Hey, White People with White Kids
Last edited Tue Aug 19, 2014, 01:31 PM - Edit history (7)
EDIT TO ADD, FOR THE CONTINGENT WHO INSIST ON DISTORTING AND DISTRACTING: Because I am white, and because I recognize that white privilege exists, I am speaking primarily to other white people who deny that racism exists or deny that their knee-jerk reactions about Michael and Trayvon and the many other young people as being "thugs" is a form of prejudice and contributes to the perpetuation of systemic racism. Hence the chosen subject line. White people who have non-white children recognize of what I speak here; many though not all white people with white children don't. It's as simple as that.
(Blog post adapted from a Facebook post, addressing my white family and friends. I'm a white female, by the way.)
I'm especially talking to those of you predisposed to see young men like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown as thugs. (I doubt you're even aware of the many other young black people killed nearly weekly, unarmed and committing no crime whatsoever, because the shooter felt threatened due to the color of their skin or made deadly assumptions about them.)
Neither of those young men had a police record or "rap sheet," in spite of what is floating around the cesspool that is often the internet.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Trayvon was committing a crime at the time of Zimmerman stalking and then ultimately shooting him. None.
Michael may or may not have committed a crime just before the encounter with Officer Darren Wilson.
Let's say he did. And let's say he absolutely unnecessarily and even thuggishly shoved that store clerk, for no good reason whatsoever. Let's say he behaved horribly, even though there has been no definitive connection between the incident at the store and his death at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson.
What if it were your child?
I know some of you from youth...and I know some of you shoplifted and committed petty crimes. Maybe some of your kids have done the same, at that same age. Doesn't make it right...I'm not defending any criminality. Just pointing out that a lot of things are done by people at that age that they're not proud of; they may or may not have gotten caught and suffered the consequences. Some of you didn't get caught, but you did the crime nevertheless.
But let's say your child, even a large male child, just committed the crime of stealing something from the corner store, not armed.
All you know and all you care about is that your child is lying in the middle of a fairly quiet street for hours. Dead. Shot AT LEAST SIX TIMES. You are forced to stay outside the police tape line, and don't see anyone attempting to resuscitate your child or even take his pulse.
What if this occurred in an environment in which local law enforcement has been known, for decades, to target and harass people who look like your son? So there is the added layer of a generational history of anger and mistrust and fear involved, built in to your personal tragedy.
Given the details, or lack thereof, and the sequence of events of how law enforcement has handled this shooting, wouldn't you feel you're losing your mind?
The outside events swirling around the death of your child don't matter. People are protesting and a small faction of criminals are being opportunistic, wreaking havoc by looting and stealing and behaving like horrible human beings even though they are NOT representative of the people in your community.
That all matters not.
Your child is dead, at someone else's hands. And you don't know precisely how or why, and you're not getting answers.
The investigation is FUBAR. All efforts seem geared toward portraying your child as a white thug or distracting from your child altogether, and you know there are millions of people saying that because your child may have stolen something from the corner store, he's a thug. He's nothing else...he's simply a thug now, of no value.
Your child is like most kids: not an angel, not a devil. A human being. In this social media age, there may be images of him flashing the middle finger or vines using profanity or singing offensive lyrics or any number of things -- many of which, I might add, I see adults doing as well. It's interesting how the media chooses the images and stories which least represent your child and try to take away their humanity...and then strangers believe it and pile on. All of these horrible, horrible words and lies are now on the Internet, forever.
The officer who shot your son -- there is no question who shot your child -- wasn't even identified in the media for nearly a week. It appears the blue wall was put into place quickly, deflecting to cast all blame on your child.
What if people were raising money to support the person who shot your child, without all the details having been revealed?
You would want attention given to this because you don't trust the authorities. I know I would scream to the high heavens, wanting answers, and justice. Wouldn't you?
Chances are if this happened to your white child, strangers who heard about the event wouldn't respond by demonizing your boy, and simultaneously demonizing all white people. (Chances are if this horrible travesty happened to your white child it wouldn't have garnered a lot media attention, because it's not a pattern in this country. The excessive force cases that I've seen, which involve white teens and young adults, are fairly expeditiously processed and the officers or private citizens charged and brought to trial. But if such an event happens to any child and justice doesn't seem to be served, I would hope we would all rise up, trying to put ourselves in the place of the parents and the community.)
How would you feel? Can you even attempt to empathize with another parent whose life experience, and that of their child, is vastly different from yours?
I would have lost my mind by now. I can't imagine...and thank God I can't. Thankfully I don't have the daily worry that because of the color of my child's skin she may be seen as a threat and a target. There are so many things we parents worry about already. What a blessing to not have THAT particular worry.
But that is not the reality of non-white parents. Or white parents with children who don't have white skin. I've nearly lost my mind by witnessing these tragedies for decades and observing the absolutely hateful, ignorant responses to such events.
It's a deadly disease, racism, and we all need to acknowledge it, and work to cure and heal it. You can act like it isn't your problem. It's all about "those people," but you really can't shield yourself from it. And, for the sake of all you hold dear, please don't add to this disease and spread it. You never know how it may infect or affect someone you love.
What if it were your child?
http://www.practicalcompassionnow.com/2014/08/hey-white-people-with-white-kids.html
Edit to add this graphic, thanks to DUer, napkinz:
= new reply since forum marked as read
Response to tblue37 (Reply #42)
Response to JustAnotherGen (Reply #51)
I see what youre doing here Boom Sound 416.
Economics and housing are a HUGE part of it, but people empathizing with other people can affect changes in the institutions and systemic racism. That's my intention.
Institutional racism and white privilege exist. They are a fact, and I'm trying to point that out to the people who deny it, especially white people.
Otherwise, you lost me...I'm sorry, I don't really understand what you are saying, other than disliking the choice of subject line, which I can accept. Sadly, finding a way to get people's attention on these crowded intertubes, in order to impart a message we feel is important, sometimes requires more inflammatory subject lines than some of us are comfortable with.
"...an empty pat on the back from your own hand masqueraded as a job well done."
Okie dokie, then. 
nothing?
Well say it like i say it. 
Mood Music for you. And yes, I'm smoking.
https://m.
Beautiful sharing.
They certainly were charming weren't they. I'm still in shock at the quality and extent of ignorance coming from that crew. I shouldn't be - but I am.I'm glad I missed that. 
Hi, Number23.
If you want to raise the level of consciousness, try not making blanket assumptions based on skin color, it is racist to do so.
Hi, btw.
If you're addressing that question to me, I don't know the answer...lol. DU has gotten way too libertarian and weird for me, it seems. Like another planet and I don't speak the language. 
general statements about "white people"? OMG that's terrible! 
Thanks for understanding that, and you're most welcome.
Experience does. And too many children were raised by people who never had to or were not capable of taking responsibility or providing an example of being an adult and making adult choices. Throw in mental issues, and you can have a 40 year old man- or woman-child who just can't function at a level past what society expects a freshman in High School to function at. And many of these "children"
My stepdaughter at 18 was mentally no older than she was at 15. Certainly no more emotionally mature or personally responsible than she was at 12 - which is when we were finally able to get the Alabama courts to get her out of her abusive, isolating mother's custody and into her father's custody. She's got PTSD;physically abused, with some possible brain damage from the beatings and starvation she suffered until we could get her.
She's just starting to understand there's a world outside of her immediate wants and needs now that she's 22 and has a 3 year old girl. Her new husband, the baby's father, just turned 21, and still has no concept about being an adult. He's getting paid an allowance and room for "managing" the family apartment complex, and is just perfectly happy doing that until he wants to do something else. Maybe he'll go to tech school; his grandfather told him he'd pay him more if he learned to be an electrician, plumber, or HVAC tech. But then again, maybe not.
That's how he was raised. His father is the same way - a big kid with toys who plays in pool tournaments for fun. They all came from a good, middle class family that lucked into the ability to purchase some good multi-unit investment property back in the late 1960's pre-Prop-13, so it's going on two generations now that have never wanted for money - or opportunity if they wanted to take it.
Me, at 18, I was getting out of Boot Camp, going through C-school, and on my way to being a work-center supervisor by the time I was 20. At 18, my husband was fry-cook and later night shift (closing) manager for a small-town Dairy Queen and on his way to University.
So, you can call 18-year olds adults until you're blue in the face, but they aren't adults until they can handle being adults. Even if they are "legally" there. If the experiences and "teachable moments" that trigger emotional development and brain maturity have not occurred or has been hijacked, they can't even cconceive on what it is like to be an adult. Anything you try to say or show them is "blah, blah, blah..." until it clicks.
Haele
I realize some things may have gotten better in recent decades, but I think racism has been seething just beneath the surface since the 60s, with people pissed off that they didn't feel the freedom to be open with it any more. Limbaugh & Company came along and stoked the fires, convincing them they're not really racist (whereas previously the people I know would proudly own it). These same people taught their kids, and now they're all online, spewing their hatred via viral emails, FB and twitter, so it all seems amplified.
Thanks, johnlucas. 
