Remember how during the days of legalized segregation — which was most of the history of the nation — America had “Whites Only” signs hanging in every restaurant, bar, bathroom, water fountain, public pool, and anywhere else white people felt there was a danger of Black people giving them cooties? Then thankfully the signs went away for a few decades. Then Donald Trump came along and hung a “Whites Only” sign on the entire fucking country.

This is not really a metaphor. A Trump official reportedly said this when he was asked if the refugee program for South Africans the administration has been running could include South Africans of a duskier hue than mayonnaise. No, this reincarnation of Orval Faubus is alleged to have answered. Whites only!

The official is Spencer Chretien, a State Department employee with a long list of professional wingnut credentials on his resume: Trump aide in his first term, Heritage Foundation, FreedomWorks, ALEC. He was also reportedly one of the brains behind Project 2025. Chretien is now the highest-ranking official in State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. As such, he is in charge of the program Trump created by executive order that grants refugee status to white South Africans who claim the nation’s majority-Black government has been seizing their lands and murdering them.

Trump has really bought into this line, too. He ordered the “refugees” fast-tracked through the immigration process, which can otherwise take years. In speeches he has accused the South African government of perpetrating a genocide on the nation’s white farmers. Which is so insulting to the entire concept of genocide. Raphael Lemkin would be furious. . . .