Things I Didn’t Know

It’s been one year since my neighbor Rob was killed by police in our neighborhood while on his daily walk. Here is the piece I wrote then; here is a news piece covering how we marked that anniversary.

I’m sharing below a powerful piece by James Mulholland that helps us understand the background of why my walking through my neighborhood and his walking through that same neighborhood lead to such different outcomes.

Note To My White Self

Nine years ago, I began to slowly awaken to my racial prejudices and white privilege.  It was a rude awakening.  During the past three years, I’ve blogged about that journey from racial ignorance.  Recently, someone asked me what have been the biggest surprises along the way.  What do I know now that I didn’t know before?  What follows is a short list of some of my bigger epiphanies and the posts where I shared these revelations.

I didn’t know that for a short period after the Civil War black people made significant progress in political and economic terms.  I didn’t know we had black US Senators and Representatives, that many southern states had black legislatures, that black literacy rates skyrocketed and blacks make significant economic gains.  I didn’t know about the reign of terror necessary for whites to end this moment of possibility, murdering thousands of black men, women and…

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