6 ms·

You don't think his rhetoric against undocumented immigrants is racist?

Zpalmtree 10y ago
Last time I checked "undocumented" immigrants aren't a race, and they also broke the law. It's not racist to attack people breaking the law.
- yolesaber 10y ago
  >“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” It's pretty racist to attack a whole contingent of people and make broad negative generalizations about them and qualify with a half-hearted caveat that 'some' are good people. He's quite clearly drawing a line between "you" (the white audience he was speaking to) and the Other (i.e. the Mexicans) personified as rapists and drug dealers.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    Sounded like it was clearly "you" as legal Mexicans and other immigrants. The rest of the sentence is about illegals -- he's not, afaik, made any claims about Mexicans in general. If he was actually making a racist statement, then immigration status wouldn't matter.
    - yolesaber 10y ago
      "You" clearly haven't even read or seen the speech and are talking completely out of your ass. It was one of his opening talking points in his presidential announcement in New York City to his cronies - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06/16/full-text-donald-trump-announces-a-presidential-bid/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06... It's pretty straightforward xenophobic, hyper jingoist nationalist rhetoric. You = us good Americans. They = the Other. He uses the car industry for Japan, a conservative talking point since the 80s. For Mexico he harps on immigration and calls them rapists. It's aggregate and subjectivity-denying. It's racist and dumb.
      - MichaelGG 10y ago
        I saw it, way back when he spoke. "They're not sending you" never occurred to me as "you, Americans". That'd uh, make no sense: Mexico is not a significant source of Americans immigrating to America. At any rate, it's still besides the point. He's accurate in saying that people coming in illegally aren't "the best". If you're a top professional you're not going to risk illegal immigration anywhere, generally speaking. This lines up with my and others' personal experience (I lived in Central America for nearly 2 decades).
        yolesaber 10y ago
        > "They're not sending you" never occurred to me as "you, Americans". That'd uh, make no sense: Mexico is not a significant source of Americans immigrating to America. He's talking to a roomful of Americans mentioning how America (referred to as us, you) is being beaten by other countries (they). It's pretty obvious. Just because it doesn't make any sense doesn't negate what Trump was implying - it's not like he's known for sound logical reasoning or even being able to approximate a grain of truth. If you seriously think he was referring to "legal Mexicans" in that speech (again, to a roomful of his white cronies in Midtown NYC) then I got a brooklyn bridge to sell you. >At any rate, it's still besides the point. He's accurate in saying that people coming in illegally aren't "the best". Is he accurate in saying that Mexicans only care about "beating" us at the border and that they are mostly rapists with only some, he "assumes", are good people? Come on.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Depends a little bit on the law at hand. Illegal immigration is easy to attack without being racist. Mixed marriage not so much.
- zimzam 10y ago
  This claim cain only be made by somebody ignorant of the history of racism: racism almost always lives with a non-racist pretext. Here are a couple of examples, though many more exist: Lynchings were instigated by an accusation of a crime - the perpetrators could claim they weren't racist, they were just keeping their communities safe! [1] Japanese internment too had a non-racist pretext: people of Japanese descent were claimed to be disloyal citizens with greater allegiance to Japan (even after being born in the USA or becoming naturalized) than the USA. [2] We know that the debate about undocumented immigrants isn't about to Europeans who overstay their tourist visas or Canadians sneaking across the border: it is about a single ethnic group (hispanic) who have come across the Mexican border. This means that 'undocumented' can easily be a euphemism for 'hispanic', allowing people to shift racist statements into ostensibly non-racist ones. While not all discussions of undocumented immigrants are racist, some certainly are a form of dog whistle [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States#Social_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States#... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics#United_St...
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    Are there a ton of EU overstays causing noticeable impact? Do you think if millions of Russians were illegally in the US working low-end jobs (for the most part) and being rather highly visible (flying Russian flags at protests) it'd be waved off?
  - jimmywanger 10y ago
    You're talking ignorantly right now. First, the two examples of racism you point out are decades old. Try to pay attention to current events. We share a long, fairly badly secured land border with a country with significantly worse living and earning conditions than we enjoy. The fact that all those people trying to come to a better life share an ethnicity is not relevant at all. If you want to see racism, see how British people treat Polish immigrants, even though the Poles have every right in the world to be there.
jimmywanger 10y ago
It's not "undocumented immigrants", it's "illegal immigrants". If you enforce the law, they should be deported. Now they probably have very good reasons for immigrating, but the fact remains that they broke the law and our borders, and the job of the executive branch is to enforce the laws.
- minikites 10y ago
  Deporting Syrian refugees (the most recent target of Trump's rhetoric) would be breaking a major international law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_the_Status_of_Refugees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_the_Sta...
  - tanderson92 10y ago
    Syrian refugees are not illegal immigrants, which was the topic of conversation of the GP poster.
thatswrong0 10y ago
I don't think he's said anything about having a problem with legal immigrants.
- douche 10y ago
  I suspect he might end up sleeping on the couch if he did
- bcg1 10y ago
  Incorrect. He wants to end the H1B visa program (despite the fact that he uses for seasonal work at his club in Florida) and he does not want to accept political refugees attempting to come to the US legally.
  - garrettgrimsley 10y ago
    There's a difference between immigration law and immigrants. Your comment doesn't address what the parent commentor said.
  - douche 10y ago
    Fixing a broken, oft-abused system is contemptible now?
    - bcg1 10y ago
      I think the H1B program is terribly flawed and certainly abused. But Trump is not talking about reforming it, he only talks about in the context of "foreigners stealing our jobs" (paraphrase), which I find quite contemptible. And without a meaningful plan to replace it would close an avenue for people to legally immigrate to the US, which makes it seem like he might have a problem with legal immigrants.
      - MichaelGG 10y ago
        Why is "foreigners stealing our jobs" contemptible? Assuming H1B is abused (I understand this can be in dispute), why should a candidate for a country not want to help its own citizens?
AznHisoka 10y ago
Quotes?
throwaway2016b 10y ago
Is that you, Gary? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xlmU9LvtAs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xlmU9LvtAs

Last time I checked "undocumented" immigrants aren't a race, and they also broke the law. It's not racist to attack people breaking the law.

yolesaber 10y ago
>“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” It's pretty racist to attack a whole contingent of people and make broad negative generalizations about them and qualify with a half-hearted caveat that 'some' are good people. He's quite clearly drawing a line between "you" (the white audience he was speaking to) and the Other (i.e. the Mexicans) personified as rapists and drug dealers.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  Sounded like it was clearly "you" as legal Mexicans and other immigrants. The rest of the sentence is about illegals -- he's not, afaik, made any claims about Mexicans in general. If he was actually making a racist statement, then immigration status wouldn't matter.
  - yolesaber 10y ago
    "You" clearly haven't even read or seen the speech and are talking completely out of your ass. It was one of his opening talking points in his presidential announcement in New York City to his cronies - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06/16/full-text-donald-trump-announces-a-presidential-bid/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06... It's pretty straightforward xenophobic, hyper jingoist nationalist rhetoric. You = us good Americans. They = the Other. He uses the car industry for Japan, a conservative talking point since the 80s. For Mexico he harps on immigration and calls them rapists. It's aggregate and subjectivity-denying. It's racist and dumb.
    - MichaelGG 10y ago
      I saw it, way back when he spoke. "They're not sending you" never occurred to me as "you, Americans". That'd uh, make no sense: Mexico is not a significant source of Americans immigrating to America. At any rate, it's still besides the point. He's accurate in saying that people coming in illegally aren't "the best". If you're a top professional you're not going to risk illegal immigration anywhere, generally speaking. This lines up with my and others' personal experience (I lived in Central America for nearly 2 decades).
      - yolesaber 10y ago
        > "They're not sending you" never occurred to me as "you, Americans". That'd uh, make no sense: Mexico is not a significant source of Americans immigrating to America. He's talking to a roomful of Americans mentioning how America (referred to as us, you) is being beaten by other countries (they). It's pretty obvious. Just because it doesn't make any sense doesn't negate what Trump was implying - it's not like he's known for sound logical reasoning or even being able to approximate a grain of truth. If you seriously think he was referring to "legal Mexicans" in that speech (again, to a roomful of his white cronies in Midtown NYC) then I got a brooklyn bridge to sell you. >At any rate, it's still besides the point. He's accurate in saying that people coming in illegally aren't "the best". Is he accurate in saying that Mexicans only care about "beating" us at the border and that they are mostly rapists with only some, he "assumes", are good people? Come on.
maxerickson 10y ago
Depends a little bit on the law at hand. Illegal immigration is easy to attack without being racist. Mixed marriage not so much.
zimzam 10y ago
This claim cain only be made by somebody ignorant of the history of racism: racism almost always lives with a non-racist pretext. Here are a couple of examples, though many more exist: Lynchings were instigated by an accusation of a crime - the perpetrators could claim they weren't racist, they were just keeping their communities safe! [1] Japanese internment too had a non-racist pretext: people of Japanese descent were claimed to be disloyal citizens with greater allegiance to Japan (even after being born in the USA or becoming naturalized) than the USA. [2] We know that the debate about undocumented immigrants isn't about to Europeans who overstay their tourist visas or Canadians sneaking across the border: it is about a single ethnic group (hispanic) who have come across the Mexican border. This means that 'undocumented' can easily be a euphemism for 'hispanic', allowing people to shift racist statements into ostensibly non-racist ones. While not all discussions of undocumented immigrants are racist, some certainly are a form of dog whistle [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States#Social_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States#... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment_of_Japanese_America... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics#United_St...
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  Are there a ton of EU overstays causing noticeable impact? Do you think if millions of Russians were illegally in the US working low-end jobs (for the most part) and being rather highly visible (flying Russian flags at protests) it'd be waved off?
- jimmywanger 10y ago
  You're talking ignorantly right now. First, the two examples of racism you point out are decades old. Try to pay attention to current events. We share a long, fairly badly secured land border with a country with significantly worse living and earning conditions than we enjoy. The fact that all those people trying to come to a better life share an ethnicity is not relevant at all. If you want to see racism, see how British people treat Polish immigrants, even though the Poles have every right in the world to be there.

jimmywanger 10y ago

It's not "undocumented immigrants", it's "illegal immigrants". If you enforce the law, they should be deported. Now they probably have very good reasons for immigrating, but the fact remains that they broke the law and our borders, and the job of the executive branch is to enforce the laws.

minikites 10y ago
Deporting Syrian refugees (the most recent target of Trump's rhetoric) would be breaking a major international law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_the_Status_of_Refugees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_Relating_to_the_Sta...
- tanderson92 10y ago
  Syrian refugees are not illegal immigrants, which was the topic of conversation of the GP poster.

thatswrong0 10y ago

I don't think he's said anything about having a problem with legal immigrants.

douche 10y ago
I suspect he might end up sleeping on the couch if he did
bcg1 10y ago
Incorrect. He wants to end the H1B visa program (despite the fact that he uses for seasonal work at his club in Florida) and he does not want to accept political refugees attempting to come to the US legally.
- garrettgrimsley 10y ago
  There's a difference between immigration law and immigrants. Your comment doesn't address what the parent commentor said.
- douche 10y ago
  Fixing a broken, oft-abused system is contemptible now?
  - bcg1 10y ago
    I think the H1B program is terribly flawed and certainly abused. But Trump is not talking about reforming it, he only talks about in the context of "foreigners stealing our jobs" (paraphrase), which I find quite contemptible. And without a meaningful plan to replace it would close an avenue for people to legally immigrate to the US, which makes it seem like he might have a problem with legal immigrants.
    - MichaelGG 10y ago
      Why is "foreigners stealing our jobs" contemptible? Assuming H1B is abused (I understand this can be in dispute), why should a candidate for a country not want to help its own citizens?

AznHisoka 10y ago

Quotes?

throwaway2016b 10y ago

Is that you, Gary? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xlmU9LvtAs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xlmU9LvtAs