Greetings and Salutations;
I was poking around on FaceBook earlier, and ran across this post. It should be required reading for ALL Americans, I think. It is by John Blumenthal Thank you Mr. Blumental for a brief but insightful analysis of the mindset of America these days.
Dear Immigrant-hating Assholes.
By now maybe one of you, the one who isn’t illiterate, has read Stephen Miller’s uncle’s op-ed about his nephew’s immigration hypocrisy. There’s more where that came from. Laura Ingraham’s grandparents fled from Poland; Fox News was started by an Aussie. Sean Hannity’s grandparents were Irish. Jonas Salk, who is the reason you don’t have polio, was raised by parents who escaped from Eastern Europe; Afraid of the “War on Christmas”? Russian immigrant Irving Berlin, a Jew, wrote the appropriately named “White Christmas,” not to mention “God Bless America”.
Can’t live without your smartphone—Steve Jobs’ father was a Syrian refugee; Enjoy the convenience of ATMs? Offer your gratitude to Luther George Simjan, a refugee from Armenian genocide. Google? Invented by Russian Sergey Brin; Can’t live without blue jeans—Levi Strauss, German immigrant. Hot dog on a roll—James Feltman, German. Glad you don’t have to live in the dark—give a pat on the back to Thomas Edison, from Nova Scotia. Grateful that the Nazis didn’t win WW II—say hello in 3 languages to Enrico Fermi (Italian), Albert Einstein (German), Niels Bohr (Danish), to name a few.
One of your kids born prematurely? He or she may be alive because of Peruvian Claudio Castillón Lévano who invented the Neonatal Artificial Bubble that improves the intensive care of high-risk newborns. Glad you have color TV? Say hello to Hispanic immigrant Guillermo Gonzalez Camarena who invented the color television system. And you can all thank the many American scientists of foreign lineage who have either won Nobel Prizes or contributed to scientific discovery that may save or have saved your life.
Got money in the bank? Thank Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant from the Caribbean who invented our banking system, and might have been, at least partially, a person of color. Most African Americans were not technically immigrants because the vast majority didn’t come here on purpose. Nevertheless, they deserve our tribute too: Alice Ball discovered a cure for leprosy; Ophthalmologist Patricia Bath invented ultrasound; Otis Boykin, heart pacemaker; Samuel Kountz, pioneer in kidney transplantation, Garrett Morgan, the gas mask.
And I’m not even going mention the contributions made by immigrants and their descendants in American sports, entertainment, the arts and politics or we’ll be here all night.
Oh, and in case you misguided racist yahoos don’t know, your idiot president’s grandparents emigrated from Germany; Pence’s grandparents were Irish.
And what have you invented lately, you bigoted morons, other than the Ku Klux Klan costume, a real work of genius.
If you’re four.