Samantha Bee using the « c word » to describe Ivanka Trump was unnecessary, but also distracted from Donald Trump’s vile immigration policy.
Can we please stop flipping out because comedian Samantha Bee, host of the TBS show Full Frontal With Samantha Bee, railed at Ivanka Trump ‘s insensitivity, by calling her the ‘c-word.’ Personally, I wouldn’t have done it. It’s an ugly and demeaning word to describe women. In fact, there have been many photos of Trump supporters wearing T-shirts of Hillary Clinton calling her the ‘c-word’. And let’s not forget that Trump supporter, musician Ted Nugent, also called Hillary the ‘c-word’ and then got a well-publicized visit to the White House. But if we object to Republicans using the c-word, we shouldn’t be OK with Samantha using it either.
Nevertheless, I understand the anger and frustration that led Samantha to “cross the line,” as she admitted in her swift apology. When she insulted Ivanka, she was making the point that the first daughter, who is an official “assistant to the president,” was doing nothing to stop her father’s cruel policy of separating children and babies from their parents when they cross the American border from Mexico. Yet Ivanka has sold herself as an advocate for women, parents and families ever since she began campaigning for her father.
Now, Bee was pointing out, that not only has Ivanka been silent about the terrified crying children and babies being literally torn out of their mother’s arms at the US border, she also posted an Instagram photo of herself cuddling her baby son the same weekend that Twitter erupted over the cruel policy. The Instagram photo, captioned “My love,” was slammed by thousands on Twitter as cluelessly insensitive as public horror built over her father’s policy of separating migrant parents and children. Samantha Bee was reporting on that unconscionable policy when she dropped the ‘c-word.’ For those of you who aren’t aware — Donald Trump has ordered his administration to separate parents from their children when they cross the border LEGALLY seeking asylum in the US. Let me just repeat this — it is LEGAL to cross our border and seek asylum. But Trump doesn’t want immigrants and migrants entering from Mexico, period, and so he’s using this policy to discourage these desperate people.
US Attorney Jeff Sessions calls this a “zero tolerance” policy. “If you are smuggling a child then we will prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you as regulated by law,” he said. The only thing is that the parents seeking asylum in the US from terrible situations, in Central and South America, are not “smuggling” their children, and there is no law requiring our government to enforce this cruelty. It’s a policy, Trump’s policy. Children and babies are literally being ripped away from their parents and then those parents are not being told where their children are — sometimes for months at a time. There are reportedly cases of the parents then being deported WITHOUT their children, who have been left somewhere behind here in the US. The ill-equipped Department of Health and Human Services is in charge of taking care of these kids, but the Trump administration isn’t the least bit concerned about these defenseless and traumatized children and babies, at all. As White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told NPR in an interview: “The children will be taken care of — put in foster care or whatever.”
“Whatever.”?
These are children. Innocent human beings. They are being brought to our country because they and their parents were in dire and often life- threatening situations. Are these American values? Since when did we stand for deliberately traumatizing children? This is the horror that Samantha Bee was describing and protesting when she dropped her ‘c-bomb.’ Unfortunately, there’s been a far bigger tsunami about her vulgarity than about the obscenity of our president’s new policy. As Samantha said on May 31, “We spent the day wrestling with the repercussions of one bad word, when we all should have spent the day incensed that as a nation, we are wrenching children from their parents and treating people legally seeking asylum as criminals.” Amen.
What do you think?
