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I received a great question recently in a FB conversation about race, and why whites don't do more to help change racial injustice! Thanks for asking. 
The stuff I'm going to tell you here is my insider information from someone who was raised by a racist Southern white male with lots of power. I didn't accept his race theology. I then had children and married across the color line, then studied these things as I pursued an education, as a grandmother and mother of adult children of color. Here is my synthesis of experience, education, mothering, marriage, and observation from both sides of the color line:

In answer to the question SOME, and certainly many, perhaps even the majority of whites "minimize police brutality, conflate the rioting of disenchanted marginalized people, are silent in the face of police indictments for violations (against blacks) and then endorse the sternest of penalties for blacks such as the death penalty" for two reasons:
1. Privilege 
2. Relationships (or the lack thereof)
     A. With blacks 
     B. With Whites 

1. PRIVILEGE Whites have the privilege of these things referenced above NOT being their experiences, family concerns, and pain. So lack of "real ties" to these things that are now finally appearing in the media are minimized as "media hype" and as "the exception rather than the rule."

• Whites have the privilege of not thinking about the murdered young men as "our children." Whites have the privilege of not feeling the pain of the family, of the community, because it's not "our pain."

It all comes down to privilege…if it doesn't appear to harm you, and you don't experience the pain, then you can make up whatever reason you wish to explain it, diminish it, invalidate the reality…and that's what many whites do. It's because they have the privilege of NOT being immersed in the reality that many black families are. It's NOT close to home…even when it is.

2. RELATIONSHIP (or the lack thereof)- is the second reason many whites look away. 
    A. Relationships with black people: Many whites believe and behave in the ways you have described because of their relationship(s) with blacks.

• Where there is no REAL relationship, a virtual relationship is substituted. 
• The virtual relationship is "what I think of blacks" by what I see on tv, in the news, on social media, and through my socialization in my family…dinner table conversations, dating rules, what my pastor says, who goes to my church, etc…
• It is in the absence of real life relationships with blacks that whites "fill in the blanks" with what seems "logical" given the (mis)information that most whites have. 
• What SEEMS logical, and what a white person would do when approached by an officer is entirely different when having an expectation of legal treatment and a confidence of recourse when that expectation is violated.

Example: Whites probably have much less anxiety about police encounters because most whites have a higher expectation of legal treatment AND more access to resources within the system if something goes wrong (privilege). Whether that access is a cop friend, a lawyer, a reputation in the white community, etc., 
It changes the way you react if you know you've got "back up." 

• Most whites don't know a family who have buried a child, had a husband harassed, had a teenager profiled due to some factor of race. These are not the lived experiences of (most) whites, so they are insulated from these realities of (many) black families. 
• Whites are also more individualists (than blacks who tend to be more collectivistic). Whites prefer not to think or talk about race (unless they're KKK) so even if another white family (we don't personally know) experiences injustice, we don't tend to carry the burden as a "racial" community of whites (only the crazy's do that, the KKK and the ones with the rebel flag on their truck, we don't see them as "like us"). So as individualistic, whites don't tend to see the white kid in the neighborhood who died of an overdose as "one of ours." Empathy for the family, yes, but personal connection, not so much. In essence, whites isolate themselves more as individual units than as group members than do blacks, so even if white kids were getting brutalized, we would probably tend to see that as a result of their behavior rather than an attack on us as a group (white culture perspective).

Because of privilege and an emphasis on the individual power vs the group power, a white person's "logic" about what you should do if you're driving 15 miles over the limit you see the blue lights behind you are not likely to be to run. Because of better experience (with police, the system, the boss, the school, etc…) and higher expectations…this is the effect of privilege, it helps you (even though you probably don't realize you have it).

• In the absence of real experiences with black families, the "outliers" that we see on the media become the "norm." The protesting black youth, the mother hitting her son on the head because he went to join the protest, the mug shots, even the Beverly Hills Cop, (Eddie Murphy) one of the good guys, but comparably the most violent, and the most vile in comparison to his "innocent" appearing, mild mannered white counterpart. 
• The absence of real relationships (in favor of virtual ones) validates to the white onlooker the Eurocentric myth that originated in the slave trade, was perpetuated throughout the antebellum then Jim Crow, and now through policy (red lining) and white culture (taboo to talk about race) the belief that, "blacks are genetically more violent."

Thus whites do nothing, believing that the police and "the system" are doing what they must to control "the situation."

In the absence of relationships and the stories of trusted black friends to give context, whites often don't know what to believe, say or do.

     B. Relationships with other white people: by speaking out, whites risk their relationships with other whites. 

• I have the privilege of stepping across the culture line whenever I wish. I can also "pass for white" culturally. When I'm not with my children or grandchildren, people relate to me differently than when they can see that my child(ren) are ethnic. But still, I have the privilege of letting that be public or private information. 
• The more public I am about matters of race and social justice, about race and ethnicity of my own family, the more relationships and privilege I risk losing (or never gaining) from white folks. I am confronted by family, unfriended, and hurt by people I care about…because there are other people who I love too that I'm not supposed to care about.

• When those white folks are people you care about or people who have power over you, it's a challenging decision.

 Example: I was 21, and a single mom. When it was discovered that my daughter was biracial, I was illegally fired. It put me in an even more desperate situation.

In Summary, white people's relationships within the white community often hold power that keeps white people silent.…self-preservation

My Antidote:
RELATIONSHIPS across the color line

• Relationships with diverse others improve us, expand our hearts (empathy) and minds (critical thinking, self-examination). 
• Only real relationships will bring deep, lasting change and empathy that will cause those with privilege to demand justice for those without. Take the risk, build relationships across the color line, it's ok to go slow. But don't let Facebook relationships be enough. Develop Face to Face relationships.

We must build relationships where we go to each other's homes, cook each other meals, share each other's stories, worship with each other, feel each other's pain, and love each other's children.

Every problem I have ever had has been created or cured in relationship.

I have experienced abuse, rape, criticism, accusation, beatings, slander, hatred, and the death (of loved ones and love) in relationship.

And then I been caressed, soothed, approved, validated, upheld, endorsed, loved, healed, and given life in other relationships.

Only by hearing each other's stories, binding each other's wounds, understanding each other's pains, and sharing each other's strength can we extract the poison from our collective system, and have real life together!

What of privilege? Give it to everyone! It doesn't take anything from anyone if women, Blacks and Latinos and Asians, Native Americans and Marshall Islanders, and Arabs get the benefit of a doubt too! Then we will be the America we intended to be, when we do have "liberty and justice for all."

This is why I take the risks, and am willing to pay the costs…for a better America, a better hometown, a better church, a better neighborhood, a better family, and a better me can be the only result.

❤
Doc COURAGE!

Additional resource:  http://star.txstate.edu/2016/02/09/black-power-is-not-the-same-as-white-supremacy/