White America’s Waco insanity: The shocking realities it ignores about racism & violence

Salon ^ | May 20, 2015 | Brittney Cooper, teaches Women's and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Malcolm X, the famed Civil Rights leader and minister of the Nation of Islam, would have turned 90 years old this week. While America annually marks the significance of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., it is only in Black communities nationally, and locally in Harlem, that we mark and celebrate the birth of King’s most formidable racial adversary. Undoubtedly this has something to do with the very forthright and unflinching manner in which Malcolm X talked about race in the 1960s. El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, as Malcolm X was otherwise known, did not have any hope that white people could or would change when it came to race. Although King was far less optimistic at the end of his life about the capacity of white people to change, too, he still has the March on Washington speech, which represented the zenith of his racial optimism.

Malcolm X was different. His unflinching honesty about the evils of white racism made even King, formidable orator that he was, scared to debate Malcolm in public. Though he eventually toned down his rhetoric about the people that he was known to refer to as “white devils,” he never backed down from holding white people accountable for their investment in and perpetuation of white supremacy. For instance, in a 1963 public conversation and debate with James Baldwin, Malcolm X told him, “Never do you find white people encouraging other whites to be nonviolent. Whites idolize fighters. …At the same time that they admire these fighters, they encourage the so called ‘Negro’ in America to get his desires fulfilled with a sit in stroke, or a passive approach, or a love your enemy approach or pray for those who despitefully use you. This is insane.”

And indeed we did get a front row seat to such insanity this week, when three biker gangs in Texas, had a shootout in a parking lot that left nine people dead and 18 people injured. More than 165 people have been arrested for their participation in this thuggish, ruggish, deadly, violent, white-on-white street brawl but there has been no mass outcry from the country about this. Though these motorcycle gangs were already under surveillance because of known participation in consistent and organized criminal activity, as Darnell Moore notes at Mic, “the police didn’t don riot gear.” Moore further notes that “leather and rock music weren’t blamed,” and there hasn’t been any “hand-wringing over the problem of white-on-white crime.”

White people, even well-meaning and thoughtful ones, have the privilege of looking at deadly acts of mass violence of this sort as isolated local incidents, particular to one community. They do not look at such incidents as indicative of anything having to do with race or racism. But everything from the difference in law enforcement response to media response tells us what we need to know about how white privilege allows acts of violence by white people to be judged by entirely different standards than those of any other group. If a Black motorcycle gang had engaged in a shootout in a parking lot, any honest white person will admit that the conversation would have sounded incredibly different.

Frequently in conversations that I have observed or participated in with white people about race, the claim is levied that it is Black people “who make everything about race.” But this incident in Waco gives lie to that claim. It turns out that when white privilege is in clear operation, white people are invested in making sure that we don’t see race in operation. Charles Mills, a philosopher of race, has a term which I think applies here: epistemology of white ignorance. By this means, he means that white people have created a whole way of knowing the world that both demands and allows that they remain oblivious to the operations of white supremacy, that white people remain “intent on denying what is before them.” Thus even though three gangs have now attacked each other in broad daylight and killed or injured 27 people, there is no nagging, gnawing sense of fear, no social anxiety about what the world is coming to, no anger at the thugs who made it unsafe for American families to go about their regular daily activities without fear of being clipped by a stray bullet, no posturing from law enforcement about the necessity of using military weapons to put down the lawless band of criminals that turned a parking lot into a war zone in broad daylight. More than that, there is no sense of white shame, no hanging of the head over the members of their race that have been out in the world representing everything that is wrong with America.

That kind of intra-racial shame is reserved primarily for Black people.

Most white citizens will insist that this was just an isolated incident, even though the gangs were already under surveillance for consistent participation in criminal activity. And this studied ignorance, this sense in which people could look at this set of incidents and simply refuse to see all the ways in which white privilege is at play — namely that no worse than arrest befell any the men who showed up hours later with weapons, looking for a fight — returns me to the words of Malcolm X. For many Americans, this is just good ole American fun, sort of like playing Cowboys-and-Indians in real life. As Malcolm reminded us, “whites idolize fighters.” So while I’m sure many Americans are appalled at the senseless loss of life, there is also the sense that this is just “those wild Texans” doing the kind of thing they do.

White Americans might also deny the attempt to “lump them in” with this unsavory element. But the point is that being seen as an individual is a privilege. Not having to interrogate the ways in which white violence is always viewed as exceptional rather than regular and quotidian is white privilege. White people can distance themselves from their violent racial counterparts because there is no sense that what these “bikers” did down in Texas is related to anything racial. White Americans routinely ask Black Americans to chastise the “lower” elements of our race, while refusing to do the same in instances like this. Yes, white people will denounce these crimes, but they won’t shake a finger at these bikers for making the race look bad. It won’t even occur to them why Black people would view such incidents as racialized.

Such analyses are patently unacceptable. And they are possible because white bodies, even those engaged in horrendously violent and reckless acts, are not viewed as “criminal.” Yes, some police officers referred to the acts of these killers in Waco as criminal acts and them as criminals, but in popular discourse, these men have not been criminalized. Criminalization is a process that exists separate and apart from the acts one has committed. It’s why street protestors in Baltimore are referred to as violent thugs for burning buildings, but murderers in Waco get called “bikers.” And if thug is the new n-word (and I’m not sure that’s precise), then “biker” is the new “honky” or “cracker,” which is to say that while the term is used derisively and can communicate distaste, it does not have the devastating social effects or demand the same level of state engagement to suppress such “biker-ish” activity as we demand to suppress the activities of alleged “thugs” and “criminals.”

How we talk about and understand the problem of violence is actually critical to our ability to make any progress on solving the problem of racism in this country. We have turned the word “criminal” into a social category that acts a site of cultural refuse, where we can toss all of our anger, hatred, and resentment, on a group of people, disproportionately people of color, for abhorrent acts that they commit against us and the state. We get to view them as less than human and treat them as such, while acting as though our indignation is pure, righteous, and without hypocrisy. None of this is true.

With white citizens, officers feel it is their duty to protect the unsafe and de-escalate the situation. With Black citizens, officers, acting out of their own fear, escalate conflicts, antagonize citizens, and move swiftly to the use of tanks, tear gas, and billy clubs to subdue, even lawful and peaceful protests. What Malcolm X pointed to, and what we would do well to recapture on this week, as we, if we are brave enough, choose to remember his life, is that there is something fundamentally dishonest about a society that revels in the violence of one group while demanding non-violent compliance from another. That kind of thinking is unjust, unfair, and unproductive. And for those of us who are not white, white ignorance on these matters is not bliss.

[jonrick46]

The common activity that links black thug gangs and biker thug gangs is the elephant in the room. That elephant is the illegal drug industry. This blowout in Waco was the result of a drug turf war pure and simple. It is America's illegal drug problem that is the elephant that needs to be rendered extinct. Otherwise America, as we know it, may render itself extinct as the lawlessness gets used by the Socialist-Marxists for their own political agenda.

For those who say prohibition does not work, they are using a big RED HERRING. You can take down the illegal drug industry using technology and common market forces as a comprehensive strategy.

My solution (fasten your seatbelts):

For the user, there should be no legal consequences whatsoever. They can eat, snort, shoot up, smoke whatever and whenever they want. If they get whacked-up mentally, it is their consequence. If they lose their job or die on the highway, they suffer the consequence. It is like paying a fine or being locked up at tax payer expense. The word should get out into the culture that there is a cliff you and your loved ones will fall down if you step over the rail. If it ruins a family, tough cookies! You stepped over the rail. The consequence is the enforcement system.

How does the culture protect itself against the collateral damage nightmare of drug use? User drug test kits. Mom will take a urine sample from dad and the kids and test it right there over the kitchen sink. The technology is out there.

Home test from Walmart, $19.97.

The drug users know where to get their drugs. I would have narcotics undercover find out from the users where they get their drugs. Then, I would study the entire supply network right back to the drug lab using the most advanced technology. Satellite technology? Yep! Drone surveillance? Yep! Cell phone surveillance? Everything down to the wireless bugs in the drug lab. The object is to wipe out the supply. Using today's technology, which did not exist from 1920 to 1933, we could dry up the supply like a famine in East Africa.

What would famine conditions in the supply cause? Using simple supply-demand economics, the price would shoot up to the moon! How would the users eat, snort, shoot up, smoke whatever and whenever they want then? Simple supply-demand economics armed with technology would win the drug war.

And, the corrupt city leaders (the legal drug lords) would no longer be lining their pockets to perpetuate the illegal drug industry.

[vpintheak]

There is no mass outcry because the bikers are criminal, thug gangs, and probably many of them got what was coming when you live that kind of life, and most people recognize that fact.

[MrB]

In Baltimore, the rioters were treated like tantruming children.
In Waco, the criminal bikers were treated like... criminals.

[Jack Black]

500 blacks run wild in Baltimore for weeks, burn down local businesses, attack police, arson cars and the police stand by and watch.

50 white bikers get into a fistfight in a bar, take it to the parking lot, and the local SWAT team opens up on them, killing 9.

And this points to white racism how? Blacks get away with stuff white people could only dream about, routinely.

[Sooth2222]

She obviously hasn't looked at the mugshots. The biker gangs are more racially, ethnically and culturally diverse than the Democrat congressional caucus. (Or the Baltimore rioters.)

[kingu]

I’m sorry, did I miss the article on Salon about the black on black murders in Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland...? Oh, right, forgot this was just a race baiting screed.

[Oliviaforever]

"This moron does realize that the Bandidos are a primarily Mexican MC, right? Of course he does. But apparently “Mexican” counts as “white” when necessary to serve the race-baiting narrative. Gee, it is almost like we have seen that before somewhere..."

Are the Cossacks primarily Mexican?

What ever the case, besides their Secret Handshake, they must have a Club House Rule that no one smile in their mugshot, especially when looking at a million dollar bond.

[Cowboy Bob]

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, as Malcolm X was otherwise known, did not have any hope that white people could or would change when it came to race. Although King was far less optimistic at the end of his life about the capacity of white people to change, too,

Why do White people have to change? It ain't just a one-way street.

[Steely Tom]

Third row, sixth rocket-scientist from the left might be sorta trying to smile.

[dowcaet]

Definitely an all “white” lineup. I guess a couple of “white” Hispanics must have snuck in to that fight.

[clintonh8r]

She probably wishes the cops had killed nine blacks so she could get her outrage on......

[<1/1,000,000th%]

She’s racist.

[TigersEye]

More than 165 people have been arrested for their participation in this thuggish, ruggish, deadly, violent, white-on-white street brawl but there has been no mass outcry from the country about this.

White people were promptly arrested for criminal acts and no white people are outraged about it.

I can see why that would be confusing to a woman who teaches Africana Studies at Rutgers.

[ifinnegan]

He left them. He disavowed them and became a real Muslim.

I don’t know specifics of his rift with NOI.

[MrB]

What gets me is the inherent denial of the ACTUAL difference in criminality rates.

[piytar]

“Are the Cossacks primarily Mexican”?

Nope, they are primarily white but are actually fairly integrated (in race terms) with Hispanic and black members. /irony

[TigersEye]

Just because “Studies” is a part of her job title don’t get the idea that Brittney does any actual studying.

[CSM]

Well, when the biker gang culture is bragging about being 1%ers, then I’d say that makes them an anomoly to the normal culture. Compare that to the 99%er culture in the urban areas, and there is a very large gap.

“White America” doesn’t need to cry out against the 1%er culture, when the police force took actions that seems to have addressed the folks that were causing the problem.

[truth_seeker]

“But everything from the difference in law enforcement response to media response tells us what we need to know about how white privilege allows acts of violence by white people to be judged by entirely different standards than those of any other group. “

In statistical terms, white crime is so much less common.

Department of Justice files and reports, continually show that blacks in America commit murder, more than seven times more frequently. Most are black on black.

Black on white is far more common, than white on black.

Black crime deserves the attention that it gets, in spite of Obama’s lame duck efforts to call the police off his brothers.

[The Toll]

“If a Black motorcycle gang had engaged in a shootout in a parking lot” . . . . it would be called Tuesday.