Within the past two months, the United States has witnessed two of the worst mass shootings in its history: the first in Nevada, the second in Texas. Both attackers were widely regarded as lone wolves with mental problems and troubled pasts.
There was another terrorist attack in New York City that occurred between the other two shootings. This attack was considered a part of a larger problem, often labeled by some politicians as an act of Islamic extremism.
President Donald Trump, being one of the politicians who links violent acts to a particular region, skin color or religion, quickly responded as expected — by tweeting about the need to keep people of different ethnicities, nationalities and beliefs out of our country.
It’s easy for many Americans to passively accept these prejudiced ideas because the people hurt by them are unknown. When someone is seen as “the other,” that person loses his or her humanity, and empathy is lost via immoral judgements of how to treat him or her.
In order to humanize those who have been discriminated against by some politicians, I have turned the tables and applied Trump’s theories to, arguably, the most powerful demographic in America: white men.
- White men came to this nation as illegal aliens. They destroyed the land, putting burger restaurants on every corner and disregarding the great cultures that once existed here. Bringing violence, disease and strange cultures, they conquered innocent people and tore down the monuments to a great, Native-American heritage.
- We need to make America great again. The way to do that — if one is to judge people according to stereotypes — is to force all white men to emigrate.
- Just look at the way they bring crime to our towns and cities. Mass shootings and tax evasion are destroying the great foundations of the Americas: sharing land and resources while respecting neighbors. These are some bad guys.
- We need to secure the border with Canada. People are flooding in without being checked to see if they could be the next mass shooters. We need extreme vetting of people from majority-Christian nations.
- How can we know their birth certificates are legitimate? We can’t. That’s why the U.S. only has one option to restore law and order, to secure our nation and make it great again: secure our borders from countries with majority white populations and deport the ones who are here illegally.
Putting ourselves in the shoes of those who are marginalized is important in understanding even a small taste of the experiences of those marginalized by our government. If it sounds ridiculous to treat one group of people in this manner, it’s probably because it’s ridiculous to treat any group of people that way.
Daniel Payne is a sophomore integrated marketing communications major from Collierville, Tennessee.
