This was emotional for me. I posted part of my response on Facebook, reproduced below.
But I have a bit more to say (mostly emotional)
My dad was in the Air Force and he did several tours in Japan (and yes, he fought in Vietnam, twice)
We lived on Air Force bases/housing complexes. We had sports teams, and from time to time, we’d play Japanese teams.
If you looked at the Japanese teams, there was a uniformity to them. The Americans: well…black, white, brown, yellow, and mixtures thereof..different types of facial features, different types of hair, and different skin tones. THAT is us! And yes, we did look forward to “returning home”..that is, to the US. Most of us did get homesick..albeit for different regions of the country.
I’ll leave the rest to a President that I did not care for: Ronald Reagan:
“America represents something universal in the human spirit. I received a letter not long ago from a man who said, ‘You can go to Japan to live, but you cannot become Japanese. You can go to France to live and not become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey, and you won’t become a German or a Turk.’ But then he added, ‘Anybody from any corner of the world can come to America to live and become an American.’?”
A person becomes an American by adopting America’s principles, especially those principles summarized in the “self-evident truths” of the Declaration of Independence, such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of ?happiness.” Carl Friedrich wrote that “To be an American is an ideal, while to be a Frenchman is a fact.”
(yes, he was attacking liberals, but this paragraph is right on point..though I’d add that becoming an American does NOT mean accepting right wing ideology.)
I posted the following on Facebook:
I am not here to defend “the four” (though I actually like Omar and have given her a small amount of money). That isn’t the point.
Yes, POTUS and anyone else has the right to criticize their beliefs, their proposed policies and their visions. Disagreeing with them is fine.
But Trump implied that they had some “country” to “go back to.” No. They are Americans. Yes, 3 were born in the US and one was naturalized. But Americans they remain and Americans have the right to argue that WE…their country, my country and your country, ought to be doing something differently. And you have every right to counter them.
But…
1. IMHO, liberals have “cried wolf” when it comes to claiming that something is “racist” (or misogynistic, or sexist, or anti-Semetic or Islamaphoic, etc.), too many times.
So cries of “racism” from liberals about these remarks are probably going to fall of deaf ears..kind of like the hum of the air conditioner.
This is why I really love it when conservatives speak up.
No one is going to listen to me, even though I make an effort to pick my battles.
2. And for my fellow dark skin brothers and sisters who have problems with liberals…my goodness I hear you.
All too often liberals discount our abilities…in indirect ways. Example: I am going to a math conference and one of the speakers claims that, well, math is too “white male” and needs to be changed so that others can have success. I wonder if she, say, flies on airplanes that have been designed by “woke” engineering and physics, or takes medicines that have been designed by “woke” science.
I still remember a minority program where they talk about “first generation” minority students feeling as if they don’t belong academically in college and wondered about our experiences.
I quipped: “it was hard for me to inferior since *I* was the one helping others with *their* calculus homework. That was NOT the answer they were looking for.
When they try to press us…they have a hard time accepting :I put my head down, studied and did the work” as an answer.
Seriously, at times, conservatives are much better at encouragement: “hey, do you want it? Then WORK…you are better than you think!”
Nevertheless, no matter how well you do professionally, there are large segments of the country…mostly Trump voters, who will NEVER accept you. To them, you will always be, at most, a welcome guest…”one of the good ones.” They aren’t worth your time.
Life of an old goat 