Despite Trump's bigotry, America needs more African immigrants

This NBA season, the Milwaukee Bucks' most memorable game happened in only the third game of the year. Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo led a furious comeback against the Portland Trailblazers, ending in a victory and a career-high 44 points.

But the game itself was only half the story. Back in the locker room, Giannis' teammates handed him the game ball. The 22-year-old star took a black permanent marker and began writing on the ball.

"This is for Daddy we got a win tonight and I got 44 points," he wrote.

Giannis' father, Charles, had died just three weeks earlier.

In 1991, Charles and Veronica Antetokounmpo fled Nigeria for Greece, where Giannis was born in 1994. Charles settled the family in a neighborhood just north of Athens where the Antetokounmpos were the only black family for several blocks. While Giannis' parents struggled to find work, the future NBA star and his brothers famously sold watches, bags and sunglasses on the street to be able to afford food.

Such is the immigrant experience upon which the president of the United States cast aspersions this week. At a meeting with lawmakers in the Oval Office, Donald Trump reportedly wondered aloud why America accepts so many people from "shithole countries" like Haiti or those in Africa, reportedly expressing a preference for immigrants from places like Norway. (Trump denied he used the derogatory term, saying only that he used "tough" language.)

While much of the deserved derision has been focused on Trump's use of profanity, his true transgression is believing certain countries are less desirable because of the type of people who live there. There are war-torn African countries where life is unbearable, but nobody actually believes Trump knows the nuances that differentiate each nation and their people. It seems the president believes all are third-world nations because of the skin color of the people who live there.

It’s the same type of bigotry faced by the Antetokounmpos after Charles and Veronica moved to Greece, when abuse against black immigrants gained intensity after the country's economy collapsed and competition for jobs grew. Even after the Bucks drafted Giannis in 2013, an extreme-right Greek politician compared the new NBA player to a "chimpanzee" and said his family should have been ordered to a detention center.

Trump is clueless about the value immigrants from African countries bring to America. They often bring strong families, a tireless work ethic and a love for America unmatched even by citizens born here. (Take one trip in a Washington, D.C., taxi, and you'll realize that nobody loves this country more than a cab driver who recently fled Ghana.)