President Donald Trump, while urging for tighter security on the border, claimed that women in an immigrant caravan that is currently headed towards the U.S. are “raped at levels never seen before.” Well, if there’s anyone qualified to make statements like this it’s feminist icon, Donald Trump. Why would he ever make a claim like this without doing his research? Why would our president ever lie about immigrants?

Well, our president is racist. So there’s that.

We all remember the comments he made while on the campaign trail about Mexicans being “rapists and criminals.” We all know he boasts plans to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it. We all know that he has now deployed up to 4000 troops from the National Guard at the Mexican border.

What we’re not willing to acknowledge is that we as Americans have allowed this to happen. How? Fear mongering, which is deliberately causing fear relating to a specific issue.

Yes, we have allowed for Trump and many others like him to create an image of Mexicans and Latinos that is harmful and wrong. Of course it’s hard to prevent racist ideologies from forming in people’s minds; we can’t mind control people. However, in our complacency and our own deep-rooted hatred, these ideologies have had room to grow. 

Why is it that we have allowed women of color to become a tool for fear mongering? This is a much larger issue of media and how women and men of color are portrayed.

In Disney’s “Pocahontas” the Native American men are all forcing Pocahontas into roles she isn’t comfortable with, roles that would limit her autonomy. At one point we actually see her betrothed hit her. Who saves Pocahontas? A boiled and lightly salted chicken breast, aka John Smith.

Literally in every Tyler Perry movie, the dark-skinned Black man is the antagonist. A light-skinned Black woman gets terrorized by her dark-skinned husband, and is later saved by a light-skinned Black man who shows her what “real love” is. Why are we so comfortable with these narratives of women of color be beaten, raped and terrorized by men of color?

Why have we turned women of color into defenseless victims of domestic violence for the melanin-deficient hero to rescue?

It is because it’s easier to turn women of color into victims than it is to actually care for and help them.

Think about it, why would Trump, a racist, misogynist serial rapist suddenly advocate for these women who are being allegedly raped in this caravan? What reasons other than to incriminate Mexican immigrants, and further his anti-Mexican agendas?

There’s no evidence supporting his claims. In fact, Buzzfeed reporter Adolfo Flores who has been following the caravan, responded to these claims via Twitter. He said “to be clear I haven’t heard of anyone being raped in or around the caravan.”

The president has only said this to promote tighter security at the border, and the caravan never even ended at the border. Trump looked at a large group of Mexican immigrants, labeled them as criminals and rapists as he always does, then tried using that to rally people for more security at the border.

So how do we prevent these ideologies from spreading to younger generations? How do we keep these bigoted views from thriving? It’s simple, we speak out against these views, we dismantle them and we defend our Mexican and Latinx brothers and sisters. It is important to teach others that these immigrants, whether they be documented or not, are human beings who deserve basic human rights.

Fight for immigrants, fight for humanity.