The Cardinal Sin of the US, White Patriarchal Racism, Provides Fertile Soil For Cruelty

This is yet another excellent, 100% spot on, and incredibly well articulated pieces by one of my courageous immigrant friends. Deepest gratitude, respect, and appreciation for his undying activism, integrity and courage, truth-telling and wisdom, deep caring and fierce love. May we all be informed and inspired by strong voices of truth such as that which is held and illuminated with such clarity in this article. — Molly  

One of the things that makes all this xenophobic hatred so painful is that it is so predictable to anyone who has read a lick of history.

Human beings seem to have to repeat the same mistakes one generation after another. These hunts for migrants always happen when a country or empire is crumbling. They happen when the political infrastructure has abandoned enough people that they can be easily convinced of the inherent absurdity that people’s humanity should be revoked if they were born on the wrong side of an artificially constructed border (a border created by violence in the first place).

While some may be surprised to see this happen in the land of the Statue of Liberty and in a country filled with people with an immigrant heritage, the cardinal sin of the US, white patriarchal racism, provides fertile soil for this cruel stupidity.

And make no mistake about it: it IS dumb. MAGA is a Know-Nothing movement that is not interested in actual arguments about legality. This is an emotional movement that reminds me of the fictional world of The Purge. It is a mass release of hate and aggression, a taking on of cruelty as a kind of salvific fire meant to cleanse imagined impurities.

Materially, not only does it have no beneficial effect on the country: it hastens every crisis. The labor crisis is made worse, the economy tanks, the health care crisis deepens, our schools and universities worsen, all so one can “feel” superior to migrants while the wealthy elite rob whatever is remaining from the public coffers from the middle, working and poor classes.

All of this benefits the powerful and the adherents of this movement are too hypnotized by the circus of cruelty to realize that their own welfare is tied to the welfare of the very immigrants whose terrorizing they are supporting.

It always happens the same way. This is nothing new. It would be boring if it weren’t so mind-numbingly evil.

I would love to believe that we may have Nuremberg trials about this eventually, in many years, when the fever breaks. But I don’t know what will be left of the nation in a few years.

We have to keep organizing and pushing back on principle. I know I will continue.

But I worry that too many US citizens think this is just a phase and fail to see the deep danger this poses for everyone, even as ICE grows in power as a paramilitary force whose gun(s) can be trained on anyone.

On anyone.

At one of countless protests with my husband, this one in Vancouver, WA

A friend compiled these photos I'd taken at a protest and created this collage for me.