If you’re interested in sharing your opinion on any cultural, political or personal topic, create an account here and check out our how-to post to learn more.
____
For years, the dominant group has been able to deny and redline issues that specifically dehumanize Black communities with impunity. However, with the rise of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter protests, there’s now a contagion that their privilege can’t save them from. It’s disturbing that with a pandemic that’s killed people from various racial and socio-political backgrounds, some white people still think they’re simply too privileged to bother with corona, let alone defending Black lives. Boldly abating the pandemic and Black murder has ignited a sort of revolution of Karens, and it’s not pretty.
Weeks ago, after Orange County beaches were denied permission to reopen, over 2,500 people in Huntington Beach protested. The Huntington Beach police reported, thoughtfully educating the protesters when telling them to leave beaches. They gave no citations or violent displays. While the white people were unlawful and received a kind nudge, the Black Lives Matter protesters that gathered in Huntington Beach weeks later were met with a flood of police officers that declared their assembly unlawful and punished protesters by throwing pepper balls.
In May, hundreds of protesters gathered at Michigan’s State capitol and launched a massive protest. Many of these protesters were armed. However, this gathering of tyrants wasn’t labeled as a “riot” and there was no uproar over the violence threatening America. These protesters had rifles and were arriving ready for hostility, yet in the armed blockade of police officers, not one of the protesters were shot or killed. This privilege is sickening.
The group leading the anti-government resistance to quarantine is called the “Michigan Liberty Militia.” They carry President Trump signs and arrive at protests with bullet proof vests and an arsenal of rifles. They are not called terrorists, thugs or criminals — they are called an “anti-government” group. This group shows up to protests locked and loaded without the slightest risk of being brutalized. Along with other white supremacist extremist groups, they are also suspected of impersonating Black Lives Matter protesters and inciting violence.
A group that proudly denounces its government is also rewarded by that same government. When white people are the least “American” possible, they’re still gifted the honor of being the most “American” as they wear their Trump signs like shields. Weeks later, a Black Lives Matter group called “Legally Armed in Detroit'' gathered at the capitol with their rifles to protect themselves from police violence while they protested, and police proceeded to greet protesters with teargas canisters. This privilege is corrupted.
When Black and Brown people protest all around the world about inaccessible healthcare causing higher contraction of COVID-19 and police brutality, white people shrug and dismiss this as overdramatized disobedience. After the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and countless others, along with the criminalization of Christian Cooper, Black people are still gaslighted when demanding justice.
White people demand “civil rights” to crowd the beach and eat at restaurants during a deadly pandemic and receive sympathy. While Black people that protest the murder of Floyd, are reduced to “THUGS” and “rioters,” as President Trump called them on Twitter. He posted, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Trump has threatened to murder hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters in the U.S., while white supremacists wave his Presidential signs and whine about no beach access for a summer splash, like it’s a state of emergency. This privilege is mocking.
America is a warzone during this pandemic, and like the epidemic of mass shootings in America, there is nothing more dangerous than a white man’s bullet. This privilege is frightening.
Brittany Packnett, a national activist against police brutality, explained that “systemically, blackness is treated like a more dangerous weapon than a white man’s gun ever will, while whiteness is the greatest shield of safety.”
There are two Americas. One is where people feel oppressed for staying in their nice homes with food and healthcare coverage they can rely on. Then, there’s the America where people are criminalized because their Blackness is “scary,” and they are wanted dead. Both Americas feel disenfranchised, yet, it’s only occurring in one of them. The first America has become so intoxicated and romanced by its own historically colonial, slave-master, able-bodied, heterosexual, cis, wealthy and white privilege that it’s fostered a masterful delusion of grandeur. It is the America in which Amy Cooper can wail to police about a “dangerous African American,” the same way Carolyn Bryant falsely accused Emmett Till of whistling at her in 1955, which led to his violent lynching at the age of 15. This privilege is heartless.
White protesters had flags saying, “Give me liberty, or give me COVID-19.” Trump’s rhetoric mobilized these forces, when he stated, “You can’t just come in and say let’s close up the United States of America, the biggest, the most successful country in the world by far,” in an effort to reopen businesses.
However, with businesses reopening, more people may die. Deaths may be accelerated, not for the people holding the confederate flags, but for those that the hate groups want to kill. Black people are dying at faster rates and it’s no coincidence. The APM Research Group explained, “More than 20,000 African Americans — about one in 2,000 of the entire Black population in the U.S. — have died from the disease.” From COVID to cops, this is genocide.
While privileged individuals fear getting sick, they are more terrified of giving up their privilege. COVID-19 is only a symptom of a greater risk to white Americans, loss of privilege. The displays of power with rifles, American flags, hate propaganda and Trump signs are projections of white fragility. While Black people have been murdered unjustly for centuries, these white people only show up to cry like little Beckys over missed haircuts, like it’s the civil rights movement. What they are really lashing out over is the fact that even one thing could threaten their impenetrable white privilege, which has made them desperate enough to minimize the globalism of both the pandemic and police brutality. This privilege is vengeful.
