Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.
Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.
Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama…
In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?
To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.
And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.
—
*Title changed; see comments.
ETA: This post was originally made on facebook where it’s backed up by links. There are probably reasons to prefer this version to the one I linked. Either way, though, it’s an excellent essay.
It’s kind of bugging me that everyone is linking to some third-party blog where they just cut and pasted Tim Wise’s whole essay. They did give him credit, but people are responding there as if the blog hosts wrote the essay themselves, rather than Tim. He posted it as a note on Facebook, and I don’t know if one has to have a FB account to read it, in which case I guess finding a more accessible link makes sense (his blog on Red Room doesn’t seem to be working for me?) But if anyone can access the FB note, it would make sense to point links there rather than giving hits, and partial credit, to people who just did a copypasta.
(Sorry, it’s been getting on my nerves on FB for two days now, particularly after I went to the c/p blog entry and saw people congratulating the blog owners on “such a great piece.”)
Also, the original title for the essay is “Imagine: Protest, Insurgency and the Workings of White Privilege,” rather than “Imagine if the Tea Party was Black.” I think the difference is significant as the latter erases the focus on white privilege, which is the real point of Tim’s essay, not that black people would be treated differently if they did the stuff white radicals do, but that white radicals are given a free pass to act in outrageous and threatening ways. He’s putting privilege at the center of the conversation through a thought experiment.
(shutting up now)
I’ll change the title.
I don’t know about linking to facebook, though.
Yeah, I know it’s got issues.
Pity – the original also has masses of links which the copypasta does not (and yet plenty of FB commentators are also accusing TW of basically making stuff up, even though every example he gives is linked to coverage of the original event. I guess that’s another difference – the vitriol quotient on the FB post has increased over the past day, presumably as it’s gone from being passed around to people who agree with it, to people who disagree and are now circulating it to their like-minded friends as “OMG LOOK AT THIS GUY WHO IS RACIST AGAINST WHITES”.)
I linked to facebook in an ETA… thanks for posting to let me know about it. I don’t know why “hey, just link to both” didn’t occur to me immediately. Brain lag I guess.
I have been in large groups of mostly white protesters before that were vilified by the press. The police were present with full riot gear and a confrontational manner. No one was concerned about our constitutional right to challenge government policy. We were armed only with signs but were treated as if we were somehow “unpatriotic” and a threat to civil society. The FBI and other police agencies routinely tried to infiltrate our planning sessions and arrest our leadership on spurious charges. The protests I am referring to were anti-war, or anti-capitalist protests.
It is not the race and or ethnicity that brings down the heavy foot of the dominant power, it is challenging that status quo. Look at old clips of women’s struggle to get the vote. They were mostly white and wealthy women. They were not treated as if they were a legitimate group with legitimate grievances.
The Tea Party protests are portrayed as legit because it plays into the hands of the powerful, not because they are white. Not understanding this contributes to the ages old agenda of the wealthy class keeping the other classes fighting each other. Alas should not fall prey to this mime. The Tea Party people have had their righteous anger funneled by Fox News, Roger Ailes, the Republican Party, the organized christian church industry, the gun industry, and other corporate interests, in a way that serves the rich and the powerful. Thus they are tolerated and encouraged. Race is a red herring.
Farmgirl, nobody said that there aren’t large groups of white protesters that aren’t treated terribly. It seems like you’re missing the point of the article.
“Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic”…….”And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.”
Farmgirl–what makes you think that wouldn’t also apply to male privilege? Or class privilege?
Not sure if it’s mentioned above, but TW’s own blog is working now:
“Imagine: Protest, Insurgency and the Workings of White Privilege“
Mandolin-my point exactly. This is not about being white, it is about furthering the cause of the privileged. That is why it is tolerated and encouraged, not because white people are doing it.
So… what, the author shouldn’t analyze white supremacy? Do you think whiteness plays no role? Obviously it does. Just because poor people would be hammered on for being poor doesn’t mean black people aren’t hammered on for being black.
This sentiment — “Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic” — is an explicit acknowledgement of kyriarchy.
“This is not about being white” — yes, it is. It can be about other things, too, but it’s emphatically about being white.
“it is about furthering the cause of the privileged” — which is at least partially about whiteness.
There’s a peculiar tendency of ideologues to erase their own voices and those of their allies and then rail against the imaginary world they just constructed.
The only way you get to a world where these protesters are not considered an “angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob” is by erasing the presence of Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Keith Olbermann, and countless others who have called them precisely that and worse.
@farmgirl
I might agree with you if the Tea Party wasn’t using such violent language. I know that the police and politicians mistreat left-wing protestors, but the public reaction is usually one of dismissive annoyance.
Meanwhile, the reaction to the Tea Parties have been ranging from support to the same dismissive annoyance (though from differing groups).
I’m inclined to agree with the OP – if this were a black or Muslim protest group (or any group that is considered “scary”) behaving in the exact same manner, the reaction would be one of pants-shitting terror.
This is an example of the peculiar tendency to erase one’s own voice and those of allies that i referenced earlier. In what bizarre world are reactions to the teaparties ranging merely from support to dismissive annoyance? This world does not exist.
Is there not a huge amount of opinion far beyond “dismissive annoyance?.” Noam Chomsky opinion:
Sounds like he think we’re heading for fascism. does that sound like just dismissive annoyance? now, perhaps we’re justified in erasing far-leftists from the conversation like we do for the far-right, even if they have seats in major universities, so lets move toward the center.
Joe klein : ” “Let me be clear, dissent is not sedition, but questioning the administration’s legitimacy in a manner intended to undermine or overthrow it certainly is.”
Abe Foxman: “Acts like throwing bricks through the windows of Congressional offices, spitting on African-American elected officials, slinging of same racial slurs en rout to the Capitol – the same that Rep John Lewis was subjected to in 1965 in Selma, Alabama — and mailing anti-Semitic threats are not constitutionally protected, and require a strong legal response.”
I could go on. But suffice to say, when Bill Clinton references Tim McVeigh while discussing these people, Nancy Pelosi in near tears references the assassination of Harvey milk, and chris mathews the assassination of jfk (which is rather bizarre considering he as killed by a progressive) you have hugely powerful institutional forces in this country reacting precisely the way people here are complaining is not the reaction.: ie, “pants-shitting terror”
Hey, you’ve been asked not to be a jerk before, but you don’t seem to understand the concept, so you’re banned! Woo! Yay!
Also, of course, Communist ≠ progressive, as their many bitter fights through the earlier parts of the last century should tell you … but of course that didn’t stop you from using the word progressive, since your entire goal is to slime by association.
You can still do that. Go do it elsewhere.
—Myca
Oh, Manju
You came and you spewed rabid hate-speech
so we sent you away, oh Manju
your comments demand rapid brain-bleach
so we banned you today, oh Manju.
@ Mandolin,
LOL!
I still can’t access Tim White’s Red Room blog, sadly, and I’ve tried it in two browsers. :(
Just to pick out one paragraph:
I watched the video and I’m unimpressed. Those people were there to protest the health care bill. The congressmen chose to walk through them, which is of course their right. However, it’s my understanding that the Congressmen usually walk through a tunnel under the street. Is that the usual route? Did any other Congressmen walk through there that day? Or were these two Congressmen hoping to spark a confrontation? Mind you, I think it’s a fine thing that a couple of Congressmen would expose themselves to the citizens and hear what they had to say face to face, but let’s not make it sound like these men had been sought out. There was a demonstration and they chose to walk through it. Walk through a demonstration and you’re going to get yelled at. Big deal.
Hell, I’ve been at demos a lot more tense than this one. Spiro Agnew was in town to speak at a hotel in downtown Boston. The cops were linked arm-in-arm all across thousands of screaming demonstrators, who were pressing up against them a good 10-or-more-deep for blocks along the route. We WERE there for the main purpose of directly screaming at him, and if he’d have come within spitting distance he’s probably have gotten soaked. From what I can see on the video this was nothing like that.
As far as the spitting goes, if I was yelling “Kill the bill” as loud as I could and you walked a couple of feet in front of my mouth you’d probably not stay completely dry. But I didn’t see any deliberate attempt by the man who is being accused to aim or spit at anyone.
That’s true. If someone seeks you out, it’s okay to spit on them. Good point, Ron.
And yeah, I get that you had other points, but there’s no reason to bring up “why were they there if not to spark a confrontation” unless you’re blaming the person for what happens to them. It’s irrelevant why they were there; violence directed at them, yes, even in the form of spit, remains un-okay.
The point still stands: if that group were made up of black people, acting in exactly the same way, how would their actions be seen? The Congresspeople are nearly irrelevant to the issue.
Mandolin – I have to say that my reaction to this piece was very similar to farmgirl’s.
Partly this is because I have found the increase in material on supposed progressive places of a criticism of protest and dissent, of identifying with the powerful and the state, really disturbing.
I actually think a couple of different things are going on with the examples in that piece. In particular, I think conflating the reason that racist attacks are tolerated, with the reason that militant organising is tolerated (even celebrated) is simplistic.
Teaparty organising is supported because it upholds existing power structures, rather than challenging them. It is not the nature of the people involved – but the nature of their action. Obviously you can’t entirely seperate the two. But if some of the people involved in the teaparty were organising in their own actual self-interest – if they were union organising, for example, the reaction would be very different.
Fundamentally I think the language of priviledge, and the analysis that so often goes with it, is very shallow. Not useless, not unimportant – but the opposite of radical – analysing priviledge does not go to the root of the way society is organised and why, but looks at the newly fallen leaves.
Teaparty organising is supported because it upholds existing power structures, rather than challenging them.
Teaparty organizing is based around the idea of dismantling the welfare state. Since the existing power structure is the welfare state, your belief about the position of the tea party vis. the power structure appears to be directly opposite to reality.
RonF –
A tunnel exists between buildings on the Hill, but there is no accepted practice that I am aware of that Congresspeople ALWAYS or EXCLUSIVELY use the tunnels. In addition, the tunnels go from House/Senate office buildings to the Capitol, so if a Congressperson was coming from somewhere other than one of those buildings, it would be weird to use the tunnel rather than just walking on the sidewalk. Yes, the tunnels exist, so if the Congressmen had wanted affirmatively to AVOID the protesters presumably they could have, but they very well might have had to go out of their way to do so. I don’t think there’s ANY reason to think that in this case they went out of their way to confront the protesters, especially considering that from what I’ve heard they just walked by/through them, they didn’t engage them in any way. I think you’re seriously reaching to cast blame on the congressmen rather than the protesters, and that’s precisely what TW’s essay is about.
I thought of the union analogy as well. Historically when white, males (whom I certainly concede are a privileged group relative to women and people of color) have challenged the ultimate privileged group, the wealthy, these white male groups have been crushed and demonized. Union struggles are good examples, another is the Bonus Army protests in the 1930’s. when 43,000 or so WWI veterans and their families descended on DC to demand their Service Certificate pay. I have watched news coverage of this protest and you are hard pressed to find a black face. The reaction to these white males was far from “dismissive annoyance” I will quote from Wikopedia:
On July 28, U.S. Attorney General Mitchell ordered the veterans removed from all government property. Washington police met with resistance, shots were fired and two veterans were killed. President Hoover then ordered the army to clear out the veterans. The infantry and cavalry were supported by six tanks, and commanded by Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur. Major, later President, Dwight D. Eisenhower was his liaison with Washington police, and Major George Patton led the cavalry. The Bonus Army, their wives and children were driven out with fixed bayonets and adamsite gas, an arsenical vomiting agent, and their shelters and belongings burned. Two more of the veterans, and an unknown number of babies and children, died (accounts range from one to “a number” of casualties).
The Tea Party is nothing new. They are Nixon’s “silent majority”; pawns kept ignorant of what is really happening, used by the power structure as “useful idiots” to keep the world of the controllers in place. Don’t confuse this with sympathy for them, however it is important for those of us working for social change to see clearly what is going on.
The Tea Party Movement concerns itself with reducing the size and influence of the Federal government, especially as it affects individual Americans. They believe this to be the historical intent of the Constitution, and research into how and why it was written supports that. This is at direct odds with the current situation, where the Federal government intrudes on a great many aspects of our lives. The current power structures in the United States are tied in very closely to the Federal government. As Robert points out, a challenge to the Federal government opposes the current power structures, regardless of whether they are Democrats or Republicans.
Here is an example of principles espoused by participants in the Tea Party Movement. They are taken from a group calling itself “Tea Party Patriots”. The first one is the one espoused by the group itself:
The most powerful entity in America right now is not some aggregation of large corporations. It is not some group of financial institutions. The most powerful entities in America right now are the Federal government and the various State governments. If you want to challenge the power structure you don’t challenge corporations or financial institutions, you challenge the government. This is not to say that corporations and financial institutions don’t have faults and don’t operate against the public interests at times – of course they do. But the power structure is not headed by them, it’s headed by the Government. And from what I can see, the government is as a whole not operating in the long-term interests of this country and is acting with the fewest checks on it’s power of any other entity in America.
Emily, my point is that TW made this sound like a racially-based confrontation. That’s a lie – it was nothing of the sort. A group of people set up a protest on the Capitol steps just as thousands of groups have done before them. The Congressmen chose to walk through the protestors and got yelled at. Big surprise.
TW’s essay made it sound as if these protestors sought out and threatened black Congressmen on the basis of their race. They did nothing of the sort. As demonstrations go this looks pretty routine to me. The Tea Party folks set up a protest on the steps of the Capitol building just as thousands of groups have done before them. These particular black Congressmen chose to walk through them and got yelled at. Don’t you think that if Congressmen of any other color had walked through them they’d have gotten yelled at as well?
I realize that the phrase “playing the race card” has been grossly overused, but in this case it appears applicable. TW paints this as a racial incident, but it was nothing of the sort. Watch that video and tell me if you think that this was a protest based on race and whether those black Congressmen were treated any differently than white Congressmen would have been. And that me wonder if the rest of his racially-based perspective is similarly based.
In fact, I now do wonder why we don’t see any video of any white Congressmen walking through that crowd. If there were any you’d think that the difference in how they were treated would have buttressed TW’s case. Unless, of course, they weren’t treated any different and the people who are interested in painting the Tea Party Movement as being racially biased are hiding that fact. Or unless no other Congressmen walked through the group, which would support (but not prove) the proposition that those two Congressmen acted in a unique fashion and sought a confrontation to exploit.
I agree and disagree.
It’s certainly true that race isn’t invisible, as we all know.
But it’s also true that some of the claims the author seems to be making simply aren’t supported. There are very large protests by POC which are “allowed” by the government; the issue of illegal immigration is a good example, as was the civil rights movement. And there are, as has been noted, plenty of white people who have been targeted.
He’s also using a dishonest rhetorical tactic: First he’s suggesting we accept conservatives as normal when there are a variety of people FAR from the ultra-liberal sphere who do no such thing. Then he’s trying to demonstrate that people in general don’t believe “dark, dangerous” folks are American by quoting Rush, as if the fact that one of the most notorious ultraconservatives thinks such a thing means it’s true or even widely accepted.
That said, I think the general thrust of the article it’s a valuable tactic. It’s always good to try out different situations as a form of analysis. Then again, I’ve never agreed with the reasoning behind the “it is not appropriate to switch races in a hypothetical” line which I have heard here a few times; perhaps there will be more acceptance of that in general, now?
Re the objections of Farmgirl et al, doesn’t Tim Wise address this in his closing paragraphs:
“Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.”
He uses POC as his main “Othered” group during the thought experiment, but clearly we’re meant to extrapolate from there to all the other non-hegemonic groups.
Or so I read the essay.
“I realize that the phrase “playing the race card” has been grossly overused, but in this case it appears applicable.”
RonF–out.
Robert–I assume you just forgot it was my thread, no big deal, but please don’t comment in it again.
Probably not.
The general consensus among people I talked to about it was that this was a well-thought-out switch that was well-executed and relevant. Any others that meet those criteria will probably be fine, but that doesn’t mean “more acceptance” since they’re the same criteria we were using all along.
Delagar – But in that section he is combining two things – who people were and what they were protesting. In the piece as a whole, he appears to be arguing that it is who people are that is most important.
Of course both are important. But I would argue that while who people are certainly affects how protests get treated (by police and the media), that is less important than what people are protesting about. Whereas Tim Wise doesn’t even explicitly acknowledge the importance of what people are protesting about to the effect that they have.
One of the (many) problems I have with the way people use analysis of priviledge is that it leaves a silence on the sort of world they are imagining. After reading this I have no idea what Tim Wise’s position on dissent is. Is his
Does he think the problem is that black people are treated as threatening when they protest or that white people are not? Because I support the right of people to organise, even with guns (bla-bla-bla it’s often bad tactics bla-bla-bla). I also think that anyone who wastes energy worrying about an elected official being spat at is aligning themselves with those who have power, rather than those who don’t.
Tim Wise strongly implies that he is advocating for teapartiers to face more consequences, not others who dissent to face less:
And that’s where we part ways. In particular, I see that as a big central difference, not a little insignificant one.
I agree with Maia; the only thing that differentiates these “ordinary, common Americans standing up for their rights:” (per Rush Limbaugh) from other the predominately white working class protests that I have referenced (Bonus Army, anti-war, union struggles etc) is what they are protesting, not who they are. Rush’s statement is willful ignorance. I am sure he is as aware as I am of the history of protest in this country.
RonF states: “The most powerful entity in America right now is not some aggregation of large corporations. It is not some group of financial institutions. The most powerful entities in America right now are the Federal government and the various State governments. If you want to challenge the power structure you don’t challenge corporations or financial institutions, you challenge the government.” This is a ridiculous assertion. The government at every level has been co opted by the big money that the financial institution s and the corporations have rigged the system to accumulate. A brief look at the support of Rush, Fox News, Roger Ailes, and other big money in the so called “conservative” movement for the Tea Party people will give you a clue as to who hopes to benefit from the tea party rage. Corporations and the financial wizards are afraid the people will demand government do their job and crack down on their pillage of the economy. The Tea Party movement is an attempt to direct that anger down a hole and keep the party going for the rich.
If Wise had ever said that no protests at all by non-whites are “allowed,” then you’d have a point. Of course, he said no such thing. (The word “allowed” isn’t even in his essay, which makes it odd that you put it in quote marks.)
The civil rights movement was an extremely polite movement; they were highly disciplined and never armed. They bent over backwards to be as nonthreatening (physically) as they could possibly be. The current immigration protests are not armed, and aren’t one-tenth as confrontational as the tea partiers. They don’t corner congressmen to yell at them, and they don’t go to town hall meetings and yell congresspeople down.
This isn’t because these groups aren’t as passionate and angry as the tea partiers (and with a great deal more justification). It’s because a long history, extending to the current day, of being taken as threats and attacked by police has taught Blacks and Latin@s that such behavior would be physically dangerous for them to engage in.
(The Black Panthers did use arms in their demonstrations — but I doubt they felt safe doing it.)
“what they are protesting, not who they are. ”
Are you arguing that the government (police) and media do not treat individuals differently on the basis of race, class, and gender? Are all actions seen as the same no matter who undertakes them, or are you carving out a special exception for protests? Do you think rich white and poor black individuals found using, for instance, illegal drugs, are generally given the same treatment? How about black people when they’re being tried for murder? Are they equally likely to be given the death penalty as white people in your world?
Or do you acknowledge that racism, classism, sexism, and so on, exist? And if you do, then what is your theory underpinning how they magically cease to operate when it comes to dissent?
Exactly what I was going to say, Mandolin.
I mean, yes the Kyriarchy exists, and yes, it’s not ‘all one thing’ or ‘all another,’ but still … I think that the way the populace, the government, the police, etc., would respond to “well armed group of white people in the streets” as opposed to “well armed group of black people in the streets,” absent any further information is worlds apart.
And I think that’s his point.
White people (and yes, especially conservative white people) have the luxury to be really aggressive in asserting their rights in a way that black people do not.
—Myca
@Farmgirl and Maia:
I think we are mostly on the same page, but I would offer one counterpoint to what you’re both saying about the “who are protesting” vs. the “what they are protesting”. In the case of the Civil Rights Movement, in the case of the protests against the Arizona apartheid bill, WHO is protesting directly corresponds to WHAT. Both situations involved protest against racial discrimination and subjugation, things that affect them (or others) based on WHO they are. You can’t separate the two.
While it is true that the “WHAT” has often been a reason for protests to be disrupted, people to be arrested, Tim Wise is not arguing against that point. He is not comparing the union or veterans’ protests to the CRM or even the Tea Party. Just because his argument does not consider the suppression of white protests does not undermine his point about how people of color acting in the manner of the Tea Party would not be treated as leniently.
I also do not think he is arguing, at all, for the denial of Tea Party’s rights to organize, but rather pointing out how the mainstream American view of such a group would be different if they were people of color. And there is no doubt about that, because chances are that what they’d be protesting would be related to who they were as people.
Capitalism and inequality – especially racism – are inexorably intertwined. Capitalism in the U.S. was BUILT upon a racist foundation – verily, on the very backs of enslaved Africans, the cheap labor of Chinese immigrants, the extermination and/or marginalization of Native Americans.
The “who” and the “what” of protest often cannot be separated.
Signed.
And this goes for the tea partiers, too–they are both who and what.
Mandolin, Myca and Godheval I explicitly said that I thought that the who was important. My problem with Tim Wise’s is that he doesn’t acknowledge the importance of the what at all.
Obviously when people are orgnaising for their liberation that’s going to be about both a ‘who’ and a ‘what’ (although Kent state is an obvious example where the ‘who’ and the ‘what’ were further apart and the state came down hard). What’s different here is that tea-partiers aren’t organising for their liberation, and therefore they’re not threatening anyone. However, I stand by my analysis that if some members of the teaparties organised into unions they’d be treated very differently (and the reason that at least some of them don’t organise into unions is an ideological reason not a positional one). Indeed if they just went to an anti-war demo (lets imagine a middle of the night conversion for an entire town) – chances are they’d be treated very differently.
The reality is that I think that a non-liberating women’s movement would be treated incredibly different from the women’s liberation movement – that’s a what and not a who. What would a non-liberating black movement be treated like? Different from the tea-parties? For sure. Different from the Panthers or the civil rights movement? Also for sure.
I don’t think I quite articulated what I objected to most in the article. It was this section:
Protesting has never been seen as prototypically American – it has always been ignored and supressed. The people who have engaged in protest have always been mistreated by those in power. To suggest otherwise is to continue to collaborate with those who have rendered invisible all the movements that some have been trying so hard to document. He handwaves towards the end an incredibly limited vision of what dissent in America looks like, but his tunnel vision just makes things worse.
(although now I re-read it he also appears to be arguing for an expansion of ‘American-ness’ rather than seeing it as part of the problem. That’s even more disturbing).
Just so you know Amp the ‘never armed’ part isn’t true. Firearms were held in some movement houses as a form of deterrent self-defence. I think, although I can’t remember the story for sure, there was at least one example off the firearms being fired on harassersI read an article on this a long time ago, but I can probably find it if your’e interested.
Maia — Thanks for pointing that out. I meant they didn’t come to the protests armed.
(Although of course the Black Panthers did.)
@Maia:
Tim Wise’s whole point in his post is that people of color doing the exact same thing as the tea partiers are doing today would be treated differently. That’s it.
Him not mentioning the “what” is irrelevant. Nowhere does he argue that “protests are only EVER suppressed depending upon who participates”.
As for your primary objection, I’m going to have to disagree with you again. Protest IS seen as very American – starting with the movement in Boston, 18th century, from which the Tea Party takes its name. Ignored? That depends on the “market value” of its publicity to the media, i.e. their bottom line, which of course is related to the who and the what. What KIND of publicity a protest gets also depends on this.
The tea party is mostly presented as a bunch of ignorant yokels who are vocal with their racism. But beyond that, they do not seem to be seen as a physical threat, in SPITE of the fact that they carry guns and hold signs that are threatening. Wise’s point is that were they people of color, the media and the government’s reaction would be different. It is almost certainly a fact that were they black or Middle Eastern, that the reaction would be especially different.
How is that incorrect? How does that preclude the “what” of any protest throughout history? It does not. Wise, in the paragraph you particularly object to, is speaking to how white people are regarded as the default (prototypical he says) American, and therefore so are their protests. A protest waged for the same reasons (same “what”) by people of color (different “who”) would be seen as hostile to American interests and “unpatriotic”, much as Michele Obama’s comment that “For the first time I am truly proud of my country” was harped on for weeks.
The Tea Party’s protests, while portrayed as vile and sometimes racist, are never seen as unpatriotic. Quite the contrary. In spite of the fact that they hold signs and make statements suggesting that they should kill the President.
Yet, some of the people protesting Arizona SB1070 were arrested for conducting sit-ins.
Honestly I don’t understand your objection to the post at all. You seem like many white progressives who are all for the cause until racism gets mentioned, then you want to deflect the discussion to other matters.
“Oh why is he focusing so much on race? There have been so many other protests that have been suppressed or ignored that involved white people, too!”
Yeah? Who gives a shit? That’s not the point here. The point is specifically how color would change the perception of the tea party. The focus on race does not preclude other issues, but it is something that warrants specific and protracted attention – and Wise is one of the few people really talking about it.
Ah, I failed to connect two things in my last comment. My point about media “marketability” and how a POC tea party would be treated differently.
Because we live in a racist, fearful country, the MSM presenting a POC Tea party as threatening and unpatriotic would warrant a lot more attention than any reality of that protest. The public would not be interested in POCs mobilizing for righteous causes – the focus would be on what kind of threat it presents, because that’s good television/radio/print.
But it is only good insofar as the public is open to the idea of POCs as the enemy, as a threat.
The media response, mind you, is a separate thing from the government response – although both would be reactions to the thought of POCs as the enemy.
Godheval – I think you don’t understand my objections because you don’t understand where I’m coming from. It’s not what he says about race that I disagree with (which is obvious 101 stuff and anyone who has had any interaction with the police, the prison/(in)justice system or the media will not be suprirsed). It’s his ideas about protest.
Yes, if tea-parties were majority black they’d be treated differently. Uh-huh – racism exists. That doesn’t mean that every point someone makes in trying to explain this is valid.
Tim Wise wrote a piece that hand-waved away the history of dissent in the US, and was ambivilant about whether or not dissent was a good thing. I’m going to object to that.
You said that the what is irrelvant to what he was saying – but if it’s irrelevant why does he change the ‘what’ of his hypothetical protesters? It is not relevant to the specific point (black people protesting in the same way would be treated much more harshly). But it is relevant to the wider point he tries to make at the end – about the nature of dissent and America and it is that wider point that I’m objecting to.
I’m sorry we’re really talking about cross-purposes here. You seem to be taking a really short term view of protest – when I said ignored I didn’t primarily mean by media outlets, but by the stories Americans tell about themselves. The reality of America’s history of dissent has been so suppressed that when someone wrote a book about it it was treated as revelatory and sold a ka-gillion copies and has never been out of print. If you’re going to argue otherwise that sometimes dissent is treated as something American, you’re going to have to point to something more recent than the Boston Tea-party.
One more thing – if you’re going to put something in quotes make it something someone has actually said.
Amp – Right – I guess I just automatically think of the civil rights movment as being much, much, larger than protests, and encompassed organising in many different ways. So the freedom houses were as much a part of the movement as the demos.
Sailorman – it was only when I was re-reading Amp’s comment that I saw yours. You think the civil rights movement was ‘allowed’? Do you know anything at all about that movement? Do you have any idea how much violence people faced and how many arrests? That is one of the single most ridiculous things I have ever heard.
Where does he show this ambivalence, or even imply that dissent in itself could be bad?
Which Americans are you referring to? What stories? This is pretty vague.
Other more recent protests: Seattle WTO, Cindy Sheehan, any of countless gay rights protests. They happen ALL the time for various reasons. Which book are you talking about? And who, if not the media or the government, is suppressing this history of dissent? The average American? Who are these people? Same question as above.
Nah, that’s what the blockquotes are for. I wasn’t implying YOU actually said that quoted statement – it’s a generic sentiment that I associate with white liberals and progressives who fear/loathe discussions of race. And I said that you seem to be arguing from that position.
My words:
I could be wrong, but the dismissive tone of:
and:
…suggest otherwise.
Godheval,
While it may seem to you like Maia is that sort of liberal, and I can understand how her comments in this thread could be read in this way, if you read some of her previous posts on Alas, I think you will discover that she isn’t.
As a New Zealander, Maia is much more grounded in anti-colonialism than she is in American white racism, but she is comfortable talking about American anti-black racism as well.
e.g. Terra Nullis
or Haka
or Threee Things
oh, and even if Maia were that sort, she wouldn’t be any sort of liberal.
Maia is a radical.
A dangerous distraction
Obama or his preacher
Where I’ve been
or, on a really geeky front: Not cylon or human
@Charles: Yeah I tend to forget that there are other people in the world besides USians. I’m also fresh out of an argument with “those kinds” of liberals, and so I was even more ripe for such a perception of Maia.
After reading the links you posted I can see that my interpretation may have been the wrong one. Damn, it’s such a relief to even have someone else know what I’m talking about enough to clear this up.
@Maia: So, you being a non-USian, perhaps you’re unaware of how cripplingly ignorant my countrymen are in matters of race and racism. So the comment “obvious 101 stuff” struck me as dismissive, when in fact maybe it IS 101 stuff to YOU, just not to these idiots with whom I share borders.
Charles S – thanks – Writing that Cylon piece was so much fun. I should write radical manifestos for the characters in more TV shows.
I agree that I probably haven’t done a very good job of articulating the why behind my views in this thread. I sometimes feel trapped in a liberal/individualist discourse donut where what I’m trying to say can’t make any sense against what is being said.
But this was a difficult one to practice on, because a lot of what I was reacting to was subterranean in the article (like Tim Wise’s dismissal of protest – you asked me – but I already provided that information up thread).
Godheval – I think you have often understood exactly the opposite of what I was trying to say several times. For example, I was asking for examples where protest was taken as ‘American’ in the way the tea-parties are. I am well aware there’s lots of protests in America. In the examples you give there were all people arguing that they were unamerican (and obviously not protest in hundreds of years is good enough for Rush Limbagh. I think Tim Wise is wrong about why Rush Limbagh erased so many years of protest. I think he took the claim that America is about protest at face value and therefore contributed to that erasing.
I have more to say but I’m totally exhausted. I may try and write an expansion tomorrow.
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