Whiteness, Non-Whiteness, and Criminal Justice

In response to the shoot-out, manhunt, and arrest of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, some people are proclaiming that America’s rampant racism and/or Islamophobia is on display when comparing the reactions to the Boston bombing and other recent instances of mass violence:

Young white men and white people in general were never profiled, harassed, assaulted or collectively blamed for the actions of Lanza, Holmes or the countless other white males who’ve gone on a shooting rampage in the recent past.

Even now, investigators are unsure about what provoked Lanza and Holmes aside from a potentially undiagnosed mental illness.

More recently, the media has speculated that Adam Lanza was motivated by bullying he experienced during his time as a student at Sandy Hook Elementary. Conversely, not a single person has inquired about the mental wellbeing of the Boston Bombing suspects. Experts in psychology, violence and mass murder haven’t appeared on cable news or written op-eds for the New York Times and Washington Post with insight into what causes people to snap. No one has speculated about bullying that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar’s may have experienced, particularly Tamerlan, who was in middle school when he immigrated to the United States, an age when bullying is at its peak.

Of course, all of these questions are rhetorical since we already know the answer: Adam Lanza and James Holmes are Christian white males whose names have the appropriate number of consonants. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are Muslim (which cancels out white) males who immigrated to the US from a region of the world where names are difficult to pronounce (for us).

Other people are proclaiming that the only reason anyone cares about the rights of the Tsarnaev brothers in the wake of the bombing is because they are white:

You know, the detached academic in me is sort of having fits of laughter/sympathetic embarrassment/epic schadenfreude over how massively the WHITENESS machine is showing its gears.

This is 900000% “Ignore the man behind the curtain.” 

Everyone’s sinking their claws in to figure out a way to either delegitimize or enshrine the whiteness of the Tzarnaevs in this massively transparent Big Top show.

and further:

Now, there are OBVIOUSLY complicating factors such as the religious background of the Tzarnaevs, not to mention their immigration status (I know one brother was fully naturalized, but I’m not sure if both were, either way, they were/had gone through the immigration system). But, that does not deny that they had the capability of passing and capitalizing on their white appearances.

In other words, it seems that there’s no good way to talk about civil rights in the wake of terrorism and mass violence … if you’re talking to people who regularly proclaim their social justice bona fides.

In the first instance, a blogger asserts that the bombers are being treated as non-white because they’re Muslim immigrants. In the second instance, a blogger asserts that the bombers are afforded all the privileges that redound to white people because they look white.

The presumption of the second blogger is that anyone who thinks civil rights matter only thinks they matter for white people (even if they are ethnically diverse because they still appear to be white). This makes the person who speaks up for civil rights a racist or at least someone who epitomizes white privilege.

And if one doesn’t speak up for the civil rights of these white people (who are ethnically diverse and yet appear to be white), then one is a racist or Islamophone for denying the civil rights of those who aren’t members of the privileged race or religion (even if they appear to be white).

My position is straightforward: The desire to toss around the “enemy combatant” label whenever someone does something terrible allows us to walk all over the civil rights of American citizens (as in the cases of Anwar and Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, and in Lindsey Graham’s wishful thinking about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev) and the human rights of people around the world. When someone commits a terrible crime, there are always calls to suspend their rights, whether or not they appear to be white; we all ought to work dilligently to ensure that — regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or nationaliy — our laws are being applied consistently. The fact that our government has meted out justice unfairly for much of the nation’s history doesn’t mean that we ought to continue to mete it out unfairly or that we should swing the pendulum in the other direction for a little while to balance things out a bit. It means, instead, that we ought to agitate for equal treatment in every case.

In other words, when a person is suspected of committing a crime, he should be apprehended and subject to both the privileges and penalites of our criminal justice system. We shouldn’t be asking if he’s white, black, Christian, or Muslim before we decide how or if the law applies to him. This means standing up for the rights of the accused in all cases, which is difficult in and of itself in the aftermath of horrific crimes; it’s even more difficult when people who normally care about civil rights are squabbling about race and privilege rather than standing together to demand equal treatment under law.

White History Month

Not surprisingly, there’s been a lot of discussion kicked up by my “White History Month” photoset from Friday. I’m guessing that, sadly, this post won’t reach all of the people who helped kick that post around Tumblr some 20,000+ times. Still, this reply seems an important one to make.

A number of people have written to me to demand that I explain why I included one tweet that asked about the lack of months designated for other ethnicities: “Where’s latino history month? Where’s asian history month? Where’s white history month? Where’s native American history month?”

Here’s someone who just cares about equality, many commenters have proclaimed; he’s not a racist!

One thing’s for sure: He’s not much of a researcher.

September 15-October 15 is National Hispanic American Heritage Month.

May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month.

November is Native American Heritage Month.

These heritage months — and all of the others that exist — have dedicated government websites, filled with information. Many communities around the country put on events to celebrate the distinct history and culture, and to recognize the contributions of its members to our society.

In short, this is a fascinating comment … but only insofar as it shows how many people never visit their public library, where there’s almost always a table set up to showcase authors from particular cultures each month, and how many people are much quicker to complain about Black History Month than to, for example, do a Google search.

It’s also fascinating because it’s a comment — like most White History Month tweets and comments — whose author is intent on masquerading as someone who cares desperately about equality.

Of course, there’s also a strain of commentary whose authors attack Black History Month because it’s racist insofar as it highlights some people based on their skin color. These commenters are mostly white teenagers who claim to be color blind or to live in some sort of post-racial America. They love equality so much that they don’t want Black History Month or White History Month … they just want it all to be history. I have no doubt that they believe these things to be true about themselves, or that they want them to be true. But, alas, they are not true.

These people either can’t or don’t understand that the vast majority of “textbook history,” at least in the United States, is still written by and about white people. And this is a problem that’s particularly relevant for white teens, as they’re currently taking courses in American and European history; they are consuming little information that isn’t white history, even as they complain about the ways in which Black History Month perpetuates racial identification over our common humanity. People of color, women, religious minorities, and the LGBTQ community have been given short shrift in our educational system for as long as it has existed; allowing that this has been the case and attempting to supplement our historical knowledge is a pretty worthwhile idea. If you don’t believe me, maybe you can quickly send me a note with a list of twenty important historical or cultural achievements made by African-Americans.

But they’re also sorely mistaken if they really believe that there’s something inherently problematic with celebrating the distinct histories, cultures, and people who have made the country what it is today. That’s not racism or reverse racism or whatever other kind of nonsense they think it is. That’s a way of encouraging a well-rounded education that might help bring about the utopian future that these commenters think has already arrived. And a video clip of Morgan Freeman from 2005, which has been sent to me dozens of times, isn’t going to convince me otherwise. Unlike some people out there, I don’t think Morgan Freeman speaks for (or happens to be) every African-American.

Now, would it be better if there was magically no further need of specific months dedicated to different minority populations in America? You bet. If it really was the case, as Morgan Freeman wants to claim, that Black history is treated like the part of American history that it is, we’d be in much better shape as a society today than we actually are. But the only way that we won’t need a Black History Month is if we take a good look at the way that history is taught and culture is celebrated in this country with a view to seamlessly integrating the historical and cultural experiences and achievements of minority communities.

Until that time, I’d say it’s a good idea to dial back these inane calls for White History Month and these nonsensical comments about how Black History Month perpetuates racism.

Comment of the Day

Today’s Comment of the Day goes to some random guy with a Tumblr blog who reblogged yesterday’s post about the White History Month tweets:

I used to parrot this kind of crap as a teenager. These people need to make a list of ways Black History Month antagonizes them specifically before they start antagonizing Black History Month. Maybe consider having a word with some of the many people still alive from the Civil Rights era. They’d soon learn that it’s a victory for people in general, not just one specific group. 

These comments reminded me very much of thoughtful comments made yesterday in the Facebook thread on this topic by my friend Chad Ellsworth:

I think it is one of those things that will be interesting to watch with this generation. In some ways, they’re growing up in a public sphere, a la the child stars of the 1980s, and those “growing pains” are occurring in places and ways that all of us can see …. We have been told we are living in a “post-racial” America, when in reality, power, privilege, and racism are alive and well. I love the analogy from the book Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Tatum. She compares racism to a moving walkway at the airport, with the direction of the walkway being the perpetuation of power, privilege, and racism. You can either walk in the direction of the walkway (actively perpetuate racism), stand still (passively perpetuate racism), or you can walk in the other direction (actively resist racism).