Where did the wealthy liberal in a gated community in California come from? Please clarify your comment. It's obvious you were responding emotionally, not rationally because your comment doesn't make sense.

No, it's anecdotal, I've heard a comment from someone in a gated community protected by armed guards that we don't need guns, by someone in England that we don't need a wall, England being protected by a 20 mile wide and carefully monitored English Channel and that we don't need a wall/fence by someone just 20 miles from where the drug related killings are going on.

Lots of hypocrisy, we don't need to solve it as long as it is someone else's problem.

Politics is full of it. We don't care if car factories move out of the country because we aren't car workers, etc.

@bibliophile_xo As stated, racism can be a truth but not a fact. My friend Mordant gives the definition of racism in his comment below. The key word in the definition is the word "belief" i.e. an opinion. The definition of the word "fact" is a thing that is indisputably the case. Example: my cat's hair is gray.

I understand how racism can be interwoven into POC's lives. I know there are situations that POC's experience which a white chick like me could never fathom and I am deeply sorry for this having such an effect on your life. Racism is a truth. Racism is everywhere. I'd never been witness to racist situations until I grew up. When I was in school, skin color didn't matter. You were teased for wearing glasses or having jacked teeth but not your skin color. It was not something I witnessed growing up.

Again, I'm sorry that lovely people such as yourself have experienced racism but don't see how it's a fact. I would love for you to change my mind, though.

@mordant When I think of Trump's wall as inherently racist, I first think of the wall in Palestine and then think of Trump's reasoning for his wall. To me, that's why it's inherently racist.

If Trump really cares about securing the borders, why is his wall only intended for our southern border? We have a border with Canada as well. Trumps whole platform is by definition racists. The justification for the wall he used during the campaign was directed at Mexicans and even his suggestion that Mexico will pay for the wall, was racists. It’s not difficult to argue that the wall is racists.

I have a real problem in all honesty with Trump and everything he stands for and does. If it ain’t white male, it is inherently inferior to him. More specifically if it ain’t Donald Trump it’s inferior. That is clear with every word, and every action.

Apologies if I come off sounding like I’m angry in any way. Not my intent. I’m only making a point about his character.

@ChrisJones I attempted to make that point to the "friends" on my Facebook post. I also attempted to point out they can still enter via the gulf coast or west coast. I do not want to turn into Palestine with a 70 foot cement wall surrounding every inch of our land.

@Melbates I don't really disagree with you. I was talking about relatively sane people's mental landscape; once we start discussing Trump or some of the extremists in his orbit, their true colors become clearer, less veiled and deniable. But I think most people are just not self-aware enough to see their own privilege / inconsistency / whatever.

@ChrisJones Yes I agree. I think it's repugnant and while I'm sure proponents would say (without evidence) that all the drugs and illegals are coming in across the southern border, not the northern, that's not their real concern. Illegal immigrants are flying in and staying way more than coming across the actual border, and there are plenty of drugs moving across the Canadian border too. It's only our affinity with the predominantly white European makeup of Canada that makes it seem less of a threat; there's not anything substantively real either about the southern threat or the northern harmlessness.

What I was really going for was a bit of empathy for Joe Average Conservative; I'm still somehow willing to see them as misguided and manipulated / conned more than malignant so long as they're not alt-right types. The latter, and Trump, and large parts of fundamentalist Christianity and post-Tea-Party Republican muck-a-mucks, are beyond redemption in my view, but I'm not quite ready to write off nearly half of my fellow Americans as such. Yet. Dog knows, I'm getting there, though.

Oh ... and no offense taken.

@mordant I agree. Not ready to write off all my fellow Americans who voted for Trump. There’s an old saying that comes to mind. ‘There’s a sucker born every minute.’ A good conman or conwoman as the case may be can always find a way to exploit the suckers. That’s what I believe Trump has done. Some of those who voted for Trump are racists. But I think there are more who just weren’t aware or just couldn’t see past the lies. At least that’s what I want to believe. The alternative is not the America I grew up in, nor is it the America I believe we should be.

@Melbates no arguments there. We should be building bridges. Not walls. The moment we decide to put up walls, is the moment we lose America as we know it. We may already be there. But I’m hoping that cooler and calmer heads will prevail and stand up for what is right.

@chrisjones I agree with you that I didn't know of racism until I was much older. My generation didn't experience the same situations as the generations that experienced the first black children in school and the like. My friend Mordant commented above and gave the definition of the word racism. The key word in the definition is the word "belief" i.e. an opinion.