The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Scorecard of hate is leaving many casualities
What do we talk about when we talk about hate?
It’s such a strong emotion that’s enjoying an unbridled Renaissance in this age of fabulist facts and the rise of “the other” as the focus of certain Caucasian blather, and worse, that is curated, if not thoroughly prompted, by the Tweeterin-Chief.
I can’t think of anyone I actually hate.
I mean, if I saw a pickup truck with a Connecticut Citizens Defense League sticker on the back window, seesawing on a guardrail, I wouldn’t drive by — pun intended — without feeling concerned, and stopping to see whether the driver shot himself.
The guy in the White House would be comic relief, if he weren’t so scary and empowering for the haters.
As a white guy, I don’t have to deal with more than a few, occasional scorching emails from readers who ... ah ... disagree.
But for people of color and the foreign-born, President Trump has not only given the nod and wink to fulminating white inadequacy, he’s all thumbs-up, as if a wall along the border with Mexico is the answer to the changing nature of the social structure and employment environment in American, which he tapped into like a geyser in 2016, almost winning the popular vote.
“The number of neo-Nazi chapters grew by 22 — to 121 in
2017 — as young people flooded into the movement after imbibing its ideas online on gaming sites and mainstream platforms,” says a recent report by the hate watchers in the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center. “Reckless energy, bickering and violence plagued the white nationalist movement in 2017.”
There were an estimated 250,000 hate crimes last year, up more than 40 times the 6,121 events the FBI reported for 2016. “The significant increase over the last two years coincides with Donald Trump’s racist, xenophobic campaign and its immediate aftermath,” the SPLC says.
You probably need a scorecard to tell neo-Nazis from White Supremacists, but Connecticut has both of them, according to the SPLC’s annual map of hate. We have the Act for America anti-Muslim group in Cheshire; Vanguard America neo-Nazis in Hartford; and for “General Hate,” there is the American Guard, statewide.
What got me thinking about this was the debate of more than six hours the other day, with Connecticut Republicans putting up roadblocks in the House of Representatives, in attempt to derail a bill that after years of trying, will allow foreign-born students here without legal permission to access the institutional financial aid at state colleges and universities they already pay into but were barred from obtaining.
For anyone watching this debate, it was a harbinger of the fall elections, with a divisive flavor that could leave right-thinking people with a nasty taste in their mouths as the campaigns heat up. The bill passed 91-59, with 13 Republicans siding with Democrats.
A couple days later, I asked Gov. Dannel Malloy about the young adults who were brought here as kids, the other, and the fear of the ultra-cons. It was in his Capitol office, minutes after he signed the bill into law, surrounded by the young adults called Dreamers.
“I think almost on a daily basis our president calls for hate to be spread,” Malloy said. “He does it in his own statements. And for the largest part of our democracy, we have had presidents who we were urged to — or naturally — emulated. I think there’s a certain amount of emulation going on with respect to the despicable things the president says.”
Right after the bill signing, Malloy said that after all the support the Dreamers received in their public educations growing up, letting them tap into their own financial aid only makes sense. “What we’re making available for students is the same sort of assistance that we make available to documented students who have graduated from our high schools,” he said. “Why wouldn’t we do it with respect to folks that we have invested literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in educating? We should maximize the effect of our investment.”
There’s an illusion of equality in this state, where the minorities — and newly arrived foreign-born — are largely confined to the cities, with troubled schools and inadequate job opportunities. Throughout the state, the Trumpians are flexing their hate.
I’m looking forward to this discussion during the upcoming election campaigns. You should demand it.
“I think almost on a daily basis our president calls for hate to be spread. He does it in his own statements. And for the largest part of our democracy, we have had presidents who we were urged to — or naturally — emulated. I think there’s a certain amount of emulation going on with respect to the despicable things the president says.”
Gov. Dannel Malloy