[quote=“milliefink, post:125, topic:6137”]
The reason not to play Oppression Olympics in this way is that you’re losing.
[/quote] I would argue that it’s because everyone (even those who are not oppressed) except oppressors loses. But that’s just my opinion. When allies fight, their enemies gain.
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In Europe, yes, I’ve been stopped for being Jewish. In the South, I’ve been harassed white shopping.
But people aren’t afraid of me. My people were nearly wiped out. We’ve cultivated a nonthreatening image. What’s there to be afraid of?
I find it sad that you think anyone would want to win such a game. I would be more than happy to trade my people’s history for any other group. Suffering is not something to aspire to.
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Good thing it’s mostly history. As opposed to that which doesn’t seem to interest you much, the current, ongoing suffering of black and brown people at the hands of ongoing white supremacy.
I care very much about disproportionate incarceration rates (which largely can be linked to poverty and drug laws that disproportionately affect black americans). I think this murder was a travesty and that the irrational fear towards black people is wrong.
I just don’t think blaming white supremacy is helpful. I can’t remember the last time I saw an actual white supremacist. I doubt many people have. Blaming a poorly defined, nebulous group certainly isn’t going to make a white soccer mom who has little to no interaction with black people think that a young black man in a hoodie is somehow less “scary” or fix incarceration rates.
If I was going to design a slogan that actually caused people to think instead of react, it would more likely be something like,
“Fear of black boys killed Trevon. Fear of white guilt
acquitted Zimmerman.”
But then, that’s not nearly as controversial.
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Oh, I see, we have different working definitions of “white supremacy.” You understand it as pointy-headed robes and/or shaved-head neo-Nazis and such. I understand it as an accurate description of exactly the kind of thing you wrote here:
Those are clearly manifestations of the other kind of broader, more “hegemomic” white supremacy that the makes of the poster highlighted in the OP are talking about. And it’s also why I sometimes say, and I guess should say here more often, “de facto white supremacy.”
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I think you’re missing Millie’s point here. White Supremacy is not just dudes in white hoods, just like anti-semitism is not just guys in a nazi uniform. It’s a notion of how the world operates, and who that favors. Think about the case of anti-Jewish sentiment… the whole support for Zionist from Christians is often very anti-Jewish in nature - they want you all in the “right place” for when Jesus comes back - as you rightly point out. They want you all in the holy land so you aren’t in “their” countries. It’s about attributing certain stereotypical behavior to a group of people, such as greed to Jews and criminality and laziness to blacks. Our historical legal inequality did not end with the signing of the voting rights act or even with the election of a black guy to the highest office in the land. Racism, in more open way has actually been on the rise. The fact that we are in a jobless recovery, and that the jobs that people get are not really able to support a family, only exacerbates racial tensions. Many (not all) working class whites blame blacks, who they see as being disproportionately benefiting from welfare.
And by the way, the guys in white hoods (as well as neo-nazis) are still alive and well in America. I’ve seen both of them in my hometown in my lifetime… the only reason I don’t see them now is because I live in a big city. But given the structure of the city and urban renewal (and the history of city planning, the building of highways, etc), I still see the racism of the system - with black residents (and working class whites) being pushed out to make way for middle class whites, who are flocking back to trendy neighborhoods.
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See, there is a problem with calling background racial fear white supremacy. You have Asians and Hispanics and heck even some Africans who have the same irrational fear towards black boys in hoodies, but would you call them White Supremacists? You want to tie this background racism to a group because it makes it easier to attack, but it is a really poorly defined group and because it is poorly defined, people who are not part of the group will assume you are talking about them. That makes them defensive and that makes it a terrible strategy since you’ll end up attacking potential allies.
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It’s unfortunate that so many comment sections about the Martin/Zimmerman case end up being these sorts of slug-fests between people who have strong and sweeping opinions on details of what happened both in fact and in court, while insisting that those with the opposite views couldn’t possibly know details. There are few pieces of solid evidence here. Something happened, and Martin was shot and killed. Zimmerman admits he shot Martin, and claimed it was in self-defense. Unfortunately, owing to weather and location, there were essentially no witnesses who could discern anything clearly enough to matter.
Yet where there is no narrative, it seems to be almost human nature to try to piece one together, regardless of how inappropriate it is to do so, how much dubious and irrelevant information might be employed as key insights, or how much the narrative will uncannily fit the views of those constructing it. Thus we have the noble ethnic defender of the neighborhood being attacked by the thug with “MMA moves,” the innocent unarmed teenager being “chased down” by the profiling racist MMA thug with a gun, and the numerous, and every variation. And, of course, the view that since we don’t know what happened, racism must not play a part.
Those of you arguing these things here: do you consider this rational or productive? Arguing about the relative weight of those involved, or what Zimmerman did, or what he might have been thinking, or what Martin might have done, or what sort of person Martin was: does this make any difference beyond simply inviting animosity? No: none of these arguments would change the verdict, or bring Martin back from the dead, or even prevent a situation like this from happening again. And any future case will have entirely different minor details, making this particularly pointless. If Martin had been, say, a competitive boxer, or stoned, would that have made Zimmerman innocent? If Zimmerman had been a master martial artist, would that have made him guilty? Profiling happens in many cases, and doesn’t in many others, but is a problem that needs to be addressed and dealt with: if someone is walking down the street, does it make much difference to them whether Martin was profiled? The problem is there regardless.
Wouldn’t it be far better to discuss the laws involved here, the problems of poor prosecution, and the problems of profiling? The laws in Florida are such that most lawyers I have heard speak on the matter did not think Zimmerman could be convicted, which seems to me like it could be a major problem. On the other hand, our country’s criminal justice system was built on a foundation of not convicting people without proof beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed a crime, and thus to favor not punishing the guilty over inadvertently punishing the innocent. @daneel’s excellent (and completely ignored) link to Kevin White’s thoughts on the matter is insightful: making it easier to convict people is often a terrible idea, even if not doing so results in some guilty people going unpunished. That there is racial bias in convictions does not necessarily mean that the privileged groups should be convicted more; it can also mean that the persecuted groups should be convicted less, and in the case of the US, I think that the latter is very much the case.
Profiling, too, is complex; making it either a matter of “white supremacy” or insisting it wasn’t involved here tries to push it into a simple narrative. That “character” seems so involved in court cases themselves seems a matter of concern, as it seems to me in itself a type of profiling.
With all that said, given the level of invective pervading this thread, the best idea is probably to close it; certainly, if the Amanda Palmer thread was closed, this one should be as well?
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No, but I would call that irrational fear a result of white supremacy (which Mindysan just explained so well).
I’m not tying a social phenomenon (white supremacy) to a group (white people). Sure, white supremacy names white people, and people of various colors, but it’s not white people. And any white people who get “defensive” in discussions of today’s white supremacy are doing so because they can’t see that difference. I do get tired of having to explain it all the time.
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I don’t think so. One person’s notion of “invective” and a lack of civility can be another person’s notion of productive discussion (which is not to say that everyone on this thread has been interested in productive discussion). I’m learning from others here, and I appreciate as well the opportunity to further clarify and articulate my own perspective.
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I don’t even really know how to respond to this. The part where you were compared to David Duke was because YOU, personally, came into the thread offended that you were being blamed for it. And it’s possible that the person who made that comparison made the same mistake I did, misread one word and thought you were advocating something a lot more indefensible than you were. But regardless, in that case, the comparison was made (wrongly, I might add, in my view) because of what you said, not because you were white. And it happened AFTER you took offense, not before, so you can’t use it as proof that somebody claimed all white people are supporting white supremacy. You’re not all white people, somebody accusing you, personally, of something, rightly or wrongly, because of something you’ve said, doesn’t mean they’re saying it about all white people. I’ve also seen several people in the thread specifically point out that no, they don’t consider all white people to blame, especially if they’re conscious of the different experiences and unfair outcomes that minorities get.
So I still have yet to see anybody in this thread accusing all white people of supporting white supremacy, or being responsible for this event, and your initial taking offense is still overblown and irrational. You personally? I don’t know you well enough. But to go back to the wife-beating analogy of a while back, if we’re talking about a battered woman and you jump in, not even to suggest that you think this particular case might not be how it seems, but to shout about how you’re sick of men always being blamed for everything, it’s not a point in your favor, and it’s probably going to cause people to suspect that you have more sympathy with the perpetrators than the victims. So I can see how people in the conversation might think that you (again, you personally, not all whites) have some racist leanings. But again, I don’t know you well enough. Judging by this conversation, you seem to be a bit hot-tempered and easy to offend, maybe you just had a bad day. I’m inclined to think the best of people, so I’m not going to jump to the conclusion that you’re racist (and even if you have a few unexamined ideas that tend in that direction, you certainly don’t seem like one of the really rabid frothing ones)… but I’m also not going to say somebody’s wrong for getting that impression by how you came in here. You’re responsible for how you came in here, and how people formed their impressions of you. And if you want to change our impressions, that’s within your power, too.
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this case is a flash point beyond the specifics of which young black kid got shot this time. what is this “white community” you’re talking about? i realize that “black community” is nebulous, but there is a shared experience of oppression. “white community,” however is just not a thing at all.
Not everyone agrees with that, actually…
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I realize that most any random white person prefers to think of him or herself as an individual whose racial membership is merely coincidental and of no more significance than their hat size. But just because the members of a group usually don’t realize that they’re in a group, nor that their membership in the group actually has quite a lot to do with who and what they are, doesn’t mean that the group doesn’t exist.
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sigh
So, how do we make peace?
Love.
i agree, and that’s why i said a white community can’t exist. or actually, it does exist, and it’s totalizing, and it acquitted zimmerman.
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i think it was just the way i stated it, because this is what i was thinking about. not being conscious of race is a privilege.
and this (from the link):
Nakayama and Krizek write, “there is no ‘true essence’ to ‘whiteness’: there are only historically contingent constructions of that social location.”
If BrownandQueer.com (where this article originated) would get just as pissed off about black on black shootings, they might seem more objective.
Personally, it is terrible a young man was killed. I also think George was getting his ass kicked and he panicked, discharging his weapon instead of manning up and taking the lumps he provoked.
But that’s a general thought process in postmodern studies on race from about any perspective, yay? That race is a social construct. The socially constructed and at times protean nature of it doesn’t make it less real and has the effect of having people push harder for their whiteness being recognized.
That’s being said, I get what you’re trying to say. I just think the privileges attached to whiteness does make it “real”.
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They mean that it’s wrong to profit from a black person’s tragic death, but not to capitalise on it to further political or idealogical goals, even though said profit could be used to further those same goals. That would be wrong. It’s a pretty simple distinction.
