As many of you have probably heard, Donald Trump Jr. released an extremely offensive and degrading tweet on the 19th comparing Syrian refugees to candy- specifically, skittles. The tweet looks a little something like this:
The ad says "If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? That's our Syrian refugee problem."
But before we address the whole issue of this tweet, let's refresh our knowledge of the current Syrian civil war and the refugee crisis that has come out of it:
The entire root of the Syrian conflict began in 2011 and was inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 (in which Tunisia began the movement by peacefully overthrowing its oppressive and authoritarian government. Other nations such as Libya, Egypt, and Yemen followed suit). Syria is ruled by totalitarian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who's family has reigned ferociously for over four decades.
On April 29th, 2011, a group of thirteen-year-old boys in the southwestern town of Daraa wrote "The government must go!" on the side of their school building. The graffiti quickly became the icon of the revolution, which was initially an uprising aimed at achieving democracy, however, much has changed in the last five years. The conflict has become irrevocably complicated since. The uprising's initial goal has crumbled into a puzzle of competing for rebel groups, terrorist elements, religious factions and international powers- all intricate pieces that no longer fit together and further distort the original picture with every obstacle that has arisen since.
The result of this political disaster is the ongoing Syrian civil war in which death toll estimates project at least 400,000 have been killed, 6.8 million are internally displaced within the country, 4.8 million are refugees and 13.5 million are in desperate need of humanitarian aid.
4.8 million refugees. That is over half the population of New York City, and 3/4 of these refugees are women and children. Bordering states such as Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Egypt are currently holding the bulk of the Syrian refugee population.
Syrian refugees are NOT skittles.
They are human, just like you and me. They just happened to be living in a war-torn country and were forced to flee unwillingly and leave everything behind with not much more than the clothing on their backs. Can you even imagine that? The amount of suffering they have endured and the measures that they had to take in order to simply survive are unimaginable for most Americans. They didn't ask for this, and they shouldn't be hated or looked down upon for circumstances completely out of their control.
Omran Daqneesh, the young boy from Aleppo who's home was hit by an airstrike, is not a skittle. He is an innocent child, like many of the refugees the Trump campaign is planning to ban from our country.
The dehumanizing and degrading comparison Donald Trump Jr. made had that exact purpose: to dehumanize and berate Syrian refugees as if they are less than human simply because they are refugees. The ad has no statistical basis, and its aim was to disassociate refugees from their humanity by comparing them to a trivial thing like candy. Refugees do not pose a security threat to the United States. All refugees entering the country must undergo a rigorous screening process that can take years to complete. This tweet is dangerous propaganda that does nothing but cause harm and incite fear- something that the Trump campaign frequently does as a tactic to further its political agenda.
The responses to Donald Trump Jr.'s tweet were loud with resounding condemnation. One response came from Wrigley, the owner of Skittles:
"Skittles are candy. Refugees are people. We don't feel it's an appropriate analogy. We will respectfully refrain from further commentary as anything we say could be misinterpreted as marketing." The company wrote in an email from a spokeswoman that initially appeared here.
Another condemning critique of Trump Jr.'s tweet came from a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is currently providing humanitarian aid to Syrians:
"Syrian refugees are fellow human beings who have left their country to escape war and terrorism. Depictions like these are dehumanizing, demeaning and dangerous." Said spokeswoman Melissa Fleming in an email to the Donald J. Trump presidential campaign.
What's even more infuriating about this entire situation is the fact that the picture Donald Trump Jr. used for his tweet was taken from a former refugee... Without permission. Pretty ironic. The man who owns the photo is David Kittos, a former refugee from Cyprus who fled with his family during the Turkish invasion when he was six years old. You can read more about his story here.
Dehumanizing people in order to achieve political gains needs to stop. This racist, xenophobic rhetoric that has been echoed throughout the duration of Donald Trump's campaign is dangerous, harmful, and simply wrong. Donald Trump Jr.'s ad tweet is a ridiculous, demeaning and hateful comparison, and this propaganda echoes some of the sentiments commonly seen in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The concept of the analogy Trump Jr. used dates back as early as 1938 when a German Nazi by the name of Julius Streicher published a children's book called "The Toadstool", in which a mother tells her child that it only takes one Jew to destroy an entire people. Streicher was later executed in Nuremberg in 1946 for his crimes against humanity. Propaganda such as this is extremely dangerous and should not be tolerated.
May I remind you that the modern-day United States of America was built on the backs of Native Americans, slaves, immigrants refugees, and created with ideals of freedom and acceptance. All Americans except Native Americans at one point or another emigrated (either by force or free will) to the U.S. with hopes for a better life. The inscription on the Statue of Liberty that greeted many a European immigrant and refugee (perhaps some of your ancestors) reads "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
For more information on the refugee crisis, all things Syria-related, and most importantly what you can do to stand in solidarity with refugees, visit IAmSyria.
