It's not white guilt, it's empathy.
I'm listening. I'm taking in the experiences of my friends and neighbors and the pain it is causing them. I'm thinking about what it might be like to worry every time my 17 year old leaves the house that he might get pulled over for no reason by some trigger happy cop. I'm thinking about how it feels to have people fear you or suspect you because of the way you look.
I'm thinking about what it must be like to have everyone question your successes and not give you credit for them because it is assumed you got special treatment.
When I talk about systemic racism, I'm not talking about lack of opportunity and I don't discount the role personal choices and responsibility play in someone's success.
I'm searching my soul on how I can be better. Of course that's something I've done my whole life. I don't see that as a weakness, I see it as a strength.
We can't complain that "the other side" refuses to listen if we also refuse to listen.
While I applaud your empathy and introspection (I think we should all do that to try to be a better human beings), I just don't buy the overwhelming and oversimplified narrative that young African-Americans (or anyone) has to be terrified about leaving their house for fear of being the victim of a trigger happy cop. I don't doubt that there are terrible cops out there (we've already seen evidence of this), just like there are terrible human beings in any other profession in life. I hope there is some police reform in that they get better training and are required to practice that training on a semi-regular basis, and also better filter out potential applicants that have a questionable history of violence.
But, I believe the problem has been severely magnified to a few bad apples in a batch of hundreds of thousands of good ones. And to your comment about personal responsibility, absolutely. I've had black friends (close ones) most of my life and none of them have ever experienced an issue with police officers that have made them fear for their lives. I've found that if you do a couple simple things, you're never going to have to fear for your life with a police officer:
A) Don't break the law
B) If you do get pulled over, just be respectful and courteous and give yes or no answers to questions
C) Never resist arrest or give them a reason to use force (or if you're in the unfortunate position of being with one of those bad apples), excessive force
Hell, even Chris Rock came out with a video illustrating what not to do when encountering a police officer, which was mainly a PSA to not do stupid **** on the part of the person being pulled over. Common sense stuff that I just illustrated above.
On that note, I'm seeing more and more people complaining about "cancel culture". And it really is a disgusting thing for someone to try to ruin a person's life over their comments (or past comments) over social media. But there's also a quick remedy to that, that ties into the personal responsibility thing; if you fear for your life getting ruined over social media,
do not participate. If you feel you can't not participate, you may want to reassess your life's priorities. I know there are certain people that have to use social media for their jobs etc. so I would encourage them to treat it like any other job, and don't go on late at night if they've been drinking or doing other questionable things.
And you asked how could you be better. What in the world do you think you need to do to help stop what you call "systemic racism"? I think you've already been doing it all of your life in being a conscientious and respectful person to everyone you encounter. To not care about the color of another person's skin. To treat other people the way you would want to be treated. What more can you possibly do?
