Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller of San Antonio, Tex., regrets that his recent tweets about President Trump “were not focused on the issues but on an individual.”
“All individuals have God-given dignity and should be accorded respect and love as children of God, especially in our conversations and interactions,” the archbishop said in a bilingual statement. “We should be aware of this in our discourse about the Office of the President of the United States, which is due our respect.”
On Tuesday, Archbishop García-Siller tweeted that the president should “stop hate and racism, starting with yourself.”
The archbishop also released a video statement on Facebook.
On Tuesday on Twitter, Archbishop García-Siller tweeted that the president should “stop hate and racism, starting with yourself.” He also pleaded with Mr. Trump to “stop fake prayer” and said he had caused “too much damage already” in a series of tweets that has since been deleted.
The tweets came after shootings in Dayton, Ohio, Gilroy, Calif., and El Paso, during which gunmen took the lives of more than 30 people. In the aftermath of the shootings, many have connected the violent action to Mr. Trump’s political rhetoric.
The tweets came after shootings in Dayton, Ohio, Gilroy, Calif., and El Paso, Tex.
“Here in South Texas the nearby community of Sutherland Springs was the scene of such a tragedy two years ago,” Archbishop García-Siller said. “This evil makes no sense and will never be fully understood. Disbelief and shock are the overwhelming feelings; and there are not adequate words. There can be no justifiable explanation for such scenes of horror.”
The archbishop recalled the U.S. bishops’ document, “The Enduring Call to Love: A Pastoral Letter Against Racism,” which states: “Despite many promising strides made in our country, the ugly cancer of racism still infects our nation. Racist acts are sinful because they violate justice. They reveal a failure to acknowledge the human dignity of the person offended, to recognize them as the neighbors Christ calls us to love.”
“Every racist act—every such comment, every joke, every disparaging look as a reaction to the color of skin, ethnicity or place of origin—is a failure to acknowledge another person as a brother or sister, created in the image of God,” according to the document, which was approved last November.
“No one has the moral right to make racist statements,” Archbishop García-Siller said. “There is growing fear and harassment, and at times American public discourse uses rhetoric that instigates fear against foreigners, immigrants and refugees.... We do not need more division, but rather, we need to move forward in freedom to discuss these topics more deeply in light of the Gospel.”
According to a recent poll, 85 percent of U.S. adults believe political debate has become more negative. Around 55 percent believe Mr. Trump has worsened the tone of political rhetoric, and fewer than 24 percent believe he has improved it.
Racism is a minor problem in the United States. Claims of racism is a major problem in the United States. Problems in the black community are major but they are not caused by discrimination. They are mainly caused by a breakdown in family structure affecting males extremely disproportionately.
Not being the recipient of racism, you are probably not the best judge.
You just made my point. You claim that there is racism.
Why don't you document the racism in the United States? Don't point to sub-optimal outcomes amongst blacks or other sub groups but to the conditions that led to the sub-optimal outcomes. If you do that, then you will also have to explain how black women do better economically than white women given the same demographic backgrounds.
Back up your claim that black women do better than white women.
Then explain your qualifier, "given the same demographic backgrounds".
Then show that black women, or men, have the same demographic backgrounds in general.
Have you ever heard of Edward Demming?
Do you even have close friends, or any relatives, who are Black or Asian?
If you did you would know racism is real.
The Study - Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An Intergenerational Perspective - Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Maggie R. Jones, Sonya R. Porter
You just agreed with me. I put the qualifier in there because it shows that given the same starting place, black women do slightly better than white woman. If there was discrimination, you would not expect that. The range of economic backgrounds differ widely but why? I would look at the trend of fatherless households as a major reason.
Your remarks are nothing short of preposterous and fly in the face of obvious reality. Chetty himself admits there is racism:
Boushey: Talk a little bit more about this issue of economic mobility and the question of race. In some recent work, you’ve shown that black men experience far less opportunity for economic mobility than do white men, regardless of what income level they’re born into. I take from the research that you’ve done that it appears discrimination is really dragging down economic growth. Can you talk about how that ties into your mobility work, as well as your innovation work?
Chetty: Yes, certainly. Racial disparities are, of course, widely known and have been studied for a long time. The angle my co-authors and I bring in this recent study looks at socioeconomic positions from an intergenerational mobility perspective. If you take a black child and a white child, both of whom start out in the same social or economic circumstances growing up in a family with a given income level of, say $40,000 a year, then how do their prospects of moving up across generations look compared to each other?
It turns out, even above and beyond the factors that we’ve already talked about, race really matters. Black kids, and black men in particular, have much lower chances of climbing the income ladder, and have much higher chances of falling down, of experiencing downward mobility, relative to white kids.
For whites, intergenerational mobility looks like climbing an income ladder across generations. For blacks, unfortunately, it’s more like being on a treadmill. Every generation that climbs up, even once they’ve reached the top of the distribution, black men are more likely to fall back toward the middle or even the bottom of the income distribution.
In order to tackle racial disparities in America, we really need to understand how to change this process of intergenerational mobility, how to create more upward mobility among black kids.
Now, naturally the question is why we have lower rates of mobility among blacks than whites. One dominant hypothesis is the possibility of racial discrimination, either explicit or implicit, because of biases that have been built up over the years. And there is some evidence in the data that is supportive of that view; in particular, areas of the country with less racial bias tend to have higher rates of equitability for black men.
But it’s important to note that there are other factors at play as well. We find that neighborhoods with a greater presence of black fathers, with the fathers in the home raising black kids, tend to have better outcomes for black boys as well—and black boys in particular, not black women or white men.
There’s a very tight and particular correlation between the presence of black fathers and the outcomes of black men. What is that telling us? I think it could be something about role model effects, or differences in social norms, and areas where there are more black fathers present.
But stepping back a bit, I think even that mechanism could tie back to structural factors such as discrimination or incarceration policies. For example, it’s fair to ask why it is that there are some neighborhoods, many neighborhoods, where lots of black fathers are absent. I think mass incarceration or discrimination in the labor market leads to adverse outcomes for black men, which can then transmit to the next generation.
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Read Tim Wise, re-read Chetty and get back to us.
You realize, you just agreed with me.
J Cosgrove---
When someone writes a post that disagrees with you, your response is frequently, “You just agreed with me.” You usually do not explain how they agreed with you. This is particularly frustrating when you are responding to a post that addressed many issues. If you believe that someone who opposes your views, agrees with you, please explain how. I am sure others are as confused as I am about this; particularly, the people who write the posts disagreeing with you.
They just criticize generally and don’t address or refute what has been said. That is tantamount to admitting the person they are criticizing is correct. It’s called logic or common sense. In short supply here.
Did Laura refute anything I said? I didn’t see it.
If anyone truly wants to have a serious discussion on the plight of young blacks then he/she should first study Daniel Patrick Moynihan's The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For_National_Action (the 1965 Moynihan Report)
http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/webid-meynihan.htm
A brief discussion of and about the report can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For_National_Action
"As long as so many black fathers disengage themselves from parenting, it’s virtually impossible to see how the dysfunction ends." Of course it started under President Johnson's "Great Society" programs which forced fathers out of the home in order for the mother and children to be eligible for federal aid. Fatherless families became the norm as young men were relieved of any parental duties.
J Cosgrove---
I suspect you did not read "Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States: An Intergenerational Perspective" by Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Maggie R. Jones, Sonya R. Porter itself, but instead merely read an interpretation of it from someone on the right.
Astoundingly, many of your statements are the exact opposite of what the study found. Apparently, your interpreter selected various lines the writers discussed, but did not bother to include the broader claims to reach the conclusions and findings of the study.
You may read, or at least review, the original study itself to correct your comments at https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/hendren/files/race_paper.pdf
What is there to correct? I have had a copy of the study for about a year.
J Cosgrove---
If you have had the copy of the original study, I suggest you read it (again)?
If you have read and understood the study, you would not have to ask me what needs to be corrected.
But yet you provide nothing to say I have said anything that is incorrect.
J Cosgrove, some people with guns kills other people just because they are "black" or "mexican." This is evidence of racism. It is documented.
You just agreed with me. Yes, there are racist acts. They have been around since the beginning of time. But they are relatively infrequent in the United States and there is no evidence that racism is causing problems for any ethnic group, Maybe Asians since they are being excluded from elite schools because they do too well academically,.
Let's document it then, the total net worth of an African American family in Boston is $8, check the Boston Globe study, https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/12/11/that-was-typo-the-median-net-worth-black-bostonians-really/ze5kxC1jJelx24M3pugFFN/story.html. I suppose you'll run to Charles Murray for an explanation of that fact. You are a child of God, but that hardly makes anyone correct in all their judgements. One can simply be wrong, as you are in this case, try the Exmen..
African American women do better than white women? Cite the expert & source of that laughably false information.
I did cite the source above but apparently you did not read it. African American women do slightly better than white women when controlled for economic background.
J Cosgrove---
You neglected to state that the study also said black girls and women face deep inequality on many measures.
Yes, true, but is this due to discrimination or racism or something else? But given equal economic backgrounds they do slightly better economically. So you agree with me. Why not say so?
J Cosgrove--
I don’t say I agree with you because I don’t. You lift certain lines from the study, but do not give the entire picture which is misleading. Plus, I am not sure why black women do slightly better economically. Perhaps it is because traditionally, they have had to work very hard to care for their families.
You just agreed with me finally. So why criticize what I have said? I try to be accurate in everything I say. Sometimes I just express opinions or observations but I neatly always have evidence and logic behind these comments. Most people just vent or rant here with nothing more than unsubstantiated feelings. And that includes people with SJ after their name.
How about we start with a genuine conversation about the need for reparations? Secondly, if there is no racism in the US please explain the recent pastoral on racism by the US bishops? Thirdly, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck - it's not a fish. Hence, Trump is in fact a racist!
The breakdown of the family structure is tied to discrimination. Have you ever looked at the history? Have you ever studied the statistics?
Yes. When did family structure change? When did it accelerate? It's well documented.
Of course there is racism here, not just among individuals but in groups, like those who frequented the racist hate site Stormfront. If there's no racism here, who were those people that marched in Charlottesville chanting nazi slogans?
Your argument is odd. Anyone who says there is racism is proving your hypothesis that it is the “claim” of racisms that is the problem and that racism itself doesn’t exist. Existential in a tautological kind of way but basically nonsense. To identify another competing evil or issue doesn’t prove the first is non-existent or unimportant.
No it's sound. When someone claims that there is extensive racism (no one is denying that there isn't some racism ), but does not document it actually exists to any great extent is making my point. In order to make the claim that racism is widespread and harmful, one has to document the actual ways this happens. If they cannot, then the false claims are the issue. And there are lots of claims.
Black Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson who has studied this extensively said,
Dr. Orlando Patterson? The talking head on Faux News? The graduate of the London School of Economics? The National Book Award winner? He is correct, but the best protections in the world does nothing to counter, alleviate, or ameliorate, racism.
When you're rich from a powerful Jamaican family and a semi-celebrity, the only color that matters is green.
Thank you for making my point. By denigrating Orlando Patterson. it means you agree. By the way Orlando Patterson's father was a policeman. I don't believe that is a rich powerful Jamaican family.
Lord, where do we get people like you? While you are right about the breakdown of the family, this disaster is most certainly not limited to black males or blacks in general. As with the Jews and the holocaust, the ravages of slavery and Jim Crow have left an entire people suffering from what amounts to PTSD. And let us not forget that all the angry, half-literate, white boys shooting up the place are from similarly dysfunctional families and communities.
As for you and your ilk... Send them back! Send them back!
Thank you for the kind comments. The following is a list of comments by other black academics and journalists
The reason for the deterioration of Black family structure is the policies that Democrats instituted in the 1960's which led to the massive breakdown of the two parent household. Failure to acknowledge this is the real racism in our society.
Hmm... David Brooks noted conservative commentator recently wrote a column in support of reparations. Ever heard of intergenerational trauma? Read much history? Watch anything besides FAUX News? You've got a long way to go friend.
Why regret the truth? That particular individual has a bully pulpit with access to the entire world. It can be used for good or evil. The murderer in El Paso used that the presidents own words. The presidents tweet tied together the gun reform & immigration. The archbishop was restrained in what could be said.
I don't know why is he apologizing for stating the facts based on Trump's own words and actions? Also, did this Bishop not remember that this shooter also had a list of girls he hoped to rape? Oh - I keep forgetting raping women and misogyny are not something most bishops get upset about.
Jesus did not have a problem with condemning behaviors or letting someone know that certain behaviors, if not repented, can lead to actual damnation of the whole person later on. I would rather the Archbishop apologize for not mentioning the evil of this shooters misogyny also fueled by Trump's personal misogyny proven by his own words and deeds rather than have him apologize for pointing out the obvious truth that Trump is a clear racist.
I agree with you - silence does not change the hate and rhetoric coming from 45. People stood by and said nothing when Hitler and the SS came rounding up their neighbors and killing them -let’s learn from history and call out the hate in a respectful manner.
I agree with you - silence does not change the hate and rhetoric coming from 45. People stood by and said nothing when Hitler and the SS came rounding up their neighbors and killing them -let’s learn from history and call out the hate in a respectful manner.
One of the secrets to Trump's success is appeals to white racism and fears of the Twilight of White Dominance. Plain as day. Of course, he'll deny it while doing it. His followers don't demand coherence or consistency or truth.
The Bishop has to be nice, even to such a poor excuse for humanity and manhood as the Orange Poltroon. I don't.
The challenge to your hypothesis is that the President has neither the intelligence nor the affinity for self-reflection to act so intentionally. These are the responses of a back alley rodent.
No intelligence or reflection of any positive sort, I agree. But he does seem to possess the demagogue skill set.
Sorry if this does not sound charitable, but apologizing for speaking the truth is wrong.
Evil does not just happen, evil is done by people. Those who do evil must be called out, personally, by name.
So, Archbishop García-Siller , you were right the first time, wrong to apologize for it.
There should have been no apology. Telling the truth about a public person like the President is important. I wish more of the bishops would speak up to this racist and the hate he spews. Too many Catholics support this moral turd.
This article makes the archbishop look well-intentioned, but absolutely spineless. How sad. God given dignity never the stopped the bishops from firing an LBGT employee, or denying communion to the divorced and remarried. Why is it so important now in relation to Donald Trump? What will happen to our community of moral discernment when we can not hold vicious people and criminals accountable. The president has created a hostile work (and living) environment in this country. There should be social and legal consequences for him, not just simple platitudes about human dignity.