Donald Trump's reference last Thursday to Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as "shitholes" should certainly come as no surprise given his long, openly racist record. The two positives to take from this are that first, it makes it crystal clear that racism is not an issue confined solely to the past in American society, and that second, it provides cause for the majority of decent Americans to once again reaffirm their commitment to strive to continue the struggle to effectuate the founding words of the nation, that "we hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal." There was no better time for this to come to a head than on the eve of the annual Martin Luther King holiday.
Trump's documented record of racism is a long one. It dates all the way back to the 1970s when he was fined as a discriminatory landlord. It continued through his anti-Obama "birther" pronouncements. His 2016 presidential campaign statements against Mexicans and blacks were right up the same alley. Trump's Charlottesville comments last year opining that there were "many fine people" among the neo-Nazis and Klansmen there chanting anti-Semitic, anti-Latino and anti-black slogans earned him the full-throated endorsements of America's Nazi, Klan, and so-called "alt right" movements.
Condemnation from the Haitian government, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the African Union have made it clear how much international damage has been done by referring to entire races and continental populations as people devoid of human worth. Now that such blatant racism is out in the open and globally recognized, it is more important than ever that decent Americans, regardless of their overall political beliefs, publicly reject these sentiments in favor of the conviction that we are all God's children who deserve the dignity and love due fellow human creatures.
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