Remember when Dylann Roof committed an egregious act of violence against the black community by murdering members of a historically black parish in South Carolina, and we swiftly moved to racially profile the white race and banned anyone from historically Christian nations from coming into our country? Wait, that didn’t happen. Well, when Adam Lanza and James Holmes both committed mass shootings, we definitely supported racist stop-and-frisk methods to curb that violence. Hold on, that didn’t happen either. Yet, a few isolated incidents happen domestically, and our president calls for what has now been called the “Muslim ban.”
I’m just slightly confused by this logic.
I may be just some run-of-the-mill white kid trying to play, my much-hated phrase, “social justice warrior,” but this is one action of President Donald J. Trump that I cannot sit on the sidelines for. At its core, it is xenophobia and fear tactics disguised as security measurements. Furthermore, it was an executive order and not something that went through the houses of Congress. While it is not as awful as Franklin Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese-Americans, it is a racist idea at its core and not what we as a country should ever stand for. The logic behind “ISIS practices Islam; therefore, all Muslims are bad” is the same thing as a foreign country banning American white males because they are statistically more likely to commit shootings.
If you voted for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Vermin Supreme, Gary Johnson or whoever else you could’ve written in, that’s fine. If you think that it is fine to stay put while legal U.S. residents are stripped of their rights, that is not fine. Currently, people’s lives are being politicized. Too often we have rejected the desperate pleas of others and sent them back to slaughter under the guise of protecting our borders, and it has been done by both political parties. We always find ourselves saying that if we were alive during slavery, the Holocaust or other egregious acts with gross disdain for human rights, we would have done the right thing. Well, now we find ourselves in one of those situation. Do the right thing: call your congressman or your senator and oppose this ban.
Tyler Corbit is a freshman studying journalism with a focus in strategic communication at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. What do you think of Trump's executive order? Let Tyler know by tweeting him @tylercorbit.
