If You Want To Understand White Privilege This is a sample that we thought was good to demonstrate a few things about what is wrong in America and more specifically whats really happening with racism in America. What White and Black America should try to do here is not see the end result, but the events that lead up to the result, from the other persons racial perspective. Its not that this man was distributing voting materials or littering, rather that the police were called and the potential reasons why the police were called in the first place. If you ask yourself, what potential reasons could the police have been called, if this man is just distributing voting rights leaflets?. the question for White America is: Did it occur to you that the police may have been called by someone who gave the police a negative context to view the incident? i.e. They were informed of a car prowler in the neighborhood? When police ask for ID its normally what is known as a Terry Stop. The question is not whether or not there is grounds for a Terry Stop, but who is subject to a Terry Stop, and why? If you know that you as a White person can do things such as distribute leaflets in your neighborhood and do so without being subject to a Terry Stop while others cannot, you are experiencing White Privilege; the privilege that you can do things without the pretext of being viewed with a suspicious context For Black America, what you should see every time you see a cop approaching is this man/ woman is looking for an excuse to escalate any given situation. Any non-cooperation can be seen by the cops as unwilling to bend to their authority and unwilling to submit to White dominance by the White jury that will tacitly convict you for that reason. The trick is how to avoid that appearance. All of these incidents over the summer and through the years have connotations of police who are willing to justify their tactics through any means necessary and a White public willing to be dragged along through it. Whereas the whole pretext before the contact with police gets swept under the rug by the volume of violence during the incident, or the outrage of the resulting arrests or deaths of the individuals who have contact with police. What White America should be asking itself is not only, would this happen to a blond White female?, but what led up to this and does that potentially have any racial context? Black America can see where it does, because they know their White friends can get away with doing exactly what they are doing, distributing leaflets, without a thought of every being questioned by police, much less stopped and frisked, which is what a Terry Stop is and what we have become accustomed to in America since the implementation of the Slave Patrols of the 1600s! White Americas less-racist members acquiescence to these Terry Stops has been a well worn path of fear of Black people trumpeted through the lens of their more racist White brethren. i.e. Todays FOX NEWS, who has always been in Americas news medium. They have a feeling that if they go along with Black Americas views they will get caught in a booby trap or tricked by Black America. What they should be asking all along is how did this happen in the first place and would that be grounds for inequality? Its not a question of law, its a question of cultural norm. Are you willing to look the other way to keep things normal? If you are, youre participating in White privilege, You can do that no matter what color you are. Humanists and Atheists For Obama
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 14:08:39 +0000