A lot of folks are talking about the absolutely racist letter that showed up in East Side Allentown in recent days. Among the insane claims in the letter- there are roughly 40,000 “illegals” in Allentown, rent would go down if we deported more, and my favorite of the bunch, the Puerto Rican flag is going to replace the American flag. I guess the fact that Puerto Rico recognizes the American flag as an American territory is lost on these guys. The people producing this are ignorant, hateful, modern day Klansman, and they are worthy of our collective mockery. We should point out that they are dumb, in addition to being dangerous. While others have declined to post the letter because they don’t want to platform it, I have to disagree. Our continued denial that a sizable enough portion of our society to matter believes in white supremacist, Neo-Nazi, radical fundamentalist, and nativism hasn’t helped us at all. Only confronting and shaming bigots can help us dig out of our reality.

The entire mindset that America is a white, Christian, English speaking country is built on false history and open lies. Native Americans lived all over the Americas for a long time before Europeans got here. They were not white. When Europeans did arrive, it was not only English men that built colonies in America, unless you’re so stupid as to believe the only history here is the original 13 colonies. France had massive territory here, where people spoke French, including everyone in the Louisiana Purchase territories, or a gigantic chunk of our country. “New Spain” was a massive land territory spanning both continents, and present day Florida, Texas, California, and the entire southwest were included in it. Russia had territory on the West Coast, besides Alaska, that is in today’s America. Hawai’i was never a white place when it was simply a Polynesian set of islands, and certainly was not English speaking. In fact, no natives of the soil in the United States were white, spoke English, or were Christian. The overwhelming majority of Europeans who came and settled colonies in America were not English speaking. And I could certainly go into the enormous role slaves played in literally building this country, and that none of them are white, but I think most people reading me are smart enough to know that, so I won’t. And all of that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the roles of East Asian, South Asian, Middle Eastern (Arab, Persian, and Jewish), African, and Eastern European immigrants that came here and joined Western European immigrants to build a wealthy, superpower country we have inhabited for most of our lives (I’m not sure we are “the” superpower now, but I digress). Pretending that the country that just celebrated it’s 250th birthday was built by a bunch of white, English speaking Christian’s men is historically ignorant, and can be a racist view of history. Even the idea that we are a “Christian nation” is fundamentally flawed- yes, that is the largest religious group and therefore sets many norms, but our first amendment was crystal clear in it’s declaration that the government shall not establish a state religion. We are *supposed* to be a country where a Bosnian can live next to a Serbian, a Palestinian next to an Israeli, an Orthodox Christian next to a Muslim, or a Catholic next to a Protestant, and the relationship is peaceful. The idea of some “pure blood” American citizenry sounds remarkably similar to what we defeated in World War II.

The truth is that almost all of the people who think we need to racially/religiously/linguistically purify our culture and society are simply mediocre or worse people who cannot compete in modern America. They are afraid of the implications of more people in their society, bringing more histories and cultures, and how that will impact their ability to survive socially, economically, and even personally. Frankly, they deserve to fail. And we should tell them so, and point out their inadequacies, and mock them. We shouldn’t look away and pretend simply shunning them will get rid of the problem. They won’t self examine until it hurts.

And one final note about this flier- it’s central premise of decline caused by the Latino population in Allentown is bullshit. You know what Allentown would be today without it’s Latino population? A dying shithole. Literally any and all cultural and economic advancement would have simply died. Young white people with any sort of skill would all have been leaving, as has happened in many former industrial “Rust Belt” cities across America. Latinos moving in brought vibrancy, economic viability, and energy that saved probably all three Lehigh’s Valley cities, and we should be thankful that they did. And for those who cry that they politically altered the landscape? I’ll remind you that no single group has moved more right in the Lehigh Valley from 2016 to 2024 than Latinos in Allentown. So miss me with making this about politics.

Stuff the people writing this shit in lockers. Make sure they know they are the losers in this story.