So far, I've avoided weighing in on the current crisis going on around the world. These days, I only seem to have the energy for one fight at a time, and that is being spent on trying to publicize the book. However, I do have some thoughts to share on the Black Lives Matter movement.
I think one of the problems that we have is that when we talk about racism, we are having two totally different conversations. When white people talk about racism, we tend to talk about overt racism. We imagine guys running around in bedsheets and pointy hats. For most POC, that is not really what they experience on a daily basis. What they experience is more subversive than that. It's about biases in society that we as white people may not even be aware of. It's about assumptions that we make subconsciously, that make the lives of POC harder than they have to be. A recent study in the US showed that people with black sounding names are half as likely to be called for a job interview as people with white sounding names, even when their qualifications are equal. Natives in Canada are five times more likely to receive prison sentences for the exact same offenses as their white counterparts. Now, I'm sure that most of the people making these decisions are not KKK members. They may even be people who do not feel like they are "racist", but unconsciously are still playing into racial stereotypes.
This is especially important when we talk about "good" cops versus bad cops. Many police officers, who probably do not consider themselves to be racist, are still likely to see POC as a greater threat than they would with white suspects. As a result, they are more likely to use deadly force in situations that don't warrant it.
This is the crux of systemic racism, another thing that many white people do not understand. George Floyd was not the victim of systemic racism. He wasn’t killed by a police officer overreacting or feeling threatened. It was deliberate murder and just straight up racism.
So why "Black Lives Matter" as opposed to "All Lives Matter"? Because black lives don't matter the way things stand now. Black people in the USA are killed by police nearly as often as white people (averaging about 300 a year), despite the fact that they make up just 17% of the population (as opposed to 70% for whites). Again, they are not being shot by cops that are white supremacists (at least not all of them). They are being shot by police who are misreading or over-reacting to perceived threats. Even worse, they are getting away with it when it does happen (most are never even charged, let alone convicted).
Another hard subject to talk about is white privilege, because again it is a subject that most white people don't understand. That's because there are many types of privilege in our society and people can be subject to these as well. Class privilege (studies show that poor white people in many areas of the USA are shot almost as frequently as their black counterparts), ableism (especially around mental illness), gender privilege, etc. So yes, white people also face barriers to success in life, just not because of their race.