Aziz Ansari Has Gone After Donald Trump In A Scathing Op-Ed For The New York Times
He basically told Trump to "go fuck himself".
Actor Aziz Ansari has held nothing back in an essay condemning the hateful rhetoric of presidential hopeful Donald Trump. Writing in response to Trump’s inflammatory statements in the wake of the recent mass shooting in Orlando, the Parks and Recreation and Master of None star drew on his own experiences as the son of Muslim immigrants, while accusing Trump of exploiting the tragedy to push his political agenda.
Appearing today in The New York Times, the piece is titled “Why Trump Makes Me Scared for My Family,” and begins with a text message exchange between Ansari and his mother, in which he advises her to stay away from mosques in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting. “As I sent that text,” writes Ansari, “I realised how awful it was to tell an American citizen to be careful about how she worshipped.”
The essay goes on to denounce Trump’s “vitriolic and hate-filled rhetoric,” something which the actor identifies as a recurring theme in the controversial business mogul’s bid for the presidency. “This is a guy who kicked off his presidential run by calling Mexicans ‘rapists’ who were ‘bringing drugs’ to this country,” writes Ansari. “Numerous times, he has said that Muslims in New Jersey were cheering in the streets on Sept. 11, 2001. This has been continually disproved, but he stands by it.”
While Ansari is far from the first celebrity to call out Trump for his xenophobic language, as one of the most prominent Americans of Muslim heritage working in the entertainment industry, his words carry additional weight. The essay makes repeated reference to the unfair double standard many Muslims are held to, seen whenever politicians like Trump imply that the Muslim community is guilty of protecting extremists. “I doubt we’ll hear Mr. Trump make a speech asking his fellow white males to tell authorities “who the bad ones are,” or call for restricting white males’ freedoms,” writes Ansari.
Ansari also goes after American lawmakers who, “despite sit-ins and filibusters,” have failed to pass meaningful gun control legislation that would “keep military-grade weaponry out of the hands of mentally unstable people, those with a history of violence, and those on F.B.I. watch lists.”
The whole op-ed can be found at The New York Times, and is definitely worth a read. If you haven’t got a moment to spare though, the author summarised it via Twitter quite nicely.
Trump wants to ban Muslim immigrants like my parents. I wrote a piece for @NYTimes telling him to go fuck himself: https://t.co/MCDsQyz2jy
— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) June 24, 2016