I would not find this so concerning if it had not resonated with a significant majority of the Republican electorate.
While some others in contention for the White House on the Republican side understood that their chances hinged on attracting a more diverse electorate in addition to older white people, Trump figuratively spit in the faces of minoritized racial groups, in particular Latinos, during his off-scripted rambling announcement speech last summer.
“The US has become a dumping ground for everyone else’s problems,” he said. “[Mexico is] sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and they’re rapists.”
He eventually enlarged his dehumanizing representations to include people in all of Latin America.
Donald Trump, arguably the more prominent of the so-called “birthers,” continually accused President Obama of illegitimacy as Commander in Chief by claiming that he was born outside the United States, even well after the President released his official birth certificate. This along with his supposed investigations into Mr. Obama’s time spent in Indonesia as a child, and inquiries into his African roots on his father’s side coexist as not-so-veiled xenophobic and racist rants.
Trump and other the anti-immigration activists connect narratives representing immigrants, migrants, and even visitors to our borders with the language of disease, crime, drugs, alien and lower cultural and life forms, of invading hoards, of barbarians at the gates who if allowed to enter will destroy the glorious civilization we have established among the lesser nations of the world.
In addition, Donald Trump on numerous occasions has verbally attacked women on their physical appearance and their bodily functions. He has called for a ban on abortions, and once made illegal, for any woman who continues to have abortions, “There would have to be some form of punishment.”
This is relatively consistent with what we are seeing in the concerted effort, primarily by Republican national and state legislators, to severely restrict women’s reproductive health care options across the country. A number of states offer extremely biased anti-abortion counseling to pregnant women, mandatory ultrasound procedures, and waiting periods for abortions.
In a 2014 National Civility Survey by Weber Shandwick and Powell Tate, with KRC Research, found that about 66% of U.S. citizens believe that we have “a major civility problem” in our country, and 70% believe that “civility has eroded over the past few years.”
We must as a society discuss and examine the social and cultural contexts wherein bullying attitudes and behaviors often stem. I contend that we must not view bullying and harassment as simply youth problems and behaviors, but rather, we need to investigate the contexts in which bullying “trickles down” from the larger society and is reproduced within the schools. Young people, through the process of social learning, often acquire bullying and harassing attitudes and behaviors, and they also often learn the socially-sanctioned targets for their aggressive behaviors.
As young people observe negative role modeling in the society, at home, in the media, at school, and other social sites, they can take on prejudicial judgments and aggressive or violent behaviors. Youth learn behaviors, like verbal and physical aggression, by observing and imitating others even in the absence of behavioral reinforcements.
Psychologist Albert Bandura found that young people can be highly influenced by observing adult behavior, and perceive that such behavior is acceptable, while freeing their own aggressive inhibitions. They are then more likely to behave aggressively in future situations. As Bandura noted, the root meaning of the word “teach” is “to show.”
What kinds of messages are we sending young people as state after state and politician after politician attempt to pass punitive, dehumanizing, and, yes, racist and Islamophobic anti-immigration measures?
And what kinds of messages are we sending young people as state after state and politician after politician attempt to pass legislation restricting women’s rights to control their bodies, including needless and invasive inter-uterine ultrasound procedures, while also attempting to defund family planning and medical clinics like Planned Parenthood, which serve the health needs of women from all walks of life?
As Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein reminded us in one of the songs in their 1949 Broadway musical, “South Pacific”:
“You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught….”
Donald Trump, take note!
