To the Journal editor:

On Tuesday, July 16, our U.S. congressional representative, Jack Bergman, R-Watersmeet, cast a monumentally important vote.

The occasion was a resolution in the House to condemn statements by the president that are widely considered racist.

It wasn’t a close call. On Sunday, Donald Trump tweeted that four congressional representatives, who happen to be women of color, should “go back” to the “crime infested places from which they came.”

This wasn’t a dog whistle. It was blatant use of cruel wording that minorities have had hurled at them for years. It was barefaced enough to cause the director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to state, “If Trump shouted the same thing at a Muslim woman wearing hijab in a Walmart, he might be arrested.”

Unfortunately, as a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives passed the resolution condemning these awful remarks, Mr. Bergman voted “no.”

We don’t know what was in his heart as he cast his “no” vote. But we do know that Jack Bergman passed on a chance to affirm that we are a nation of immigrants where all persons are created equal. Further, with his “no” vote, he was representing District 1 of Michigan, and that means he was representing me.

I am embarrassed and ashamed.