I can't hope to address all of the interesting & excellent points you made here, Kevin. I'll try to keep my remarks as brief as possible.

To begin with, I am sensing rose-tinted glasses in your views of recent history vis a viz race. E.g. MLK Jr. wasn't supported by a slender majority, or any majority at all. 75% of whites disapproved of King during his lifetime. It's taken quite a few years for that to change.

I'm not entirely certain what you mean by living MLK's "Dream" in this context. It's easy for us to say we don't discriminate; our minds are clear, our hearts pure. But what's happening in other communities?

Ta Nehesi Coate's "The Case For Reparations" article in the Atlantic is an excellent source (in case you haven't already read it). Coates describes, in great detail, ways in which Black people were robbed of such wealth they accumulated, mainly their homes. The scams that preyed on them weren't, of course, directed solely at Black folk, but they were the largest portion of victims. And much of this was recent, from the end of World War 2 to the 1980s.

I appreciate you willingness to consider Stop & Frisk discriminatory. However effective it might be, I think it's a clear violation of the 14th amendment. I think it, & other police activities that maybe don't have names or an official presence, warn us to approach criminal justice statistics with caution. However law abiding you might be, if a cop follows you around everywhere you go, he'll eventually find probable cause to cite or even arrest you. The federal government has admitted they don't know how many laws they have on the books now. I think the same is true for large metropolitan areas. E.g. recently it was revealed that knives that lock back into place, a basic safety feature, are illegal in NYC.

I think it's telling that while Philando Castile had a terrible driving record, most of his cites were for driving w/o a license or on a suspended license. I would have expected to see a roughly equal number of moving violations, because absent one, how did he come into contact with police in the first place? How often do you get pulled over for a broken taillight, or because you look like a robbery suspect?

Certainly never happened to me.

I agree with you that some of the shootings that BLM highlights seem to have been justified. "Hand up, don't shoot!", while it doesn't seem to be an accurate characterization of what passed between Brown & the Ferguson cop. But Ferguson is more nuanced, given that the investigation was sloppy—Brown's body was left uncovered for hours, the officer was permitted to drive himself to the station & bag his weapon. As protests developed, the city reacted strongly, with riot police, APCs, tear gas, rubber bullets, etc..

But the phrase was short, visually arresting & impactful. Small wonder it became one of BLM's mantras.

Regarding the assumption in BLM's title that people didn't care, well, recall the paragraph that opened Catherine's essay. She acknowleged, implicity, that there are people, white people, who aren't racist, aren't part of the problem she outlined, but protests, movements, often rely on hyperbole. I strongly disagree, for example, that Trayvon Martin was "murdered in cold blood", but I also believe that Zimmerman provoked the fight that led to Martin's death. I think he's guilty of manslaughter, but obviously the jury did not.

One point about the killing of Loxas—which I believe was murder in cold blood—his family did obtain a degree of justice that Black victims seldom do. The settlement in his case was $4.5 million, an enormous sum for the wrongful death of a retired person. Also the shooter was forced to retire.

One problem lies in the definition of racism. One need not accept CRT to believe racism is a form of systemic bias that doesn't rely on how people actually feel. Because conservative define it differently, it's nearly impossible to have a rational conversation between left & right.

Honestly, I'm not sure I agree that approval of intermarriage is a key indicator of racist proclivities. Slave owners of yore, e.g. Jefferson, slept with slaves. Some, like him, acknowledged the progeny & paid to raise & educate them. But they still supported the ultimate in racist systems.

Is CRT incompatible with MLK's dream?

No.

Why would it be?

It just means there's more work to be done. King himself had come to believe that capitalism as practiced in the US was incompatible with equality. That wouldn't make sense unless he had come to agree with many of the key tenents of CRT.

I don't think rioting &/or civil disobedience are necessarily Marxist. Didn't Dr King say a riot is the language of the unheard? After all, the US was formed with acts of civil disobedience, destruction of property (e.g. Boston Tea Party), & even riots. Wasn't the first casualty of the forming nation Crispus Attucks, slain during the Boston Massacre, an event the other side would certainly call a riot?

Can't write more as I join everyone else sweating this election out.

Best......