Another blogger asked the question, "why is it always about race when a white person kills a black person? Why is it never about race when a black person kills a white person?"

For real? I really need to explain this to people? Here, watch a video:


Okay, you're back? Good. Here's why it's about race: It's about race because it's about race.

As a white man, I have never had an organization dedicated to the proposition that I should be rounded up, uprooted from my home, and sent back to Europe where I belong.

As a white man, none of my ancestral relatives were ever lynched and hung from a poplar tree for the crime of Voting While White.

As a white man, I have never been pulled over for Driving While White.

As a white man, people do not cross the street when I am walking down the sidewalk because white men are just scary, y'know.

As a white man, I have never had a store detective follow me around a store because all those white men are criminals y'know.

As a white man, when travelling through a rural part of America I have never been ignored and failed to be seated by the waitresses in a restaurant with plenty of empty booths because they don't like white men around those parts.

As a white man, I have never been steered to the used car side of the dealership when I walk in to buy a new car, and have never had a problem getting a test drive of whatever car I wished to drive.

As a white man, I have never had to fear that a racist vigilante might stalk me and kill me because white men are suspicious and don't belong in this neighborhood.

None of that is true of my friends of color. Even those who dress well and drive nice cars are regularly pulled over for Driving While Brown, which is especially annoying to my Indian friends (I have a friend from India who looks like a nice Hispanic lady who is regularly pulled over, then let go just as swiftly as soon as the police officer notes the Indian name on her driver's license). They've been refused service, they've been followed around in stores, they've had people cross the street to avoid them, ... and it's not because they dress shabby. They're all professionals and dress professionally. The only explanation is the color of their skin - something that they can do nothing about.

There is no national history of black people lynching white people. There is no national history of black vigilantes racially profiling white people and stalking them. There is no history of major organizations of black people dedicated to the proposition that all white people should be rounded up and sent back to Europe. There have never been laws passed by black people to deny white people the vote. And the reality, as I pointed out earlier, is that white victims of black criminals are relatively rare. There's no "there" there. That's why white-on-black crime is often about race, and black-on-white crime isn't - because, well, it often *is*, while the contrary is not true, there just is no national history of blacks targeting whites based on their race. The statistics say it just doesn't happen. Of course that's numbers, and math is hard, as wingnuts are wont to say. So it goes.