My Friend Larry on Oppression and Insensitivity in the Movement

My friend Larry is responding to members of a peace and justice coalition attempting to have a group of Iraq vets and a person of color with family in Iraq "tone down" their outrage shown toward G. W. Bush on his visit to Denver. The problem seemed to be a chant using the words "fucking war" and the use of the middle finger. The discussion occurred after my irresponsible posting of the article Imagine ......I Can't which is also on this blog. Larry puts into words concise and to the point what I would do in pages. Thanks be to Larry



I think the thing to keep in mind is that, if a white activist
expressed to Malcolm X, or Rosa Parks or Robert Williams, how they
should represent their outrage, I'm wondering if said person would
walk away without having received an earful, or if said person would
have indeed walked away at all. I would not respond well to a white
person telling me as a Black Male how I should express myself at an
anti police brutality rally or something of that sort. Who cares
what the media picks up. We're not talking about the people's media
here, but corporate media of the bosses anyway. And,we are not
opposing people that would handle us gently, but send cops to bust
up or infiltrate our rallies, or when we take the streets, like the
rebellions waged by Black folk throughout our history of having been
in this country, the military is sent out to maim, murder or kill.
Imagine someone telling the brave North African and Sub Saharan
African youth in France to tone it down. The nerve, right? Some of
you all are the oppressor nation, and I mean people of European
descent that have white skin privledge, and don't be alarmed,
because though I come from an oppressed nationality, as a citizen of
the United States, I'm from the oppressor nation myself when I
travel abroad and have to show solidarity and be sensitive.
Keep in mind that you look quite odd telling someone like D....
W..... to tone it down. Now, it seems that there needs to be
sensitivity training, on racism and sexism in the movement,
something that actually has people of color speaking and not white
people talking to other white people. This is what I think.