Sojourners strongly denounces the hateful words spoken by Donald Trump during a closed-door immigration-related meeting this week. According to news outlets and confirmed to the media by at least one senator present at the meeting, President Trump asked, “Why do we have all these people from shit-hole nations come here” when referring to immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and several African countries. It has been reported the President went on to say he would like more people from “places like Norway.” The message was clear --about the color of the skin of the people Trump wants and does not want in America.
The words uttered by Trump may be among the ugliest and most harmful words to ever come from the White House of the United States of America. Media debates around what the words mean dominate the current news cycle. Debates over language are not the issue but rather the worldview that white European immigrants are preferable to black and brown immigrants. As an organization committed and driven by faith in action for racial justice and healing, Sojourners urges a unified response against this Administration’s divisive, dangerous, and racist agendas against people of color, immigrants, refugees, and Muslims; again revealed by the brutal expletives from the President of the United States.
“The deepest question we must ask is about white American Christians. What will they/we say and do? Will we speak against the racism which is a sin against God and against our brothers and sisters of color who are all made in the image of God? Silence is not morally or biblically allowed; and silence is complicity according the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. whose birthday we remember on Monday. My recommendation is that every MLK event in America this Monday make the move from commemoration to commitment. It is time for Christians, especially white American Christians, to speak out and step up as Christians to the kind of racial talk and actions that are now becoming normalized in the United States of America and that we heard again on Thursday from the Oval Office. God help us,” said Jim Wallis, president and founder of Sojourners.