Justice

Saying 'The Bundys Posed No Threat' Is How White Privilege Works

The Bundys can only be who they are because they are white.

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<> on January 5, 2016 in Burns, Oregon.

Taken on January 5, 2016 in Burns, Oregon.

I don’t care about the land use issue. Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, and five other white people were acquitted on conspiracy charges of impeding the work of federal officers. That they claim they were protesting “government overreach” of Western land use shouldn’t mean anything. The only legitimate question before the jury was whether a band of armed white people, occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge for nearly six weeks, interfered with federal officers.

The jury determined that they did not. A jury of Bundy’s peers determined that the occupiers “posed no threat” to federal officials of the Fish and Wildlife Service or the Bureau of Land Management. This wasn’t jury nullification based on their anti-government feelings regarding land use. This was a bunch of white people getting together and deciding that these crazy white folk didn’t mean any harm.

We live in a world where seven armed white people pose no threat when taking over federal property, but one unarmed black person poses a deadly threat while being stopped in their own vehicle.

The hypothetical about what would have happened had the Bundys been an armed group of African-American renegades is so banal that it has no meaning. It is unlikely that seven armed black people would even have survived long enough to make it to trial, much less been acquitted of wrongdoing. If you don’t understand that reality, then you aren’t even paying attention.

The Bundys can only be who they are because they are white. They have been created by the white privilege that says you can arm yourself against the government and expect to come out alive. There is no minority equivalent for the Bundys. America does not allow its black and brown people to get to the point where they can contemplate armed protest against federal overreach. PEOPLE LOSE THEIR S**T WHEN BLACK PEOPLE TAKE A KNEE UP IN THIS MESS. Ain’t no brother trying to peaceably arm himself to capture federal property and expecting to live to tell about it.

What would be nice would be for people to understand that threat assessment is not objective, and stop trusting the police every time they claim to be too frightened to let an unarmed black person live.

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Because I, for one, would like to live in a world where law enforcement showed restraint, and a jury looked at a situation after the fact to determine if a true threat was ever expressed or intended. I would like to live in a world where we respected protests, even aggressive ones, and didn’t read in ex-post-facto danger in our rush to punish. I don’t think armed gangs should go around taking over federal property, but I would like to live in a world where we deal with that as peacefully as possible and give people fair trials after the fact.

Put another way: I don’t want to see white people treated like black people in this country, I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. I just want everybody to be treated like a white person when their life is on the line.

Bundy Brothers Acquitted in Takeover of Oregon Wildlife Refuge [New York Times]

Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. Would hate to be a black Fish and Wildlife ranger right now.

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