Leopards Ate My Face

It’s like arguing with someone who goes into specifics and then overtime pulls them back.

“I only have a problem with hispanic, illegal, transgender immigrants”

“I only have a problem with immigrants”

“I only have a problem with you”

I’ve often thought about that moment—the unnecessary injection of racial anxiety into my otherwise normal school day—when I think about the irony of progressive identity politics. My parents, both born in India but educated in America, would laugh about their well-intentioned but misguided friends who, in their eagerness to ward off the idea of “otherness,” ended up contributing to it.

So the people who knew the country well enough to see what was coming told you what was coming. You ignored them, your parents laughed at them.

But then a few days ago, I opened X to see my feed populated with anti-Indian vitriol—calling the country where my parents were born “filthy” and its people “filthy and undesirable.” Some condemned these comments but many others agreed, and still others criticized the critics for crying racism. But I could see it for what it was: raw bigotry.

Huh.

But now, we must all reckon with an ugly part of the MAGA agenda they did not realize existed.

Everyone who's head wasn't buried in the sand or laughing about "the irony of progressive politics" realized they existed.

And so, if Trump’s win is a revolutionary moment for MAGA, the people who voted for the revolution need to define which MAGA they believe in. Does “making America great again” revive the ideals of this country—or the grievances of a group of “native-born” Americans? If MAGA chooses the latter, those on the left who were dismissed as hysterical for crying racism will be vindicated in the worst way.

Whew, still not getting it I see. MAGA has made that choice already, and it hasn't moved one bit during the time MAGA has existed.

I didn’t want to fracture that pride with the news of an ugly turn in our country’s politics. How do you tell someone the country they’ve loved for 50 years is harboring a growing faction that wishes he’d never come?

I think you can only tell them to pay attention next time and not laugh at those trying to give you a clue.

My grandfather voted for Trump three times. Now, part of that movement is calling immigrants like him ‘filthy.’

Your grandfather empowered them and is part of the problem.

Damn, it's only January and my schadenfreude gland is already getting fatigued.

Apparently the writer has barely paid any attention to what's been going on over the last 10 years...

Her turning point:

But then a few days ago, I opened X to see my feed populated with anti-Indian vitriol—calling the country where my parents were born “filthy” and its people “filthy and undesirable.” Some condemned these comments but many others agreed, and still others criticized the critics for crying racism. But I could see it for what it was: raw bigotry.

Same old story:

My life is filled with immigrants from India and Nigeria and Lebanon and the Dominican Republic—many of whom are definitionally the “working class”—who voted for Trump. They are family members and neighbors, cafe owners who greet me by name, doctors, cleaning ladies, the mailman, my Cape Verdean babysitter-turned-friend of many years. All of them opposed illegal immigration while defending Trump from critics: “He’s not anti-legal immigration, he’s anti-illegal immigration,” they’d said. “I’m pro-legal immigration—make it easier to do it the lawful way,” they’d say.

I will never understand how people can't see it's thinly veiled racism when it comes from the GOP.

How brave. Going out and broadcasting to the world just how dense you are.

Whaaaaaat? You mean the bigotry and vitriol of the GOP isn't limited to Mexicans, Hatians, Chinese, Guatemalans, Columbians, Cubans, Women, Gays, Transgender, Liberals, Muslims, Jews, Palestinians, Athiests, Americans wanting affordable healthcare, Americans wanting a living wage, Americans wanting affordable housing, Americans wanting renewable clean energy, Americans wanting a clean environment, immigrants, healthcare workers fighting a global pandemic, journalists, hecklers, and generally anybody who does not vote Republican?

Please add any groups that I forgot.

"But then a few days ago...."

What, you crawled out from under a rock?

Vivek fucks up recently so the racism against Indians surges, and now this person finally can't ignore it any more. "Oh wow they don't just hate Mexicans, Muslims, Haitians, illegal immigrants, and so on, they hate people like ME too?" And she's so deeply affected that she... doesn't say anything about it to her Trump voting family members for risk of upsetting them. You're a day late and a dollar short, lady. Or a decade late, a decade full of telling people who were warning you the whole time that they're wrong.

Do we just have to wait for the infighting to swallow up all of the token "good ones" one by one then try to pick up the pieces afterwards?

I wish there was a poem about what happens when they start rounding up undesirables while you stand by and do nothing, and then they come for you in the end.

Liberals Warned Me About MAGA’s Racism. I Didn’t Believe Them—Until ~~Now~~ it affected me, personally

A tale as old as time

A friend of mine was raised Republican; he'd say, fiscal Republican. He was certain that people without healthcare could just get treated for free for whatever they needed and that POC brought it all on themselves. Generally, he thought that people were nice and good and would take care of each other as long as the people in need weren't miscreants.

Then he met a nice black girl, got married, and had some kids.

Now he's seeing how they're treated differently when they're not together, and how he's treated differently when he's with her.

How family is now all at odds as the grandparents are still in the old camp and aren't sympathetic to his findings and struggles.

The propaganda is hard to work around. They want to believe that there's good and evil in the world and good prevails. It's what their churches tell them. It's not until each one of them individually experiences hardship that they realize that something is off, and they still remain confused as to what's real and what's now.

How do you tell someone the country they’ve loved for 50 years is harboring a growing faction that wishes he’d never come?

I think these three words in this sentence says a lot about the author. My guess is they felt that America didn't really have a racist population or felt it was small? When in reality it's always been quite large but mostly quite. Where now this population doesn't need to whisper anymore and they are seeing it for the first time.

Well then you're an idiot and deserve whatever MAGA does to you. You literally asked them to do it.

It's pretty unfortunate that so many humans are so stupid that they have to suffer before learning obvious lessons. The unfortunate part being that people with regularly functioning brains have to go along for the shit ride with them.

MAGA is founded on racism.

How do you tell someone the country they’ve loved for 50 years is harboring a growing faction that wishes he’d never come?

"The guy you voted for doesn't like you because of where you came from"

My grandfather voted for Trump three times. Now, part of that movement is calling immigrants like him ‘filthy.’

that "part" has always been there, other "parts" of that movement just chose to fucking ignore it for decades upon decades

Yeah they didn't really hide the racism inherent in their anti-immigrant demagoguery.

A good many of the “H1-Bs” from India are Modi supporters and by extension also supported Trump.

My life is filled with immigrants from India and Nigeria and Lebanon and the Dominican Republic—many of whom are definitionally the “working class”—who voted for Trump.

Another word for those people is "Idiots". Trumps base lives off racism. Anyone who did not understand this from the start basically deserves being hit by it. This includes both the idiots who did vote for Trump as well as the idiots who did not care to vote. I'm really sorry for all the other people who will fall victims of this political desaster, though.

They had money to be able to live as the middle class, and thought that brought them acceptance. They didn't realize they were lulled into voting R only to be discarded after the vote.

People who think politics is some kind of sports fandom are dumb and annoying.

But they voted republican with a soft R