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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| From My Perch of White Privilege |
| 2013-07-28 |
| Fiskable material from the land of the Browns and Indians. In 2002, Michael Green extracted a single promise from me during the year I spent reporting about his life after he spent 13 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. Green, who is African-American, knew I'd be giving a lot of speeches about his story, including at high schools in Cleveland. He saw an opportunity to save lives. "Tell the boys," he said to me over and over. "Tell the boys this comes from me: If the police stop you, don't ever run. Take your hands out of your pockets. Immediately. Put your hands over your head. Immediately. Stand perfectly still, and keep your opinions to yourself." Experience is a hard master... "You have to promise," he said. "You have to warn them." Aaand they probably won't listen... I've written about this promise a number of times over the years. I do that because I want to keep my word and share the warning in as large a forum as possible. If I'm honest with myself, though, I have to admit I also do it because I want to feel a little less guilty about my unearned privilege as a white woman. As a white mother, to be precise. My worries never rival those of most African-American mothers. Most days, I'd rather not think about that. Again, such privilege. If you'd rather not think about it, why'd you publish this piece? Sometimes more can be gained by reflecting in silence than trying to 'splain yourself to a racist mob. A decade ago, neither Green nor I knew to warn about the likes of George Zimmerman. He was no cop, despite his fancy notions of himself as a civilian enforcer. Instead, he was empowered by a law cooked up by the National Rifle Association and a certainty in his right to pursue an unarmed teenager who fit his description of a suspect. Some warned that this could happen, but we all should have seen it coming. Unarmed teenager my ass. Trayvon Martin was built like a high school defensive lineman, who can do incredible damage from a dead sprint. As long as drug addled, brain damaged teens in hoodies, black or white, are out late at night, this WILL happen again. And if the 19 million who live in Florida want to remove self defense laws, the NRA can't stop them. Stop lying and making this about anything other than right and wrong. Earlier this month, in a speech to the NAACP, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder described a family ritual all too familiar to many in the audience. His father sat him down. The talk his father gave, Holder said, was "about how, as a young black man, I should interact with the police, what to say and how to conduct myself if I was ever stopped or confronted in a way that I thought was unwarranted. Now, I'm sure my father felt certain at that time that my parents' generation would be the last that had to worry about such things for their children." Probably good advice regardless of race. My father sat me down at 14 as well. But I'm not black, white privilege, don't you know... Some family traditions just won't die in this country. After Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, Holder sat his own 15-year-old son down. "This was a father-son tradition I hoped would not need to be handed down," he said. "But as a father who loves his son and who is more knowing in the ways of the world, I had to do this to protect my boy. I am his father, and it is my responsibility not to burden him with the baggage of eras long gone but to make him aware of the world that he must still confront. This is a sad reality in a nation that is changing for the better in so many ways." Ever since the verdict was announced and Zimmerman walked free, I've been trying to write this column. How can I not have something to say about this? Yet every approach feels wrong. Maybe because your whole premise is wrong. Maybe this has more to do with right and wrong, rather than race. I feel conspicuously white -- and defensive -- embarrassingly eager to talk about how I raised my children to be better than their parents and their grandparents before them, how they never see race before face, how they never think to describe their friends by the color of their skin. If you feel white, lady you are racist, plain and simple, and don't lie about it. Just saying that out loud makes me wince. Oh, great. Another obnoxious white liberal celebrating her own good intentions. Obnoxious in any race. I keep fighting the urge to explain myself to my black friends, to offer evidence of how I could have turned out worse than this clumsy version of me. Sane black folks thinks a white person who says these things is crazy anyway, the non racists ones that is. There are many, many times when I miss my father, but this week isn't one of them. I'm glad not to have that conversation that rips open old wounds and launches another round of estrangement. He once grounded me for an entire summer after he found out about my seventh-grade crush on a black boy. "We don't mix," he yelled, eyes bulging, fists flexing at his side. I look back on that summer as the first time I realized my beloved father was wrong, just wrong, and I no longer wanted to be just like him. Daddy drinks coz you're a liberal, honey, not just coz of your taste in men. After more than a decade as a columnist, I know what's coming. Just telling that story will trigger another round of angry emails. Some white readers will demand to know what kind of daughter says such things about her father. Hint: A liberal who is wrong on just about everything. And if black readers fail to condemn you about your racist hatred for your father, then that just about sums up the whole problem for blacks, and what got Trayvon Martin killed. His father was a racist gangbanger, whom Trayvon Martin emulated. He listened to his father. On and on it goes. Which is a shame, not that liberals understand the concept... |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #20 I read once that white guys are taught that when pulled over you try to get your wallet out and put it on the dashboard and keep your hands visible and make no quick movies or talk crap because anytging you do increasea your chance of getting that ticket. Blacks tend to be offended because they were pulled over for driving while black and give attitude. These two factors explain why preportionally both are stopped the same amount but more blacks take the step from oulled over to arrested. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2013-07-28 21:04 |
| #19 These are the same Lefties(tm) who cried "Black Majority rule for South Africa" who somehow have a serious internal and intellectual problems with white majority rule in America. Thus the use of the term 'privilege' to cover their need to dictate and |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2013-07-28 16:19 |
| #18 From a wide front porch under slowing turning fans, afternoon nap finished, iced tea at the ready, watching the many species of lovely Georgia song birds attending the feeder..... 'white privileged' and proud. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-07-28 15:14 |
| #17 I am reminded, for some reason, of the musical West Side Story. I loved it when I was young, but when I saw it a few months ago, I cried all the way through. Then I enjoyed the music and the dancing, and of course the romantic play on Romeo and Juliet. This time I saw the horror of gang violence (ethnic white vs. hispanic, in the story), and the refusal of the community to allow anyone to escape. Our writer has perhaps not seen the musical, or the various other Broadway musicals based on Romeo and Juliet, amd therefore cannot conceive that any but African-Americans might endure violence and assumptions from society at large. One might say, those who do not know history are unaware of repeating it. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2013-07-28 15:04 |
| #16 "White Privilege" is the new "code word" for reparations, affirmitine action, revenge, class envy and extortion. I am sure our country will take it, hook, line and sinker. |
| Posted by: Sgt. D.T. 2013-07-28 13:40 |
| #15 My worries never rival those of most African-American mothers. A few days ago someone made a point that in the days between Travon Martin's death and Zimmerman's acquittal,13,500 Blacks had been murdered. 12,500 of them had been killed by other Blacks and 1,000 had been killed by other races. In fact, White murderers account for only 7% of the murders of Blacks. So yes - Black fathers and mothers should be worried when their son goes out for some Skittles. They should be worried their son will be a victim of gang violence. Being killed by a White is far down the list. Getting killed by the cops is even further down the list. Something like 90 Blacks are shot by the police each year (in the entire US). In fact cops are twice as likely to be shot by Black as to shoot a sweet little boy like Trayvon. White mothers have less to worry about because White boys are much less likely to commit murder. Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2013-07-28 13:30 |
| #14 Nice perspective, P2K (#7). It's all about perspective! The perch has a very narrow perspective, and likes it that way. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2013-07-28 12:37 |
| #13 Bingo! @Bright Pebbles. |
| Posted by: warthogswife 2013-07-28 11:47 |
| #12 Perch >> Parrot About as much sense as it makes. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2013-07-28 10:39 |
| #11 Actually it's a perch of mainstream black-cultural inferiority. Which only continues and worsens because of subsidy (mainly from working white folks). |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2013-07-28 10:33 |
| #10 I thought it was a cogent, well written article. SAID NOBODY EVER! |
| Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 2013-07-28 10:24 |
| #9 "Tell the boys," he said to me over and over. "Tell the boys this comes from me: If the police stop you, don't ever run. Take your hands out of your pockets. Immediately. Put your hands over your head. Immediately. Stand perfectly still, and keep your opinions to yourself." Hmmm. KEEP YOUR OPINONS TO YOURSELF. Or you're dead. That seems to be a major problem with Blacks. SHUT YOUR MOUTH. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2013-07-28 09:19 |
| #8 I'm sick of this crap. I was raised by a conservative father & mother who actually treated the world in a race neutral manner. I learned the lessons well to judge people by their character not their color. Yet, today, that makes me a racist according to fools like this and the whole PC mob. Crap, crap and more crap. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2013-07-28 08:38 |
| #7 I'm sure the writer wasn't referring to this White Male Privilege by which she wouldn't be enjoying the world she lives in to trash. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2013-07-28 08:15 |
| #6 Some white readers will demand to know what kind of daughter says such things about her father. No, no e-mails from me. I already know the answer to such a question. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2013-07-28 07:03 |
| #5 Perch? My fish of white privilege? That doesn't make a bit of sense. The entire article is crappie. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2013-07-28 05:31 |
| #4 And here, ladies and gents, you see exactly the kind of mentality that keeps yapping about "Religion of Peace". |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2013-07-28 01:42 |
| #3 Perch? My fish of white privilege? That doesn't make a bit of sense. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2013-07-28 00:58 |
| #2 "White Like Me: The Connie Schultz Story"... Gawd!!! |
| Posted by: tu3031 2013-07-28 00:47 |
| #1 She mis-spelled "White Guilt". She obviously means 'perch of white guilt'. |
| Posted by: CrazyFool 2013-07-28 00:11 |
