between such a poisonous indoctrination and any nighttime, cornfield, cross-burning preachment of a regional Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan?  Make a distinction between this 21st century verbal barbarism and anything spoken and published by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda for the entire duration of the Third Reich.

The Jews were also rapists, criminals, social deviants, and, oh yes—here and there was “a good Jew.”

Well, there is no Klan anymore, some tell me, and Trump is just a pretentious, rich idiot.  Just log on to the Internet and study the web site of what is now politely called “The Knights Party.”  Not much to be found here that differs from anything clearly implied in Trump’s scandalously horrendous, Nazi-soaked slurring of an entire, historic culture, nationality, and people into the most egregious stereotype ever conceived by the white man.

The current site of the KKK declares, in a précis of Trump’s unforgivable screed, that it is “Bringing a Message of Hope and Deliverance to White Christian America!”

Donald Trump gives the appearance of a Klansman in a suit.  And until the Republican Party that incubated him has the courage and integrity to cancel his political credentials, every member of the “Grand Old Party” will seem to be a hooded accomplice in the national rally.

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Rabbi Kamin is an author and freelance writer. You may comment to him at ben.kamin@sdjewishworld.com or post your comment on this website, provided that it is civil and that you identify yourself by full name and city and state of residence.

 

1 thought on “Trump slanders Mexicans in racist rant”

  1. What bothers me is his phrase “When Mexico sends its…….” implies the Mexican govt. rounds up the poorest and sends them. Chances are those with little to lose make individual decisions to sneak in, along with criminal backgrounds. This may be particularly true because of Mexico’s current high economic growth.
    I’m definitely for tightening up the border. Immigrants are on the whole good for the country. We just need to control the process; determine how many high skilled we want, lower skilled, etc. That goes for our northern border as well.

    Steven Kalka
    East Rockaway, NY

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