Pat Taub
Since taking office Trump has managed to sign one mean-spirited order after another, but ripping infants and children from their mothers and placing them in cages with little more than Mylar blankets tipped the balance for me, heightening my despair over the direction of our country.
I can’t let go of the now iconic image of the toddler peering out from his little cage, his face full of fright, or images of caged children sleeping on concrete floors, or what one reporter, who managed to slip by security to get into one of the “Tender Age” facilities, described as a long row of highchairs in the cafeteria.
An image that haunts me: a toddler in detention crying for his mother.
While Trump recently rescinded the order to separate children from their parents, the outcome is still horrible: now whole families are caged indefinitely, exacerbated by a weekend Presidential tweet calling for an end to due process for asylum seekers. It’s as if he’s determined to show us that his meanness will always be front and center.
A nation of individuals stuck in despair will accelerate the road to a Fascist America, giving even more license to the Bad Guys. A recent Facebook posting sounds this alarm:
“When I was a rabbi in Berlin under the Hitler regime, the most important thing that I learned was that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problem. The most urgent problem is silence.” – Joachim Prinz
Young boys caged in a detention center forced to sleep on a concrete floor with only paper-thin pads and mylar blankets.
If despair is the absence of hope, then we have to find our footing on the path to hope. Here’s a beacon of light to shine on that path: 2/3 of all Americans oppose Trump’s draconian treatment of migrant children. Another way of reminding ourselves that there’s more of us than there are of them and numbers can make a difference. In a recent interview on RT Ralph Nader insisted that it only takes a hard-working committed 1% of the population to create change!
It’s vital that we keep up the pressure until the 2,500 children separated from their families are reunited with them. We have to challenge the wicked witch, aka Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos’ plan to place migrant kids up for adoption, which is happening under the radar. She’s content to rip a page from “A Handmaid’s Tale” where babies and children are without rights, reduced to being vessels of the state.
The New Yorker cover for their July 2nd issue
A Cautionary Note: limiting action to Facebook rants doesn’t cut the mustard. While we crave support from one another, it’s important to curtail all those hours on Facebook to take action in real time. If we don’t get away from our screens we risk staying in despair.
Some of my friends tell me they can’t always make it to street protests, but that’s not the only way to raise your voice. You can write a letter to the editor; you can support progressive candidates in the upcoming midterm elections by volunteering for their campaigns. You can phone your Congressional representatives, insisting that migrant families not be detained indefinitely, while calling for an end to ICE, which increasingly behaves like the Gestapo.
Hope Savage, a WOW Facebook member, protesting against children being caged.
Hope builds incrementally. Every time I take even a small action I feel better. I believe that this time Trump has gone too far. I’m encouraged by the rising national support for migrants fleeing crime-infested homelands. Democrat governors Andrew Cuomo and John Hickenlooper, and Republican governor Charlie Baker have refused to send their state’s National Guard to support ICE detentions.
Over the weekend members of Congress spoke to the press after visiting detention centers. Several broke down while delivering their remarks.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D, WA) speaks after meeting with detained mothers whom she said “couldn’t stop crying.”
Let’s show the world that America is composed of big-hearted caring citizens and not accurately represented by the malevolent crew that’s running Washington.
