President Donald Trump’s racist tweets targeting minority congresswomen were condemned by a House resolution on July 16. This past Saturday, Trump directed similar comments towards Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, calling his Baltimore district a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”
Reverends Irene Monroe and Emmett G. Price III joined Boston Public Radio Monday to talk about how this new attack affects the nation’s political climate.
“It’s sad that the aspiration for this great nation in this world is diminishing right in front of our eyes. As much as the conversation is about Trump, the real conversation is about us. What will we stand for, and are we okay with this?” Price said. “There’s a sense of complacency, there’s a sense of entitlement, and I think people in this nation, in this season, are not willing to put it all on the line. We’re not willing to pursue the greatness for everybody.”
Monroe described how discriminatory discourse towards immigrants began and said it has remained pervasive in society.
“The interesting thing about immigration is that the whole notion of 'othering’ and 'going back’ started in 1830, when the Irish came. The whole idea was that they would really soil the fabric of what we call America. We have more than a century of this kind of nativist rhetoric and it continues to maintain itself,” Monroe said.
Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist and the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and a visiting researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology.
Price is professor of worship, church & culture and founding executive director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Together they host the All Rev’d Up podcast, produced by WGBH.
