You've probably heard about Donald Trump Jr.'s controversial tweet about Syrian refugees which compares refugees to Skittles. The tweet that caused an uproar on the internet has many things wrong with it, but here are just three things that we should pay attention to.
1. Trump compares humans to Skittles 
Here is an obvious one, but comparing refugees to Skittles is dehumanizing a group of pople. Skittles cannot be compared to refugees as Skittles are for eating. Eating and being are two different concepts. Skittles manufacturer Mars can attest to this: "Skittles are candy; refugees are people. It’s an inappropriate analogy…” Mars, Incorporated tweeted.
2. Trump stole the Skittles picture
Donald Trump Jr. was never given permission to use the photograph which was ironically taken by a refugee according to the BBC. The photographer, David Kittos, tells the BBC that he would never approve and use the image against refugees.
3. Linked to Nazi propaganda
The Intercept writes:
"The concept dates back at least to 1938 and a children’s book called 'Der Giftpilz,' or 'The Toadstool,' in which a mother explains to her son that it only takes one Jew to destroy an entire people.
The book’s author, Julius Streicher, also published a newspaper that Adolf Hitler loved to read, Der Stürmer. The newspaper published anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-communist, and anti-capitalist propaganda. In 1933, soon after Hitler took power, Streicher used his newspaper to call for the extermination of the Jews.”
According to the Intercept, parallels can be drawn from the children’s book and Trump’s tweet as the book calls Jews poison and then compares them to a poisonous mushroom.
The Intercept provides an excerpt from the "The Toadstool":
“Yes, my child! Just as a single poisonous mushrooms can kill a whole family, so a solitary Jew can destroy a whole village, a whole city, even an entire Volk [nation].”
Just as the anti-Semitic propaganda compares poisonous mushrooms to Jews, Islamophobic propaganda compares poisonous skittles to Syrian refugees.
