I just can’t help but stare at my screen with my mouth hanging open that there are people responding to this by saying “Not all white people”, and “You shouldn’t blame all white people for this.” Really, folks? If you read this and your takeaway is “he’s being racist against white people by not specifying more frequently that not all white people are like this”, you’re missing the point of the whole thing. No, not all white people. In fact, he says in a couple of spots “many white people” feel as though they have the right to police black people. But for the sake of making the piece readable and keeping a good flow to the writing, he simply cannot be expected to preface every “white people think X” comment with “some” or “many” or “a lot.” If that is the first thing you take away from the piece, you might as well just write “#AllLivesMatter” because you’re deliberately misreading his message.

As his listing of past incidents (which, by the way, is far from all-inclusive; there are many more he could have included) demonstrates, there are ENOUGH white folks who feel this way that they call the police on black people who are doing what should be innocuous things, like barbecuing in a public park or simply sleeping on a couch in a common area of a university. This happens often enough that it (understandably) feels like white people assume the right to police black people. And if you think that isn’t true, there is actually a Facebook page in existence right now that is raising funds for the two accused whites accused of murdreing Ahmaud Arbery. The page is called “Justice For Gregory and Travis McMichael”, and it says right on the page that these two were justified in confronting Arbery because Arbery “did not comply with simple commands.” That sums it up right there — “Did not comply with simple commands”? He had absolutely no obligation to comply with their demands in any way, shape or form. And think about if the situation were reversed: can you imagine what would happen if white people who went into a black area were expected to be subject to armed black people stopping them and demanding that they “comply with simple commands”? And if those black people shot and killed a white guy for not stopping and complying with simple commands? I don’t think it would take 2 months and a viral video for there to be an arrest. Anyway, back to the Facebook page: as of this writing, there are over 102,000 members of the group. Yes, that’s a small percentage of white people — it’s not *all* white people — but it’s still a lot of white people (I’m guessing at least most of the people are white. The page is private and I’m not about to join.) This is EXACTLY what Andre Henry is talking about here. There is a deep-seated assumption on the part of many whites that they get to decide where non-whites can and cannot be, and how non-whites need to behave. I think it’s drawn from the same worldview that makes “white” (and especially “white male”) the unspoken norm in everything, and “not-white” always an outlier, always the “other.” It is the unspoken rationale behind so much of the way white people think about and treat black people. Not all white people, of course. No, not all white people. But enough.