White fragility

Wow!
What a difficult book for me to read. But so informative. I have tried to reduce my racism and I can see from this book how I have failed. I can also see a way to proceed forward. So many good ideas. But first recognizing that the problem with racism is my problem not theirs or those other people, you know who I'm talking about. I'm the one in control of myself.
For me to get a better understanding of what is going on, I shifted the problem to alcohol. Imagine you have a drink get in your car and hurt someone. Clearly you weren't drunk. You aren't one of those people, alcoholics. But you did hurt someone. Your reaction time is slowed by alcohol. So maybe you aren't legally responsible but if you were sober you would have been paying more attention to your driving, not getting into the song on the radio and could have avoided that accident. Now you are not a bad person but still what to you call someone who hurts someone else and doesn't try and correct their mistake? Just watch any TV and you can see lots of affirmations about the benefits of drinking. The media is responsible for how we see the world. If anyone was to suggest that your drinking led to the accident you would vehemently deny it. You were not drunk!
Similarly, we live in a world of white privilege. We run over people without thinking and will then feel distress once this is pointed out to us. It wasn't our intention to do harm. But it is not the responsibility of the pedestrian to comfort the driver who has just run them down. Maybe we should all take a “White” test before we are allowed to get behind the wheel in our current society. Since that is not possible, it behooves us to check the mirrors before we back over someone.
This book is a good instruction manual in how we drive through our life as a white person in a racially constructed society. Again a hard book to read but worth the effort.