Melania Trump, Pt. 1

So, Melania Trump's speech at the RNC 2016 plagiarized Michelle Obama's speech from the 2008 DNC. Video comparison here.

I read an article last night in which Melania Trump's plagiarism was called an "error." There are people on Twitter cataloging how reluctant some press outlets were to use the term "plagiarism" outright. The Guardian noted that she "seemed to plagiarize." According to the New York Times, "Melania Trump’s Speech Bears Striking Similarities to Michelle Obama’s in 2008." The BBC News site put plagiarized in quotation marks. Someone else said the speech "mirrors" Michelle Obama's. Hell I can't keep up with all the euphemisms.

But my point is: No, no, no! As a writer, I have to say plagiarism is theft! Some words come so difficult to me that I feel I birthed or bled them. The thought of someone just taking them makes me ill.

And as a professor, I must note that it's enough to get students kicked out, in some cases. You certainly will fail, at the least.

I marvel at the people who rush to her defense, the articles and individuals who are portraying her as the victim. Dr. Brittney Cooper notes, "[T]he wife of the Republican nominee boldly steals the thinking and words of the current first lady. And now pundits and commentators on the right and the left suggested on morning news programs that we should feel sympathy for [Melania] Trump."

Some examples:

Since speechwriters should by definition work quietly, in the background ..., a ghostwriter who might be ashamed to be publicly affiliated with Trump could stay in the shadows.

It’s clear Trump never bothered to find such a person. How painful that his wife Melania is the first casualty of that oversight.

And

There is no reason to go out of the way to be nasty about Melania Trump, an accidental political wife who surely never expected to be playing the part of the immigrant spouse, making the warm and wifely case for her husband’s cold, cruel, anti-immigrant presidential bid on the opening night of the Republican National Convention. But you don’t have to be nasty to her to point out that she was badly ill-served by her husband’s campaign apparatus tonight.

Calling her out on her ish is not being nasty to her.

Instead of putting any of the blame on the Trump Campaign (which denies the plagiarism, of course) or Melania, who claimed to mostly write the speech, Republicans are blaming Hillary Clinton, accusing Michelle O. of plagiarism, noting that "only" seven percent was plagiarized, and asserting that "This concept that Michelle Obama invented the English language is absurd."

Wait, I'm lying. I don't marvel. I just wrote a piece on how, regardless of the situation, if white women are involved, particularly in incidents with PoC, those women are the sympathetic figures, deserving of the benefit of the doubt.

Cooper argues, "The idea that white women are always sympathetic, even when they have lied, cheated, or stolen, is morally repugnant and offensive to black women who are often viewed as untrustworthy even when we are at the top of our respective games."

Why not admit the wrongdoing? Why not apologize? "At long last," Trump Campaign, "have you left no sense of decency?" (That's a quote from Joseph Welch, btw).

But no. This is not simply an "error." The lady speaks five languages. She couldn't write her own words in any of them???