"Make no mistake about it, the message behind Donald Trump’s tweets telling four American congresswomen of colour to “go back” to their countries was about so much more: It was ultimately a statement about who are seen as real American citizens: white people. And what does it mean to be an American citizen in the United States as a person of colour under the Trump presidency?
If you are not American in the way that President Trump narrowly defines what an American is, your patriotism and love of country is immediately called into question. He knows his base very well, and understands that overt gestures of patriotism (for example, when he tightly embraces the American flag), no matter how superficial and contrived, are a political win for him.
Mr. Trump’s call to leave the country did not start with Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. When football player Colin Kaepernick protested the shooting of unarmed black men and the treatment of minorities by kneeling during the national anthem, Mr. Trump told Mr. Kaepernick that he should find a country that works better for him.
In a recent op-ed, Jamelle Bouie discusses Mr. Trump’s racist idea of citizenship. The President’s America, Mr. Bouie says, is a “white man’s country.” Mr. Bouie believes that Trump has a theory of American citizenship that is rooted in whiteness. That likely explains his concern for the seizing of land from white South African farmers, where his unwelcome tweets have been criticized for stoking racial divisions in a country that is already racially divided."
|  | Donald J. Trump on Twitter“I have asked Secretary of State @SecPompeo to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropr... |
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