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

[Kelley]

At 11:19 AM 11/4/01 -0500, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>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.

she behaves as a privileged white woman when she:

1. writes a press release outraged at being searched and detained without 
ever making one single gesture at the fact that this kind of thing happens 
all the time to people of color

2. simultaneously cops an outraged attitude at being mistreated for 
engaging in civil disobedience while bragging to McCullagh about it. well, 
duh, engaging in civil disobedience is supposed to get the guys with guns 
pissed off. failure to recognize how awkward that looks is privilege, plain 
and simple. any black person in her shoes would think twice about 
exaggerating for fear of what it would make her or his people look like.

3. when she and others leap to the unwarranted conclusion that it must be 
her politics, not her ticket purchasing habits that got her searched and 
subsequent behavior that got her detained for questioning. anyone who's 
been at all hassled by the cops knows that half of it is about stopping you 
for the slightest pretense and then getting in your face so you screw up 
and give them a reason to arrest you. which is exactly why i said i wished 
she'd just have let the story rest on its merits: what a better opportunity 
for showing how intimidation by the police state works.

as i said, the situation--getting searched is bad enough as it is--but 
writing a press release that suggests that she got searched at gun point, 
got detained at gun point, and that it was because of her politics was and 
remains an embarrassment to the left. she clearly states that she was 
marked for a search and then offered a flight at four. what kind of 
ignorant people does she think she's dealing with when she suggests that 
her right to travel was impeded because of her politics.

kelley