Earlier this week, Donald Trump, Jr. compared Syrian refugees to a bowl of poisoned Skittles. Let's talk about why that's wrong.
Donald Trump, Jr. is a wealthy, white male with U.S. citizenship and that makes him one of the most privileged people on this planet. He has an incredible amount of power and influence which could be put to good use but instead is being used to play into the fears his father's supporters. The entire Trump campaign has managed to take one of the world's largest humanitarian crises and twisted it into an immigration issue for the United States. They can call for immigration reform. That is fine. But strengthening the immigration process should never be synonymous with denying another person access to basic human rights, such as the right to live. You don't get to let your xenophobia decide who gets to keep their human rights.
The image that Donald, Jr. shared on Twitter expressed the idea that if we willingly accept refugees coming from Syria, then we are essentially counting down the minutes until the bombs go off. But here's where that logic fails: there are over 12 million Syrians in need of asylum, and the U.S. has made a goal of taking in 10,000. That is a mere 0.0008%. Considering very few Syrians are actually terrorists, the number of terrorists we could possibly be letting into our country is much smaller (they don't exactly have a spot for "are you a terrorist?" on their census, so it's hard to get a number).
But math is hard, even for big business executives, so let's put this in terms that Donald, Jr. might understand: Skittles. A 14 oz. bag contains an average of 400 Skittles -- plenty to fill Trump's bowl. Now let's imagine the entire bag represents the entire population of Syrian refugees (12,000,000), which means 0.0008% of those 400 Skittles represents the number of Syrians the U.S. has said they will accept. That's one-third of a single Skittle. Out of a bag of 400 Skittles, the U.S. has agreed to take one-third of one of those Skittles (in reality, we have actually taken less). Seeing as the number of non-terrorist Syrian citizens far outweighs the number of actual terrorists, the amount of "poisoned Skittles" in Trump's bowl would be an extremely small fraction of a single Skittle. Now, if someone were to say to you, "an extremely small fraction of one of the Skittles in that giant bag of Skittles you have there could be poisoned. It's probably not, but there's a slight chance it could be," what would you do? Most people would likely just brush off the comment, maybe excuse it as paranoia and continue on eating their Skittles. After all, even if that extremely small part of that one Skittle is poisoned, what are the odds it contains enough to kill you?
All it takes is some basic math to take apart this ridiculous metaphor. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the Trump campaign is more than willing to play on the fears of the American citizens to gain support. You've never had a problem with poisoned Skittles before, but there's a slight chance that a very small portion of one Skittle contains some poison, and they know you had a bad experience with a similar poison years ago, so they're going to tell you instead that all of those Skittles definitely contain poison, and it only takes a few to kill you.
But we're not talking about candy. We're talking about 12 million human beings who are fighting for a chance to live while we cling comfortably to the privileges they will never know. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children dying every day in a desperate attempt to flee from the very same people we are trying to protect ourselves from.
So let me ask you this, Donald Trump, Jr.: Is watching hundreds of thousands of people die worth knowing you never took that incredibly small chance of potentially making it possible for a violent person to enter your precious country? You see, the main problem with your Skittles analogy is not the flawed math, but the fact that it cannot take into account the idea that taking a chance and eating that one-third of a Skittle that may or may not contain small traces of poison could save every other Skittle in the bowl. The question you are posing with this ridiculously flawed candy metaphor is not "are you willing to take a risk?" but "do you think your life is more valuable than every other person on this planet?" And that is not how we make this country great again. 
These are not pieces of candy. These are not terrorists. These are human beings fighting to stay alive.
