Be careful with the broad generalizations, many of us do realize and can understand. While I get what you are saying, I would posit that the larger problem is not so much a desire to maintain that privilege, but is a complete lack of empathy. This lack of an ability to put one in someone else's shoes leave them believing that there is no such privilege. They can't see it though it is frequently right in front of their face. We have developed into such an 'Out for number one' society, that engaging in empathy is somehow considered weakness, much in the same way the that term liberal has somehow become pejorative.

I have had this conversation with some of my white right wing friends (and family for that matter) and it frustrates me to no end. We live in a predominantly white area. There is a fair amount of diversity, but still overwhelmingly white. I ask them, when walking down the street and you see a black man or men walking toward you, what is the first thing that jumps to their mind. The more honest of them will admit to an immediate instinct to judge, while a white man or men would likely be ignored. There is a natural tendency to do this with anything that is the minority in any context.

But even those who have acknowledged such a tendency can not seem to grasp what it is like to be on the other end of that implicit exchange. Let alone to experience that every second of every minute of every day of your life where a very large percentage of those encounters are not with people who have that little alarm that goes off in their head that berates themselves for judging. I know a good number of people who don't have such a moral governor, and in fact embrace such reactions, nonchalantly using the color of someone's skin as an immediate strike on their evaluation of that person's character. Many of these people are in positions of power from schools, to banks, politicians to police officers.

Now I don't know what it is like to be a black man in America. I also don't know what it is like to be shot. But I don't actually have to be a black man in America or be shot to engage in enough empathy to understand that neither can be a terribly pleasant experience.

The conversations usually then stray into areas of inequality in education and upward mobility, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, affirmative action is evil, etc., etc., Usually the focus is on our own decaying urban areas around here and the largely impoverished black communities and the disparity in the educational experience of our inner city schools vs. the rural ones. And it never fails to astound me that these people always come to the same conclusion, that the solution is for these people to just move to the suburbs. They can not understand why a black family, logistics aside, my not want to move in to the house where the neighbors peer out the window at you every time you get in and out of your car as if you are stealing it.

Complete lack of empathy. These are not evil people. I believe that the majority of them are not racist (though clearly prejudiced as we all are to varying degrees). But they are blinded by such a overwhelming sense of self-interest and astonishing lack of empathy that their actions end up being evil.