"if that is your position then I will talk only to white people..."

[JDPriestly]

27. Very good post.

The problem is that only very rarely to white racists express their racism to white people.

Once I was standing in line om front of a white guy at a political event attended mostly by non-white people. The white guy behind me started talking to me about why he was supporting a candidate (local politics) who was white. Seems he was from the South. I will say no more. That was the only chance I can remember in the last ten years in which anyone dared to express racist sentiments to me EVEN THOUGH OR MAYBE BECAUSE I AM WHITE.

That is the conundrum. How do we identify and then reach racists when we live apart from them. I live in a very mixed community. Years ago an African-American moved in behind us. We always talked to him. On one occasion we had a disagreement about the trimming of a tree, but we were always friends. Suddenly, he told us that someone had put racist notes on his door telling him he did not belong in our neighborhood. That was utterly ridiculous. He was not the only African-American in the neighborhood (although other neighbors may not have realized that) and besides, our neighborhood in California is utterly mixed racially. But the notes got worse and worse. He was virtually forced to move. We never could figure out who was behind this horrible behavior. I suspect the people may not have been white themselves.

But those are two rare instances in the past 20 years in which we had the opportunity as white people to speak out against racism when it could have mattered. In the first instance, I scolded the racist behind me. He became silent, but I don't think I changed his mind. Maybe I surprised him a bit. Maybe he thought about it. I don't know. In the second case, we did not know what to do. Should we have canvassed the neighbors to find out who was writing the nasty notes? I don't know. Could we have changed someone's mind? I don't know.

But I do know that I do not know what to do about this. And it troubles me very much.

I do know what to do about police brutality. The cameras will help. Having judicial review of every instance of a death beating or even complaint about police treatment of suspects and inmates in police custody will help. Establishing stringent ethical standards and requiring constant training of police on race and the use of violence issues will help. National standards on police conduct will help. That's where I would begin with police abuse of power.