Be Careful Whom You Insult, Mr. President by J.E. Dean

My ancestors could have been turning in their graves had they read President Trump’s social media post of 9:11 a.m. on June 15. They would have been as deeply offended and horrified as I am that the President of the United States had written such a troubling post.

Trump’s post reads, in its entirety: “Sadly, if you import people from Third World Countries, you quickly become a Third World Country — And there’s not a thing you can do about it. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”  

My ancestors (one branch of the family) were poor Irish immigrants, forever grateful to be in the United States, but not always welcome. Ireland was once the equivalent of a third-world country. People were leaving in vast numbers to escape poverty, disease, and lack of opportunity. 

The descendants of my Irish ancestors include corporate executives, lawyers, doctors, PhDs, artists, and more. They took the opportunity to immigrate to America and ran with it. 

With few exceptions, in my experience, today’s Irish Americans are not seen as a problem. Like the descendants of Italy, Poland, Greece, and other once-poor countries, they are now accepted warmly as fellow-citizens by people with “more pedigreed” descendants, such as the British, German, and French. 

Unfortunately, many Americans whose descendants arrived in North America well before mine still face brutal racism. If you doubt this and know any Blacks or Native Americans, ask them. And several other “groups” in America face racism daily, which is why many patriotic Americans welcome efforts by our political leaders to address that racism, including searching for appropriate actions to end it.

The reality of America today—that we continue to face the challenge of racism—makes the social media post of Donald J. Trump even more disturbing. Rather than addressing the challenge of racism, he is lending the credibility of the Presidency (what remains of it) to reinforce racism and expand it.

Trump previously posted a disgusting and virulently racist image of President Obama and his wife as apes on his social media website. Trump’s June 15 tweet would define Kenya, the home of President Obama’s father, as a third-world country and suggest that Mr. Obama’s immigration into the United States risked turning America into a third-world country.

We also see overt racism in other places within the Trump administration. Secretary of Defense Hegseth recently removed various Blacks and women from a promotion list, denying America the leadership of more than capable military officers. Why did Hegseth strike the names? What do you think?

Curiously, Donald Trump married not one but two women who might be described as coming from third-world countries. I suspect Trump would disagree with the characterization of the Czech Republic and Slovenia as part of the third world, but race may have something to do with it. When Trump talks or writes about the third world, he usually is referring to countries with a large percent of people of color in their populations.

I am disgusted by Trump’s blanket condemnation of entire populations of people. Trump said this about Somalia in a cabinet meeting, ‘I don’t want them in our country… their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks and we don’t want them in our country.” Trump is also quoted as saying immigrants from Somalia “contribute nothing” and the country is a “shithole.”

Speaking of “shitholes,” Trump has used the same slur when referring to Haiti and El Salvador and suggested the entire continent of Africa (with the exception of the White Afrikaners living in South Africa) deserves the same condemnation.

America will never overcome its legacy of racism with a racist serving as head of state. We must remember what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail:  “The greatest stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Cuonciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a negative peace which is the presence of justice.”

I do not consider President Trump to be a moderate, but some of his supporters are. It is past time for those moderates to focus on what Trump and his administration are doing and saying and speak up.