Those are things we don't want in the United States and one other thing
There's people with predatory behavior in every–
Excuse me, but you get mad at me
But if I could say this, it's not baked into their religion
Trump supporters, can I have you over there. My immigrants can I have you in the other light?
Sometimes I feel anxious about how the other side views me.
Uh, so it's not necessarily about the idea of immigrants, but I'm Muslim and there can be a lot of
directed
aggression from Trump supporters that I think I felt and other people in my Muslim community have felt and
That's why I'm here sitting with you guys.
I own a clothing line Magga preneur. This is my clothing line.
I'm a political strategist and a political activist and when I leave my house,
I am in fear for my life because every day I get death threats
So I think we both should be able to freely express ourselves. I love everybody, I'm here for everybody
I'll fight for your right for freedom, but I expect for you to fight for mine too because that's why we're in America
My name is Shastina, so I absolutely love immigration
but I believe that we need to secure our border and it's the same thing of I wouldn't just let anyone in my car or
in my house.
Alright, disagreers come on in
I used to get anxious about
How I'm perceived not just by some quote-unquote other side because my identity is very apparent in standing in my truth
I think it allows other folks to stand in theirs and to invite people to also learn more about me rather than
Be worried about how I'm perceived.
I think my group gets represented unfairly in the media.
[laughter]
Well I'm a Mexican and I hesitated because when Trump said that things about Mexicans being criminals and all that I
I didn't take it personal because I'm not that
So I was like that does not represent me like I'll take things yeah, so that's why I hesitated
But then I'm like I am not only one Mexican individual who's an immigrant I'm part of all the immigrants no matter. What country
You're from
We can say the same thing for Trump supporters right I mean
Now we have to maybe I wasn't called a racist, but you were called racist well guess what we're both Trump supporters
So now we have to band together
Could I, could I ask both of you a question and I'd like an honest reaction to this in my mind, It's languaging
I'm a writer, and I think if we made a distinction between
jihadists and
Muslims that would solve a big problem
That's plausible and I think a lot of that goes in it's really the realm of how much people really are interested in
understanding that kind of diversification and
uh, allowing the community that does know that really I don't know take the lead and
Initiative and show other people what that's about.
I feel threatened by this presidency.
When President Trump got elected as president. I was scared even though I had
Not a reason to because I'm legal here power becomes scary in hands of a monster
power becomes scary in hands of ignorance, and I'm scared about
My people and not only like I said the Mexicans all the good, hard-working immigrants.
Yeah, I think the election night was when I felt alarmed.
I've been a community organizer and an activist for 15 years now right that night
It felt like a slap in the face
To all of the work that we have always tried to do in terms of humanizing ourselves. My name is Kipasha
I think we realize as immigrants how lucky we are to be here, and that's why we want to create a society
That's more welcoming for others to be here
>>You said it was a slap in the face, and I take offense to that because
You're saying you work so hard
And yet we work so hard to to
Elect a president of the United States that we think will enforce the the laws
We'll enforce the United States Constitution
and it wasn't to be racist or it wasn't to
Boot you out of the country, and it was to enforce the First Amendment
It's actually to enforce your freedom of speech. I understand why you're scared
That as a white
Trump supporter
I am scared of this presidency because I have lost my freedom of speech
I have lost my freedom of religion
I have lost my freedom to wear this shirt in the public just because I have a different political view
Now I'm the enemy in my own country
I think that that's unfortunate about happened to you
But it's almost like you have some semblance of the reality that people of color live with for centuries here
And I've never seen that and I've never the first time you felt that right, right
But I I'm just gonna let you know that my neighbors are black. I have Muslim neighbors
I have I have neighbors of all kinds when we go to the grocery store, and I'm picking out yogurt
I'm picking out yogurt this looks like someone just like you, but it doesn't mean that you experience the same thing
I think even though we eat the same yogurt but nobody in my County treats people like that
it's
Just not. I don't think you would be able to say that I've lived in Orange County up until a few months ago
If I'm at a mall or if I'm even at the beach right I get a lot of strange stares
I even feel like a lot of people after the election came up to me asking me about
my positions my religion my identity so what I'm trying to say is like I can actually relate to what you went through because that
to be honest is a shred of
similarity to what people of color we came here, and then we were born basically sure I
Believe in immigration, but I am against illegal immigration
My whole thing is
assimilation right so like making sure that the culture's match if you know someone in the Middle East who's
Gay will be killed right
That's a thing and it's horrible if someone with that culture is somehow makes it through vetting and comes here
And then sees a gay couple you know kissing or whatever
They're gonna
Freak out or they're gonna react very differently in a way that you know we're trying to move past or not trying to be held
back by so I believe assimilation is
Probably one of the most important factors of why we need legal and not illegal immigrations my thing is about money
An awful lot of people who came here legally don't want
Illegal people being able to come or get free college it costs a hundred and eighteen billion
Dollars in welfare benefits, that's a huge
Why do I have to pay so that Walmart has cheap workers my name is Ken hunger?
I don't have anything against immigrants. It's a political problem. It's not an immigrant problem. I
Was an illegal immigrant at one point in my life
I am not anymore
but ultimately we left a country of war a country where extremism and terrorism was a reality and
This is something that was on a daily oppression towards women
If we don't have legal immigration
And we'll have that here we want you to come and be safe
But don't you want that for everyone else?
doesn't matter where you're coming from I think it might be a misconstrued and/or a misconception to think that the
Illegal immigrants might bring up the crime rates and when we're talking about what happens
After immigrants or refugees or illegals or anything coming to the state and how can we help them from here?
I think that is the real essential question we have a humanitarian duty to help one another out regardless of if we're
Afghan if we're Israeli if we're American we're all humans ultimately it's so fantastic
But what about our vets what about our children that are starving? What about our foster homes that are full?
What about them? We're not helping them, we're taking in all these refugees if we can't fix our citizens
How can we fix others? It's just kind of like if I can't love myself. I can't love another person
It should be easier to immigrate into America
It should be easier the way time should be shorter, right
But I believe that it's so lengthy not because the process is so extreme. I've I mean personally
I think it's so lengthy because it's mismanaged. Yeah, I think that
Well that too, but I think it's just like there's a way in a process
That should be put in place so it's not 15 years. Let's say that they fully cooperate, right
Let's say they have everything they have all the documents, and they're ready yeah, I think it should be a lot shorter
Do you think make it less bureaucratic yeah basically, okay? I mean I think I would agree with that
I just feel like when it comes to Trump you support the individual, but then the bureaucracy the
Administration all of that is so painstaking just so inefficient and in all of this it doesn't really compute for me
So I think we've been in there a year, right?
Yeah, we have so many changes that we want to make so let's talk about a couple of policy things
What about the Muslim banner the travel ban the travel ban to me was more about?
Obama
But it was enacted by Trump. Don't don't get me wrong
I agree with the travel ban right and I agree with refugees
But that's two separate things to me so what I'm trying to say is that none of these policies that are happening are
Not to do with one another they're all
Intertwined when we say we support the travel ban, but we also support refugees
But we also want to like help them get vaccinations
And we also want to do that some islands want to well don't forget
We're funding the same bombs that are causing
The Yemenis to have to become route there has to be a reason right so so it's so it's all it's all it's all connected
Right so, so why are we bombing Yemen personally? I haven't looked into Yemen. I guess I'm missing your point
Refugees you support
Yes travel, ban this one, ban you support. It's not me. It's not a mother. Yes. I support a travel, ban
So we can assess who's coming in. I just think it's important to contextualize like you're saying nothing happens in a vacuum
Yeah, right, and I think that if we start to actually connect the dots like I'm encouraging us to do then
It'll become a lot more
understandable, I mean I don't believe anyway I
Would like to answer your question about why we're bombing Yemen
We're not palm in Yemen were bombing radical jihadists in Yemen who were killing people
That's why we're bombing parts of Yemen
Selectively to kill people who are doing terrible terrible things, and there's a tremendous amount of rape happening in England
Taking these little girls grooming them because they feel they have the right to do we don't want that here those are things
We don't want in the United States and one other thing. There's people with predatory behavior in every excuse me
If I could say this and you'll get mad at me
But if I could say this it's not baked into their religion
There are a hundred and nine passages in the Quran where people are told to kill
infidels and in Christians and Jews there's nothing like that in our Bible or in the
Bhagavad-gita or in anything Buddha taught or any other religion. I'm aware of in the world
until people renounce those
values then
They scare me I don't think so
I haven't renounced any part of my religion in front of you, so I hope that you don't feel threatened by me
So I'm not sure what you mean by that
And I won't renounce any part of it slam the point that I'm trying to make is that you didn't really answer the question
No, he did. He said the reason why we're bombing him on Yemen is to save the people because I'm assuming that in Yemen. We've
Managed to keep out people like that guys remember. This is a video of a trumpet immigrants. We're mixing too much the religion
Well, I think the race the Taliban yes, yes that you shouldn't question somebody's religion. I am very religious very religious and
I'm not putting anything
About my religion in here
I'm here to talk about me as an immigrant you guys are here to talk about Donald Trump's like supporting him and yes
I've learned a lot like you guys are human, too. You have values you
Who would have thought you know that we would have found?
Common ground and we wouldn't like hit each other right here
You know because after the media portraying you guys as bad, or closest terrorist whatever right?
I think the media is getting us all in a different light
Yeah, I think that we're portraying ourselves in a very different light, too
I mean I feel very attacked just now for my religion when I did start to talk about myself as an immigrant
You don't say you kept talking about the travel, ban. It's a Muslim, but that has nothing to do with immigration
It's not a Muslim
But what I'm trying to just say is that no one should have to explain Muslim Christian Jewish none of the above
What they are to you, but Muslims?
Continuously have to defend. Not only their religion, but their humanity
what I love about this country is the
Diversity I just when I came here from Mexico
I just loved how there was different religions different colors different people like it's amazing
It's it's beautiful, and I don't I don't understand how
empty of a human you have to be to discriminate someone just because of their looks, it's
it's these pre-programmed thoughts in our head from just media as what I believe just
blowing things out of proportion just
Consistently just the outlook on
Minorities or the outlook on people in certain situations is just bad once you humanize someone when you're having a conversation
When I and I look past you know whatever these biases that people try to
Enact on me right or that I see and I start looking at you as a person
I start listening to what you're saying you really realize that it's not that different
I mean we just we have different situations we have different information
But we're all trying to do the best
that we have I think the real interesting aspect that I guess a lot of discrimination is really about is taking this general idea of
phenomenon where you can associate my case at least like Muslims
Terrorists equal each other and take individuals and group them so easily with that sort of discrimination
And I think that's something that we have to work towards in terms of separating ourselves from doing that
Thank you. Everybody. I appreciate you
All right
Hey guys, thanks for watching that episode of middle ground my name is Taylor my name is Dan
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