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Saturday, April 30, 2016

Resisting Trump's Racism Is Like Accepting Hillary's Honesty

I came across another of those opinion pieces calling upon America to resist the racism of Donald Trump.  There's a big problem with those articles, namely that Trump is not a racist.  No really, Trump is not a racist.  He doesn't want to separate races in America.  He doesn't believe that one race or ethnic group is better than the others.  He doesn't hold any beliefs that would normally be called racist.  No, the charges that Trump is a racist all come from two positions that Trump has taken.  The first was Trump's call for an end to illegal immigration and construction of a wall for that purpose along the Mexican border.  In his first speech about the subject, Trump pointed out that Mexico sends many dangerous criminals to the USA among the millions of illegals who have come here from that country.  But that's not racist; it's the truth.  Those who want to call Trump a racist change what he said so that they can charge that he called all Mexicans criminals and rapists, but he didn't.  If the people who are now so upset about Trump's supposed racism call Bill Cosby a rapist, does that make them anti-black racists?  I don't think so.  If these same people call some all Mexican gang in California violent criminals, does that make them racists?  I don't think so.  Racism is using race as a basis for making determinations, not pointing out true facts about some people.

The second charge of racism stems from Trump's call for a temporary ban on admission of Moslems into the USA until we can determine who is and who isn't a terrorist.  This too is not racism.  I have to say that I don't agree with this policy; it goes too far.  Those who should be barred from normal entry are people from the places where ISIS and al Qaeda are active.  They ought to get special scrutiny and not be admitted absent adequate proof that they have no terrorist activities in mind.  But it's still not racism.  The USA is at war with Islamic terrorism.  We did not start that war and we really don't want to fight it, but we have no choice in the matter.  It is only common sense that those who might be members of the enemy group get special scrutiny if they try to enter the USA.

It's a sad thing that so much of the media is busy talking about something that actually does not exist.  In many ways calls to resist Trump's supposed racism is like pundits who ask America to accept Hillary Clinton's honesty.  Neither exists.  Trump is not racist, and Hillary is clearly dishonest.

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