{"id":54825,"date":"2013-04-17T12:00:42","date_gmt":"2013-04-17T17:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=54825"},"modified":"2013-10-31T04:19:27","modified_gmt":"2013-10-31T09:19:27","slug":"terrorism-and-privilege-understanding-the-power-of-whiteness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/04\/17\/terrorism-and-privilege-understanding-the-power-of-whiteness\/","title":{"rendered":"Terrorism and Privilege: Understanding the Power of Whiteness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at\u00a0Tim Wise\u2019s website<\/a>\u00a0and Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

As the nation weeps for the victims of the horrific bombing in Boston yesterday, one searches for lessons amid the carnage, and finds few. That violence is unacceptable stands out as one, sure. That hatred \u2014 for humanity, for life, or whatever else might have animated the bomber or bombers \u2014 is never the source of constructive human action seems like a reasonably close second.<\/p>\n

But I dare say there is more; a much less obvious and far more uncomfortable lesson, which many are loathe to learn, but which an event such as this makes readily apparent, and which we must acknowledge, no matter how painful.<\/p>\n

It is a lesson about race, about whiteness, and specifically, about white privilege.<\/p>\n

I know you don\u2019t want to hear it. But I don\u2019t much care. So here goes.<\/p>\n

White privilege is knowing that even if the Boston Marathon bomber turns out to be white, his or her identity will not result in persons like yourself being singled out for suspicion by law enforcement, or the TSA, or the FBI.<\/p>\n

White privilege is knowing that even if the bomber turns out to be white, no one will call for your group to be profiled as terrorists as a result, subjected to special screening, or threatened with deportation.<\/p>\n

White privilege is knowing that if the bomber turns out to be white, he or she will be viewed as an exception to an otherwise non-white rule, an aberration, an anomaly, and that he or she will be able to join the ranks of\u00a0Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Ted Kaczynski<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Eric Rudolph<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Joe Stack<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0George Metesky<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Byron De La Beckwith<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Bobby Frank Cherry and Thomas Blanton and Herman Frank Cash and Robert Chambliss<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0James von Brunn<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Robert Mathews<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0David_Lane<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Michael F. Griffin<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Paul Hill<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0John Salvi<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0James Kopp<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Luke Helder<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0James David Adkisson<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Scott Roeder<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Shelley Shannon<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Wade Michael Page<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Byron Williams<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Kevin Harpham<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0William Krar and Judith Bruey and Edward Feltus<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Raymond Kirk Dillard and Adam Lynn Cunningham and Bonnell Hughes and Randall Garrett Cole and James Ray McElroy<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Michael Gorbey<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Frederick Thomas<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Paul Ross Evans<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Matt Goldsby and Jimmy Simmons and Kathy Simmons and Kaye Wiggins<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Patricia Hughes and Jeremy Dunahoe<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0David McMenemy<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Bobby Joe Rogers<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Francis Grady<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Demetrius Van Crocker<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Floyd Raymond Looker<\/a>, among the pantheon of white people who engage in politically motivated violence meant to terrorize and kill, but whose actions result in the assumption of absolutely\u00a0nothing<\/em>\u00a0about white people generally, or white Christians in particular.<\/p>\n

And white privilege is being able to know nothing about the crimes committed by most of the terrorists listed above \u2014 indeed, never to have so much as heard most of their names \u2014 let alone to make assumptions about the role that their racial or ethnic identity may have played in their crimes.<\/p>\n

White privilege is knowing that if the Boston bomber turns out to be white, you will not be asked to denounce him or her, so as to prove your own loyalties to the common national good. It is knowing that the next time a cop sees you standing on the sidewalk cheering on runners in a marathon, that cop will say exactly\u00a0nothing<\/em>\u00a0to you as a result.<\/p>\n

White privilege is knowing that if you are a student from Nebraska \u2014 as opposed to, say, a student from Saudi Arabia \u2014 that no one, and I mean\u00a0no one<\/em>\u00a0would think it important to detain and question you in the wake of a bombing such as the one at the Boston Marathon.<\/p>\n

And white privilege is knowing that if this bomber turns out to be white, the United States government will not bomb whatever corn field or mountain town or stale suburb from which said bomber came, just to ensure that others like him or her don\u2019t get any ideas. And if he turns out to be a member of the Irish Republican Army we won\u2019t bomb Dublin. And if he\u2019s an Italian American Catholic we won\u2019t bomb the Vatican.<\/p>\n

In short, white privilege is the thing that allows you \u2014 and me \u2014 to view tragic events like this as merely horrific, and from the perspective of pure and innocent victims, rather than having to wonder, and to look over one\u2019s shoulder, and to ask even if only in hushed tones, whether those we pass on the street might think that somehow we were involved.<\/p>\n

It is the source of our unearned innocence and the cause of others\u2019 unjustified oppression.<\/p>\n

That is all. And it matters.<\/p>\n

Tim Wise<\/a>\u00a0is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and educators in the United States. \u00a0The author of\u00a0six books<\/a>\u00a0on race in America, he has\u00a0spoken<\/a>\u00a0on over 800 college and high school campuses and to community groups across the nation. \u00a0His new book,\u00a0<\/em>The Culture of Cruelty, will be released in the Fall of 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cross-posted at\u00a0Tim Wise\u2019s website\u00a0and Pacific Standard. As the nation weeps for the victims of the horrific bombing in Boston yesterday, one searches for lessons amid the carnage, and finds few. That violence is unacceptable stands out as one, sure. That hatred \u2014 for humanity, for life, or whatever else might have animated the bomber or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2056,283,285,20063,1757,133],"class_list":["post-54825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crimelaw","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-prejudicediscrimination","tag-raceethnicity-whiteseuropeans","tag-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54825"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58029,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54825\/revisions\/58029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}