President Donald Trump takes questions at Coronavirus update briefing, 3/14/20. Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead. Public Domain.
Around the world, Coronavirus has led to an increase in government surveillance, crackdowns on journalism, restrictions on movement and less restrictions on legislature. There is no doubt that they infringe upon civil liberties and may remain in effect long after the spread of the virus has calmed down.
Read MoreWhile the Middle East and the border crisis get all the attention, Charlottesville and El Paso remind us that America’s worst threat is right here at home.
White supremacists gathered for the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. By Anthony Crider. CC by 2.0.
August 12th 2017, fresh out of my first year at the University of Virginia, I sat in front of my TV horrified, watching white supremacists marching through a place I had recently starting calling home. Headlines on every major paper ran with Trump’s quote regarding “fine people on both sides.”
When classes started in the fall, my peers and I returned to Charlottesville deeply unsettled by what had happened on our grounds. Our community was rocked to its core. However, the rest of the world quickly moved on without us.
The past two years, this weekend has marked a time for remembrance, but also caution and fear in Charlottesville. The dates, August 11th and 12th, have become something of the towns very on 9/11, and the police presence during these two days isn’t easy to ignore. The events that took place to years ago are on our minds, however, not on the mind of the nation.
The march on Charlottesville was the last time I saw white supremacy dominate all the major headlines, that is, until this weekend’s mass shooting in El Paso. We, as a nation, let ourselves become distracted and forgetful of a real problem that’s been growing in the heart of our country. We can point to how the nation has so eagerly embraced the narrative of the “dangerous outsider” to explain why.
A decade ago, the Department of Homeland Security released a report on the growing threat of right wing extremism, correctly predicting “the potential emergence of terrorist groups or lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks.” However, this warning was not given serious merit by the Trump administration. President Trump’s transition team made it clear to the DHS that it wanted to focus on Islamic terrorism and reorient programs meant to counter violent extremism to exclusively target international threats like al-Qaeda and ISIL. These Islamic terrorist groups have stayed in the headlines, despite the fact they no longer pose a serious domestic threat. It should come as no surprise that this June the FBI reported a significant rise in white supremacist domestic terrorism in recent months.
President Trump’s rhetoric has also turned American’s attention away from the alt-right matter at hand, and turned our attention to what he would call an “infestation.” Searching through theTrump Twitter Archive, I failed to find one mention of domestic terrorism, white nationalists or the growing menace they pose to our country. After all, why shouldn’t Trump protect his loyal voter base? It’s no secret that white nationalists are Trump supporters; alt right leaders have even been spotted at his rallies.
President Trump says immigrants “infest” our country. Via Twitter. June 19, 2018.
The president has protected these terrorists by turning the national discussion elsewhere -the southern border. As a result, liberals have kept themselves busy investigating the disgusting conditions of border control centers and “children in cages,” while conservatives call for further border restrictions. These leaves no one time for anyone to wage war against the real domestic threat --white supremacy.
Trump denounced “racist hate” Monday after the shooting this weekend. He blamed violent video games, mental health and, ironically, internet bigotry from prompting the Dayton and El Paso attacks. He failed to make mention of any real action that might be taken against white supremacist terrorism, let alone endorse gun law reform.
Had the attackers been Black, Hispanic or Middle Eastern, the White House would surely be taking extreme action. However, just like during the aftermath of Charlottesville, nothing serious is being done to combat alt-right violence.
Now,in light of the two year anniversary, I can’t help but wonder if our country truly took notice of the event that shook our little community two years ago. I still pass by the street where Heather Heyer was killed by a domestic terrorist who drove his car into a crowd of people two years ago. The street, now named Heather Heyer Way, remains adorned with chalk writing, flowers and crosses dedicated to her memory. How many more memorials must we lay in El Paso, and the rest of the world, before we address the white supremacist threat?
EMILY DHUE is a third year student at the University of Virginia majoring in media. She is currently studying abroad in Valencia, Spain. She's passionate about writing that makes an impact, and storytelling through digital platforms.
Migrants riding outside a freight train in New Mexico. Peter Haden. CC 2.0
Once upon a time, there was a highway that stretched 2,448 miles across the American landscape, from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California. Constructed in 1926, Route 66 actually no longer exists—having been replaced by the Interstate Highway System over the years. This ghostly road, which exists only in historical snapshots, relics, and memories, once represented the heart of American folklore.
You can trace Route 66, down through Arizona and New Mexico, down to a couple of hundred miles away from the border between the United States and Mexico. Drive for a bit longer and soon you won’t be able to drive anymore. Soon you’ll find a border, which might as well be an open wound, spilling out bodies viewed as disposable by our current government.
Recently I read Valeria Luiselli’s 2016 book, “Tell Me How It Ends,” which finds the author traveling down to the border between America and Mexico with her family to research and gather source material. Luiselli wrote her book before migrant stories became a hot media topic when the 2018 news stories about immigrant family separations broke—even before the election of Donald Trump. The book was written under the Obama administration, when the odds were still stacked—albeit slightly less so—against immigrants, especially immigrant children. She chronicles her work as an interpreter for children undergoing the process of answering questionnaires that will determine whether they may stay in the country. For all its politics, it is a road novel, chronicling an author’s journey—but there is no gleaming California at the end of the road—there is no ending.
From March to May of 2018, 50,000 immigrants—from nations including El Salvador, Mexico, and were arrested at that border. Currently, at the border, according to GEO Group and Corrections Corporation of America/CoreCivic together detain 15,000 people in immigration per day.
Why? In 2017, the GEO group received $184 million, and the America/CoreCivic group received $135 million for immigrant detention costs.
(Is it starting to become clear, to rise out of the mist? The other ghostly roads that line this nation? Roads that are indeed paved with gold, and green, but that lead to penthouses, to towers, to government offices, to heavy wallets and wounded minds?)
For a long time, I’ve been dreaming of taking a road trip from New York to California. Along the way I imagined winding through the Badlands of Wyoming, lurching up towards the bluegrass fields of Dakota, passing through Vegas—on the way seeing countless icons of the nation’s landscape—stopping at diners and motels—turning down strange unknown paths towards gem mines and sudden lakes. And meeting locals, and exploring the middle of this country that I have only seen from the outside.
Nowadays, when I think about my oft-daydreamed road trip, my thoughts take different shapes. I realize that the migratory lifestyle that I saw as a gateway to freedom is, and has long been, a prison in which hundreds of thousands of people are trapped, moving from one place to another because they either cannot afford to live in one place or because they are on the run from a government that wishes to expel them from a nation that had long represented a hope for redemption.
Still, the ghost of those dreams remain. Like the ghostly relics of Route 66, America lives on.
It lives in the children making the treacherous journey from Mexico to America, all of whom have to jump a train called “La Bestia,” or “The Beast,” in order to reach it. Sixty to eighty percent of migrants are assaulted in some way on the journey, according to a 2012 study. They are running from gang violence and drug cartels (for whose existence America is certainly more than a little culpable).
They are not a “they”—they are individuals. Turned into numbers. Turned into criminals. Seen but not seen. Like ghostly highways, but still alive.
This is not an ending, not a story. The fairytale collapses, or never existed at all. This is not an ending—this mass exodus known as the modern refugee crisis, supplemented by the flux of hate that keeps them imprisoned in liminal spaces even after they have risked their lives to arrive on different shores—this is an open wound.
EDEN ARIELLE GORDON is a writer, musician, and avid traveler. She attends Barnard College in New York.
A ‘no border wall’ sign is held during a rally to oppose the wall the US government wants to build. AP Photo/Eric Gay
The past few weeks have seen widespread outrage over the Trump administration’s now-defunct policy of separating migrant families at the border. Four members of the president’s Homeland Security advisory council have resigned in protest, citing the “morally repugnant” practice.
Similar conflicts about policing the borders have erupted throughout much of the world. In Europe, the coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel barely survived a controversy over how to deal with the continued stream of refugees seeking asylum in Germany.
How people respond to these controversies depends upon what it is that they think the border is set up to protect.
In recent years, philosophers have provided several distinct visions on what the borders are protecting.
One prominent justification for securing the border begins with the thought that each state has its own distinctive national character, and that the state’s borders protect it from being overwhelmed by outsiders. The country is not just a state, then, but a cultural or ethnic nation - and, some people might believe, it ought to ensure that migration does not disturb that composition.
President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable on immigration policy. AP Photo/Evan Vucci
President Trump’s criticism of European immigration begins with this idea. He has stated quite categorically that the wave of immigration to Europe would permanently change its culture and that was a “shame.”
From my perspective as a political philosopher, whose work focuses on the political morality of migration, this view assumes that the “real” community in a country can be identified with one particular culture or ethnicity. In doing so, it implicitly announces that all those who are not members of that majority are less important to the state.
This view echoes the ideas of racial and religious superiority that have caused immense harm throughout history. Fascism as an ideology began with the thought that only certain European residents were the true inheritors of Europe’s history. The rest were considered interlopers, who were reducing the grandeur of European civilization.
Another justification for the border begins with a notion of property rights. Scholar Ryan Pevnick has argued that the state and its institutions are rightly owned by those who have worked to build and sustain those institutions. They can thus refuse to share their institutions with outsiders – in the same way that I can refuse to share my house with those who have no property rights to enter that house.
There are difficulties here, too. Many people present within a given country may have done very little to actually build that society and its institutions. This does not, however, imply that they are not entitled to the rights associated with citizenship.
But, as importantly, there are many people outside the country who have done a great deal to protect and to preserve that country. During the Iraq War, for example, some Iraqis became translators for the United States Army, at enormous personal risk.
If this view is to be coherent, then these individuals would have a right to cross that border. Indeed, this fact was belatedly recognized by the Trump administration. In February 2017, an exception was made to the travel ban for Iraqi translators who had worked on behalf of the United States.
Border between San Diego, California, and Tijuana, Mexico. http://www.ngb.army.mil
A final justification for the border reflects the importance of democracy. Widespread migration, it is believed, could undermine social trust and solidarity – both of which are preconditions for democratic self-government.
Migrants from countries without a tradition of democracy, based on this argument, might have neither knowledge of democratic norms nor a moral commitment to the preservation of democracy. Concerns such as these led Belgium to recently introduce a requirement that all potential immigrants coming from outside Europe must sign a “newcomer’s statement” indicating adherence to “European values” – including gender equality and gay rights.
The thought that some outsiders are unlikely to be good democratic citizens, though, has a long and unpleasant history. The United States once barred Chinese nationals from citizenship on similar grounds. American politicians argued that the Chinese civilization was incompatible with any form of government other than “an imperial despotism.”
If democracy is this important, those who value it may have some obligation to use migration policy to help people live under democratic rules. President Ronald Reagan, for example, argued that the borders of the United States should be open to those fleeing Soviet oppression. The freedom of United States, he stated in his farewell address, did not belong to the country alone.
Rather, as Reagan said, the U.S. ought to see herself as the custodian of the freedom of outsiders as well – a suggestion that is increasingly important, as the American debate about borders continues.
MICHAEL BLAKE is a Professor of Philosophy, Public Policy, and Governance at the University of Washington
THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE CONVERSATION
In a nation of plenty, why do 1 out of 8 Americans have uncertain or limited access to food?
In America 1 out of 10 don’t have enough to eat, much more than the 1 in 20 in Europe (Source: Bread Institute for America).
Going hungry in America is not what most would expect. Hunger might mean sacrificing nutritious food for inexpensive, unhealthy options. It might mean periodic disruption to normal eating patterns. And increasingly such hunger occurs among white families, in the suburbs, and among obese people. In other words, any community can be affected; and in 2017, the USDA reported 12.3% of American households are food insecure. Hunger today is a result of tradeoffs between food and other costs—such as health care, bills, and education.
However, hunger does not accurately depict food insecurity in America. Hunger is a prolonged, involuntary lack of food that can lead to personal or physical discomfort. Conversely, food insecure, coined in 2006 by the USDA, defines a household with limited or uncertain access to food. Food insecurity results from limited financial resources and makes it difficult to lead an active, healthy lifestyle. Further, food insecurity can be categorized either as low food insecurity (reduced quality of food, but not intake) or high food insecurity (both reduced quality and intake).
No matter the category given, food insecurity has serious effects. This is most evident in the need for 66% of Feeding America customer households to choose between medical care and food, according to a 2014 study. Considering many food insecure individuals have diabetes or high blood pressure, medical care can be critical. A study by the Bread for the World Institute in 2014 estimated hunger creates $160 billion in healthcare costs. This includes mental health problems, nutrition related issues, and hospitalizations among other potential costs.
Further, 13 million of food insecure individuals are children and 4.9 million are seniors: two critical groups whose bodies rely on proper nutrition. For example, the effects of hunger in children have been known to delay development, cause behavioral problems, and even increase the chances a child will repeat a grade.
One solution for food insecurity is federal food assistance programs. Indeed, 59% of food insecure households are part of at least one major federal food assistance program— but 25% of households do not qualify. The most well-known of these federal programs is SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. SNAP requires your gross income be at or below the poverty line by 130%, allowing for adjustments with family size. Still, the average amount per person is around $133.07 a month—or less than $1.50 per meal.
The desired solution though is the end of food insecurity in America. A major force behind this future is the domestic nonprofit, and hunger relief organization, Feeding America. Feeding America supports food banks, funds research, provides meal programs, mobilizes anti-hunger advocacy, and educates the public among other initiatives.
Overall, Feeding America and its partners served 1 out of 7 Americans in 2017. It was able to do so as it works together with 200 food banks and 60,000 pantries. Each affiliated food bank, a non-profit that stores food for smaller organizations, is evaluated according to industry practices and food safety laws. Additionally, all staff receive food safety training. These practices ensure all food is safe when distributed at the food pantries, which directly serve their communities.
Much of the food was higher quality too: around 1.3 billion pounds of nutritional food was delivered to food banks in 2017. Some food is food waste, in 2017 3.3 billion pounds were rescued from landfills and redistributed for consumption from partner companies, such as Starbucks. And all these small initiatives are directly helping communities, making food security an increasing possibility for the future.
TERESA NOWALK is a student at the University of Virginia studying anthropology and history. In her free time she loves traveling, volunteering in the Charlottesville community, and listening to other people’s stories. She does not know where her studies will take her, but is certain writing will be a part of whatever the future has in store.
Dumbfoundead (real name Jonathan Park) is a Korean American rapper who has never backed down from a battle—rap or otherwise. He sings about the Asian American experience in his work and is vocal about the lack of Asians in popular culture. Once he took the mic, he never looked back.
A vivid exploration of American culture, this video shows different parts of the country from the perspective of a road trip. While it starts in New York City, it is hardly limited to urban environments and looks at many different parts of the country.
