Ferguson Shows Us We Have Not Dealt Sufficiently With White Privilege

This country has a long history of shameful treatment of non-majority groups. And whenever an unarmed person of color is killed, memories of a painful past resurface and healing is delayed, as images of economic oppression, segregation, mobs protesting the arrival of African American children to previously non-integrated schools, demoralizing Jim Crow laws, dehumanizing caricatures in art and ads, and heartless, souless practice of lynching are brought to mind. Some of us have the privilege of not having to relive those painful memories, but our humanity demands that we remember and care and vow to be part of a future where racism as well as misogyny and homophobia no longer divide communities and ruin lives. We all have both privilege and peril, and of course race or gender or sexual orientation are not the only determining factors of one's life experience, AND it also true that in our country there are advantages upon which one can depend simply for being white and there are hazzards one must fear simply for being non-white and until we as a soceity own this unpleasant truth and work collectively to change it (without denying why there is a need for such change), the problems and injustices will only continue, and at times escalate.