Daniel S. Thompson, you just proved institutional racism. Thank you.

Let’s concede your statistics and your defense of concerned citizens and police being more fearful of black people because of those statistics. Does that not simply reinforce the author’s point? There are aspects of being an American that are more easily accessible by white people than black people, including participating in frivolities like a game on a mobile phone.

Let’s even concede that citizens and police are justified of being quicker to assume a black person, especially a black man, is dangerous. Thus, we would expect police to treat encounters with black men with more force, or at least ready to deploy force more quickly.

Now picture a random young black man with no criminal record, not even juvenile shoplifting of candy, with a graduate degree, a family with kids. Due to the statistics and justifications you have provided, this man is not going to be treated as well as a white man, is less likely to be hired, is more likely to have a concerned citizen report him to the police for some benign behavior, is more likely to be stopped by the police, and is more likely to be treated with more aggression by the police — all through no fault of his own, but rather simply due to his skin color.

Thank you, Daniel, for helping explain why it is far more challenging to make ones way through the world as a black man.