I have lived through 71 of the 401 years that we've been trapped inside this open-air prison...so I'm in your mother's cohort. At no point during all of that time have I ever felt that I "belonged" or was anything more than a "problem," or at best, a curiosity to most white people.

What I've learned is that most of 'em simply refuse to accept us as fellow human beings. After all, for most of our terror-filled sojourn here, we were legal, actual "property," in the same sense that horses, cows and pigs are property. They have never gotten passed that and probably never will.

As for Trump...please....he's simply the latest manifestation, the latest personification of who these people really are.

James Baldwin said it best years ago, "They have been 'white' too long."

My own mother (1915-91) used to warn us kids that, "You can't tell by just lookin' which white folks got that racist crap in 'em. So, until they SHOW you that that don't, you assume that they all do!"

Great piece...kudos to mom.