Go back where you came from is not a new thing. I've heard it from racists all my life. You are strange. You don't look like me. You don't go to my church. You eat food that smells funny. What the hell are you doing here?
In a way, if you live in an insular community, that might be a normal reaction if you're five years old and don't know any better. After all, it's possible that everyone you've met has been a certain way, and you've never seen anything or anyone like this. On the other hand, it's just as likely that you've been taught this. Maybe your peers are racist so you think it must be okay. And where did that come from? Could it be parents who've never learned any better?
It's hard to say. But if you live in a place like NYC, you have to be totally without perception not to see the wide variety in culture. It must be a misery to live as a racist here, hating almost everyone you see or meet. And yet there are a whole lot of people who carry around this hatred day to day.
My wife is from Colombia. She's the sister of a former college student I had. I used to think that if I lived a bad life, I'd spend eternity at Court St., going from floor to floor finding out my college transcripts had arrived on this floor but needed to be resent to that one. That, of course, was before I started visiting immigration services. The DOE has absolutely nothing on them.
I remember, to go to INS, I'd have to take a day off from work. One day, we went in and got there around 9 AM, you know, business hours. A woman asked me if I had an appointment. I said no, I thought we just had to come here. She said we needed an appointment, but if we got here around 6 AM (I think) it wouldn't be necessary. Whatever the exact hour was, it was very early.
I remember the next time we went in, it was maybe the coldest day of the year. I always go early to important appointments, and I distinctly recall standing around freezing our asses off for a long time. I don't know if it was hours but it sure felt like it. When we finally got in, I went right up to the same woman who told me to come in early. She said, "We changed that policy. Now you have to make an appointment."
I went crazy. I started screaming. Sometimes if you do that, people will give you what you want so you'll shut up. Not at INS. Two very large federal cops came over to me and offered to take me to jail if I didn't shut up. My wife insisted that I shut up, and I did.
A nearby white woman told me I should go back where I came from.
I told her that I came from here, and defied her to tell me where I should go. Because she was not quite as stupid as President Trump, she kind of slunk away.
She was, of course, a bigot, just like the President. She thought she was better than me because she was born here and I wasn't. Unlike the President, she knew she'd made a mistake when I called her on it.
It's very sad to have an ignorant, juvenile, recalcitrant bigot as President of the United States.
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