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Americans are Equal, and Racism is Wrong

Americans are Equal, and Racism is Wrong

Last updated on: October 29, 2026 at 12:57 am by Mary Pezzulo

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Americans are Equal, and Racism is Wrong 2026-10-29T00:57:51-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

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I was trying not to watch yet another Republican rally in Ohio.

This one was in Chillicothe, Ohio, about three hours away. I kept trying to think of happier things, but once in awhile I’d check social media and see the video clips.

I watched in confusion as Bernie Moreno, our Senator, went on and on about Abdul Al-Sayed, the Democratic candidate for the Senate in Michigan. “I campaigned with Mike Rogers because he’s in a race with somebody that is an affront to me as an American, as a naturalized citizen. Abdul El-Sayed can be nowhere near DC. Do you think he understands that concept that our rights come from God Almighty? That Jesus came here for our salvation? He should be nowhere near Washington DC and Mike Rogers is going to kick his ass.”

Al-Sayed isn’t running for office in Ohio. No Ohio citizen can cast a vote for or against him. Why even bring it up?

Also, another speaker at this get together was the candidate for governor, Vivek Ramaswamy. Ramaswamy is also a non-white, a son of immigrants, and not a Christian. Do the people in the room not see the dissonance?

Next, I saw a video of Ramaswamy himself taking the podium to rant about Michigan. People from Ohio have been rivals with Michigan for I don’t know how long, but not like this. Commentators below the video joked that Ramaswamy doesn’t know he isn’t white.

And then, of course, Donald Trump took the stage. He was heckled and flipped off by some in the audience, as he has been lately. He praised Jon Husted’s rear end, as he has at every single campaign stop for awhile. And then, of course, he started ranting about Representative Ilhan Omar, who also isn’t from Ohio. He berated her for coming from “Somalia, which isn’t even really a country. People walk around killing each other all day.” The audience ate it up.

What did any of this have to do with the Ohio midterm election?

I have been reporting on Donald Trump and his cronies for ten years now, and it’s hard to shock me. But every once in awhile I’m still shocked.

I used to be a Republican. I was told they were the party of life and family values. I shouldn’t have believed that, but I did. My last Republican vote was for Romney, who I respected and still do. I don’t think the Republican party even has a plan or a platform anymore. They’re just a collection of crass people, ranting about buttocks, defending sexual abuse, and being openly, appallingly racist.

Abdul Al-Sayed is an American, a natural born citizen of Egyptian descent. He was born in Rochester hills. Vivek Ramaswamy is also an American, a natural born citizen of Indian descent. He was born in Cincinnati. Being born in the United States is one way to become an American. Everyone who was born here, except the children of foreign diplomats, gets citizenship by birth. Bernie Moreno is a different kind of American, an immigrant from Columbia who became a citizen. Ilhan Omar is also an American, an immigrant from Somalia who became a citizen. Another way you can become an American, is by immigrating here and being naturalized. We are all Americans. And we are all equal.

Americans can disagree in good faith on any number of topics, and we ought to. We can get in vehement disagreements on how to run the country in the best way, and that’s an important part of the democratic process. If we all have different theories of what type of economics works best or what tax brackets there should be, I don’t think anyone in that debate is a bad person. If we get into an argument over whether the local liquor store should legally be open on a Sunday or how fast the speed limit should be on the freeway, I don’t think either person in that agreement is evil. There are all kinds of important issues we should have a lively disagreement about. But this dehumanization of people of different races and religions isn’t one of those issues.

If you are an American and you don’t believe that immigrants and the children of immigrants are your equals, we can’t just agree to disagree.

If you think that somebody with a name like Abdul El Sayed isn’t a real American, but someone with a name like, say, Annie O’Keefe, is, that’s not just a political disagreement. That really does make you a terrible person, and a bad American. If you think that somebody who practices Hinduism or Islam isn’t a real American and somebody who practices Roman Catholicism is one, you are also a terrible person, and a bad American.

I used both of those examples because my great grandmother happened to be named Annie O’Keefe, and she was devout Roman Catholic. She was an American citizen, born in Columbus, Ohio. But she was Irish-American and the Irish weren’t considered real Americans at the time. They were despised as dangerous foreigners who worshipped God in a strange way. Her family lived in desperate poverty in a tenement several stories off the ground in the slum district of Franklinton. That’s where most of the Irish in Columbus lived. Remember that funny story by James Thurber, “The Day the Dam Broke?” The one where he recalls being in Columbus in 1913 during a bad spell of rain, and then a false rumor was spread that the dam had broken and their whole neighborhood was going to flood? Thurber’s Columbus neighborhood didn’t flood, but Annie O’Keefe’s neighborhood did. A hundred people died. My great grandmother survived because a neighbor got her and her mother out of the apartment window in a rowboat. If she’d drowned, I’m sure many people in Columbus wouldn’t have cared. They didn’t consider her a real American.

I think a lot of my readers are American Irish Catholics with interesting family stories like mine. Do you understand that up until about fifty years ago, the ethnicity and faith that somebody like Moreno would be excoriating at an election rally, would be a Shanty Mick like you?

Same goes for you Italian-American Catholics, and Polish-American Catholics, and every other kind of Catholic in America. When you hear people mocking an immigrant or a person of a different faith, you should realize that within the lifetime of people still living in this country, they’d be mocking you. You’d be under all this suspicion. You’d be considered a terrorist and a danger to the country.

Either all Americans are equal, or you’re in danger as well.

Either everybody has freedom of religion or nobody does.

The choice is, partly, up to you. The election ends Tuesday evening.

Choose wisely.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows an d Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to “The Little Portion” on paypal or Mary Pezzulo on venmo

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