Civilization threat: “With Somebody Else’s Babies”

US House Rep, Steven King, pictured here with the anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders, recently made disparaging comments suggesting that ethnic minorities were a threat to Western Civilization.

There have been disturbing uprisings of zealous nationalist and white supremacist movements across the US and Europe. We saw these movements bubble with the anti-immigrant sentiment that ultimately led to Brexit. Even before then, across the pond in the US, the Birther movement and the Tea Party worked to delegitimize the presidency of President Barack Obama. The election of the first Black president in 2008 ultimately gave way to the racial backlash of white people dead set on “taking their country back.”

These sentiments gave rise to the Donald Trump presidency - whom, if we all remember, was the ringleader of the racist Birther Movement against President Barack Obama. Now his advisor, Steven Bannon, the former editor of Breitbart, a white supremacist magazine, has made discriminating against ethnic groups his top priority as evident by the Muslim Ban back in January. These movements have been met with proud resistance but these white supremacist and nationalistic uprisings do not seem to be slowing down.

In France, extreme right National Front Leader, Marine Le Pen is now running for president on a platform aimed against Islam and multiculturalism. The Netherlands is also going through its own racist identity crisis. Geert Wilders, Party for Freedom(PVV) Leader, is projected to win the Dutch parliamentary election as wave of anti-Muslim populism is taking over the Netherlands. Steven King recently tweeted his support, "Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies."

This is not the first racist comment King has made. During the US election, King stated that white people more than any other race have made greater contributions to Western Civilization.

What’s deeply disturbing about King’s comments is the implication that minority communities do not belong in Western Societies - that we are somehow outsiders. Black Americans built the United States as our families were ripped apart and our humanity was taken away from us.

Even today, private prisons have rebirthed a system of slavery that America continues to capitalize off of. Black people have been in the United States since before its founding—America is just as much our country as it is our white counterparts.

The same goes for Black British who also endured dehumanizing treatment as Britain enslaved Africans, moved them to the West Indies to feed Europe’s sugar addiction and kick start the industrial revolution.

Even today, a study published by the Business and Inclusion Business Council found the net contributions by BME communities is estimated to be at around £25-32 billion to the UK economy every year.

BME communities and other immigrant groups remain a vital part of Western Civilization because it continues to be built off our backs of the low paid, even to this very day. Our talented contributions to western culture are often overlooked and hidden. Let’s not let these racist populist movement uprisings in the US and the Europe derail or discourage us - instead let’s use it as motivation to fight harder for equality and representation so the whole world can see our strengths and contributions.

Teshura Adams-El