In 2016, someone I had talked to very specifically about how voting for Trump was in itself a racist action, even if claiming they weren't voting for racism because willingness to ignore racism is racist, tried to pull a "see, I'm a nice guy and not a racist" on me.

I was right.

I would now add "and a fascist."

Take home message: examine not just the proximal impact of your choices on yourself, but the ultimate effect they have on everyone else, whether you have meaningful interactions or not.

Then ask yourself why you don't have those meaningful interactions. What are your priorities?

More importantly, why were they your priorities and how should they change?

This is not to dunk on that one guy, but that convo has stuck woth me for a long time. Not because "wow, he's a racist," but because that's when I finally realized that no matter what I said or how I phrased it--empathy plea or no--he'd already made that choice.

Nothing would change it.

That's not a passive choice. If he didn't like Hillary, he was free to vote for a write-in or not vote at all, if it was a fear of nonparticipation.

But it wasn't. How could it be?

That's intentional.

I walked away from that conversation and him and his wife, because I knew that my effort, however enthusiastic or carefully crafted, would be wasted on them, because they were unwilling to consider anyone else's perspective or value.

You can only do so much as an indivijdual--make sure that your effort goes to finding effective ways to help those who need it and to lift the voices that need to be heard.