Article Excerpts About The "Send Her Back" Chant (Trump Rally July 17, 2019)

Edited by Azizi Powell

Latest Revision and Update: July 20, 2019

This pancocojams post presents several article excerpts about the "Send her back" chant that occurred at Trump's July 17, 2019 rally.

An update to this post includes a July 20, 2019 article excerpt about Trump's reversal of his "criticism" about this chant.

The content of this post is presented for historical and socio-cultural purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post.

Special thanks to Illhan Omar, and the other members of "the Squad" for who they are for what they represent, for what they have accomplished, and for what they have the ability, the will, and the capability to accomplish to make the United States & the world a better place for everyone.
-snip-

Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2019/07/tweets-videos-comments-about-send-her.html for a companion pancocojams post on this subject entitled "Tweets, Videos, & Comments About The "Send Her Back" Chant (Trump Rally July 17, 2019)"

I divided these posts up because I think that together they were too long to read on mobile phones.

****
PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE
This blog post departs from my decision not to focus on politics in this cultural blog. I have published other posts on this blog on African American protest chants (click the African American protest chant tag for those posts). However, I've mostly stayed away from focusing current American politics (or even mentioning) Trump's name. But reading articles, tweets, and comments about the "Send her home" chant, and afterwards, watching videos of that rally, I feel compelled to document this historical, political, and cultural point.

To be very clear, I'm not being neutral in this post. Instead, the article excerpts, tweets, and the majority of the selected comments were selected which reflect my position as a person who considers the "Send her back" chant to be abhorrent for a number of reasons, and not just I believe that the chant is racist.

Click for an article about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY); Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA); and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), all Representatives to the United States Congress (House) who are informally known as "the Squad" https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-is-the-squad-what-you-need-to-know-about-aoc-ocasio-cortez-omar-tlaib-pressley/ Who is "the Squad"? What you need to know about Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley and Tlaib by Jason Silverstein, July 16, 2019 / 7:40 PM / CBS NEWS

****
ARTICLE EXCERPTS
Article Excerpt #1
From https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-send-her-back-omar_n_5d30d9d1e4b004b6adad306b "GOP Sticks With Trump Following ‘Send Her Back’ Chant
Even an obviously racist refrain couldn’t dislodge Republican fealty to Trump."
By Igor Bobic, POLITICS 07/18/2019 06:23 pm ET
"WASHINGTON ― If you thought that a racist refrain that erupted at a re-election rally for President Donald Trump on Wednesday would be met by quick denouncements from members of the president’s party, you’d once again be completely wrong.

Instead, the day began like so many others had on Capitol Hill when a controversy involving Trump is in the news: Republicans ducked, dodged and sometimes even literally ran from reporters who inquired about it.

[...]

Trump attempted to distance himself from the refrain on Thursday, telling reporters he was “not happy” with the crowd and claimed that he had tried to cut them off from shouting “send her back” at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). The freshman congresswoman immigrated to the United States as a refugee when she was a child.

In fact, Trump waited 13 seconds, until the chants stopped, to start speaking again. He did not disavow it at the time and continued on with his stump speech. Nor did he delete the racist tweets that the crowd echoed in their chant.

Republican lawmakers were initially hesitant to condemn the chant Thursday morning, stating they could not do so until they’d seen footage of the event. (They often employ that line when a bombastic Trump comment makes headlines). Some defended Trump, arguing that he doesn’t bear responsibility for being unable to control the crowds at his rallies, which are often loud and rambunctious.

“A group of people chanted, he didn’t ask them to chant it. You can’t control that any more than you can control the reaction at a rock concert,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who attended the rally with the president, told HuffPost on Thursday.

[...]

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the lone African American Republican in the Senate, initially said he had “too much going on” to respond to the matter when asked about it Thursday morning. But after the president spoke later in the day, the South Carolina senator had a different response.

“Do I have any concerns? I think the president said he didn’t like the response,” Scott told HuffPost when asked if he was bothered by the chants.”...
-snip-
-selected comments from this article’s discussion thread (with numbers added for referencing purposes only)
All of these comments are from July 18, 2019.
1. Free Cascadiar
“It was the crowd” - after Trump spent most of his speech inciting them, and encouraging them to tell “these people” to go back to their countries.
Why has the Republican party sold their soul for Trumpism? It can’t be a winning strategy in the long run, any more than embracing the John Birch society, or the Klan (yes, I know the Klan was started by what were then Democrats, lets not re-litigate that disingenuous claim).

**
2. Marj Kuhn
"And if you think that trump didn’t plant his posse throughout the crowd to start that chant, you are dumber than dirt."

**
REPLY
3. Courtenay Smith
I noticed that too. The chant seemed to be orchestrated. No mean trick with an audience so large and clueless."

**
4. Donald Trull
"Thom Tillis seems to forget when booing started in reaction to something Obama was saying to a large crowd. Obama took control immediately and said “ Don’t boo...vote”.

**
REPLY
5. Free Cascadia
"And the time John McCain immediately defended his opponent, then-candidate Obama, when a lady called him an Arab."

****
Article Excerpt #2
From https://www.businessinsider.com/ilhan-omar-calls-trump-fascist-after-send-her-back-chant-2019-7 Ilhan Omar calls Trump a 'fascist' after the 'send her back' chant
by John Haltiwanger, July 18, 2019
"Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar on Thursday had strong words for President Donald Trump after the president's supporters at a rally on Wednesday chanted "send her back" in reference to the Minnesota lawmaker.
Omar called Trump a "fascist" and a "racist."

"This is not about me — this is about us fighting for what this country truly should be," she added.

Trump on Thursday said he was "not happy" about the chant, but he paused and allowed it to continue during the rally, offering no objections.

The chant went on for about 13 seconds before Trump started speaking again.

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar said President Donald Trump was a "racist" and "fascist" a day after he falsely accused her of supporting Al Qaeda and looked on as the crowd at a rally in North Carolina chanted "send her back."

"I believe he is fascist," Omar told reporters on Thursday.

The Minnesota lawmaker, who is a naturalized US citizen, said America is "supposed to be a country where we allow democratic debate and dissent to take place."

"This is not about me — this is about us fighting for what this country truly should be," she added.”...

****
Article Excerpt #3
From https://www.palmerreport.com/analysis/individual-1-is-self-destructing/19390/
Individual 1 is self destructing
by Bill Palmer | 9:10 pm EDT July 18, 2019
"This morning the Feds at the SDNY finally made official what we all already knew: the “Individual 1” who directed Michael Cohen to commit campaign finance felonies is indeed Donald Trump.... No charges are being filed against anyone, but that could be simply because they want to wait until Trump is out of office and file all the conspiracy charges at once.

In the meantime, Individual 1 is self destructing in real time. Over the weekend he told four non-white Democratic Congresswomen to “go back” to where they came from. Then he told them that “YOU CAN LEAVE” in all caps, just so no one would miss it. Then he hurled even more racist hate speech at Congresswoman Ilhan Omar last night, prompting his racist supporters to begin chanting “send her back.” It was so over-the-top racist, it caused GOP leaders to worry about what this will do to their 2020 prospects, forcing Trump to pretend to disavow the chant today.

At this point it’s no longer even clear – not to us, and maybe not even to Trump himself – what he’s trying to distract us from. His week long racist tirade started off as a calculated distraction, but he’s taken it far beyond anything that could have helped him. Now it’s just another problem for him. Was he trying to distract us from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal? That’s about to explode. Was he trying to distract from what he knew the SDNY would reveal today? Was he trying to make us forget that he has kids locked in cages?"...

****
Article Excerpt #4
From https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/18/politics/eeoc-donald-trump-racist-tweets-harassment-trnd/index.html "Federal employment agency says telling people to 'go back to where you came from' can be workplace harassment" By Devan Cole, CNN, Updated 10:23 AM ET, Thu July
"A federal agency charged with enforcing laws prohibiting workplace discrimination cites "go back to where you came from" as a remark that may constitute unlawful harassment based on national origin.

[...]

"Ethnic slurs and other verbal or physical conduct because of nationality are illegal if they are severe or pervasive and create an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment, interfere with work performance, or negatively affect job opportunities," the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission states in a passage on its website.

"Examples of potentially unlawful conduct include insults, taunting, or ethnic epithets, such as making fun of a person's foreign accent or comments like, 'Go back to where you came from,' whether made by supervisors or by co-workers," the passage reads.

On Monday, a day after Trump made his tweets, the EEOC tweeted about how an employee can submit a charge of discrimination, prompting some Twitter users to link the President's tweets to the regulations."...

****
UPDATE: July 20, 2019
Article Excerpt #5
From https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-reverses-send-her-back-crowd-patriots_n_5d331d8ce4b004b6adb080d4
"WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has reversed his previous criticisms of a North Carolina campaign crowd that chanted “send her back” about a Somali-born congresswoman.

Trump on Friday defended the rally-goers as “patriots” while again questioning the loyalty of four Democratic lawmakers of color. His comments marked a return to a pattern that has become familiar during controversies of his own making: ignite a firestorm, backtrack, then strongly reaffirm his original, inflammatory position.

When reporters at the White House asked if he was unhappy with the Wednesday night crowd, Trump responded: “Those are incredible people. They are incredible patriots. But I’m unhappy when a congresswoman goes and says, ‘I’m going to be the president’s nightmare.’”

It was another dizzying twist in a saga sparked by the president’s racist tweets about Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who moved from Somalia as a child, and her colleagues Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

The moment took an ugly turn at the rally when the crowd’s “send her back” shouts resounded for 13 seconds as Trump made no attempt to interrupt them. He paused in his speech and surveyed the scene, taking in the uproar, though the next day he claimed he did not approve of the chant and tried to stop it.

But on Friday, he made clear he was not disavowing the chant and again laced into Omar, the target of the chant."...

****
Article Excerpt #6
From https://www.huffpost.com/entry/padma-lakshmi-send-her-back-chants-op-ed-trump_n_5d332958e4b020cd994425f6 Padma Lakshmi: ‘Send Her Back’ Chants ‘Stabbed Me Right In The Heart’ by Amy Russo 07/20/2019 12:49 pm ET
The “Top Chef” host said Donald Trump’s “dog-whistling” has become a “battle cry.”
"In a Washington Post op-ed, [Padma] Lakshmi said the bigotry espoused by Trump’s supporters was a reminder of the past.

“Those words, those hurtful, xenophobic, entitled words that I’ve heard all throughout my childhood, stabbed me right in the heart,” she wrote. “They echoed the unshakable feeling that most brown immigrants feel. Regardless of what we do, regardless of how much we assimilate and contribute, we are never truly American enough because our names sound funny, our skin isn’t white, or our grandmothers live in a different country.”

The same day Lakshmi’s op-ed was published, Trump defended the rallygoers as “incredible patriots,” backpedaling on his previous attempt to distance himself from the chant. He had said Thursday that he was “not happy with it” and disagreed with his supporters.

Lakshmi warned that the situation has become “Charlottesville 2.0,” referring to the 2017 white supremacist rally that turned deadly when a neo-Nazi drove his car into a crowd and killed counterprotester Heather Heyer. After the violence, Trump infamously claimed there were “very fine people on both sides.”

“He has long been dog-whistling to white nationalists, and as he ramps up for 2020, that whistle has become a battle cry,” Lakshmi wrote.

Lakshmi, who recalled coming to the U.S. with her single mother, also pointed out a fact continually cited by critics of Trump’s xenophobia: His own family contains immigrants.

“The president is himself a second-generation American,” she wrote. “Two of the women he has married are immigrants, but the only difference between them and Omar ― and myself ― is skin color. It’s clear that Trump equates being American with being white. But he doesn’t have the right to judge the Americanness of any of us.”...

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.