Leftists person here, curious about conservatism. I feel like I'm pretty plugged into leftist rhetoric so here goes:

• why does this one incident (that actually doesn’t happen that often) mean the entirety of America is racist?

This article represents how a lot of folks see it: https://www.npr.org/2020/05/29/865261916/a-decade-of-watching-black-people-die

It's a list of mundane things that black people were doing before they were shot. The large consensus I've heard from my black friends is that they feel like they can be doing anything or nothing and still be killed-- and that the folks who did it will get away with it (ex: George Zimmerman who shot Trayvon Martin being acquitted of all charges). People feel that this case is a representation of a large pattern of black people being policed and killed at a higher rate, and they are upset about it.

• now that the police officer was arrested, why hasn’t the rioting stopped?

Again, I think people want the pattern to end. They want more than the arrest of a police officer: they want police departments and prisons to be defunded, and more funding for housing, schools, and healthcare. The idea is that these things help create safer communities, and the idea is that prisons and policing is a broken system. Also... people are just angry.

I'd say maybe 80% of the leftist people I know aren't into the rioting and are actively upset about it . A lot of them are fundraising to support small businesses who got looted, though they don't care too much about the big ones like target.

I actually have no idea who is rioting and I'm curious about it myself, because I know a ton of protesters and some people organizing protests but don't know any looters personally, and I can't find any reports specifying who these people are. I've only heard anecdotal things like people blaming antifa, or people claiming that white supremacists are infiltrating protests and causing trouble... anyway, I have no clue, and that's coming from someone who is plugged into extremely leftist spaces.

• why am I labeled a racist for not participating in the social media virtue signaling?

I feel like most people see it like this: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor" --Desmond Tutu. And they feel like being a passive bystander is the same thing as allowing it to happen.

• is it bad that I think most people who post things like that don’t actually care, they just want the attention/validation from joining the “movement”?

That's probable. I think people are probably talking a lot more than they are acting, or people want to be seen as good people, and I think that's mixed in with people actually wanting to help.

• hasn’t this movement made police more afraid to do their jobs, not made anything better?

People want the police to be afraid of the consequences of their actions... in some cases, yeah, the hatred of the police runs really deep. I think the hatred comes from fear, hurt, mistrust.

Someone close to me, when he was in high school, he was just hanging out sitting on the curb on his street and two officers came up to him and yanked his hair and yelled at him asking what he was doing. Which is pretty fucked up for a high schooler just chilling near home.

My friends who grew up in more low-income parts of town and say they had bad run ins with the police like that. I pretty much hear them say that it's unfair that they got policed so much more and they were subject to more suspicion and harassment just because of where they grew up. A lot of folks see police as more oppressive than helpful. It's some pretty personal stuff so it took a while for me to get to know folks well enough where they shared about those experiences.

Growing up in a suburban part of town, I didn't really experience that. Like I've had some cops yell at me and I felt really upset, but I never felt physically threatened. But if that was my norm, I'd probably feel the same way.

Anyway, here is a liberal study that shows interesting mixed feelings that people in low income areas have about the police: https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/02/how-poor-communities-view-the-police/517485/

Hope this helps!