Darren Wilson Has a Bright Future

So Darren Wilson quit his job with as a St Louis police officer. Don't worry about him, I'm sure he can get on as a cop in either Maricopa County, AZ, Sanford, FL, or Jefferson Parish, LA.

Those White Kids and Their Culture of Violence

Gee, why aren't white people protesting all this white on white crime? Is it just their culture of violence? Or all the single mothers?

What Do "White People" Have to Do with Darren Wilson?

I've seen several Internet comments asking what "white people" as a group have to do with Darren Wilson. It's painful but simple: we created him.

We created a culture that devalues black lives, most especially young black male lives. That's us. We created a culture that sees police force against black citizens as acceptable "law and order" but sees force against white citizens as an aberration at best and government tyranny at worst. Look at the responses to Waco and Ruby Ridge. That's us. We created a culture that is reflectively defensive in the extreme, banding together in support of "our own" whenever one of us is criticized, much less actually attacked, by one of "those people." Us again. We created a culture that thinks the answer to racism is for everyone else to stop talking about the existence of racism, while we pretend to "not see color." Us, too. And it was us, as a group, who collected over a half a million dollars in donations to support Darren Wilson BEFORE his legal guilt or innocence had even begun to be tested. THAT's what we have to do with Darren Wilson.

If any given white person wants to NOT be "lumped in" with those "other" white people, we have to start by admitting who and what we have been and continue to be, culturally. And then we have to actively reject and work against those things in white culture that we want to be separated from in the eyes of others. And after that...we have to recognize, understand, and accept that because we always have benefitted and always will benefit from the racial inequalities in this country, we are GOING to be included in any discussions of what white people do as a group and a culture, with at best an occasional mention of us not being "like that".

Nothing Inherently Racist About the Handling of the Wilson Case?

To those who think there's nothing inherently racist about the handling of the Brown case: St Louis County DA McCullough just ran unopposed for reelection despite a longstanding negative reputation in the local black community. How is this possible? The county is 70% white and 23% black.

Thus far, the only prominent dissents against McCullough's handling of the case have come from the black community. The white community is essentially silent on the issue, or vocally supportive. Without some pushback from the white voters, McCullough has ZERO chance of suffering any political fallout from this.

White prosecutor in a county with a white supermajority exonerates white cop for shooting an unarmed black man. Tell me again that has nothing to do with race.

Census Data on St. Louis County, MO

Go Ahead, Be Angry With Us

I'm really getting tired of seeing so many of my people saying "we're all just HUMAN beings" as a way of saying "Don't be angry with white people!"

Go ahead, be angry. We're grown. We can handle people getting angry with us. Especially when we've EARNED it.

Let’s Play Monopoly!

For those who continue to doubt or deny the existence and/or significance of white privilege, I’d like to offer the following thought experiment:

Two people, A and B, sit down to play a game of Monopoly. From the very first round, A cheats the game. Whenever he lands on a property, he declares that it’s his, but pays nothing into the bank for the property. If B “passes Go” he has to give the $200 to A, rather than keep it himself. If B gets a “Chance” card that is supposed to pay him money, the cash goes to A instead. If A pulls a “chance” card that says he’s supposed to pay money, B has to pay the fine. B isn’t allowed to own any utilities, and he can’t buy properties more valuable than Connecticut Ave. For the properties he does own, he can’t add houses or hotels.

This game continues for a long time, with A gathering more and more cash, owning more and more properties and utilities, and building more and more houses and hotels, and B stuck with almost no cash and very few properties, if any. Eventually, a new pair of players, C and D, sit down and take over the game from A and B. C has all of the money and assets that A acquired, and D has what little B acquired. They continue the game under the same rules, with the same pattern of C getting wealthier and wealthier and D staying far behind. This happens again and again, with E and F replacing C and D, G and H replacing E and F, and so on. Every time a new set of players arrives, they use the same rules that A and B did, and one of them has all of A’s assets, with the other one having what B and his successors accumulated.

This goes on and on, until finally Y and Z sit down to play. This time, things are different. The rules have changed, with Y and Z now having the same rights and privileges and the same opportunity. Y and Z are equal, except for one fact: Y has inherited all of the wealth that A, C, E, G, and their followers built up when the rules were rigged against B and his progeny. Y wants to play fair, he doesn’t want to take advantage of Z, he even likes Z.

Given these circumstances, my question is this: Is Y “privileged” over Z?