It's Not All Black and White

I am sick and tired of being accused of "white supremacy." This term is usually hurled at me by some self-righteous columnist for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, or any number of similar self-serving publications groveling for more readers. A perfect example appeared in the opinion pages of yesterday's New York Times by author Roxane Gay, who blames the current mess we find ourselves in on white supremacy. She writes:  "Black people will continue to wait, despite the futility of hope, for a cure for racism. We will live with the knowledge that a hashtag is not a vaccine for white supremacy."  

That's certainly one way to look at it. Here's another: Black lives would "matter" a lot more if burning down buildings, torching police cars, breaking into and vandalizing stores and restaurants, stealing from innocent shopkeepers, destroying private and government property and terrorizing local residents were not their typical, and by now expected, responses to a horrific and wrongful death. Perhaps if black Americans would begin to value and respect their own neighborhoods, and in so doing, their own lives, white people would follow suit. No vaccine needed.