"The day after these two people perished in the Rio
Grande, the president of the United States dismissed an accusation that
he had sexually assaulted a prominent author and columnist in the 1990s.
He used a phrase similar to ones he has used in the past to deflect
similar allegations: 'She’s not my type.' It is a terrible thing to say,
with a specifically misogynistic meaning in the context of how men
practice violence against women.
"But it is a
perfect summation of our new and deformed American conscience. It is
pithy and dismissive, an invitation to look at people who have been
victimized and see only otherness. It shuts down any understanding of
trauma before empathy has begun to interrogate how trauma is felt and
experienced. It is about looking without seeing, judging without
understanding. For anyone who wants an off-ramp to the moral demands
made by this image, this could be the universal caption: 'They weren’t
our type.'” -- Philip Kennicott, in today's Washington Post. (Be advised that the picture of the father and daughter who perished are included in the linked article.)
