Aftandilian in The Arab Weekly on Trump’s Rhetoric
Gregory Aftandilian, Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a recent Op-Ed on recent comments made by United States President Donald Trump directed toward four progressive Democratic congresswomen.
Aftandilian’s Op-Ed, entitled “Trump’s Anti-Minority Statements Hit a Low Point,” was published in The Arab Weekly on July 20, 2019.
From the text of the article:
Although no stranger to anti-minority and xenophobic statements, US President Donald Trump hit a low point July 14 when he said four progressive Democratic congresswomen of minority backgrounds should “go back” to the “crime-infested places from which they came.”
Not only was this statement highly offensive, it was absurd and racist. Three of the four women were born in the United States, and the fourth, Ilhan Omar, has been a naturalised US citizen since she was a teenager.
That two of the women, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Omar of Minnesota, are of Muslim background recalled Trump’s anti-Muslim tirades from the 2016 presidential campaign.
Aftandilian spent over 21 years in government service, most recently on Capitol Hill where he was foreign policy adviser to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (2007-2008), professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy adviser to Senator Paul Sarbanes (2000-2004), and foreign policy fellow to the late Senator Edward Kennedy (1999).