Wel, Kells, _you_ wouldn't say that civil liberties are white skin privilege; I thought it was Art, actually, when I responded. _He_ would say that. Will that do as an apology? The comment wasn't directed at you. But you are getting so nuanced here that you seem to be saying that if I am outraged that my CL have been violated, it's white skin privilege unless I also say in the same breath that this always happens to minorities. That's wrong. I agree btw that it is stupid to be rude to people with guns; I am always extremely polite to the police. I have seen lots of members of minorities indulge in that particular stupidity, maybe because thet think they have nothing to lose. They are almost alwys wrong about that. Last black guy I saw being arrested spit in a cop's face, cop beat the living shit out of him. jks
>From: Kelley <kwalker2 at gte.net>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Civil Rights & Liberties or "White Privileges"? Re: Green
>Party official busted at gunpoint
>Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 15:20:31 -0500
>
>At 01:38 PM 11/4/01 -0500, Mina Kumar wrote:
>
>>Bravo, Yoshie from me too, because what Yoshie said was admirably nuanced.
>
>What Yoshie said was also the reason why Justin thinks that I denigrated
>civil liberties as "white skin privilege". I fail to see the nuance there.
>
>Mastery of "nuanced" polite discourse means you get away with saying FOAD
>politely by turning your interlocutor's arguments into something they are
>not and by refusing to acknowledge that your interlocutor actually says
>many of the same thing you are saying. That is, I said Oden's case, on its
>own merits, was something to decry; that it, in fact, was stronger on its
>own merits than their creative use of PR propaganda techniques.
>
>Yet, you wouldn't know that from the way Yoshie chose to respond to what
>I'd written about Oden's _response_ to and _characterization of_ what
>happened to her. The tactic looks like this:
>
>Yoshie: Why is it wrong to be or act "surprised" when you lose pieces of
>your civil rights & liberties?
>
>I repeat: it is a manifestation of white middle class privilege to think
>that you can simultaneously register surprise that you get the boot to your
>next and, in the next breath, brag at how you did things to people with
>guns to resist their authority. It isn't wrong, it's ignorant and its
>treating your audience as ignorant.
>
>Further, and I repeat, it's a manifestation of white middle class privilege
>that you think it's okay to decry that your civil liberties being were
>trampled when you can't be bothered to recognize that others go through
>this every day they are alive. In other words, I'm griping about Oden
>because she lacks an ability to take a position from the standpoint of the
>historically oppressed. I'm not asking her to be grateful that she's never
>had to be in that position, or to make empty gestures at solidarity with
>others whose experiences she'll never quite grasp. I'm not asking that she
>be grateful that she didn't get arrested--highly likely were she black.
>Rather, I'm pointing out that her ability to be outraged at her treatment
>AND brag about how she willfully resisted authority, combined, as well,
>with her (and the Greens') failure to address how her experience is the
>experience of others who don't even resist authority is a manifestation of
>her white, middle class privilege.
>
>kelley
>
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