So check it.

First off, you can't say that there wasn't outrage over Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown or Sandra Bland. There just wasn't white outrage. The Facebook Freaks who light up about dead lions are different than the ones who light up about dead black people and you're right - #blacklivesmattermorethanlions.

But it's really fuckin' easy to get your dudgeon on - as a privileged white person - about privileged white people hunting and killing lions. It ain't so easy to get your dudgeon on - as a privileged white person - about privileged white people hunting and killing black people.

Especially when it's accidental. Especially when it's systematic. Especially when it's institutionalized. Especially when all the circumstances arrayed around the deprecation and endangerment of African American citizens is perpetrated largely for the benefit of privileged white people.

Assume you're the most enlightened high-fivin' white guy in Grosse Pointe. You know you aren't going to be welcome at the rallies, so that's isolating. You know that a not-small proportion of the black race is going to hold you accountable for something you aren't (directly) responsible for, so that dulls the dialog. And you know that no amount of Tyler Perry DVDs are going to give you any credibility among black people so you can't even pretend to relate.

So you don't.

And then you and I - and we get along - I have to say lame-ass shit like "the silence you hear is an awkward silence" like it makes a difference. And I have to put forth arguments like "if we could talk about this stuff we wouldn't have so many problems" as if it solves anything. And even then, I'm scared shitless because two people who can see 100% eye to eye are likely to tear each other apart because both feel helpless from different sides of the issue.

The cartoon is on point. "He deserved it" is the bullshit trope that every white organization will try on because their white audience wants to believe they live in a colorblind world. I mean, we got a black president so STFU already. And even I recognize that it's easy for me to say we "both feel helpless from different sides of the issue" but odds on, the LAPD is gonna call me "sir" and pat you down. So my "helpless" is more like "awkward" while yours is more like "legitimately fearful for your life."

But the reason race dynamics are so fucked up is that "sorry, our bad" doesn't cut it and at a Facebook level that's all we're capable of so we change the subject to something safe like "let's all hate on big game hunter dentists."

It is a "sensitive issue." That it's a sensitive issue is fucked up, no doubt. I can't defend it. All I can do is try to explain it.

My mother loves to tell the story about the Malcolm X rally she went to. About how she went to pull an apple out of her bag and was suddenly surrounded by six burly black dudes. Entirely appropriate on their part, entirely inappropriate on hers - as one of two white people at a Malcolm X rally, if there was gonna be a gun in a purse, it would have been in hers. That was 50 years ago; you'd think we'd have gotten better by now. We haven't. It's awkward, and much harder to talk about than dead lions named Cecil.