Violence Is a White Privilege in the U.S.
A viral video exposes racism and administrative bias
The January 6, 2021 insurrection made it abundantly clear who can be violent in the U.S., not only with impunity via federal pardons but some were even rewarded with new jobs in the MAGA administration including the Department of Justice. Attempting to rebrand white violence from MAGA loyalists not as domestic terrorism but as revolutionary patriotism is one of the highest-profile examples of white supremacy and judicially systemic racism.
No one gets to be violent in the U.S. like white people. White male actors champion gratuitous violence on-screen as rugged, tough, and even righteous. White police officers literally get away with murdering unarmed Black people.
But what about when a young Black girl protects a fellow student in a fight when all of the adults present failed to?
A 2021 video from Chiefland Middle High School in Florida is circulating again on social media.
Without any apparent provocation, a white girl savagely attacks a fellow female student sitting down in a cafeteria or a classroom. But her victim, also a young girl, is wearing a hijab, she is smaller, and is presumably Muslim.
The video is grotesque. But even in its brevity it reveals whose violence is tolerated and celebrated and whose is stopped as an immediate threat.
No adults intervened to help the Muslim girl when the white girl was pummeling her
The other kids, including one of the students filming the incident are all laughing
The bully pauses between beatings to smile at whoever is filming, seems encouraged, and resumes hitting the seated girl
When someone finally has the courage and integrity to intervene and help the girl who doesn’t appear to be defending herself, all of a sudden the whole dynamic changes. Gasps and screams are audible. Panic rises. Someone starts yelling STOP in almost anguish.
The instant the Black student pulls the bully off her victim and starts hitting her, an adult magically appears and immediately tries to break this fight up
The only one with enough courage and integrity to stop the initial beating was a fellow student. Not an adult supervisor. Not a teacher. Not a campus security officer.
Mandating a school assembly about empathy and tolerance might further spotlight and endanger the girl who already suffered. But every single staff member at that school needs to attend a series of trainings about implicit bias, Islamophobia, racism, and violence. And a discussion about what to change their mascot to. The Chiefland Middle High School’s mascot is the Chiefland Indians, with a caricature that will surprise no one. Other images depict an arrowhead.
“Together, we strive to be ONE TRIBE of greatness & unity!” Their Facebook page says.
Though some reports indicate that both Chiefland students had to serve 10-day suspensions after the altercation, there are no reports about a district-wide mandate for staff, teachers, and administrators to complete cultural competency workshops, sensitivity training, or whatever terminology won’t get them defunded for promoting DEI.
The video exposes how white violence exists across a spectrum. Not only is it allowed and all too often promoted, it can be regarded variously as harmless, justified, and even funny. But Black violence is unequivocally regarded as dangerous. It must be immediately shut down because it is seen as unwarranted, excessive, and threatening the safety and peace of everyone who “matters.”
In this instance, the other students jeering conspiratorially and the adults whose seemingly racist inaction are just as guilty of perpetuating bigotry as the bully who violently attacked a seated girl in the first place.
"In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body -- it is heritage."
- Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me