{"id":3173,"date":"2016-11-11T15:54:18","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T20:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/?p=3173"},"modified":"2016-11-11T15:54:18","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T20:54:18","slug":"back-after-two-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/2016\/11\/11\/back-after-two-years\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00bfC\u00f3mo se dice segura? Some Post-Electoral Reflections"},"content":{"rendered":"

I seem to be something of an exception. According to my demographic, I should have voted for Trump, and not given it a second thought. \u00a0After all, 80% of white voters did, including white evangelicals<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, my interaction with the Charlotte, NC Hispanic community has seasoned my politics. I have learned to speak Spanish, and I specialize in teaching English to Spanish-speakers. I also teach a weekly bilingual Bible class.<\/span><\/p>\n

For me Latino folk, documented or not, have names, faces, families and value, along with many interesting personal stories of courage and faith. <\/span><\/p>\n

So while respecting the right of each citizen to vote their conscience, I cannot help but to be reflective…<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2014 I chronicled\u00a0the \u00a0migration of young people from Central America through Mexico to the United States. I did not realize that later I would actually have \u00a0the opportunity to help some of these students to learn English. \u00a0A high school nearby had unexpectedly received over thirty Hispanic adolescents who spoke Spanish only. \u00a0I dedicated one afternoon a week to\u00a0these students, who were desperate to get an education and stay out of Central American drug gangs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I recall a writing exercise which included the question: \u00a0“What do you like best about the United States?”<\/p>\n

The young lady to my left at the table inquired in Spanish, “\u00bfC\u00f3mo se dice\u00a0segura? \u00a0<\/em>Her words brought chills.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Segura. \u00a0<\/em>Safe. \u00a0“How in English do you say safe?”<\/em><\/p>\n

President-Elect Trump has promised to roll back all Obama executive actions within days of taking office. \u00a0This will\u00a0leave vulnerable the 700,000\u00a0Dreamers — nearly life-long residents of the United States who came out of the shadows in order to register under Obama’s\u00a0Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals <\/em>program (DACA). \u00a0Obama’s DAPA program, designed for undocumented parents will likely be repealed, and mass deportations are clearly in view.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump’s anti-Hispanic rants are now legendary — yet were deliberately ignored by almost half of us. \u00a0So how do we explain our “selective ignorance”?\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the rust-belt people<\/em>, it was a choice to accept\u00a0vague promises<\/em> to bring manufacturing jobs back and to\u00a0ignore a clear attack<\/em> upon Hispanic and other residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For those concerned about ObamaCare<\/em> problems came the promise to repeal and replace– more unlikely than the passage of the Affordable Care Act to begin with. So, we choose to hate ObamaCare and kick out the immigrant.<\/p>\n

For those determined to pack the Supreme Court<\/em> with “conservative justices” leading to the repeal of Roe v Wade, it should be remembered that five of the six Republican-appointed justices voted for Roe v Wade. \u00a0But we ignore\u00a0history — and how unlikely is the actual reversal of Roe.<\/p>\n

So, shall we\u00a0cling to a possibly false hope of somehow protecting the unborn, and then destroy productive American families with their\u00a0young born\u00a0<\/strong>US citizens?<\/p>\n

For those of us who just can’t forgive Hillary for the sins of her husband<\/em>\u00a0over 30 years ago, have we just elected a known racist who openly brags of “grabbing” women? And one who, by the way, built a campaign attacking the character<\/em> of decent Hispanic (and other) immigrant families who just want to raise their children to be loyal and productive US citizens.<\/p>\n

For those of us who wish to interpret\u00a0Hillary’s technological incompetence and admitted poor judgement around her emails as\u00a0a desire to somehow destroy the United States<\/em>, will we\u00a0gleefully kick at any US citizens that President-elect Trump might identify as “other”, and in doing so actually violate the US Constitution and our own history?<\/p>\n

So for\u00a0now, the deed is done. More often than not, we have done it\u00a0in the name of the Lord.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00bfC\u00f3mo se dice\u00a0segura? \u00a0No s\u00e9, mi\u00a0<\/em>joven amiga, no s\u00e9.<\/em><\/p>\n

How do you say\u00a0safe? I don’t know my young friend. \u00a0I don’t know.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tThe 2016 presidential election results were not only surprising, but seemed to defy logic. <\/p>\nLarry Eppley is a 68 year old white male \u2014 raised Republican and an evangelical Christian. 80% of his demographic voted for Donald Trump.<\/p>\n In this post-election reflection, Larry tries to understand the apparent willingness of white Christian evangelicals to ignore obvious signs of racism and xenophobia, with little regard to the destructive impact to our immigrant communities. <\/i>\t\t<\/p>\n Continue reading →<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-perspective","category-immigration","category-race-relations","category-sidebar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youdidntask.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}