In Ann Coulter’s blog post, “HEROIN: BLAME IT ON AMERICA”, she has a quick and simple answer for the rise in drug overdoses: the Mexicans. The audience Coulter is trying to reach consists of conservative Republicans that are for stricter border control. She blames the illegal immigrants that have come into our country for the influx of drugs, namely heroin. Coulter insists that if we build a wall, this won’t be an issue. And of course, the only man for the job is Donald Trump himself. Before I say anything else, can it just be said that the Bush administration spent $6 million on the Secure Fence Act. While it may not be the Great Wall of China on the southern border that Coulter and Trump are advocating for, our borders are not open. Even if we built a wall 1,000 feet high, drugs would still find a way into our country. The cartel is bad. No one is arguing with Coulter there. But she seems to suggest that not only are Cartel members pushing drugs into our country, but every single person of Mexican heritage. The hard working families with full, productive lives? Nope, just a bunch of heroin pushers. Coulter notes the rise in heroin deaths for white and blacks. She contrasts this with a statistic that in her eyes proves Hispanics’s guilt, “Curiously, heroin deaths of Hispanics increased by 0.0 percent. They aren't the users; they're the pushers.” Yes, because all hispanics in our country, illegal or not, are pushing heroin. This rhetoric can’t any more bigoted. Coulter isn’t know for her political correctness, but this is a stretch. While it’s easy to blame America’s drug problem on some “other”, it just isn’t that simple. Drug addiction is insidious. It’s causes are to blame at a social, societal, and policy level. Drug trafficking is an issue. Heroin use and heroin overdoses destroy lives. But let’s call Coulter’s anti-Hispanic speech what it really is: xenophobia.
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My virtual classmate Nicolette Loisel's blog Democratic Debris, specifically her post "This Just In; drug addiction is complicated" called out Ann Coulter's recent binge of Hispanic hate on the issue of America's heroin addiction problem.
Way to go Nicolette! I 100% agree that Coulter is out of line using her position to perpetuate hate speech and xenophobia. Coulter fails to acknowledge that Americans are the ones creating a market for drug use; including heroin and "other opiates". "Other opiates" being the ones created by our government funded, tax break-leaning pharmaseutical companies that generate most of their revenue from pumping white folks full of drugs as fast as they can create 10 new names for multiple conditions of being human in society.
It is a perpetual cycle; a drug is available + someone wants it + someone brings it in = money made = market opportunity for less developed nations to try and keep up with the Jones'. Mexico is just the closest nation to blame it on.
Heroin originally came from the Asian market as we brought immigrants over to do the hard work for us in developing our westward expansion via railroads, post revolutionary wars in europe in order to sedate and minimize physical and mental pain experienced by veterans as well as the same treatments during and after the American Civil War.
Coulter also fails to note that illegal drug trades account for untaxed revenue generated by lower class folks, usually, on more financially secure classes. Drug trafficing on the street level where most overdoses are spawned from usually comes from the lower classes trying to get a leg up in the vicious economy we have created in order to limit who can do what. Yes Coulter! Blame the mexicans for your untaxed revenue and expanding middle class you crazy conservative!
And how dare Coulter say Bernie Sanders "gets chesty about 'the pharmaceutical industry and the drug companies who are producing all of these drugs and not looking at the consequence of it.' and "only Trump doesn't blame America first". WHO THE F*** SHOULD WE BLAME!? America wants drugs, American pharmaseutical companies make drugs, America will get drugs one way or another, EVERYONE can die from drugs.
Right on Nicolette. In this case good fences don't make good neighbors. Coulter is a right wing nut job afraid of the reality that America sucks pretty bad at some things like taking responsibility for our actions. Before we can solve the surface level problems that the more elite classes see, we first have to fix the root issues like xenophobia, unfair class separations, tax breaks, profit driven government policy benefiting the minority, and fear of responsibility locally before globally.
I thought this blog post calling out Coulter playing the blame game was blunt and matter-of-fact. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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