Shame on you, Congressman Poe!

Today, I heard Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) on the CBS Morning Show.  He said that no Americans should visit any place in the entire country of Mexico and there was not one safe place in Mexico.


When I told people that Ken and I were moving here to Mexico City, people began warning me.  Most of them had never been to Mexico.  They were simply kind, concerned friends who were relying on media reports like this one from  Rep. Poe.  I didn't hear anyone from CBS saying "come on, Congressman, are you really telling U.S. citizens that there is not one place they can safely visit in the entire country of Mexico?"  I have not heard of anyone in Congress making a statement that such hyperbole is not helpful or true, or asking  Poe to retract or correct his statement.

Just imagine, for one minute, that on the morning news, Rep. Poe had told Americans not to visit Israel or Kenya!  He would be excoriated as anti-semitic or racist.  But we all know that Isreal, Kenya, and many other countries in the world are dangerous for Americans and others. Until today, I had never heard a congressperson tell the U.S. public that every single place in a country was dangerous.  Why is it that, over and over, the good people of Mexico are fair game for those like Poe who want to spread hatred and fear?

I am not excusing the violence perpetrated by the drug cartels.  It is horrifying, primarily for the people of Mexico.  However, when Ken and I lived in one of the wealthiest parts of Manhattan, three men were murdered in cold blood directly across the street from our home, allegedly by rival drug dealers.  When I worked in the Bronx, one of my colleagues was murdered as he stopped to buy doughnuts for his co-workers.  A gunman fired from a car into the store, aiming at someone else.  The murder was drug-related.  


I worked for eighteen years in my hometown of Schenectady and, like Rep. Poe, I prosecuted child abuse and sex crimes and went on to serve as a judge.  The violence I know about is appalling.  I will never forget some of the stories I heard or the injuries I witnessed.  But I would never tell anyone that every single place in my hometown is dangerous simply because we have a dangerous criminal element, primarily related to the drug trade.


I must have missed the part of Rep. Poe's statement where he warned people away from visiting Guyana, scene of the 1978 Jonestown massacre where over 900 people died; or Austin,  Texas, where a gunman killed 16 in 1966;  or Virginia Tech, where 32 were murdered in 2007;  or Oklahoma City, where 168 perished in a bombing in 1995; or Columbine, where 13 were murdered by privileged schoolboys; or Tucson, where 6 were murdered and one of Poe's colleagues was gravely wounded earlier this year.  Nor did I hear him warn people against going to Dallas.  Maybe he doesn't remember that November day in 1963 when a beloved president was assassinated, changing everything for a generation of Americans.  Does Poe remember that  April evening in 1968 in Memphis where a charismatic civil rights leader was murdered?  Does he recall that just months later in Los Angeles a man who might have been president was killed?  


Making blanket statements that call an entire people dangerous is not only ignorant, but dangerous.  Anyone who doesn't know that, hasn't studied much history.  


Shame on you,  Congressman Poe.