Trump’s comments are not amusing [letter]

Comedians are making fun of the fact that Donald Trump made weird statements about immigrants eating cats and dogs during the Sept. 10 presidential debate.

There is something pathetic, not funny, about this xenophobic commentary that Trump and many Republicans have bizarrely gotten behind.

These are the kinds of remarks that have inspired epithets such as "Karen" and "Kevin" for situations in which easily offended white people attack or accuse Black people for their mere presence.

We (meaning white people) have to take responsibility for whiteness, just as we take responsibility for our very identity as Americans. That's because whiteness has everything to do with our history — including the concept that "we" are white.

And, yes, it began in 1619. I am responsible for the enslavement of Africans, who are just as American as I am white.

When we unpack these Trumpian statements, we see they are not funny, even though they are absurd. We are being told that cats and dogs in Springfield (a typical-sounding American town name) are more important than the lives of Black people who live in Ohio or anywhere else.

I'm no journalist, so I don't have to beat around the bush. For the world, Trump, in code, has declared himself a fascist. And I would say that ideology spreads deeply throughout the Republican Party. You don't have to read "Mein Kampf" to think like that.

Egon de Uriarte