The unfortunate victims of “black skin privilege”
by digby
Following up on David’s post below, Roy Edroso surveys other horrors of the right wing commentariat on the Zimmerman verdict and President Obama’s speech, so you don’t have to:
Rightbloggers … reacted as if it were a black version of Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech, because it acknowledged something they absolutely refuse to accept: That white people have some advantages over black people in America.
(NB: It should be mentioned up front, to avoid confusion, that all rightbloggers speaking on the case accepted Zimmerman’s story that Martin struck him first as a settled fact, and some even took the theorizing to that effect of witness Rachel Jeantel, whom they had mocked and reviled during the trail, as evidence thereof.)
“President Trayvon Obama – Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste – Divisive Obama Injects Himself To Insure Racial Tensions Explode,” headlined The Conservative Treehouse. “OBAMA CONTINUES RACIAL ZIMMERMAN NARRATIVE WHILE HISPANICS TARGETED” said Ben Shapiro of Breitbart.com. “He cheered for emotionalism and for the perspective that insists it is always about race,” said Jennifer Rubin at the Washington Post. “The Divider & Narcissist in Chief Barack Obama … Trayvon Martin Could Have Been Me (VIDEO & Transcript) … Obama Fans the Flames of Racism,” howled Scared Monkeys. “…Sorry, but Obama is a poor excuse of a president and a poor excuse of a human being. All he can do is attack his own racism and past to Trayvon Martin like a leach.”
Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit cried, “Good Grief.. Barack Obama: If You Lock Your Car Doors… You Must Be Racist.” “Martin was the aggressor. Is Obama trying to suggest otherwise?” said Nice Deb. (See, we told you.) “Michael Savage gives a Negro caller a piece of his mind,” cheered Ozzie Saffa. “…And before people go on about him being a Jew, he’s just about the only Jewish person I’ve ever heard who is a Jew realist.”
[…]
Referring to the “I Am Trayvon” slogan some supporters were using, Daniel Greenfield of FrontPageMag assured readers that “I Am Not Trayvon Martin,” because if he were shot and killed, “lacking the Black Skin Privilege that turns a death into an opportunity for race baiting, I would just be another statistic. There would be no rallies for me and no t-shirts with my name on it. No one would be talking about how they are me or aren’t me.” We can’t understand how white people survive day after day under that kind of oppression. Maybe Greenfield could have his skin darkened so he can enjoy some of that Black Skin Privilege. It worked for John Howard Griffin!
There’s more. Much more. Read it all. You have to know, even though you may not want to.
And once and for all, can we please dispense with the convenient delusion that we are in a “post-racial” society?
.