AOC has right message on concentration camps -- even if we don't want to hear it

SAN DIEGO -- I'm A-OK with AOC.

Sure, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., says wild and crazy things. In that regard, she is a creature of the times and a perfect foil for a wild and crazy president.

The 29-year-old freshman lawmaker is wreaking havoc in the House of Representatives. She shows no fear, defies authority and doesn't flinch.

Those are good characteristics in a politician -- and in a journalist.

When you're one of only a handful of Latino syndicated columnists in the United States, folks have rigid expectations, and they're likely to be disappointed. Fellow Mexican Americans accuse me of "acting white" to be accepted by the establishment, while white folks worry that I've gone native and become too Mexican.

I recently disappointed a reader who has been sending me friendly emails for more than 15 years. He demanded that I write a "negative column" about Ocasio-Cortez after she said on Instagram: "The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border, and that is exactly what they are -- they are concentration camps."

I responded that Ocasio-Cortez had Merriam-Webster on her side. The dictionary defines a concentration camp as: "A place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard."

That's what is happening on the U.S.-Mexico border. News reports have revealed deplorable conditions in detention facilities housing hundreds of Central Americans who seek refugee status -- many of them children, who don't have soap, toothpaste, or adequate amounts of food and water.

That reality didn't bother the reader as much as AOC's choice of words. Calling it "distasteful" and "outrageous" for anyone to "equate the family separation to the concentration Nazi camps," he accused me of "basing [your] independent journalism on race" by focusing too much on "the plight of the Hispanics." He said, "I thought you were above that."

Baloney. People who read your words often assume they know you. But I didn't promise anything or mislead anyone.

Note that while the definition also says that the term is "used especially in reference to camps created by the Nazis in World War II for the internment and persecution of Jews and other prisoners," it does not say that the phrase is exclusively used that way.

Indeed, as has been pointed out in recent days, the Nazis didn't invent concentration camps. Weaponized incarceration predates the Holocaust by nearly a century, and it was a favorite tactic of colonial powers. The Spanish used it to quell uprisings during the Cuban War of Independence. The British used it in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.

Americans used concentration camps -- i.e., mass incarceration of a particular group of human beings without trial -- in the mid-19th century, when Dakota Indians were interned at Fort Snelling in Minnesota. Most notoriously, the phrase aptly describes what we did to Japanese Americans during World War II. The actor and activist George Takei -- who was a boy at the time -- recently tweeted: "I know what concentration camps are. I was inside two of them, in America. And yes, we are operating such camps again."

Testify, brother.

Those comments split the U.S. Jewish community. Some Jews are offended that Ocasio-Cortez used such a loaded phrase, about which they can be territorial. But other Jews aren't bothered, because they think the term fits.

In an op-ed for Vox, Anna Lind-Guzik -- an attorney who has researched genocides, and the daughter of a Soviet Jewish refugee -- wrote: "Applying the term 'concentration camp' to the indefinite detention without trial of thousands of civilians in inhumane conditions -- under armed guard and without adequate provisions or medical care -- is not just appropriate, it's necessary."

Meanwhile, conservatives who scoff at the PC crowd for banning phrases like "illegal immigrant" are livid over the phrase: "concentration camps."

Yet House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy -- a Trump lackey who sold out his Central California farmer constituents to back an administration whose tariffs crush farming -- said AOC should apologize for using the phrase. The freshman congresswoman angrily shot back that it was McCarthy who owed everyone an apology for rubber-stamping the internment and mistreatment of infants, children and teenagers being interned, neglected and mistreated.

Americans are having an important discussion, even if it is uncomfortable. And Ocasio-Cortez kicked it off. For that, she doesn't owe us an apology. We owe her our gratitude.

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, "Navarrette Nation," is available through every podcast app.