Jane Elliott (the third grade school teacher who conducted the brown eyes/blue eyes experiment years ago) says that whenever she gives talks to mostly white people about racism, she asks the crowd, “How many of you are not racists?” All hands go up.

Then, “How many of you think black people get a fair shake in America?” Almost all hands go up.

Then, “Okay,” she says, “If black people are treated fairly, how many of you would trade places with a black person?” No hands at all. Every time, she says.

Why? “Because,” Elliott scolds her audience, “White people know damn well what we have done and continue to do to black people is wrong. And we don’t want it done to us.”

Today’s white people pretend (for the sake of their own sanity) that because they (as individuals) didn’t set up this racist society, they are not responsible for it. Yet, few if any white people refuse to accept or partake of the vast and varied benefits “white” skin affords them (both as a group and as individuals) every single day of their lives. Many, if not most, refuse to even admit or acknowledge that they benefit at all from white racism/white supremacy.

This is a form of mass “cognitive dissonance” which can only be treated/cured by a massive restructuring of society, including a massive and sustained redress (social, political, cultural, and economic) with reparations at the top of the list (payment of a long overdue debt) to black people for all that they have been forced to endure in this evil place.