How do I define the term “white privilege?” Back when I was attending college in Washington DC, I'd take off in the evenings and just stroll for several miles. I'd go through different neighborhoods to keep the walks fresh and interesting. I never once had any trouble from the people who lived in those neighborhoods, even though I'm sure I passed the houses of many a VIP.
At one point, I read a short article about a black fellow who, apparently, was doing the same thing for the same reason. He was walking long distances through neighborhoods with no particular destination in mind. I wondered about why he was hassled by the police for doing so and I wasn't. Eventually, the answer became clear to me, and it was white privilege. I had the privilege of not being suspected of anything when I conducted somewhat unusual activities. I was given the automatic benefit of the doubt.
John Crawford III and his killing in a Wal-Mart showed us very clearly that he was granted no such benefit of the doubt. The report was made by a wannabe Marine who didn't make it through boot camp that Crawford was threatening people in the store. Yes, Crawford had picked up an unwrapped toy rifle and I'm sure the report that the wannabe Marine gave sounded crisp and authoritative, but it was the moral responsibility of Wal-Mart to send someone down to the floor and to verify in person that Crawford really was a danger before letting police into their store.
Once police were in the store and had sighted Crawford, it was their moral responsibility (In neither case am I completely clear on the actual, applicable rules and regulations, I'm just talking from my own military experience (USN, PN3, 1991-2001) and the appropriate use of deadly force), to verify, by at least attempting to talk directly to Crawford. As it was, they shouted at him, he was engrossed in a conversation on his cell phone and didn't hear them, they then opened fire without confirming or verifying anything. So, with gross irresponsibility and negligence on the part of both Wal-Mart and the police, did anybody go to jail or at least pay any fines for the completely uncalled-for death of Crawford? No, the Grand Jury refused to even indict anyone.
What's the story on Michael Brown? Well, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch certainly showed a lack of confidence in his case that the policeman who shot him, Officer Darrell Wilson, was innocent and should not pay a penny nor serve a single day in jail for that murder. And yes, I'm fully aware that it was McCulloch's job to build a case against Wilson and to seek redress for Brown, not the other way around. As many news media outlets pointed out well before Wilson's exoneration was announced, McCullough has a deeply compromised past that pushes him strongly in favor of the police and against any and all persons who are against the police.
The right-wing blog Hot Air heroically attempts to justify the inclusion of Witness #40 by saying that McCullough's hands were tied and that he would have been criticized either way. He could have done what he did, which was to include someone among the witnesses who clearly lied about being anywhere near the scene of the murder and who simply made up “facts” that just happened to align very closely with Officer Wilson's testimony. Witness #40, by the way, was “the ONLY witness that Sean Hannity ever quotes, while he conveniently pretends that the other twenty or more witnesses do not exist.”
As far back as late November, well before Wilson's exoneration came out, Witness #40's word was highly questionable. “By a series of amazing coincidences, this person magically ended up witnessing events, and his or her perspective aligned perfectly with Officer Wilson’s account.“ (emphasis in original) McCullough had every legitimate reason to simply not include Witness #40, a woman whose recollections were presented to the FBI in late October and who was promptly met with great skepticism as she couldn't even credibly explain why she would have been anywhere near the scene to begin with.
Her initial explanation, that she was visiting an old friend, fell apart from the fact that she couldn't supply an accurate address for this “friend” and had no cell phone with which to call this friend once she was in the area (She might have called the friend from her own house, but then she would have been able to supply the FBI was a correct address). Witness #40 was presented to the Grand Jury anyway, “[d]espite an abundance of red flags.” The other option wasn't to simply bar her with no credible explanation as to why she was being excluded. Had she been presented as part of a full trial, as part of an adversarial system where defense and prosecution could pick apart each other's evidence, her story would have quickly collapsed and been dismissed without ever getting very far. As it was, “'Witness 40'’s testimony about seeing Brown batter Wilson and then rush the cop like a defensive end has repeatedly been pointed to by Wilson supporters as directly corroborative of the officer’s version of the August 9 confrontation.”
There are many other problems with Wilson's defense, but if McCullough had any faith that Officer Wilson's story would have stood up in a full and proper trial, with cross-examinations taking place, then the smart thing to do would have been to dismiss the already-discredited Witness #40 and to have proceeded on whatever else there was. A Grand Jury process is supposed to be weighted towards the prosecution, to be biased in favor of going to trial. The idea is that it's a small hurdle to cross. If a prosecutor can't even cross that minimal threshold of evidence, then there is no case worth pursuing. The problem is, when the process is twisted so as to prevent a guilty verdict.
In that case, Michael Brown didn't have anyone in the process who was representing his interests. The people working the case who were supposed to be working against each other were instead collaborating to prevent justice from being done. The fact that the Governor of Missouri hasn't yet called for a new Grand Jury, to be assembled by someone other than McCullough, says nothing even slightly good about the Governor.
If you watch the embedded video here, it's obvious that the Fox News panel is determined to miss the point and they keep trying to prove that bias against African-Americans isn't real by pointing to not-particularly-relevant evidence. The people on Fox News complain that the justice system is not “systemically” biased against blacks. Not sure how they define “systemic,” but if Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner are only the most well-known names to appear on the list of black men improperly killed by law enforcement personnel in the last few years, it sure seems like an awfully long list. The Eric Garner link gets us to the NPR, which explores the fact that from 2003 to 2009, law enforcement made 98 million arrests. Of those, BJS found that “only” 4,813 persons died in the process, with about 60% of that number being classified as "homicides by law enforcement personnel." It's plenty systemic enough for the public to be up in arms about it.
A piece from Popular Resistance adds details to the Vonderrit Myers Jr. case (Shot when police claimed he had a gun, but when all he was carrying at the time was a sandwich) that casts doubt on the charge that Myers posed any sort of threat to the off-duty police officer who shot him. The piece also goes into the question of why our police seem to be getting out of control lately and apparently now pose a greater threat to unarmed citizens than to criminals. Privatization seems to be a real driver of this new unaccountability. Privatization changes the mission of police forces so that what the public needs is no longer important. What the private interests who pay the salaries of police need becomes the new priority. A very disturbing case was that of San Francisco 49er Ray McDonald and his pregnant girlfriend. She called for police assistance as he was beating her, public policemen showed up, but a private policeman was already on the scene. “In the case the first officer on the scene worked for the 49ers and represented the interests of Ray McDonald.. What was said? Not said? Was the victim intimidated? Was evidence hidden, destroyed? Was McDonald prepped by his employee as to what he should say or not say?” These complications would simply not exist in an all-public police force where corporate influences weren't important.
Another problem was pointed out by The American Prospect. Exactly how are brutal, out-of-control police punished for bad behavior? The answer isn't comforting and goes a long way to explain why police feel invulnerable. If cases are won and civil penalties are assessed (Hard to do as the public is very supportive of police departments generally), then steep payments are made. But payments generally come out of city funds, and by extension, they come from city taxpayers, not by the particular police department that behaved badly. As police operating budgets are rarely affected, there's no reason for police to avoid bad behavior.
And yes, I completely agree> with New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio here. We citizens in the anti-police-brutality movement have no intention of stopping our protests just because a single, mentally-unstable person got it into his head that police had to be killed. This was not a reasonable interpretation of what any of the vast majority of those protesting police misconduct have been saying.
So what's my problem with white privilege? It should apply to everyone! It shouldn't just apply to white people but to all American citizens! All citizens should get the benefit of the doubt, all citizens should be properly represented by the legal system and all citizens should believe that their interests are being protected by the legal system!
Rich Gardner
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