Privilege - its not the problem

Response to:
http://andrea366.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/the-problem-with-privilege-by-andrea-smith/



I absolutely love its general premise, and could not agree more - though perhaps for slightly different reasons.

I have long questioned the entire idea of "privilege", and especially the focus on it.  If you are lucky enough to be middle class, its fairly easy to see inequality in terms of having some privileges or not.  One of those privileges is being able to (pretend that you) live in an insular world where an individual being culturally insensitive to another individual is one of the worst aspects of racism.

As a African American, who has lived most (but not all) of his life in poor, high crime, high minority urban areas, the entire sub-culture of race activists has always looked very shallow and meaningless to me.  It has always seemed much more about being able to say "I, in contrast to all those other (white) people, am enlightened."

What, exactly, does white people or men or straight people or whoever, acknowledging their privilege actually accomplish?

Lets say every single European American was fully aware, fully acknowledged, and fully internalized that they have privilege relative to other people.

Would that somehow instantly, magically, cause wealth and income inequality to disappear, so that whites were proportionately represented among the extremely poor (and I'm not talking "can't make car payments" or "home foreclosure" poor - I'm talking "can't afford a halfway decent bicycle" or "choose between rent and food" poor) - or better yet, make it so that everyone who has the ability and desire to work could live (what we currently consider) a middle class lifestyle?

Would it end the dramatically different levels of violent crime victimization?  For all the talk about police brutality, young black men are murdered by young black men somewhere on the order of 100 to 1000 times more often than they are shot by cops.  If enough white people acknowledged their privilege, would that stop?

Even from within this essay - its a great suggestion to make a point of having a non-college educated person speak for every college educated person.  Of course, given the context of the essay, doesn't that take it as a given that college graduates will be disproportionately white?  Of course that is true - why not work on changing it?  How would inviting non-college educated people to speak help to equalize the education gap?  That's a much bigger problem, one that effects many more people, much more profoundly, than who gets a chance to give a talk to a room full of people.

The entire concept of privilege, of race awareness, of cultural sensitivity, it is all the masturbation of activism: it feels good for the people doing it, but it doesn't accomplish anything.

So, overall, I'm glad this was written, glad it is saying what it is saying.  I fully agree with and support the basic premise.

That said, there are some particular things that stand out to me that I disagree with.

It is repeating / reinforcing the nearly universal assumption (among activists) that inequality today is caused by "structural forms of oppression" and "systems that enable these privileges".

My response to that is much the same as my response to the idea of privilege - how would dismantling any current system actually make anyone's life better?  More over, exactly what "systems" and "structures" would those be?  This is not 1900.  This is 2014.  Racist and colonial systems have ALREADY been dismantled.  And yet race disparity still exists.
That racism is explicitly illegal does not end the problem.  But it does change the problem - yet so many people are stuck thinking in terms that are no longer relevant.
Thinking that disabling oppressive structures will solve problems is like ending slavery (with not even the meager restitution which was initially promised) and expecting former slaves and their children will simply catch up via hard work.  It would take specific pro-active steps.  If every single boss and teacher became color blind, if every prison were closed, if every nation-state were dissolved, there would still be a culture of drugs and violence in the poor black community.  There would still be massive wealth and education inequality, and it would continue to go from one generation to the next. 

There was a time when activists realized this, which is why the Panthers created preschools, economics classes for adults, free medical clinics, and drug rehab programs; its also why, more recently, the program to try to at least begin to address education inequality was called "affirmative action".  Unfortunately, now that name has been taken, but its what we need - not reactionary and destructive dismantling of existing structure, but affirmative action

Much of the specifics are concerning not racism, but colonialism.  I find the portrayal of young American's returning from foreign lands with their "insights" as absolutely spot on.  But I find the suggestion that there is no clear way to deal with it rather odd - it's simple: leave other cultures alone.  Give them access to the knowledge of technology IF they want it, and otherwise leave them the hell alone.  You don't need to go and have your personal profound experience, any more than they need you to come in and save them from their lifestyle and choices.

The portion on nation-states strikes me as having an anarchist ideology at root which makes assumptions about what a nation-state is, which are not necessarily true.

Assuming that without them there would be less violence, less fighting over land, less oppression of one group by another, shows a profound lack of knowledge of history.  The nation-state has only existed for a few hundred years, but those problems have been far worse for most of history than they are today.  This is not to say that the specific methods of action discussed are not absolutely wonderful, positive developments.  Its more that, if the community movements talked about were to expand, and eventually make the state irrelevant - that means they have become the state.  And that's ok.  In fact, it is amazingly positive, because it would have meant a peaceful revolution, which brought (real!) democracy in from the ground up.  That is what needs to happen, all over the world (including America) - actual democracy.  Not what the US calls "democracy", which really means "open markets", but the kind where the people make the decisions of how the state will run and how economic structures will be organized.  That can happen just as easily within the model of a nation as it can without discrete borders.

As far as "safe spaces", my suggestion is this: get over yourself.  These issues are way way bigger than whether your feelings get hurt.  This is stuff that actually impacts millions of peoples lives in very tangible ways, and in order to address problems, sometimes people need to be real and direct and to the point.  Sometimes that means not being "politically correct" and sometimes it means not being "culturally sensitive".  Its not about you.  Deal with it. 

The essay is right to point out that being in an oppressed group does not automatically make you incapable of doing wrong, and a structure designed by an oppressed group is not automatically "oppression free".  People are people, and if you want to form something free from inequality or harm, you have to start out admitting you are not perfect, and then make a conscious effort to recognize and correct for your own biases and assumptions.  No one is immune to them, regardless of race or sex or personal experience.

Again; "as the rituals of confessing privilege have evolved, they have shifted our focus from building social movements for global transformation to individual self-improvement."

Yes.  This is true. And it is a problem, because it distracts people who are aware from doing anything useful.

Overall, my criticisms are relatively minor compared to how much I support the overall point.

Privilege - its not the problem

Response to:
http://andrea366.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/the-problem-with-privilege-by-andrea-smith/



I absolutely love its general premise, and could not agree more - though perhaps for slightly different reasons.

I have long questioned the entire idea of "privilege", and especially the focus on it.  If you are lucky enough to be middle class, its fairly easy to see inequality in terms of having some privileges or not.  One of those privileges is being able to (pretend that you) live in an insular world where an individual being culturally insensitive to another individual is one of the worst aspects of racism.

As a African American, who has lived most (but not all) of his life in poor, high crime, high minority urban areas, the entire sub-culture of race activists has always looked very shallow and meaningless to me.  It has always seemed much more about being able to say "I, in contrast to all those other (white) people, am enlightened."

What, exactly, does white people or men or straight people or whoever, acknowledging their privilege actually accomplish?

Lets say every single European American was fully aware, fully acknowledged, and fully internalized that they have privilege relative to other people.

Would that somehow instantly, magically, cause wealth and income inequality to disapear, so that whites were proportionately represented among the extremely poor (and I'm not talking "can't make car payments" or "home foreclosure" poor - I'm talking "can't afford a halfway decent bicycle" or "choose between rent and food" poor) - or better yet, make it so that everyone who has the ability and desire to work could live (what we currently consider) a middle class lifestyle?

Would it end the dramatically different levels of violent crime victimization?  For all the talk about police brutality, young black men are murdered by young black men somewhere on the order of 100 to 1000 times more often than they are shot by cops.  If enough white people acknowledged their privileged, would that stop?

Even from within this essay - its a great suggestion to make a point of having a non-college educated person speak for every college educated person.  Of course, given the context of the essay, doesn't that take it as a given that college graduates will be disproportionately white?  Of course that is true - why not work on changing it?  How would inviting non-college educated people to speak help to equalize the education gap?  That's a much bigger problem, one that effects many more people, much more profoundly, than who gets a chance to give a talk to a room full of people.

The entire concept of privilege, of race awareness, of cultural sensitivity, it is all the masturbation of activism: it feels good for the people doing it, but it doesn't accomplish anything.

So, overall, I'm glad this was written, glad it is saying what it is saying.  I fully agree with and support the basic premise.

That said, there are some particular things that stand out to me that I disagree with.

It is repeating / reinforcing the nearly universal assumption (among activists) that inequality today is caused by "structural forms of oppression" and "systems that enable these privileges".

My response to that is much the same as my response to the idea of privilege - how would dismantling any current system actually make anyone's life better?  More over, exactly what "systems" and "structures" would those be?  This is not 1900.  This is 2014.  Racist and colonial systems have ALREADY been dismantled.  And yet race disparity still exists.
That racism is explicitly illegal does not end the problem.  But it does change the problem - yet so many people are stuck thinking in terms that are no longer relevant.
Thinking that disabling oppressive structures will solve problems is like ending slavery (with not even the meager restitution which was initially promised) and expecting former slaves and their children will simply catch up via hard work.  It would take specific pro-active steps.  If every single boss and teacher became color blind, if every prison were closed, if every nation-state were dissolved, there would still be a culture of drugs and violence in the poor black community.  There would still be massive wealth and education inequality, and it would continue to go from one generation to the next. 

There was a time when activists realized this, which is why the Panthers created preschools, economics classes for adults, free medical clinics, and drug rehab programs; its also why, more recently, the program to try to at least begin to address education inequality was called "affirmative action".  Unfortunately, now that name has been taken, but its what we need - not reactionary and destructive dismantling of existing structure, but affirmative action

Much of the specifics are concerning not racism, but colonialism.  I find the portrayal of young American's returning from foreign lands with their "insights" as absolutely spot on.  But I find the suggestion that there is no clear way to deal with it rather odd - its simple: leave other cultures alone.  Give them access to the knowledge of technology IF they want it, and otherwise leave them the hell alone.  You don't need to go and have your personal profound experience, any more than they need you to come in and save them from their lifestyle and choices.

The portion on nation-states strikes me as having an anarchist ideology at root which makes assumptions about what a nation-state is, which are not necessarily true.

Assuming that without them there would be less violence, less fighting over land, less oppression of one group by another, shows a profound lack of knowledge of history.  The nation-state has only existed for a few hundred years, but those problems have been far worse for most of history than they are today.  This is not to say that the specific methods of action discussed are not absolutely wonderful, positive developments.  Its more that, if the community movements talked about were to expand, and eventually make the state irrelevant - that means they have become the state.  And that's ok.  In fact, it is amazingly positive, because it would have meant a peaceful revolution, which brought (real!) democracy in from the ground up.  That is what needs to happen, all over the world (including America) - actual democracy.  Not what the US calls "democracy", which really means "open markets", but the kind where the people make the decisions of how the state will run and how economic structures will be organized.  That can happen just as easily within the model of a nation as it can without discrete borders.

As far as "safe spaces", my suggestion is this: get over yourself.  These issues are way way bigger than whether your feelings get hurt.  This is stuff that actually impacts millions of peoples lives in very tangible ways, and in order to address problems, sometimes people need to be real and direct and to the point.  Sometimes that means not being "politically correct" and sometimes it means not being "culturally sensitive".  Its not about you.  Deal with it. 

The essay is right to point out that being in an oppressed group does not automatically make you incapable of doing wrong, and a structure designed by an oppressed group is not automatically "oppression free".  People are people, and if you want to form something free from inequality or harm, you have to start out admitting you are not perfect, and then make a conscious effort to recognize and correct for your own biases and assumptions.  No one is immune to them, regardless of race or sex or personal experience.

Again; "as the rituals of confessing privilege have evolved, they have shifted our focus from building social movements for global transformation to individual self-improvement."

Yes.  This is true. And it is a problem, because it distracts people who are aware from doing anything useful.

Overall, my criticisms are relatively minor compared to how much I support the overall point.

"Culture" and "Race" are not interchangeable

Take a look at the following 10 people, one at a time

Think about who they are.

What do they likely do for work?  How much do they make?  What do they enjoy doing on their off time?  What would you guess their religion is, what kind of food do they eat, where did they grow up, and how do they vote?  Who do they socialize with, and what inspires their morality?

Tell a story about each one.

Also:  Where are these people probably from?  What is the cultural background of each person?  What is their ethnic heritage?

What is each one's race?

How do you know?

A reader recently sent me a link to an article about housing discrimination:
http://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=37414

(and, oddly enough, it was not in response to my recent controversial post on race, but rather on a fairly neutral post on perception, ideology, and the naturally unscientific human brain.)

Its quite short, but if you don't care to read it, I'll summarize it briefly:

A Black professor had just moved to teach at Stanford, and was looking for a place to live.  Upon arriving at a place, he was told by 4 landlords that the apartment had already been rented to someone else.

He suspected the landlords were lying, because they didn't want a Black tenant, and as a way of testing this theory, he started responding to ads while deliberately talking in what he called "an African-American or Latino accent", or in "professional standard English".

His theory of discrimination was supported by the rates at which each accent generated a call back and an offer to view an apartment.

Discrimination, obviously.

But was it racism?

When the professor spoke in professional standard English, his calls were returned and he was offered a chance to follow up.

But here is the key point that both he and the post's author seem to have neglected:

When he spoke in professional standard English, he was still Black!

Which means the landlords were discriminating, but not necessarily on the basis of race.  They were discriminating on the basis of culture.  And it is fair to question whether that discrimination is actually unreasonable.

Suppose instead of "professional standard English" to simulate "white", he had said:

Wal how does y'all? I’s mahnear fixna move, an' so I's recon I'd call an' git up wit' yo' 'bout thet thar hase yo' haf advahtised in th' paper.

We don't know what the response rate really would have been, since he didn't try it, but we can probably safely guess that it would have been lower than for the professional English accent.  Why?  Because they way a person talks often is at least somewhat an indication of their level of education.  And a person's level of education is frequently associated with their level of income, their stability, and their responsibility.  These are all things which matter to a landlord, because they are trusting someone with what is likely their most valuable asset and a significant portion of their income.

Certainly people with low education can still be responsible and economically secure, and people with thick accents can be educated, and that's where the prejudice lies.

This isn't to say that many landlords (and employers, and judges, and cops) may not also be racist.  But the mere fact of discriminating on cultural lines does not at all imply it, and almost never do anti-racism activists take that distinction into account when trying to prove their case via statistics.

Yes, its true that the person who drives this car is likely to be watched a little more closely by the cops:

But then again, the people who drive these...

...are all more likely to get more police attention than the people who drive these:

Not because of being able to guess the race of the driver, but because choosing to drive those particular vehicles is a possible sign that the person belongs to a subculture which, among other things, has a lack of respect for certain laws.

In other words: if you sag your pants, you don't get to claim that you are discriminated against because of your race.

If you speak "ebonics", you don't get to claim you are being discriminated against because of your race.

And here people generally object that I am saying that in order to be accepted, black people should "act white".

Except, as I already pointed out, there is a world of difference between the accent, slang, and culture of your stereotypical "Deliverance" type inbred Southern country redneck, hick, hillbilly and/or bumpkin, and a Stanford Professor (whether white or black).

So many people have claimed that the dialect of poor uneducated urban black people should be legitimized that the term "ebonics" itself is recognized by non-linguists.

And few seem to notice how extremely racist that is.

It is not unique to modern America, nor to racial sub-cultures, that poor uneducated people distort the predominate language of the society they live in.

Take, for example, the 1912 English play "Pygmalion" (known to American's as "My Fair Lady") in which two high society types make a bet over whether a low class girl can be made to fit into respectable society by teaching her to speak properly.  There is zero race element involved:  this is England in 1912 - everyone is white.  This is about class, and it's affect on education.  No one has ever tried to give poor white slang (British or American) its own name, and suggested deliberately teaching it in schools.

The attempt to legitimize it in the case of (poor urban) black people is equivalent to saying "yours is naturally the culture of poverty".  To say that speaking proper English is "trying to sound white" is saying "If you are Black, you should sound ignorant."

The linguistic history of the way in which many poor black urban people speak does not trace itself back to any African roots.  It did not develop from slaves holding onto their native languages and incorporating old and new words to build an African / English hybrid language.  It developed for the same reason redneck and cockney and the lower-class and rural versions of every other language did: the lower-classes are denied access to education. 
Suggesting that speaking proper English is trying to "be white" is like telling black people they should voluntarily ride on the back of the bus in order to honor their heritage.

When a person grows up on a backcountry Southern farm, gets good grades in high-school, goes on to college, and starts a successful business, few chastise that person for speaking standard American English.  Few say that they are denying their heritage by not continuing to talk in the style of the independent paragraph above.  Few say they are "trying to be urban mid-western" or "trying to be urban northern Californian", (which are the accents which most America's think of as a "neutral" American accent, even among people who have a different accent themselves.)

Looking back at the cars and clothing above; does it count as a prejudice to suspect a person of having a higher than average chance of criminal conduct if they have made a deliberate choice to externally identify as part of a sub-culture which, among other things, accepts - or even glorify - criminal conduct?  Is it prejudice to suspect Bubba-Joe Jed Walker of being a moonshiner before suspecting Chris Johnson?  Is it prejudice to suspect the guy driving the lowered Honda with a spoiler and tinted windows is more likely to speed than the person driving a Yaris?  Or to suspect the Harley rider to have a higher chance of drunk driving, or the raised pick-up driver more likely to have a gun?

As soon as you cross the line from "I have a higher suspicion" to "I am sure that this particular person is guilty" then it becomes prejudice.  Until then, all you are doing is recognizing patterns.  That's one of those things the human brain does that allows us to function in the real world.

There are always going to be some people who can't make that distinction.  Even after they meet the goose that walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, and the goose explains that it is a goose that grew up around ducks, but that it has rejected the negative aspects of duck culture even while appropriating those that it personally enjoys, those people will still insist on calling the goose a duck, and treating it as such.  But the vast majority can and do make that distinction.

This is why I, a Black male who grew up and spent most of his life in a poor, high crime area, can say that, no, actually, I haven't ever been unfairly targeted by the cops, I haven't ever been followed in a store, I haven't been unfairly denied a chance at jobs or housing that I was qualified for, and the only two times I have been called a derogatory race-based word (which I will not repeat here, because, in my opinion, it is not anymore ok for me to use just because I happen to be black then it is ok for anyone else to use it) were both by drug-addict white trash at the very bottom of society. 
Because, no matter what initial thought flashes through the sub-conscious of whatever cop / employer / landlord, all it takes is a couple seconds of me opening my mouth and speaking to correct whatever preconceptions they may have had about me as an individual.

This is something we could be teaching our minority urban youth.  It would go a long way to reducing both violence and prejudice.


I have linked to this video before, after the uproar over Oscar Grant's shooting, but it is still a lesson a lot of people need to learn:

Unfortunately, our culture basically teaches young black males the exact opposite lesson - that the cops are out to get them, and they should fight back - with predictable, and not so funny, results.

There are two factors that should be kept in mind when looking at statistics around race.

First, a higher proportion of Black people commit violent crime than other races.  This rate is still very very low, but it is disproportionately high given the size of the population.   This means that the vast majority of people are innocent, but you should still expect the population with the higher level of crime to get the higher level of police attention, even if every cop were color blind.

Second, on top of that, you have a significant portion of the population that deliberately attempts to emulate the criminal subculture.  Its right there in the word!  Gansta.  As in gangster.  As in professional, organized, and violent criminal.  The subculture's media has been explicitly glorifying violence and criminal behavior since about the mid-80s, and it has been one of the dominate influences on culture ever since.  Most people (and birds) mistake the viceroy for the monarch.  That was the viceroy's intention.  It would be odd for the viceroy to get mad at everyone for confusing it with the monarch.  It would be odder still for the birds to internalize that, and feel guilty for having trouble telling them apart.  No one is confusing a red admiral, or a yellow swallowtail for a monarch.  If they were, sure, I'd agree with the suggestion that the person claiming "all butterflies are exactly alike" is being speciest. But before you can call it racism, you have to factor out all the wanna-be viceroys getting pulled over for Driving While Viceroy, because they are representing a sub-culture, not a race.

Will these two factors (actual statistical crime rate, and a sub-culture of emulating criminals) account for 100% of apparent / perceived prejudice?

Probably not. As I have pointed out in the past (Heading 14; in Which Reparations are Still Due and Race (Whites still winning)  and Awareness of White Privilege VS Actually Working to Change it)  the effects of past racism are definitely still a factor in today's society and in the inequality between different races.

But if we are going to have an honest and / or productive discussion about American race relations, everyone needs to be aware of, and acknowledge, that those factors exist.

No one should be punished for attributes they were born with, but it is reasonable to hold people accountable for their choices.

Culture is not race.

Race is not culture.

One you are born with.

The other is a choice.

By the way... you know that purple cowboy in that picture above? 

He's an Aboriginal American ("American Indian" / "Native American"). Not a white guy.

Cops Shooting Unarmed Black Men

Do you remember the very large, loud, and extended public outcry over the deaths of Jason Kemp, Jordon Hatcher, Ibragim Todashev, David Silva, John Torretti, Daniel Sanez, Roy Jacobs Jr., Thomas Schroeder, Jacob Grassley, Zachary Premo, John Schaefer, and Jerry Waller?

All of these men were killed by the police, all of them just in the past 7 months (2013).  In almost every case, they were unarmed.

Schaefer and Waller were both armed... they were both 70+ year old men, on their own property, with legally owned handguns, which they had out for self defense - one had a pitbull in his yard and had called the cops himself, the other was responding to the same burglar alarm that attracted police attention.Premo also had a handgun  - one which he was carrying legally - though from the police report, he apparently did not touch or reach for it before being shot. 
Hatcher was unarmed, but apparently resisted arrest.
Grassley's cellphone was assumed to be a gun, and he was shot while fleeing police. 
Sanez was in handcuffs at the time he was shot.
Torretti  was hit repeatedly with a baton by officers while pinned to the ground by other officers, unable to move.
Silva was so intoxicated he could barely stand up.  Between 3 and 7 deputies beat him with batons until he dies.  Officers then attempt to collect cellphones from witnesses that may have video on them.
Kemp was unarmed, and not fighting, when he was shot at point-blank range in his home, when he refused to let the police in without a warrant.
Jacobs had called the cops himself, to turn himself in when he found out he had a minor warrant, and the cops shot him in front of his family the moment they walked through the door.

You can be forgiven for not remembering the public uproar, the protests and articles, the petitions and signs, because there wasn't any.  In fact, unless you happen to live in the city in which these men were killed, and follow the local news closely, you most likely have never heard of any of them.



You may think that this just goes to reinforce what we already know - that black men are constantly being unjustifiably killed by law enforcement, and except for the most extreme cases, the media ignores it.
Except there is one major twist.  Not a single one of those people were black.
Most of them are white.

It turns out it is very challenging to find examples of cops killing unarmed white men.

Again, at first this sounds like it is supporting the idea of racial bias among cops.
But it isn't hard to find because it is so rare.
It is hard to find because when the media reports these cases, no one mentions the race of the suspect / victim.
On the other hand, in EVERY case that cops shoot an unarmed black person, race is explicitly mentioned.

(As a result, the only way for me to find all those examples was to go, one by one, through every instance of police shootings in the US, eliminate those where the suspect was armed, and then search for a picture of the victim.  Each case is linked at the bottom of this page, along with a link to the list of all police shooting so far this year)

So, yes, there really is a media bias.  And it is toward perpetuating the belief that black men are victimized by cops.

They don't do this for any political agenda.  They do this because media makes money via ratings, and nothing gets ratings better than outrage.  Unfortunately, relatively little objectively reported facts generate outrage, so the only choices are to make stuff up, or to play up any extremely rare cases that happen.
This is true not just in sociopolitical issues, but in general.

When a plane crashes (such as at San Francisco last week) everyone in the country hears about it. 
That crash killed 2 or 3 people.
It was the first commercial plane crash in the US in 4 years.  In that span roughly 150,000 (one hundred and fifty thousand) people died in automobile crashes in the US.
3 vs 150 thousand.
Of the 150 thousand, zero made national news headlines.

The 3 deaths from a plane crash made national news BECAUSE IT IS SO RARE.

The lesson to learn from this is that if you see something on the news, that alone is very strong evidence that it almost NEVER HAPPENS.  Anything you read in the paper is rare.  If it was common, then it wouldn't be news.

One black man was shot in the back while in hand cuffs at a commuter train station in Oakland in 2009.  There have been calls to disarm the entire transit police force.  The grand total of potentially unjustified shootings by the agency, in its 37 year history, was 3.  In 2008 alone there 123 murders by private citizens in Oakland.

To look at it another way: if something were really a widespread phenomenon, it would be shown by statistics.  In order to make people believe something which is actually untrue, the focus has to be on individual isolated anecdotes.  If all the attention of a supposed trend is on one instance, it would be a good idea to look at the stats before extrapolating that it is common.

This most recent "outrage" involves, instead of law enforcement, a neighborhood watch captain.
People are pretending that this is representative of - well, anything.

Where are all the other cases of neighborhood watch captains killing black youth in the past decade?

Having trouble thinking of the exact cases?  Might it be because there are none?

A sample list of one single isolated incident does not make a trend.  There is no trend.  The exact details of the Zimmerman / Martin case don't matter, because this case is not representative of anything.  Its just a random unfortunate thing that happened, and, just like the 12 cases listed above, if Martin had been white, and every other detail had been exactly the same, you and I would never have heard of him.
This doesn't reveal widespread racism among neighborhood watch captains.  It reveals that media like to sensationalize anything they can (surprise!), and even more it reveals an eagerness of Americans to see racism and injustice.  A bunch of white guys shot by police doesn't fit the narrative that we want, for some reason, to believe, so we ignore them.  Instead we focus on the one or two cases of black men shot by police, pretend that they represent a larger trend, and presumably get some sort of emotional fix by being angry and outraged and raging against the system.

What does this accomplish?
Well, one thing it won't accomplish is meaningful reform, because there is no problem to begin with, therefore nothing to reform.

What it will do is reinforce the feeling among Blacks that law enforcement is the enemy.  This will increase the likelihood of confrontational behavior.  And that will end up causing more black people to be stopped, detained, arrested, and, in some unfortunate circumstances, occasionally killed.  Because we, society, all want to believe it so bad, it makes it more likely to happen.  It can become self-fulfilling prophesy.  Or, at least it could, if not for police over compensating for the public perception, because despite any cultural propensity toward resistance to law enforcement that may be reinforced by media and activist's misrepresentation of profiling, in the past year fewer unarmed Black men have been killed by cops than non-Black.  Proportionately less, even after considering population demographics.

And WAY less, considering violent crime rates.

We finally get to the huge issue that almost everyone (except white supremacists) desperately wants to ignore, and will even actively deny when the topic comes up in these kind of discussions: Black men commit more violent crime (proportionate to population demographics) than white men, (or than women of any race).  In fact, the difference in rates by race is about as high as the difference between the genders.

Everyone can accept without apology or explanation the (accurate) fact that men commit violent crime - somewhere on the order of 5 to 20 times more often than women do.  Nobody claims that this apparent disparity is because of police profiling or prejudice in the justice system or inherent bias in the law against males.  No one even claims it has to do with poverty or history or education.  We see the statistic that between 1980 and 2008 males committed 89.5% of all homicides, and we take it at face value.

(Of course, as I've pointed out previously, the general public tends to think women are more likely victims, despite 76.8% of homicide victims being male - when facts don't fit the popular narrative, we are quick to ignore them)

There is almost definitely some truth to racism affecting conviction rates: black youth are arrested for drug crimes at higher rates than white, despite similar rates of drug use, and blacks are given longer sentences for equivalent crimes by judges and juries. 
But while a cop may look the other way when he finds a white kid smoking pot, cops don't generally let homicide slide with a warning, regardless of skin color.  And these statistics are only looking at the actual commission of homicide, not of sentencing, conviction, or even arrest.  Considering that, the numbers are far too dramatic to be explained away by faulty reporting or any other justification.

The data shows blacks are more likely to be murder victims than whites: 50.3% white victims vs 47.4% black (which, given the higher population of white people, means blacks are murdered disproportionately more)

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf

However, the rate at which blacks commit murder is even higher in comparison to whites: 45.3% white murderers vs 52.5% black.  Again, considering the higher population of whites, this represents a pretty dramatic difference:

The rate of homicides committed by white male young adults (18 to 24 years old) was 20.4 offenders per 100,000 in 2008.  

The rate of homicides committed by black male young adults was 175.8 offenders per 100,000 in 2008.

20 to 175.  That is almost 9 times as high.

If black youth did not commit violent crime any more often than white youth, than (like with drugs), any difference in their treatment could only be due to racism.  But that is simply not the case. 

It sucks that this is true.  I don't like admitting it, never mind talking about it, or going out of my way to draw attention to it.  But it has to be said.  It has to be admitted. 
We have to take that into consideration before we call it racist for a person to be more wary of young black males than young white males.  We have to take it into consideration before we call it racist if cops stop young blacks more than young whites.  We have to take it into consideration before we call it racist that more blacks are in prison than white.  And we even have to take it into consideration before calling it racist that cops may be in situations where they mistake cellphones and wallets for guns more often when the suspect is black.

Racism is assuming that any specific person is a criminal, regardless of their individual actions, because of their race.  But thinking any random person of a particular race is more likely to be a criminal is not racism, if it is in fact a statistically accurate belief.  It is no more racist to fear a black stranger more than a white one, than it is to fear a male stranger more than a female one.  As it happens, both groups commit violent crime more than their counterparts at roughly the same rate.

Given that a young black male is statistically 9 times more likely to murder you than a young white male, wouldn't you expect someone who feels vulnerable to be more likely to cross the street to avoid one?  Given that a young black male is 9 times more likely to commit murder than a young white male, wouldn't you expect them to get more police attention, get into more altercations with police, and, as a result, get shot more often by police? 

If you wanted to break that trend, what would likely be the best way to do that?

By trying to convince everyone that the statistics - which are confirmed by each of our individual experience - are wrong, and convincing cops to give black suspects the benefit of the doubt? 
Or by working to reduce violence in the black community?

If the latter, does repeatedly telling black youth that cops are the enemy further that goal?  Or does it work against it? 
Does telling black youth that they are victims of the system, that they are discriminated against by every aspect of society, that their own actions have little if any bearing on their perception by white America, do these things encourage black youth to become non-violent, responsible adults?

These are rhetorical questions.  They do not.  Blacks are not unfairly victimized by cops, but that message being repeated constantly by both media and activists does encourage them to be disrespectful, to resist arrest, and to use violence against police officers.  It does encourage them to use crime as a means of getting ahead, as opposed to education.  It does teach them that they have no responsibility for or role in rising out of poverty, that they will be down-trodden no matter what they do.

Every low income young adult in America is eligible for a Pell grant, which can more than cover the cost of tuition, fees, and books at many junior colleges, and a significant portion of costs at public 4 year universities.  Everyone who applies for a Pell grant gets one.  Yet only 11% of them go to Black youth. Together with the school's own scholarships, any low income person can get a college education. 
The lower rate of Blacks with college degrees is not a consequence of institutional racism.  Its a consequence of Black people not applying for college.  It's the consequence of a lot of individual choices, made largely on the basis of cultural expectations.  A person is told constantly that they will not succeed, because the system is against them.  So they don't even try.  Lacking an education, they stay poor.  Being poor, they are more likely to resort to crime.  Being criminals, they are more likely to have run-ins with cops.  And the cycle continues.

When we choose to protest extremely rare events in an attempt to call attention to a trend that doesn't exist, we perpetuate and reinforce that cycle.  It is counter-productive. 

As a black male, watching all these well meaning activists actively making the situation worse is hard to watch.  Even worse, this inaccurate and destructive message has gone mainstream, and almost everyone is buying into it.  It is born of a combination of confusing the past for the present (blacks were at one time discriminated against by society, therefore it must still be happening) and white guilt (if we say that blacks commit more violent crime, that must mean we are racist).
Until we can get past those two things, nothing will improve.

It is very gratifying to people to be outraged.  Take a breath, step outside of the group-think, and ask yourself what the problem is, what you want to accomplish, and what the overall effects of your reaction are likely to be.  If you are like the majority of outraged people, at best, all you are doing is feeding the advertisers of news media.  At worse, you are reinforcing stereotypes are creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.  Either way, you probably aren't helping.  People enjoy being outraged, but resist it.  Think instead.

Do you want more racial equality in America? 
Instead of encouraging black youth to hate cops, encourage them to go to college.

(P.S. This should in no way be taken as a claim that racism no longer exists. 
See my previous posts:

heading 14; in which reparations are still due
Race (Whites still winning) 
and
Awareness of white privilege VS actually working to change it

for more)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Schaefer
> http://www.statesman.com/news/news/crime-law/officer-involved-shooting-prompts-questions/nWnZ4/

Jerry Waller
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/05/jerry_waller_a_72-year-old_gra.php

Jason Kemp
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/aclu-sues-state-troopers-over-man-s-shooting-death

Jordon Hatcher
http://www.innocentdown.org/2013/01/24/jordan-hatcher/

Ibragim Todashev
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibragim_Todashev#Ibragim_Todashev_interview_and_death

David Silva
http://www.policymic.com/articles/42355/david-sal-silva-video-confiscated-by-police-officers-shows-them-beating-man-to-death

John Torretti
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2013/05/27/man-who-died-in-sacramento-police-custody-identified/

Daniel Sanez
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_22777262/friends-mourn-man-shot-by-el-paso-police

Roy Jacobs Jr.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/jun/01/spokane-valley-police-involved-in-fatal-shooting/

Thomas Schroeder
http://stjoechannel.com/fulltext?nxd_id=324542

Jacob Grassley
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2013/06/kalamazoo_police_sergeant_who.html

Zachary Premo
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/269813/


Full list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States_2013

Awareness of white privilege VS actually working to change it

• Apr 28, 2010

Awareness of white privilege VS actually working to change it

A couple friends of mine are taking a class on being a "white ally" - race awareness and relations, power and privileged, and counteracting racism.

One of them mentioned to me some critical feedback she had offered and it got me to thinking in more detail what has always bothered me about those sort of discussions, but up until now never quite pinned down.

The following is not a commentary on that class in particular, as I know essentially nothing about it, but rather a critique of a few general ideas I have heard and read on the topic in the past:

1 There is no such thing as "people of color"
-The impact of past racism (including slavery) and present racism does not effect all races equally, nor all in the same way.
- A black american and a white american likely have more in common with each other than with a fresh-off-the-boat Vietnamese person. A white american whose family has been in the US for generations likely has more culture in common with a black american than with a first generation eastern european immigrant with whom they share skin color.
-The very term "people of color" encourages white people to think in terms of a false dichotomy of 'us' (all white people) and 'them' (everyone else). It not only homogenizes all other races, it also makes everyone not white into an "other".
-Lumping all non-white cultures into one category, while giving white an entire separate category in itself suggests a type of superiority.
-This dichotomy also discounts the existence of mixed race individuals (officially 2% of US society, but really much higher - most surveys, as well as society, force people to choose one identity, even if they are in fact mixed)

2 Historical racism is the single largest cause for modern black poverty, and poverty does generally correlate with crime. However no historical or sociological factors can excuse individual behavior. No matter what circumstances a person is born into, they have a choice about their own behavior. Apologizing for, ignoring, discounting, or explaining away black crime rates, drug rates, or general anti-social behavior (e.g. boombox on a crowded train) does nothing to increase equality, and does not bring less conscious white people about as allies.

3 Discrimination is explicitly illegal. Talking about "institutionalized" or "systemic" racism does not address the issues which are most relevant today. While there are still white supremacists in the US, their view has become as unacceptable in mainstream society as it once was only among civil-rights activists. The president of the US is 1/2 African. This does not mean that the conversation about race is over. However, it does mean it is time to change that conversation.

For example, talking about power hierarchies is mostly nonsensical today. If racism = racism + power (as is often claimed by race activists), this does not imply that only whites can be racist, because whites do not have any particular power over other races. There are minorities in the role of police officer, judge, congress person, boss, professor, etc. as well as whites in poverty, in jail, or otherwise powerless. If you ignore all individual circumstances and look only at the whole society, then no one can be racist, because society is no one person.

4 Rarely is it explicitly acknowledged how much - and in what way - individuals (primarily, but not exclusively, white) continue to benefit from past racism. This nation was taken by force from the American Indian, built largely by African slaves (as well as Asian indentured servants) and thanks largely to not only racism, but also inheritance and locally funded education, past disparities directly result in present disparities. Even if one's own ancestors never killed Indians or owned slaves, the mere fact of living in this country means you personally benefit from those who did.

5 Not all non-white people are poor. Not all white people are middle class or wealthy. Class and race are not interchangeable. To speak about them as if they were interchangeable represents a stereotype - it implies a universal truth based on a statistic. The implication itself is racist.

Replacing discussions of poverty, economics, and class with discussions of race is a tool those with power (white, yes, but a special subset of white people - wealthy conservatives) use to polarize the working class. They emphasize criminals and welfare recipients (read: blacks) or immigrants (read: hispanics) and leave unspoken as a given the unity between white Americans of different classes. This helps prevent what should be a natural alliance of the lower class against those who exploit them.

6 What keeps the racial status quo in our society is not a social issue, but rather an economic one.
What too few people talk about is the way in which the condition of one generation affects the next.
After slavery blacks were supposed to get land. This was not a hand-out, but merely a way to compensate, to allow them to begin to catch up. This never happened.
Since poverty is inherited just as surely as wealth, the only way to level the playing field short of paying reparations (with 145 years interest) today would be a strict inheritance tax on not only the wealthy, but the middle class. This would include not only cash, but things such as houses and family businesses.

The single largest factor in predicting an individuals success in life is their education. Pre-school is the best indicator of how well a child does in school. It will be impossible to ever have a equal society without universal, mandatory, publicly financed pre-school. Schools in America are funded 50% or more by local taxes. This system guarantees that schools in poor areas are underfunded and schools in wealthy areas have better resources and an easier time keeping good teachers. Locally funded public schools is an amazingly effective method of retaining the status quo, while appearing on the surface to be neutral and fair. To counteract generations of inherited poverty, ignorance, and a cultural mindset of being separate from society, America should be offering fully funded college for all low-income high-school graduates. And because poverty and ignorance are inherited no matter one's color, this should be extended to anyone who can't afford it.

Racism, in the sense of individual people with power holding stereotypes about a race and acting on that prejudice against individual members of said race, is a relatively small factor in modern America. Formally institutionalized racism is a thing of the past.
Were all of society, at all levels, to suddenly become "color blind", the trends set in motion hundreds of years ago would continue none-the-less. For this reason educating individuals about the existence of "white privilege" can not do much to change anything. If energy is going to be invested into change, it should be invested where it will do the most good.

Its one thing to be aware of culturally insensitive language. It is another all together to recognize that the economic system we take for granted perpetuates the impact of slavery, and that no matter how aware one is in their personal relationships, you directly benefit from the current system - and then work to change that system, even if it means undermining your own economic advantages.

This would mean advocating significant increases in middle class taxes, to fund more social programs. This would mean taking the time to counter the "tea-party" people, pointing out that true justice demands a redistribution of wealth. It would mean protesting to get colleges fees raised, in order to pay for scholarships. This would mean, instead of donating money / time / materials to your own children's school, donating that same time and money to the poorer district a few miles away.

Me personally, I have been called ni**er on more than one occasion. But (not counting by other black people who use it casually - that is whole different topic) it has been in each case by a meth addict (one disowned by her family, and the other evicted from a trailer park). These are people with no power, no influence. These are people so low on the social strata, all they have left to feel even mildly good about themselves is to find someone to hate, for any reason they can. As much as it roils the blood to hear it, they are harmless. The people and ideas that maintain the status quo - including associations of particular races with poverty, drug use, crime, etc - are not overtly racist; in fact, in most cases not even necessarily sub-consciously racist. Racism set up the status quo, but economics is what maintains it.

Capitalism, the free market, individualism, and the republic system of government (as opposed to true democracy) all play a part in maintaining the present as it was in the past. If we want a just society, those are the things that we need to look at first.

Hate, now in a rainbow of colors

• Aug 4, 2009

Hate, now in a rainbow of colors

A number of things I have read recently have had the same saddening undertones to me lately.

Whether its queer folk expressing prejudice against heterosexuals, feminists who hate men, or people of color claiming that white activists who have no money coming into their neighborhood is a “gentrification” issue. http://www.anarchistnews.org/?q=node/8794

I hear about "gentrification" here in Oakland too.
Oakland has rent control, which means no tenant can be forced out or have their rent raised dramatically just because local property valuations have gone up.
Raising the average income in an area serves to increase the tax base, lower crime, and is not bad for a neighborhood.  If, thanks to rent control, no one is being displaced this means that, like in the clash between anarchists in Pittsburgh, what people are really fighting for is something activists spent years trying to dismantle: segregation.

Bigotry which comes from an oppressed group is still just as much bigotry as it is when it comes from wealthy straight white men. 
In all cases it is counter-productive.
Activists, please - stop alienating your allies just because they look different than you.

That is exactly what they want us to do.

Race (Whites still winning)

• Jul 28, 2009

Race (Whites still winning)

Recently a friend of mine suggested the only topics I haven't addressed are racism and sexism.
As it happens, I did write on sexism not long ago ("...feminism is nothing more than the "radical" notion that women are people. Not that women are men. Not that women are capable of being men...Claiming that women are capable of doing anything men are is also the suggestion that men should be the standard by which people are measured.")
I had my own ideas of what to write about next, but in light of another recent conversation, it looks like he was right. Its time.



I have a few (white) friends who have complained to me on different occasions about how unfair it is that ...insert some random instance of perceived "reverse" racism here...
I am, perhaps, the friend that people can point to and say "I am not racist, some of my best friends are black", and being that friend apparently my word carries extra weight if I support them in their argument that 'such and such' is unfair.
(Never mind for now what it implies about me that such a disproportionate number of my friends are white...)



Well, first of all, you are racist. You, reading this right now. Just admit it. I'm not saying you don a white hood on the weekends, but in the very first fraction of a moment you see someone new, you make some assumptions about them based on what they look like, and skin color plays a factor in that. You may not ever act on it in any way. You might be totally willing to look past that initial assumption and give each person a fair chance to show who they really are. But it is part of how the human mind works to seek patterns, and living in our society it is impossible to not be at all racist. I know I am.
Some researchers at Harvard built a test to try to get at subconscious initial reactions, and put it online where you can try it.
https://implicit.harvard.edu/..implicit/demo/
If you are one of the exceptions, and score neutral, it really doesn't change anything overall. The issue is bigger than you; and the fact is that the majority of people make the same assumptions we expect. And so long as its true in society as a whole, every white individual in the country directly benefits from it.

A most simple example of what some could see as unfair is Affirmative Action.
When I was younger I saw it as just that. If we want to get past racism, we shouldn't be using race as a criteria, for anyone.
Thing is, pretending that there is equality doesn't make it true.
To call affirmative action (or whatever else) reverse racism is to ignore both history and the reality of today. Being color blind does not, can not, will never, solve existing problems, because we aren't starting from neutral.

First of all (and I wrote about this years ago, but before I had any significant readership...) reparations were never paid. This country has virtually unrestricted inheritance.
(I thought about trying to summarize, but I actually wrote pretty much exactly what I wanted to say here back then. So take a moment to read that one)
http://biodieselhauling.blogspot.com/2012/03/heading-14-in-which-reparations-are.html

Prejudice against blacks by whites has affected a dozen generations of people, and continues to have an enormous effect on millions of people right now, today. If we start from right now, and eliminate all racism, it would STILL have an enormous effect on us, because the effects are inherited.

If someone in your ancestry immigrated more recently the same issue of a non-level playing field applies, because the US generally does not admit immigrants who can't show some level of existing financial security. One way or another, they aren't starting from zero.

So suppose your own parents were drunks or gamblers and you got nothing from your family but food and shelter, left home at 15, had to fund your own education.
You then might get the mistaken idea that you didn't have any advantages.

But the truth is, although you would never notice it, you have had plenty.

You can't tell by just watching individual situations. Because it is more subtle than that.
But you can tell by looking at the overall trends.

You can see society wide racism in the fact that a black person is 5-20% (depending on the offense) more likely to be sentenced to prison time as a white person for the same crime.
(Many studies attempt to account for this by factoring in prior sentences, but this is a circular argument. If you are more likely to be convicted the first time, obviously you are more likely to be convicted the 2nd time too)
Once convicted, Blacks face 10-15% longer prison time.
For drug offenses:

"African Americans make up approximately 12 percent of the population and are 13 percent of the drug users, yet they constitute 38 percent of all drug arrests and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses...Nationwide African American males sentenced in state courts on drug felonies receive prison sentences 52 percent of the time, while white males are sentenced to prison 34 percent of the time...When sentenced for drug offenses in state courts, whites serve an average of 27 months and blacks an average of 46 months" - Justice on Trial: Racial Disparities in the American Criminal Justice System, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Leadership Conference Education Fund, 2000

You can tell from college admission rates - with or without affirmative action
http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/56_race_sensitive_not_helping.html
http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/56_b_w_disparities.html
http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/..docs/op42.html

You can tell from the Black unemployment rate: consistently about twice the average for whites.
Or from the percentage of Black CEOs or congress people (1% of the Fortune 500 - the highest # ever; 40 out of 435 in congress and 1 out of 100 senators - these numbers in comparison to almost 14% of the general population.)

There are two ways to explain that difference. Either Black people as a whole actually are less capable and hard-working, or else the affects of society-wide racism are still as relevant today as they ever were.

If we can point to these examples and show statistically that, even accounting for individual intelligence and work ethic, Black people are overall at a disadvantage, another equally valid way to say the same thing is, all other things being equal, White people have an advantage.
Every college application. Every job interview. Every time you walk into a store. In that very first moment that someone takes a look at you, somewhere in the back of their mind is a prejudice in your favor. You will never notice it. You will have no way to know. But it's there.

Having a (half) Black president (who's African ancestry didn't descend from slavery but immigrated here) doesn't change anything of significance, so long as there is that fraction of a second of assumption that people make when they see someone new for the first time.

It's no different than if an Aboriginal American were to make some blanket statement about Americans taking the Indian's land. I am an American. I was born here. I worked for what I have now and am a generally good person. I never harmed an Indian American, never took anyone's land, never deliberately spread disease.
But the fact remains that every day I directly benefit from the people who did do those things.
I have no intention of giving up my own property or abandoning my home on the grounds that Oakland should rightfully be inhabited by Aboriginal Americans, but I certainly have no grounds to be indignant or self-righteous about the issue. As far as the actual effects go, I benefit just as much from Europeans having committed genocide against the people who lived here before them as someone directly descended from them. And merely by choosing to accept that benefit which I was born into, in a way, albeit small and indirect, I share in the responsibility for the fact that Aboriginal Americans today are by and large confined to reservations of land that no one else wanted, living largely in poverty.

We may not be directly at fault, but we are all complicit in receiving the benefits, which are at someone else's expense. So if an American Indian makes a blanket statement about Americans (which includes me) which may be technically unfair, all I can say is "your right, and I'm sorry". I have no counter-argument. I have nothing to complain about. I have no right to be indignant.

And so to, if someone makes a blanket statement such as "white people are racist" or "white people repress others", you don't get to be offended. You don't get to point out the logical flaws in generalizing. You don't get to call double standard or reverse racism.
It may be "unfair" that you are born into being seen as an oppressor, but it is even less fair that I have to prove myself just that much more than you do.
I have had friends "jokingly" say that I am not "really" Black, or not "that" Black because of how I talk and dress and act.  Those same associations, those stereotypes, they are racism, even if they aren't inherently negative, and accepting any one association implies all the others to be valid.  The fact that I can trace my own family lineage directly to American slavery on both sides of my family makes me Black.  The fact that every time I meet someone new, for at least an instant they will make certain associations and therefor assumptions about me makes me Black.

Have I experienced racism first hand? Not overtly. It would be hard to know for sure, since the person it was coming from is likely not conscious of it. Chances are, not so much. All it takes is a few minuets of talking to me and I can dispel any stereotypes pretty thoroughly, make a case for myself as an exception even with someone who is generally (subconsciously) racist, and I live in a place where it being overt is unacceptable (I learned in my travels that this is far from universal in this country).
But the point is I shouldn't have to.
Between being thought of as an oppressor and actually being oppressed, you have the better end of the deal. So suck it up and get over it.

Being color blind is not a solution. It is a cop-out. Pretending that slavery didn't happen, that racism has not been an enormous factor, and just focusing on the basic equality of man will not do anything to change things. If you need to here everything logical and fair, take a logic class, or a justice class, or a love everybody class. If you don't want to hear people say white people are racist and that's a bad thing, don't take a racial studies class.

Is it unreasonable for people to make blanket statements? Yeah, of course it is. But focusing on it isn't much different from telling a holocaust survivor that some Nazis didn't hate Jews, or stopping a conversation about rape because of improper grammar.


I don't want to end without offending everyone equally, so now is as good a time as any for another rant I have.

This one is directed to Black Americans.
Stop acting like jackasses.
We have centuries worth of stereotypes to put behind us.
Don't deliberately jaywalk extra slow just to make people wait for you.
Don't evade the fare on the train.
Don't drink or smoke weed in pubic.
Don't play music on the bus. When is the last time you saw a white person playing a boom box in the back of the bus?
Don't get into fist fights. People tried to make the shooting of Oscar Grant by BART police into a race issue. There were no white people involved in fist fights on the train. If he wasn't fighting on a crowded train, he wouldn't have gotten shot. Simple as that.
I have a 400watt stereo system with a separate powered sub-woofer behind the seat. I like my music loud, and to roll around with my windows down and my system bump as much as anyone. But when you are in a residential neighborhood at 11pm, turn that shit down. What the hell is wrong with you?
Years of oppression and poverty don't change the basic rules of being a decent respectful human being.
Remember earlier when I pointed out I have to prove myself each time I meet someone new? That's not because of a legacy of slavery. That's because of you.
People build impressions based on what they see, and each time you act a fool, it makes us all look bad.
Its true that Blacks are given disproportionate prison sentences, but it is also true that Blacks commit a disproportionate amount of (non-drug-related) crime
So when there is a statistic like 35% of the prison population is Black or 1/3 of black males between 18-29 has been, is, or will be imprisoned, part of that is systemic racism, but part of it is Black people committing crimes. It seems it has become un-PC to say so.
That's not OK. No amount of history or social issues can excuse individual behavior.
Obviously this behavior is the minority of the Black population, (although it is, inherently, a very visible minority). But if it isn't you, chances are its your friends, or your children, a family member or neighbor. And if you don't say something, no one else will. The single best way to change the perception of us is to eliminate unfavorable associations at the source.

I think its actually pretty simple and straight forward. We just need to eliminate all forms of inheritance, standardize education from preschool through university for everyone, make all hiring blind, and change young Black culture to emphasize respect of others. Those 4 steps and all this will become a non-issue in no time.
And when that happens, then we can finally have a purely logical and intellectual discussion on the subject.

A little perspective

• Jan 15, 2009

A little perspective

[This was written just after the controversy and rioting following the New Years shooting on a train station platform of an unarmed black man, Oscar Grant, by a transit police officer.  Grant was being held face down on the ground at that point, resisting arrest, but posing no threat.  The officer said later that he meant to use his taser, and supposedly the department had recently had everyone move the taser from the gun side of the belt to the opposite (ironically, to avoid the exact mistake it ended up causing).]

Total number of fatal shootings by Oakland Police in 2008: 5

Of those, number which inspired a wrongful death suit: 2
(both of whom had been resisting arrest, one of whom may have been armed)

Number of potentially unjustified fatal shootings by BART Police: 3. 
Not just this year.  Ever.  Since BART opened in 1972.

Number of homicides (not by police) in Oakland in 2008: 123

Again:  One Hundred and Twenty Three.



I'm not saying that police going around shooting people is ok. 
I'm not saying being in fist fights on the train is grounds for getting shot.
I'm not saying that cops shouldn't be held to higher standards.  They should be expected to be professional, and to have a very small margin of error.  We are trusting them with our safety, with our very lives. 

If the person Oscar had been fighting had been the one to shoot him, it would have been on the news for one day.  There would have been no protests.  We wouldn't be thinking about it. 
But his family still would be.
Young black men shooting young black men is a far larger problem than cops shooting young black men, yet we seem to take it for granted.

Again, this is not to say don't protest in this particular case, which was obviously over the line, obviously unjustified.

But when we claim it is a pattern, claim it is representative of something larger when in fact it isn't; when we use it as an excuse to condemn all police because we really just have an adolescent resentment of authority, all we are really doing is increasing the polarity,increasing the mutual distrust between the police and the community,which in turn increases the likelihood of things like this happening.

If you have someone who starts out hating and distrusting all cops,and he gets detained for whatever reason, he is a lot more likely to yell and curse, to be resistive, to fight back, and all of these things, understandably, are going to put the officer on guard.  When they have to deal with people like that on a regular basis, they are going to become more and more likely to be aggressive right from the beginning, and to take fewer chances with their own safety.

There are larger social and historical issues involved, surrounding the legacy of slavery, poverty is inherited just like wealth is, our education system is deplorable, and as a society we value maximum production of wealth over equitable distribution.

None of these things is in any way an excuse for individual behavior.

Are young black males stopped disproportionately?  Of course we are.  It might have something to do with committing a disproportionate amount of crime.  My advice, if you feel like you are being harassed: Don't get into fist fights.  Don't smoke pot or drink alcohol in public.  Don't sell drugs.  Don't drive like a fucking jack-ass.  Don't evade the fare or play amplified music on the train. Don't shoplift. Basically, in general, don't be obnoxious.

Chris Rock explains this very well: 

How To Not Get Your Ass Kicked By The Police

Don’t let the shadow of a rat keep you from feeling the sun

• Nov 8, 2008

Don’t let the shadow of a rat keep you from feeling the sun

[This was written by my mother, and is re-posted here without permission]



There are so many reasons that I am euphoric about Obama's landslide election to the position of President of the United States that I can't begin to name them all, and when I try, I get tangled up in words, none of which can adequately express all the reasons.

At first I was happy not to have to explain anything as most people around me share my elation, and people all over the U.S. , and indeed around the world, understand in great measure the significance of what just happened here.

However, by the day after the election I was disheartened by the number of people in my LGBT community who were so disillusioned and depressed by the gay-marriage set-backs that they failed to be moved by the significance of Obama's election. It is not all LGBT people, by any means, who are too boggled down by that single issue to appreciate the magnitude of the good thing that just happened. But a significant number seem to be.



Then too are those whose political understanding is narrowed in other ways; those who, for example, believe that the only event worthy of the term "revolutionary" is one where a capitalist system is replaced by socialism overnight. Surely there will be those who say of Obama, as they said of Roosevelt , "he saved the capitalist system from itself," and they will see him, therefore, as an anti-hero.

My initial reaction was to feel sorry that some of my friends and associates were missing out on something so wonderful and I put forth my arguments of why they should celebrate, not mourn, this incredible moment.

As I continued to hear from more and more LGBT people for whom the (temporary) gay marriage defeat overshadowed the election of the first Black president of the United States (who also happens to be more progressive than most presidents of our lifetime), I began to get annoyed by the tunnel vision of so many in the LGBT community who, (like so many individuals in so many oppressed groups), can only see their own oppression, their own struggle, their own specific needs, and can do no more than give lip-service to any other cause. I don't know why I always expect more of activists, (and of everyone I know personally), but I do.

Finally, I came to terms with the fact that badgering people haphazardly with various reasons they should be absolutely elated right now rather than sad and self-pitying was not helping anyone, and that I was wasting too much time reacting to the statements of individuals one at a time. I decided it would be much more productive for me to try to organize my thoughts and share them with everyone at once – and then let it go and let people choose to appreciate or not the wonder of this moment.

So let me begin by taking head-on what is getting in the way of so many of my LGBT sisters and brothers:
Learn the difference between a set-back and a defeat. The struggle for LGBT rights that has taken place over my lifetime has made so much incredible progress in such a historically short period of time. Are you old enough to remember the 50's when people were arrested merely for being in a gay bar (and when there was no where else for gay people to meet)? We have now come so far that so many people have the luxury of believing that acceptance of gay-marriage IS the (whole) struggle today.

To date we have been so successful in our struggle for equal rights that in our battle for gay marriage, the opposition resorts to defending domestic partnership as being what we have a right to. Don't your see? They are not positioned to take away the rights we have already successfully won, so much as they are desperately trying to keep us from getting more. The opposition is actually on the defensive trying to stem the tide of freedom and equality as we march forward.

Did you expect that we would never have a set back? Did you think all our work was done? Did you think we could sit back, ignore the need to keep educating "the masses" and let the Courts do our work for us against the will of voters, and it would stick with no more effort on our part? Changing minds takes time, but we have made incredible progress over my short life time and we will continue to do so.

Losing a battle is not losing a war. This is a set back, not a defeat. Gay marriage is only a matter of time, and when that time comes, I hope all the people whose vision has tunneled down to that single limited cause, will open their eyes and see how much more we still need to struggle towards.

Now, as to those who object to my use of the term "revolutionary" in describing the magnitude of the meaning of Obama's election:

As I see it, revolution is not just about a sudden over-night change from one economic system to another. If you agree that a process of movement can take place from a current state of reality toward some goal of a better state of reality, than that is what I call progress. Progress is generally a slow process. Like evolution. Revolution is evolution suddenly sped up a whole lot. A jump-start into a new era.

Do not mistake my elation for the illusion that Obama's election will lead to utopia. No revolution leads to utopia. There is no utopia - never was - never will be. There is no such thing as perfection. You will never have the opportunity to experience euphoria if you must wait for perfection before you allow yourself joy.

Nor do I see Obama as some kind of political messiah that will move our country from capitalism to socialism. Actually, at 53 years old, I can not say that I feel certain that changing the U.S. from a basically capitalist system to a completely socialist system is absolutely necessary in order to save the planet from extinction and meet human needs. Perhaps capitalism is an inevitable impediment to achieving freedom, justice, peace, equal opportunity, and meeting everyone's basic needs and perhaps it's not – I don't know for sure. Personally I would prefer either a semi-socialist system like they have in some European countries, or at least a much less extreme form of capitalism.

But will the U.S. ever get there? I don't know. I do believe that if it does, it will be through progressive steps in the right direction, such as social security, welfare, unemployment insurance, etc. (all the things that Roosevelt brought in and which Republicans and some Democrats have been trying to get rid of), plus heavier taxation of rich corporations and using the money for human needs (education, health care, infrastructure, social services, etc.) plus more regulation and enforcement of laws that protect human rights here and abroad.

It will not be through armed insurrection. To begin with, revolutionaries have neither the arms nor the popular support to achieve a violent overthrow of this government. And I am glad of that. Because I do not believe that "the ends justify the means". I believe that the means determine the ends. Violence begets violence. There is no way to peace; peace is the way. The only revolution worth having will be the changes made by a popular majority of people educated and empowered to use what democracy we have to make the changes we need for a better country and a better world.

In any case, just like with gay marriage, the overthrow of capitalism is not my single minded purpose in life. Perhaps being mixed race and bi-sexual has forced me to always be cognizant of more than one struggle, more than one oppression, more than one cause. Then again, most people around me today, white as well as black (and 'other'), LGBT as well as straight, seem to get it; seem to understand the amazing significance of what just took place.

It is not Obama that is the "almost-miracle." It's great that he is as progressive as he is on domestic issues and the environment. It is too bad that he is not (yet?) more progressive regarding foreign policy and our relationship to foreign countries and our role in the world. We hope with bated breath and caution (and readiness to take to the streets) that he won't pull us out of one war only to rush us into another. It's great that Obama seems more like a real human being to me than any president in my adult life time...someone who I can relate to, identify with, who I could see being friends with. It's great that Obama seems so honest and real (very unusual in a president candidate – let alone an elected president).

But the "almost miracle" is not Obama. The "almost miracle" is the fact that the U.S. elected him president.

On the race issue alone, this is an "almost-miracle." This is the part that so many people all over the world get. People outside the U.S. are very aware how racist the U.S. has always been, even if so many white people in the U.S. fail to see it. That the U.S. elected a black person (any black person) to be president IS a revolution in the consciousness of America . It is also a conscious raising model for the world. People will think: if it can happen in the U.S. it can happen anywhere.

But this is not just a step forward in the struggle against racism. It is a major step for all struggles for civil rights, equality, justice; a major step forward for the U.S. , in fact for all humanity. If you think that any minority (such as LGBT people) will succeed in all their endeavor for equal treatment, while the great grandchildren of slaves continue to be treated us 3rd class citizens, you are sorely mistaken. This victory for one very oppressed group is a victory for all oppressed groups. In fact, it is a victory for everyone, as it is a very beneficial step in our common evolution and provides so much more hope in the world for our mutual survival and betterment of the world.

Add to the immense significance of Obama's ethnicity, the fact that Obama appears to be standing to the left of any president we ever had (certainly in MY lifetime). The fact that he is so focused on unifying people on the left and the right is not such a bad thing either – even though it means negotiation, compromise and slow progress. We don't move forward alone. We must bring "the people", all the people, along with us. We are one species, one humanity and our seemingly endless wars of "us & them" hurt all of us. We must learn to befriend our "enemies" and educate instead of alienate if humanity is ever to learn peace.

So again I say that Obama's election is such a massive historic, significant, consciousness expanding and paradigm-changing event that it far outweighs a relatively minor set-back in the struggle for gay rights including marriage.

Well, I can not tell people how to think or what to feel. It just saddens me when so many of my sisters and brothers deprive themselves of the awesome emotional appreciation of this unique (possibly once-in-a-lifetime) experience of such revolutionary significance and social/political/spiritual/human magnitude. To many of us it felt almost as powerful and miraculous as it must have felt to South Africans when Nelson Mandela became president there. There have always been many parallels between the U.S. and South Africa . And now we have a president who, like Mandela before him, is attempting to become president to ALL the people of his country and respect everyone's rights. He may have the political savvy not to undermine his efforts by coming out for gay marriage as soon as (or before) he takes office. But he did include us in the very beginning of his speech as he stated that he intended to represent everyone, "Black and white, gay and straight." Can you name one president (other than Nelson Mandela) who ever said that before, let alone in the beginning of his acceptance speech on the day he was elected president? ( Clinton said, "Don't ask, don't tell.")

Although there is so much more work to be done, many of us were thrilled to experience this wonderful feeling of liberation from the old paradigms that said a Black president of the U.S. in our lifetime was impossible. I suppose which ever LGBTs still don't get it, might feel it one day when an LGBT is elected president. If they let themselves feel it even then. I certainly hope so. I don't know whether I will live that long, so I am glad I can feel it now. But the fact that Obama was elected president gives me hope I never had before that an LGBT president COULD be elected in my lifetime (not to mention a woman.) Obama provides hope for ALL struggles, ALL oppressed people. And enough of us knew that and felt that through the core of our being to participate in the communal euphoria that spread all over this country and around the world when Barack Hussein Obama II was elected president of the United States of America.

As I noted in one of my responses yesterday, I think many of us activists are so used to struggling and fighting for our rights and complaining about everything that we think is bad or that we think should be better, that we don't know how to react when something wonderful happens (especially if it doesn't fit into our black/white thinking of the many things we label "bad" and the few things perfect enough to label "good") and then we completely miss the moment and the extra-ordinary experience that we could be sharing with all the forward-thinking people of the world.

Wake up and smell the (de-caffeinated fair-trade) coffee.

This is a wonderful moment. It is big enough to last for many a day. It is not too late to appreciate it. Take a minute to soak it in and bask in a well earned euphoria before marching on to the next plateau.

With nothing but love for us all,

Dajenya