News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Jan. 25, 2019: On a day weekend when millions paused to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Donald Trump choose to again use immigrants as pawns in his con-game to get funding for a wall of slats on the US’ southern border.
On a weekend when Dr. King’s 1963 “dream” of “little black boys and black girls” being able “to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers” is sinking back into the “quicksands” of renewed national racism thanks to Trump, the President again choose to make immigrants his pawn in the ‘Let’s Make A Deal’ saga.
Trump, the self-acclaimed deal maker, who turned down an offer of $20 billion from Democrats in 2018 for his “wall” in exchange for a path to citizenship for Dreamers, had the audacity to believe that Democrats would dole over $5 billion of taxpayer money in exchange for a Harum Scarum offer to kick the can down the road. His dimwitted, pre-owned, car sales man scam to now let the same immigrants whose DACA and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) protection he revoked soon after taking office, stay in the US “temporarily” for another three years, is preposterous.
In other words, simply postpone the limbo these migrants are living in for three years while adding to the country’s debt burden for his big beautiful wall – a clear symbol of racism and segregation.
Then he spent the next day trying to appease his racist hardline supporters like Ann Coulter that his deal was not “amnesty for immigrants” as she dubbed it.
Not at all, he said, and his party went along with the piped pier, singing his praise and sucking down the Kool-Aid; lauding him for putting forward the same deal they rejected and could not pass in the House or the Senate just last year when the controlled all branches of government.
But then came the kicker; the touch down the audacity Super Bowl. Trump, on MLK Day, actually had the cohones to quote Dr. King, tweeting that MLK stood “… up for the self-evident truth Americans hold so dear, that no matter what the color of our skin or the place of our birth, we are all created equal by God.”
Say what? Did you read that quote before you tweeted it or did someone tweet it for you? How then do you explain the continual lies and demonization you have done of people of color and immigrant, since beginning your campaign for the Presidency and as President?
Then his vice president, with a straight face, actually had the temerity to use Dr. King’s words to justify the wall trick to keep out brown and black immigrants.
In defending Trump’s shut down of the government and his 31-plus day standoff with Congress over $5.7 billion in funding for the wall Mexico was supposed to pay for, he quoted Dr. King on CBS’ “Face the Nation, stating: ‘Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.’”
But he was not done. Pence continued: “You think of how he changed America. He inspired us to change through the legislative process to become a more perfect union. That’s exactly what President Trump is calling on the Congress to do. Come to the table in a spirit of good faith.”
Talk about disrespect! Get out of here Mike Pence and take the con artist with you!
Dr. King must be turning over in his grave just hearing his words taken out of context and being paraphrased by bigots who see greatness of America as going backward to a time when it was less dark.
To quote Dr. King: “It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment.” This moment in our history of 2019; we have a choice – we can choose whether we go backwards in xenophobia, racism, hatred, disrespect and negativity; or move forward with love, light and respect for all, beyond skin color, religion and nationality.
That is the real state of emergency in these United States, not just at the southern border.
The writer is CMO at Hard Beat Communications, Inc. which owns the brands: NewsAmericasNow, CaribPRWire and InvestCaribbeanNow.
