Trump normalizing racism in America
“I’m scared of what my future holds,” said Paola Garcia, holding back tears as she opened a YouTube video she posted titled Please help! It has gone viral and made national headlines.
Garcia is a 21-year-old senior at Transylvania University in Lexington, Ky., and a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, beneficiary. She made the video in response to a Facebook post made by a former Transylvania classmate, Taylor Ragg, on the “10th Crusade Enthusiast” Facebook page, asking members to report Garcia to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for “bragging about breaking the law.” Ragg’s message was heard. “Racists are emboldened today,” Garcia says, and to tell you the truth, she may be right.
Since the Trump administration took power, stories like Garcia’s have been more common. In another viral video posted by the organization, United We Dream on Facebook, a white woman publicly harassed two Hispanic women at a Texas bus stop, telling them to go back to Mexico. “Sit on the cement, or this gringa from the United States will call ICE,” she told the two women, in broken Spanish.
Donald Trump’s numerous actions attacking the undocumented community continue to normalize racial discrimination in America. The public endorsement of former KKK leader David Duke gave Americans the idea that our very own president is OK with racially fueled agendas.
That was followed by Trump’s appointment of Jeff Sessions as U.S. attorney general, a man who in the 1980s was seen as “too racist” to be a federal judge, according to an article written by Michael Lee Nirenberg and published by the Huffington Post website recently. In the article, Nirenberg writes that during Sessions’ two decades as junior senator in Alabama, he opposed nearly every immigration bill that was presented to the Senate, including legislation for a path to citizenship for undocumented people in the country illegally. Now, Session has announced the end of Barack Obama’s deferred action, or DACA, program. It’s all part of a pattern.
How about Trump’s presidential pardon of the infamous racist Arizona sheriff, Joe Arpaio? In 2011, Arpaio, who is known for his abusive efforts to hunt down and detain undocumented immigrants, was convicted of criminal contempt by a federal judge in Arizona after knowingly violating a federal judge’s order that stated he could not detain immigrants simply because they lacked legal status, and he continued to do so for 18 months. He faced a possible six months in jail, but dodged that bullet when Trump gave him a presidential pardon last month. In a tweet, Trump stated, “He kept Arizona safe!”
The presidential pardon of the “face of the campaign against undocumented immigrants” only sends a reassuring message to all racists and white supremacists in our country. This reassurance is what led to the death of one woman and the injury of many more during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., earlier this year. To reaffirm this idea of Trump’s administration causing the normalization of racism in the country, we need to look no further than the president’s response to this rally, “I think there is blame on both sides.”
Paola Garcia’s story is one that is being echoed across the country. If our president doesn’t begin to show actions that relay the message that we will not stand for the discrimination and harassment of people of color, then we will continue to see more open displays of racism in our country. We need to make clear that we will not stand for the blatantly racist agenda. We can start by reminding President Trump that America’s true values rely on inclusion.