Thank you for reading and your response. While I cannot speak to your experiences because we haven't interacted, I'd disagree with the Cosby quote. I say that because I do agree that we need to move beyond race, but in order to do that, we have to confront the issue. By choosing to not talk about it, we refuse to confront it.

It's not an easy talk, and I struggle everyday with things. However, unlike others, I can hide from the discussion because it doesn't impact me daily the ways it does others. I'm white, so I can leave and forget. This is the part I didn't talk about in this piece but wanted to.

Bud Lee said that the photos he took of Billy Furr, Joey Bass, Jr. and others in Newark deeply impacted him, traumatizing him. I don't doubt that. It's expected. Following Detroit and MLK's funeral, he basically said I can't do this anymore and I need to take "happier" pictures, so he moved on to other things.

I don't disparage Lee's choice. The trauma he saw impacted him deeply. However, my point is that he can do that. He can leave. Joyce Furr can't. Joey Bass, Jr. can't I don't mean physically leave Newark. I mean they cannot leave their skin. This is what King means with those last two lines of that quote: "Because most white people are so far removed from the life of the average Negro, there has been little to challenge this assumption. Yet Negroes continue to live with racism every day.”