Protesters, Rioters, Terrorists, Privileges, Rights: Words That Matter IV
Not quite two months ago (4/26/20), after white people (mostly men) in Michigan protested the governor’s stay home and wear masks when you must go out orders while (often) carrying guns, waving confederate flags, and (usually) not wearing masks, I listed some “Do’s” and “Don’ts” for people who wanted to exercise their right to engage in civil disobedience and start a revolution. Watching the BlackLivesMatter protests, I’ve been delighted to see that those peaceful protesters have followed my rules. They did not carry guns or wave confederate flags. They did not try to occupy the White House or a state Capitol (Minnesota, Kentucky, Georgia). While some opportunistic thugs and white nationalists posing as antifa looted and burned, the peaceful protesters, who apparently didn’t take my advice and bring pepper spray to combat the violent counter protesters, were more likely to be attacked and pepper sprayed by police and (even more shamefully) the military than to riot. The riots I saw were started by the military at the White House, clearing a public space so that the insane President could stand in front of a church and hold a Bible upside down, and the police in Minneapolis, who gassed protesters and journalists without warning and shot MSNBC anchor Ali V with a rubber bullet. I saw that attack on nonwhite Ali and heard about the black journalist who was arrested and about the journalists from Australia who were attacked outside the White House. Still, these peaceful protesters were labeled rioters and terrorists by the terrorist in the White House and his enablers, including the attorney general, who blamed antifa with no evidence that they were involved (is he working with the white nationalists?), and conservative media folks, who continued to show the burning buildings and looters from the first couple of days after Mr. Floyd’s murder, ignoring the peaceful, inspiring activities that the rest of us saw as the BLM protests continued. When the robotic, shameless Vice President justified Trump’s having an indoor rally during a deadly pandemic by claiming we Americans had the right to assemble (were the people who were gassed outside the White House all foreigners?), I knew I had to define some more words in my next blog post.
Whether the people assembling to protest the actions of people in power and/or to demand action from their leaders and their government are called protesters, rioters, or terrorists should not depend on the color of their skin or the quality of their cause. It should depend on their behavior. People who burn buildings and loot businesses, those who attack the police or each other, are rioters. People who carry guns and shout in the faces of police without wearing masks during a deadly pandemic are terrorists. People who march, sing, and carry signs (unless the signs are threatening) are protesters. What was so inspiring to those of us who have been observing civil disobedience movements since the sixties was the diversity of the peaceful protesters. There have always been some enlightened, liberal whites who would march with black folks for our causes, and there were some men who marched with women during the 2017 and 18 women’s marches, but most of the peaceful protesters that I saw during the last few weeks were nonblack. And one of my favorite scenes was from my racist old home state Kentucky. A line of white women stood in front of the black protesters while facing down the police. If the white women in Kentucky are on our side, the other side is losing!
Although the cause should not determine how we label the protesters, we should recognize that protesting the murdering of unarmed black people by police is a better cause than protesting for the right to eat in restaurants, go to the gym or the barbershop, or even to work during a deadly pandemic that kills some members of the population (blacks, browns, and older folks) more often than others. Because we don’t yet live in an authoritarian country where citizens have no rights, we Americans, especially white men, sometimes confuse privileges with rights. We all should have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but when those words were written in the eighteenth century, my folks did not have those rights. We were slaves. We also should have the right to vote once we reach voting age, which was twenty-one when I was younger and is now eighteen. Of course, in some states, people who are in jail and even those who have served their time and are once again free are denied the right to vote. The right that many conservatives seem most interested in protecting, even more than life and much more than the right to vote, is the right to bear arms. In some states (like Oklahoma and Michigan), citizens can carry weapons openly, and they don’t even need a permit. In those states, I guess it’s easier to carry a gun than to drive a car, which requires a license. Liberals believe more in the right to healthcare; they believe that all of us, no matter our age, income, race, work status, or place of residence, deserve good healthcare, which will prolong our lives. Most liberals also believe that we should have the right to eat and to have shelter.
The difference between a right and a privilege is that privileges can be both earned and lost. For instance, we can lose the privilege of driving if we drive recklessly and injure or kill someone or if we drive while drunk, thus endangering other people’s lives. Clearly, we should also lose the privilege of carrying guns if we shoot someone with a gun (even if it’s an accident) or if we use guns to terrorize people. The ultimate right is the right to life. No matter our age, race, gender, class, sexual orientation, place of residence, or character traits, all of us should have the right to live, and we should have the right to anything necessary for life. Since (clean) water and food are necessary for life, we should have the right to them. While some people can (and have) lived without good healthcare, generally it is also necessary, and many people who could have lived longer died because they didn’t have access to good healthcare. Guns, on the other hand, take more lives than they save. For every person who can tell a story of saving a life (or a few lives) by threatening a potential killer with a gun, there are 58 people who are dead because a crazy man had a gun. Carrying a gun should be a privilege that is harder to gain than the privilege of driving a car, which can be another dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.
Some rights are also privileges, and we should treat them that way. The right to vote is a privilege that many citizens in other countries don’t have and that people in our country fought and died to expand. As a black woman, I appreciate the privilege of being able to vote because I know that no American woman could vote until the 20th Century, and in too many states in this country (not Kentucky, because I remember my maternal grandmother being paid to vote by the corrupt Democrats when I lived with her in the early sixties, and my mother claimed that her maternal grandfather voted for Republicans because Lincoln freed the slaves) blacks couldn’t vote until after LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act in the mid 1960’s. I was annoyed when I heard Snoop Dogg say that he was going to vote for the first time this year. So Mr. Dogg couldn’t find the time to vote when we had a half-black man running for President? We have an insane, incompetent terrorist who wants to be a dictator in the White House today because too many people didn’t appreciate the privilege of having the right to vote in 2016. Just as I’ve thanked Trump for making racism uncool, I should probably thank him and the racist Republican voter suppressers in states like Georgia, Florida, and Wisconsin for making people recognize how privileged we are to be able to choose our leaders and for making voting cool. I loved that the people of Wisconsin risked catching a deadly virus (and some did) to vote and that the people of Georgia stood in line for hours to vote.
I also love that the BlackLivesMatter protests are continuing despite the “riots” by the police and the military. The right to assemble peacefully and protest is another privilege that too many citizens of the world do not have and too many Americans take for granted. Trump’s use of the military to terrorize the peaceful protesters outside the White House showed us what life could be like if we don’t exercise our right to vote and instead allow a power-hungry, wannabe dictator to take over our government. The BlackLivesMatter protests have already brought swift changes to our culture and government. At the local, federal, and state levels, police reform is taking place. On Friday, Juneteenth suddenly became a holiday for many workers (I love it when businesses and even banks troll Trump), the confederate statues are going down in several states, portraits of confederates hanging in the nation’s Capitol (why were they there?) have been taken down, and the talk of reparations for descendants of black slaves is growing louder. As usual, we Americans are overreacting with poor Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben getting the boot and “Gone with the Wind” being banned from a streaming service (HBO Max) that started with a documentary demonizing still another powerful black man, but I’m not complaining (okay, I’m lying; I did complain on Twitter, reminding people that the year after the confederate flag was removed from the Capitol in South Carolina, Trump was elected, and police are still killing unarmed black people). Change is coming to America (I hear Sam C singing in the background) because some great Americans are taking advantage of their right and privilege to protest peacefully.
In her now classic novel BELOVED, Toni Morrison made the point that definitions belong to the powerful. In fact, people like Trump and his enablers gain power and keep it through their use of definitions, which is also called “branding.” As we continue to protest for our rights and take advantage of our privileges, we peaceful liberals need to fight back against the attempt by the conservative rioters and terrorists to control the definitions and brand us. We are the peaceful protesters demanding our rights. They are the rioters and terrorists trying to prevent us from having those rights, including the right to live and breathe. RESIST (peacefully)!
Whether the people assembling to protest the actions of people in power and/or to demand action from their leaders and their government are called protesters, rioters, or terrorists should not depend on the color of their skin or the quality of their cause. It should depend on their behavior. People who burn buildings and loot businesses, those who attack the police or each other, are rioters. People who carry guns and shout in the faces of police without wearing masks during a deadly pandemic are terrorists. People who march, sing, and carry signs (unless the signs are threatening) are protesters. What was so inspiring to those of us who have been observing civil disobedience movements since the sixties was the diversity of the peaceful protesters. There have always been some enlightened, liberal whites who would march with black folks for our causes, and there were some men who marched with women during the 2017 and 18 women’s marches, but most of the peaceful protesters that I saw during the last few weeks were nonblack. And one of my favorite scenes was from my racist old home state Kentucky. A line of white women stood in front of the black protesters while facing down the police. If the white women in Kentucky are on our side, the other side is losing!
Although the cause should not determine how we label the protesters, we should recognize that protesting the murdering of unarmed black people by police is a better cause than protesting for the right to eat in restaurants, go to the gym or the barbershop, or even to work during a deadly pandemic that kills some members of the population (blacks, browns, and older folks) more often than others. Because we don’t yet live in an authoritarian country where citizens have no rights, we Americans, especially white men, sometimes confuse privileges with rights. We all should have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but when those words were written in the eighteenth century, my folks did not have those rights. We were slaves. We also should have the right to vote once we reach voting age, which was twenty-one when I was younger and is now eighteen. Of course, in some states, people who are in jail and even those who have served their time and are once again free are denied the right to vote. The right that many conservatives seem most interested in protecting, even more than life and much more than the right to vote, is the right to bear arms. In some states (like Oklahoma and Michigan), citizens can carry weapons openly, and they don’t even need a permit. In those states, I guess it’s easier to carry a gun than to drive a car, which requires a license. Liberals believe more in the right to healthcare; they believe that all of us, no matter our age, income, race, work status, or place of residence, deserve good healthcare, which will prolong our lives. Most liberals also believe that we should have the right to eat and to have shelter.
The difference between a right and a privilege is that privileges can be both earned and lost. For instance, we can lose the privilege of driving if we drive recklessly and injure or kill someone or if we drive while drunk, thus endangering other people’s lives. Clearly, we should also lose the privilege of carrying guns if we shoot someone with a gun (even if it’s an accident) or if we use guns to terrorize people. The ultimate right is the right to life. No matter our age, race, gender, class, sexual orientation, place of residence, or character traits, all of us should have the right to live, and we should have the right to anything necessary for life. Since (clean) water and food are necessary for life, we should have the right to them. While some people can (and have) lived without good healthcare, generally it is also necessary, and many people who could have lived longer died because they didn’t have access to good healthcare. Guns, on the other hand, take more lives than they save. For every person who can tell a story of saving a life (or a few lives) by threatening a potential killer with a gun, there are 58 people who are dead because a crazy man had a gun. Carrying a gun should be a privilege that is harder to gain than the privilege of driving a car, which can be another dangerous weapon in the wrong hands.
Some rights are also privileges, and we should treat them that way. The right to vote is a privilege that many citizens in other countries don’t have and that people in our country fought and died to expand. As a black woman, I appreciate the privilege of being able to vote because I know that no American woman could vote until the 20th Century, and in too many states in this country (not Kentucky, because I remember my maternal grandmother being paid to vote by the corrupt Democrats when I lived with her in the early sixties, and my mother claimed that her maternal grandfather voted for Republicans because Lincoln freed the slaves) blacks couldn’t vote until after LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act in the mid 1960’s. I was annoyed when I heard Snoop Dogg say that he was going to vote for the first time this year. So Mr. Dogg couldn’t find the time to vote when we had a half-black man running for President? We have an insane, incompetent terrorist who wants to be a dictator in the White House today because too many people didn’t appreciate the privilege of having the right to vote in 2016. Just as I’ve thanked Trump for making racism uncool, I should probably thank him and the racist Republican voter suppressers in states like Georgia, Florida, and Wisconsin for making people recognize how privileged we are to be able to choose our leaders and for making voting cool. I loved that the people of Wisconsin risked catching a deadly virus (and some did) to vote and that the people of Georgia stood in line for hours to vote.
I also love that the BlackLivesMatter protests are continuing despite the “riots” by the police and the military. The right to assemble peacefully and protest is another privilege that too many citizens of the world do not have and too many Americans take for granted. Trump’s use of the military to terrorize the peaceful protesters outside the White House showed us what life could be like if we don’t exercise our right to vote and instead allow a power-hungry, wannabe dictator to take over our government. The BlackLivesMatter protests have already brought swift changes to our culture and government. At the local, federal, and state levels, police reform is taking place. On Friday, Juneteenth suddenly became a holiday for many workers (I love it when businesses and even banks troll Trump), the confederate statues are going down in several states, portraits of confederates hanging in the nation’s Capitol (why were they there?) have been taken down, and the talk of reparations for descendants of black slaves is growing louder. As usual, we Americans are overreacting with poor Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben getting the boot and “Gone with the Wind” being banned from a streaming service (HBO Max) that started with a documentary demonizing still another powerful black man, but I’m not complaining (okay, I’m lying; I did complain on Twitter, reminding people that the year after the confederate flag was removed from the Capitol in South Carolina, Trump was elected, and police are still killing unarmed black people). Change is coming to America (I hear Sam C singing in the background) because some great Americans are taking advantage of their right and privilege to protest peacefully.
In her now classic novel BELOVED, Toni Morrison made the point that definitions belong to the powerful. In fact, people like Trump and his enablers gain power and keep it through their use of definitions, which is also called “branding.” As we continue to protest for our rights and take advantage of our privileges, we peaceful liberals need to fight back against the attempt by the conservative rioters and terrorists to control the definitions and brand us. We are the peaceful protesters demanding our rights. They are the rioters and terrorists trying to prevent us from having those rights, including the right to live and breathe. RESIST (peacefully)!
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