I keep wondering if I am living some type of dystopian nightmare, and then I look at the news and see that this administration is prioritizing the refugee resettlement of WHITE SOUTH AFRICANS, and I know in fact it is not a nightmare but a waking brutal reality of white supremacy and Christian Nationalism.
As someone who cut her teeth in activism in the anti-apartheid movement and currently devotes a good portion of her life to work with South Sudanese refugees in Uganda, my rage and anger toward this is incalculable.
I know people have different priorities. I know that people make their political choices for a variety of reasons. I know elections have consequences and that an administration has a right to set its priorities. I even agree there is a lot of government waste and especially support an audit of defense spending.
But cutting off vital aid that saves the lives of the poorest people throughout the work through the humanitarian work of the United States Agency for International Development, which I have seen firsthand, and by the way makes us far safer than any military presence ever could, and elevating refugee settlements of white South Africans is repugnant and indefensible. Don’t even try — anyone who embraces these acts is boldly proclaiming they don’t care about justice, kindness or mercy, but they are heavily invested in racism. Full stop.
The lies about the humanitarian aid of USAID’s humanitarian work is just that — propaganda and lies. Are they perfect? No. Can an administration set their priorities? Yes. But there is a difference between tweaking something and throwing out the baby, the bathwater, the basin and the desire to be made clean.
Wake up people. This isn’t normal. This isn’t what this country has come to represent in the world. We are well on our way to becoming the pariah that South Africa was in the 1970 and ’80s. And that does not make America great. But it sure makes Americans incredibly unsafe. It is not just morally indefensible, it is profoundly dangerous.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.” — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Don’t be silent. Pray to God for divine justice, and act by calling your congressional representatives. The only chance we have to stop this onslaught that is an assault on our values is to get the checks and balances back. And that only happens if politicians of all stripes don’t blindly accept whatever this administration serves up on a silver platter, especially when that platter is dripping in the blood of innocents.
If this doesn’t lift the veil of what this administration is really trying to do, then it is clear that people are embracing its white hood.
