If, as a Caucasian, of any persuasion, you cannot separate the two, well damn, that sounds like a coming-to-baby-Jesus confession session worth finishing.

Between my years scribbling as a starving wordsmith and the decade I spent behind the microphone at 850 KOA - that 50,000-watt blowtorch, many, many, many moons ago - some White folks have concluded I despise, deplore, detest, and loathe White people. Apparently, criticizing White supremacy is confusing to people who can’t tell where the supremacy ends and their personality begins.

I have open arms for my White brothers and sisters. But affection does not obligate me to embrace every grinning bastard who votes, writes fat-ass checks, cheers, and marches behind a backlash movement that hates me and mine. You don’t get to bankroll hostility and invoice me for hugs.

White man, please. My love for humanity does not include a complimentary subscription to your bullshit.

I despise those MAGA-minded folks, and I don’t despise them blindly. I despise them with both eyes open and a memory longer than their gnat-like attention span. I feel no obligation to love my enemies because they come wrapped in white skin and call their hostility all-American patriotism.

I summon FDR to put it better: “We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace - business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that government by organized money is just as dangerous as government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred.”

So I, too, welcome their hatred. Saves us both the counterfeit smiles.

And to the vast majority of White America: please. Don’t piss down my back and blame my imagination for the puddle. Don’t kick my family and announce you’re colorblind. If your politics keep crushing our necks, don’t demand a compliment on the Gestapo boot.

Pull up a chair - preferably one your ancestors didn’t reserve by keeping mine standing.

Whenever I mention the “isms” vapors reeking out of MAGA-Land, somebody leaps up to defend himself before I’ve named a soul.

Buddy, I wasn’t taking attendance. But thank you for answering to the description.

Then you turn my criticism of conduct into an indictment of an entire population, and announce my objection proves I hate White people. That’s an acknowledgment disguised as an accusation. We should examine your assumptions before arranging an intervention for mine.

You dig?

If you support Trump and public figures embraced by White supremacists, why would my distrust surprise you? What response were you expecting from an American of color? Gratitude? Neighborly warmth? An irresistible urge to lend you my lawn mower?

“Dear neighbor, appreciate your investment in a political atmosphere that makes my family uneasy. Lovely Birds of Paradise, by the way.”

You cannot keep feeding a movement I consider overtly hostile to my humanity and act wounded because I don’t find you charming and precious.

Some folks want me to treat their politics as a private hobby, like collecting license plates or betting on horses. But politics walks into the classroom, the workplace, the doctor’s office, and the voting booth carrying consequences. It decides whose children get protected, whose labor gets discounted, whose history gets taught, and whose pain gets called an inconvenience. That is not private.

Some of my best friends have been White. Some people I consider my worst political enemies are White, too, including people I work beside and live near who keep supporting Trump. Those relationships demonstrate I can tell people apart. You’re insisting your complexion should make everybody interchangeable.

I welcome White folks. I despise White supremacy. If you hear those as opposing positions, keep talking - you’re explaining yourself beautifully.

A friendly wave across the driveway cannot cancel what you support at the ballot box. Neither can a pleasant greeting on Wednesday erase what you voted for on Tuesday.

You can ask about my children and support politics I believe threatens their dignity. Remembering their names does not relieve you of responsibility for your choices. My daughter is not a conversational prop you borrow to establish your innocence.

Especially contemptible is the timid Trump supporter: enough conviction to cast the ballot, insufficient backbone to admit it afterward.

The yellow-bellied patriot. A lion behind the curtain in the voting booth; a confused field mouse when somebody asks what he believes.

"I don’t really follow politics.”

But you followed Trump to the ballot box three times. That’s a considerable journey for somebody who never noticed where he was going.

Then comes the respectable explanation:

“I support his economic agenda.”

Ain’t that a triflin’-ass bitch for you!

Ah, economics: the elegant side entrance through which people sneak their politics into the room without introducing them.

Every financial promise registers clearly. Everything ugly arrives through a mysterious fog - one that appears where your conscience might get a view.

Own your choice. Stand beside the man you help elect. Stop supporting the performance and pretending you were never in the audience.

You want political results without the social receipt: the movement’s bully muscle, but none of your fingerprints on the machinery. That isn’t innocence. That’s vanity with an escape route.

All that swagger in the voting booth. All that wincing in the break room.

If you believe his politics deserve support, say so where the people affected can hear you. Don’t whisper your allegiance into a ballot box and emerge as Switzerland with a lawn mower.

And spare me the patriotic stage dressing.

Old Glory above the garage. A wooden Indian chief in the yard. Endless declarations about respecting American history from somebody furious when that history is discussed.

An Indian you can own. There’s an American tradition with history behind it.

We return to the sacred economic agenda, the excuse that makes everything else beneath discussion.

"I voted for prosperity.”

Whose? The worker’s? The schoolteacher’s? The woman working two jobs who has to negotiate with her electric bill? Or the soulless Investor Class, whose members can regard a thousand layoffs as excellent news because the savings might finance another vacation home?

These aristocrats regard working people as expenses with shoes. They want our labor cheap, our purchases frequent, and our objections quiet enough not to disturb the earnings call.

Hell, they want it quiet - so quiet you can hear a fat-ass orange-haired rat gnaw on cashmere.

When workers ask for more, it’s greed; when investors take more, it’s business. Quite a useful dictionary. Must have been expensive. Apparently, only one economic class could afford a copy.

You voted for the all-you-can-devour $9.99 buffet and want to explain how the crumbs will improve my life. The little people must work harder, retire later, expect less, and applaud the ingenuity of people charging admission to the lifeboats.

A spreadsheet does not wash the moral stink off a political choice.

Your concern for the economy does not require my admiration when your version of prosperity keeps asking people like me to absorb the costs.

So when somebody reads my words and concludes I “hate White people,” I tell them they’ve confused criticism of their allegiance with an attack on their ancestry.

I hate the hierarchy they defend. I hate Confederate nostalgia. I hate the cowardice of people who support ugly politics and demand to be judged by their table manners.

A polished fork does not improve what you’re serving.

I have taught my children that “assholes come in all colors.” No complexion guarantees kindness, courage, intelligence, or integrity. Black America has its own fools, opportunists, and sellouts. Someone is willing to help maintain a rotten arrangement, provided management reserves him a comfortable seat.

White America has people whose decency I love and trust. But acknowledging that does not require teaching my children a fairy tale about how power was monopolized and distributed.

Colonialism. Imperialism. Slavery. Manifest Destiny. Forced removal. Reservations. Internment camps. Segregation. Housing discrimination.

These arrangements did not materialize because everyone simultaneously misunderstood. Behind them stood governments, laws, institutions, organizations, and individuals empowered to decide who belonged where, who could own what, and whose suffering counted.

Powerful White men helped define, construct, and defend a racial hierarchy, benefited from it, then presented their place at the top as proof of superior fitness.

Rig the race. Inherit the trophy. Deliver a moving speech about merit.

Steal the ladder, occupy the roof, and lecture everybody below about climbing. Then recruit God to explain the property transfer.

When descendants of the dispossessed object, here comes the wounded voice:

“Why do you have to make everything about race?”

Because somebody (WASP Males) made race the admission requirement, the property restriction, the hiring decision, the school boundary, and the reason a person could be bought and sold. My mentioning the arrangement did not create it.

But the historical injury is less embarrassing than hearing somebody describe it without whispering. After that, the great racial emergency is my tone.

I’m expected to discuss domination delicately enough that nobody benefiting from it loses his appetite.

Well, eat slower.

My children deserve better than learning to make themselves agreeable to people who regard their equality as negotiable. Their dignity is not an unfortunate expense your preferred candidate needs to reduce.

When I say “redneck,” “hillbilly,” or “good ol’ boy,” I mean that chosen allegiance. A rural address doesn’t establish it, and an expensive education doesn’t remove it. You can hold a plantation mentality in a penthouse.

My White brothers and sisters understand my humanity does not threaten theirs. They don’t demand that I prove affection by swallowing an insult or overlooking their politics.

The others want me to love them through their contempt, respect them through their cowardice, and congratulate them for being pleasant while supporting what I despise.

They get to choose the candidate, excuse the conduct, and collect the benefits. My permitted choice is how politely I register my objection.

They want their boots on my neck and my blessing on their shoes.

White folks are welcome in my life. White supremacy can go to hell. If you’re unsure which invitation is yours, well, we’ve found something worth discussing.