TIM WISE: IMAGINE: PROTEST, INSURGENCY AND THE WORKINGS OF WHITE PRIVILEGE

Yes, just imagine such a scenario playing itself out if Black citizens did what the Tea Party members have done.

There would be hell to pay, but, most specifically, Black citizens would get nowhere near the track record of the Tea party members if they went about with guns to recognize their right to bear arms; large groups of Black citizens who protested the vote their congressional representatives voted against, spitting on those Congress people—–those Black people would be treated quite differently in more ways than one. Who and what one is protesting makes a very big difference in the big scheme of things, and a Black person protesting with the vehemence that the Tea party members engage in, would be run out of town on a burning cross covered in high octane 80 gasoline.

Such protests would never see the light. Protests aside, Black people are seen as threatening even when they are not doing anything that could be misconstrued as threatening. Black people by their very existence are considered threatening because of the fear that they will rise up and do to White people what Whites have done to Blacks for centuries.

Remember the Black Civil Rights Movement protestors? They were beaten, raped and tortured in jail, had police dogs sicked on them, and waterhoses trained on them by the very White firefighters whose salary they paid with tax dollars. But, where are the White Tea party members who are verbally and physically attacked the way the Civil Rights Movement protestors were attacked? Yeah, no where to be found. In the end, what is being protested is not the issue.The real and unspoken underlying issue is who is protesting————-and how are they perceived by so-called society-at-large.

There is humanity that is recognized (Whites), and there is acceptable and expected defilement of humanity (Blacks) that is condoned.

Blacks being able to exercise the same rights of assembly, protest, insurgency and without being shot to death by trigger-happy police, and not being rounded up in mass arrests and being vilified by the media as menaces to society for exercising their American rights under this country’s laws and amendments? Black people armed with AK-47s, speaking of revolution no less, Black people who vocalize their full rights to American citizenship?

The non-Black public not reacting with extreme fear, hate and heinous crackdowns on Blacks for doing the exact same things that Tea party members have been doing, and getting away with?

Blackness that has the same advantages, the same credibility, receives the same compassion, understanding and support that whiteness receives?

I wonder myself, how many would be championing the free speech of Black citizens then?

I believe any of us who knows the true history of this country in its vicious atrocities against its Black citizens knows the answers to those questions. The overall response would be piss-and-shit-in-your Hanes and Maidenform underwear.

Imagine indeed.

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IMAGINE: PROTEST, INSURGENCY AND THE WORKINGS OF WHITE PRIVILEGE

by Tim Wise

April 25, 2010, 8:33 am

Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure–the ones who are driving the action–we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins. 

So let’s begin. 

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters–the black protesters–spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government. Would these protesters–these black protesters with guns–be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose. 

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry, screaming, black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington. 

Imagine that a black rap artist were to say, in reference to a white politician and presidential candidate: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” And what would happen to any prominent liberal commentator who then, when asked about that statement, replied that the rapper was a friend and that he (the commentator) would not disavow or even criticize him for his remarks. Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said in 2007about Barack Obama, and that’s how Sean Hannity responded to Nugent’s remarkswhen he was asked about them. 

Imagine that a prominent mainstream black political commentator had long employed an overt bigot as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in black separatist conferences, and once assaulted a white person while calling them by a racial slur. When that prominent black commentator and his sister–who also works for the organization–defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and “going through a tough time in his life” would anyone accept their excuse-making? Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that’s what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as Executive Director of his group, America’s Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word. 

Imagine that a black radio host were to suggestthat the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by “hating black people,” or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding,or blamed a white president for a fight on a school busin which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough–“living fossils” as he called them–“so we will never forget what these people stood for.” After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said, about Barack Obama’s administration, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.* 

Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recentlyat a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina. 

Imagine a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews non-humans, or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to “hang ‘em high.” And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for “speaking common sense” and likened his hate talk to “American values?” After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage,predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Arab Muslims and liberals,respectively. And it was Congressman Culbertson,from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric. 

Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh,when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up The New York Times. 

Imagine that a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her “typical redneck trash,” or a “whore” whose mother entertains her by “making monkey sounds.” After all that’s comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic.com last year, when they referred to her as “ghetto trash.” 

Imagine that black protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that’s what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic party leaders in Congress. 

In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color? 

To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week,that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings. 

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis. 

Game Over. 

*(Denver Post December 29, 1995) SOURCE