Black Power vs White Power

The last time the Carolina Panthers were in the Super Bowl, Justin & Janet caused a scandal.  This time around, Beyonce’s Super Bowl “Black Panthers” style show has been upsetting those of us with lighter complexions.

Meanwhile, in stonerville, Phil Anselmo has caught flak for making a Nazi salute and shouting “White Power”, which he tried to explain as a goof on drinking white wine backstage.  Uh, yeah.  And some Flynn guy jumped up immediately to crucify him as a white supremacist and conveniently gather attention for himself as well. 

What’s going on here?

I’ve seen people on Facebook bitching (shock horror, I know), that blacks, Asians, Hispanics, etc. – any non-white minority – can get away with “pride” in their race, but when whites assert the same they’re accused of being racists, or more specifically, white supremacists. 

What seems to be going on is this:  the value judgment made by non-whites is that when THEY assert pride, they are simply saying, “we’re proud of who we are, and we’re just as good as anyone else,” but when white people do so, they’re saying, “we’re better than anyone else.” 

Globally and historically, whites are the only race consistently capable of asserting meaningful power and hegemony over other races.   There was no Nigerian Empire which conquered Europe.  The Chinese in the past subjugated Korea and Vietnam, and the Japanese did so during WWII, but for the most part the victims of Asian aggression were other Asians.   I suppose if you want to classify Hispanics as a separate race, you could accuse them of dominating the native Americans in the New World, but my inclination is to classify Hispanics as a subset of whites.  Anyhow.  Whites have been the only race to dominate other races.

When the statistics are compiled in recent years, in the US at least, most victims of crime tend to be blacks preying on other blacks, and racially motivated crimes show a relative increase of blacks killing whites rather than the other way around.  We all know that many of the slaves were sold to whites by other blacks – tribal rivals – and as “Django Unchained” pointed out, there were black slavers.  On the aggregate, though, whites can take credit for the majority of racial violence, oppression and deaths.

In more recent terms, and closer to the analogy, I’m not aware of any white people killed by the Black Panthers, but the Klan’s body count from the late 1800s through today has been substantial and verified.

Ok, where does that leave us?   Many whites are NOT members of the Klan and do not hold white supremacist values.   I’d say it’s a minority these days, and at that a very small minority.   The most tangible elements of white privilege I can identify as being a beneficiary of in an ordinary, day to day sense is that when I’m pulled over for a traffic violation, the cop simply gives me a ticket, doesn’t ask to search the car, and doesn’t look at me like he suspects I’ve done anything other than the violation for which he cited me.

I would assert that, blaming members of a race – of any race – for crimes committed by others of the same race, is itself racist.  White pride can be, but is not necessarily, an assertion of white supremacy.  Here is where I would distinguish – as I did before – the CSA flag from Nazi imagery.  

Anselmo’s idiocy was making a Nazi salute under circumstances in which it’s impossible to verify that it was made in jest; his explanation sounds highly implausible and ridiculous, and thus his apology comes off as insincere.  The swastika, SS runes, Totenkopf, and the Nazi salute are too closely linked to Hitler & Co. to be divested of any white supremacist intent. 

I’d draw a distinction with the CSA flag, however.   No one believes secession and abolition of the Thirteenth Amendment is politically feasible or reasonable today.  Black perception aside, for many whites it simply means, “I’m proud of being a white Southerner.”  Clearly, when the Klan waves it around, they mean it expressly to offend blacks and assert their cause, but when individuals do so in their capacity AS individuals, I don’t see it as necessarily racist.  In fact, if you google search pictures of Lynyrd Skynyrd playing live in the 1970s, you'll see the CSA flag on stage countless times.  Yet none of their songs advocate slavery or the CSA, and the band itself was fairly liberal by southern standards.  In their case it was obviously meant as a symbol of southern pride rather than white supremacy.

However, having said all that, any white with even a few brain cells has to concede that nonwhites will take offense at the flag no matter what the expressed intent of its display may be.