Guno צְבִי
We fight, We win, Am Yisrael Chai
In its assumption that black and brown women are immigrants, and that immigrants are less American than citizens, the attack was undeniably connected to the four Congresswomen’s races. As such, it was rooted in those parts of American history that should bring us the most shame.
But it was also an assault on the very idea of citizenship itself, in its suggestion that four Americans could possibly belong anywhere else. Though Trump did not suggest he wanted to deport them, the tweets had the whiff of wishful thinking – if only we could be free of these women. Because they are U.S. citizens alone, this wish was a wish for four people to be rendered stateless.
For proof that this is what Trump’s supporters heard in his words, we only had to wait for him to repeat the attack at a rally. “They don’t love our country. They are so angry,” he said. “If they don’t like it let them leave.”
It’s something we Jews know all too well. Before the Nazis began their extermination of six million Jews, they revoked their citizenship. It was a crucial first step, argued the political theorist Hannah Arendt, herself an escapee of a concentration camp. As merely humans, rather than Germans or Poles, the Jews were not only disposable to the Nazis but to the rest of the world.
https://forward.com/opinion/427917/...&utm_campaign=Opinion&utm_maildate=07/18/2019
But it was also an assault on the very idea of citizenship itself, in its suggestion that four Americans could possibly belong anywhere else. Though Trump did not suggest he wanted to deport them, the tweets had the whiff of wishful thinking – if only we could be free of these women. Because they are U.S. citizens alone, this wish was a wish for four people to be rendered stateless.
For proof that this is what Trump’s supporters heard in his words, we only had to wait for him to repeat the attack at a rally. “They don’t love our country. They are so angry,” he said. “If they don’t like it let them leave.”
It’s something we Jews know all too well. Before the Nazis began their extermination of six million Jews, they revoked their citizenship. It was a crucial first step, argued the political theorist Hannah Arendt, herself an escapee of a concentration camp. As merely humans, rather than Germans or Poles, the Jews were not only disposable to the Nazis but to the rest of the world.
https://forward.com/opinion/427917/...&utm_campaign=Opinion&utm_maildate=07/18/2019