“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
As a member of the new multi-cultural majority, I place critical distance between myself and other so-called faith communities that support the Trump Administration’s policies on “zero tolerance” and the revocation of asylum for persons fleeing less than ideal living conditions and the inhumane proposal to rescind birthright citizenship. I hold lawmakers, politicians, and Christian faith communities in contempt for criminalizing persons who are escaping violence in pursuit of the courageous act of seeking asylum.
The Trump administration has captured the hearts of a broad cross-section of Americans by demonstrating the courage to ‘rule on the exception.’ Zero tolerance and the revocation of asylum, and now a proposal to rescind birthright citizenship, are examples of the President’s lack of compassion for humanity. President Donald Trump has created a new rule, an exception, that not only ignores values that helped to build our society but also lights the wick to propel America back towards the principles, prescriptions, and patterns that birthed the Antebellum South.
America must take responsibility for its violent actions. From the disruption of Native American culture, the violent deconstruction of African natal identity, and now, the emergence of a political genocide that seeks to create irreparable distance between the ‘Have’s and Have Not’s’.
The rising multi-cultural majority resents privileged, European-American political ideas and policies that seek to reconfigure egalitarian hopes into political ideals and legal descriptions that defines individuals who are ‘better off’ as being ‘better than.’
I call into question Christian leaders and faith communities that support the Trump Administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy and the proposal to rescind birthright citizenship. To align with such a politic ignores, abandons, and sets out to extinguish the divine injunction to love the neighbor.
To be clear, the Trump Administration’s use of scripture as a basis for their zero tolerance and revocation of asylum policies is a gross misinterpretation and misuse of the Christian text. More importantly, President Donald Trump’s zero tolerance policy (and point of view) is unreflective, uncritical, and exposes the sentiments closely aligned with the ideals of racism.
The multi-cultural majority is not ignorant to how the American government has leveraged Christian scripture to reinforce the prescriptions, practices, and patterns of violence within our history, and now, sentiments embedded deep within the Trump Administration’s politics.
I unapologetically argue that the colonizing, cultural vultures of the Trump Administration, at their core, believe that the world was meant for them (the privileged) and not for us (the multi-cultural majority).
The Trump Administration’s revocation of asylum and the new proposal to rescind birthright citizenship seeks to disrupt the biblical injunction to love the neighbor. An authentic space must exist that allows different types of persons to make contributions, even when that contribution is presented as a courageous act to flee violence and abuse.
The aim is to disrupt any oppressive social environment with civil disobedience. This includes Presidential decisions and his political constituents that support the legitimacy of ripping children (of any ethnicity or culture) from their parents and the act of criminalizing the birth of their children.
It is time to answer the wails, the cries, tears, and the confusion that stems from the children separated from their parents at the U.S. – Mexico border, and the preemptive strike on the caravan traveling from Central America and criminalizing birth.
The midterm elections will be a signal that the Trump Administration is being placed on notice: there will be an uprising, a revolt, and a revolution that will lead to a contestation of the demonizing politics of the so-called President of the United States.
