Trump: Sen Padilla "looked like an illegal." [View all]
Donald Trump is trying to justify federal agents handcuffing California Senator Alex Padilla by suggesting that he “looked like an illegal,” his leading biographer has revealed.
“Trump saw these pictures and then has been on the phone saying to people, ‘Nobody’s ever heard of this guy,’” Michael Wolff, the bestselling author, said this week on The Daily Beast Podcast. “As though that’s an excuse. And then he’s gone on to say, ‘and he looks like an illegal.’”
Wolff said that Trump excused the assault by dismissing Padilla as an immigrant nobody.
“If you are famous, that would obviously put you in a different category and ICE agents would not have tackled you,” said Wolff, explaining Trump’s rationale.
report: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-is-calling-handcuffed-senator-vile-racial-slur-author/
...Trump is spreading this trope among his followers and supporters because they are all of the same mind. Padilla, sitting U.S. Senator is still just another brown person to them who, in their eyes, is undeserving of their consideration or respect.
This senator was not only denied the attention and the legal protection against assault that his office affords him under the law, he was denied the respect that his co-equal branch of the government deserves from the office of the Executive and the people who serve under the president.
Now we can all see the anatomy of the racism which infects this Trump regime from the very top of the chain of command. Padilla didn't just occur to Trump in his explanation as just another random American. His very appearance as a brown-skinned man was enough for the President of the United States to conclude that he was likely in the country illegally, and therefore deserving of violent treatment at the hands of the law enforcement officers he oversees as the chief executive.
The consequence of a president who holds these disturbing and despicable values and beliefs is that it provides an umbrella for all of the people who would similarly deny Sen. Padilla not only his authority, but his very humanity and place in our society because of the color of his skin; because of the fault they regard in his ethnicity, and the president's acquiescence to their stereotyping with his use of racist tropes.
One thing that isn't as prominent in relating these incidents is how people of color are regarding this encouragement to judge a person by their skin tone. In a white majority society which isn't actively repressing the black minority as it did in our nation's past, tempered in its oppression by law and the defense of those laws by government, you'd think there would be more attention paid to any prospect of dividing this nation along racial lines.
Beside the absurdity for most Americans, already experienced and comfortable with an integrated society, of judging each others' worth based on the color of our skin, again, there's a real dilemma for racists who are no longer able to practice their discrimination with the impunity they enjoyed before the passage of the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act.
People of color aren't going to stand still for this abuse. We will fight for our place in this country with even more fervor than in the past, enabled by generation after generation's conviction that this country belongs to people of color, as much as it does for anyone else.
If I had my way, and could set the future, I'd bring about a nation where Sen. Padilla is recognized as an American first by his government and society, well before anyone in public service considers judging him by his skin color or ethnicity.
It's clear that we're not there, right now, with this President of the United States 'looking to me' like a racist thug.
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