boilermaker55
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- Aug 12, 2011
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By Chauncey DeVega....Indomitable | The online home of Chauncey DeVega: They Would be Killed if They Were Black: Race, White Privilege, and the Bundy Family "Militia" in Oregon
True words!
White privilege has many components. One of its most powerful aspects is the ability to twist reality, and by doing so, free white folks from personal responsibility (as well as group accountability) for their actions. There are many examples of this phenomenon in the United States. White men who commit mass shootings are “mentally ill” and not “terrorists.” Heavily armed white cops who kill unarmed and defenseless black people were acting “in reasonable fear of their lives.” White conservatives who gather by the dozens and hundreds and then point loaded guns at federal authorities are described by the right-wing news entertainment media as “patriots.”
And of course to be “white” is to be unmarked by “race.” Therefore, there will be little mention of the fact that these right-wing traitors are white men. Moreover, the connections between the Christian White Identity Movement will also go uncommented upon by the mainstream corporate news media.
The latter’s coverage of the events in Oregon has followed this script very closely.
The New York Times described the events in Oregon as “Armed Group Vows to Occupy Office in Oregon for ‘Years’.”
ABC News reported on a “Peaceful protest followed by Oregon wildlife refuge action.”
Surprisingly, Fox News, while still quite literally whitewashing their headline, came the closest to the truth with their, “Armed militia occupying Oregon government building.”
It does not take an amazing act of creativity to envision how the same actions—and much less—if taken by blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, or First Nations peoples would likely be described by the American corporate news media.
If Muslims took up arms, occupied a federal building, recorded martyrdom videos, and threatened to kill police and other authorities, they would be called “terrorists.”
Likewise, black Americans would be called “thugs,” “militants” or “anti-police.”
The White gaze is wonderful at focusing its distorted view outward on the Other. It fails miserably in terms of introspection. As such, there will be no discussion of the “religion,” “culture” and “values” of the white men who are the Bundy brothers’ rabble when such questions are obligatory for people of color and Muslims.
The armed white insurrectionists in Oregon will couch their behavior in the rhetoric of how they are fighting “tyranny” while waving around a Constitution they likely have not fully read (armed resistance to the federal government is a violation of Article 1) . In essence, the Bundy brother’s rabble are political cosplayers: they fly Revolutionary War era Gadsden flags, brandish “freedom muskets” (also known as AR-15 assault rifles), wrap themselves in the empty Americana kitsch symbolism of cowboys and the frontier, and show their bravery by occupying an empty federal building on a remote wildlife game preserve.
True words!
White privilege has many components. One of its most powerful aspects is the ability to twist reality, and by doing so, free white folks from personal responsibility (as well as group accountability) for their actions. There are many examples of this phenomenon in the United States. White men who commit mass shootings are “mentally ill” and not “terrorists.” Heavily armed white cops who kill unarmed and defenseless black people were acting “in reasonable fear of their lives.” White conservatives who gather by the dozens and hundreds and then point loaded guns at federal authorities are described by the right-wing news entertainment media as “patriots.”
And of course to be “white” is to be unmarked by “race.” Therefore, there will be little mention of the fact that these right-wing traitors are white men. Moreover, the connections between the Christian White Identity Movement will also go uncommented upon by the mainstream corporate news media.
The latter’s coverage of the events in Oregon has followed this script very closely.
The New York Times described the events in Oregon as “Armed Group Vows to Occupy Office in Oregon for ‘Years’.”
ABC News reported on a “Peaceful protest followed by Oregon wildlife refuge action.”
Surprisingly, Fox News, while still quite literally whitewashing their headline, came the closest to the truth with their, “Armed militia occupying Oregon government building.”
It does not take an amazing act of creativity to envision how the same actions—and much less—if taken by blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, or First Nations peoples would likely be described by the American corporate news media.
If Muslims took up arms, occupied a federal building, recorded martyrdom videos, and threatened to kill police and other authorities, they would be called “terrorists.”
Likewise, black Americans would be called “thugs,” “militants” or “anti-police.”
The White gaze is wonderful at focusing its distorted view outward on the Other. It fails miserably in terms of introspection. As such, there will be no discussion of the “religion,” “culture” and “values” of the white men who are the Bundy brothers’ rabble when such questions are obligatory for people of color and Muslims.
The armed white insurrectionists in Oregon will couch their behavior in the rhetoric of how they are fighting “tyranny” while waving around a Constitution they likely have not fully read (armed resistance to the federal government is a violation of Article 1) . In essence, the Bundy brother’s rabble are political cosplayers: they fly Revolutionary War era Gadsden flags, brandish “freedom muskets” (also known as AR-15 assault rifles), wrap themselves in the empty Americana kitsch symbolism of cowboys and the frontier, and show their bravery by occupying an empty federal building on a remote wildlife game preserve.
