5 thoughts on “#CrimingWhileWhite”

  1. i think #crimingwhilewhite is well-intended and perhaps illuminating. but i’m wary of its becoming a way by which whites can navel-gaze and bring the conversation back to *them*, when they should be *listening* to blacks about their experiences with police. it’s hard not to see this as whites’ managing to turn a conversation that had come dangerously close to not being about them to being about them again.

    I urge interested readers to search #alivewhileblack

  2. I think that’s a very fair concern, anon. I think #crimingwhilewhite is most useful for those who *still* (and there seem to be so many) refuse to admit that there is white privilege, especially when it comes to dealing with the cops. Reading #crimingwhilewhite and #alivewhileblack in tandem, and looking at the disparity, is really helpful, I think.

  3. I came across this about 20 minutes after I posted a link to a Vox piece on this. I did at least frame it as: to those of you who think that if people just behave, there won’t be problems with the police, read these and ask yourself, “Is that what I would say if the ‘criminals’ in these cases had been killed for their crime?”

    http://jezebel.com/the-problem-with-crimingwhilewhite-1666785471

    I think it is telling that I had seen easily a dozen instances of #CrimingWhileWhite before finding out about #AliveWhileBlack.

  4. thanks, kimberlyvo for that jezebel link on this topic.

    That article also deals with the odd trend that some people have turned the hashtag #blacklivesmatter into #alllivesmatter. the article quotes some tweets by arthur chu on that trend — he’s hysterical! one of his tweets: “WTF is the impulse behind changing #BlackLivesMatter to #AllLivesMatter. Do you crash strangers’ funerals shouting I TOO HAVE FELT LOSS” i’m with chu on this.

Comments are closed.