Donald Trump’s Great Border Wall is as much, if not more, of a racist and nationalist symbol as it is a barrier.

High barrier walls and fences define and divide, even though some fences can be easily “hopped” or climbed over. Many fences, say that surrounding a home, can be efficient for confining children or pets as well as for deterring thieves and other intruders. Many fences, however, are ornamental or symbolic in that the provide only an easily surmountable barrier to any determined intruder. This type of fence nonetheless delineates property: it does so by outlining the property and by doing so is still a symbol of who owns what and who is permitted to enter without permission. So even a fence that is easily jumped serves as a signal and a symbol.

Fences and high walls not only block and delineate but they also make strong political statements when they are made by powerful political authorities. They can do so just as statues honoring cultural heroes and grandiose public buildings do.

Walls and fences also say things as powerfully as words can. Hadrian’s Wall was built to divide Roman Britannia from ancient Scotland, which was populated by a fierce people called the Picts whom the Romans could never entirely conquer. Built during reign of the Emperor Hadrian, this wall was fortified and manned at many points yet could not be defended throughout its extent because it was simply too long (77 miles) and the Romans had a finite number of soldiers in Brittania. Nor was it insurmountably high against any determined assault–about 13 feet. Hadrian’s wall served an important purpose even if it was vulnerable at many points: south of the wall, the Romans were masters, and in their own eyes the Romans stood for what they considered civilization and on the other side the land of the Picts was a land of barbarians. Hadrian’s Wall probably served as more of a political and cultural symbolic statement –but not racist as we understand it today– that probably scared the hell out of a lot of Picts but made the Romans on their side very proud.

Nonetheless the most famous wall built for similar purposes but immensely more effective as a barrier was the Great Wall of China. While it was a far more militarily impregnable barrier (yet ultimately failing even in that purpose) the Great Wall of China also served a very important symbolic purpose. One thing that comes obviously to mind is that any would be invaders to the north of then Imperial China had better have their act together or just stay on their side of the wall–any earthly power that build such an incomparably impressive structure was absolutely wealthy and could command hosts of laborers of all types, and was otherwise certified totally badass. The Great Wall was also symbolic for the tremendous population it protected because it represented “unity on the China side” as well as “separation from the rest of the world on the other, along with the lengths a nation will go to preserve their culture and keep invaders out” (Chinahighlights.com, “Great Wall culture”).

I believe that the proposed Border Wall has a similar purpose. Although it is a formidable barrier to any unauthorized or undocumented crossing by desperate, and in my opinion, admirable and even heroic, immigrants, it is not unbreachable, and its main purpose is sever white from brown peoples, at least in the mind. It is very heavy symbolism. This is of course stupid in the only real sense that counts, the biological, because biologically race as an entity does not exist. Race is a social construct but sadly it is an important one. And it is totally untrue that the U.S.A. is a “white” nation although that is the predominant culture and most of the nation’s assets are owned and controlled by Americans of northern European. Many different ethnic groups have built the United States, especially in the most important way, actually doing the physical and intellectual work that the assembly required. No, the U.S.A. is already a very diverse nation. Furthermore, and most important to this post, the U.S.A. is becoming and increasingly brown or at least a non-white nation. In fact by 2060, 56 percent of the population is projected to be non-white and when “no group will have a majority share of the total and the United States will become a ‘plurality’ [nation] of racial and ethnic groups,” the U.S. Census states. (U.S. News & World Report, July 6, 2015). This is of course a trend that terrifies many whites today and I feel one of the reasons that so many white men and women voted for Donald Trump and his openly racist and white supremacist agenda.

The Great Border Wall is meant to say that the U.S.A. will be permanently separated, cleaved apart from the non-white and often poorer peoples of Latin America and we will forever prevent ourselves from becoming like you, which we perceive is inferior. It is as much a cultural and racial separation, no much more than, any supposed economic separation from those being accused of taking from this country but in reality have always helped to build it and make it prosper. It is also meant to contest the browning of the United States.

The more monumental the appearance of the border wall, the more decorative and less utilitarian the appearance of it, even if it’s only in some sections, the more its political and cultural symbolism function will be valid and true. Contractors are now submitting bids for aesthetic wall designs, examples of which can be found on the Internet.

So it does not matter whether “that fucking wall”, as Vicente Fox called it, keeps any undocumented from entering the United States. It will already be serving its purpose. Surely it will make it more difficult to cross but in the end it will not prove effective for even that purpose, nor can it be manned along its entire length anymore than Hadrian’s Wall could. Even if it is ineffective as a barrier, those hoping to benefit from it will feel all the safer from the ‘swarthy hordes’ and their ‘inferior’ ways’ as they no doubt see them.