In the interest of clarification, what Kelley wrote was as follows:
At 2:14 AM -0500 11/4/01, Kelley 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.
>
>so, Oden is outraged that, in this climate, she got shat on by
>people wielding arbitrary authority against someone who
>
>1. walked slowly when she was asked to walk faster.
>2. as she described, she gave them some attitude--like demanding to
>rest from carrying luggage.
>3. she touched a cop. even in self defense or in gestures that are
>unthinking because you typically do brush hands away when they
>violate your space.
>
>well, guess what, those are things that you learn not to do when
>you're black. Oden never learned those things because she never had
>to: she's white. and she's outraged because she got the kind of
>treatment blacks get all the time and poor whites often get. cop
>invades your home, your personal space, gets in your face, tells you
>to spread em, pushes you around... tough fucking shit. you comply
>and you comply fast.
So, Kelley argues that whites should learn "survival skills" that most (though not all) blacks have learned a long time ago: comply fast with any demand without getting outraged, if demands come from those in positions to wield arbitrary authority like the police, the National Guard, etc. If any whites, blacks, & other people of color have problems with that, well, "tough fucking shit" -- your life is more important than your rights, liberties, & dignity? If an unarmed black man gets shot by the police, maybe that's because he has failed to learn the "survival skills" that other blacks have?
Well, one of these days, it may come to that we all get shot dead without such "survival skills," but we are not there yet. We don't _want_ to be there, in fact. Get outraged now, resist while you can, so we'll never have to get used to surviving under the fascist state. -- Yoshie
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