If you don't believe in (recognize) white privilege why the fuck are you on a Democratic Forum?

[tblue37]

56. To be able to walk into a store, even late at night, and not be viewed or followed as suspicious

because of the color of your skin is a form of white privilege.

To be able to walk or drive around without being hassled as much as several times a day by police officers who are just stopping you because you "look suspicious" is a form of white privilege.

For example, the cops engaging in "broken windows" policing in Bloomberg's New York City stopped, questioned, and frisked many young black and hispanic men who were doing absolutely nothing and who had no record of criminal activity. A white person with similar background, in similar circumstances, would not have been stopped or questioned. And, of course, once a stop is initiated, the chances of its escalating to the point of the individual being beaten or even killed is fairly high for a person of color, but much less so for a white person. That is white privilege.

A distinguished and famous older white college professor would not have been reported as suspicious by his neighbors if he was standing on the porch of his own university house after a trip, with a suitcase next to him, as he tried to unlock his front door; and even if somehow the neighbor had decided to call the cops (though again, highly unlikely that would ever have occurred with a white professor), the cop would have spoken respectfully to the professor and apologized for bothering him. But Henry Louis Gates was hectored and manhandled--and then arrested--in his own home by the cop, because he was black and didn't act submissive enough to satisfy the arrogant cop, not because he was suspicious. That sort of treatment is not normally inflicted on white people who are similarly situated. THAT is what is meant by white privilege.

White people regularly sit down in the skywalk outside the bank in that Minneapolis mall, and no one ever says a word to them. When a black man sat there while waiting to pick up his children from a nearby preschool, a bank security guard tried to make him leave. When he didn't leave, the cops were called, and they followed, badgered, and Tased him, even though no crime had been committed, and he had been polite and entirely nonviolent. But like Henry Louis Gates, he had simply not been submissive enough, but had instead dared to insist on his right to be left alone when he had done nothing illegal, so the cops followed and badgered him, got physical, Tased him, and arrested him. The charges were dropped, of course, and the country is outraged, but again, this happened to him because he is black. It is white privilege that you could sit there, just as white people do all the time, without being told to move, without having the cops called on you, without ending up Tased and arrested.

When Renisha McBride was shot by that guy for knocking on his door for help after her auto accident, he shot her in the face. Do you honestly believe a white 19-year-old girl knocking on the man's door for help would have been shot? It is white privilege that a 19-year-old white woman could knock on a man's door and ask for help after an auto accident without expecting him to see her as so dangerous that he had to shoot her in the face to feel safe.

It is white privilege to walk around in stores and restaurants with guns hung over your shoulder, without being hassled, much less killed, by cops. A 13-year-old hispanic boy was shot by the cops for carrying a plastic toy gun, and a 22-year-old black man was shot in the back in Walmart while talking on the phone and leaning on an air rifle, as if it were a cane (i.e., NOT brandishing it). The white people who called the cops probably wouldn't even have called if he had been white (an open carry state, after all), but even if they had called, the cops would not have shot him the second they saw him, even though the air gun was being leaned on like a cane, and the man's back was to them, so they were not in any immediate danger. (The security tapes have been seen by the family's lawyer.)

White privilege allows militia a**holes to aim rifles at federal law officers without even being arrested, much less killed. Can you imagine what would happen to a black man who did that?

If a black person--especially a black man--has any sort of interaction with the cops, even if he has been stopped for no other reason than because he is black (something white privilege protects us from), or even if he has actually gone to the cops for assistance, then there is a good chance he will end up beaten, Tased, arrested, or even killed. That seldom happens to a white person.

White privilege does not actually mean that wonderful things get given to you for being white. It just means that a lot of awful, soul-sapping things that black people have to deal with day after day, year after year, are not normal in a white person's life. Sure, a white person might get unfairly hassled or brutalized by cops--even when innocent--but that is quite rare compared to the way black people are constantly being hassled, brutalized, and even killed by cops, and being automatically suspected of wrongdoing by ordinary white citizens.

One reason the Michael Brown case exploded into national awareness is that the way he was murdered while surrendering with his hands up, even without having committed any "crime" more serious than jaywalking (as far as the cop knew), came as a horrifying surprise to so many otherwise well-intentioned whites, because they did not know how common, how normal that sort of thing is in the life of a young black man. And the reason they did not know how normal it is is because for them, for white people, it is not normal.

[font size = "=1"]And that is white privilege![/font]