To the editor,

I am an immigrant citizen of the U.S., though I present as a white American. I have two productive children and four exceptional grandchildren (don’t we all!). Two of the grandchildren have a Kenyan father, are tri-lingual, and present as Black. The 8-year-old is two years ahead of her grade and devises ways to help the slower children learn and feel good about themselves.

Many of my dearest friends are immigrants from Africa, Asia, and across the globe. They enhance the value of my life and those of other Americans. Neither I, my family, nor my friends have “poisoned” any of your “superior” white American blood.

Trump lacks the mental acuity to actually read Mein Kampf, and his vocabulary is too rudimentary to contain words like “vermin,” “righteous crusade,” and “blood poisoning”—but his loyalist advisors are whispering this crap in his ears because they know he loves anything smacking of genocidal mass murderers and vile racism. His sycophants in Congress use euphemisms like “racially tinged language,” “just Trump being Trump,” and “only locker-room talk.”

His base of support has truly struggled with job and income security, and like populists everywhere, Trump uses immigrants and people of color as the scapegoats he claims are at fault, manipulating

his base into believing these lies and even worse, into believing he has their back. He doesn’t.

This man is dangerous. Where is the moral outrage over his vile slurs? If you are silent, you are complicit. And if you defend them, you owe me, my family, my friends, and many others an apology.

Dr. Jacqueline Brux

River Falls