Sadly, I agree with Tim Wise - the full quote from his piece in Salon (originally on Alternet) which I had to truncate to use as a title is:
I suppose there is no longer much point in debating the facts surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown. First, because Officer Darren Wilson has been cleared by a grand jury, and even the collective brilliance of a thousand bloggers pointing out the glaring inconsistencies in his version of events that August day won’t result in a different outcome. And second, because Wilson’s guilt or innocence was always somewhat secondary to the larger issue: namely, the issue of this gigantic national inkblot staring us in the face, and what we see when we look at it—and more to the point, why?
His essay, which I encourage you to read immediately is
White America's ignorant bliss: Why so many "good" white people are completely oblivious
I can't begin to do justice to his essay, but it can be best summarized as a commentary on the collective ignorance of multitudes of white Americans who do not appear to recognize that they inhabit not just a different world, but a different universe from that of African Americans. He documents recurrent, horrific abuse directed at the black population who have been and who are individually and communally persecuted still on a regular basis when it comes to economics, education, opportunity and justice and who then have to be subjected additionally to being told repeatedly by those who live outside the boundaries of that societal jail, that everything is their fault.
I am not black. I am a middle class, middle aged white woman who never had to worry if my father or brother or husband would be stopped for driving a car one mile over the speed limit, or walking with their hands in their pockets on a cold day, and never make it back home. I don't think I have ever lived in an area where the municipal structure is financially supported by draining the resources of the poorest through abusive arrests and warrants, but truthfully, how would I know? I am not part of the population that is targeted for that activity.
More from Wise:
Can we perhaps, just this once, admit our collective blind spot? Admit that there are things going on, and that have been going on a very long time, about which we know nothing? Might we suspend our disbelief, just long enough to gain some much needed insights about the society we share? One wonders what it will take for us to not merely listen but actually to hear the voices of black parents, fearful that the next time their child walks out the door may be the last, and all because someone—an officer or a self-appointed vigilante—sees them as dangerous, as disrespectful, as reaching for their gun? Might we be able to hear that without deftly pivoting to the much more comfortable (for us) topic of black crime or single-parent homes? Without deflecting the real and understandable fear of police abuse with lectures about the danger of having a victim mentality—especially ironic given that such lectures come from a people who apparently see ourselves as the always imminent victims of big black men?
I would say to Wise that many Americans are enlightened and know that we live in parallel universes determined by the lottery of birth. But I see the problem not being simply that a lot of white folks don't get it, the problem is that they choose not to get it and they don't even particularly want to get it. One of the most awful things to come out of Trayvon Martin's death and Michael Brown's death is that they have had a cathartic effect in unleashing what I can only call an emboldened, enthusiastic, and re-energized New Racism where people say out loud in comments and on blogs, hateful and repugnant statements that any
human being should be too ashamed and embarrassed to publicly declaim.
The United States has no business presenting itself as some higher moral authority or some ideal to aspire to anyone anywhere until we make a sincere and wholehearted effort to recognize and eliminate the huge festering, stinking ooze of racism, inequality and injustice that has permeated into every corner of our society for way, way, way too long.
Racism itself may never be eliminated since humans apparently have some deep-seated internal need for some "other" to demonize and vilify, but I do believe that the enabling machinery of institutional racism can be curtailed by things as simple and obvious as requiring diversity in police forces, equitable distribution of education dollars, prison reform, decriminalization of some drugs, preventing communities and police and prosecutors from directly profiting from civil seizures and forfeitures, providing daycare subsidies for working parents and a whole host of other initiatives. We have to do these things. We have to do them right now. We simply cannot go on living this way.
I would like to hope that something good can come out of Ferguson Missouri and that perhaps at some time in the not too distant future we can look back and think that August 9, 2014 was the day that America came to a crossroads and picked a better path.