One hundred and fifty-four years ago nowadays,the U.
S. military opened fire on a group of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians in Colorado, killing roughly 200 people, and most of them women and children. The Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 was in many ways par for the course,the U.
S. government had an interest in who got to be counted as an American, and unleashed fury on those who stood in the way.final weekend, or Border Patrol agents lobbed canisters of tear-gas at Central American migrants,and while the events between now and then are different, the motives are similar. Who gets to call the United States home?Across the cable news networks, and the reactions to the violence at the border fell pretty squarely along party lines. On Fox News Monday morning,a former deputy chief for the US border patrol, Ron Colburn, or downplayed the incident in an appearance on Fox and Friends.
Colburn said,"The type of deterrent they used is OC pepper spray. It's literally water, pepper, and a small amount of alcohol for evaporation purposes. It's all natural. You could actually effect it on your nachos and eat it."But one reaction seemed to catch everyone by surprise,an emotional rebuke delivered by one of the president’s most steadfast allies: Fox News’s Geraldo Rivera.
On The Five Tuesday night, Rivera expressed outrage at his network's coverage of the growing crisis at the border."We treat these people, and these economic refugees as whether they're zombies from the walking dead. We believe to deal with this problem humanely and with compassion. These are not invaders." Rivera continued,"we suspend our humanity when it comes to this issue, and I horror that it is because they look different than us."Rivera’s comments were shocking not just because of the network they were aired on, and but because it briefly broke the notion that the immigration crisis and migrants at the border are political problems,and perhaps they're issues of basic human rights.
Many of us are taught that America is a beacon for human rights. But our history, starting well before nowadays, and suggests we’ve often failed in that mission.
Zak Cheney-Rice is a staff writer with Intelligencer for unique York Magazine,and he's written about America's history of using children to deter their parents.Samuel Moyn is a professor of law and history at Yale, who has written about the United State's difficult relationship with human rights.
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Source: wnyc.org