Christopher Lemmer Webber is a user on octodon.social. You can follow them or interact with them if you have an account anywhere in the fediverse.
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Trump didn't say all immigrants were animals, but directly called MS-13 members "animals" and "vicious animals". This comment doesn't necessarily apply to all immigrants one could say, however it's been Trump's modus operandi to paint immigrants and entire ethnic groups under the guise of criminals, and I think there was a strong implication of this.
@catonano@cwebber Doubly so when there's pretty strong evidence that people are getting flagged as gang members just so there's an excuse to deport them.
So saying "I was just talking about MS-13" is a distinction without a difference when you also have said "all brown people are probably MS-13 anyway."
@gamehawk@catonano And I guess that's why I didn't bother to be clearer about Trump's statement originally. I was called out on being imprecise by someone I respect though, and that made me question if I should have worded things differently.
@cwebber@catonano Yeah, I think that's been kind of an ugly tactic: yelling at news outlets for "fake news" because he wasn't "really" calling them animals.
As someone whose mother has referred to Syrian refugees, and whose husband is half Syrian (and whose grandparents were refugees), I have to say: "OH HIS BASE HEARD *EXACTLY* WHAT HE WAS SAYING."
uspol, trump, slurs Show more
@cwebber
Even if they're criminals, calling them animals is wrong anyway
They are still human beings
Dehumanization is dehumanization even when applied to a smaller group