I remember in high school, seeing the footage of Rodney King getting beaten, all I wanted was for someone to explain it in a way that absolved the cops and blamed King. Nothing else would have made sense. Sure enough, TV news and AM radio were there for me. I knew nothing about the law, or Rodney King, or drugs, and yet "Police had to use such force because he was on so many drugs" was enough for me to stop paying attention and move on. When the cops went free, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was terrified of learning that everything I had learned was bullshit. Maintaining that status quo was very important to me. I hated being wrong.

I changed that by surrounding myself with people that weren't racist, and by doing a lot of research and self-reflection. It felt good to let go of all those preconceived notions, all those stereotypes, all that hate.

But I'm just one person, and the journey I took from ignorance to empathy was a long and tough one, and it's one most white people don't feel the need to take, or are afraid to for fear of losing their identity. When they see these videos of police brutality, their first thought is, "there must be a reason." When people of color speak of oppression, white people simply don't believe them. They dismiss it outright. They just consider issue with authority as hyperbole, or overly dramatic, or just plain made-up. "Why don't they just stop breaking the law?", they ask. "Why are they destroying their own property? Why can't they just be peaceful?"

And therein lies the problem. Black people want justice, and white people want peace and quiet, and right now, the two are mutually exclusive. Black communities want the police held accountable for their aggression, white people feel okay justifying the aggression in the name of peace and quiet.

In film, it is the villain who never changes. They never learn or grow. They act purely out of selfishness. The irony is, white people consider themselves selfless by "allowing" others to have rights, but are afraid that one day those people will achieve true equality. Once true equality is achieved, it means white supremacy is over. Rights afforded to minorities means whites lose their identity as dominators. It's why conservatives don't want gays to marry. Nothing to do with the definition of marriage and everything to do with the rest of the world seeing gays as equal to them. That leg up, that privilege, is the only culture whites have, and they like it that way. Even the modern phenomenon of saying "white" people instead of just "people" is a new scary thing to them. It has always been everyone else who had a prefix, and now even that's changing. Whites are no longer the default people. I think that's huge.