The Chris Moeller Archives

The white privilege of armed rebellion

White people have had enough. They're rallying around police, denying that racism is deeply-embedded in American law enforcement, despite the daily stories we now hear-- and even see- thanks to the explosion of social media. For most whites, the form of reactionary protest is internet memes, but for others, it's armed rebellion against the United States.

The Oath Keepers have been in the news a lot this year, rushing to the side of the powerful against the powerless, claiming that their initiative is the opposite but clearly illustrating for the rest of us the two alternating standards of justice in America that exist for whites and blacks. In Ferguson, Missouri, unarmed peaceful protesters, overwhelmingly African-American, had already been met by militarized local "warrior cops" dressed for an afternoon drive through Mosul. When the militia men of the Oath Keepers showed up, ostensibly to "protect Ferguson businesses," wearing battle fatigues, carrying .50-caliber Bushmaster, and planting themselves as snipers on area rooftops, they were welcomed by the murderous local police as the reinforcement they intended to be. Their presence became another effective weapon against peaceful protest. Being white in America is still a pretty sweet deal.

Since denying the right to peaceful petition of the government leads to inevitable violence, the Oath Keepers were offering nothing of value to the scene in Ferguson. The group now claims they will be offering protection to Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis. Leaders of the organization say they are shielding her from an oppressive federal government because a judge has jailed her for contempt of court for failing to end her personal and public discriminatory practice against issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Davis is a authoritarian government official making in excess of $80,000 a year choosing to deny the court-protected rights of the citizenry in a county that has a median household income of less than $20,000. The Oath Keepers are coming to her defense. You are thinking-- huh? Think of the Oath Keepers then as you do the Ku Klux Klan, founded as it was upon the mission of maintaining order (and racial purity) in the South following the Civil War when the federals, carpetbaggers, and Negras were attempting to slander and malign the Southern way of life.

During the eight-year presidency of Bush 43, American citizens were detained and tortured, in complete secrecy, and the FBI secretly infiltrated peaceful anti-war groups acting on free American soil, including a gardening collective in Iowa City, Iowa. Protesters at the 2004 Republican and Democrat political conventions were rounded into "free speech" cages. Yet the George Zimmermans of the nation that would coalesce to become the Oath Keepers apparently didn't identify a Constitutional crisis until a black man became president. The group was founded in 2008.

Rap artist Killer Mike believes it's time for his fellow African-Americans to arm themselves, and he says he joined the NRA symbolically to that end, despite the historical racism of the gun-rights organization. A proliferation of gun-ownership among blacks would create an institutional challenge for the white supremacists and separatists that make up the rosters of groups like the Oath Keepers. Killer Mike points out that the CIA introduced crack cocaine into black neighborhoods in the 1980s, destroying those communities, and then gun buy-back programs encouraged law-abiding black people to surrender their guns. He believes those people made a mistake, living in a country that was founded and is still defined by armed rebellion.

In an interview with Tavis Smiley on PBS earlier this year, the rapper born Michael Render said that he wished the congregants of Emanuel A.M.E. in Charleston had been armed. His words, "I wished there would’ve been some deterrent; I wish the angel Gabriel had really been in front of that door to stop that man. I can’t tell you that I want them to be armed in church. I can tell you that the Nation of Islam frisks everyone that walks in that door."

This is where black people stand today in America, where their collective patience and capacity for forgiveness surpasses all reasonable expectation-- and frankly all logic as well. In May, a shootout between rival biker gangs in Waco, Texas-- white and Latino-- broke out, involving more than 200 bikers from five different gangs. A shootout with police entailed, and nine were killed, some by police, and 170 arrested, but the arrestees were treated with respect. In the aftermath, police have been threatened anonymously with grenades and car bombs.This was only one weekend after a group of black children in a suburb of Dallas, unarmed at a swimming pool and enjoying their summer vacation, were manhandled by police and had guns pointed at their faces, one girl in bare feet and dressed only in a swimsuit was dragged to the ground by her hair.

When you are white and have a gun, you are granted the respect of police. When Cliven Bundy, gun in hand, declared solitary war on the federal government from his ranch in Nevada over land rights last year, federal officials ultimately caved afer a brief standoff. Las Vegas police did not wear any protective gear during a tense encounter with Bundy's supporters-- in a stark contrast to the events in Ferguson-- because officials there said it would only escalate the situation. In the end, Bundy claimed victory. His illegally-grazing cattle were returned to him, a roundup suspended, and officials promised only that they would pursue a different administrative remedy. This was 17 months ago, and since then, Nevada Senator Harry Reid has been threatened, and two Las Vegas police officers and a civilian shot to death by separatist militia members. Right wing nuts on television, the ones that routinely call Ferguson protesters "thugs" and even "terrorists," flocked to Bundy's defense, labeling him a patriot. Despite the fact he was defying all three branches of government-- Congressional law, judicial order, and executive enforcement, Bundy had the public support of the Nevada governor and a Utah congressman. A group of Arizona state legislators traveled to his compound to be with him during the standoff. Bundy is still breaking the law on federal land-grazing for the simple reason that he does not believe that the authority of the United State government exists. Of course American Indians were never granted the courtesy of a stand-down over the land disputes they had with Washington. I know you were as shocked as I was when Bundy, after the standoff, shared with reporters his opinion that black people had been better off under slavery.

This is the institutional racism of America-- two completely separate systems of justice-- that's existence continues to be denied by a majority of white people even though it's standing right in front of their faces. You won't ever see Bundy or Waco referenced in one of those clever "thin blue line" or "police lives matter" memes, and you'll never see the Oath Keepers traveling to a remote desert ranch or a biker bar to defend police.

posted by CM @ 12:10 PM