This is a bazillion dollar lawsuit in the works, which the poor White Plains taxpayers will pay for.

http://www.kuar.org/kuarnews/38004-family-of-man-killed-by-off-duty-police-officers-sue-city-of-little-rock.html

That’s true, yes, but has nothing to do with the giant bucket of White Guilt that fett101 was replying to,

“White guilt” is a funny phrase.  I don’t usually feel guilty unless I’ve actually done something wrong.  Something weighing on your conscience?

As if obsessing like that over stereotyped divisions achieves anything other than strengthening them.

You’re proposing we ignore them? Worked out well from the 1880′s to the 1950′s, didn’t it?

Since no one is saying “whites are racist by nature saying so is not a racist stereotype.  And if it means “some whites are factually racist” then this is another simple statement of fact.

And white folks are indeed not the victims of racism.  Some white folks are perpetrators, all whites are beneficiaries.  Hence the ethical obligation of white folks to oppose racism whether overt or institutional.  Which is, I’m pretty sure, all Millie Fink was pointing out in the first place.

What crime was in progress?  It was a medical alert fercrissakes. 
Everything about this story is wrong from the get – go.  Since when is it illegal to lock your own door?

This veteran was expecting to be killed and he was.

This is very much like a military onsite execution. 
The perps (officers) should all be in jail.
The whole dept. should be disbanded and fired, and all barred from being even so much as  crossing guards.

I’m not sure that you could even say that all 200 million (or whatever) whites in America have easier lives based on their race.

Being white isn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to things like police harassment. It’s more like a discount card. That is, a white person is much less likely on average to be questioned/detained/arrested/brutalized as a black person would be under the same circumstances.

That is the reality, and there are really only two positions you can have on that reality:  Either it’s an acceptable state of affairs, or it’s an injustice that we must take action to definitively end.

And no matter what people say, we’re not taking definitive action to end white privilege.  The obvious reason for this is that we feel it’s an acceptable state of affairs.  Maybe we have misgivings, but ultimately white supremacy is something we can live with.

Imagine that you could be the next one to be killed.  Act accordingly.

And yet, they’ll probably still get more of the benefit of the doubt when walking around dressed like Trayvon Martin f/e.

“How long until we white people can -once and for all- get over this hell-conceived preoccupation…”
“Once and for all”  clues you in to the fact that he’s talking about an absolute end to racism.  (And as I already pointed out, there is still plenty out there.)   

By repeatedly speaking of “we white people” (when obviously he isn’t implying for a second that he is racist himself) he’s asserting a group identity and a group responsibility for the racists among us.  Which he eventually makes explicit…

“how long until we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners?”

Now, I don’t think this was the most successful rhetorical strategy, but I think the point is fairly clear.  I don’t see how you got “all white people are responsible for this specific incident” except by lazily misreading.  

The one twist that I’ll cop to is inserting “institutionalized” racism in there when he seems to be talking about personal racism.  Because I personally don’t think we can reprogram every idiot nor should we try.  But when cops are shooting black people in their own homes with no repercussions we do have a responsibility to ask why the FUCK that is happening. Mainstream America (read: middle-class white people) are unacceptably complacent about it.

P.S. My relative accidentally set hers off to. Fortunately she got a stern talking to and nothing else when the ambulance arrived . . .

White folks are victims of racism? That’s not a logical error; it’s something that is not the case.

Oh, you mean that if we keep reminding whites of their racism then they’ll continue to be racists. So, if we don’t mention their racism it will go away. Say, you are a master of logic.

However, it seems like there is plenty of room for agreement that police shooting a 68 year old man in his home while calling him racist epithets without even an allegation that he had threatened them is really really bad and needs to be addressed by the legal system.

That way, qualified medical diagnosis can take place right away (not to mention more witnesses to the behavior of the police officers)

Just because a few hundred Southerners were in the habit of hanging a few dozen black men a year, doesn’t mean that anyone needed to have a nationwide conference and go nuts. I mean, there were literally thousands of white Americans who weren’t lynching black men!