5 ms·

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.

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.