Given the brutality of the ICE raids both locally and nationally, we can no longer deny we are in a “man’s inhumanity to man” moment. How can our own government get away with such tactics, terrorizing and traumatizing our fellow human beings within our own borders? Recently in South Philadelphia, an ICE raid terrorized the community. Are we completely helpless to stop this?

When a southbound Amtrak train from New York City to Washington, D.C. passed through Philadelphia several weeks ago, the skies suddenly went black. South of Philadelphia they brightened once again, but in that interim a severe storm brought down trees, power lines, and caused severe destruction all around the area. Our immigrant friends were there to help.

At that time, daily news reports bulged with stories of masked, unidentifiable ICE agents brutally assaulting immigrants in the streets. Victims young, old, male, female, employed, and/or law abiding, were thrown in vans, with the ultimate goal of imprisoning them in a slimy hovel of a prison, deporting them to a foreign country for forever time and torture, separating them from their families, taking away all their rights including due process, ignoring the warnings of the Supreme Court.

How can we survive this when up against the all-powerful, almighty U.S. government? In the 1960s, two psychologists, Martin Seligman and Norman Maeir, developed the theory of “learned helplessness.” The theory explains that when faced with highly stressful and contentious circumstances, people often come to believe — without proof, mind you — that they are unable to cope with the overwhelming powers that be. They often stop fighting even though paths to success may exist.

Feeling helpless as a result, these people are likely to fall prey to depression, lose motivation, withdraw, lose faith, abandon others, and perhaps even blame themselves. This feeling can become pervasive, even permanent. Thus, without opposition, the government’s brutality becomes institutionalized. The all-powerful government wins when it turns you into a zombie.

In its wake, that recent storm left vast destruction. Wires, trees, power, all gone. But arriving from states far and wide, our rescuers — the deportable and deplorable immigrants — arrived en masse.

They are here to help you regain electric power, trim, chop, chip the trees, rake and clean your yard and leave it pristine so that you can continue to live in the lap of luxury without having to look upon the storm’s unsightly debris. And then before they leave, they go around the front and blow your driveway clean, gratis in fact, without even asking. And never a word was spoken because they don’t speak English. And all this occurs during a heat wave at 95 degrees.

They work all day doing what we can’t or won’t. Capable, competent, professional, respectful, smiles on their faces with sweat rolling down their cheeks, wanting only water if you have some, and waving goodbye as they move on to the neighbor’s yard. How awful! How can we allow such beings to live among us?

The government portrays migrants as low and evil creatures. They will destroy our whiteness, our God, our culture. Beware the browning of America! The solution: brutalize, expel, or, as our president says, “We won’t have a country anymore.”

In the absence of basic human kindness, with our shameful inhumanity, we will have lost our core identity, our sense of self, our self-respect. Gone, our reputation as a loving, compassionate, and generous nation. Our identity as “the greatest nation on Earth”? Slipping through our fingers. Our self-esteem is withering away. Will we have learned to be helpless? Immoral? I pray not. Helpless and inhumane would not be my first choice.

Paul Rappoport

Wyndmoor

Paul Rappoport is a Ph.D. clinical psychologist, freelance writer, and professional landscape and street photographer. He is the author of “Value for Value Psychotherapy,” a book on a specialized approach to psychotherapy treatment, and a writer of political and travel pieces.