Seventeen years ago I came home from serving a full-time, two-year mission in Mexico for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I came home with a great love for Mexico and especially her People. I learned of their great love for one another and their neighbors. I saw first hand great poverty and also great riches of spirit, culture, landscapes, and art. They love and care for one another with a great intensity and determination, such that I am Christ is well pleased. Of course they make mistakes, but on the whole this is true.
While on my mission one of the greatest lessons I learned was empathy and not comparing my home to the land I am visiting so the I may fully enjoy it. We need empathy so that we can truly serve others. Without empathy we do not listen to their needs and cannot soothe their hearts. Empathy is also essential to travel. Without empathy one cannot truly and fully enjoy or appreciate or lands beyond our own.
One day while walking through a park in Tlatelolco, Mexico City, we came across a man and woman who were lost. They were having trouble finding the nearest subway station. While they had no desire to hear the message we had to share, they appreciated us guiding them to the station. I took the opportunity to find out more about them and asked them where they were from. They were on vacation from Austria and were at the end of their trip.
I asked what he thought of Mexico and nearly regretted it. He said in English that he did not like it. He claimed the people were lazy and everything was dirty. He even pointed at a man in a guard shack and said, “look at him. He smokes and drinks, sitting around doing nothing all day and he gets paid.” Imagine, a guard doing mostly nothing all day!
I was appalled at how he spoke of Mexico and so grateful that my companion at the time did not know English. I had learned to see Mexico for what it is and not how it compared to the US or Austria. I know that there is more to a country than the facade of resorts and hotels.
I was reminded of this story by the reports of Donald Trump referring to African nations as “shitholes.” Now a shithole is a hole dug into the earth wherein others may defecate. There is not a nation on Earth to which this word applies, nor ought to be applied. Every nation has beauty and filth. The amount of either does not define them. What defines nations and makes them great are not their climates, or government, or economies, or how many universities it has. What makes nations unique and great is their people. How blessed is our nation that people want to come and can share their cultures with us?! In the people resides the language, the food, and the culture. It doesn’t matter how large the GDP is or how gorgeous the buildings and wilderness are. It is the people that define the nation.
What then does it say about a nation who elects a man without empathy who would dare call another nation a hole to be crapped upon and then the next day say “no matter the color of our skin, or the place of our birth we are all created equal by God”? Though yes, a nation is defined by its people, but it is also represented by its leaders and how its leaders act is often the only example that people have of another nation.
We are being represented by a man without empathy whose words make him out to be a hypocrite. It is difficult to believe that he has ever experienced a culture outside his own. Perhaps he has gone to visit these countries, but he has viewed them as exhibits in the zoo, trapped on the other side of the glass, beyond his reach, and beneath his gaze. Only a bigot could or would make such a statement.
He is a product of his environment. Trump was born into money, was given money to start his career, and has used every loophole to evade the pitfalls that would have ruined the average American. This inherited wealth allowed him to become a celebrity and have access to people and places others merely dream about. He has never been low. He has felt the pain of hunger, to warm water on the stove to bathe in, to worry how large his next pay check will be, if he has enough clothes to stay warm, or if he has enough to cover his children’s medical expenses.
It is often said that people of his class look down on the poor, and that is the only environment he has known: the rich looking down on and not understanding those who work for them, serve them, and make far less money. It is hard to believe he has any empathy with his virulence against “dreamers,” the insistence for a wall along the southern border, and not understanding why people come to the United States.
They come because they are tired, they are poor, and they yearn to be free. They come because they are homeless, and tempest tossed. They see the light reflecting off that golden door and hunger to enter in. Given the choice they would stay home, but too often, they have no choice. They give away everything for a slightly better chance at a better life.
Trump does not understand this, and I doubt he ever will.
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