Fine, Russ, let's get back to the beginning, then.
I must admit, that this topic brings out very passionate responses from people and is one of the topics more pron to bring out the worst in people when it comes to talking about it.
Sentences like this signal to the reader that the author is under the mistaken impression that they are unlike everyone else in that they do not let their emotions get in the way of their thinking and that they could not possibly imagine why people would get angry at their statements because the author cannot truly understand how they could be mistaken. It's a bad thing to see early in a piece, but at least it sets the tone that pretty much everything afterward will be wrong.
Everyone's opinions are heavily based on values and what not, which almost never change. However, despite my tendency to be somewhat verbally aggressive towards those whom opinion blow my mind and utterly irritate me, I will make a powerful effort to avoid being that way and to be as objective as possible when seeing/hearing other peoples points of view.
These sentences mean: "I will not even consider that I am wrong."
However do try to keep the topic somewhat centered on "present day". Reference the past only as an "x because of y (y being what happened in the past X being present day)".
This is a standard racist tactic to try to shut out the causes of the past, despite the caveat.
I believe that of course in the past the slavery that occurred was absolutely terrible.
Not written by the author: "because that is what I've been told to say in public."
And here's where it starts to get really racist. "As a white man," I should have some sort of special protection that nobody else gets, I should get owed things!
I do not believe that I should be looked at in any way shape or form in a negative light because of it, as I did not participate in it. I also feel, that no black man should ever use that as an excuse for his anger, as he did not suffer through it. Although, mainly from my experience as a 911 operator, I have seen that many of the black community disagree.
Maybe black people are angry about the author because the author takes his non-involvement in history as a free pass to do nothing to help racial inequality. Despite the fact that he lives in a racist society, he doesn't want to do anything to help change that, not if it means that he might have to do more work or different work.
It is also no secret that the black community is among, if not THE poorest (monetarily) community we have in America, this can be seen in statistics and by simply driving through essentially any ghetto in America that I have ever been to/am aware of. However, I do not believe this is because the government is taking any actions to make this happen, either purposefully or otherwise. I believe that is more a testament to the culture that more people in their community embrace, than in other communities. A "thug" culture that values selfishness over helping of others, a lack of problems solving skills outside of violence to solve their problems, a lack of desire for education, broken families, to just name a few aspects of that culture. Of course, as with almost everything, this culture is also in all other ethnic groups as well but appears to be much more concentrated in the black community.
This is standard racist rhetoric: it's not the fault of anyone but the poor people and their attitude that keeps them poor. That is obviously a load of crap. And is it the government that is doing this? In part, sure. But it is also millions of white men who turn a blind eye to what the statistics mean because, "I wasn't involved in slavery!"
That is white privilege: the failure to understand how anyone could go through life and be judged and succeed or fail based on anything but their attitude. This is something extended to white people in the USA, but not as often to other people.
I can say from experience, that I have lost a job opportunity due to me being white while they needed more hispanics. So I find it hard to believe that I benefit at all from "white privilege" that I have heard about.
Ah, yes, the old, "The minority stole my job!" That, right there, is white privilege: the idea that the white person owns or is owed a job. If it was "your job" than you would have already been employed. Unless you were fired in order to give your position to someone else, nobody got your job. It takes two people to get a job, someone to be hired and someone to hire. Why these racists don't blame the employer instead of the minority is probably, sadly, that they just want to blame minorities.
I also personally find that throwing race into every issue, without significant evidence to show that race was actually a factor in the outcome, very irritating. And that seems to be a default argument for many, to the point it has been given a name...the "race card". I think that by throwing race into every issue, does not "fight racism by raising awareness", but instead has the opposite effect, it breeds it.
Here's white privilege again: the idea that race isn't already everywhere. For non-white people, race comes up in all sorts of places it shouldn't. The author gets his racist back up because he is, for the first time, experiencing the same thing that other USA citizens experience every day for their entire lives, and he doesn't like it.
