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| Statue of Liberty |
Recent articles in the conservative media point to potential sources for the spread of the Ebola virus to the United States and elsewhere. One of them warns that ISIS "secret weapon" is the virus, said to be spreading in Syria through the troops there. The article also cites Andrew Breitbart's "leaked government study" of infected people coming to the United States across the Southern borders.
The concern is that speculation is cited as news, which leads the public to believe conjecture is truth. This often makes it difficult for anyone to refute this later on, because of the established dictum that it is a problem for people to believe new evidence after they have come to believe an initial account of any given event.
These are the types of fear-laden messages that have been part of US history and carried exponentially through the Internet, so that Americans quote the citations as fact. But it is a pattern that has been carried out during other times, when desperate people have sought to find refuge in America, only to be turned away. And much of the time these people are from the poorer regions of the hemisphere where people of color reside.
Haiti is an island put together by freed slaves under colonialism in a haphazard fashion that meant its governance would be fragmented and inept, often violent, as it has been throughout its history. One after the other island puppets would assume control, rape the island of its minimal economic benefits, until another one of them came to do it again, in a never-ending fashion.
Boatloads of Haitians, hoping for a better life, followed the path of the Cubans, escaping to America in boats badly put together but with hopeful folks inside. These boats were met with aggressive tactics to turn them back, which caused even greater suffering for the many who were lost at sea, who died in their attempts to land on U.S. shares, or who returned to face the island's dismal future again.
Haitians were escaping poverty and the rule of terror that occupied Haiti for many years, so the hopes of those who fled were turned around and replaced with fear instead. By comparison, Cubans were welcomed, extended families too, embraced by a country willing to give its all to save people from the Communist rule back home. But Haiti's people, whose oppression was as great, if not greater, were left nowhere to go.
Hungarian refugees, fleeing from Communism, were swept up in the bosom of America and treated as arriving heroes wherever they would land, just as the Cubans had been. Their hopes of new -found freedom reached fruition, as many settled to begin new lives and settled in white communities, where they blended in well, even as the Cubans were able to do, not standing out too different from other folks of European stock.
Haitians were turned away during desperate times. Over the years hundreds have died at the hands of cruel dictators and terrible environmental disasters. They have died in large numbers right at America's doorstep.
Waves of refugee children, sent by their parents across the Mexican border from countries torn by the violence of the drug trade, have been met with waves of unwelcome. At the same time, as new virus outbreaks are reported, many of the diseases are said to be carried by these new refugees, increasing the fear and rejection of many of these children. They remain waiting for America's embrace while politicians grapple with their disposition.
The responsibility the United States avoided over many years in welcoming refugees in its own hemisphere has returned during a time of crisis. The United States is still using its resources in wars in the Middle East and elsewhere while facing new diseases and weather disasters across the country as a consequence of climate change. Yet there has been a discrepancy between how America treats the poor and desperate brown-skinned peoples and the white individuals and groups who ask for refuge. The latter are treated sympathetically, and the former are turned away, as the Statue of Liberty's beacon dims in response.
As America faces new challenges, and the elections across the United States begin to highlight both national and international issues, it is valuable to understand that the phrase that Franklin Roosevelt once used during World War II might be dusted off and used to ensure that fear itself does not turn neighbor against neighbor as folks search for answers to problems that impact not just the Western Hemisphere but the rest of the world as well. It is a matter of humanitarian concern as America's leadership can make a difference in how other countries treat those seeking freedom from want and oppression.
