Here's something I wrote as one of the 4000 comments on a New York Times article. A few people liked it; I suspect that many did not:

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Race takes its toll once again.  Whites, and I include myself, are trained to fear black people from birth.  Jointly and severally we are terrified of them.  Unwilling to dirty our own hands we encourage--demand--that police get rid of them.  Arrest them, imprison them, get them away from us. 

And we ourselves flee, building roads to safe enclaves of mini-mansions we carve out of farmland, abandoning our cities and our school systems to Them. 

And just what have They done to us?  Has there been a race war?  Have blacks tolerated the daily shunning and insults without comment? 

Do not blame the police.  Do not blame block-busting real-estate people, or bankers,  or school administrators.  Do not blame Mr Trump.

It's us.

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As I was growing up in the leafy, all-white Cleveland Heights of the 1950s and 60s, the boys were obsessed with race: "N---,n---,n----," constantly.  Standard joke: if someone had a black smear of bicycle grease on their face, they'd hear, "Hey, some of your white make-up came off." 

We learned this from our parents.  Yep, Jews died during the Holocaust, but those of us who survived had no intention of tolerating any schvartzers in our midst.  That's why The Temple fled to Beachwood.  That's why we took our kids out of the Cleveland Heights schools.

The police do our bidding.  Police would pick petunias if we paid them to do that, but we want them to get rid of blacks, so that's what they do.  How tragic it is for us, then, that microelectronics flourished so that even the lowliest and darkest-skinned citizen can obtain a video-equipped cell phone at Walmart.  And then they have the utter gall to show us what our implicit orders to the police mean in real life. 

Hmmmm...The police were not so friendly...I worked as an usher at the Center Mayfield theatre - the forever bachelor owner was a tax and movie distributor cheat but nice to his employees. However the two CHHS cops who worked security were pure psychopaths. If anyone youn talked just a bit during a movie they were arm locked and dragged from the theatre. The cops bragged about how they could hurt people. They were always "play' arm lock-in the teenage usher boys. Since there were few Blacks in CH then I think they were talking abou us.....the white population.

Up until this past week i really did not give a whole lot of thought to the concept of "systemic racism" but now i feel compelled.  My race relations credentials are 100% in order.  I represented the Ohio Civil Rights Commission; represented a black teenager wrongfully accused of a crime and walked him out of the courthouse a free man; and have a black adopted son who is truly a member of our family. Notice the word black beause that is the phrase he and I are comfortable with.  However.  We moved back to Cleveland Heights in 1963 from an upscale NYC bedroom community (Cresskill) New Jersey where there were NO blacks.  I remember being in a distinct minority as an Irish Catholic at Heights but today...today...I cannot remember any black class mates.  Our school was Jewish and a world class education.  And today I live in Chagrin Falls Ohio. We clearly do not have racial diversity.  NOTE:  my son played football and went to Ohio State with Brian Robiskie who lived in Chagrin. I personally do not like the Black Lives Matter organization...and when I ran for Governor their INSENSITIVITY to this middle class white boy was incredible.  Being able to speak without being insulted was unheard of.   But I have to say.  We all know there is systemic racism in America.  The question is:  what do we individually do about it.

The following is true:
In NYC I was mugged...yoked from behind ...beat it off...I could have / should have ended him
An old GF was raped during a bust in robbery
An old female friend was raped in another bust in robbery
 

On the other hand

A good friend (Black) had his older brother killed in Vietnam.

Dave good to hear from you. I'm not sure i understand the reference to the brother killed in Vietnam. Bill

And good to see your posts Bill

just pointing out the two extreme sides of Black America..

There's plenty of room for behavioral improvement in every race. What I'm advocating is courage on both sides, but especially for whites.  Racism is fear, fear of the Other, fear without a rational basis.

There are plenty of people legitimately worth fearing, and that's why we need police.  Most crime victims are themselves black, which is why the police ought to be far more proactive in their communities.  

  Lancaster, Ohio, the whitest city in America, keeps attracting whites from the Columbus area who think they'll be safe here, in one of Ohio's principal heroin distribution center.  We are blessed with about as many criminals as anywhere else, but all of ours are white.