Racism and Impunity

[asakiyume]

barry_king has a scorching assessment of what racism is in here. This is at the heart:

Racism is when you let impunity create a system where
[a group] is denied justice
permanently. Institutionally. Because
"that's the stuff we did/do/will do.
We do this. Because we can,
because nobody will punish us for doing so."

He links to a 2011 Daily Kos article by Hamden Rice, "Most of You Have No Idea What Martin Luther King Did." He says it wasn't about speeches or marches, but about standing up to white people--who, as he points out, were liable to engage in "random, terroristic, berserk behavior" with impunity.

And that brings us Ferguson and last night's protests and what they're all about--not letting random, terroristic, berserk behavior happen with impunity. The behavior still happens. You know this either because you've experienced it yourself, or because your friends have, or because you've been told. Part of the struggle to end it is to make sure, when it does happen, it doesn't happen with impunity.

Comments

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

It's fucking horrifying how many people out there have a "problem with race."

I just want to send them all to a barren moon somewhere.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

It permeates everything, and you just have to fight it. The first step for the privileged is to become aware. It's ongoing. Everything is always ongoing. None of us can ever rest on any laurels. But that's okay--ongoingness is what it means to be alive, or part of it, anyway.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

It's fucking horrifying how many people out there have a "problem with race."

Whole mobs of them were rioting in the streets not too long ago, attacking white people. Or black people who got in their way. Or anyone who had something they wanted, really.

I just want to send them all to a barren moon somewhere.

Yes. Dealing with dissent by rounding up dissenters and exiling them to the wilderness is the way to go.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Hey though. I think both you and yamamanama are opposed to racism, so why provoke him? He's not saying "Go rioters!" As hyperbolic overstatement goes, saying you want to banish someone to the moon is better than, say, saying you want people to die in a fire or whatnot, right? It's just a statement of frustration and anger.