A Perfect Picture of White Privilege: Don West Eating Vanilla Ice Cream Cones With His Daughters While Celebrating How They "Beat Stupidity" in the Trayvon Martin Trial

[I have received some very kind emails in response to my series of pieces on the George Zimmerman trials and his killing of Trayvon Martin. I have been following this case since the beginning and will continue to offer my thoughts and observations on it through to the duration. 

Those essays here and on the Daily Kos have brought quite a few new readers to We Are Respectable Negroes. As I do during such moments, I inaugurate an informal fundraising drive.

I do not advertise or monetize my work here on WARN. I also choose not to run advertisements or sponsorship because I want to remain independent. Random monies thrown into the tip jar Paypal bucket are however always appreciated. My work here and elsewhere are labors of love. However, I never refuse encouragement.]

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The semiotics of the above photo of Zimmerman attorney Don West eating ice cream with his daughters are deep and multi-layered.

In looking at this photo and the others taken by West's daughter and posted online, I can almost hear their collective guffaws at how daddy showed that "dumb black girl who was boss!"

While the picture was likely taken earlier in the week, and before his ruthless cross-examination of Rachel Jeantel, the idea that Don West "defeated stupid" in the opening rounds of a trial about a dead black teenager killed by his client under the most troubling of circumstances is beyond tasteless. Yet, in a country where black life is cheap, such an attitude is not surprising.

As I wrote here, and as others have observed as well, America hates black women who they perceive to be "poor." America doubly hates dark-skinned black women who fit some mythic stereotype about welfare queens who exist to suck at the tit of "responsible" (White) America.

We do not burn witches in the United States; we do however use poor and working class black women (and to varying degrees other women of color too) as convenient scapegoats onto which hostility and prejudices regarding race and class can be projected.

I often struggle with how best to talk to students about the concept of privilege. The idea of "unearned advantages" is provocative to them because they have internalized the lie that is the Horatio Alger myth. Most young people, and other Americans as well, are very hostile to the idea that their life chances will be limited by the lottery of birth, something they cannot control. In all, the myth of meritocracy is a zombie.

In a broken economy, and when a black man happens to be President of the United States, cold appeals to data and facts do little to convince white folks who have seen their incomes and homes evaporate that yes, by virtue of their "race", and all things being equal, they are advantaged relative to people of color who are in an even more perilous position during the Great Recession.

In an effort to breach the gap between theory and personal understanding when I discuss white privilege, I am going to begin using the photo of Don West and his daughter eating ice cream. Why? Because it stinks of racial, gender, and class snobbery/advantage.

Systems of privilege and unearned advantage are lessons. They are taught in the home, by schools, and throughout society at large. Those who enjoy privilege are not forced to think about a set of life experiences and existence which they take to be a given.

To point. When Don West celebrates, as he likely did, with his daughters after attempting to humiliate Rachel Jeantel, he is teaching them a lesson that folks like "them" are better than "those people." The words may not have been stated...although I suspect they were. However, his energy--the hubris of white privilege--is understood, received, and internalized by his daughters.

Generally, white folks do not think about what it means to be white in America. Men do not usually reflect upon gender and masculinity. Straight people often do not think about all the advantages they receive because of who they are attracted to. This is the tautology: to be privileged means not having to think about privilege. It is a neat little circle that hides behind words and phrases such as "normal" and "doesn't everybody?"

Do not misunderstand me. Don West is obligated to advocate for his client George Zimmerman. Part of this involves discrediting witnesses who are speaking on behalf of the prosecution.

One can have a professional obligation to do difficult things. One does not have to revel in them. Based on the photo of Don West and his daughters celebrating how they "defeat stupidity," I do wonder about Don West's character.

I would like to believe that Don West would have come home, taken a shower to wash off the stink of what he did in court to Rachel Jeantel, had a drink (or three), and when his daughters wanted to get ice cream cones in keeping with the family tradition, that he would have told them the following.

"No, there is nothing to celebrate here. I did my job and sometimes that involves hurting other people."

Don West then would have sat back and told his gloating daughters that "we are rich and white in America. We have opportunities and privileges that other people like Rachel Jeantel can only dream of. Stop smiling. You inherited your material comforts from me and your mom and have to this point earned none of them. When the privileged, the rich, the wealthy, and yes, white folks like us gloat and lord their opportunities over others not so advantaged, no good, not ever, comes of it. Kids, I am a rich white man who is an attorney with years of training, that doesn't make me or you any better than Rachel."

But then again, I am a dreamer. And yes, I know that Don West and his daughters, by virtue of their money and skin color, probably believe that they are "better" people than folks like Rachel Jeantel. Funny. I doubt that Don West realizes that the karmic joke is on him and his family.