I was born on the island of Puerto Rico, a land that is America and at the same time isn’t. Puerto Rico is, undoubtedly, one of the lands President Trump refers to when he says “Shithole Countries” The way the disaster that was Hurricane Maria was, and is being, handled is proof of that to me. President Trump treated P.R. like an afterthought, and even that came after huge amounts of bad press about his handling of the situation. Throwing paper towels at people is not how a real adult President handles such things.
But President Trump is not a real adult President. In fact, President Trump is what most of us would probably call a vile human being. When we think of human beings as vile, we think of killers, sexual predators, and racists/bigots. President Trump is two of these, and he has demonstrated as much over and over again, though I suppose he does represent part of America that is also two of these things, things that as a civilized people we should have left behind us.
But President Trump is also old.
Yes, I said it, he’s old, and he continues to hold on to the world he grew up in rather than moving forward into the world he lives in now. Like so many people, he got old and never allowed himself, or maybe was incapable of, keeping up with the world as it changed around him. The world in which elitism, racism, bigotry, and war mongering were okay, even if they were not considered appropriate things to express out loud.
As an elitist, President Trump thinks of all of us who are not, like him, wealthy as trash. As an old man he also thinks that anyone who isn’t like him in other ways is inferior to him. Trash! As a bigot, the biggest differences, or rather the most obvious ones, are skin color and facial features which he immediately attaches to his bigoted and elitist mindsets. Trash! He wants to bring in people from Norway, as if people in Norway were all that willing to give up the great social progress their nation has made, as well as Sweden, Finland, and Denmark, to come live here, a land where one can become destitute by just getting sick once or twice.
So, I come back again to myself, my homeland, and my people. I am an American Citizen, always have been, but I was born in Puerto Rico, a land that is, like many of the other lands of the Carribbean, just different enough from the mainland to be seen by many as a foreign land. In fact, laws passed just recently call for PR to be treated like a foreign country. This isn’t completely a bad thing, but it is indicative of the way this administration, and this Congress see Puerto Rico as being something other than American. Is it the beautiful blending of racial types? Is it our language, a venerable and beautiful tongue that has produced extraordinary works of art? Maybe it’s our Music, filled with lively rhythms and beats that harken back to places like Africa and Andalucia? Maybe it’s our loud and boisterous culture, which too often is as outspoken as that wonderful Mayor of San Juan who was never afraid to talk shit about our President when he seemed unwilling to aid people of his own country?
Maybe!
But, well, truth is that it is probably all of those things. Trump, and to a lesser extent the Republicans in Congress, are not about helping the little people, the poor, or those they deem to be “Other” in their lillywhite Americentric views of the world. A world in which everyone should speak English, everyone should be white and blond, and everyone should have all the money in the world.
Those who do not must have been put here to serve. Well, Mr President, I am not here to serve you! And we are many, those of us from Shithole Countries. Some of us from right here in America, the world’s largest Shithole Country!
Image from Wall Street Journal and this story from September 2017: http://on.wsj.com/2mBdHYc
