So i got onto the elevator of my building to go downstairs to buy some food earlier today. On the way down, the elevator stops and on walks my roommate, two building managers, and two policemen. One of the cops was holding my roommate's bong. I started to greet my roommate and the building managers as they entered the elevator, but saw the cops with the bong and stopped mid-sentence, deciding that this was a situation in which it would be best to remain silent. After a few moments, though, the officers and managers started joking about bongs and the laws around drug paraphernalia.
As they were joking, a few things became clear to me. First, my roommate was not under arrest nor was he going to be. Second, that the bong was being confiscated not by the police, but by the building managers for violation of the building's drug policy. Third, that the building was actually going to allow my roommate to call his father and have him come pick up the bong. Fourth, that this would not be happening if my roommate wasn't white.
Several minutes later, my roommate came back upstairs and explained that the whole thing happened because my other roommate (who happens to have brown skin) had apparently stolen the bong along with some other items and (i assume based on the fact that it was recovered) taken them to some room on a different floor. Now i have no idea how much of whatever side of the story is true. Obviously stealing people's shit (if that's what happened) is fucked up. But let's think about how much privilege you'd have to have just to go to the authorities because someone stole your illegal drug paraphernalia and you'd like them to get it back for you!
In New York State, you can do up to a year in prison or a $1000 fine for first time possession of paraphernalia (Class A Misdemeanor) as defined by Section 220.50 of the New York State Penal Code. Second time, it's a Class D Felony.
Now i think it's safe to assume that a person of color would not volunteer self-incriminating information this way (for good reason). Beyond that, I would never think of doing that and i've had white privilege all my life. So this gets to another contributing factor: the privilege of class (or at least wealth). Now my white roommate comes from a rich Long Island family and his father is a business owner of some kind: an actual member of the capitalist class. So this kid's dumbassness isn't just because of the psychology of his white privilege, but the psychology of his class privilege. (I'm afraid i can't really analyze this kind of class privilege very well because i don't have it, and i don't really know many people who do.)
I think we need to recognize in this particular example that my white roommate's behavior (enabled by privilege) is not good or smart behavior, regardless of one's privilege or lack of same. My white roommate's privilege only allowed him to act a fool. Now granted, it turned out alright for him. His privilege paid up. But there was and never is any guarantee of this. All it would've taken was for one of those cops to be in a shitty mood for my white roommate to get booked.
I think this story is an interesting example of the ways in which White Privilege and White Supremacy operate and and of how psychological, individual and institutional forces interact to reinforce Whiteness.
The first step is the individual psychological: the rich white kid makes the dumbass move that could've landed him in jail because he feels safe, he feels like he can, like he's entitled to.
The second is of course the police. Now in reality, the reason the cops let him off the hook was likely not due to macro institutional forces such as coercion by superiors, monetary incentives, etc. What probably happened is that the two men decided that this wasn't really all that serious, it wasn't worth their trouble, boys will be boys, etc. But we all know that even if it's individually motivated, police racism is still institutional racism because the cop is not just another man, he's a man with a badge and a gun and the full backing of a whole host of government institutions.
No comments:
Post a Comment