I can go into detail at a later time...

We've also kicked around the idea (a little) in the Afr'Am forum...

and it focuses on the President. I think it is emboldening people to hate more openly.

....these days. A number of police officers obviously fear black men and must kill them to avoid their own victimization. Where is that fear coming from?

There are many mediocre people in this nation that have only one thing going for them - being white. Seeing him rise to such high levels lead to two things; a realization that they have been deceived, white people aren't inherently better that black people and feeling of having been ripped off. That can cause a lot of anger.
In some people's mind it is a competition between black and white. They do not like to see us gain because to them that means they lost.

As you said, not all of it by any means. But when the more vocal racists started shouting when President Obama was elected, the more comfortable those quiet racists became in being vocal.

I think that social media is the biggest reason we see it more now. As time goes by and more and more people use the bigger sites, the more some are aware of something we hoped was fading.

forced most racists out of the closet.

Soon they won't bother trying to hide their dog whistles.

+1

Whether it's on the rise or not is debatable though. We are definitely being exposed to more of it through people videoing encounters and social media.

...of course it is a result of the overt (and not so) racism come to the surface

See how that works ?

mongers who think they are fighting for their culture when in fact they are destroying our entire country. And while much of it can be connected to the KKK and such groups much of it can also be laid at the feet of ordinary people who accepted the "welfare queen" lies of raygun and his followers and think it is true, especially regarding people of color.

what I fully expected did not happen:
I thought that exposure to a black man, and then one with the most powerful job, would de-sensitize people to color. I felt certain that regular visual visits with our President makes them recognize the sameness of our humanity. I was sure that the color of his skin after a while would be unnoticed and would help us move out of being a country where the color of one's skin already determines how one is classified and labeled upon entering a room.

Dammit. It did not work out that way at all. Racism began to bubble like in a cauldron.The unjust incidents are putting a fire under it in good ways and bad ways.
Just like with all social change for the better the unrest is part of it, so as long as it is peaceful I participate and support it.

One day, President Obama had been on Martha's Vineyard for one of his short and well deserved breaks.
I walked by my TV and he was speaking. I said out loud: "Hey man, nice tan". And then collapsed laughing.

That's what I would have wished for the country. And eventually, slowly, it will come.

I honestly don't know.

my reading and talking with black friends, police violence against people of color has been a long-standing given.

Not saying you're wrong, but I wonder whether there's just increased visibility for a brutality that has never gone away.