35 Comments

1. Curt:

   As a counterpoint to this post: I live in New York City, don’t own a car, so I ride my mountain bike everywhere. Today I was riding on the sidewalk and passed two well-built white male police officers on one corner of the street who looked at me but didn’t say anything. At the other end of the block was a fat, black female officer who yelled “STOP!” and proceeded to write me a ticket for biking on the sidewalk, which I wasn’t aware was such a heinous crime. I asked her if she saw the irony in the fact that I was riding because I couldn’t afford the high gas prices and now I get a ticket because I am riding. Her only reply was “Do you have any warrants out on you?” I said, “Yeah, and this is the getaway vehicle I commit all my crimes with.” She was not amused and handed me my bullshit ticket. I guess being white isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

   10 January 2006, 7:36 pm

2. Yolanda Carrington:

   Biking on the sidewalk IS against the law in New York City, Curt (the law is ludicrous, but it does exist). The officer that stopped you was doing her job. The two officers that looked the other way did not do theirs.

   Looks to me like white privilege worked for you after all.

   11 January 2006, 3:10 am

3. nubian:

   why did you have to mention the female officer was “fat and black”

   it doesn’t further your story, only shows how much of an asshole you are

   11 January 2006, 4:00 am

4. elaina:

   I don’t know whether or not “being white is all it’s cracked up to be.” To me that statement’s all kinds of fucked-up. That’s a diatribe for another time.

   But from the name “Curt” I am deducing that you’re a guy. Please, correct me if I’m wrong. And I think, though again I might be wrong, that you’re saying that being white doesn’t necessarily exclude you from police intervention when you’re doing something “illegal” in one way or another. You’d be correct in saying that.

   Did the “fat black woman” cop who ticketed you have a gun? Just wondering. Also wondering why it’s so important that she’s fat.

   There is a hierarchy to all forms of civil-servantdom, there’s the “cops” who relentlessly pound pavement looking to ticket an errantly parked car, or *gasp* a random sidewalk-biker. Then there are the cops who are supposedly out there to intervene in crime and end up doing shit like forcing young black men to the ground because they open their driver’s side door, instead of rolling down the window.

   What I see when I read your anecdote is this: two white male beacons of patriarchy gazing on in humble admiration of a fellow white dude, brazenly scoffing the law on his manly mountain bike, not really “hurting anyone”. (I know I’m being kinda dramatic with my language. Bear with me.) I’m thinking they were probably on break, and talking amongst themselves. Cops do that a lot, especially the guys.

   Then a “fat, black” female “cop” told you to get your bike off the damn sidewalk and *gasp again* ticketed you for your two-wheeled audacity, and your sardonic wit. (Makes me wonder what a “well-built” white male cop woulda thought, and DONE, had you rattled off like that to him.)

   To me, you’re not really putting a “counterpoint” out there. That’s all I’m saying. You’ve described a whole mess of other types of gender/racially-coded hierarchy, and then kinda hinted that being white doesn’t come with privilege automatically attached. I don’t know if you can really say that here. You sure sassed that “fat, black, female officer.” You didn’t say anything to the burly guys on the corner.

   11 January 2006, 4:26 am

5. Yolanda Carrington:

   Oh…and your physical descriptions of the officers (“well-built” males versus a “fat” female) REEK of sexism.

   It’s good to know that racism and sexism are a thing of the past.

   11 January 2006, 8:06 am

6. Stan:

   I am reading a book right now, called “Why Does He Do That? — Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men.” It is about abusive males and what they do to their female partners.

   All my life, the majority of white men I’ve encountered have these anecdotes that are deployed to implicitly rebut the systemic power that they enjoy. Hell, there was a whole kind of movement in the 90′s calling itself AWM (Angry White Men) that blew the oh-poor-me victim-trumpet.

   This book on abusers describes this victim-flip as a ver comon tactic by abusers. Paint the victim as the abuser and the abuser as the victim. You see this in politics all the time, too, but then we know the rich-white-male demogrphic of that kind of power, too, don’t we?

   In our medicalizaiton of so-called personality disorders, we hear a lot about narcissistic personality disorder… that extreme self-justifying, self-referential, self-involved person who sees himself performing before a dramatic, nay grandiose, backdrop, with everyone else in supporting actor roles.

   Maybe that should just be re-named (MPD) male personality disorder.

   11 January 2006, 9:22 am

7. Ed:

   Biking on the sidewalk is trivial … until your elderly grandmother steps out of the corner market and gets blindsided by some dipshit riding a bike on the sidewalk, breaking her hip. Or maybe it’s a toddler, pulling ahead of mommy as they go out the door.

   Having no tail lights is trivial … til you rearend someone stopped in the road that you didn’t see because their lights were burned out. GM don’t put ‘em there for decoration.

   Cops are donut eating patriarchal buffoons … until someone breaks in your house and you call 911. When 300 lb. Rufus slaps around his wife or abuses his kids, you’re not gonna get the salvation army or the green party to come lock him up and trot him before the judge. And if you don’t have someone to go around and write “trivial” tickets for taillights and sidewalk biking, then everyone will do it and more accidents WILL happen. It’s pretty simple, actually.

   While you good people are absorbed in your political analysis, don’t forget that all your theorizing and activism won’t repeal the laws of physics, won’t make accidents disappear, and won’t make bad, malevolent, and violent people disappear from your society. If the institutions are broke, fix the institutions; fire racists and demand competence. But don’t be so stupid as to lose sight of the neccessity for the institutions.

   11 January 2006, 12:47 pm

8. Consumer:

   Re: granny on sidewalk et al., agree, Ed.

   But the fact of the matter remains that the police don’t exist to protect people, per se. They exist to protect a system (regardless of individual motivations individual officers).

   I’m sure we could fill many pages of Mr. Goff’s site with testimony from non-White males on how the “institutions” were, to say the least, anything but necessary for them.

   11 January 2006, 3:47 pm

9. Curt:

   Hilarious. You people really need to lighten up. I got a ticket for riding a bicycle and I was just venting a little bit. You labeled me an asshole, a sexist, a racist, narcissistic, angry, abusive and a control freak. Thanks for the psychological profile, I had no idea I was such a horrible person. I was just making a counterpoint to the story by Elaina where she got out of a trivial ticket for being white and I got an even more trivial ticket, but being white didn’t get me out of it.

   Besides, since when has anyone on this site been such a stickler for the laws and the police who enforce them?

   I respect officers (male, female, white or black) in a professional way for the tough job they have, but I don’t condone their behavior most of the time. Some generally want to do good, but most are on a powertrip. Unfortunately, this translates on the street to police taking their frustrations out on minorities. I wish they wouldn’t and that everyone is treated fairly, but I have no say in the vetting process or what they are taught in the Academy.

   The absurdity of my particular situation is that I live in a bad neighborhood in Queens and just half a block away from where I was “busted” there are drug dealers regularly making deals, and the cops know it, but let it happen. So, instead of doing their job and fighting real criminals, they pick on a guy like me pedaling home. Everytime I ride, I obey all the bike laws and still almost get hit by a car two or three times I am out, simply because drivers don’t look or don’t care. There are no bike lanes, and I would have been riding in the street during rush hour with maniac drivers. So, I opted to be safe and ride on the sidewalk very slowly. My action deserved a warning at best. But instead, the cop decided to take what little money I have left and give it to the State. But since I am a white male and she is a black female, I guess in your minds that helps make up for 200 years of oppression.

   To Nubian and Yolanda: the female officer WAS fat and black, so what is the problem with telling the truth? I am sure there are fit black women in the NYPD as there are fat white bastards, but these particular cops were as I described them. Whether their racial, gender or physical make up had anything to do with my situation, I don’t really know. My guess is the male cops were too embarrassed to write me a ticket for such a ridiculous reason, but the female wanted to exert her power over a male because she could. Or maybe she was just bored. Or maybe she had a quota to fill. All I am saying, is my whiteness and maleness didn’t help me in this petty situation. Women and blacks are just as corruptible as white males once they have a little power (Condi Rice and Colin Powell for example, both of whom came from a poor background).

   To Elaina: I did mouth off to the male officers also. For some reason, it took the female cop 20 minutes to write me a ticket. People were walking by and laughing at the sight of me sitting on my bike while I was getting written up. Because it was taking so long, the male officers walked down to us to see what was happening. The male officers ran the check on me and then the woman asked me about the warrants, which is when I made the joke about my getaway vehicle. At least the male officers laughed.

   11 January 2006, 6:36 pm

10. Josiah:

    Ed,
    You’re making a false dichotomy between people who want to abolish policing altogether (I doubt any of them post here; you might want to check http://www.anarchism.net) and people who advance a few-bad-apples-who-can-be-fired analysis of institutionalized racism (like yourself, if I read your post correctly). Members of the former group are usually middle-class hippies who actually rely on the cops to protect their drunk asses while they return to their college dormitories/favorite internet cafes/suburban family homes from the hungry and drug-addicted and marginalized people who they secretly fear while romanticizing.Okay, we agree there. And members of the latter group are usually white guys who are quick to deflect analyses of institutions that confer power and privilege to them, claiming a perspectival advantage over those they disagree with (because they’re no-bullshit masters of reapolitik who understand the “laws of physics” and other gritty realities, unlike those muddle-headed “special interests” who are always whining), as if that advantage was somehow seperate from…their white male privilege. I mean, let’s get real here: isn’t your personal experience with the cops, which I doubt involves an even greater level of deference than Elaina describes, informing your dismissal of this discussion? Of course it is. This claim of greater “realism” regarding political matters is a very, very old argument of power: the French colonials knew Algeria better than those chin-scratching FLN intellectuals (who were all talk, and would never unite the Arabs), Rudyard Kipling understood India better than those chest-beating Indian nationalists (just read his patronizing account of them in “Kim,” written in the 1890s), the British Crown knew that the American colonists would never have the guts to cut the umbilical cord with Merry Olde England; etc.

    Now, I’m sure you’re going to say that you aren’t “deflecting” anything, just pointing out that analysis without action is a waste of time. Okay, but the reverse is also true. The campaigns that do exist against racial profiling are the result of a combination of anecdotal experience, statistical studies and analysis. From there, many (but still too few) people have moved on to political organizing. Here are a few examples:

    http://www.criminaljusticecoalition.org/end_racial_profiling/history
    http://www.stopracialprofiling.ca/
    https://secure.aclu.org/site/SSurvey?ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&SURVEY_ID=1360
    http://www.copwatch.com/

    All these campaigns are useful, but they need to be accompanied by discussion and analysis. Your dismissal of this discussion is unhelpful for that reason.

    11 January 2006, 7:21 pm

11. Eric Odell:

    Curt:

    I don’t think you’re seriously listening to the criticisms. You say, “I had no idea I was such a horrible person,” but that’s not (necessarily) what people are saying. All men have sexist views and behavior. All white people have racist views and behavior. We can’t escape it. And for the most part we can’t even see it, because we’re swimming in it. You have to go out of your way to see it and undo it, and the first step is taking criticisms seriously when they are made, not just brushing them off. That doesn’t mean accepting criticisms blindly, it means thinking about them long and hard and considering that it’s very, very likely they might be correct.

    I’m saying this as a white male who has made plenty of errors myself and been criticized plenty of times. It’s hard at first, but effort eventually it’s possible to keep from treating criticisms as an attack on one’s very being.

    Peace.

    11 January 2006, 8:24 pm

12. Yolanda Carrington:

    To piggyback off of Eric, you NEED to listen to these critiques, Curt, for your own damn sake. It’s easy to dismiss criticism of white male privilege as “hilarious” when you don’t have to worry about being raped, beaten, or killed for who you are. I have to worry about these things every day of my life. Listen to me when I say this: I can be KILLED for being a Black woman. Race and gender is a life and death issue for most of us. That is no hyperbole.

    This is what Elaina was trying to get White folks to see in the first place. But then you dismissed her argument out of hand.

    Noboby on this thread is attacking you as a person, and I think deep down, you know that. But it hurts to be called out, don’t it? So you come back at folk defensively, and then they come back at you for being a defensive White man (defensiveness is another manifestation of racist/patriarchal privilege). And we can go on and on this way, but will you get it? I don’t know.

    I know this, though. You will have a TOUGH time interacting with folks other than White boys if you don’t confront your race/gender privilege. People ain’t gonna deal with someone who can’t see their humanity, not for long anyway. Ask any White man here who’s been in your shoes. I’m serious.

    I hope that for once, you will take what a Black woman has to say seriously.

    In struggle,
    Yolanda

    12 January 2006, 10:56 am

13. Curt:

    To Yolanda and Eric: Your point was well made, and well taken.

    Thanks

    Curt

    13 January 2006, 1:48 am

14. jonboynemo:

    “why did you have to mention the female officer was “fat and black”” –Comment by nubian — 1/11/2006 @ 4:00 am

    i think that “fat” is a valid and appropriate description, i’m a bit fat myself and don’t really enjoy it, yet it doesn’t cease to be an adjective for my sake and i wouldn’t insist on it. i think what matters less is that she was “black”… a cop is a cop is a cop.

    “Curt” is correct in that this is a power issue, and it so happens that cops find power in doing what they do. i wouldn’t be suprised to learn that those “well-built” officers took the same amount of pleasure giving grief to somebody that wasn’t “white.”

    as for the sexism issue, i really must comment. i know at least as many sexist women as i know sexist men, some of them sexist towards themselves and some sexist towards men or both (i think its usually both, actually.) i think that the difference is that when sexism is perpetrated by a man, it is often times such a natural thing– by that i mean in our society men are not discouraged from being sexist very often– unfortunately. a lot of the outward sexism by women (i mean outward is in towards men) that i see is reactionary and a bit more intentional. neither of these things are ok.

    i thought i’d give you folks somebody to pick on besides curt for awhile.

    15 January 2006, 2:27 pm

15. Chad:

    jonboynemo:

    Its not about picking on anybody. Its about white men, all men, and all white people recognizing their privilege and dealing with it. Part of that involves admitting our inherent power and re-thinking our surroundings. I would suggest that you try that.

    Explain to me this:

    How can a woman be sexist?

    Thanks,
    Chad
    (a white – with no quotes – male)

    PS: Was linking to Race Traitor supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek gesture? If you had read anything from that particular site, I would hope that your insights would be deeper than “what matters less is that she was “black” “.

    15 January 2006, 3:35 pm

16. Julian Real:

    Hi jonboynemo.

    If you aren’t aware we live in a racist patriarchy that institutionally discriminates against women, that harms women systematically, that turns women into sexxx-things for men’s pleasure, well, then you’ve been living one privileged life well outside the dominant cultural mainstream, meaning, in this case, one that has not put you in touch with real harm to real women, of all Colours, globally. You ever been stranger raped? Battered to the point of being hospitalised, by your lover? Starved because you are poor and female, which is the gender of the poor, disproportionately? Have you had to “translate” academic texts’ pronouns and races so that you can pretend they speak more directly to your own experience, instead of a partial, biased ethnically white and patriarchally male one? Is Black experience and women’s experience, and especially Black women’s experience of the world taught with any depth of understanding in any classes that are not within the realm of “Black Studies” or “Women’s Studies”?

    Are you followed around in stores because of your race? Are you likely to be turned DOWN for jobs and promotions because of your race and gender? Are you likely to go to the movies and see white men’s point of view portrayed most of the time, taken as “human”, speaking for all humanity, such as in films like Sea Biscuit and Brokeback Mountain, both of which make Mexico into the place white men go for sex from Mexicans, as if Mexicans are all waiting at the border for that good lovin’ from white U.S. boys? (And by “lovin’” I actually mean racist, sexist, cultural exploitation, founded on privileges and entitlements white men carry, often unconsciously, to use others, at will and whim.)

    I am perceived as white and male, and can’t even begin to count the times white cops have been real decent and respectful of me and I know damn well the experience would have been different were I a Black male or a Black female. Some of those white male cops are jerks, to me too, btw. All arrogant and puffy and cocksure, with the gun to back up their arrogance. But I’ve never been seen as suspicious or assumed to be carrying drugs or weapons, simply due to them noticing I don’t look like I’m of African descent. Nor have I had male cops come onto me, sexualising me, for being female, being real friendly-like to me, flirting with me, so maybe they can masturbate to thoughts of me later, or get me out of the car to “frisk” me, making extra sure there ain’t no weapons in my breasts and between my thighs.

    Cops, of whatever race and gender, are empowered to uphold the laws that white men make, which are usually in service to white men, especially before civil rights efforts by Blacks and later women of all Colours challenged that dominant mainstream. And that civil rights work ain’t nearly done.

    Julian

    15 January 2006, 4:36 pm

17. Ed:

    Unfortunately I’m not in a situation where I can carry on a spirited discussion. But one point I can’t let pass:

    Josiah, does your last comment suggest that comments which diverge or detract from the preordained conclusion of the discussion are “unhelpful”? That is a very interesting intellectual outlook.

    15 January 2006, 5:08 pm

18. Josiah:

    “Josiah, does your last comment suggest that comments which diverge or detract from the preordained conclusion of the discussion are “unhelpful”? That is a very interesting intellectual outlook.”

    Well, when you dismiss a discussion of white privilege–and the supplementary role racial profiling plays in the generation of black/white disparities in arrests and imprisonment–as “stupid,” you’re betraying another preordained conclusion, informed by your experiences. Your conclusion would seem to be: the systems that exist are effective but sometimes flawed, so instead of critiquing them in any general sense, we should focus on specific cases of racism or abuse, and fire the proverbial “few bad apples”. You are advancing a view of racism-as-aberration which reflects your own experience, and if you dismiss views of racism-as-systemic, which reflect the experience of 99% of the black and latino folks that I know, then your views will make it impossible for you to engage in any discussion with them. By the same token, a creationist viewpoint is unhelpful in a discussion among evolutionary biologists, while Holocaust deniers’ viewpoints are unhelpful in discussions among Holocaust survivors. I’m not equating you with creationists or Holocaust deniers (or equating creationists with Holocaust deniers, obviously), just pointing out that the dismissal of certain basic premises in discussions (like the validity of theorizing about systemic racism) is likely to make you more seem like a sideline heckler than a participant to those whose experiences contradict your own.

    15 January 2006, 8:06 pm

19. jonboynemo:

    i disagree, chad. i believe that my part of it is renouncing that inherent power. and to answer your question, a woman can be sexist the same way that a man can. by relegating herself to the patriarchally-ascribed station that so many men would love to see her in, or by expecting men to fulfill their own socially inflicted gender-roles.

    in response to julian: 1. yes, i am often followed around in stores, but because i am so obviously homeless (though i’m sure that i am still “priveledged” compared to some). 2. i have been turned down for dozens of jobs because of my gender. 3. and i am not likely to go to the movies at all.

    and linking to racetraitor was supposed to be educational, since so many of you refer to yourselves as white, that must be how you view yourselves.

    16 January 2006, 12:40 pm

20. John Camp Bernays LLd:

    I am totally amused at how the small minds cannot grasp any “IDEA’ from the simple message written by Elina (?) back in Hillbelly Country…These same people would be unable to pass a simple verbal diagnostic test to ascertain the presence of Schizophrenia. The responders quickly began Race-baiting…and they could not read ANY of the “Required” books that “We, the People…” were (required) to read, comprehend & make Comprehensive Book Reports on; in the 1950′s…OR be HELD BACK. The destroying of mental agility is well documented

    and watchers of the TELEVISION are as “Mentally non-functioning” as what we used to call “Low-Grade Morons” in the State Hospitals where I worked. The fartherst I read was down to 4 posts attacking the Fellowe in NYC for referring to the Cop lady as : “Black & Fat.” There was no wrong done, he did not slur her in any way, people who write with literature training are able to convey a whole scenereo in two words…as opposed to egotistic self-aggrandisers like John Stienbeck (Grapes of Wrath, 900 words to describe a Turtle) or Zane Grey (I shall not go there!) I was drawn to this blog by the Wonderful Title “Feral Scholar” seems to evoke my Cherokee Forebearers, or Tecumseh (SIC) who Single “Mindedly” created the Cherokee Alphebet…or, if you will, the “Hebrew Hobo” AKA the “Railroad Rabbi.” I believe that Universities & Colleges are turning out Malformed & grotesquely Stupid graduates…a scholar in the 21st. century will be a person who, 60 years ago, would be equivalant to a 4th. grade drop-out in Nimrod, Arkansas. I pity you crass and squalid citizens up in aMeriKKKa, I packed up my books & guitars & moved to a Free & Honest Country when I saw the 4th. Reich Bush Regieme pass the Home Land Security Bill…only mindless idiots would allow that…
    In the Congressional Record No. 26, Vol. 118, February 24, 1974, the aforementioned Dr. Delgado is quoted as saying, “We need a program for psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated… The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind… We must electronically control the brain. Someday armies and generals will be controlled by electronic stimulation of the brain.”

    Here’s another chilling quote. In 1970, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to President Carter, predicted in his book Between Two Ages that technological systems would be developed by 1995 that “would seriously impair the brain performance of very large populations in selected regions over an extended period”–the purpose being to create “a more controlled and directed society.”

    18 January 2006, 12:26 am

21. John Camp Bernays LLd:

    Okay, just read more, from right to left ….The only person who accomplished anything at all was the homeless person. Once you become infused with the Buddha mind, you Walk according to the Commandment of Christ, you embrace Renounciation, you Become Poor to Taste the Bitter Urine of Hatred Worse than Racist…then, your outlook is in line with COSMIC Consciousness. RACE Hatred is nothing…the Abject Total & Murderious loathing of the Homeless Hobo transciends Race, Gender or Nationality. Mother Threasa & the Dali Lama, both I have Seen , Touched & Talked to….These people WALK AMONG we mere mortals AS DID Budda, Christ , Enoch & Moses. You TV Addled Addicts SHANT ever understand, nor shall your Sould ever ascend

    18 January 2006, 12:43 am

22. John Camp Bernays LLd:

    Made a mistake in my Link to my “Web Page!” Hyper Text is not my best subject…

    18 January 2006, 12:51 am

23. John Camp Bernays LLd:

    Are you likely to go to the movies and see white men’s point of view portrayed most of the time, taken as “human”, speaking for all humanity, such as in films like Sea Biscuit and Brokeback Mountain, both of which make Mexico into the place white men go for sex from Mexicans, as if Mexicans are all waiting at the border for that good lovin’ from white U.S. boys? (COMMENT: I live in Old Mexico…I married a Mexican Lady in 1969, I returned HERE last year, DO NOT assume yourself able to Preach about the People or Our Way of Life Here, I assure you, this country is a Wonder to a Elderly Retired Bum, Ex-Hobo….(Follow link on my Name…) The People are Grand & Generious, in spite of the Yankee Invaision.

    18 January 2006, 1:13 am

24. Elizabeth S:

    How can a woman be sexist?!?!?

    How can I avoid it? Everything I do either falls in the “accepted” social roles, and is seen that way by others, or is treated as a challenge. If I avoid the confrontation, I am limiting myself to the socially correct. If I choose to resist, I am defined by my opposition to the steroetypes. I can not act that way “naturally, it is always a battle. In ways completely unrelated to inherent biology, being female defines my ideas about myself.

    And what if I have needs or wishes that require social cooperation? I am likely to capitulate either to the social norm, or the requirements of a small “counter culture”.

    And even before that I find my story lines, goals, what is required for self-value defined by a culture that defines gender by limiting women to certain roles and men to certain attitudes. Personaly, I still suffer from the sleeping beauty fairy tale.

    How does any woman escape unscathed?

    18 January 2006, 3:02 pm

25. elaina:

    I don’t like being called a “mindless idiot.” And I don’t watch TV, except for what I hear in the background at the group home where I work.

    I worked very hard to get through college, it took me 8 years, I didn’t sit around on my ass the whole time drinking coffees and talking about philosophy. I spent the whole time working at the same damn place where I work now, and I did campus activism. I had one stretch of time during my studies where I didn’t have to work.

    That’s when I lived in Mexico for six months in ’02, had the great privilege of studying the Spanish language there. It’s a beautiful place, and I’d love to go back there and stay one day. I have never met strangers who were kinder to me than the ones I met while I was there. It changed my life.

    I love Mexico but I WILL NOT romanticize it, just the same way I won’t romanticize the lives of “bums” and “hobos.” My grandfather was a hobo during the depression, he told me a lot of crazy stories from that time in his life. He spoke about it pragmatically, and told me about some ugly shit.

    Romanticizing anything gets us fucking nowhere.

    One thing I did learn about while I was in Mexico was the audacity and sheer rudeness of gringos, especially gringo men who go down there and are loud and abrasive with and make fun of everyone, like it’s their fucking patch of dirt to spit on. I know a little bit about what you’re talking about re: white men going to mexico to have sex with Mexicans. It was the first time I concretely felt shame at being white, and being from the states. The biggest thing I learned was that a lot of the poverty, homelessness, and bad conditions that I ran across came from dealings with the Gringolandia government, and that it seeped out into relations between gringo and Mexica civilians, so I decided that I would go home at the end of my stay and learn how to try and fix things from here. This is an evolution of that, writing things and putting them in a place where folks can see them.

    Maybe I’m unclear as to who you are insulting here, JCB Lld. But I finished college because of a fucking promise to my father, that I made as he lay dying. It was very important to me, and not a whim or something to do with unused time.

    I am trying to do what I can as a white person to lay things bare so that folks can move forward. This movement’s all I got. So please, try and be a little more considerate when you address the people who post here.

    18 January 2006, 3:13 pm

26. elaina:

    Just a brief note, for levity.

    My “armageddon-on-wheels” has died, now, so I’ll no longer be a menace to society on the mean streets of Maryville.

    20 January 2006, 2:36 am

27. Stan:

    Rest in Peace, AOW.

    20 January 2006, 8:56 am

28. Julian Real:

    Hi John Camp Bernays.

    I wish you’d read more of Yolanda’s posts throughout Stan’s blog to hear where she is coming from. Her voice is powerful with political insight, and very reasonably passionate with the rage of the oppressed who refuse to be treated as anything other than fully human. As Buddha, Jesus of Bethlehem (not Christ of Galilee), and the Dalai Lama could have told you, the divine is of all of us equally. One need not walk the Earth without a home to know and experience this. Yolanda’s voice is one of the keenest on Stan’s blog, and I’m sorry you have locked yourself out of the opportunity to know and see this.

    I think you REALLY misunderstood my post. I too have been to Mexico more than once, and deeply appreciated the sincerity and kindnesses of the people I met there. Part of my predominantly European-descended family is Mexican-American, and I’ve railed against anti-Mexican racist humour and other cruelties on any number of occasions.

    My point, and perhaps I made it unclearly, was that those films I mentioned are racist in their portrayal of Mexican people and Mexican cultures. I have yet to see popular mainstream “white” U.S. cinema that wasn’t racist about Mexican people and cultures, to name but one ethnic group of Colour that U.S. Hollywood-producced films are usually racist about. Hell, even Crash is racist in this regard, and it’s being promoted as the best thing since sliced white bread on the matter of race.

    I have yet to see consistently dignified portraits in mainstream media of anyone or any group or any culture or any nation who lives with the U.S. on top of them (aka “South of the Border”).

    That is my point, sir.

    If I somehow left you with the impression that I was putting down Mexican cultures or people, I extend to you my sincerest apologies. My fury is aimed squarely at white patriarchal corporate Amerikkka (i.e., the U.S.), just to be crystal clear.

    Julian

    21 January 2006, 10:02 am

29. dogelia:

    Several years ago I was driving my beat up nissan pick-up to the market after work. It was sunset and there were seven or eight cars in front of me. Ahead, on the winding river road, there were several cop car lights and it looked like a traffic “sobriety check” or something. There was a new beemer in front of me (they were the “in” car right then) and it swerved as if to make a u-turn and then just got back in line. I was the last vehicle.

    It was just a traffic stop, but as i passed they waved me over. I flashed that they thought I was the car that was about to u-turn; maybe it was just the general poverty of my truck. Now, I wasn’t unhappy with that little truck, it was a step up from the car I was driving when I got sober. The truck was fine, I thought, it was registered and insured, smogged, and it was clean. I mean it was clean, no bottles, no drugs, no seeds, no papers, nada. My license was good, restricted but good, and I payed all the warrants that were out on me.

    So there I am, not-so-little-ole me, and the cop comes up to the window and asks for all the stuff, which I have, and I see that it is a woman. As she is perusing my documents, a male sheriff walks up to the passenger side and starts using the fashlight to see if he can see under all the coffee cups, cig packs, newspapers. He looks from here and there and can’t find anything, switches to the front window, and starts looking down, and then switches to the back window and starts over again, obviously convinced that he will see some incriminating SOMETHING to allow further search.

    I am still in this state of boy am I glad to be out of where I was, street legal, and I say without rancor or sarcasm, “He won’t find anything.”

    She laughs. We had both stopped doing anything but watch him. He is now angry and demands to know what I said. She said with a lilting sarcasm, “He said you won’t find anything”, at which he became even more jerky in his movements and kept looking, saying, “Oh yeah!!”

    After about a minute he leaves. This is probably one of the sheriffs that used to come up behind me with the brights on, five feet away. I had been driving this rear-ended corolla with the rag top flapping in the wind. This car was a cop magnet. Cops would stop whatever they were doing when I drove by, poised motionless except for their head slowly rotating to follow me down the street. They always did that, no matter what else was going on, and when I got sober, they would come up behind me and tail-gate me to see what I was going to do. I started just slowly pulling over every time they did it. I was clean and sober and licensed and insured, if not a bit ragged and rugged. After a while they stopped (except, but that’s another story).

    She asks me to get out of the car to show me why she stopped me, which is that my bumper partially blocked the license plate (she waved me over from in front). She then asks why there is a restriction on my license. I am oh-so-convinced that she knows, but I keep it light, the way she is treating it, and say, DUI.

    She stops with all the BS and says point blank, “There is a warrant for your arrest, but you weren’t an asshole, so take care of it.” I thought I had taken care of them, but there was an out of county one that seemed to be illusive when I tried to clean it up. (it took two years).

    What still sticks in my mind is that she lied to me to see if I would lie to her. She, herself was guilty of what she was most bothered by. No rest for the righteous.

    As an afterthought, if my skin was darker, the result might not have been so “nice”. Do I think racism exists, of course yes. And it exists in all peoples, everywhere. That it exists is not the point. What and how are are the important aspects of racism to deal with, as we are all the “who”. This is not to pretend that horrors have not been committed, and probably will be still. But making white the only racist color will never succeed in creating a solution, or stop the proliferation of racism.

    22 January 2006, 8:14 am

30. Stan:

    Not a question of “making white the only racist color,” but of understanding that white is the color of social power.

    That’s why the original post dealt with “white privilege,” and not some generic, dehistoricized, individually-pathological thing called “racism.”

    We have to drop this abstraction, racism, from our vocabulary, until we can re-combine it with a real analysis of structured social power, and an appreciation of how history continues to assert itself into the present.

    Black and white (speaking to this color line specifically in the US) are not characterized against one another by mere inequality, but by power… a form that I and others call national oppression because of its colonial aspect.

    When a majority Black area was hit by a hurricane on the Gulf Coast, the federal government responded with troops charged to establish population control as a higher priority than rescue, and that same government decided FOR the affected people that it would not allow 1,500 hurricane-experienced Cuban doctors to volunteer assistance.

    “Racism” doesn’t even come close to exlaining what this means.

    22 January 2006, 9:02 am

31. Julian Real:

    Hi Dogelia.

    Thanks for your story. You are a good writer. I like that these stories are being collected here this way.

    As someone who is seen as white, and who is white, but Jewish, so not-pure white, so to speak, I just want to add that white supremacy is real in Amerikkka, and affects everyone, but harms people of Colour disproportionately, egregiously, and too often, fatally. We all can be bigots or discriminating or unkind to others. But to miss that the U.S. is a white supremacist (and deeply patriarchal) society, would be to miss the larger picture that all our stories fit into, neatly or not.

    We cannot ignore the fact that the Indigenous people of North America, as elsewhere, have been slaughtered, and continue to be, through ghettoisation now in the U.S., in part, BY people who are not of Colour. Africans were enslaved in the U.S., not just anyone, and they were enslaved by European-Americans. Women are raped systematically, by men. Men are raped sometimes too (also by men), but usually in specific contexts that are not so ubiquitous as what women face and survive, or not. We all live complex lives, and terrible things do happen to most of us, even males with light skin (you and I can attest to that), but the field is mined more for those who are female, and who have darker skin that Western European-descended folks tend to have (unless sun-tanned to brown).

    Julian

    23 January 2006, 2:53 pm

32. Devans00:

    Folks have brought a lot of interesting points to the table. I appreciate how Curt didn’t just slink away with his tale between his legs when he didn’t agree with analysis of his story. It was refreshing to see Curt and a few of the other guys check their ego for a minute and keep going.

    In my world, usually, white guys are so quick to throw on the “I’m soooo hurt and misunderstood” victim mantle that no reasonable conversation can ever get going. Oh, and then there’s the ones who automatically strike out, trying to wound anyone within range. (You know the type. The response to anything a woman says that they don’t agree with is to call her ugly, fat and/or a lesbian.)

    Yolanda, I was going to send you a personal e-mail but I didn’t see a way to contact you. I like one of your quotes so much, I’m going to start using it.

    The quote articulates how I feel interacting with some friends, co-workers or random people in the world. Seems like they can’t see ME past whatever image or stereotype they are projecting on me.

    23 January 2006, 6:42 pm

33. Devans00:

    Hmm, the quote disappeared. Here are the wise words of Yolanda:

    People ain’t gonna deal with someone who can’t see their humanity, not for long anyway. — Yolanda Carrington

    23 January 2006, 6:44 pm

34. Susan:

    Hi, Elaina. This is not so much white privilege as you having connections in the town.

    Ciao

    28 January 2006, 12:03 am

35. elaina:

    Susan-

    I sure am glad you cleared that up for me. All the complexity of life and dealings with local authority in a small, mostly white, southern town, resolved in one short sentence.

    How’s it obvious that my being white isn’t something that helps foster said “connections?” My FAMILY is a working-class WHITE family. And they’re pretty damn openly racist. They aren’t “absolutely evil” people. But they have issues, big ones; and as I said I’ve heard their conversations and spent time with them. I would not want to be a Black person getting pulled over in the white part of my city, not by a white cop. Certainly not.
    Now, if y’all are feeling up to it, here are
    Some tasks for the white folks:
    -Next time you’re in a room that’s only full of white people, keep your eyes and ears sharp. The oppressive nature of most white people tends to come out most distinctly when they are amongst each other; why don’t you try and be that one white person in the room that says, “Hey, wait. I don’t like it when you say that kind of shit.”

    Listen for it, ID it, then fucking call it out when it happens. This kinda thing isn’t always easy, and many times it’s awkward and can hurt people’s feelings. But hurting feelings can’t really matter when somebody’s telling you some backwards, racist, oppressive bullshit. I don’t know how else to treat this disease. If more white people don’t step up and start doing this EVERY TIME THEY SEE RACISM HAPPEN, then we might as well get put into gulags when the fucking revolution comes, ’cause we sat on our fucking asses and let this bullshit go on, because it was beneficial (albeit superficially and minorly so) for us.

    People, WHITE people, get so angry with me when I point out that what they’re saying is fucked up, or what they’re doing is fucked up in a nationally oppressive framework. They get angry and they act like I’ve taken away their fucking barbie dolls.

    People say they want a revolution, but then they don’t want to speak up when it fucking matters. That’s really fucking encouraging.

    So I’ve stopped caring whether or not white people get mad at me. I sometimes want to distance myself from this culture as far as I can. I don’t want to be a part of the ugly side of being white. But I feel like it’s my duty to stick in the thick of it, and try to fix the bullshit that my people have perpetuated. I don’t know what the hell else to do.

    White people, especially in leftist movements, need to work diligently to recognize all the places in their lives where being white pays off. They need to question this out loud and they need to be honest with themselves and everybody else. Capitalist patriarchy cannot thrive without national oppression. Ignoring your privilege is an oppressive act.

    Don’t be the dumb white person.

    Stare your reality in the eyes and if you don’t like what you see there, punch it in the fucking face.

    28 January 2006, 4:41 pm

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