As I pointed out earlier, the White Nationalists are apparently sending their most pathetic members out to stir up trouble in the aftermath of the Zimmerman verdict. Like the Costco Kinko's brigade I profiled in my last post, the two clowns who tried to disrupt a peaceful protest against racial discrimination are really the D-listers of the White Right: the professionals mock and use them at their leisure.
I am happy to see how reasonable the black folks were in the above video.
We are exactly the opposite of how the White Right, the conservative media machine, and George Zimmerman's defenders imagine us to be: black folks are peaceful and civic-minded even when American society has given us every reason to resort to mass protest and violence.
I do though have two interrelated thoughts about the consequences of that civility. History and the present demonstrate that if we met fire with "fire" that black justice claims would be further delegitimated and black folks would be shot down in mass. Moreover, such a response would fulfill a dominant script which already views us as less than human, uniquely marked and fit for violence by the State, and whose rights and liberties are not fit for respect by the average white person or those who overly identify with Whiteness.
I can still speculate.
Where are the consequences for the type of racial provocation seen in the above video? What must be done so that white racists understand that perhaps there will be an immediate consequence--like this one--when the humanity and dignity of black and brown folks are challenged?
Hate speech, such as the word "nigger", is a type of violence. Racists are typified by racist deeds. White racism is a de facto declaration of violence against non-whites. If a white racist approached a black person with a t-shirt that read "nigger" then the former is committing a threatening action.
I know that I would feel imperiled and at risk from a big white man (and his accomplice) approaching me while wearing apparel that read "this shirt can say nigger because it is black". Under the "Stand Your Ground" laws could a person then use lethal violence in defense of their personal safety against an attacker who has indicated by their words and deeds that they mean me/us harm?
I know that black folks and other people of color don't have such luxuries and rights in the United States. But a brother can dream can't he?
Those supremacists are so few and so pathetic, that I think it would actually be better to respond with ridicule or disdain than with violence. Satisfying or not, that would demonstrate one's higher status in the societal scale. Too bad we Americans don't have the national British gift for calculated, studied insult, and can usually only hurl abuse instead.
ReplyDeleteThe Brits can turn a phrase. I know the answer, but where did all of that conquering your enemies with love and turning the other cheek get black folks past 1965/68?
ReplyDeleteYea let me walk through a tea party rally with a shirt that says "I hate crackers" and the picture of a saltine cracker with a noose around, see how long I last until Im arrested or beat up
ReplyDeleteBlack people have forgotten/ignored a history of not turning the other cheek and standing your ground.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theurbanpolitico.com/2013/07/book-reviews-we-will-shoot-back-rise-of.html
All they wanted to teach was the be a good Christian part. They made people that talked about self defense look crazy. You have to defend yourself at some point. There aren't too many that don't respect an ass whupping.
ReplyDeleteWhat is with some white folks obsession with the word "nigger"? The argument that they should be able to call us "niggers" because some black folk call themselves "nigger" (or "nigga") is insane. That's like a father who sexually abused his daughter arguing that because she became a hooker he should still be able to have sex with her because she lets strange men do exactly what he did. On what planet is it ok to abuse someone who abuses themselves, especially if that self-abuse is the result of the trauma that you yourself inflicted on them?
ReplyDeleteWhy, it got them to the present point, where white supremacy means meager bands of losers like those in your post, and no longer means mainstream America, to the extent that it once did.
ReplyDeleteRemember the James Baldwin / William F. Buckley debate in 1965? In it, Baldwin was skeptical about the just-passed Civil Rights Act. We already had a Bill of Rights, and then an Emancipation Proclamation, and then a 15th amendment to the Constitution--all had come up short for Black America; what good was yet more legislation going to do? And yet it did do good, undeniably. Google up any list of Black Firsts, and see the one that date from the Seventies and thereafter. Plainspoken, above-board racism is a non-starter in politics beyond a very few localities. Is that permanent? Who knows...
That is such a good analogy I will have to start using it.
ReplyDeleteBy all means please do. That line of logic is perverse and should be exposed as such.
ReplyDelete"Those supremacists are so few and so pathetic, that I think it would actually be better to respond with ridicule or disdain than with violence."
ReplyDeleteSure, in this particular instance. But given firearms (and I'm sure these guys own them), a like-minded pack and an opportunity - like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - these guys would turn feral in a heartbeat, IMHO.
It's never a good idea to underestimate bullies, even soft, overripe losers like the guys in the video.
The guy in the passenger seat, it's obvious he's saying to himself "why did I let myself get talked into this?" He seems palpably uncomfortable during the whole "action" .. possibly he was drunk when he agreed to participate.
ReplyDeleteIn other news:
"The FBI has ordered the Sanford, Florida Police Department not to return George Zimmerman’s gun to him while a federal civil case against him is still pending.According to the Orlando Sentinel, the request is a clear indication that the U.S. Department of Justice is moving forward with its investigation as to whether Zimmerman violated the civil rights of teenager Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012, the night of Martin’s death.
The gun and all other pieces of evidence in the criminal trial against Zimmerman were on the verge of being surrendered by the police when the order came down from the Justice Department. Sanford Police Department spokesperson Captain Jim McAuliffe told the Sentinel, “The evidence is just in a hold status, pending their DOJ investigation.”
These two morons in the video remind me of the two rednecks who tried to disrupt our wedding reception 25 years ago. Our family, on a tight budget, hired a small banquet room in the back of a neighborhood tavern in upstate NY. The tavern was just a shitty, run-down bar for racist blue-collars, but my mother-in-law didn't know that. It was a decent enough room, at an affordable price. I remember, during the reception, my sister from NJ went out to the bar (in the tavern) and heard the racists complaining about our party. They didn't like "n****rs" in their space. My sister came back, visibly shaken, and asked me if I was aware of "where I was moving." (Upstate NY is full of rural, disgruntled whites who hate minorities and "downstaters" like myself."
ReplyDeleteAnyway, during our first dance as Man And Wife, two smirking bigots walked into our banquet hall, crossed their arms and tried to stare us down. Part of me wanted to challenge them, tell them this was a private party and get the fuck out, but my wife said this was exactly what they were trying to provoke. We kept dancing, and enjoying ourselves, and eventually, they looked more and more ridiculous standing there, more self-conscious, and finally they left, disappointed.
I hadn't thought about this for years, until I saw this clip of these smirking assholes.
thx!
ReplyDeleteWhite supremacy is structural and institutional. White supremacy may in many ways be a matter of public shaming but it is still a huge factor which over-determines the life chances of people of color to their detriment and for whites to their advantage.
ReplyDeleteOn the mainstream American part, I am not convinced as much as some others. The Tea Party GOP is the country's de facto white identity party. When white supremacy is mainstreamed into the body politic and controls one of the two governing bodies in the country then has it really been conquered?
Frighteningly, the percentage of whites who hold negative and hostile attitudes towards blacks has actually gone up since the election of Obama.
You are a man of great self-control. Maybe it is progress in a way that you and your wife could enter a white space, show your love across the colo rline, and all those bigots could do is pout and complain.
ReplyDeleteMe thinks I will borrow that line too.
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking to that book. Gonna have to read it.
ReplyDeleteI see where you're coming from but unfortunately white supremacy is not just the domain of white supremacists, despite how logical that sounds.
ReplyDelete