ST501649@BROWNVM.BITNET (David Ascher) (02/11/90)
>From: Ken Miller <KMILLER@BROWNVM.BITNET> > > [.. lots of stuff deleted, for net.bandwith reasons..] > > No, the media doesn't ignore white attacks on blacks. In fact, >when one occurs (Howard Beach!) it is immediate news. The other day, Bob Zellner, a civil rights activist who was one of the first members of the SNIC staff in the early 60's, came to Brown and gave a talk after a showing of the movie "Mississippi Burning". One statement he made is relevant to this discussion. Since I didn't tape him, I'll have to paraphrase from memory. Also, consider me responsible for these statements, not him. Basically, he reminded us that when an extreme-right white supremacist group bombs a few houses, kills a federal officer, kills a talk-show host (oh how I wish I had the exact references), it gets in the NYT at page 17, or 35 (those were maybe not the numbers he gave. =). If the criminals had been black, it would have made the first page, 5 columns wide. This is an "if" statement, but I agree with it. American society has an incredible amount of tolerance for intolerance, "because it's always been there". "oh, sure, the KKK is bad, but they're not doing anything as bad as they used to, and you know, they've always been there. And they always will be [(!)]". The same isn't said of Black violent movements. The media (Howard Beach case) grabs the attention of a case if it has the power to grip people. If it's a group of "normal" whites attacking a black man, or if it's an organized group of black fanatics, then it is news, because it doesn't happen often. Fact is, white supremacist groups, the KKK, the american version of skinheads, all are active frequently. The reason they don't get talked about so often? I suspect editors etc. more frequently think "nobody will want to read about that" or "yet again? Oh, find something else!" than "hey, i like what they're doing". However, the results are the same. Re: brown attacks: I disagree with Ken Miller that the media didn't take the issue strongly enough. Personally, I witnessed something akin to paranoia around the Brown campus. The BDH interviewed students who said they were carrying guns to protect themselves. I thought (and still do) that the attacks, although worrysome, were the result of a very limited group of attackers. Discretion and a thorough police investigation were probably the only way to deal with it. A big media hype would raise the level of panic and possibly create a racist backlash, without any constructive results. rambling once again... --david
MOYE@BROWNVM.BITNET (Laura Moye) (02/12/90)
M. Miller wrote on Sat, 10 Feb 90: > >Nonsense. As Laura would realize, if she read the papers carefully, >is that exactly the OPPOSITE happened here in Providence. A few racist >(anti-black, as well as anti-gay) posters appeared in a dorm, and it >immediately became a major incident. Students marched, administrators >apologized, and media beat the drum of racism on the campus. And what you might realize, if you talked to a few more people, is that racist attacks had been happening all year on campus! In the fall of 1988, a black man was beat up by a bouncer at the Underground (if you want to get into an argument about this event, please write me privately), an Asian-American student was beat up by white college boys in front of Hospital Trust bank during the day. On the sidewalk. This wasn't reported. People of color are harassed daily by people who are considered "respectable" citizens. Especially, I"m sorry to say, by the Police, who felt that the rapes of Fall 1988 and the assaults of Fall 1989 gave them license to ask for the id of any man of color who was on campus. I've yet to see white men habitually stopped and asked for ID as if they didn't belong here. Or even, as also happened, taken out of the ECDC and thrown into the back of a Brown Police and Security car, all while two friends are vouching for your whereabouts and your integrity. A lot of people have wondered why the incident last fall got so much notice when there had been like incidents happening on campus all year. All I can guess is that it was the mention of the KKK and reference to "former" times at Brown that got everyone so pissed off. And as well, the mention of the KKK lets all the "self-respecting" whites blame racism on others, who wear white sheets, and are outsiders to this bastion of liberalism and equality. Always an easier task when trouble can be blamed on outsiders... > Eventually, the administration was persuaded to brand these violent >attacks as racist, and condemn them, too. So, in a sense, even-handedness >has prevailed. However, what Ms. Moye misses, in her rush to accuse >every non-minority institution of slighting violence against minorities, Look, M. Miller, I'm in no rush, I'm just trying to talk about a daily experience of alienation that just isn't experienced by white people. Sometimes that alienation accelerates into discrimination and then into violence. If you are white, this is something unusual. In larger terms, this means that attacks by people of color against whites are more likely to be "newsworthy" (for all the good reasons of raising paranoia that you mention) than attacks of whites against people of color. As long as those attacks are "within reason." You know, you can't claim to represent the KKK or anything. As for your claim about last semesters' events, I think David did a good job of responding, so I won't. --l"Free Nelson Mandela"m "I love it when a political song becomes obsolete."