Molly Mitchell…
“For me that statement is unequivocally racist. It’s straight from the textbook for whipping up the base and the worst part about it is it is so extremely dangerous for those women who are already receiving death threats, who are marginalized. But more so than anything, he’s been outrageous since the beginning. But what I‘m more outraged about is Nancy Pelosi who actually put those women out there, called them out asking them not to be divisive, when she was being divisive and so that just gave him an outlet to make it more dangerous for them. So he is just whipping up his base to get votes and his base is a base of racist who are afraid of people of color having any agency or access to power.”
Omar Osman…
“I am a student at Seattle Central College as well as the Student Body President of the college and I originally came here from Somalia as a refugee who lived in Kenya. The words from this president currently I felt personally attacked because my status as person at one time I was basically stateless before I came here, I didn’t have a place to call home. When I got here I thought this was my new home and I’ve given it the best of me. I’m legally here and this is where I call home at the moment. When I heard that statement it really broke my heart because everything that I am doing is for the community that I’m proud of. To feel that I don’t belong, the people that are in Congress who represent us to be called out in that kind of statement is hateful and racist and something to be ashamed of.”
Luna…
“I don’t know, this is a country of immigrants so if they’re supposed to go back, he can go back to Europe in a way. This is a country of immigrants where everyone is coming to find something, peace or whatever they are searching for and it’s where everyone should be working towards the greater good so telling them to go home I don’t think it’s right.”
Efa Ofem…
“So I think it’s the wrong thing to say for the president of a country because their ancestors were brought here as slaves so it’s not like they can go back to a country because they are not citizens of those countries, they’re African Americans now. His publicist isn’t doing him any justice by allowing him to post stuff like that on the internet. I’m Nigerian and I’m here for school and if I was African American and you told me to go back to my country it wouldn’t make sense because I wouldn’t know what country I’m coming from. You brought me here and now there’s no country I can go back to.”
Sabbona Waqo…
“I feel like being the president of the United States he shouldn’t feel or say any type of thing towards any human or female no matter their skin tone, no matter their race, culture, what they believe in, they have worked hard to be where there at. You should judge them based on their effort, based off their hard work and integrity and putting themselves in the position that they have put themselves in, instead of trying to degrade them by telling them to go back to where they came from based off their skin color or them being females.”
Theryn Kigvamasudvashti…
“I think the president of the United States or 45 as I like to refer him as, has no place telling anyone to go back to their home country if he’s not going to first tell his own wife, ok. So that’s the first thing. The second things is this is all he’s got, he’s only got their information as descendants of immigrants or immigrants themselves, first generation, when the reality is that they are amazing women and he has nothing else to talk about and those women could out president him in their sleep and he knows it.”
Photos/Aaron Allen
