Please reply with your argument here.

I wonder if the are brave enough or should I have said brazen enough.

If it wasn't for Ben insisting he never would have known what it was like to get in a cop van, go to jail, and spend several hours chained up, to enjoy all that the jail house had to offer. He didn't even get to feel what it was like to have his union pin taken away from him. It was a pure injustice that Ben was going to be denied these wonderful life experiences.

He will grow out of it soon and become a productive member of society.

His friend, though, is clearly a career criminal.

BTW, how do I use the sarcasm tag?

It was clear that Ben was exercising his free speech rights and that Shawn was preparing to mug and loot.

but this anecdote totally convinced me that I have white privilege

So I went out to enjoy it.

Took my bicycle out in the rain down to the local bank and asked to withdraw my white privilege dividend. Wow! I did not know they still made bills with that many zeros. I guess it's treasury series W. Then I went down to the car dealership and got a new car. Was prepared to pay with my white privilege dividend, but was told not to be ridiculous. Got a new 2016, a VW of course, and it gets 150 miles to the gallon, not that I have to pay for gas any more anyway.

So I drove to the airport, took my new learjet to Nova Scotia where I now have a nice cabin. Did you realize there was a total eclipse of the sun today? The things you learn by watching WNN. It's amazing that until I read this article I did not realize there was a WNN. Then I had to fly to Geneva where I was scheduled to speak to a meeting of world leaders. Got several standing ovations, of course. Hey, I'm white.

Now I am waiting for a meeting with some guy named Tony and I called up Brenda to make a dinner date. She's married to my old college roommate.

It's been an amazing morning. When I think of all the years I worked menial jobs, pinching pennies and biking in the rain, it almost makes me cry. But then I snap my white fingers and somebody brings me an ice cream sandwich. So I guess I can live with it.

Of course, this is not really a serious argument, but I am not responding to a serious argument either, am I?

Do you have a actual definition for white privilege, or is it that you don't really have one and all you're doing here is going out of your way to deny that it even exists?

If you have a definition for it, perhaps you can enlighten us all on what it is.

I'd like to know if we're even anywhere in the same vicinity during this conversation.

that would explain the menial jobs, this narrow minded tendency to make everything a whine about themselves.
I don't drink with, or work with you!

nevermind.. it's been too obvious all along.

mahalo she

I was reading this - visualizing it. And yet, while it was both predictable and foreshadowed in the righting - I still audibly drew in a deep shocked breath as I read the words whispered to the knocked down protester.

My mind isn't surprised, but my soul still keeps gasping at the undercurrents (cops prejudices) that underlie the atrocities.

There is an interesting piece at TPM about millenials' awakening that was posted yesterday. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/tpm-reader-my-cousin-was-shot-dead-by-police-in-albuquerque which I hope reflects a growing segment of our society.

An awakening. For those of us who do not live the reality of worry/threat of being at the brutal end of a police stop. For those of us who know it is a reality - but until recently didn't have to cognitively process it over and over again. This isn't about us. It is far bigger than us. It IS about who we are as a society.

Viva the protesters in Ferguson whose continued actions forced eyes open and conversations to begin! Even when faced with militarized force meant to intimidate - you kept acting! Viva the protesters in Cleveland for forcing those conversations to continue! Viva the protesters in NY and those who have joined protests around the country! Viva those who attend and witness and then share pictures and accounts from those protests!

To all those taking action - You are part of moving us towards who we can be as a society.

that he and his friends and at least the millenials I know are getting very much awake about this issue and they will NOT continue to stand for it (we're white and he and I are heartened to see that most of his white friends also understand, the ones who don't-he and his friends are working on them).

It will not be people my age, middle-aged and older, who will finally effect the change that is desperately needed. It will be the younger generation, who do not, fortunately, have that automatic respect for LEO no matter what and the authoritarian mindset that was drilled into us from day one. They are not falling for the bullshit.

not diminishing an ally's participation in a human endeavor, justice for all, but what happened is typical amerika these days, always really. Some are just more unequal than others........

Has anyone got a link?

Suspicious. It's the kind if thing where, if it didn't fit so perfectly into our preconceptions, there'd be a whole bunch of "cool story, bro" responses.

Ah yes, "good cops" are on par with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

I was always treated pretty decently by police when I was younger, and a bit prone to doing stupid things. It never really occurred to me until recently that this wasn't the norm.

with my mother in trying to get her to see the racist, violent nature of the police. She's an elderly white woman who's never had a problem with them and has always been treated just fine. Well, of course, because she's a white woman and, especially now that she's elderly. She was going into diabetic shock while she was driving last summer and was driving erratically because of it. A cop pulled her over and she was barely conscious and slumped over the wheel. She could communicate, but barely. She said the cop was super nice and called an ambulance and stayed with her and called my son to come get the car and then go to the ER afterwards.

I told her if she'd been a black or Hispanic man (especially black), chances were VERY high that things would have been a lot different. The cop may very well have assumed he was on drugs or "acting suspiciously" and reacted accordingly. He very well may have assumed such if she were an older black woman (there have been many older black women shot or murdered by police for no reason that made any sense)I said it was lucky she was an old white woman. But she just simply doesn't see it, refuses to see it. Sigh.

very insightful post. White privilege is real. How could anyone misunderstand that?

They 'choose to'. Denial is very strong and real. My experiences.

Where are all of the ppl that so diligently deny that white privilege exists or want to trivialize the plight of minorities in this country?

If this was a bash a Dem thread it would have 300 replies, all patting each other on the back & they wonder why we don't post regularly.

about the comment section.

Though they're not that talkative right now.

That was impressive & very insulting.