Recently, I was talking to a friend of mine who was defending Donald Trump (Not sure how much longer he’ll be a friend, but I digress.) He claimed that Trump actually isn’t racist. And that while he says things that can be taken by racists to “run with,” he’s not convinced Trump, himself, is a racist. "He's actually quite liberal if you look at his past," my friend said. In fact, "Trump isn't all that bad." 

Of course, I gave the usual rebuttal. He called Mexican rapists, he mocked a disabled reporter, he openly brags about sexual assault, he discriminated against people of color for housing in the 70’s, and he supports stop and frisk. Oh, and his appointed cabinet is one white supremacist after the next.  

But no matter what I said, my friend had some flaky excuse. Though flaky, and riddled with logical flaws, he nevertheless believed them.

My friend clearly felt attacked, although I did my best not to raise my voice, but rather engage, because truly, I want to see what his reasonings are. He is a smart and liberal, albeit insanely privileged, white man.

But then again, so am I. Yes, I'm marginalized for being queer, but besides that, I'm as privileged as they come. I'm white, male, cisgender, educated, and grew up firmly upper-middle class. So his upbringing was actually quite similar to mine. Yet our thoughts on bigotry, Trump, and the future of America could not be more opposite.

Finally, what I said is, "At the end of the day, I don’t care if Trump is 'actually racist' or not. I don’t care what he truly believes. He has repeatedly said things that are racist, and his words have been interpreted by everybody as such. As a result, hate crimes have gone up exponentially, with already 700 reports of incidents of harassment since Trump won the electoral college."

The truth is that Trump's words do not exist in a vacuum. They have normalized hatred, racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia. They have empowed bigots, who now feel justified in their white supremacist views -- who now feel as if they, the white majority, who have been bathing in their privilege since the dawn of the United States, are somehow fighting back. They feel bolstered because they now falsely believe that they (and their whiteness) are (and have been) under attack.  

So is Trump a bigot? I sure as hell think so. But even if you do not, you have to understand how he is empowering bigots to hurt innocent, marginalized groups. There are statistic upon statistic to illustrate that this is true. If you can’t see how that’s problematic, then there’s a much larger issue at hand.

ZACHARY ZANE is a writer focusing on (bi)sexuality, gender, dating, relationships, and identity politics. Subscribe to his YouTube channel to hear him discuss all things related to sex and dating.