The way I see it – and have experienced it – is that the folks who feel they must control others (read: oppress) are led by their “opinions.” The thing about opinions is that they are not FACTS. The problem with people who are led by their opinions is that they expect policy and legislation predicated upon their opinions to be implemented for everyone.
I’ve had personal experience with people like “Permit Patti” and “BBQ Becky” – or, rather, I have had experience with watching my immigrant husband and our son abused, oppressed, and terrorized by similarly minded persons. It’s gotten so much worse since the orange one’s coup. This regime empowers the worst xenophobic, racist, sexist, and bigoted impulses in the most ignorantly opinionated sector of our society.
EXAMPLES: My Iranian-American CHRISTIAN son has been called such appalling pejoratives as “sand ni**er” and “terrorist” and “towel head,” and been threatened specifically that “Trump’s gonna put you guys in concentration camps!” My husband, who is excruciatingly polite to customers, has had too many of them come to the counter at the grocery store where he works and tell him to his face that they won’t be served by “you people,” or asked, “Are you legal? or told “Get outta my country.” Once, when he was the only person on duty in his department, he even had one customer ask for the manager; when the manager came to the counter, the customer asked the manager to find someone else to serve him because “those people aren’t clean.” She said that right there, in front of my husband, loudly enough to be heard by him and by other customers who turned to stare at her. The manager apologized and served her himself.
Now, this regime is even looking for every tiniest reason to denaturalize naturalized citizens – and not northern European naturalized citizens. It’s not fake news to the people who are experiencing this oppressive treatment. It’s not fake news to the people who love them. It’s not fake news to people who accept facts over opinion.
I am so sorry to hear.
This is so terrible, the harassment. But the de-naturalization is no joke, there is no words to describe it. Not only it's cruel, but it's flat out crazy.
I wish that these laws will never come to pass and that this crazy tribalism fades away, we're all one species and people shouldn't get too obsessed about skin pigmentation.
I'm so sorry to hear, I don't know what to say. I wish you the best to you and your family.
I hope things calm down and this madness blows over.
Think of the last time we say this kind of tribalism and nationalism – it was in the 1920s and 30s. And, what was the result of that? Unmitigated horrors… the Holocaust. Remember, that at the same time, America was forcing Japanese Americans into internment camps; that America turned away Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis (including Anne Frank’s family); that Black people were denied their voting rights through internecine and unconstitutional requirements; that the KKK acted in full daylight, with the nodding approval of the majority, that LGBTQ persons were imprisoned, institutionalized, or worse; that women were institutionalized for promiscuity; that native peoples and brown peoples were often denied property rights and justice; and so many more human rights violations. Remember, that most of those things were also happening in countries around the world at that time. Sadly, I’m afraid it took the horrors of the Holocaust and Nazi’s unmitigated terrorism and cruelties with every invasion for the rest of the world to recognize the imperative to turn away from the bigotry and racism, nationalism and tribalism.
This regime is systematically trying to undo the progress of the last 70 years. It’s as if they WANT to go back to those days of terror for everyone who isn’t them. I hope and pray things turn back toward the historical arc of justice and progress. I hope people will open their eyes and see that history is repeating itself – but with world destroying weapons and technologies.