What are your thoughts on my debate with this conservative regarding Trumps sh**thole comment?

Great Debates
1

I was arguing with a right winger on twitter over this comment he made: “For those who are mad at Trump for saying some countries are shitholes, I urge you to MOVE to one of those countries and see for yourself. Until then, stop pretending you know what the world outside your PC echo-chamber is like, because you don’t.”

His response: I was trying to do was just calm people down over the comment Trump made and say that he was just talking about how there are SOME dangerous people in the country and that there are crime issues, not go after the entire race as a whole. I have immigrant relatives who come from countries that are a bit unstable and I am perfectly aware that not all immigrants are bad people. If it weren’t for immigration, my mother and father never would have met so I’m a product of it. Please understand, it was never my intention to bash immigrants, I just don’t like it when people take things out of context. I should have been more careful with what I said but let’s not dwell on that anyway.

My response: You are sugarcoating your tweets. You literally agreed and have retweeted right wingers calling those countries shitholes. You literally said people have bad culture. This is not about insulting immigrants, its about generalizing entire countries. Your tweet is not calming people, you said go to these countries yourself: which means, go and see Trump is right, they are shitholes. This is your tweet:

This one: For those who are mad at Trump for saying some countries are shitholes, I urge you to MOVE to one of those countries and see for yourself. Until then, stop pretending you know what the world outside your PC echo-chamber is like, because you don’t.

You’re literally agreeing, these countries are shi*tholes

His response: Well culture can be bad. The Nazis were a cultural movement and that was bad, right. Anyone who takes part in killing or bigotry is part of a bad culture. People can be from these countries and be bad OR they can be good. Trump’s wording was immature and could have been better but it is a fact that there are bad aspects of many countries. Culture and race are not the same thing. There are bad cultures in my country and there is a bad culture entering my party too, the alt-right in particular, and I’m not ashamed to admit that. I don’t trust the right-wing establishment, I’ve been more center-right than before, but when I deal with people with ridiculous opinions, I might come across as far-right to some people but again, it’s the context that matters.

and he’s playing the victim:I tend to make jokes and constructive criticisms about things in the news that irritate me as a way to cope with it and keep myself from getting angry. This does NOT equal racism. People on both sides do this all the time, but remember, there are good apples on both sides…

So, I was wondering, how do you view his actions? It seems to me like he’s downplaying his actions and sugar coating his comments or am I in the wrong?

2

I think you’re both ignoring context completely.

Many of these countries are shitholes in terms of how they present to travellers: dirty and corrupt. Some of this is because those countries lack the infrastructure to deal with the detritus of large urban populations; some of it is to do with poverty. A hell of a lot of it is the legacy of colonialism. Nevertheless, on the surface, “shithole” is a reasonable if impolite descriptor, and I think that’s what your debater was going for: a surface picture that is accurate but incomplete. Certainly an American moving to Lagos could, in the first couple of weeks, be forgiven for using that word in his own head as he learns to navigate the culture.

The thing is, when the President of the USA uses a phrase, he should not be speaking at the level of the cruise ship passenger. His use of that word inherently makes it go deeper, regardless of his intent. He is condemning, as you argue, the whole culture, and 'shithole" is incorrect. It is also unacceptable for so many reasons, from the inherent racism to the effect on American diplomacy.

Your debater, like Trump himself, seems unaware that having the president speak in an official context adds important weight and nuances to what he says. I don’t think your Twitter friend is wrong about the substance: some nations and cultures do, indeed, have deep systemic problems that makes them unpleasant places to be in the short term, at least in comparison with, say, life in Norway.

That’s such a simple and convenient belief that no amount of logic is going to find a crack to get in. Talking about the richness of the cultures in those countries, and the reasons they are the way they are and that with a modicum of stability, they’d actually be awesome places (cf. Botswana)—he doesn’t want to believe that, and you can’t make him.

Short version, if my Uncle Fred said Haiti was a shithole, I’d maybe talk to him about some of the things he’d missed. I would disagree but not necessarily tell him he’s wrong. It’s subjective and depends on where you’re coming from. When the President says it, in addition to being mortified, I write my representatives about impeachment. It’s so far from professional behaviour that the man cannot be allowed to continue in his job.

3

You want him impeached for being unprofessional?

4

I was wondering, does that mean I am in the wrong here and had no right to be offended/call him out?

5

Among other things, yes. Not just for being unprofessional, but for being consistently unprofessional to a degree that warrants intervention.

I would fire any employee who demonstrated the level of unprofessionalism that Trump has demonstrated since he took office. I don’t see why there should be an exception for the most important job in the country.

6

Being offended is a privilege, not a right. You can be as offended as you like.

I don’t think you were wrong. I don’t think it was a productive discussion, in that I don’t see either side getting through to the other, but I don’t think you were wrong.

7

I was just asking as this guy is trying to play the victim and sugar coating what he said.

8

I would just add whether or not Trump or anyone else might subjectively perceive any country as a “shithole” doesn’t mean that residents should not be allowed to immigrate here. One could argue the opposite is true.

9

Speaking as a resident of South Shithole, I spent a hellish day relaxing and having a delicious lunch on a winefarm just outside Cape Town.

I spend my days toiling tirelessly in an air conditioned office on the slopes of Table Mountain. My secretary never brings me coffee just the way I like it and sometimes the arsehole in the unit next door is in my parking space. Sometimes I have to work late. You probably can’t even comprehend how much i suffer.

Your rightwing tweeter is truly a font of wisdom.

EDIT: and I forgot to mention my mild sunburn! Truly I am stuck in a Dantean hell here.

10

I think we should encourage immigrants from “shithole” countries for simple humanitarian reasons.

11

What do you think of his attemps to sugarcoat what he said?

12

Context is everything.

Look, I think a great many people have said Haiti is a shithole. Or a hellhole, or some other unpleasant description, and the reason we say that is because it is, in fact, an unpleasant country, as compared to almost all the other ones.

The thing is, if I say Haiti is a shithole, I am not saying there’s anything wrong with Haitians. Haitians are unfortunate that their country, for many, many reasons beyond the control of Haitians, is an unpleasant place to live. That doesn’t make HAITIANS shitty, it makes them unlucky. Haitians are as fine as anyone else, though. A Haitian immigrated to my country and became Governor General and probably did the job better than anyone else in my lifetime.

Trump, in context, was implying that the problem with Haiti and African countries was that the people are shitty, and the fact that he once again appears to be picking on black people takes us well past any reasonable interpretation of it as a coincidence. There is a damn big difference betwene observing that Haiti is a bad place to live because of earthquakes, deforestation, and a history of instability, and thus one feels very sorry for Haitians, and saying that Haiti sucks because of Haitians.

Additionally, suggesting immigrants should not be accepted from less pleasant countries is… well, it’s fucking imbecilic. That’s where the immigrants come from. Doyyyyyyy. You’re not going to have people flooding in from the NICE countries. America has been built by people coming in from shitholes. Ireland was a shithole. Germany was a shithole, and Vietnam was a shithole, and Poland was a shithole, and the Phillippines, and on and on. That’s why people leave those places. As it turned out, the problem wasn’t the ordinary person, because they turned out just fine in America.

13

I see, what do you think of the comments that person I debated with said.

14

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

That means we WANT people from “shithole” countries. That is part of America’s mission statement, damnit.

15

I’m struggling to even understand what his point was.

16

Agreed. Not all countries are created equal, and it’s OK to criticize those places that aren’t very good. Trump should have the sense to use more polite terms, at least in a professional setting, and it’s a bit disingenuous to get too upset that he used a swear word. Saying they are “poor, undeveloped nations in which day to day life can be extremely unpleasant and dangerous” is effectively the same thing. Certainly I’m not above calling a shithole a shithole- to my friends. I’d never say it in the office.

I wish they wouldn’t use the term slur on the news. To me, a slur implies a certain insult directed at a person, often without merit. Not an accurate if impolite description of a country.

All that said, I believe the context combined with other things he’s said is what makes it so offensive. He said terrible things about Haitians and Ugandans (?) before (the all have AIDS and won’t return to their huts after being here) AND he immediately followed it up with that bit about Norwegians being welcome, possibly the whitest people on earth. That’s what pushes it from a possibly excusable gaffe to a nasty, bigoted statement.

You can’t shake the devil’s hand and say you didn’t mean it- those who fail to condemn this crap are complicit.

17

In my experience, Laos (as only one example of many I could name) is proof that the shittiest of shithole countries have some of the most fantastically friendly, generous, and interesting people on the planet.

And of course, Trump’s utterance and the defense of it is proof that the best country in the world has some real assholes.

18

It’s not the “shithole” think is the most offensive part. It’s the “why”.

A compassionate, educated American should not be asking why we’d have special preferences for immigrants coming from impoverished, war-torn, corrupt countries.

There’s something really wrong with people that can’t see how nasty and frightening this kind of ignorance is.

19

FYI: This guy has posted tweets denying white privilige and racism exist because we had a black prez and denying police brutality towards blacks is an issue, claims that reverse racism and sexism exist and denying climate change, claims feminism ruins women and demonizes men and is about female supremacy and are not oppressed, said if you are called a Nazi, you are doing something right in life, denies Trump’s travel ban has anything to do with Muslims, says not to jump to conclusion on bannon being racist and has sent me this:

people have different opinions and just having a different opinion or being on the other side of the political spectrum does not mean you are bigoted

20

You probably need to quit engaging with him.
It’s not gonna end with you changing his mind.IMO