Everyone needs a mirror.

Many black people need to recognize that they've become complacent in the status quo. Ferguson has woken up now, but the complacency contributed to the atmosphere prior to it boiling over. They need to start policing themselves. They need to compel each other to be better and fight against the path a prejudiced society set them on. It's not easy, it feels hopeless, and in that hopelessness many embrace the street they're told they're destined for.

But more important than that, white people need to own the role they play in setting black communities on that path. They need to shake the belief that because they've never intentionally wronged a person of color for being black that means they don't contribute to the same system. That they don't give it their silent approval. That they don't oftentimes fall back on racist ideas when shit hits the fan like it did in Ferguson.

The black community absolutely needs to disavow the career criminals in their company. But so must the white community disavow the racists in theirs, and stop making excuses for them or downplaying their size and impact.

Thankfully many of both communities are doing just that. But it needs to spread. Black people need to stop believing it is hopeless, and white people need to knock the racists down and show black people why it isn't.

Our inability or unwillingness to see our own faults and our own contributions to the problem is the sole thing that allows it to continue.

Be the change you want to see. Stop being lazy and pretending you play no role, you don't contribute even if through inaction, and stop playing for your race's "team". There are only two teams here. The team of every color that wants and/or allows it to continue. And the team of every color that is willing to admit the hard truths and stop it.

If not for us, then for our kids. MLK dreamed of a day when all kids would be raised as brothers and sisters. It's not too late for the next generation to inherent a more unified society than we did.