Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

Trump’s rhetoric is inflammatory

On Aug. 3, the white writer of an anti-Hispanic manifesto killed 22 people and injured numerous others in a mass killing in El Paso, Texas, a Hispanic community. On the same day in Dayton, Ohio, another white shooter killed nine people and injured numerous others, and one week earlier, a white shooter killed four and injured numerous others in Gilroy, Calif.

Last month, FBI Director Chris Wray testified before the Senate that most of the approximately 100 domestic terrorism arrests made so far this year have been associated with white supremacy. Further, despite warnings by his intelligence agencies, President Donald Trump slashed the office that housed the task force for countering violent extremism and canceled Obama-era grants to help fight extremism and white supremacy.

So this has been the “walk” of the Trump administration in response to such extremism. What about its “talk”? Trump, in referring to the neo-Nazis on one side and those protesting them on the other side in Charlottesville, Va., said there were “very fine people on both sides.” Further, he has shown a propensity to criticize people of color and suggested that they return to their native homelands.

Isn’t it about time that Trump change his racial rhetoric and recognize and combat the extreme danger posed by white supremacy extremism?