On April 19, “The Shout Heard Up the Coast” rally was held in Belfast as part of a nationwide protest against the Trump administration. I chose not to attend, so my focus isn’t on the rally but on the promotional poster, an invitation to protest in order to defend, among other things, “American values.”

But what exactly are American values? Do they include genocide and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population? Kidnapping, enslavement and lynching of Africans? Jailing Germans and Japanese in internment camps during WWII? Refusing entry to more than 900 Jewish refugees on the M.S. St. Louis in 1939?  Dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Murdering Vietnamese civilians in My Lai in 1968? Backing the Chilean military coup of a democratically elected government in 1973? Bush administration lies about WMDs in Iraq following 9/11? One might argue these are simply examples of “American values” in action.

And what about now? Don’t the genocide, ethnic cleansing, torture, starvation, burning people alive, destroying medical facilities, infrastructure and shelters in Gaza and the West Bank and the bombing of Yemen also reflect American values? Because, after all, the U.S. has aided and abetted the genocide. Israel could not accomplish its mission of exterminating Palestinians without U.S. complicity. We taxpayers have paid for the slaughter and, for the most part, remained shamefully silent. The U.S. is Israel’s partner in genocide. So, I choose not to defend “American values.” For they are not mine.

Connie Jenkins
Belfast