My well water has always sucked (shitty surface well with "iron bacteria" that quickly overwhelms any and all attempts to filter it), so we just fill up our drinking water jugs out of a local stream. Sure, extended house guests sometimes get a tummy ache or two, but after 20 years of this sytem we don't notice any ill…

Agreed.

Largely, yeah. Racist cops continue to be hired and continue to have a blank check for violence not because Americans in general are bigots, but because Americans in general cannot be bothered to give a fuck about what they perceive to be someone else's problem. And police violence continues to be viewed as someone…

Agreed. Well, not exactly agreed. Maybe neither are ok? Ah fuck it, I'm done foot-in-mouthing.

Fair enough. I like shopping, I hate bars.

Not unfair to me, just fucked in general. Communication is fucked. Dating is fucked. Being a woman in public is fucked. Interacting with women in public is fucked. It all just sucks, we should be better somehow.

Not everyone wants to meet someone at a bar/club/party. But you're right, my right to find potential dating partner's doesn't trump your right to just get through your fucking day in peace.

I'm not quite as clueless as I let on, and I know that that's an option. Although, I also get the impression that in the past I've creeped out women by making eye contact with them, male gaze and all that.

How? The burden shouldn't be on women to communicate that they're not interested, but also, how do people actually expect men to ensure that at an advance is welcome before initating contact with a woman? Is waiting for a woman to initiate contact the only safe option?

I'm not sure most people view grocery shopping as a no-socialization laser-focused race against the clock. I do a lot of my socializing bumping into people out and about while running errands. But even if the supermarket scene is as horrible as you say, I'm not really sure what sort of leisure activities you have in…

Like Claire's husband, I sort of do and don't get it at the same time. The threat part totally makes sense, the fear of either responding too favorably and encouraging him to follow you back to your car, or responding too coldly and prompting frustrated violence. The objectification part makes sense too, the feeling…

Point noted, it can be tough to say shit right when talking about issues this big on the fly. Thank you for helping me clarify.

I didn't say "but what about white people?" I said, you're blaming the wrong people, because you're not blaming enough people.

Understand that to others, this is very real, hits very close to home, and is not about you.

It seems I have not expressed myself very well. My suggestion and solution was, get mad at more people, and make them uncomfortable by targeting them directly rather than building strawmen that they won't self-identify with. Don't let "I like black people and wish someone would do something" be an excuse. Condemn…

I work in the legal profession. Take of that what you will.

Well, it does appear that readers are taking my comments that way, and I agree that's a not very helpful direction to steer the conversation. And I recognize that there are plenty of individual bigots on display in comment threads like this. The point I was trying to make (unsuccesfully, apparently) is that individual…

"Aren't any" was overstating it, "aren't many" is what I meant to say. But my point is, while active racists might be steering the ship in the institutions that perpetuate violence, they aren't the wind filling its sails. Complacency, ignorance, and laziness empower police to prey on the weak, and dialogue that…

It would be nice to live in a world where people made other people's pain and suffering their business. Unfortunately, experience shows that we do not live in that world, we never have and never will. We care for, we fight for people that we identify with, and while we may not actively wish anyone else harm, we sure…

I'm literally saying the exact opposite of that. I'm not in any way asking to be congratulated, nor am I saying #notallwhitepeople. What I am saying, is that trying to stop police brutality by telling people "stop hating black people" doesn't really accomplish much when police brutality does not spring from conscious…