Fuck Melania, and her ‘I REALLY DON’T CARE’ jacket

When you’re the First Lady of the United States, you know the world is watching your every move. So Melania Trump’s insolent ‘I DON’T REALLY CARE’ jacket, which she wore to visit a child detention centre this week, is less slapstick and more a slap. Even more so when you consider the fact that thousands of incarcerated children don’t want a contrived visit from the President’s wife – they want their parents.

In what the New Yorker called “fast fashion fascism”, Melania donned a Zara military-style jacket emblazoned with white text on the back that read: “I REALLY DON’T CARE DO U?” while visiting a child detention centre in Texas. It’s extremely unlikely that the FLOTUS, who travels with a dense entourage, would not have been briefed on how those words would be interpreted by the world, and also by the children she was there to see. During her visit she sat in on lessons with the children, asking them how long they had been in the facility, and how often they are able to speak to their parents. She told one group of children “good luck”.

The words she wore stood in stark contrast to the lines she fed to the children through a Spanish interpreter and also the carefully planned statement released in the wake of the current scandal surrounding migrant children. “Mrs Trump hates to see children separated from their families and hopes both sides of the aisle can finally come together to achieve successful immigration reform,” her spokeswoman said earlier this week. “She believes we need to be a country that follows all laws, but also a country that governs with heart.”

Donald Trump said that his wife’s jacket simply referred to the press. In a tweet he wrote: ‘I REALLY DON’T CARE, DO U?’ written on the back of Melania’s jacket, refers to the Fake News Media. Melania has learned how dishonest they are, and she truly no longer cares!” Some have proposed that her jacket is a distraction from the darker things that are at play.

Over the past month it has been revealed that over 2,000 children as young as those at toddler age have been separated from their parents at the southern border and held in conditions akin to a prison. Until the news media reported on such facilities, the detention centres had operated largely under-the-radar. After significant backlash, President Trump ordered a halt to separating children from illegal immigrant parents. However, this only applies to new families entering the country and leaves the future of the children already languishing in cells uncertain. Some have already been moved to locations as far away as New York and Virginia and there is still no formal plan to reunite them with their families.

The situation is a mess and an absolute disgrace. It’s painfully clear that this administration is willing to employ the systematic intimidation of children to deter refugees – and also that Melania could not give a fuck. So in answer to the pertinent question the jacket asked: yes we really do care.