2016 Election:
Americans and
Discrimination
3/20/2016 7:45 pm - Updated
By Adicus Finkbeiner
This upcoming presidential election already has the country agitated. Everywhere we look it is being mentioned and yet at the forefront of the race there is a man who spews racism against minorities in the US and around the world. However Donald Trump isn’t the only example of discrimination in politics at the moment, the majority of the Presidential candidates on the Republican side stated that they would not allow refugees fleeing a war-torn Syria to come into our country. These opinions being so widespread throughout our country are demonstrating just how unaccepting we have become. The United States was a country founded by immigrants, and yet here we are attempting to deny those in need access, those who would seek to lead us spread racism and insult people based off of their place of origin, is that a country you want to be a part of?
Donald Trump and Blatant Racism:
As most of you are well aware the Republican front-runner for the GOP nomination is businessman and reality TV star, Donald Trump. What makes Trump so remarkable is not his checkered business career, or him starring on his own television show, The Apprentice, but rather his outrageous statements regarding minorities in America. As seen in the quote on the right Trump has generalized Mexican and Latino immigrants as drug dealers, rapists, and other types of criminals. This is just one of many statements Donald Trump has made regarding Latinos, but it’s not just his statements that earn our disapproval but his actions. After two of his supporters attacked a 58-year-old Hispanic homeless man in Boston, breaking his nose and urinating on him. Allegedly, they told police they targeted the man because of his ethnicity and stated “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.” Rather than condone these violent actions Trump responded by saying “I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country and want this country to be great again. They are passionate.” Rather than condone this act of violence by his supporters the presidential candidate chose to applaud their “passion.” It doesn’t stop there, along with the many cries of racism there is an ongoing lawsuit filed by a former campaign organizer of Donald Trump’s, Elizabeth Mae Davidson, that accuses his campaign of discrimination based on sex. Ms. Davidson stated that she was being paid less than her male counterparts and also being denied the right to speak at public rallies, while many of her male co workers were allowed to. Well this case is currently ongoing it is safe to say that Trump’s campaign may discriminate against people in more ways than just race. As a presidential candidate what Donald Trump represents the American people to the rest of the world, is this how we want to be seen? As a people that openly discriminate against others for trivial reasons such as race or gender?
The Syrian Refugee Crisis
Donald Trump however is not the only discriminatory factor in this upcoming election, multiple other candidates stances on the Syrian refugee crisis discriminate against the Syrian refugees. Well all of the conservative candidates want to keep the refugees out of our country some of them take it even further, in particular Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz have both stated they would be willing to take in refugees but only those of the Christian faith. In my eyes this is worse than flat out saying they don’t want the refugees, this is blatant religious discrimination, which is protected under our bill of Rights. When multiple presidential candidates have openly made racist remarks that violate the US constitution you can’t help but wonder where our country is headed. The people who seek to lead us would openly discriminate based on religious affiliation, that is disgraceful. Our country has taken in less than 15,000 Syrian refugees in the past five years and 10,000 of those were from a single proclamation of Obama's. Meanwhile smaller countries such as Turkey have spent over five billion dollars in aiding refugees and Jordan has taken in over 630,000 refugees, who now make up more than 10% of the country's population. Our country, one of, if not the strongest in the world does less to aid those fleeing persecution in Syria than countries less than a hundredth of our size, to make matters worse our leaders discriminate these people fleeing a war-torn country based on their faith.
All of this just goes to show what disgrace our presidential election has become in this upcoming year. Half of the candidates blatantly discriminate against others due to race or religion, ours was a country founded with the ideals of freedom for all in every facet of life, and now the people who seek to lead us would wish to violate these freedoms. If we, as Americans, want to remain as one of the greatest countries in the world than we have to work on fixing our country internally. We must do away with the bigot’s who attempt to run us such as Donald Trump and keep our country great!
