I Am So Sick of White People’s Excuses (And I’m White!)
What the heck is wrong with us, white people?
Systematic racism is all around, but we refuse to see it.
Oh, and I do mean REFUSE. It’s not a matter of being unable to see it. Our eyes and minds work just as well as anyone else’s. We can perceive reality. Too many of us just choose not to.
According to the Guardian, at least 793 Americans have been killed by police so far this year. That number includes 194 black people or 4.86 per million. That’s more than double the rate for white people at 1.96 per million.
This is not an opinion. This is an undeniable fact. Every number is backed up with verifiable data. And moreover, it follows the same pattern we’ve seen for a couple of years now since news organizations have taken up the slack from the federal government and started counting.
Why does that not worry more white people? It worries me. I don’t want to live in acountry where police use lethal force so often against civilians, so much more than almost any other developed country on Earth. And I don’t want my black friends and neighbors to be targeted so much more.
I’m a middle school teacher. Most of my students are black. I don’t want to have to worry that they or their parents are going to be murdered just because of an excess of melanin. Street gangs are worrisome enough without having to add into the mix many of the very law enforcement officers that are supposed to keep us safe from those gangbangers.
But when you bring this up to white folks and other facts detailing the systemic racism that pervades our society, you get every excuse in the book.
They simply refuse to engage with what you’re saying. They deflect and redirect and change the subject – and they don’t even seem to realize they’re doing it.
Blue lives matter, they say. All lives matter. Every form of life seems to matter to white people – except explicitly black lives.
We seem to think it’s impossible to care about both police and African Americans. We seem to think any expression of the value of human life has to be universal without mentioning individual groups that are at a higher risk than others.
It’s wacko, clearly a way of shutting down a conversation white folks will do I Am So Sick of White People’s Excuses (And I’m White!) | gadflyonthewallblog:
