Watch tower at Manzanar Concentration Camp For those of you who don’t travel US395 in eastern California, this is the (restored) watchtower at Manzanar National Historic Site, one of the shameful places where innocent Japanese Americans were locked up in World War 2.

This last week (June 17-23) has been a horror show of being confronted with what this country is willing to do in the dark recesses of its soul. We have been here before as illustrated by this watch tower in the middle of the high desert east of the Sierras. We have also been here before with the “Yellow Peril” laws in the western states, particularly in California. We can go back even further to the days when “Irish and dogs not allowed” was the order of the day. These and so many other cases over our history show what “white Americans” are capable of when their sense of superiority and control are threatened. Now that the whole world can see that we are willing to lock up small children in concentration camps like this, it is time that we confront that cancer on our national soul.

I use the provocative words “ethic cleansing” on purpose. I purposely connect our herding brown, Spanish speaking, and (probably Catholic) children into isolated camps with no apparent plan or intention of re-uniting them with their parents to the other “cleansings” horrors around the world before things get even more extreme. Even today (Sunday June 24) Trump has further escalated the rhetoric to suspend due process and legal protection entirely to a whole class of people just because he believes he can get away with it. Jeff Sessions shows his true self, an unrepentant Segregationist, by doing the planning and execution of these plans.

I don’t think Godwin’s Law applies anymore. Do we continue to politely apply it anyway until some time after Martin Niemoller’s warning becomes real? This is ethic cleansing. If you or I are not “white” and to a slightly less degree not “American Evangelical” and not “straight” we will eventually no longer be safe.

There are plenty of excuses being thrown about in an attempt to distract from the truth. Who would openly challenge their own self image of a good person? Some absolve their own conscience by citing “the law” (that they wrote to exclude the “wrong people”) that made these children and their parents “illegal”. Others use the term “racist” which is so all purpose and vague as to implicate everyone (and therefore no one, especially a white supremacist/nationalist). Trump is but the most recent example of this shame that has been going on since the Puritans made landfall at Plymouth Rock. This is our Original Sin and I can understand if anyone searches for other, less damning words.

It is time we confronted this part of our American Culture before it destroys what is left of our once great country. I have said more on this in Regarding Prosperity Gospel and White Supremacy, Racism? Call it what it is…, and Medicare for All and the Deserving Poor. This persecution of desperate people is all for the benefit of one segment of our population who are feeling their (and I am serious here) God given right to be the dominant (See Dominionism) group slip away. What started with the Bible Riots in 1844 with anti-Catholic mobs burning down Irish houses and churches in Philadelphia continues with the judicial violence against Central American refugees. Back then, the white Protestant majority feared a growing Irish Catholic minority was diluting their power. Today, their fearful descendants, now approaching minority status, fear losing what dominating power they still retain.

We need to ask why this immigration hysteria is so potent. No one would be using it if it wasn’t effective. Trump has seen an opportunity and he and his cohort are simply exploiting it. The GOP has been fanning its flames for decades. What makes this whole sordid mess difficult to grasp is that immigrants from Central America are not the only group being increasingly and pointedly persecuted. There are a whole host of “others” who induce this hysteria; same gender marriage, the whole mix of LGBQT, women who terminate their pregnancies, anyone who is not “born again”, especially if they prefer to have no “God” at all. This mix once included the Irish (at least the Catholic ones) and Catholics in general until Jerry Falwell stopped railing against the Pope as the Anti-Christ because he needed conservative white Catholics to backstop his depleted following of Fundamentalist and Evangelical Protestants in his “Moral Majority”. He and his following even took on the “pro-life” crusade which up to that time was an almost exclusively Roman Catholic issue.

This is a critical time in our history. There used to be a White Anglo-Saxon-Protestant (WASP) majority who called all the shots. But their numbers and therefore their influence have been declining for decades. Most “white” (really European) citizens have accepted being just part of a more diverse culture; they learned to appreciate the Taco Truck being on their corner. But the last sub-group of white (really European) Christians to feel the constriction of their influence are American Evangelicals who are the major support for Trump and the now fully Trumpian GOP. Not all “white” Evangelicals back Trump and his GOP agenda and not all Trump supporters are Evangelical but an 80% demographic is telling. This is a group that is ok with subverting democracy by gerrymandering and voter roles restrictions if it preserves what remains of their (white) privileged position. They demand closing our borders into a state of almost complete lockdown in order to stem the tide of non-white, non-(American)-Christian future citizens. They are just fine with deporting non-white, legal immigrants, many of them veterans. This is a desperate group that has been willing to buy Trump’s pitch that he is their last hope. It is a group that even cheers when its religious leaders dehumanize small children and infants. We haven’t seen this kind of behavior since their religious ancestors cheered the forced removal of Native American children into “boarding schools” or preached fiery sermons against the “Papist Irish”.

We are at the crisis point. Either the rest of us, the majority, rise up and assert our higher aspirations for a society and voting citizenry that is open to all or we descend into an increasingly repressive whites-only regime.

The writing is on the wall. The line has been crossed. I cannot speak for or direct anyone but myself. I will vote. I will continue to write about this. I will continue to support anyone else willing to stand up to this hysteria. It is time for all of us to decide.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. — Martin Niemöller

If any of my readers are uncomfortable with my singling out white American Evangelicals, please understand that there is a group of our citizens who have exhibited these beliefs and behaviors for most of our history, to the pain and suffering of our most recent arrivals to our shores. At this time in history, the very large majority of that group also identify with the Evangelical religious label, both in belief and practice. There is no definitive line surely but a 70-80% number does indicate a correlation. The Catholic Church long ago repudiated the pre-Reformation doctrines and policies that motivated Spanish and Portuguese colonialism (actually colonialism in general). So have many Protestant denominations in recent decades. The rector (minister/pastor) of an Episcopal parish I once served in used to preach fiery sermons extolling the Orange Order and against Popery but that was over 40 years ago and he is long dead. There is mostly silence in Evangelical circles. We need to explore why the only sound we hear is crickets.