when i was a kid i saw hate that was so casual and suburban even if there were hardly any non-so-called whites. if anyone had a slightly darker skin they were called nigger and abused and surrounded by a cackling circle of tiny evil. can kids be evil you say? if they're taught hate, sure, and that is what all american children are taught—power, hierarchy, entitlement, hate. so if anything good at all comes from the trump virus it's this, this expression of kids who don't want to succumb to a world of domination, war and hate. when i was a kid and i stood up for a little girl who was called nigger by sneering racists i was called a freak, a fag, a nigger lover, all the sick and spontaneous epithets of kids not taught to love but hate. i hope this pandemic of hate engenders paradoxical love.