Jun. 1st, 2020

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Disclaimer:

Don’t speak on behalf. Don’t speak in absentia. Don’t substitute the talk about the victim with the talk about yourself. Don’t turn to the victim for advice: don’t assign them the role of comforting you instead of you providing the comfort by saying: “I see you”; “This is horrible”; “I am sorry.” These are all valid points, but I am jarred by the self-hatred tone of the white educator elaborating on them.

I see you. This is horrible. I AM sorry. But I must talk about myself, because if I don’t, I cannot be sure my ”sorry” is genuine. And if it is not genuine, I will continue to be latently racist.

I will talk about myself TO MYSELF; a post on FB is necessary, because I need to get things “out of my system,” and this cannot be done in solitude; a paid therapist won’t do. I take it for granted that if you befriended me, you volunteered to be exposed to my soliloquies. As I have said elsewhere, self-exposure serves a purpose: feel better about yourself by contrast or enjoy being “counted in.” Or leave, because I am about to pour out my pain on top of your pain.

And definitely leave if you are here to cheer me on when I express anger. It is my pain, not yours. Depending on what your story is, it may please you or hurt you. But I cannot contain it. I need a witness; not a cheer-leader.

And to friends, Thank You. You see me. This is horrible. I am sorry.

***
My “assimilation” in the US as a fresh Eastern European immigrant began with a relative telling me that you don’t kick the police car just because, among other things (like cultural shock and post-partum depression), your tooth hurts, and you have no money for a dentist. And if you happen to kick the police car, you should say “I am sorry,” even if you don’t mean it. I was surprised. Back then I saw more offence in false “sorry” than in not being sorry. Just as today my belief in God is expressed in my doubting God’s existence: somehow, I feel it more offensive to God when I say “I believe in you” than when I say, “I believe in you… sometimes; most of the time; but not always.”

***
I commend Willy Brandt for kneeling at the Jewish memorial in Warsaw in 1970; I commend Colin Kaepernick for kneeling at the football game in 2016; why am I having hard time accepting the white guilt? The answer is anger.

I am angry at the part of the Black community denying the Holocaust. I am angry at the Black community for not recognizing the Jewish experience in the USSR as not particularly “white.” I am angry at the Black community for stalking my mom (she asked for some quiet after hours and was received as a patronizing white lady; neither of us knew back then what the request for quietude historically entails). I am disdainful of a black bus driver harassing a Latino passenger (as an example), and I feel empathy for an elderly Japanese woman comically afraid to leave the bathroom stall at McDonalds despite of (because of) the few black women at the door urging her to come out already. I belatedly gasp at the inappropriateness of my addressing a group of African-American neighbors as “you people” because I thought it was a grammatically correct way to form plural “you” in English: twenty plus years ago.

And so on.

I remind myself that the Nazi found perverse pleasure in hiring Jewish collaborators to have an excuse of “Jewish-on-Jewish violence,” which resonates with the today’s hypocritical mantra of “black-on-black violence,” allegedly not needing intervention. I remind myself that oppressors always entrust the dirtiest job in the hands of the oppressed; that the oppressors rule by the “divide-and-conquer” method; that a victim of violence will find a more vulnerable victim to take out the pain on them, for the real oppressor is almost always out of reach. Why am I still angry? (Am I?)

Because I find no audience to relate this to. I end up either with my reference group who will sympathize with my problems and CHEER ON, or with the opponents who will point out, quite rightfully, that it is not my turn to speak. When is my turn? Never.

Just like it is never the Germans’ turn to say that they suffered too. Because it is not the same. Not the same. Russia now joined the list of those who will never have their turn. They did it to themselves, we say; we know it; we saw it. Those who opposed the regime should bear with the guilt. Keep doing what you are doing to oppose, but count on no gratitude. Whatever you are doing is a service to yourself: you must do it to absolve yourself from the guilt your country chose to partake in. It is your problem; not the victim’s problem.

Willy Brandt knelled; why can’t you?

***
ACLU published the list of protesters’ rights. I will address only the first paragraph.

“Stay calm. Make sure to keep your hands visible. Don’t argue, resist, or obstruct the police, even if you believe they are violating your rights. Point out that you are not disrupting anyone else’s activity and that the First Amendment protects your actions.”

How is that a “right”? Many bad things can happen to you before the police finds you non-guilty. The harm will be later written off as an unfortunate byproduct of the so-called justice.

Non-resistance is NOT a right; it is a precaution.

First you raise generations of citizens who are taught to see no difference between an assault and passive resistance (fleeing rather than attacking). Then you get the generations of citizens unable to tell violence from non-violence. Then everyone gets paranoid about everyone else, because now they suspect violence even in non-violent acts. Then you wonder why the society gets polarized along these lines.

***
The police is armed and physically trained; you – on average – are not. So the only reasonable element here is keeping your hands visible: the officer on duty should not fear for her/his life. Other than that, my desire and effort to escape the arrest, as a measure of self-protection, is natural, whether I am guilty or not. I have the right to remain silent or to lie in court (or rather, I have the opportunity to lie) but not the right to flee – WHAT IF I AM BETTER AT FLEEING THAN AT TALKING, OR ESPECIALLY AT LYING; or even at remaining silent, or “calm,” at the moment of being arrested?

How can pointing out to the First Amendment, or any amendment whatsoever, NOT be seen as “arguing with the police” – from the police’s point of view?

Arguing with the police is pointless and can cost you money at best (when you are white) and your life at worst (when you are a person of color). Wriggling out of the police’s grip or fleeing the police, a natural response of any human being, makes the second option – the loss of your life – ever more viable; again, especially if you are a person of color.

So, in order to exercise my right to self-protection, I must (a) be sure I can quickly get a lawyer, (b) possess a supernatural self-control and superior verbal/communicative skills (including knowing when to remain silent), and (c) have an unlimited trust in the judiciary system. Among many other skills and beliefs most of us do not naturally possess.

***
My common sense tells me that unarmed people should be allowed to passively resist: flee, hide, and make handcuffing a little more difficult for the physically overbearing officer. Oh, you are not sure if I am armed. Fine, I will flee with my hands in the air for as long as I am in your plain view. Does that sound fair? Too complicated, for I may want to climb a tree or a fence at some point.

Too complicated? So how about you learn to not spook the hell out of me when approaching? No, not the other way around, because you are the one wearing the uniform, including the bullet-proof vest; not me.

How about you don’t expose me to unnecessary humiliation of all sorts, for which you won’t even bother to apologize? Especially if I am a kid or a teenager. How about you guarantee my safety when I am arrested, and afterward, while I am still a suspect and not a convict? You cannot, because prisons are overcrowded and you cannot control what happens inside the prison ward once you lock the door.

***
So maybe stop overcrowding the prisons? Maybe only lock up those who threaten others’ lives and wellbeing, rather those who may offend your arbitrary sense of decorum by smoking pot? Maybe don’t put people in prison for failing to pay a traffic ticket? Maybe don’t tailgate a driver on a dark street waiting for them to loose nerve and slightly accelerate, just enough over the speed limit to get one?

Maybe, just maybe, get a better training before you are let out onto the streets in your shiny car, with those merry dancing-party lights on top, going on your selective-protective mission? Maybe take your “party” to the areas where people need you the most?

Maybe if you stop gassing little girls, when they fall off the bike and freak out at the sight of a white policeman, and if you learn how to tell a black victim from a black perpetrator, or a black colleague on duty from a criminal, maybe then you’ll be more welcome in the areas that “need policing the most” but are left with none, because, you see, it’s a “black-on-black violence.” A special, mysterious kind of violence, which needs no intervention; not like parking violations, you know; these are much more important.

***
“How about black-on-black policing,” you will ask me, or “black-on-white policing,” or mixed? I did my best to answer that above. To the best of my knowledge. To the best of my bias. To the best of my fear at the sight of the police: no, I do not feel safe in their proximity, and no, I am not 100% sure I will walk out alive. The problem is, a black person is almost 100% sure s/he will not. There is a difference. I am “angry” at black people for their fear dwarfing mine.

Ironic. Yes, my book is on envy. And no, I won’t include this part.

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