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An open and honest letter to Republicans about Trump’s Obamas as apes video.

 

"It’s just a meme.” No, it isn’t. What it is is permission for awful, racist people to publicly spew their filth and to be vindicated.

 

The imagery of Blacks as apes or monkeys has a long history, and you damn sure know it. (You did take social studies classes.) You know it was used to justify slavery, to justify lynchings, to make slavery and segregation and the Jim Crow era feel natural. You know that every genocide starts with the same first steps of convincing one group that another group is less than human. (You did take world history class.)

 

You know all this. So when the White House dismisses this as "fake outrage," they're not just defending a racist video.* They're training you to accept a little more cruelty, laugh at a little more contempt, and treat dehumanization like it's just politics. And every time you excuse it, it’s another step toward condoning a government of and for white supremacists.

 

Which means silence isn't neutral. Your silence communicates something specific to Black and dark-skinned people everywhere. And it communicates something specific to your children. They are watching to see if you want them to live with love or with hate. That’s how it works.

 

And none of that “it was only two seconds.” If someone sent you a minute long video with “only” two seconds of child pornography, would you shrug it off? Would you call reactions “fake outrage”

 

Of course not.

 

Because you know as well as I do that some things are disqualifying. So here is my question: Where is the disqualifying line for you? What would Donald Trump have to do for you to say publicly, “I can no longer support this.”

 

Because you have every right to never turn from him. Absolutely you have that right. But if there is no line that he cannot cross then you have met every criteria for being in a cult.

 

Which then means you no longer think for yourself, care what happens to others, or truly love America. You think whatever Trump tells you to think; you care only what happens to whoever Trump tells you to care about; and your loyalty is not to the flag or the Constitution or the country but to Donald Trump.

 

You’re better than that. I know you are.

 

*Trump almost certainly posted this. It was his personal account. But even if someone else at his White House posted it he defended the video. And he did not willingly take it down. It stayed up for 12 solid hours and only was taken down when Tim Scott, the National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman, warned Trump how damaging this was to every GOP senate candidate.