US president Donald Trump tweeted about Puerto Rico yet again on October 12th 2017:
“‘Puerto Rico survived the Hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making.’ says Sharyl Attkisson. A total lack of…..
“…accountability say the Governor. Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes. Congress to decide how much to spend….
“…We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!”
Thus echoing earlier tweets, as if Puerto Rico were a foreign country, some charity case, not part of the US.
Hurricane Maria hit three weeks ago. A third of the people in Puerto Rico still have no clean drinking water, most have no electric power, most roads are impassable.
Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez said the president’s:
“most solemn duty is to protect the safety and the security of the American people. By suggesting he might abdicate this responsibility for our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico, Mr. Trump has called into question his ability to lead. We will not allow the federal government to abandon Puerto Rico in its time of need.”
She was born in Puerto Rico. Her district in New York City is heavily (but not majority) Puerto Rican. She has called Hurricane Maria Trump’s Katrina.
When Ben Carson, Trump’s housing secretary, appeared in committee later that day, she let him have it:
“To kick fellow citizens when they are down is SHAMEFUL! … So since I don’t have President Trump in front of me I just would like for you to let him know how shameful all the tweets that he put out this morning, how offended and insulted I am as an American citizen.
“And I would like to suggest that the president get some history lessons regarding the Puerto Rican relationship with the United States.
“In 1898 American troops invaded Puerto Rico. American troops took over Puerto Rico. … So Puerto Ricans didn’t invite the United States armed forces. It was invaded. So with that invasion comes responsibility.
“In 1917 American citizenship was imposed on Puerto Ricans. Timely, so they could join the armed forces and fight in World War One.
“So, those tweets are unpresidential. The most basic, fundamental responsibility of the president of the United States, the president of the most powerful country in the world, is to show up and make and provide the assistance and the relief that American citizens need. They don’t need this type of insult.
“And, by the way, why is it that he doesn’t put the same tweets when it comes to Texas or Florida?”
Trump on Texas:
“TEXAS: We are with you today, we are with you tomorrow, and we will be with you EVERY SINGLE DAY AFTER, to restore, recover, and REBUILD.”
See the difference?
Hurricane Harvey caused $190 billion of damage in Texas. Maria caused $95 billion in Puerto Rico. Even if you add Puerto Rico’s debt of $74 billion, that is still less than Harvey. It is not about the money.
– Abagond, 2017.
Sources: mainly NBC News, Washington Post, Twitter, Google Images, Mother Jones.
See also:
- Welcome to Hispanic Heritage Month 2017
- Donald Trump
- Ben Carson
- Puerto Rico
- Hurricane Maria
- Hurricane Katrina
534
“And, by the way, why is it that he doesn’t put the same tweets when it comes to Texas or Florida?”
“In 1898 American troops invaded Puerto Rico. American troops took over Puerto Rico. … So Puerto Ricans didn’t invite the United States armed forces. It was invaded…In 1917 American citizenship was imposed on Puerto Ricans. Timely, so they could join the armed forces and fight in World War One.”
She answered her questions. Her problem is that she doesn’t like the answers.
The difference between Texas, Florida on one hand and Puerto Rico on the other, is that the native population has been cleared out of the former but not the latter.
LikeLike
“It is not about the money.”
It is about clearing the Puerto Rican people off the island so the oligarchs can privatize the territory and create “Sweat Shop Island”——the nightmare low wage version of Fantasy Island.
LikeLike
I still can’t get over 45 throwing those paper towels at those people like he was throwing bones at dogs.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is sickening. Trump has spent more time berating Puerto Rico than helping.
LikeLike
I wonder how Puerto Ricans will vote the next time a status referendum comes up.
LikeLike
@gro jo
I was pretty sure most pure Arawaks have long died and have been cleared out of the Caribbean and north edge of South America.
LikeLike
“TeddyBearDaddy
@gro jo
I was pretty sure most pure Arawaks have long died and have been cleared out of the Caribbean and north edge of South America.”
Cute and silly. The current inhabitants of the Caribbean, North, Central and South America are the new natives. Dead men don’t possess anything.
LikeLike
@gro jo
You contradict yourself again. The Native inhabitants of Texas and Florida are now those that are currently inhabiting those place then? All of them?
LikeLike
Many of the descendants of Chicanos / Mexicans that were there when the US invaded and seized Texas are also still there.
I don’t think the argument should be about whether “natives” are still there or not, but whether there are sufficient numbers of white Anglo-Americans affected whose lives and property matter.
LikeLike
@jefe
You hit the nail on the coffin.
LikeLike
“@gro jo
You contradict yourself again.”
How?
“The Native inhabitants of Texas and Florida are now those that are currently inhabiting those place then? All of them?”
Yes, and?
LikeLike
“…whether there are sufficient numbers of white Anglo-Americans affected whose lives and property matter.”
I seem to recall JLo tweeting out “all lives matter” and deleting it, causing some mild controversy. Perhaps now she understands why certain lives can’t take it for granted that they matter to the white people in power.
LikeLike
@gro jo
gro jo
“The difference between Texas, Florida on one hand and Puerto Rico on the other, is that the native population has been cleared out of the former but not the latter.”
You clearly made the distinction that Trump was immediately responding and helping Texas and Florida at a moments notice because he’s discriminating that Anglos now are the majority population in those states while the territory of Puerto Rico has yet to be free of the ‘indigenous’ or ‘Taino/Arawak population as a majority. I state that most of this population has died out already even though many Puerto Ricans have some indigenous but not much. You read your contradiction?
LikeLike
Sorry, you haven’t shown any ‘contradiction’ in what I wrote. You are being exceedingly cute by referring to the Taino/Arawaks who vanished centuries ago. I’ll reiterate for you: “The current inhabitants of the Caribbean, North, Central and South America are the new natives. Dead men don’t possess anything.”
Dead men can claim no home. The Tainos died out a long time ago, so the natives of Puerto Rico are its current inhabitants. IS THAT CLEAR AND NON-CONTRADICTORY ENOUGH FOR YOU?
LikeLike
“The difference between Texas, Florida on one hand and Puerto Rico on the other, is that the native population has been cleared out of the former but not the latter.”
By the same argument that “dead men possess nothing” the current inhabitants of Texas and Florida would also be the natives so there would really be no distinction between Texas/Florida and Puerto Rico. The real distinction is that Hispanic, Catholic, and often one-drop-polluted Puerto Ricans are not considered white by the dominant Protestant Anglo-American culture. Having been “othered” they’re vulnerable to being treated like “natives”: i.e hardly more than fauna.
LikeLike
“By the same argument that “dead men possess nothing” the current inhabitants of Texas and Florida would also be the natives so there would really be no distinction between Texas/Florida and Puerto Rico.”
Are. You. For. Real? The dominant inhabitants of Texas/Florida and Puerto Rico are, indeed, natives to these places. The reason that they are natives is because their ancestors cleared out the previous natives several centuries ago. You are correct that the Puerto Rican native doesn’t get the same consideration because he was conquered by the USA in 1898 and differs from the Texas and Florida natives by having less in common with the rulers of the USA. It’s nonsense to claim that the Tainos/Arawaks are the only natives of Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands. When they were the natives they called it Borikén not Puerto Rico
LikeLike
@gro jo
Are. You. For. Real?
lol. And to consider I was being nice by rephrasing your argument into a more consistent form. Let me spell it out the contradiction for you.
gro jo said:
The difference between Texas, Florida on one hand and Puerto Rico on the other, is that the native population has been cleared out of the former but not the latter.
gro jo said:
Dead men can claim no home. The Tainos died out a long time ago, so the natives of Puerto Rico are its current inhabitants.
gro jo said:
The dominant inhabitants of Texas/Florida and Puerto Rico are, indeed, natives to these places. The reason that they are natives is because their ancestors cleared out the previous natives several centuries ago.
………………………
If both modern Texans and Puerto Ricans are “native” then the first quote does not compute. The “Indians” were cleared out of both Texas and Puerto Rico so what’s the “difference”? The current inhabitants are both native not the “dead men” according to YOU. So how would the native population have been cleared out of Texas but not Puerto Rico?
But you have no choice but to disavow one of your positions do you? Because if, as the first quote implied, you’re saying modern Texans are not native but modern Puerto Ricans are then you’d be contradicting yourself since the people killed off “a long time ago” for Anglo-Americans to make Texas their home should not be considered native just as the dead Tainos cannot claim Puerto Rico.
LikeLike
I don’t know what to make of your confusion. Texans and Floridians are not considered natives to people like Trump because they are variants of the same group, white Americans. Puerto Ricans are natives to Trump and company because they were conquered by the USA in 1898. Did you forget that fact? The reason they weren’t offered US citizenship until they were needed to fight was because they weren’t deemed ‘white’ enough. After the Civil War, the USA seriously considered annexing the Dominican Republic after some Dominicans expressed an interest in being absorbed. They were rejected by the US Congress because they weren’t white. You haven’t shown any contradictions in my comments.
I’ve consistently argued following:
– Anybody who occupies a territory is native to that region.
– Anybody who ejects the prior occupant becomes the native population.
– The native, invader distinction is based on who was there first and who has the
means to evict the contending group from the land in question.
– Comparing Texas/Florida to P. R., I note that the former are occupied by the
invader while the latter is still occupied by its pre 1898 population.
– Conclusion: The native populations of Texas/Florida were replaced while the
P. R. natives were not.
Zero contradiction here.
LikeLike
-Anybody who occupies a territory is native to that region.
-Anybody who ejects the prior occupant becomes the native population.
– The native, invader distinction is based on who was there first and who has the means to evict the contending group from the land in question.
– Comparing Texas/Florida to P. R., I note that the former are occupied by the
invader while the latter is still occupied by its pre 1898 population.
– Conclusion: The native populations of Texas/Florida were replaced while the
P. R. natives were not.
………………………
Quite a bit of sleight of hand there, declaring the Texans/Floridians BOTH natives and invaders. According to you they’re natives because they’re the current inhabitant but invaders because they displaced another group. However for some reason modern Puerto Ricans are not native invaders too, by your own definition, despite having replaced the Tainos. They’re just native. This allows you to arrive at a distinction that doesn’t actually exist within the argument you have constructed.
Anyway, I think I get it. A native is whomever you say it is from whichever arbitrary point in history you decide to start. NO contradiction indeed.
Certain subtitutions would make your point a lot clearer.
Invader -> Anglo white.
Native -> not-Anglo or white.
With those substitutions there is a distinction between Puerto Rico and Texas/Florida in terms of who lives there and how that would affect American disaster response. And yes, Anglo-Americans have replaced the former population of Texas/Florida while Puerto Rico is still Hispanic.
LikeLike
45 is the hater in chief.
LikeLike
“Anyway, I think I get it. A native is whomever you say it is from whichever arbitrary point in history you decide to start. NO contradiction indeed.”
You are still confused.
Native is the prior occupant and invader the subsequent occupant. The Tainos were invaded by the Spaniards, who became the natives, who were, in turn, invaded by the USA in 1898.
“Invader -> Anglo white.
Native -> not-Anglo or white.” Wrong. The Anglo whites of Texas and Florida are the present natives of these territories. The pre US invasion population of P. R. is basically, the same as the as the post invasion population making them natives who have not been displaced. Nothing ‘arbitrary’ here, just a clear description of the historical process.
LikeLike
It’s some kind of description but clear it is not.
WRT to Texas/Florida and Puerto Rico, the inhabitants who recently suffered the wrath of hurricanes are all natives by your definition. So I still don’t understand the difference/distinction you claimed existed in your original post.
LikeLike
Good lord man, are you serious? I’ll repeat it for you the umpteenth time. The USA settled and conquered Texas/Florida and only conquered P. R. If it had settled that territory it would have changed the population as it did in Texas/Florida. If you are still confused and can’t see the difference, you should have a word with a medical expert. The people who settled Texas/Florida are deemed to be the same ethnic/racial stock as the dominant group in the rest of the USA, not so in the case of P. R, Virgin Island, and other territories the USA acquired but didn’t care to make citizens. In the eye of a Trump, Texas/Florida have a more legitimate claim than P.R. does. Hawaii is the rare exception to that rule.
LikeLike
Yes, Texans/Floridians are just as native to Texas and Florida as Puerto Ricans are to Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans have not been replaced by white Americans,as the majority, as the Spanish, Indian and other populations of Texas and Florida have been so they are the same natives who were conquered during the Spanish-American war.
LikeLike
@gro jo
“Yes, Texans/Floridians are just as native to Texas and Florida as Puerto Ricans are to Puerto Rico. Puerto Ricans have not been replaced by white Americans,as the majority, as the Spanish, Indian and other populations of Texas and Florida have been so they are the same natives who were conquered during the Spanish-American war.”
In other words it’s white Ango-American vs not Anglo-American instead of the convoluted “was-invader-then-native-but-is-now-native-to-be-replaced” word salad you’re trying to pass off as sensible.
If only you understand yourself, there’s a good chance you’re not communicating effectively. After all, that’s the purpose of communicating, unless you just like to hear yourself speak.
LikeLike
The only insensible thing is your inability to follow an argument. What you contemptuously dismiss as ‘word salad’ is the actual unfolding of history. It was clear from the first comment that the native/invader dichotomy implied seeing the populations in question, Texans/Floridians vs Puerto Ricans from the point of view of a majority US citizen. What do you make of the fact that Hawaii is a state, whose population is a non-white majority that replaced the native Hawaiians through the efforts of white Anglo-Americans, in light of your claim that, “In other words it’s white Ango-American vs not Anglo-American”?
LikeLike
@ Afrofem
It’s about Trump not really giving a damn about a bunch of brown people on some crappy island and scores of people feeling the same way as Trump.
Puerto Rico’s gotten its 3am wakeup call. Now it remains to be seen what they’re gonna do about it afterwards.
LikeLike
Trump is Archie Bunker with money and power. He even comes from the same borough of New York, Queens.
LikeLiked by 2 people
More people in Puerto Rico consider themselves White than in Florida or Texas. According to the 2010 census:
75.8% Puerto Rico
75.0% Florida
70.4% Texas
LikeLike
Trump is Archie Bunker with money and power. He even comes from same the borough of New York, Queens.
Boom!
I always saw Archie Bunker as the archetypical angry white male on television. But now, I see that the archetype is more or less real. And Donald Trump represents a variation of that archetype of the angry but rich white male who despite having a long list of privileges is still mad at the world.
LikeLike
@ Abagond
I was just reading about that over the weekend. It appears to have something to do with this:
“In the late 1700s, Puerto Rico had laws like the Regla del Sacar or Gracias al Sacar where a person of mixed ancestry could be considered legally white so long as they could prove that at least one person per generation in the last four generations had also been legally white. Therefore, people of mixed ancestry with known white lineage were classified as white, the opposite of the ‘one-drop rule’ in the United States.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Puerto_Rico
LikeLike
Trump today:
LikeLike
“More people in Puerto Rico consider themselves White than in Florida or Texas. According to the 2010 census:
75.8% Puerto Rico
75.0% Florida
70.4% Texas”
Unfortunately for them, as a conquered people their opinion doesn’t matter. When they come to New York, they can look forward to living in the ghettos with blacks and fight them for the crumbs the powers that be care to let its captive populations have. If they are unlucky, they can look forward to being lavaplatos or assistants to the assistant lavaplato as Pedro Pietri said so long ago.
LikeLike
(it’s not an hour to pittsburgh from reading!)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/06/pennsylvania-latinos-economic-hardship
LikeLike
@ Solitaire
I need to do a post on Race and Puerto Rico.
LikeLike
Washington Post reports on the accelerated depopulation of PR after the hurricane. The article also brings up some interesting consequences for cities and states that receive migrants from the island.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/shrinking-shrinking-shrinking-puerto-rico-faces-a-demographic-disaster/2017/10/17/21141334-aac2-11e7-850e-2bdd1236be5d_story.html
LikeLike
When 45 was throwing those paper towels at those people it was like he was Marie Antoinette saying “Let them eat cake.”
LikeLike
more like ‘go ahead clean that mess up now’
LikeLike