Gun Control as Evidence of the Failure of "Color Blindness"

It is a necessity that we do not ignore the reality of the way new control measures in VA are already being enforced, and the tenor of those with institutional power in their approach to enforcement. In Richmond VA, thousands of armed, overwhelmingly white protesters came from all over VA and from out of state for the 2A protest at the capitol a few months ago. The presence of far right adherents and white supremacists has already been documented. A few dozen armed BIPOC protested at MDP Circle/ the Lee monument in the last few weeks, during the BLM protests in Richmond in the last month.

The new police chief and a city council member have specifically referenced the presence of armed protesters at MDP Circle/the Lee monument as being a disincentive for committing violence against the protest. How often do we hear this lament in relation to rallies or protests by groups who are overwhelmingly white and plainly contain far right and white supremacist elements? Looking at the difference in the way law enforcement and city/state government views these is instructive, and reason for the people who support new gun control measures at any cost take this into account.

Let's be crystal clear about this, one can support further fire arms regulation, because it's clear there's a logical, rational need for it when we look at the reality of gun violence and public safety. One can also see it's logical, rational and supported by evidence that it's irresponsible not to require that legislation also have preventions against and penalties for racist enforcement. There basically isn't a law written from a prohibition perspective that isn't a lever for racist enforcement. To see the second part about the need for preventions against and penalties for racist enforcement, one has to look though, which is it's own problem of epidemic proportions where the overwhelmingly white complexion of institutional power and the reality of racism is concerned. We have to look in order to see, and one of white supremacies most steadfast defenses is how reliable the white majority is not to look. 

Those of us who've found ourselves on the "radical/far left" have advocated for this for a long time where issues and discussion of gun control are found. The normal reaction from the "just get us anything" gun control advocates is to essentially say proposing consideration for racist enforcement is just an attempt to derail the conversation on gun control or that it's an alternative defense of the traditional 2A arguments that any gun control measures are unconstitutional. Of course the reaction from the 2A crowd has always been that any regulation is unconstitutional.

Personally, I never saw a need for owning a gun because I was afraid of someone stealing my shit or because I had fantasies of fighting a tyrannical government. I decided to own guns because it was clear during the Obama administration and the Occupy movement that a significant portion of the country was being radicalized on factually baseless far right and white supremacist propaganda. If most of the people who consider themselves "moderates" were to go back and look at the misinformation and memes being passed around by the Tea Party adherents, it would be pretty clear how much of that is indistinguishable from what is now recognized as white supremacist propaganda.  

At the time, the basic approach to the Tea Party was, "Sure, there are some racist elements, but this is really a movement of people interested in ending government corruption and instilling fiscal responsibility." The Tea Party was one big radicalization party, and little else. The modern mainstreaming of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories surrounding George Soros happens at that point. The mainstreaming of claims of some other shadowy network being behind the Occupy protests happens as well. Combining that realization with the experience of the near constant stream of threats of violence toward Occupy encampments on social media, and the consistency of people who decided to show up with a gun on their hip to "challenge" a park full of exhausted protesters to a "debate" that consisted of hurling insults and veiled threats really gave me a new perspective on gun ownership.

After witnessing dozens, if not hundreds of instances of police attempting to provoke violence or wantonly engaging in violence without cause at protests which had been otherwise peaceful, and then seeing law enforcement agencies stand around while white supremacists from all over the nation threw themselves a race riot in 2017, my ideas about self defense were cemented as something far outside of what the usual conservative talking points were. At this point, without irony or hyperbole, I can say I'm genuinely surprised to see police respond to protest which has any relationship to racial justice in a measured and considered way, and I would not expect a genuine threat by far right extremists or white supremacists against anyone engaged in any kind of work for racial just to be taken seriously by police and law enforcement.

We can see the entirety of the arguments and the blueprint for the opposition to the current protest movement mainstreamed, and the same very old, deeply racist arguments upgraded for a modern audience in the Tea Party and in the opposition to the Occupy movement.

Understand, every single BIPOC who is willing to regularly or occasionally be identified as organizing or being in something that could be construed as a leadership position that's been in some way related to the protests in the last month is put at risk, just by being identified. If you think local white supremacists and other far right organizations and adherents aren't keeping track, you haven't genuinely considered the current realities of far right violence and what extremist culture is. They will share those names and pictures among themselves, in identifying "the enemy" as a way to create a sense of shared community and they don't have to make a specific call to action. We've seen this again and again and is why both news organizations and law enforcement have continued to call many who do commit violence "lone wolves." No one gave them a specific order and they didn't plan it with anyone, but the motivation comes the culture and community, and the sense of serving and defending those. Even white people who might be identified as giving any kind of significant aid or financial, material or logistical support to these protests and BLM are put at risk. The overall likelihood of being attacked is lower for white people engaged in anti-racist work is lower than it is for BIPOC, absolutely, but it's still exponentially higher than the rest of the white population. 

The overwhelming majority of white Americans will never have to take the possibility of being personally targeted by the far right or white supremacists into consideration, beyond the random acts of attempted mass casualty attacks. It's not something that occurs to us, the possibility of being specifically targeted by what amounts to a movement to create, educate and motivate domestic terrorists. Overwhelmingly, we also think that should this by some awful chance be the case, we could turn to law enforcement. For BIPOC and even white people who happen to follow what has been happening with the far right and white supremacists across the country, the idea that law enforcement are going to protect against the threat posed my members of those groups is far less clear cut. There have been multiple instances of law enforcement cooperating with far right and white supremacist groups in sharing intelligence about people engaged in anti-racist activism, and there is without any doubt for anyone willing to look, and deep discrepancy in the way law enforcement responds to protest and/or the existence of the threat of violence where the far right/white supremacists and anti-racists are concerned. 

In Richmond, a man who attempted to run down protesters (who weren't even in the road, but were in a median) and identified himself as a member of the Klan at the time, was treated with a level of respect for his person which hasn't been afforded protesters, even in instances when there has been no property damage, which so many find as a reasonable explanation for police aggression. Consider for a second the discrepancy between the treatment of a member of a hate group who was recorded by civilians and witnessed by police as trying to commit an act of violence which could have been deadly had he succeeded and the treatment of people who were gathered at a public space, as a show of their unwillingness to continue to act as if institutional racism in the form of police brutality doesn't exist or isn't an urgent enough problem to demand immediate solutions. 

This isn't to say that many BIPOC don't see the need to be able to legally own a firearm in terms of more general violent crime like robbery, but more to say that as white people, it's extremely hard to imagine the reality that is both the danger of far right/white supremacist violence in combination with either the disinterest toward or the support of that violence by law enforcement. Two weeks ago, in Virginia, an unfortunately excellent example of this problem was demonstrated by law enforcement arresting a pastor who had been attacked, and then held his attackers at gun point until police arrived.

BIPOC communities have often been used as arguments for the implementation of gun control, and there is no shortage of support for gun control in BIPOC communities. It is again, another place in American political debate though where white politicians and the politically active white majority are happy to have the support of BIPOC communities, but have been deaf to the rest of the solutions being proposed and fought for when the lights, cameras and attention which come with the gun control debate are turned toward some other topic. Like the stupid and baseless claims about there being no interest in BIPOC communities about Black on Black crime, treating BIPOC communities as if they aren't already focused on dealing with gun violence, and understand a holistic, community based approach to dealing with the underlying reasons for gun violence is evidence of just how little listening is being done by the white majority in favor of gun control, especially when it's not at all unusual for the white moderate and the white liberal to turn around and question the wisdom of the solutions BIPOC community activists, leaders, academics and intellectuals have proposed and fought for, much less recognition of the validity BIPOC opponents of gun control have in their arguments. It's sensible, at this point, to approach the NRA and it's overwhelmingly white supporters as not being good faith participants in discussions and debates about gun control. It contrary to reason not to treat BIPOC opponents of gun control as if they are engaging in good faith, as the fundamentally central aspects of American racism are rooted in the lack of respect for the personhood, bodily integrity and safety from racially motivated violence.

If anything is learned from the events of the last few months, it must be that whatever the intent of law or legislation might be, enforcement is steeped in racism. Hopefully, gun control advocates will take this into account in the future, but will also come back to look at the latest legislation passed and amend it to prevent racist enforcement and to institute legal punishments, including the possibility of civil suits in cases of racist enforcement. This isn't about attacking gun control advocates. I, personally, support the intent of the laws passed recently in Virginia. This is about recognizing where intent and reality differ and taking the responsibility to try and fix what is likely to be a very dangerous discrepancy, in more than one way, for BIPOC in Virginia, and in states beyond, where gun control measures aren't nearly as new, but which also don't take that discrepancy into consideration. It's about taking responsibility for understanding that a "color blind" approach to public safety in the last 30 years is a significant contributor to putting th safety of BIPOC at risk.