re: Serious Question About the St Louis Outrage

I'm happy to talk about racial issues. I think it would be helpful, eventually.

But we can't. Not in a toxic environment where white people who say "wow, looting is bad" are shouted down as condoning the potential murder of the Brown kid. Not where noting that areas of high black resident concentration are generally not desirable places to live is considered taboo. Not where the media, the black community, the liberal white community, etc., refuse to acknowledge that when it comes to everyday violence, the black on white threat far exceeds the white on black threat, and that this leads to fear, some justified, some not.

But, from the white side, we'll have to acknowledge that this country was built without considering black people. They weren't in "our" framework for how we're going to move forward. While I think most institutionalized racism claims are ridiculous, it isn't ridiculous to recognize that a black kid in America grows up thinking a lot of schools, jobs, lifestyles, etc. just aren't for him. Some of that fault lies in the black community, but some whites refuse to even recognize that reality.

In sum, TLDR, I'm all for talking about it, but the environment just isn't conducive to a frank discussion.