Burning Bridges

I'm London born but live in the United States and have dual British/American citizenship. So I'm doubly appalled that Donald Trump has decided to attack the mayor of London, who happens to be of Muslim heritage, instead of focusing on the terrorists who killed seven and injured forty-eight people in Southwark.

John Cassidy is right on the money in his piece in The New Yorker yesterday (link here) with the title "Trump's London Tweets: How Low Can He Stoop?" It's disgraceful and destructive that Trump is so openly hostile to one of America's strongest allies yet utterly silent about contemptuous dictators like Vladimir Putin who only want to weaken the United States.

It's curious how Trump is so obsessed with what happened in London, an incident that isn't even in America, and hasn't shut up about it, yet he's been utterly silent about the mass-shooting that occurred in Florida yesterday that resulted in six deaths.

Could it be because the suspects in the London shooting were brown Muslim men whereas the Florida shooter was a lily-white Christian man?

Racial animosity is underlying many of Trump's actions, as the last few days have demonstrated. He has a long history of discriminating against African-Americans, including outright refusing to rent to them as a landlord, a blatant violation of the law. He's long behaved hatefully toward Hispanics. It's no different with Muslims, the majority of whom have browner skin and don't hail from western European roots.

Trump's behavior in the last few days exposes the truth for all to see: he is a shameless, unrepentant racist. If you're brown, he has you in his cross-hairs, no matter what, but if you're white, you get a free pass.