I have been watching the reaction of many white people to the Rittenhouse trial on social media with a fair amount of interest. While plenty of white Americans are completely unsurprised by how the trial unfolded, a large number of white people were genuinely surprised, and thus upset.
If you are white, you have the privilege of not having to pay attention to nor understand the various racist systems that operate in this country. If you are Asian, then you only have to pay attention to these racist systems once in a while. If you are African-American, you are constantly affected by these systems and have no choice but to be keenly aware of them because your survival may depend on understanding them.
So I am going to have to explain a few things for the benefit of white people who never think about these things because they don't have to.
The Function of Racism in America
First, we need to cover a bit of history. There are plenty of books on the history of racism in America. Understanding this is important if you want to understand the systems that are in place because it helps you understand why they exist in the first place.
Ever since before the American Revolution, the function of racism in America has been to allow the wealthy to manipulate all the other white people into voting against their own economic self-interest. Lyndon B Johnson summed it up fairly succinctly with his famous quote about racism.
(European racism seems to be more about rationalizing colonialism, but that's not a subject I'm qualified to talk about.)
Racism is a control mechanism that wealthy people use to manipulate all the other white people. If you are white, you are allowed to say that you are against racism, but the moment you actually do something about it, the racist systems will see you as a threat.
White People Killing Less-Racist White People
What happened in the Rittenhouse trial is nothing new. The events that spawned the trial are not new either. If you were surprised by the trial or the verdict, then you are not familiar with the history of white people killing other white people for not being racist enough.
Racist white people are seen as good by the systems because they are spreading the mechanism used to control white people.
White people who actively fight against racism are seen as a threat to the racist systems that operate in our country because they are threatening the very existence of a very important mechanism for controlling white people. There is a long history of white people killing other white people for not being racist enough, and the various systems that govern us tend to be very lenient to racist white people who kill other white people for this reason.
Thanks to Martin Luther King Jr and the Civil Rights movement, white people can speak against racism without being killed, but the moment you actively do something about racism, things can change. The systems that operate in our country cannot directly kill you, but they can reduce the chances that any racist who kills you is less likely to face any punishment for doing so.
This accomplishes two things. First, it lets other less-racist white people know that there will be serious consequences if they try to fight racism. Second, it encourages racist white people to take steps to preserve the means of their own enslavement.
Your Life Has Less Value If You Act
Just as the lives of minorities are worth less to the system than the lives of white people, the lives of white people who act against racism are worth less to the system than the lives of racist white people.
The concept of "whiteness" is poorly-defined and changes over time. At one time, Jews were not considered white. Now they are. At one time, Italians and Greeks were not considered white, but now they are (except among European racists, who still do not regard them as truly white). Heck, if you go back to the 1700s and 1800s, you can find serious academics in England comparing the facial features of Irish people to gorillas in order to justify their mistreatment of Irish people. Conservative activist Richard Spencer has recently argued that any white person who converts to Islam stops being white.
The concept of whiteness is poorly-defined and changes over time because it is not really a description of physical characteristics, nor is it about ancestry. Whiteness is a marker that identifies who benefits from unequal systems in our society, and who is harmed by those same systems.
In other words, white privilege has always been something that could be granted or revoked to anyone whose ancestors come from Europe. It is not automatically given to all European descendants.
The fastest way to get your white privilege partially revoked is to actively work to dismantle those racist systems, such as by protesting lethal police brutality. If you actively work against racism and racist systems, then you become fair game. Racist white people can kill you and expect to have a fairly good chance of getting away with it.
The events that inspired the movie Mississippi Burning also involved white people killed by other white people for acting against racism. While the movie is upsetting, realize that these events were remarkable not because white people were killed for registering black people to vote. What was remarkable is that their killers were actually convicted, which is not the normal outcome of these things in America. What happened in the Rittenhouse trial is. The Rittenhouse verdict was a clear announcement to white people. If you actively fight against racism, you can be killed, and your killers will get away with it. The system is letting you know that your life will not be protected if you do anything against racist systems.