I hate to get into politics, particularly with the current administration, but this recent phrase causes my ire.
And I quote: “Those people,” Fred Trump said his uncle told him, “The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.”
This came from the Commander-in-Chief, the CEO of the US of the A, the so-called Leader of the Free World, the self-proclaimed King of the Planet.
This demeaning rhetoric was not about the criminal rapist and murders invading our borders to pick our crops, build our houses, cut our grass and clean our hotel rooms. This was not aimed at those who do not agree with his imperial political ramblings. This was not in response to a female reporter. This was not about intellectual librarians handing out books full of perceived disgust and filth to our children. This was not about congressional values or rights to free will or speech. This was not directed to those who’s gender identity does not match his perverted behavior. This was not an off-hand statement about diversity or monetary inequality or the color of your skin.
This quote was about Fred’s child who has a disability.
Fred's 26-year-old son, William, was born with a KCNQ2 mutation, "a genetic misfire that the doctors called a potassium channel deletion." He is nonverbal and uses a wheelchair.
I believe when we arrive on this planet, we know nothing. We are just a blob of bloody delivered from some creatures who grew you until you were fermented and ready to be a part of a ‘family’.
This family are the familiar of us. We all look alike. We all think alike (because that is what we are taught). We are comfortable with each other because it is all we know. Even an extended family of intermingling, we are somewhat suspicious of cousins and aunts and uncles for they live somewhere else and could sound different or even have another faith than our core.
Suddenly, our ‘family’ meets another ‘family’. They come from another place. They don’t look like us. They don’t sound like us. They don’t act like us. They are ‘those people’.
Some cross-breed and the blended family is accepted as us, but there are still others who are ‘those’ people. We, the familiar, look at ‘them’ with curiosity but are afraid of the difference.
The fear can be taught and increased with bias lessons of good vs bad depending on what your faith believes in.
Living on a planet where all migrated from somewhere else, some assembled into countries with borders and cultures and languages and customs different than their neighbors. If one felt disadvantaged from their neighbors, armies were formed by their political leaders directed by faith and taught that ‘those people’ were bad and had to be transformed to our acceptable beliefs to invade and conquer to pillage the wealth and reform ‘those’ to a new way of living.
Empires came and went and borders were redrawn until rational people decided the bloodshed wasn’t worth the results. Still, we stand ready to pick up arms over the threat of ‘those people’. This is our history.
Our current administration, fairly elected by our democratic process, has decided to purge (deport) ‘those people’ for the betterment of the country and with the support of the military, are detaining citizens (legal or not) and placing them onto a concentration camp until they can be processed shipped somewhere else. The processing, while minimal vetting due to the reduction in governmental staff, may find some criminals (why don’t they check the jails?) the chaos increases the confusion, fear and anger in the general population.
If Powhatan and the indigenous tribes hadn’t been curious to welcome the aliens from afar and the original settlements were not worthy of agriculture, accepted the invasion without every viewing “The War of the Worlds” or “Independence Day” to understand ‘those people’ were here conquer and not assimilate.
Without finding riches, tea or spices, the settlers shipped back a rare crop of tobacco that caught the motherlands desire for more. The imperial desire of the Ole World leaders wanting to expand their influence and wealth, went about funding additional ventures into what would become the colonies.
When you move into a neighborhood, you are ‘those people’. You bring your children and your furniture and are viewed by the established settlers as strangers. You might fit in to the current culture and become friends or just avoid any interaction so the neighborhood waits for the sale of the house for a next batch. As this suspicion of outsiders grows, fences go up surround protected property with security. We continue to fear the unknown.
When you travel overseas or even in a different neighborhood, you are ‘those people’. The locals may view you as tourist to be exploited or assumed a threat to be followed by the uniformed authorities. If you’ve ever walked into an area, you are not welcomed and are uncomfortable, you have become ‘those people’.
At the end of the year, our species, wherever they live on this blue ball spinning in a vast darkness of space, come together to dress up and celebrate with music and food and give gifts of thankfulness.
Someday, we may realize we are the only inhabitants and should learn to get along with one another. Probably not in my lifetime, so good luck to future generations.
