I’ll agree, I am fatigued by the use of stereotypes directed at whites, especially white men. It goes against everything I was taught to create a fair world. But so? To say I am disadvantaged because of their use is farce. This is because the system remains stacked in my favor.

You compare lynching to parking tickets. It’s the wrong comparison. It should be why are blacks pulled over dis-proportionally? In the largest city in my state, Portland, black drivers make up 18% of traffic stops, but are only 5.8% of population. How about incarceration rates and prison terms when comparing similar crimes? Black men serve sentences that are on average 19.1 percent longer than those for white men for similar crimes.

There was a rise in hate crimes immediately following the election of Barack Obama. There has been a steady rise in hate groups since 1999, starting well before Obama got elected. The whole birtherism movement is thinly veiled racism.

And while lynching, for the most part, is relegated to our past, what about Dylan Roof? How about the people who chased down Ahmaud Arbery who were then protected and not arrested for two months after they murdered him? How about bomb threats to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) across the U.S.? The FBI says 57 HBCU institutions and churches targeted just since January of this year.

With all of this, I do not understand how anyone can say the racism is on the decline. It’s changed, and it’s stayed the same. You may be right, that asking America to examine it’s history and it’s present –and to own it — causes some white folks to react poorly, or even feel threatened. But not me.