Tag Archives: white privilege

06.15.25
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LA on ICE

Greetings from L.A.  – that burning, trash heap of a city invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals!  A dangerous, hellscape of paid insurrectionists intent on ripping away the fabric of our country!!

The place that I call home.

Well, guess what TACO —

WE LOVE L.A.!!!!

We’re with you Tay!

And thanks to you, now more people than ever, in NOT ONLY the country BUT THE WORLD, love it. 

That’s because this week everyone saw us trying to save democracy by exercising our constitutional right to protest. 

And if the worst you can say about protestors in a city of about 12.5 million is that there were no fatalities and comparatively little violence or vandalism (Note: The worst of the latter being a couple of self-driving Waymo cars being set on fire, something I myself contemplated doing in frustration long before any protest) we’re doing pretty well.

Take that

Especially because it’s not every day you see your home experience a real invasion.  The kind where the federal government sends in masked, unidentified and armed federal agents to infiltrate your neighborhood and arbitrarily grab your friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, acquaintances and fellow citizens off the street, throw them into vans and, for no discernible reason they will articulate, attempt to disappear them into custody, perhaps never to be heard from again.

It’s like some crazy old rich 79-year-old Floridian-transplanted-from-New York’s birthday wish in a pretend game where he’d get to be president of the United States for the next four years and do anything he wants.

Oh….

Ugh x 2000

I know.  It’s not funny.   But it could be because this should all just be some massive American punk move from a gaggle of overprivileged man-boys and mean girls with too much money and time and privilege on their hands.

Oh…

And now I have a migraine

Since Homeland Security’s “invasion” of Southern California earlier in the week, the only real and true invasion going on in any of the many neighborhoods I know includes secret ICE agents joined by 2000 members of the National Guard and 700 fighting-ready U.S. Marines with military weapons, all guarding the federal building downtown and patrolling a few key blocks nearby for no reason other than they were ordered to by a rogue federal government commandeered by a rogue president.

Which is to say nothing of the hundreds of L.A. police and sheriff officers shooting rubber bullets and tear gas bombs downtown on Saturday (6/14), as millions in other cities nationwide symbolically joined us in the No Kings Protest against the democracy-breaking Trump policies.

But let’s back up a little.

It’s been that kind of week

Earlier this week, our current, ahem, POTUS took power over the National Guard from the governor of a state (Note: In this case, California but coming soon to a state near you) for the first time in more than 60 years, a power grab now being fought by California in appeals court and soon likely the U.S. Supreme Court.  A couple days later he topped it off with commanding U.S. (Note: OUR) military troops, the kind trained NOT to keep the peace but to instead be efficient killing machines in places as far off as Fallujah, Kandahar and soon likely…well, you get the idea…into our city to pick off anyone who couldn’t pass for a white Afrikaner farmer. (Note: Let’s just say even I could in a pinch).

Listen up, cuz they fallin’

Meanwhile, here in L.A. hundreds of non-white children and adults are being pulled off the streets from Home Depots, schools, supermarkets, playgrounds and farmlands.  This week the local news was rife with six and eight year olds crying and screaming as a parent was literally dragged away from them as their older teenage sibling, barely managing to hold it together, tried to comfort them.  Then there was the story of the late twenties Black military vet shoved to his knees by one of these uniformed baboons and put in a chokehold because he had the temerity to walk up the steps of the Veteran Administration building downtown to check on his benefits (Note: This was midday and there was no reason NOT to enter the V.A. that day).  Though the one seared into my brain is that of the ICE agents with kerchiefs around their mouths chasing down a Mexican farm worker from the Central Valley through a strawberry patch he was employed to work in.

They sure did

Of course, all this was nothing compared to what happened to the senior United States Senator from my home state of California, Alex Padilla, when he dared to pose a question to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, aka ICE Barbie and renowned dog killer, Kristi Noem.   Cosplaying her version of chief immigration enforcer – she, of the petrified plastic surgery face accentuated by plentiful hair extensions and full pageant-style makeup, was telling a series of mistruths that culminated with this ominous threat to anyone thinking of protesting anything she or her agents choose to do in southern California.

“We are NOT going away.  We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”

She’s a charmer!

At which point OUR senator, the one who was democratically elected, along with our governor and our mayor by me and millions of other Californians, proclaimed from the back of the room as he approached:

 “I’m Senator Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary. Because the fact of the matter is …”

At which point he was grabbed by a bunch of agents, dragged out of the room, tackled onto the ground and physically held down by several men on the floor who grabbed his wrists behind his back and handcuffed him in full, proud view of the cameras.  And no, I’m not exaggerating even a little bit.  If you haven’t already, you can view it here.

Here’s the thing about our Senator Padilla.  He’s a graduate of MIT and an engineer, an L.A. native who was put through school by two Mexican immigrant parents – a Dad who worked as a short order cook and a mother who cleaned houses.  A guy who trained as an engineer and could have made a ton of money doing that but instead chose to enter politics in the 1990s because he wanted to give voice to a community of people who didn’t have the education and power to speak for themselves to the powers that be.  A guy who’s soft-spoken, hard-working and extremely well-liked by his Senate colleagues.  Someone who would never think of killing their 14 month old puppy instead of taking the time to train it properly, or ever consider being the public face of a modern-day version of Hitler’s Brownshirts.

If I sound a bit worked up over this it’s because:

  1. I am.  And –

2. While Sen. Padilla was being ICE-handled by Cruella’s goons on Thursday, I was five blocks away sitting in a large room at the L.A. Criminal Court House waiting to be called in for jury duty. 

It didn’t work this time

I can’t say I was shocked when the news alerts about all this popped up in my phone but nevertheless I was taken aback.  That is until another potential juror, a thirtyish woman from Thailand, nervously approached me and tentatively asked if I’d ever been on a jury before.  She was smart, had a cell phone, was conversive in the language but underneath it all looked terrified.  It was as if she felt like if she made one wrong move or gave one wrong answer some masked man out of the corner would emerge out of the shadows and take her away. 

I chalked it up to me just being dramatic (Note: Or as my shrink has said more than once, “inclined to piece things together in order to tell a story.”).  But when we were upstairs, sitting on benches outside the courtroom door to which we’d been assigned, and she requested to sit by me so I could “help guide her” through it, I wasn’t so sure.

Turns out I was right…and then some.

Somehow being right this time didn’t feel this good

Once inside the courtroom, I looked around at about 40 or so of my fellow potential jurors, well more than half of whom were of Mexican, Black, Asian or some other non-white ethnicity – truly an L.A. melting pot — and heard us all verbally answer the judge’s questions about our jobs, previous experience with law enforcement, and prior jury service.  What quickly became abundantly clear to me – storyteller or not – was that the demeanor of every single non-white person ranged from cautious and concerned to absolutely intimidated and frightened.  People stumbled over their words, told stories of police harassment and witnessing violent crime, and expressed outright concern over what constituted a right or wrong answer or whether they’d said  too much or too little.

As for the answers from the majority of us white folks, and the manner in which we gave them, well let’s just say I wish there was a new term for, um, Caucasian privilege, (Note: Did I make one up?) since everything about the term is so profoundly embarrassing and enraging to me.

As it should be to anyone who cares about democracy in 2025 and beyond.  #Resist.

We all had a venti cup that day

Oh, and P.S. – After I confidently said to the defense attorney I’d have no trouble at all with the concept of reasonable doubt in the case potentially before us, one where a woman of color was being tried for a crime against the state, I was immediately dismissed by the city’s prosecuting attorney from jury duty.

Make of that what you will.  But also know that this very kind of Caucasian privilege is what too many of my “kind” in Washington are fighting to preserve.

Randy Newman – “I Love LA”

05.31.20
by

The Past, The Protests, The Privilege

I’m a middle aged white guy who grew up with that privilege.   Sometimes I’ve been aware of it and sometimes I’ve been blithely unaware.  Right now, well, it’s hard not to be fully awake.

Many tens of thousands of us of all colors have taken to the streets this week, both physically and virtually, both non-violently and occasionally violently, to demand consequences for the death of a 46-year-old Black man, George Floyd, at the literal hands (well, knee) of a Minneapolis police officer as three of his fellow men in blue watched.

Found in Minneapolis

I dislike violence but I’m not surprised or even OUTRAGED by it.  Frankly, I wouldn’t blame many of us if we burned numerous landmarks in numerous cities down at this point.

Don’t take this as an endorsement of violence but more as an observation of the breaking point of human nature and what it seems to take, now and at various points in our history, to achieve any sort of meaningful social change.

Target will recover, trust me

Mr. Floyd, compliant and handcuffed, was nevertheless prone in the gutter with that police officer’s knee to his neck for a full EIGHT MINUTES, cutting off his air.  As Mr. Floyd pleaded that he couldn’t breathe and called to his dead Mom for help, the officer kept pressing down, on his neck.

In the last three of those minutes Mr. Floyd was no longer breathing and likely dead as the officer blithely looked around him and up at the sky, just sort of passing the time.  Yet his knee never moved, nor did any of his fellow officers.

It’s all captured on video from numerous angles and on numerous cameras.  So don’t even try arguing about it.

The impact of the iPhone cannot be understated

Mr. Floyd’s death is the latest of dozens and dozens and dozens – and dozens – of similar acts perpetrated by police all across the country on an ever-growing list of Black and Brown men, and sometimes women, in the last number of years. They have crossed over the line of guilt or innocence to techniques of interrogation engagement that end in viral recordings of Roman Coliseum-type murders.

What once seemed to many of us informed white Americans as complicated, perhaps nuanced issues of policing are now live examples of what is being perpetrated by representatives of the white patriarchal power structure in our names.  It’s the cost of doing business and what’s perceived as being needed to keep us at the top of the social order and ensure our continued and absolute white privilege.

It’s time to listen

I used to think as an openly gay, Jewish guy from New York City who could never hide who he was because of my surname and less than macho affect, I was not truly the beneficiary of all of this.

But over the years when I’ve considered the fact that I’ve never feared the police, have never been suspected or questioned by law enforcement about crime, and have certainly NEVER been warned by any relatives or friends on how to behave if a policeman happened to pull me over or approach me, I began to recognize the undeniable.

From the perspective of the law, I am LUCKY to be white.

Recognizing your privilege is step 1

Not only was that revelation embarrassing, it was enraging.   Until I indulged in the luxury of partly forgetting about it until the next viral act of racial injustice at the hands of the law came along.

These days it happens if not daily, then weekly or monthly.  So while I am more than able to forget where I put my keys and my wallet I’m seldom EVER able to misplace my white privilege.

What a sorry turn of current events.

Watching spots in Minneapolis and other cities burn as our POTUS fanned the flames of racial injustice and re-tweeted old law and order threats from the 1960s designed to incite more rioting and thus distract from his epic failures in so many other areas, everything seemed hopeless.

It’s hard to even look at a cartoon of him…

But then I began thinking about the death of Larry Kramer, a writer, AIDS activist and one of my personal heroes of courage, and I somehow began to have a vague scintilla of hope – and change.

To call Mr. Kramer a mere AIDS activist is, of course, to sell him short.  By all accounts he was THE FIRST AIDS ACTIVIST in the early 80s, someone who possessed a personal, unrelenting megaphone of activism so loud, unpleasant and in your face that it demanded to be heard until it finally was.

Don’t take my word for it.  Read his NY Times obituary. 

and consider the words of the leading voice of our medical community (Note: And one of Mr. Kramer’s chief nemeses) in 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci: There is no question in my mind that Larry helped change medicine in this country.

The reason Larry did this was that, as he looked around the streets of his neighborhood, he saw dozens and dozens and dozens – and dozens – of his friends being brutally murdered by a relentless foe – the AIDS virus.  But crazy as it was, the white power structure, of which he was theoretically a member of like myself, was doing little to nothing about it.

Worse yet, they seemed to have little interest to radically change their ways and pay more than a little lip service to it despite the pile up of bodies not only in his neighborhood but all across the country.

So he realized if anything were to get done he and his comrades in arms (nee other potential victims) had to take to the streets and do it themselves.

1989, ACT UP protest, Wall Street #thanksLarry

Mr. Kramer founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and later ACTUP, two organizations that slowly, and eventually in very impolite ways, pushed AIDS activism and solutions into the public square by EVERY means necessary.

ACTUP, and Mr. Kramer in particular, set a road map for the modern day, post-1960s activists, creating loud, live events that were so disruptive they couldn’t be ignored.  These included theatrical demonstrations that interrupted Mass presided over by unsympathetic priests inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral and other Catholic Churches; die-ins at the White House and on Wall Street; name-calling political leaders murderers and much worse on national TV (Note: Dr. Fauci included); as well as very publicly outing any closeted gay person (or suspected gay person) in power who he deemed hiding (nee murdering us) instead of helping.

Combine this with more cutting-edge research done by younger people in the movement that backed up his demands with black and white science, and proposing well thought out solutions for improving current policies using logic, medicine and, most of all common sense.

Rather than say something was impossible based on what had happened in the past, they saw things that were possible by dreaming of and then inventing a better future.

It was yet another iteration of any number of American protest techniques that came before but at a different speed and adjusted to yet another time.  Think Dr. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington and the Freedom Riders of the 1960s demanding civil rights, the Suffragettes before them fighting for a woman’s right to vote and to use birth control and then go back a century and a half to the Boston Tea Party and the birth of the American Revolution.

The Boston Tea Party, or as POTUS would say, “Thugs”

Americans have ALWAYS been all about taking to the street, rattling the cages and engaging in very public, and yeah sometimes a bit over the line and occasionally violent (Note: On BOTH SIDES) social protests.

Of course, those were the pre-social media days, not to mention even pre-Internet, so cutting edge radical solutions look quite different now.   In these times we intellectually refer to it as the weaponization of social media via sophisticated disinformation campaigns using fake bots, algorithms and any other means necessary to achieve our agendas.

That friggin bird

If it’s receiving help from foreign actors, such as Russia, China and North Korea, states hoping for the devaluation of our country, it’s never been more available for the average protestor.  We’re all just any number of clicks and screen windows away from marshaling aid from any where in the world.

The ends justify the means is much more than a dusty old bromide of how to get ahead these days.  In many circles it’s a contemporary marching order that you WILL achieve your agenda by any means necessary, dire consequences of their domino effect into any other areas be damned.

And we’re bridling at people blocking traffic and setting fire to a few landmarks??

What is it that writer and philosopher George Santayana, once said:  Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it?

Exactly.  And in endless iterations over time.

Hozier featuring Mavis Staples – “Nina Cried Power”