film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

.

How It Feels as a Latino to Watch Donald Trump's Latest Hate Speech

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | September 1, 2016 |

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | September 1, 2016 |


For those who haven’t seen Donald Trump’s speech from Arizona last night, it was nothing short of terrifying. He was aggressive and hateful, and delivered the kind of speech that could incite mob violence. It was like a halftime speech, only Trump wasn’t rallying his team for a come from behind victory. He was inspiring them to go out and commit acts of violence against Mexicans.

Here’s a good edit of the speech from Rachel Maddow’s show.

There was a lot written about the speech last night, some early takes that didn’t sit well (especially from a NYTimes article that was edited and rewritten overnight after it completely failed to capture the tenor of Trump’s speech), but much more will be written about it today and in the days to come. It hopefully will signal the end of Trump’s hopes for the Presidency; unfortunately, it’s only likely to grow the legend of Trump, position him as the leader of a movement of hate, no matter whether he wins or loses in November.

Little, however, will capture the fear and hate that it fueled better than this Tweet stream from The Vagina Avenger. Most of us can look upon Trump’s speech and shake our head in disgust, and call it out for the gross speech that it was. But for many people of color, the speech was more than that. It was a speech that increased the size of the target that’s already on their backs. It was a speech in which Donald Trump tried to violently turn his base against Latinos.

This is how that feels:

Latinos are not the enemy. Mexicans are not the enemy. Undocumented, illegal immigrants aren’t the enemy. People who commit violence — and those like Donald Trump who inspire bloodshed — are the enemy, and they can be of any color or political persuasion.