Civil Rights & Liberties or "White Privileges"? Re: Green Party official busted at gunpoint

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>but Art is entirely right: only an ignoramus would act like she did 
>and then be outraged about what happened to her. she's an ignoramus 
>because she is privileged by white skin and middle class status. 
>only a white, middle class person who's never dealt with the cops 
>the way that cops treat people of color and poor whites would be 
>outraged that they got treated like shit when they resisted power, 
>authority, the law. it's a survival skill you have to learn, blacks 
>far more than poor whites, that's for sure.

Due process, presumption of innocence until proven guilty, freedom of 
conscience, freedom of association, etc. are *civil rights and 
liberties*, to which *both whites and people of color* should make 
*vigorous claims of entitlement*.  Calling them *privileges*, white 
or male or otherwise, works against us (whatever our color, despite 
our intention), because doing so suggests that such are preposterous 
luxuries to which none of us should make a claim of entitlement & 
that whites should do without them since many blacks, Latinos, Arabs, 
etc. are often denied them.

That some people in the world are starving is no justification for 
your employer to cut your wage, treat you poorly, etc.; that some 
people are treated like shit by the police is no reason for you not 
to resist being treated like shit by the police when you are.

Why try to level down, rather than *up*?
-- 
Yoshie

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