Selena Gomez and 'Her People'

The other day, Selena Gomez posted a blathering, pathetic video of herself sobbing over the recent deportations, during which she says, "All my people are being attacked." Attached to the video is an emoji of a Mexican flag. After the foreseeable backlash, she deleted the video and posted the words "Apparently it's not ok to show empathy for people." 

(Pause. Close eyes. Unclench fists. Take deep breaths.)

Ok Selena, you dunce, you wanted attention? You got my attention. I normally just roll my eyes when some Disney-brat-turned-harlot-turned-clueless-activist decides to embarrass herself by chiming in on world events from which they've been encapsulated their entire privileged lives. But you've gone above and beyond the call of duty and have exposed yourself as EXACTLY what the problem is. So there will be no nuance or civility here.

You said, "My people are being attacked." And by "my people," you mean Mexican people. As opposed to American people or any other people. And just in case we didn't get it, your Mexican flag emoji dispels any possible doubt or misunderstanding.

Despite your claim, you're not showing "empathy for people." You're engaging in racist tribalism, the same racist tribalism at which you'd howl and shriek if a white person mouthed your exact same words. Your priority is Mexican people and only Mexican people. And your racist tribalism runs so deep that you're willing to cry online over the deportation of violent criminals simply because they're Mexican. The color of their skin matters more to you than the fact that they're degenerate predators who prey on the innocent.

And to the extent that you pretend to care about people who aren't Mexican, it's only in the context of the leftist non-white majority vs. white majority Manichean racial segregation. If your dream came true and all white people disappeared tomorrow, your temporary truce with other non-white minorities would shatter overnight. 

Without white people to blame for problems for which you refuse to accept responsibility, you'd find new grievances and quickly turn your sights on some other "oppressor," against which you'd find yourself again fighting for "your people." No skin color, ethnicity, or other group is immune from this tendency. It's the story of human history.

So which is it, Selena? Are we all people, regardless of skin color or ethnicity, or would you prefer we separate ourselves into "my people" and "your people"? Because here's what I promise you is not gonna happen. Here's what everyone of every skin color is sick of. We're done with the double standard. We're done with you getting to draw lines in the sand protecting "your people" while expecting everyone else to be diverse and tolerant.

Because if that's what you choose, then I'm more than willing to keep deporting "your people" if it will prevent the murder and rape of "my people" like Laken Riley, Rachel Morin, and Jocelyn Nungaray. I'm aware that Venezuelans and not Mexicans murdered Nungarary, but I think it's a safe assumption that you'd still rather cry for them under the wider umbrella of all Latinos being "your people" than you would their 12 year old victim (who, for the record, is also Latina, but whose murder serves only as an inconvenient distraction in furtherance of your racist agenda — no doubt had white hillbillies murdered her, you'd have spoken up about it). 

Now listen, Selena, because this next part is important. Do you know why most Americans support the mass deportation of "your people"? It's because of the very insistence of small-minded bigots like yourself and some of "your people" to continue to segregate themselves as "your people." Your mindset of "your people" is precisely your people's worst enemy. With it comes a bullheaded refusal to assimilate, to coexist, or to treat other people as equals. That might elicit approval within the barriers of self-isolating inner city neighborhoods, some of whose inhabitants have lived here for decades and still can't (or won't) speak a word of English. But it doesn't do much to improve the lot of "your people." 

You're blessed to live in a nation, the only of its kind, in which hundreds of millions of people of different colors and ethnicities can live together peacefully with little of the Balkanization that plagues so much of the rest of the world. The goal has been E Pluribus Unum. Out of Many, One. For the most part, this nation has achieved that.

And it didn't happen by accident. Our multiracial society is the result of hundreds of years of conscious, concerted efforts to buck the historical world trend. And Americans black and white, rich and poor, urban and rural, Republican and Democrat, native and legal immigrant have done all the heavy lifting, often at great personal risk.

They made it happen by overcoming the base instinct to self-segregate by group. They escaped from the numbing slavery of tribalist identity, from which derives your disgusting assertion that the rights of "your" rapists take precedence over the lives of "our" citizens. Our societal harmony is only possible for people willing to look beyond their own skin color, to look beyond "their people," and to respect and love the others as sovereign individuals.

But you, Selena, don't believe in E Pluribus Unum. You believe in "diversity is our strength." And by that, you mean that "diversity" is a trojan horse that exploits the naïveté and misplaced guilt of hip progressives to further empower "your people" and only "your people." You'd have no issue whatsoever if it were white European criminals being deported (which most white Americans also would have no issue with).

There is a place for Mexican chauvinists who think that Mexico is the center of the universe and who want nothing to do with anyone who isn't "their people." That place is called Mexico. And there is a place for ethnic Mexicans who know the path to a better life is expanding one's horizons, exploring beyond one's comfort zones, and having the grace and decency to assimilate into the host culture which welcomed them, to include respect of its customs, traditions, and laws. That place is called the United States of America.

And lest you sling the threadbare race card, let me clarify that this standard applies to immigrants not just from Mexico, but for "my people" coming from white countries and whose recent arrivals are trending much more chauvinist and ultra-nationalist than their wiser and humbler grandparents did.

For the record, "my people" came from Poland, and my great-aunt would have cut my throat in full view of the Thanksgiving guests had I made the mistake of calling her Polish rather than American. Despite the struggles that most lower-class immigrants experience, she embraced this country wholeheartedly and never let any vulgar sense of ethnic pride prevent her from acknowledging that there were good reasons for leaving the Old World.

So when I see a new arrival from Poland in the Polish white t-shirt and the Polish fake gold chain strutting around his Polish pride every November 11, I don't see "my people." I see a self-centered, ignorant moron, too shallow to appreciate the inheritance this nation literally handed him on a silver platter. If Poland is heaven on earth, well, nobody's keeping you here, son.

Tim Scott and Thomas Sowell and Winsome Earle-Sears are "my people." Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Enes Kanter and Ted Cruz are "my people." Our longing for freedom is what binds us, not the dirt upon which our shackled ancestors trod. E Pluribus Unum.

Selena, your idea of "your people" is as vile as it is antiquated. It has no place in Western pluralistic society, and it is at the crux of most of our remaining problems. If this election showed us anything, it's that millions of citizens who you compartmentalize as "your people" and whom you arrogantly assume agree with you with this designation and the racial supremacism it entails, have broken free from that narrative. This past November, millions of "your people" voted for E Pluribus Unum.

So wipe away the tears, kid. The more ethnically Latino citizens there are who choose to embrace the American way, the less of "your people" there are to deport.