Letter to the Editor: Trump’s comments reveal racism

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The President’s remarks should be roundly condemned from every corner, city, and hamlet of this country for what it is: racism. While the words he used are offensive, the meaning behind them, the bald racism of derogatorily singling out people of color from Africa and the Caribbean, is far worse.

I take it personally as we all should. You see my ancestors came from “____hole” countries once a upon a time. Two generations ago immigrants from Eastern Europe were often described and feared by many as uneducable, filthy, and incapable either of productivity or American citizenship. Time and convention have changed our views of Eastern Europe and its descendants but the issues of discrimination and racism are still with us. As we observe Martin Luther King Day, let us pause to think deeply on the President’s words and see them for what they are. They are vile misrepresentations of what we as a nation should stand for. They also show deep ignorance for who we are and the strength of our national vitality as a land of diversity.

Steve Bien
Jay

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31 Comments

  1. Well said, Mr. Bien, and thank you. Those who apologize for the President’s rhetoric, offer excuses for his bluntness, or worse yet, say nothing enable his poor example and bolster it in others. His post-Charlottesville comments were equally wrong and grossly insensitive, and the silence of most Republicans was unpatriotic. Glad that Senator Jeff Flake spoke truth in Washington today about Trump.

  2. Mr. Trump was not referring to skin color, but to the levels of corruption and social upheaval in those countries which he disparaged. There is a youtube.com video currently posted that shows an awards ceremony from 1998. In the video, Jesse Jackson praises Donald Trump for a “lifetime of service to the African-American community.” When the President said that he was not speaking in racist terms, he meant it, and he was telling the truth.

  3. So when he allegedly said this I suppose the three of you were in the room ? I wasn’t so I can’t judge him nor should anyone else. I’m not saying he did or didn’t I just know that none of us was there. Just maybe it’s just another thing to keep people complaining about him instead of focusing on the fact that NOONE down in D.C. can do there job without blaming others for there laziness and inability to get things accomplished.

  4. So sad that you see racism where there is none. Thank God for Donald Trump. He’s probably saving our country in spite of all the hate from the political opposition such as the letter writer.

    Sad.

  5. How many times have each of us been in a conversation about a place in Franklin County Maine and heard the same term that people claim President Trump used? When you heard it, or used it yourself, did you consider it to be a racist comment? I am so tired of being considered deplorable, a bigot and a racist for not agreeing with the liberal lefts’ socialist agenda. If the methods being used to undermine President Trump and the Republican Party were used to oppose Mr. Obama, I am sure that bigot and racist would be the first words out of the liberal lefts’ mouth. You people will have another opportunity in 2020. Find a candidate that doesn’t want to turn United States from a free Republic into a Socialist Regime and maybe you will win the election.

  6. I have been to Haiti, and I do not mean the nice resort-style area where the cruise ships stop. It is as President Trump allegedly said it is. I wouldn’t use the words he has used to describe the country, but it is horrible. These poor people have not much in material possessions. Some are malnourished and in poor health. The government does not help the citizens in any manner. The living conditions are horrendous. Crime is rampant in the cities. Resources are scarce. I do not believe President Trump is discriminating against the people of Haiti, but instead describing how the corrupt government treats the people and the state of the country. It’s heartbreaking to see the day-to-day struggles of the people. I have never seen such oppression in all of my travels. It’s a hell hole.

  7. Those who have used the term locally in conversations were probably just talking about their neighbor/s

  8. If you read international media it’s clear that the US is no longer respected, and President Trump is seen as an incompetent buffoon. Those of you who think he’s not, well, it’s the impression he’s creating with his tweets and lies (starting with the size of his inauguration…or his hands….) This is not good for the country. China is benefiting the most. It’s not all Trump’s fault of course – massive debt both governmental and private has created the sense that the US is no longer a true economic power. We also have fallen in terms of quality of life, behind many other democracies. No matter what one thinks, a President needs to be mindful of his choice of words, recognizing that it makes a different on the world scene. And sure, he’s denied saying it (sort of), but after all his lies, who can believe him? Right now the US is in decline, and while Trump isn’t the sole cause, his lack of leadership is hastening the process.

  9. Calling someone a racist is easy. It must be, given the number of people who toss the term around indiscriminately. From Jan 2009 to Jan 2017, if you offered even a mild criticism of one of Obama’s policies, you were immediately branded with the dreaded R-word.

    World traveler, I agree with everything you say. People engage in a pointless blame-game, going all the way back to Columbus, then France, the Duvaliers, and, of course, everyone’s favorite villain: the USA. Oddly, they tend to omit the Clintons, whose ‘help’ after the earthquake made a bad situation worse. Not their situation, of course.

    Odder still, they ‘forget’ that, also after the earthquake, Trump volunteered his private plane to help ferry relief supplies. What a racist.

    And Trump funded significantly Rand Paul’s pro-bono eye surgery mission that restored sight to many injured Haitians. Now there’s a doctor who puts his money where his mouth is.

  10. @Scott Erb: Decline?

    Dow up 7000 points since Trump’s election.
    Unemployment near historic low.
    Black unemployment at historic low.
    Jobs coming back.
    Money coming back (see Apple) from off-shore protection from confiscatory taxes, now reduced.

    With decline like this, the Left here and around the world are terrified to see what success would look like.

  11. This morning I was talking on the phone with my 19 year-old daughter. She told me about a video that she wanted me to watch and she asked me to call her back after I’d seen it. I watched it, I called her back, and we discussed it. Now I’ve just read this letter to the editor and the responses and it seems that this video is appropriate to this discussion. The language in the video is ROUGH – a lot of F-bombs, the “N” word, and lots more. It highlights stereotypes on both sides, how we continue to talk past one another, and how our current political reality affects the racial divide.
    The video now has almost 40 million views (you tube). It’s 6:55 minutes long. It’s called “I’m not a racist” by Joyner Lucas.

  12. Sh*thole is a relative term. My aunt used to say it about our rooms, “Clean up this sh*thole, then you can watch TV.” Hell, Maine has sh*tholes Washington county is one. Besides, “Haitian” isn’t a race of people, it’s a name given to people who live in Haiti. There is a video on on YouTube it’s called Immigration by number, I forget his name, he talks about immigration from various countries to the US, the socio-economic impact on our own country, and how little we actually do to make the world a better place while hurting ourselves. If we help these people we should be helping them to stay in their own countries, not bringing them to ours. If we took all the money we spend on benefits for immigrants and used it to build schools, and other facilities. We would help entire groups of people help their countries, not just the few we do help. We should offer a number of people to come here, learn a skill, then send them home to improve their homeland. America can do fine even more so without their being here to stay.

  13. I would be interested to read Steve Bien’s thoughts on the following quotes, relating to immigrants from eastern Europe and just about every other area, on the national origins quota system as having “no basis in either logic or reason.” These two guys aren’t usually thought of as racists, although their father certainly was.

    It neither satisfies a national need nor accomplishes an international purpose. In an age of interdependence among nations, such a system is an anachronism for it discriminates among applicants for admission into the United States on the basis of the accident of birth.
    ~ President John F. Kennedy, July 23, 1963, message to Congress

    The time has come for us to insist that the quota system be replaced by the merit system…It deprives us of able immigrants whose contributions we need…
    ~ AG Robt. Kennedy, The New York Times, Aug. 24, 1964, p. 26

    If you want to comment, please try to avoid the sophomoric argument “That’s ancient history. We care about what’s happening today.” Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.

  14. I had a bumper sticker that said, “My great grandfather didn’t cross the ocean just to see his country overrun by immigrants.” It was too subtle for some people, so I took it off. We are all immigrants here.

  15. YEA … FTown Bryan and World traveler … I wonder what all the “SNOW FLAKES” are doing with
    their 401Ks … have they cashed them in and put the money in CD’s? OH NO … they have left
    them right where they were and are reaping the profits. When it comes to money, their “politically
    correct” philosophy takes a back seat! Pres. Trump is not perfect … (only Jesus Christ is perfect)
    but Pres. Trump is the best thing to happen to American in many years. It’s too bad the liberals can look at
    the whole picture instead of the things which pad their pockets.

  16. Frost proof, if I’m not mistaken your “whataboutism” is a distraction trying to compare about vetting all immigrants to what the president of the United states said which was a specific derogatory and unnecessary use of language about specific countries and their entire population, not individual citizens. Nice, shifty “Con Serve yourself ism” Everyone knows the presidents personal tweet views and outrageous theater, but we also know why they are wrong and why he has repeatedly shown himself to be bad for the American public and the world. Reality T.V. is fake and the brand is a fake symbol. What confuses me is the why anyone would automatically condone such sloppy behavior. SAD. Really sad!

  17. Hey if you want to see Dow performance compare it when Obama became President and when he left – no President oversaw such a dramatic growth in the Dow average! But that really doesn’t say much about America’s position in the world. It says only that rich people are betting and currently making money. Most of what is going on in the economy now has been years in the making – it certainly isn’t because of Trump, that’s not how the economy works! I hope the economy performs well, but with high debt and lack of global respect, I think our six year run of good economic years may soon end.

  18. Why would anyone condone outrageous behavior in the Oval Office? Ask your Leftie friends, DT, why they did just that 20 years ago, almost to the day.

    Laura: I remember that bumpersticker. The problem with such a categorical statement is, just one counter-example makes the statement false. A person stops being an immigrant when he becomes a US citizen, when he becomes an American. My ancestors were immigrants, became Americans, and presented me with the greatest gift I’ll ever receive: US citizenship.

    No, we are not all immigrants here.

  19. DT,
    Very cute… ConServe”Ism”..
    BS… is another one of those that accurately describes your attitude.
    Hypocrite hits the nail right on your empty little head.

    The “Kennedy” comments were fine.. Unless someone else said them.
    Just like rapist Bill Clinton’s behavior was “allowed”… Because he was a powerful force for liberalism.

    Of all the things that drive people away from the Liberals ,, it is the Hypocrisy that is the most offensive.
    Just keep yapping and wonder why good people can’t stand with you..

    Do yourself a favor, buy a mirror.

  20. What’s ironic here is that Haiti is the same country that never saw the Clinton foundation money that was supposed to go there….
    But I saw NOT ONE comment about that.

    Be mad at Trump if you like but stop with the hypocrisy already..
    OMG .

  21. If the same people that are howling against Trump now also howled against the other politicians who have not supported Haiti… I’m ok with you.

    But I don’t remember hearing much until it’s Trump….

    What’s this REALLY about Doc?

  22. When Obama took office, the Dow was just under 8,000; when he left it was just under 19,000. That’s pretty dramatic, all right. But it took 8 years to achieve that growth. In Erb’s comment, the word oversaw means happened to be in office during. The growth was due entirely to capitalism and the strength of the American economy, moving ahead in spite of being hobbled by the Obama economic policies.

    The growth since election day 2016 is due to renewed optimism caused by easing off the gov’t jackboot from the economy’s neck: lower taxes, fewer regulations, increased expectations.

    Yup, the rich are happy. But so are the non-rich who have a 401k or other retirement investments; who have higher take home pay; who are beginning to see better jobs becoming available, instead of disappearing off-shore.

    Erb represents the pessimism of the Obama dark ages, motto: You didn’t build that!

  23. Laura, We are not all immigrants. In order to be an immigrant you have to leave one established country to live in another established country that is not controlled by the country they are leaving. America wouldn’t declare itself independent until the mid 1700s. My ancestors got to the New World from Britain in 1637 as British citizens while the New World was still British soil. It’s called moving, not immigration. George Washington’s Great grandparents came here as British citizens in the early 1600s. All of our founding fathers were born here, it’s why the constitution is written the way it is and why only natural born US citizens can be president, and makes no mention of immigrants, because there is no part of it that pertains to them. People who come here are visitors, technically they don’t have the same rights and freedoms we have, call it a perk of not being American. Even greencard holders don’t have the same rights as a natural born citizen.

  24. Frostproof:

    1. I’m not sure how you get a racist angle out of JFK there. Looks like he was trying to amend the law that held the quota to 1920 demographic levels. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9355.
    A tad different than a Muslim ban, birther BS, DACA revocation, sympathy with Charlottesville white supremacists, real estate discrimination in the 1970’s, Gorka, Miller, and Bannon hires, and his twitter account.

    2.I’m not saying he was the most tremendous president ever, but do you recall what the economy was like when Obama took office?

    3. Trump could burn a cross on the White House lawn and some of his supporters would argue that it’s Christmas lights.

  25. Frost – no President has seen the Dow perform like it did under Obama. It has continued under Trump. Either it’s a process that really isn’t dependent on the President, or you have to credit both – or it might be momentum from the Obama years. As for Trump’s impact on the economy – too early to tell. In 2005 the Bush Administration also had a fine economic record. But it collapsed in 2007-08. Maybe the economy is dependent on lots of factors, not just who is in the White House!

    Hrtless – the strength of America is that there is no American race, ethnicity or color. Immigrants, whether from China, Ireland, Italy, etc., have often been maligned, deemed inferior or “un-American.” Over time, they prevailed. By 2050 the majority of Americans will be of non-European descent. The Latinos now maligned by many will be mainstream. That’s the way America evolves over time.

  26. seamus:

    1. You remind me of one of those Picasso paintings with both eyes crammed on one side of the face, the better to see only one side of any issue. The immigration 1960s issue was an attempt to get more merit and less quota. Merit based immigration is racist, according to the Left, because it discriminates against people with little or no merit.

    2. Yes. The economy was lousy. Not entirely GWB’s fault, but that was the sum total of Obama’s economic policy for the first few years. The economy got better because of its inherent strengths, not because BHO waved a magic wand.

    3. I have seen one of those. Have you? I sincerely doubt it, or you wouldn’t be making bad jokes about them. I was a kid in the 1950s and saw it in a field less than 5 miles from Augusta. Maine, not Georgia. Liberals would, and did, call it a weenie roast.

    As for your run-on sentence: it is a travel ban and should be strengthened; the birther nonsense would disappear forever if you-know-who would release his you-know-what; the stupid whitey thugs had a permit, the stupider BLM thugs had baseball bats; the rest is too silly to mention, except … if you don’t like his tweets, don’t follow him. Is this a great country or what?

  27. Hrtlss Bstrd

    “Sh*thole is a relative term. My aunt used to say it about our rooms, “Clean up this sh*thole, then you can watch TV.”

    That explains quite a bit Must have been difficult growing up with a “racist” aunt

    ………………………….have you tried therapy?

  28. Republi CONS are excellent fast talking Con’s. They tell you one thing and then slap you in tax pocket! They tout the trumpets who believe anything they say and then stick it to them. One thing is certain, the Don excites the repressed racism of old white men and the above defense of his ignorant mouth is all the proof we need. Does he even know that Africa is a continent not a country? Doubt it even if he is a self declared like, really smart and very stable genius! Sad, the above Con’s spreading fake news are just sad. Frosty gets his history lessons from internet memes. Sad truth.

  29. I’ve been to Haiti more than once and yes, I guess some would consider it a s_ _ _ hole country. Poverty runs rampant, as does corruption. There is very little medical help, children lack means for an education, the environment has been practically destroyed, and there are stray animals and trash, well, almost everywhere. Enough really, to turn an American’s stomach. But let me share with you this. As I was riding in the back of a pickup truck with an Haitian interpreter talking politics he shared the fact that Haitians wanted Americans to come to Haiti. And I, being from the country that I am, promptly pointed at the trash that littered the streets.I told him that Americans would never come to Haiti as long as the country looked like it did. You know,as it was classified by our President, like a s_ _ _ hole. The interpreter was not deterred and went on to say that Haitians wanted too be like Americans. At that I looked him the the eyes and stated” be careful what you wish for.” You see folks, it’s human nature to judge others by the exterior, whether it be a country, a government, or a person. We Americans, who have so much compared to developing countries, are famous for judging others because we don’t know what it means to really go without. Ask yourself this question. Who has the better spirit, a Haitian that struggles everyday just to survive in a s_ _ _ hole and is still happy? Or an American who’s spirit rests on the outward appearance of most anything when they have almost everything. Personally, with the current political situation, a s_ _ _ hole country is looking more appealing every day.
    Have a nice day and feel blessed, because you are.

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