Here's why things don't get better.

'member Occupy Wall Street? Bunch of privileged white people whining about how their privilege was less than the privilege of other white people? There was no racial angle there, no history of oppression. It was simply "I am oppressed by your wealth." They weren't wrong, either - the grievances of the OWS movement were documented and genuine.

But what do?

George Packer wrote a succinct history of Occupy Wall Street in The Great Unwinding whereby he pointed out that there was no central platform, no unifying message, no set of concrete demands for the OWS movement to act on. What did they want? Something something rich people less rich. When did they want it? NOW! But how? HOW did they want it?

embarassed silence

So here we are. mk expresses regret and concern, and you want someone to,

admit responsibility for undoing the privileges and advantages granted to him by systemic racism.

thenewgreen wants something actionable, and you've got

It's taking responsibility for your personal experiences the moment you become aware of these things. If you're white, you dont shutup when your peers say ignorant things about others. You dont shutup when they try to leverage systemic privilege against others.

So in response to two direct questions, you've got, essentially, acknowledge the problem as your solution. Yet in two posts of people "acknowledging the problem" you state

But white people refuse to listen because it is invisible to them

Complaints and a bunch of "wow that's fucked up," but a lot more "oh well, not my problem did you see Game of Thrones?"

But as all of this continuous activism and incident after incident has shown, it is literally near impossible to hold any of these people responsible. And that difficulty is compounded by the white majority refusing to acknowledge the issue.

But a flipside to that is when black people get together and do something positive like Black Girls Rock, you see white people offended that something doesn't include them. Those same people are apparently incapable of making the connection "wait...what if this is how all of these people have felt for hundreds of years and we've been ignoring it the whole time."

So let's clear out the straw men. Let's clear out the wiggle language. Let's clear out the veiled hostility and misdirected anger.

Here we are, three white guys, dismayed and upset of the treatment of blacks by white police. None of us are cops, none of us have ever pointed a gun at anyone, and none of us have any more ability to affect the situation than you. Arguably less, in fact: Here we are, going "what can be done?" and your argument is "stop being racist." Despite no demonstrated racism, despite an explicit statement of dismay, despite attempts at affinity for the black community, we're still

1) white

2) privileged

3) to blame.

Despite what you may think, there are very few concrete opportunities for the average white citizen to combat racism and police brutality. Abstract opportunities?

Well, here is one. And your instinct is to lash out at us.

The subtext of this conversation is really simple:

"I, a white person, feel bad about systemic racism and police brutality against black people."

"I, a black person, want you to feel bad because you are responsible."

"Yes, but what can white people do?"

"Feel bad."

"Will that actually change anything? It seems like - "

"Feel bad and accept that you are bad because you are not black."

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Make no mistake - I perfectly understand and entirely forgive the impulse to shit on the whole of the white race in circumstances such as this. But I think a lot more forward progress will be made when the act of shitting on the white race is no longer held forth as a solution. 'cuz really? This is all the confronting of racism any of us are going to do today and it's mostly you hating on us for sharing the skin color of people whose acts we condemn. It's akin to berating Iranian Shia muslims for the actions of al shabaab.

There's an issue intersecting in all of this that's not begun to receive its proper attention. White people in America refuse to acknowledge the lived experiences of those shoved under the "African American" umbrella (being -Black- is complex and diverse people, Africa is not the Caribbean is not South America etc.). None of this is new or shocking to any African American, especially the poor and middle class. It is literally a part of life. I'd place decent money on the majority of my demographic having tales of systemic misconduct which has impacted our lives.

But white people refuse to listen because it is invisible to them, but unlike gravity they cannot feel its effects. The experiences of my skinfolk may as well be a fairy tale. The only way to gain allies from thag side of the fence seems lile exhaustive studies and irrefutable video such as the one above.

I'd really like to talk about why it takes so much effort just to get people to acknowledge the problem. Not even take action or empathize, but mostly just acknowledge.