Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

How does one explain Trumpanzee's Chief Of Staff John Kelly? Mentally defective? Obviously. Bigoted to the core? That too. He met the qualifications for the job. When Kelly made the following statement about immigrants last week, Kelly was demonstrating both characteristics:

They're not criminals. They're not MS-13. Some of them are not. But they are also not people that would assimilate into the United States, into our modern society. They're overwhelmingly rural people in the countries they come from- fourth, fifth, sixth grade educations are kind of the norm.

I noted the use of the word 'some' as in some of them are "not criminals." How magnanimous of him! Some. I suppose I could say that some of the Trump administration are not criminals but it sure isn't looking that way. I was also struck by what was either Kelly's complete lack of self-awareness, perhaps contempt for his own origins, or, was it just that he thought he could get away with uttering such bullshit and no one would call him on it, certainly not those who, drenched in hate, support his boss. So, that said, let's take a quick look at John Kelly's ancestors.

John Kelly's Irish and Italian ancestors came to this country, like any immigrants, looking for a better life and more importantly to them, a better life for their children and future generations to come. They also bore the assaults dealt out to Irish and Italian immigrants of the 19th and early 20th centuries. They were ghetto-ized and ostracized. Assimilation comes slowly. Seeking employment, Irish immigrants encountered signs in windows and newspaper help wanted ads that said "Irish Need Not Apply," a sort of polite way of saying "Don't even think about it." Italians were treated even worse, and not solely because they often didn't speak English. Even those few who achieved success in their field had to bear the insults. None other than Joe DiMaggio, now considered an American hero, was referred to in LIFE Magazine as "The Dago Yankee."

There was nothing wrong with Kelly's forebears, but Kelly seems to have, at the least, in his rush to poisonous anti-immigrant hypocrisy, glossed over the fact that his great-grandfather, a day laborer named John DeMarco, had, even after 47 years here, according to the 1930 U.S. census records, not bothered to become a U.S. citizen, was also illiterate and did not speak English. John DeMarco's wife had been here 37 years and still spoke no English. Kelly's family background is full of similar stories, just like the family backgrounds of most of us. No doubt he knows this but he's such a bigot that he either can't help himself or it just gets in the way of the Republican agenda. Civilized people, however, don't look down upon our ancestors, and we don't condemn people like our ancestors. That's for bigoted assholes.