Her friend had an idea to troll the right.
But Charlotte Clymer, a U.S. Army veteran who came out as transgender on Twitter last year, took it a step further.
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Clymer told McClatchy she thinks the idea of donating to the “We The People Will Fund The Wall” GoFundMe campaign is racist. She says a wall won’t solve the problems behind the dysfunction in U.S. immigration policy, and conservatives know it.
To continue to push for a border wall in the face of that, then — “leads me to believe that this big push for the wall is just resentment toward brown people,” Clymer told McClatchy.
Clymer, who calls Austin, Texas, home, decided right then, after seeing that tweet, to start a GoFundMe campaign in response to the GoFundMe campaign currently making the internet buzz.
She’s got a counteroffer for those hoping for $1 billion in border wall funds. She’s asking for $100 million to “buy ladders.”
But it’s not for real ladders, or for any other form of subverting U.S. immigration laws. The money raised by Clymer’s GoFundMe campaign will go to RAICES, an advocacy organization based in Texas benefitting immigrants and refugees.
“There’s been some transphobia and some garden-variety sexism,” Clymer said of the reaction she’s gotten to her campaign. But she takes hope from all the money coming in, too.
Charlotte Clymer - Courtesy
As of Friday morning, Clymer and her 2,972 donors had raised more than $67,000 for “ladders.” The “We The People Will Build The Wall” GoFundMe campaign went over $11 million Friday morning. Nearly 185,000 people had donated to that one.
“The goal is a joke number, just like I think their number is a joke number. We’re not going to reach that number, and neither are they,” Clymer said. “I have added one of the RAICES accountants as an administrator, and when the donations plateau, we’ll close it, and the organization will be able to withdraw it.”
Since the border wall funding GoFundMe campaign has soared to become the top fundraising campaign currently on the GoFundMe site, NBC News has reported that the campaign’s organizer, triple-amputee Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage, was previously involved with conservative conspiracy theory Facebook sites like “Right Wing News,” which was taken down by Facebook in October.
Perhaps naturally, no fewer than three GoFundMe campaigns have been started to “burn the ladders.”
Would you donate to any of these dueling GoFundMes?
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