When I was in 1st grade they taught us about MLK, and about this thing that used to happen in our country called "racism". But then MLK came along, and now blacks, and whites, and mexicans can all go to school together, and now racism is a thing of the past. What a load of shit that turned out to be.
Yeah, institutionalized racism is (mostly) a thing of the past in this country, but hatred and ignorance, and a pathetic desire to feel important by carrying/using firearms on those you hate are still very much alive and active, and have been my entire life. From Rodney King, to James Byrd, to Trayvon Martin, to this case, my life has seen a never-ending parade of whites being scared of/attacking/killing blacks, and often times getting away with it, even when there's no doubt that it was a straight up murder.
With that said, only a small portion of our population feel/practice this blatant, overt, truly hateful racism. A much bigger problem (in a numbers sense) are the scores of white people who, while not racist themselves, somehow cannot understand or accept that being black in America is absolutely not the same as being white. People with no hatred of other races, people with truly benign-good intentions, who somehow cannot wrap their heads around the concept that a black person's world view and experiences might not analogous to theirs because of their race. This leads these people to do seemingly-benign-but-actually-harmful things like question/doubt the veracity of the whole "this would be different if the skin colors were switched" arguments, or to say, "he simply should just have done this (because i would have done that)", or worse, to even doubt that that true hatred and racism like this still exists all over this country.
That video is vile. These people are vile. Their intentions were vile, and the fact that they've (to this point) gotten away with cold-blooded murder scott free *should* be unthinkable, but instead is sadly typical of American justice, particularly in the south. To be honest i'm surprised that we aren't seeing mini race wars popping up all over the place with shit like this being as prevalent as it is. Fuck man. I really can't wrap my head around how human beings can be so disgusting sometimes, and while I hope that justice ultimately prevails in this case, I will still hang my head in shame and bewilderment, knowing that this type of thing will continue to happen for as long as I live.