Plain old privilege?
Exactly: Plain, everyday, Old-fashioned, White, male, abusive use of power over those less-privileged. AKA White Privilege.
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Yes, there are black men who use their power and money to abuse those who donât hold such power. Note R. Kelly. Most (all?) of the underage girls he preyed on where black. No one gives a shit and he gets off scot-free because society doesnât care about young black girls (or young black boys). Their stories are going to be far far far less believed than the stories of pretty white girls. (Iâm simplifying here to make a point.)
I wonder how many young black women that Cosby has abused over the years, myself.
Yes, there are abusive powerful men who happen to be black, but that doesnât mean that the judge in question isnât benefiting from his white privilege. #BlackMenAbuseToo ⌠is that what you want to go with? Really?
Thatâs not the point.
There is no question that this man holds white privilege. Heâs a white man. Why would you even argue that?
And if heâs abused once, heâs done it before, I guarantee it. This time, a woman felt brave enough to fight back, and good for her. That doesnât mean there arenât women that came before her who were too frightened (for good reason) to say anything.
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#BlackMenAbuseToo ⌠is that what you want to go with? Really?
My point of course isnât that black men abuse too, but that privilege always abuses.
Sorry, I mean #PrivilegeAlwaysAbuses.
Or just good old fashioned âpower corruptsâ, if you need something boiled down to a hashtagable slogan.
Seeing absolutely everything in terms of race is the essence of racism.
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There is no question that this man holds white privilege. Heâs a white man. Why would you even argue that?
Repeated because itâs clear you did not read that, or any of the rest of my comment, either. Youâre just repeating yourself and continuing to miss the point.
Fuck that. No one âdeservesâ torture, any more than anyone âdeservesâ rape. Real justice should be better than the people it condemns. Lock him up and throw away the key; thatâs good enough.
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Well maybe you can answer: if every white person who abuses their power is exerting White Privilege, then what is it called when a black person does it? Or a Chinese person?
I know its somehow the fault of white people too in your mind, I just want to grasp exactly how.
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I donât think you understand white privilege or the concept of privilege at all and it is not my job, nor do I have time, to explain it to you. Iâd suggest at the very least a Sociology 101 class. If you canât do that, use google! Do some research, rather than (obviously) relying on uneducated assumptions.
This is actually a fairy complex subject and I am not going to have it with you if you donât educate yourself on the basics, first.
Here, let me help you get started:
Lets just say you still havenât convinced me that this is anything but a generic case of corrupted power, regardless of the perpetratorâs (or victimâs) race.
Here, let me help you get started:
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Are you fucking kidding me here? How is speaking about this man here who is white and therefore holds white privilege calling âeverythingâ racial? (Strawman, much?) And what do you even mean by ânot everything is racialâ? What do you mean by âracialâ? Whatâs âeverythingâ? What does it mean if itâs not racial? What does it mean if it is racial?
Your arguments have degraded into near word salad.
You donât understand privilege at all, clearly.
BTW, heâs also a man and so holds male privilege.
ETA: Also, the first result in your Google search is someone mocking your bullshit Googled opinion. Hahahaha. Secondly, I Googled a specific, definable, well-known and largely accepted phrase, while you just Googled some racist and nonsense opinion.
Your comparison is nonsense (oh and also a racist dog whistle, congrats!)
I am not impressed by your lazy comeback, lol.
How is speaking about this man here who is white and therefore holds white privilege calling âeverythingâ racial?
When you frame this as simply a case of âWhite Privilegeâ, youâre distracting from what really happened here, which his that someone exerted a tremendous abuse of their power. And furthermore, youâre introducing an insinuation that they did it because they were white. Itâs distracting, pandering, and overly simplifying, not to mention race baiting.
But hey, I have a feeling thatâs exactly what you want to do, so maybe thatâs all fine with you.
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Itâs just an acknowledgement of facts â he is a white man, and therefore holds white male privilege. You are the one that wants to attempt to distract and simplify by ignoring the facts. You want to erase an important part of the context. You are the one trying to simplify and pander. We are just trying to discuss the facts.
âRace baiting.â
Hey! Racist dog whistle number two! My Bingo card is filling up.
Anyone who says things like ânot everything is racialâ and ârace baitingâ with no irony is quite frankly, full of shit, and can therefore be dismissed.
Itâs certainly hypocrisy, but âprivilegeâ is something that is explicitly granted by a higher power, not some intrinsic condition which people imagines makes them more special than others. If the law favored white males, it would be privilege, but it doesnât.
What about the law SCHOOLS?
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Maybe I have chosen wrong formulation. Look - There are 2 groups of unpunishable people:
One group are poor asocials - you have nothing to take from them, so all financial fines are ineffective against them. When you lock them into prison, they adapt and come out even more âschooledââŚ
The second group are the wealthy and powerful - They use their power to dodge all fines and when you lock them into jail you can bet they get to some luxury jail with pool, gym, TV on room and civilian clothing.
Sure that torture is inhuman - But please suggest how we should punish those groups so, that they wil REALLY feel consequences of what they did ? And how to make them regret their deeds and make them WILLING to change themselves? If you have answer i will be the first who supports it.
Thank you wrybread. Of course it is the privilege of power. The color has nothing to do with it (at least in this case and in this discussion).
The trouble is that your proposal doesnât actually dodge the problem that you (correctly) identify:
If you have the juice to stay out of prison entirely, with a slight risk of Club Fed, you sure as hell arenât at any risk of something that your legal team could cut to ribbons on 8th amendment grounds without breaking a sweat.
If anything, proposing almost-definitely-not-legal laws makes the effect of impunity greater, since anyone whose lawyer doesnât suck has a stronger position (since the law is shaky) while anyone whose overworked public defender doesnât have time for constitutional jurisprudence and a bunch of appeals gets a new, even harsher, punishment.
Solving impunity is not easy, nor are the answers obvious; but if penalties that are already on the books, in theory(like hard time in little-people prison) are not being applied, adding tougher penalties is doomed to fail. You need to attack the penalty allocation process, though exactly how is left as an exercise to the reader.
Now, that said, I would be in favor of the harshest punishment consistent with a commitment to human rights in a case such as this, for who can be more despicable to the law, or more dangerous to the rule of law, than a trusted agent of the law who twists it into an instrument of his own private revenge? A mere criminal has a downright honest relationship with the law by comparison, he merely defies it. Someone like this debases it under the guise of upholding it.
Were it not for my suspicion that having them as object lessons might be more valuable, Iâd be very tempted to revive Damnatio memoriae for this sort of offender.
I love that since thereâs not much more to say about this story than âChrist, what an assholeâ, the conversation thread has turned into an argument of whether or not this is an example of white privilege at play. Whereâs my popcorn?
Agreed and Iâm embarassed to have taken the bait. Serves me right for commenting on BoingBoing before having my morning coffee.
Bryant Cochran. The gift that keeps on givingâŚ
Cochran resigned in August of 2012 after investigators discovered heâd been pre-signing warrants.
Cochran is also charged with violating the civil rights of two other woman who worked in this office.
The story goes on and on. There is just no end to this guyâs douchebaggery.
Would probably make a good movie.
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