What makes moments like this hard isn't the reminder that the most powerful man in the world *hates* people who look like you, who have names like you. That's something you learn--painfully--once & then just start to live with for the sake of your sanity.
It's the way his hate works. How lazy it is, how dependent on the most base of stereotypes (bearded dude!! pushing people off roofs!!). How do you even start to refute that & the legitimacy it grants to simple straightforward bigotry?
The point of it is you don't. The point of it is for him & people who think like him to signal that it doesn't matter what you, your communities, your family are really like. It's irrelevant. You can be assigned a certain meaning & targeted on that basis. Too bad.
This AM's little performance aimed to underscore that power. To remind Trump&co they have it and remind others (not just Muslims--never just the marginalized group, since, ofc, they're rendered sub-human) that they do. And wow does it work.
