Eduardo Alvarez/ Contributing Writer
Dozens of students protested the elimination of the policy known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. Meanwhile the GOP’s FIU branch indulged in some of the darkest political vices of our time.
Our school’s Republican party shouldn’t be defined by the improper conduct of its fringe members, nor should it let itself be poisoned by complacency towards such behavior.
I witnessed the protest. I listened to the speeches that were being delivered when my mind hearkened back to the great movements led in our universities: the Civil Rights leaders, the Vietnam pacifists, the dreamers who have stood up for their rights in every state, county, and city of this nation, demanding that the land they have worked return to them a basic portion of its yield.
After the speeches, the assembly deployed itself to the Green Library surrounded by cameras, and my admiration for them was amplified even further.
I saw their raging faces and stone firmness and thought of my dear friends who arrived as infants and who have laboured arduously: fifteen years, twenty years, devoid of any and all social security, unsure of whether they will be forcefully returned to an unknown, ancestral land.
Their chants reminded me of the ones voiced by the workers at Immokalee; their backs bent, their clothes ragged, their health broken and their sanity sustained only by the hope of seeing their children succeed.
The DACA program, established by the Obama administration, ensured that hundreds of thousands of people who arrived as minors would not be deported — a great relief for their hardworking parents.
All of this was destroyed in one fell swoop by President Donald Trump. The dream was mutilated, but not killed.
This is why the mockery of these students is unacceptable. Instead of criticizing DACA’s legitimate problems, FIU College Republicans have injured our friends from class, our neighbors and our family members.
They have injured us with no filters by using comments such as ”Call ICE, so they get ICE’d” and “BUILD THE WALL AND DEPORT ALL ILLEGALS!”
They went straight for the jugular — the “unafraid and unapologetic”, or rather, the unreasoned and unreasonable.
Far from brandishing reverence towards law and order, which has been the noble commitment of the Republicans since March 20, 1854, they resorted to acidic meme-knives, doused in childish texts topped off with an image from Charlottesville of a crowd getting run over.
Why? Because they are snowflakes. Why bring it up during the protest? Because to them, undocumented, uncivilized and snowflake all mean the same thing: target practice.
Amidst the trivialization of Charlottesville — the deaths caused therein and the opening of old wounds — Mauricio Pons, Vice President of the CR — in a brave and principled move whose spirit we should all strive to emulate — resigned from the group in opposition to its radical rhetoric. He is a true Republican.
Juan Porras, president of the College Republicans, similarly expressed his disgust, saying “The recent comments made by individual members of FIU College Republicans does not represent the FIU College Republicans, or the Florida Federation of College Republicans,” according to a PantherNOW article.
Although these extremisms have always existed, new technologies, along with the country’s rising carcinogenic populism, have allowed it to seep into mainstream public life.
Explicative as this may be of the conduct we have witnessed, we — each one of us in our own hearts — cannot and should not normalize it.
Only through patience and restraint can we reach those who have promoted these antagonisms based on legal status, national origin and political opinions. I am convinced that the fringe members’ words did not come from crude malice, but from disinformation, immaturity and an overzealous adhesion to our time’s right-wing Zeitgeist.
In other words, although we should always condemn their actions, we should not treat their intolerance as an intellectual crime, but rather as a symptom of a sickness with which many young Americans have been infected.
The measures must include the cure. The meek hand must accompany the disciplining hand.
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The opinions presented within this page do not represent the views of Panther Press Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.
Photo taken from Flickr.
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