You choose: Decency or contempt

Until now, no American president has called American citizens “garbage.” Donald Trump stands alone, demeaning Somalis, drooling venom and hate for naturalized American citizens.

I’ve met a few Somalis, both in Somalia and in Minnesota where many now live. The Somalia I visited in the 1960s was dangerous, a killing field of warring factions, and a place where malaria was more common than the sniffles.

I went to Somalia as the advance man for Vice President Humphrey. I stayed in what I now recall as Trump Tower Mogadishu. A three-story hotel without elevators or glass windows. The week before I arrived an American businessman ran from his room screaming. A bat had flown in through window slats, attached itself to his neck and couldn’t be dislodged easily or safely by him.

Civil war and disease made Somalia a country worth fleeing, and since 1990 several hundred thousand have come to Minnesota where they have been almost always welcomed.

One who welcomed them was a retired dairy farmer, Bruce Larson. He saw people who wanted to share the American dream, and he set out to help. Larson volunteered to tutor high school students. The local paper, the Owatonna Peoples’ Press, ran a story about him. The headline read “Retired Farmer Shows Boundless Capacity in Helping Others.”

Bruce was a Swede whose grandparents had been immigrants. His farm was not large; he milked his cows and mucked out the barn. He could never take a day off. But he always had time for others. Immigrants of any race or color were not garbage but would be welcomed as neighbors. When he tutored, he was not recycling garbage. He simply believed the Bible verse, “whatsoever a man soweth, he shall also reap.” Bruce knew it was about people.

When he developed cancer in his early 70s, he kept on meeting with the Somali kids. Once, after an enervating chemotherapy session, he was sent home to rest. In the car, he surprised his wife. He said that he wanted to meet with his class, that they would provide him more energy than a nap.

Bruce’s family and friends were inspired by him and created a small fund to reward the top graduating Somali student in the Owatonna high school. He was able to make the first award before he died.

Over the years, I have met some of those winners. Three became nurses, inspired to help others. They studied in a state college. Some went to the more expensive university. They were inspired to share the American dream. They are more like Bruce than Donald. Thank God.

Bruce was what we are all about. Learn and share. Don’t demean others but help them rise. You don’t call others garbage, but rather brother or sister, or just friend. Bruce knew it in his gut and in his soul. Would that a flicker of decency invade Donald Trump as early as tomorrow.

Somalis are not garbage. A president who labels them that way is a verbal warlord. He kills hope in others. I’m not going to call Donald Trump garbage, though tempted, but no one should aspire to be like him. Those Somali kids Bruce tutored, now productive adults, escaped warlords. We and they don’t need one here.

Norman Sherman of Coralville has worked extensively in politics, including as Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s press secretary.