June 20, 2018
Listened to an interview with the acting director of ICE last night. He, and many Trump supporters, say it is manipulative to focus on the impact of Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy – children being ripped from their parents’ arms, toddlers crying, etc. – and that the only people to blame for what is currently happening on our southern border is the parents who put their children in this position in the first place.
Spoken like white people of enormous privilege.
You have to ask yourself, how bad would your life have to be for you to leave your home, your homeland, your family, pretty much your entire life, equipped only with whatever you could carry and whatever money you were able to scrape together, to make a perilous journey across hundreds of miles – some or most of them on foot – knowing that you could be the victim of crime, that you may or may not have regular access to food or clean water along the way, and that when you finally reached your destination, you could be turned away, arrested, or jailed?
And even if you were one of the lucky ones who was granted asylum, you now have to start over from scratch with nothing but whatever assistance available from the government and the scorn and racism of people who think our country should be as lily-white as it was after we exterminated indigenous Americans and before we imported slave labor from Africa to do the jobs white people didn’t want to do?
How bad would life have to be for someone to decide, “trying to get to America, even though fraught with hardship and danger, is better than what it’s like to live under my present circumstances?”
Most Americans take for granted the relative stability, opportunity, and resources we enjoy. We have no clue what it’s like to live in a “shithole” country where there are no civil rights or guarantees of safety and order, but I have a feeling that it won’t be too much longer before we do.
Finally, for those who feel the need to consult the Bible on this one, here’s a nice passage from Luke:
“For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.”
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