This has been a difficult week for anyone who is even remotely aware of current events, and that on top of what has already been a pretty tough month due to repeated, heartbreaking incidences of violence.

First was the killing of Alton Sterling, a black man fondly referred to as "The CD Guy" is his community, was unjustly slain by police gunfire.

Then came the even less defensible shooting of yet another black man, Philando Castile, during what should have been a routine traffic stop.

Worse still, as tensions mounted and protests ensued across the nation, five police officers were gunned down in Dallas during what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration against police brutality. That these officers were brutally murdered during a demonstration against brutality is a sickening irony lost on no one.

Plenty has been said about current events already though.

By now, it should be more than apparent that there is a real problem underlying these far-too-frequent shootings and subsequent public outcries—there's no way the Black Lives Matter movement could have grown so large and so fast without a lot of fuel.

Even though we've all but abolished active racism from the spectrum of beliefs and actions that society deems acceptable, passive racism still runs rampant, made all the more difficult to address because of its covert nature.

Years of this unchecked, covert racism have led to an environment where subtle systemic injustice breeds easily—an environment where black people feel afraid of police and white people don't understand why or what to do about it.

A great man once wrote that "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," and just because you can't see injustice doesn't mean it's not there.

As someone who has seen its effects countless times in my own life, I can say with certainty that white privilege is a real thing, yet most of us who are white and privileged are unaware of that fact of status.

Personally, when I first came face-to-face with the fact of my privilege, I was defensive about it. After all, I hadn't chosen to be white or privileged, and I didn't want to be blameworthy for the mistreatment of others who did not share my privilege.

Privilege is not our fault, but it is our responsibility—it gives us the power to speak up for those whose voices are all too easily ignored.

In an effort to avoid racial tension altogether, many of us choose to be "colorblind," not realizing that our colorblindness allows racism to be perpetuated by blinding us to the plights unique to those who have a skin color different than our own.

Instead of using our privilege to combat prejudice, we allow it to go on unchecked.

"But what else could we possibly do?"

I thought you'd never ask.

We can start by learning to recognize the reality of different, yet equally valid perspectives.

For example, just because I, as a white male from the northwest suburbs of Chicago, have never had a single negative encounter with police, doesn't mean that a black man growing up in Brooklyn will have the same experience.

In fact, one such man, a hip-hop artist who goes by the name of Fabolous, said as much during a town hall discussion on MTV: "The police were always against us... they were never there to protect us or save us."

These two different experiences may be polar opposites, but both are equally valid. And only once we recognize the validity of others' experiences of injustice can we begin to do anything about them.

That being said, once injustice is acknowledged, it cannot be left unchecked.

But in order for that to happen, those of us who are white and privileged must learn to wield that power for good. We did not choose to possess it, but we possess it nonetheless—and with great power comes great responsibility.

We must be active in using our privilege to correct injustice.

And that can be as simple as standing up for someone in a grocery store:

Martin Luther King Jr., and other great men and women like him, may have brought us a long way in combating active racism and obvious injustice, but now it's our turn to continue the fight against a far subtler foe.

May we, like those who have gone before us, raise our voices in the fight against injustice wherever it rears its ugly head, and may we do so in a peaceful way that doesn't lead to any more bloodshed.