My critique is not personal, and I apologize if it seems that way to you. No.

You raise a number of interesting points…points that I have dealt with, in one or another, for all of now seven decades upon this earth.

This is not about my “feelings,” either. Take my statement/belief, opinion, attitude that all white people in this country — that is, if you were born and raised to believe that you are “white” — harbor a sometimes conscious, sometimes unconscious, bias against black people. See, it’s not that white people are predisposed from birth to disdain black people. I have known (and loved) a number of white people….But! Their racism is imbued and learned and “understood” because of the very nature of this society. This nation-state was established via violence as a white settler colony, first through theft and genocide of a whole people — “savages” is the operative word, right?

I know you know this history, so I’ll keep it short: After dispatching the indigenes, the “white” colonists then systematically stole a whole other set of people for purposes of forced labor, in order to “develop” the stolen lands. Now that the stolen property is fully developed and prosperous and “profitable,” ever-increasing technologies have rendered those stolen people obsolete and a real “problem.”

Lincoln himself recognized and acknowledged this. His plan, had he lived, was to repatriate all former slaves (the one he is supposed to have “freed) back to either the West Coast of Africa or to the Caribbean. There is some evidence (letters mainly) that he wanted to include most of the 400,000 nominally “free” blacks in his mass deportation program as well. The only black people Lincoln considered as “worthy” of continued association with the white majority were those black men and their families who had fought for the Union in the Civil War. John Wilkes Booth put a stop to that whole idea.

As for “interracial” marriages, dating, etc., because a white person sleeps with and has children with a black person does not absolve them of their own personal and their peoples’ history of dehumanization and degradation of the masses (not individuals) of black people.

My main point is that whether you or any other white person recognizes it or not, you and they “benefit” from your so-called whiteness in ways that you may not even recognize — but black people do because we are still suffering because of that damnable legacy and it ongoing, never-ending, often lethal, after effects.

Finally, I have taught as well. I have a Masters in political science, and have completed the course work for a doctorate, but just never got around to writing the thesis. And now that ship has sailed. I’m now trying to “enjoy” retirement. (Although, “life” gets in the way sometimes).

The main thing I taught my students was to think critically about all issues, and to never accept any author or politician or “leader” (historical or contemporary) who does not, cannot, refuses to understand and admit that white racism is the single most “problem” on this earth. It’s been so since Europeans began raiding across the Atlantic some 500 years ago now. They spread their capitalism and Christianity to every corner of the globe, and….now? Well…just look at what we’ve got. The earth itself is rebelling against these doctrines.

Indeed, the whole continent of Australia is now on fire. It was 50 degrees in Chicago today in the month of January — usually the coldest month of the year. As one writer asks, “Why Is This Happening”? White racism/white supremacy.

Oh, and there is no point in responding. I will not further engage. My essays here on Medium pretty much speak for themselves…and me.