I am not, nor will I ever be, a black man in America.

I will not pretend to understand the full spectrum of what it means to be, specifically, a young black man in America, as I am a young white man. I will not pretend to understand the feelings of persecution and oppression because I haven't lived that life. I will not pretend to fully grasp the anger that the country is witnessing right now in Charlotte. I will, however, offer up this piece in hopes that it will shed a light on what I've realized in these past few days.

When I was in high school, I was the most well-behaved child--though my mother might disagree. My friends and I were pretty nerdy and uncool, almost to the point that we became accidentally cool. We'd sit around for hours and play video games or play music or volleyball or whatever. We didn't drink, really, and we didn't do drugs. We didn't speed around town or vandalize shit. We just did normal kid stuff, I guess. But there were a lot of police officers in my town and no real crime. So often, out of sheer boredom on their end, it seemed, we had interactions with cops.

I remember one instance in particular when my friend Joe and I got pulled over by a cop on 55 bypass in Holly Springs after coming back from a show one night. Joe was driving, I was riding shotgun, Joe's gear was in the back. The cop walked up to the window, asked for his license and registration and said that Joe's license plate bracket was covering up the state name on the license plate. It wasn't and it became clear that this cop was looking for an excuse to pull over two teenagers at 1 a.m. on a Saturday. The cop came back to Joe's window right about the time this dawned on me and asked, "Hey, since I'm already here, you guys aren't carrying any illegal drugs or weapons on you, are you--like any pistols or hand grenades?" As if we would suddenly admit guilt because he asked so nicely. So me being the smartass that I am shot back with, "No, officer, I think I left my RPG at home." The cop glared at me, told us to have a good night, and walked away. Joe punched me in the arm immediately after the cop left. "Why the f*** would you say that?" he asked. "Because," I said, "we weren't doing anything wrong, what could he do to us?"

That's my white privilege, long before I ever knew what those words meant. If I'm not doing anything wrong, I should have no need to be concerned. And that's the racial difference in America. Black people have to be concerned. Imagine that scenario if I was a black teenager. I imagine I would have been ripped out of the car and arrested--at least for mouthing off to a cop (though, truth be told, if the cop asks if you're carrying hand grenades, he's just asking for someone to make a joke). I also imagine that I probably would spend the rest of my life walking around with a bad attitude towards police in general because of that instance.

I think about my time spent at Appalachian State, undoubtedly one of the whitest places that I've ever spent time. I think about the parties that my friends and I would host (686 forever!) and how often they got super rowdy and similarly how often the police were called. And I think about how many times I was the drunken idiot (sorry, Mom) that had to go out and talk to the police and tell them that we'll quiet down, just so they could leave and we could turn the music back up. And I think about that situation if I was a black male at 6'2" and close to 200 lbs. I was bigger than most of the cops that I talked to in that area. A large, drunk black male, arguing with a police officer? That sounds like a recipe for disaster. And that's my white privilege again, as long as I was of legal drinking age and not actually doing anything wrong, nothing could happen to me.

With these protests going on around our country, between Kaep kneeling and the riots in Charlotte, with the brand of Ferguson still freshly imprinted in our minds, it's easy to want to stay out of it. This stuff is scary and it ls literally a part of the fabric of our nation. Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Terrance Crutcher, Keith Lamont Scott. Remember these names. You remember, when you were in school, in history class, reading about Dred Scott. Or Plessy v. Ferguson. You have to remember thinking about how dumb the people had to be then, how they had to be blind to let this sort of injustice continue. Well, open your fucking eyes, people, because we're about to be written on the wrong side of history.

People are attempting to make a big deal out of the fact that the Charlotte police chief is a black man. They are also trying to make a big deal out of the fact that the officer who shot Keith Lamont Scott was black. People who are against the Black Lives Matter movement say that they shouldn't be protesting because it was a black man who did the shooting. What that tells me is that we are so accustomed to white cops shooting black people, that this one is a different scenario. Wrong. Black Lives Matter has nothing to do with white police brutality, it has to do with police brutality. Black Lives Matter because my white privilege says that I don't have to worry about making it through a traffic stop with anything other than a speeding ticket. Black Lives Matter because a cop (hopefully) wouldn't feel threatened if I approached him on the streets of Charlotte. Black Lives Matter because I understand that my life would be completely different if I was black, even if I kept everything the same.

But I am not a black man. And I'm thankful for my white privilege because it's gotten me out of trouble. And I'm hopeful that one day, someone will look back on this and talk about how backwards we were, because that means that America will be better for it. To all of my friends in Charlotte, stay safe and to all of you protesting around the country, stay brave. Because all lives can't matter until black lives do.