Season of Hate, Revisted

 

In Tropic of Chaos by Christain Parenti, chapter 15 discusses the ways in which an armed lifeboat approach to immigration and climate change is manifested within America. Parenti specifically touches on the anti-immigrant sentiments that extremist right-wing individuals hold toward Latinx individuals who come to this country looking for a better life. The author argues that at its core, hatred towards immigrants is largely based around "...very much a war of ideas" (Parenti, 231). This chapter also spoke on how a majority of Americans at the time the book was written were straight-up xenophobic towards immigrants in the country, 67 percent of Americans surveyed at the time said that they felt it was fine for the police to arrest anyone who had no way to prove legal citizenship, and 62 percent felt it was ok for the police to target individuals for questioning based off of profiling them as being illegal immigrants (Parenti, 232).  This specific chapter also focused on the irony behind individuals who label themselves as liberal, but still subscribe to that armed lifeboat policy in terms of climate change migration. 

We as a society have handled the situation of immigration increasingly worse, in my opinion, since the publication of this book. The season of hate has lasted for many many seasons, and a big reason behind that is the extremist right-wing politicians who have been elected to run this country. According to AFSC, Donald Trump described who came from, as he said, "shithole countries" and as "animals". This rhetoric is damaging for how those who support his ideals and creates mass hatred and misinformation about immigrants.

 Governors such as Greg Abbott, Doug Doucey, and Ron DeSantis use their platforms to spew false information about immigrants and make a mockery of them in the media. More than 6,000 immigrants were sent by Abbott to Washington D.C. in 2022 with no service plan in place for them put in place. Not only are they leaving the countries that they are from (a difficult task on its own), but then they are forced to get on a bus for 36 hours- only to end up in cities that are unprepared to assist large levels of migrants with very little notice. Despite this, the immigrants getting bussed around remained hopeful for their situations, saying “The food isn’t that good, but thank God they’re helping us with this,”. It is so profound and heartbreaking that even in the face of hardships, they remained grateful to be out of the awful situations they left behind in Latin American countries. 

The season of hate gets even worse in the United States during election seasons. Last year during election season, 700 paid for ads were viewed by over 52.6 million individuals on social media.  This increase in hatred and xenophobic propaganda leads to an increased feeling of uneasiness in the Latinx community, and mental health issues, and leads to a sense of feeling as if they do not belong in the United States. 

On top of this, the number of hate crimes against the Latinx community rose by over 20 percent in 2019. It can be assumed that this was largely due to the hate speech that Trump put out during his presidency, as well as the negative immigration policies he put in place during his time as well. A majority of these hate crimes were perpetrated by white Americans, 53 percent to be exact. 

Clearly from all of these statistics, it can be gathered that the armed lifeboat effect is still alive and well in America. Many of us feel sympathy for people in the Global South and are willing to help these individuals from a distance, but when they come to our countries we take issue with their presence. Many are willing to do mission trips to different countries where they attempt to make individuals assimilate to a more Western way of living, but refuse to assist and help the struggling migrants and impoverished in their own country. The only way we as a society will have the ability to survive in the event of climate change becoming too overpowering is to have a more inclusive stance on immigration to the U.S. The American government needs to regulate and condemn the hateful rhetoric of the far right on a much larger scale than they do currently. When migrants from Latin American countries come to the United States, they need to be met with support and open arms- not the opposite.