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

[Justin Schwartz]

Bravo, Yoshie! It's absolutely lethal, also stupid, to denigrate civil 
liberties as "white skin privilege." It's outrageous when anyone is denied 
due process and in fact reasonable respect, and there should be no smirking 
when a white middle class person is abused, any more than there should be 
indifference when a poor black person is. People might recall that the legal 
basis of applying the Bill of Rights to the States is the 14th Amendment, 
created to enforce the civil rights of blacks, and that the official name of 
42 USC 1983, the sattute under which you sue state governments for 
deprivation of your constitutional rights is the Anti-Klan Act. jks


>From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Civil Rights & Liberties or "White Privileges"? Re: Green Party 
>official busted at gunpoint
>Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2001 11:19:58 -0500
>
>>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
>
>* Calendar of Anti-War Events in Columbus:
><http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
>* Anti-War Activist Resources: 
><http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
>* Anti-War Organizing in Columbus Covered by the Media:
><http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/media.html>

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