White Privilege

The events of the past two weeks -- where grand juries refused to indict on-duty white police officers in Ferguson, MO and Staten Island, NY who controversially killed black men, and the sometimes riotous protests that followed -- have re-confirmed some things that too many Americans still don't understand after all these years:

1) White privilege exists.  No matter how you slice it, if you factor out race, there would have at least been indictments in these cases.  The NY case is absolutely crazy, considering the irrefutable video evidence of what happened, and secrecy of the grand jury.  Ask yourself who's more likely to be stopped for speeding -- is it a dumb white guy in a minority neighborhood, or an intelligent minority in a white neighborhood?

2) Wealth privilege exists.  This is more recognized by society, but regardless, you can replace the word 'race' in the paragraph above with 'socioeconomic background' and it still works.  If the victims were white but poor, nothing changes.

3) Property destruction / rioting in the wake of the non-indictments is terribly foolish, adds to people's lack of understanding of white privilege.  People see this disproportionate and wrongful reaction, and get angry about that instead of the underlying problem -- that minorities poor don't believe they are treated fairly by law enforcement, nor by the judicial system.

4) Criminal actions have consequences.  The punishment (death) doesn't comes close to matching the crime, but both of the victims were or had been doing something illegal.  They drew attention to themselves, then resisted arrest.  They didn't get what they deserved, which at least in the NY case also appeared to be criminal, but they got what they got.

5) There's still a lot of latent racism in America.  If you haven't noticed this during the Obama presidency, then you probably won't notice it now, but let's be real -- how many white people do you know who are openly critical of the rioting in the MO case, but don't know any of the facts surrounding the case?  And aren't those same people also being a little quiet about the NY case?

I rest my case.