By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

Clearly sanctuary cities like Somerville are a favored punching bag for some candidates during this presidential campaign season. During a debate last week, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie brought up sanctuary cities when promising to be tough on crime, apparently unaware that similar posturing got Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal an early exit from the race. It was a lazy, red meat line for his audience. We in Somerville know how wrong he is because we have three decades of experience as a sanctuary city with a consistently dropping crime rate. Yet what’s really unfortunate is that leading up to Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, Gov. Christie thought nothing of portraying entire ethnic segments as criminals.

At some point, we as a larger society need to embrace Dr. King’s values when it comes to our immigrant population, judging people not by the color of their skin or the nation of birth, but by the content of their character. That should be less of a dream and more of a reality in the year 2016. Unfortunately, we continue to see our would-be leaders belittle immigrant populations by talking about them as something to be feared. They aren’t. They’re human beings who mostly have come to this nation for safety, family and opportunity.

A few quick facts about undocumented immigrants: 76% are of Hispanic origin, 47% of their households consist of at least one child, 62% of them have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade. Undocumented residents also post lower crime rates than our native-born population. So when Gov. Christie blows that dog whistle, he’s trying to invoke the specter of dangerous Hispanic thugs, ignoring the truth that we’re mostly talking about hard-working people who have been in our nation for years, living peaceably and raising their families.

Does that mean every undocumented immigrant is a paragon of virtue? No, but why must entire minority populations be defined by the actions of their individual criminal members? We saw that very scenario play out last summer after the horrific and senseless shooting of a young woman in San Francisco by an undocumented man with a lengthy criminal past. He clearly was a dangerous individual, a man of the lowest character irrespective of his ethnic background. However, his crime was used to argue that more than 11 million undocumented residents in the U.S. constitute an imminent public safety threat.

Meanwhile in 2015, we saw mass murders in Charleston, Colorado Springs, and Roseburg, Oregon committed by white men. Yet no one is acting as if every Caucasian male could be a homicidal maniac. It’s a glaring double standard, which extends to race as well. The Black Lives Matter movement is trying to raise awareness that our African-American population is often treated with a presumption of guilt and gets handled with excessive and sometimes deadly force. It even extends to religion these days. We’ve heard Donald Trump’s patently illegal call to ban all Muslims from entering the United States and many others are insisting we take in no Syrian refugees, who are fleeing the worst humanitarian crisis so far in the 21st century, simply because Syrians are predominantly Muslim.

The people from these groups are not getting the same benefit of a doubt and individual consideration that someone who looks like me receives. Dr. King’s core message was that they should. Our nation was founded on the principle that we’re all created equal. We have to stop treating people who don’t look like they could have been in a “Leave it to Beaver” episode as dangerous or undesirable. People in the future surely will look back on us and wonder why we haven’t moved past this sort of misguided behavior. We have the lessons from our own history of how wrong-headed these attitudes can be. Our ancestors were treated as the unsavory “other” in many cases. A century ago I might have needed to change my name to Joe Curtis to get a fair shake.

On top of that, our nation spawned Dr. King, who taught us that equality, tolerance and humanity must be the hallmarks of our society. We even set aside a holiday to commemorate his works and words, and to remind ourselves of the importance of his message. This past weekend was our annual reminder that we’re supposed to treat each other as equals.

Ethnicity, race and religion should not be used as wedges to drive us apart or excuses to exclude and mistreat others. They certainly shouldn’t be central issues in a Presidential campaign. I’m proud to come from a community where these are not commonly bones of contention, and where we come together to bridge our differences when issues arise. We’re an excellent example of how energizing it can be when people from disparate backgrounds come together. I wish our national dialog would catch up to the inclusiveness that makes Somerville an All-America City.

This year when you hear a politician bad mouth a minority population, and sadly you will, remember that you live in a better place because we don’t practice that sort of small-mindedness. We try to be the kind of community Dr. King would be proud to call home. Frankly, treating people with respect and dignity isn’t all that hard to do. It seems a lot easier than inventing reasons to loathe thy neighbor.