{"id":594250,"date":"2018-06-22T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2018-06-22T18:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=594250"},"modified":"2018-06-23T11:50:06","modified_gmt":"2018-06-23T17:50:06","slug":"long-standing-oppressive-systems-enable-trumps-cruelty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/06\/long-standing-oppressive-systems-enable-trumps-cruelty\/","title":{"rendered":"Long-standing oppressive systems enable Trump\u2019s cruelty"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tent

Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p>

The tent city at a border crossing in Tornillo, Texas where immigrant children are being held.<\/p><\/div>\n

COMMENTARY:<\/strong> I\u2019m relieved that President Donald Trump has agreed to stop separating immigrant children from their parents<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But only a little relieved. Because there\u2019s no plan<\/a> to reunify the already-snatched children with their families. Because Trump now wants to detain immigrant families indefinitely<\/a> while cases take months or years to be resolved. Because children are still being abused<\/a>. Because asylum-seekers<\/a> aren\u2019t being treated appropriately<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And because I question whether the outrage over Trump\u2019s intentional traumatization of kids<\/a> sparked an awakening about the need to dismantle our oppressive systems, or whether this nation will return to thinking everything is OK.<\/p>\n

Our troubling history weighed heavily on me as I looked upon the tent city<\/a> housing immigrant children in Tornillo, Texas on Sunday. I felt shame as I watched boys play soccer.<\/p>\n

Trump took kids from their parents, locked them up and let the world know we\u2019ll do the same to other children. The cruel trauma he inflicted will last generations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Heath

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

While Trump is by far the most anti-immigrant president in my lifetime, he\u2019s hardly the first to treat immigrants immorally. For example, Barack Obama<\/a> wanted to indefinitely lock up children with adult family members as a deterrent. A court had to stop him.<\/p>\n

These actions are symptoms of oppressive systems we\u2019ve built over generations. While our economic and military policies contributed to destabilization and desperation in other nations, we built an economy at home that is dependent on undocumented workers. We looked the other way while they picked our fruits and vegetables, cleaned our restaurants and built our homes, because it made life more affordable for us.<\/p>\n

Come they did \u2013 with their hopes and dreams, their resiliency, their children. In spite of Trump\u2019s actions, many are still coming.<\/p>\n

We simultaneously built a for-profit mass incarceration machine, aided and abetted most notably by Bill Clinton<\/a>. Today that machine feeds wealthy prison, health care and social service industries that are influential at all levels of government. Budgets are dependent on filling jail beds. So are American jobs. Somebody has to go there.<\/p>\n

The oligarchy profits greatly<\/a> off oppression. It uses dark money to obfuscate and control by dehumanizing people. It ignites the lizard part of our brains to cause us to divide and fight.<\/p>\n

The oligarchy wins, regardless of the outcome.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, we\u2019ve punted on a partial solution \u2013 real immigration reform \u2013 until immigration has become the defining moral crisis of our era, the point at which many oppressive policies and systems intersect. The resulting devastation reveals that America hasn\u2019t changed. We still prop up our way of life by abusing others.<\/p>\n

We built this nation on the backs of black slaves and by committing genocide against Native Americans. We locked up innocent Japanese Americans during World War II. Our modern immigration laws are rooted in eugenics and white supremacy<\/a>. Clearly, the systems and beliefs we as a nation have supported from our genesis are alive and well.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve all enabled this, if not explicitly then with our tax dollars and votes \u2013 and, too often, with our silence. I\u2019m ashamed of us.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s great to see many people waking up and acting. But standing up to Trump isn\u2019t enough. He won\u2019t be president forever.<\/p>\n

Yes, we must keep fighting this president\u2019s attempts to harm people. We must also acknowledge that every president in recent decades brought us closer to today. Going forward, we must fight with the same zeal and unity to dismantle oppressive systems and stop unjust actions by our government regardless of which political party is in charge. There\u2019s lots of work ahead.<\/p>\n

Heath Haussamen<\/a>\u00a0is NMPolitics.net\u2019s editor and publisher.\u00a0Agree with his opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Going forward, we must fight with the same zeal and unity to dismantle oppressive systems and stop unjust actions by our government regardless of which political party is in charge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":593325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[140,234,3307,143],"class_list":["post-594250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-children","tag-donald-trump","tag-race-and-ethnicity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}