It doesn’t make any sense. I suppose when many white people think about racism they think that (1) it is just a few bad apples being individually racist. And (2) if Black people are having problems then why don’t they fix the problems themselves?

We have this narrative of individual responsibility for outcomes that ignores the generational wealth built on white supremacy. It just looks like white people succeed or fail because of individual effort. This narrative hurts white folks too because it puts all the blame on them if things go wrong with an unequal and unjust system.

So within a framework of individual responsibility it is hard for white people to look at the outcomes of systemic racism and sexism and capitalism and not conclude that the people in the systemic subordinate role don’t deserve to be there. Certainly we white people don’t have any blame.

Of course my point in writing this is that white people need to see beyond the myth and understand that inequality is driven by multiple factors - and we white people need to see our roles in the systems and dismantle them.