Showing posts with label Trump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trump. Show all posts

18 July 2019

The CBC and Trump's tweets about 4 black women

In the CBC article, ‘EU president takes shot at Trump's “unacceptable” tweets after Trudeau meeting’, the original tweets made by President Trump become entwined in news articles with stories of the chants of “Send her back” by his supporters at a Trump rally a day or so later.

At the same time as accusations were being made against Trump, Donald Tusk - President of the European Council, after meeting with Trudeau in Montreal, himself tweeted about being glad not to be met with a’ Send him back’ chant by his audience.

These are just incidents aside from the main one, the tweets sent out by Trump on July 14 which some took to be racist, and others only “unacceptable”.  

But why his tweets should be considered to be something more than unacceptable, in terms of being racist, or him being racist, is unclear. The idea of freedom of speech was mentioned by some commenters in the Comments Section of the CBC news article online. No one had a clear idea, it seems, of what the tweets actually consisted of, only that, for many commenters, they were racist.

Eventually, I posted the contents of the tweets by Donald Trump in a comment, and lo and behold, they were not put under moderation soon to be disabled.

Nowhere, however, are the actaul remarks made by these 4 black women in Donald Trump’s Congress, on the Conservative side, available. And no article I have read on this or seen on tv news programs, mentions what it was that Trump was responding to, what sorts of troubles the female “squad” was probing into, and were questioning, that led to such words from Trump.

I wanted to know what brought this on, because I have been involved in my own situation where at least some non-white doctors who must have been from foreign cultures, had caused me trouble at a local hospital, dragging me into a situation that never should have happened, whereby I was tested for something I never had, and then tested again, in a way I know foreigners coming here as refugees and immigrants are never tested, unless obviously ill. Speaking as I did against these doctors – some of them – got comments I made deleted, as though I had no credibility and could not possibly be telling the truth. And although I took my complaint  - part of it – to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the response I got from them was that I was not telling the truth (or could have been that they knew I was telling the truth but that one does not say things like that about doctors from foreign countries, even though they had been shirking their duty and allowing incorrect information to pass by them, affecting the way I would be treated at the next step.

No one commenting or responding to comments on the news article comments Section online knew or spoke of what the actual tweets were, from Trump, and yet most seemed to have already made their minds up and for the most part were against Trump. Quite a few were against me. Are we not allowed to speak truths against people from other cultures, and are we not allowed to mention their colour when relevant, as a means of identifying who they are? I have been stopped midsentence while speaking to someone at the hospital who supposedly had some knowledge of ethics, but I didn’t get a sense that he had much. Just say the person was black and one gets accused of racism, just as a black person accusing a white person of racism would get the undivided attention of people like Trudeau, and probably a lot more at the local hospital.
The CBC has been called too politically-correct by some readers, but I don’t know what it is about them, and the moderators who look after the Comments Sections of various news articles. But quite a few of my comments were getting moderated and then deleted. How could this be, when so many people say such terrible things about someone who is President of the United States? How is it they are allowed to be so disrespectful towards him, and so intolerant and not believing he may have had a reason to say the things he said. He was judged by people who didn’t have the full story. And I was being judged also, by CBC, and by the CPSO, and probably by the LHSC, to whom I have also submitted a complaint.

In 3 separate but connected tweets on July 14,  Trump wrote the following:

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly......
5:27 AM – 14 Jul 2019

....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....

....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!


No doubt that the tweets were harsh. But were they racist?

I saved copies of comments made by individuals in the Comments Section of the article about the EU Council President and PM Trudeau, which I shall refer to below without naming them but including them anonymously, and deleting any words or ideas that might betray their identity.  Although they are written for a public forum, the usual practice is for them to be deleted or stored so practically inaccessible from the page the article is on, or anywhere. Mine will have my name on them.


H
Reply to W
She is allowed to speak her mind. Called democracy.


 Sue McPherson              CONTENT DISABLED
 Reply to H:
Trump didn't say, Send her back, or Send them back. He said if they didn't like America they could always go back where they came from /Now this EU guy Tusk is saying Yup, that's what Trump said - Send her back. these distortions of truth have to stop.


Sue McPherson
Now Trump is getting known for apparently saying "Send them back" when what he said was, if the black members of his cabinet did not like America, they can always go back home. This distortion of truth is being carried on into tv and and even this news article by the CBC, as though it is truth.

Canadians aren't really such great people, and Donald Tusk doesn't know that, although it has nothing to do with suggesting that if people don't like it here they can always go back to where they and their ancestors came from. I don't know why he would even raise that issue here in Canada. He has no idea what goes on here.


L  
Reply to Sue McPherson:
he said they're from "broken, crime infested countries" and they should go back there. Was he talking about their homes in America?

(He was absolutely NOT talking about members of his own cabinet!!!)


Sue McPherson    35 minutes ago    AWAITING MODERATION
 Reply to L:
He said that if they didn't like America they could always go back to their broken crime-infested countries and fix them.

What was the racist part of what he said? Was it because he called their poverty-ridden countries broken, or crime-infested? Or was it because he suggested they could go back if they didn't like it here. that's not the same as saying Send them back! Send them bacK!

Do you think Trymp is racist, or that his remarks were? Explain your position.


H   Reply to Sue McPherson: Are you Canadian? If not, please be quiet. If so, please explain "what goes on here".


Sue McPherson   CONTENT DISABLED
Reply to H:
I live in London, Ontario, We are inundated with doctors from Africa and India, in which contagious diseases are rampant, and they're not being checked thoroughly on the way in for TB or other related diseases. Maybe the US doesn't have that problem, It's something Trump doesn't mention, re asylum seekers from the south.

I run into people too, at the hospital - doctors - who seem to have the same attitude that these 4 women from the Trumps cabinet have. They are given so much that they seem to develop a kind of arrogance about their position, wanting more.

I see people - white women, and Canadians, supporting those poor harassed members of cabinet - the equivalent of Christina Freeland whose buddy Trudeau got her a job in foreign affairs. she loves dealing with poor, oppresses, rich girls from abroad, not so much with the ebola crisis or anything that goes on here.

I am fed up with foreigners from abroad - usually wealthy - being treated with more respect than people here and bringing their cultural values with them, of attitudes towards older, unmarried females in Canada. And then we read the distortions of Trump's words, from what he said to "Send them back" which were not his words.

I have put in a complaint to the CPSO about 2 microbiologists at LHSC, which they seem very reluctant to deal with. I have also sent a compliant about D------ and C---------- to LHSC. How they can allow these people to continue when they have made these errors and not do anything about correcting them, and how the respirologist I had could simply refuse (also from a different cultural background) I do not know. What I do know is no one is analyzing what these 4 women have been critical of, in America. It is all blamed on Trump.

M     
Reply to Sue McPherson: You should go back and visit exactly what trump said. You are completely off-base. BTW, please explain "what goes on" here? You don't sound very patriotic of loyal.

Sue McPherson 
Reply to M
I have just finished explaining to H but well you know what. my comment is not there.

Sue McPherson
Reply to H:
My response to you was not published. I have had problems with the health care system here, see my blog sue's views on the news. They are treated me very badly, trying to silence me. Canada - London - is not a nice place.


Sue McPherson   CONTENT DISABLED
Reply to H
I live in London, Ontario, We are inundated with doctors from Africa and India, in which contagious diseases are rampant, and they're not being checked thoroughly on the way in for TB or other related diseases. This is fact - see your public health unit for more info. Maybe the US doesn't have that problem, It's something Trump doesn't mention, re asylum seekers from the south.

I run into people too, at the hospital – doctors – who seem to have the same attitude that these 4 women from the Trumps cabinet have. They are given so much that they seem to develop a kind of arrogance about their position, wanting more.

I see people – white women, and Canadians, supporting those poor harassed members of cabinet – the equivalent of Christina Freeland whose buddy Trudeau got her a job in foreign affairs.

I am concerned about these foreigners from abroad – usually wealthy – being treated with more respect than people here and bringing their cultural values with them, of attitudes towards older, unmarried females in Canada. And then we read the distortions of Trump's words, from what he said to “Send them back” which were not his words. I like foreign people, but not these.

I have put in a complaint to the CPSO about 2 microbiologists at LHSC, which they seem very reluctant to deal with. I have also sent a compliant about D-----t and C---------i to LHSC. How can they allow these people to continue when they have made these errors and not do anything about correcting them, the respirologist too (also from a different cultural background). No one is analyzing what these 4 women have been critical of, in America. It is all blamed on Trump.


G     
Reply to Sue McPherson:
Yes I remember your many complaints about the way you were treated, your escape to England, and despise for men.


Sue McPherson     CONTENT DISABLED
Reply to G
So, another one, You get to speak untruths and distortions, and my truth - my voice - is silenced, even here on CBC my posts are disabled. I was harassed then and I am now. but I know now that I was not to blame. I wrote a piece about a prof who behaved in sexualized ways in the classroom, in order to understand it. It is now published online Maybe that was part of it. He probably got used to women performing for him and doing as he pleased.

T    
Reply to Sue McPherson:
Total BS. The meaning of the words in the tweets sre clear and anyone can plainly see that Trump was enjoying the chant while at his rally.

Sue McPherson
Reply to T:
I'm glad you think what Trump said originally was clear. Please post them. I am doing all the talking here despite most of my comments not getting p[ublished. Perhaps I will place them on my blog. How would that be,.


Sue McPherson  CONTENT DISABLED
Reply to L
last comment disabled, See my blog sue's views on the news.
for now, please say, Didn't Trump say,.
If the girls don't like living in Mercia they can always leave or should leave or can leave. That's not racist. It's a bit nasty but no nastier than these moderators disabling my comments.
!!@Q!@@

H
Reply to @Sue McPherson:
One would have to have a recording, but you're right, even if one does he is not all that articulate to be positive about it. LOL

Sue McPherson
Reply to H
Saying, if you don't like it here why don't you leave is a phrase that foreign people like to promote as a sign of racism, just as they keep saying that people don't like the colour of their skin. It's not the colour that matters, but it is an indication that they may have cultural values different from ours, and as I have learned, being a white, older, woman lacking wealth, spouse and family nearby, it is an opportunity for them to try to take advantage of me. I am fighting that, but without support, it is difficult. See my blog Sue's Views on the News, I shall try to post more. 

J
Reply to @Sue McPherson:
Trump insists he tried to quiet the chants ... by remaining completely silent and basking in the hateful chorus. His tweets were even worse.

Sue McPherson 
Reply to J
Yes, a lot of people in this city have done that to me, too - keeping quiet while my life is being destroyed. In this case, Trump was picked on first, by the media, as usual, after the original tweet. It is not nice to say that to children of immigrants, but it doesn't mean he is a racist for saying that. And the question remains, why don't we get to hear what the women were saying about America?

END of comments I am not pleased to see my comments deleted, when I put effort into them. In the end, they will be deleted, whether after a month or a year, but it is not as though any of us was privileged journalists who get to write not such great articles sometimes but still get something for doing it. I have unknown persona judging my comments and deleting them at will. At the CPSO and HRTO I often have unknown administration clerks judging the worth of my complaints and deeming them admissable, or not. As for the LHSC, there are very few people there I have respect for any more.


Placing this near the end, for your convenience, readers:

Donald Trump’s tweets July 14, 2019

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly......
5:27 AM – 14 Jul 2019
....and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how....
....it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!


References

EU president takes shot at Trump's 'unacceptable' tweets after Trudeau meeting.
by John Paul Tasker
CBC News. July 18, 2019

Donald Trump’s tweets
@DonaldTrump
The real Donald Trump Twitter account
July 14, 2019

29 January 2017

The Women’s March, social injustice, and personal experience

About a week ago a piece was written for the Washington Post that I found to be out of place in the Opinions section. I hesitate to provide the title of it, as it might automatically turn readers against me, for not viewing it with the sensitivity it requires, at least on one level. But here it is - the title 'My wife died just after Election Day. I'm attending the Women's March for her'. 

Death so often does necessitate the offering of condolences, ignoring errors in judgement or in practice, and just generally thinking of uplifting things to say. But then why would anyone choose to publish an obituary in the Opinions section of a newspaper?  Perhaps the reason was that it wasn’t an obituary in the usual sense. It was as much about the husband of the person who had died as about the deceased. And yet, scores of comments in the Comments section following the article were written in a manner that resembled condolences more than comments.

One might ask, was the article telling us the opinion of the writer on some social or political  - or economic  - issue? Not exactly, no, the writer appeared to be questioning his own sense of masculinity, in preparing to march in place of his deceased wife in the Saturday’s Women’s March, held in Washington and in places around the world, on Jan 21, 2017. Those who marched did so for a variety of reasons, many of the marchers no doubt being personally motivated, others marching for the rights of women who are marginalized in society, some having specific interests, such as abortion rights for women, violence against women, etc.

Mr Ikins’s wife suffered a tragic death, a fall down stairs, a coma, and finally, release through death. I can relate to that experience of having a fall. A year ago today I suffered a slip and fall, through which I broke my femur. Luckily  - I think – I survived, not having severed an artery and having a fast-acting, thoughtful neighbour, paramedics ready to do their bit, and an expert surgeon to care for my injury. Since then I have had to walk using a walker, but in a few days I will have the nails removed from the knee – nails that held the rod in place while the leg healed. So I am hoping for the best outcome. But by chance, my equilibrium – my sense of balance, experienced as a kind of giddiness, has affected my ability to walk normally too. Mr Ikins says that Nov 8 was the worst day of his life.  It was not a great day for me, either.

On November 8, 2016, I attended an appointment with an ENT (ear, nose and throat) specialist, to tell him about the symptoms I had been having, but found my concerns being dismissed by a specialist who was overbooked, overworked that day, no doubt, and who was not expecting this new set of symptoms. For some reason, he was also defensive, and spent far too much time explaining to me why he sent the last report to my old family doctor, the one I had laid a complaint against with the CPSO, and filed an application against with the Human Rights Tribunal.  I had realized the report went to that doctor, despite my requesting from his appointment taker/secretary that it not be, but it was anyway, in order to abide by the regulations. 

On my way in, I had asked the girl at his clinic front desk if the report could be sent to a different doctor this time, and she said she thought so, but to ask the doctor when I saw him, which I did. All this took precious time away from my concerns – of the balance issue – disequilibrium.  Finally, he offered me a partial VNG test (look it up). I agreed, and later, at home, looked up the test on google. I saw that I had been offered only a piece of the set of 4 tests, and so decided to try to get the tests I needed. To skip to the end of this story, the appointment-taker/secretary and the staff at the ENT clinic lied about me, and the ENT specialist cancelled the appointment I had with him. I am now left with no suitable options for a proper diagnosis nor for treatment options, nor to repair the damage to my reputation.  The only possible option I have, which won’t help my vestibular/vertigo problems, is to lay a complaint against this doctor too.

Returning to the article written by Charles Ikins, I have to say I question whether Charles Ikins’s perception of the reasons for the march were rather limited. He saw it as being for women who experience indignities of the kind Trump had presumably committed, the very reason his wife was protesting.  And he decided that it would not be unmasculine for him to march in place of his wife, to honour her beliefs and commitment.

For the most part, I believe the women’s march was about fighting for the rights of women, and especially marginalized women, women who do not get the same kinds of opportunities and treatment that other women do – some of them single women, poor women, women without husbands, black women, old women, and so on. The maintaining of rights of women – abortion, sexual rights, and so on, were also reasons women marched.

I thought that the Washington Post had used a grieving husband’s thoughts and piece honouring his wife as a political manoeuvering – publishing it on Trump’s Inauguration Day, the day before the women’s march. Taken on its own, as a piece intended for friends and family, the article could be seen as having merit. But published in the Washington Post, for the public to read, it came across as something very different.

Part way through the article, Mr Ikins mentions the admonition for participants to “check your privilege.” He says he thinks he knows the meaning of the phrase, and yet the article itself is an example of what the privileged should try not to do. Instead of seeing things through their own eyes only, and taking for granted the things they have, the material advantages in life, and seeing their own cause as the one most worthy, they might try to see what others experience in life.

It is part of the human condition for tragedy to strike families – all of us - tragedies that are not anyone's fault. That's not going to help the writer of the article talked about here, but it needs to be said. Furthermore, some people in life – women among them – struggle in ways the privileged might not even be able to imagine – and it is not always men who are responsible for the injustices.  Finally, I have reservations about the value of a Women’s March if President Trump is chosen to be the most recent scapegoat for feminists seeking to unite women over a cause - any cause – to enhance interest in the feminist movement.


By Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post - Opinions
Jan 12, 2017

By Charles Ikins
Washington Post – Opinions
Jan 20, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/my-wife-died-on-election-day-im-attending-the-womens-march-for-her/2017/01/20/e83c8092-df2d-11e6-ad42-f3375f271c9c_story.html?utm_term=.52db5f512fff&wpisrc=nl_opinionsA&wpmm