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Original question: Why are police officers so widely hated?In the specific context of US police officers? I mean….here’s just one example:A quick Google search will also answer that question. When you google, for instance, police officer charged, you will see many recent examples of police officers being charged for crimes that wouldn’t have happened if they weren’t police officers. Make sure to read beyond the headline though, as there are a couple that are unrelated to their profession. People are constantly bombarded with allegations, charges and convictions relating to police misconduct in the media.Lets also talk a little history. Remember during Civil Rights Movement? It was the target of numerous incidents of police brutality, most notably during the Birmingham campaign in 1963–64 and during the Selma to Montgomery marches in 1965.Let’s fast forward to the Rampart scandal in the late 90s. It was basically widespread police corruption in the Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) anti-gang unit of the LAPD Rampart Division. More than 70 police officers either assigned to or associated with the Rampart CRASH unit were implicated in some form of misconduct. This included unprovoked shootings, unprovoked beatings, planting of false evidence, stealing and dealing narcotics, bank robbery, perjury and the covering up of evidence of these activities. Only 24 were actually found to have committed any wrongdoing, but 106 prior criminal convictions were overturned. That’s many innocent lives ruined by police officers. And the full extent of the corruption is still unknown.And let’s also not forget the racist stop and frisk policy by the NYPD. I’m sure there are many more historical examples, but the ones above are two of the most recent in history.Lets also not ignore the fact that police departments have been investigated by the DOJ in recent years. These are just the ones I have researched myself. But you don’t hear Blue Lives Matter talk about this. You may say these reports are politically motivated by cop-hating Democrats in the DOJ, but I highly doubt that there isn’t merit to their findings over the years. This isn’t a Black Lives Matter activist or some extremist liberal cop-hater on social media saying all this. This is all according the Department of Justice. Their reports are the most credible documentation we have available of general police misconduct.In Chicago, after the murder of Laquan McDonald, when a 17-year-old African American boy was fatally shot by a white police officer, the Attorney General requested that the DOJ conduct a civil rights investigation into McDonald's death and the activities of the Chicago police department. The January 2017 report described the police as having a culture of "excessive violence," especially against minority suspects, and of having poor training and supervision. The Chicago Reporter also found CPD made more than 1,300 arrests between 2012 and September 2016 where the only charge was resisting arrest, according to an analysis of Cook County court data. With more than half of these cases ultimately being dismissed later. This is part a broader problem of police using “cover charges” to justify excessive use of force.In Cleveland, after the murder of Tamir Rice, the DOJ released a scathing report accusing the Cleveland police department of a pattern of excessive force, of which officers were rarely disciplined for.In Baltimore, in 2016, the DOJ issued a report into the police department there, after year and half long investigation. It condemned many long-standing discriminatory enforcement practices by the police. This allowed for illegal searches, arrests and stops of black people for minor offenses. It also criticized the department's "zero tolerance" and "broken windows" policing, finding that the department's practices "regularly discriminated against black residents in poor communities". There was also a 2017 racketeering indictment where eight officers in the Baltimore police department. They were indicted for shaking down citizens for money, pocketing it, lying to investigators, filing false court paperwork, and making fraudulent overtime claims. You can read about how the DOJ reached their conclusion here: It’s official: the Baltimore police force is a racially biased, unconstitutional disasterIn Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Albuquerque Police Department (the largest municipal police department in New Mexico) was also investigated by the DOJ. In 2013, it issued its troubling report. The DOJ found a “culture of acceptance of the use of excessive force", in which many times, it was not justified. This has caused significant harm/injury by police officers to people who posed absolutely no threat. The DOJ recommended a nearly complete overhaul of the department's use-of-force policies. Among several systematic problems at APD were an aggressive culture that undervalued civilian safety and discounted the importance of crisis intervention. But the department has been found to repeatedly failed to comply with reforms since 2014. A court-appointed independent monitor has filed five reports with the judge overseeing the case. A report in May 2017 accused APD of being in “deliberate noncompliance.”In Ferguson, Missouri in 2015, the DOJ published its findings in a report. It concluded that police officers in Ferguson routinely violated the constitutional rights of the city's residents by applying racial stereotypes and discriminating against black people.In June 2013, the DOJ issued its findings on the LA County Police Department’s Antelope Valley branch (within the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale). It found a patterns excessive use of force, biased policing practices, including housing discrimination, and unlawful searches and seizures. More specifically, there was pedestrian and vehicle stops that violated the Fourth Amendment, stops that appeared motivated by racial bias in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and federal statutory law, and pattern of intimidation and harassment by deputies against black people who held Section 8 housing choice vouchers. The DOJ says the goal was to terminate African-American voucher holders from the Section 8 program and to pressure them to move out of the Antelope Valley.On Sept. 8 2011, the DOJ released a report on the Puerto Rico Police Department. It was described an an agency in significant disrepair. Finding that police officers had regularly conducted unconstitutional searches of civilians’ homes without a warrant, used excessive force against individuals of Dominican descent, failed to investigate allegations of sex crimes and domestic violence, and had “unnecessarily injured hundreds of people and killed numerous others.” The report also noted the arrest of more than 1,700 officers over a five-year period.In 2011, the DOJ issued an report on the New Orleans Police Department. The DOJ found a pattern of excessive force, unconstitutional stops, searches, arrests and biased NOPD policing. The DOJ underscored a pattern of discriminatory enforcement under the CAN statute and its sex offender registration requirement, noting that the statute serves no public safety purpose and further marginalizes already vulnerable populations. The police department also targeted African American women and LGBT people by charging them with crimes that carry far harsher penalties, such as mandatory sex offender registration, than those imposed under the state’s prostitution statute. It also highlighted poor training and supervision.In New York City, after the death of Eric Garner, an inspector general report found that for years, the NYPD failed to adequately train its officers in proper use of force, its policies were “vague and imprecise,”. They often declined to discipline cops even when they were found to use force inappropriately by the Civilian Complaint Review Board.In a great example of journalism, USA Today conducted their own research in May 2019 into police misconduct. They found at least 85,000 law enforcement officers across the country that have been investigated or disciplined for misconduct over the past decade. Police officers have beaten members of the public, planted evidence and used their badges to harass women. The publication also noted that 30,000 police officers who were decertified by 44 state oversight agencies.Plus there's also a whole Wikipedia page, listing cases of police brutality in which police officers were charged and/or convicted. Plus don’t even et me started on the history of how police handle sexual assault and rape claims by victims.Lets also not forget the widely publicized murders of Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, John Crawford, Andrew Finch, Laquan McDonald, Daniel Shaver, Botham Jean, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Call me crazy and a cop-hater, but looking into all the facts regarding these specific cases, these people just shouldn’t have died. Yes, I looked into ALL the facts for these cases, including the ones Blue Lives Matter folks conveniently leave out. I don’t care if no one was charged and that the law let them off the hook. These deaths were totally unnecessary and could’ve been prevented. Meaning, these people could’ve and should’ve lived.Blue Lives Matter supporters say “don’t break the law”. Tell me, what the hell did people killed by police officers, especially Castile, Floyd and Taylor do to deserve DEATH! Y’all forget the value of human life.But Blue Lives Matter supporters ignore everything that I just stated above and complain that police officers are widely hated. It’s the general public that needs training and treats officers with so much disrespect. These people are very narrow minded and treat police officers as if they can do no wrong, like their godly figures. In the process they leave out those critical, inconvenient facts.Interesting how they’re so quick to mention citizens, for instance throwing water at the NYPD, but dead silent when a police officer is charged and /or convicted of killing an innocent person (which damages the local police reputation). Somehow they ignore that.Also interesting how police officers can violate department rules and policy or panic, let murders and rapes go unsolved for years, and mishandle evidence, but yet somehow innocent people like Andrew Finch, John Crawford, and Daniel Shaver are supposed to remain calm, think rationally, respond within milliseconds to yelling police officers, or not panic when there’s multiple assault weapons pointed at them as if they’re Adolf Hitler or Osama Bin Ladin. See the hypocrisy in all this?And also isn’t it interesting how teachers and medical professionals (all very valuable public service people) aren’t treated like saints?! But somehow police officers are. We can talk about misconduct and inappropriate actions conducted by people in those professions. But how dare anyone bring up police misconduct. It must be mean people like me hate all police officers right? Such damn bullshit!Let me give a hypothetical situation involving myself. Let’s say I match the description of an armed robbery suspect and I happen to be running errands, minding my business. Mind you, I’m totally innocent, not holding any weapon, not a threat, don’t even look like a threat physically, and this is a case of mistaken identity. I also have no idea this armed robbery took place nearby. All of a sudden, seven police officers charge towards me and all point their guns at me, ready to shot. They’re screaming and yelling commands all at once. I freeze in a panic, trying to process what is going on, how is this happening to me. I’m scared for my life. I may scream in hysterics. I don’t respond to their commands within 3 to 4 seconds and I’m shot multiple times. I later die in the hospital due to my injuries. After an investigation is conducted, the actions of the officers are deemed justified and no charges are brought. The officers say, “Oh my god I felt so threatened and scared for my life!” After my death, I’m chastised by Blue Lives Matters online and portrayed as a criminal because I didn’t do XYZ. Meanwhile, I’m just a 21 year old college student with a whole life ahead of him who’s dead because I didn’t respond properly to officers screaming commands within 3 to 4 seconds. It’s ridiculous what’s expected of citizens in these situations.And if you don’t think this would ever happen: a similar situation did happen with the non-threatening John Crawford. Only he was distracted because he was on the phone with his mother and didn’t respond to officers’ commands to drop his fake gun within seconds. Crawford simply wasn’t given enough time to comprehend what was happening and comply.I am in no way saying someone shouldn’t obey officer’s commands in all cases. I’m certainly don’t advocate charging at an officer. But Blue Lives Matter folks have to understand that innocent, non-threatening people (like John Crawford) need a little bit more time than 4 seconds (of being ambushed) to process what is going on and respond properly to commands when several police officers are pointing guns at you in all directions.You can’t blame people for disliking, being suspicious and hating cops when they are bombarded with news stories of police misconduct all the time, and when they experience it themselves in their communities. Police in this country have a history of corruption, misconduct and brutality. Including in the area I live (Long Island). When stuff like that happens, it erodes public trust and confidence in their police department. If you still don’t understand why police officers are hated so much in this country, there’s nothing else I can say.Yeah, I’m pissed! I’m pissed that police officers are treated and thought of in this society as if they can do absolutely no wrong. With Blue Lives Matter folks ignoring critical facts on individual killings of innocent people by police officers. I about had enough. Yeah so sorry that I’m not a Blue Lives Matter sheep!And maybe instead of harassing people picking up trash or tasering an old lady with a steak knife cutting weeds (those things have happened), more police officers should work towards forming relationships with the citizens in the community they swore to protect to establish trust and work with them to catch the actual thugs and criminals. It doesn’t have to be an “us vs them” mentality.Police officers should be more personally familiar with the people and the community that they are policing. I’m serious. Host some community events. Do some local charity work and volunteering. Have friendly conversation with the citizens you swore to protect. Get to know people with mental and physical disabilities in your community. Help people in need of medical attention or assistance. I’m sure any reasonable person would agree with me on that. Stop with the corruption, harassment and killing innocent people! People shouldn’t be afraid of police officers in public.With that being said, I am very proud of both the Nassau and Suffolk County Police Departments for trying to improve relations with the Spanish speaking community by having Spanish classes for officers, translation services for officers and expanding Spanish language content online! I gotta give credit when credit is due so koodos to the police in my area!Oh and another thing: just because nothing technically illegal happened doesn’t make it right. The Holocaust was legal. Slavery and segregation was legal. Women being denied the right to vote was legal. Heck, being fired from a job for being LGBTQ is still legal in America in 2019. I know these may be extremes, but my point still stands. Just because an officer couldn’t be charged or their actions were deemed legal doesn’t mean the deaths of those people I listed earlier couldn’t have been prevented by the police officers. Legality does not equal morality!Now, do I agree with yelling, screaming, getting in the face, and being physically violent (unprovoked) towards police officers? No, I certainly don’t because that doesn’t solve anything. But I understand the sentiment and where the anger is coming from.Of course, everything I just listed above shouldn’t take away from the brave and courageous actions of police officers everyday in this country. Imagine how much worse 9/11 would’ve been if not for those police officers risking their own lives? There are so many police officers around this country that do great and heroic things that shouldn’t be ignored. Police officers should be regarded as vital public servants. But Blue Lives Matter folks have to stop ignoring that police misconduct is a serious issue. We have to realize why many people just don’t like them.Sources (in no particular order):In Tamir Rice Case, Many Errors by Cleveland Police, Then a Fatal OneFerguson Police Department (Missouri) - WikipediaMurder of Laquan McDonald - WikipediaNYPD improperly trained officers on use of force for years: reportBaltimore Police Department - WikipediaRampart scandal - WikipediaPolice brutality in the United States - WikipediaWhat Happens When A Troubled Police Department Refuses To Reform?Albuquerque Police Department - Wikipedia17 Justice Dept. Investigations Into Police Departments NationwideDOJ Slams New Orleans PD in Scathing Report, Highlights Enforcement of Crime Against Nature Statute Challenged in CCR SuitFederal investigation claims abuses among New Orleans policeJustice Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Agree to Policing Reforms and Settlement of Police-Related Fair Housing Claims in the Antelope ValleyChicago police use ‘cover charges’ to justify excessive forceDiscipline records for thousands of cops uncover

Here’s the question:Is the phrase "white privilege" simply a contemporary version of Orwell's "four legs good, two legs bad", which was taught to the sheep in the allegorical Animal Farm to silence discussion?The answer is “no, and also, way to not read Animal Farm.”I. The Context of “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad”Here is a free, and also legal, link to the text of Animal Farm. If we get to chapter three, we discover that the pigs — who serve as an allegory for the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution — have, in their leadership of the titular farm, instituted an educational program for the other animals. This includes literacy lessons — which would give the other animals some degree of voice and authority on the titular farm — and also lessons on the guiding ideology of the farm, Animalism (an analogue of Marxism-Leninism).The lessons do not go very well. Animalism has all of seven precepts, and many of the animals of the farm cannot even get those straight. Thus, to summarize the ruling ideology of the farm to those creatures and thus give those creatures some idea as to what is going on (which would have a democratizing effect), Snowball (an analogue of Trotsky) comes up with “Four legs good, two legs bad.”Here’s the exact text:None of the other animals on the farm could get further than the letter A. It was also found that the stupider animals, such as the sheep, hens, and ducks, were unable to learn the Seven Commandments by heart. After much thought Snowball declared that the Seven Commandments could in effect be reduced to a single maxim, namely: "Four legs good, two legs bad." This, he said, contained the essential principle of Animalism. Whoever had thoroughly grasped it would be safe from human influences. The birds at first objected, since it seemed to them that they also had two legs, but Snowball proved to them that this was not so."A bird's wing, comrades," he said, "is an organ of propulsion and not of manipulation. It should therefore be regarded as a leg. The distinguishing mark of man is the HAND, the instrument with which he does all his mischief."The birds did not understand Snowball's long words, but they accepted his explanation, and all the humbler animals set to work to learn the new maxim by heart. FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD, was inscribed on the end wall of the barn, above the Seven Commandments and in bigger letters When they had once got it by heart, the sheep developed a great liking for this maxim, and often as they lay in the field they would all start bleating "Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad!" and keep it up for hours on end, never growing tired of it.So no, “four legs good, two legs bad” was not “taught to the sheep in the allegorical Animal Farm to silence discussion,” it was taught to the sheep in a last-ditch attempt to give the sheep any semblance of participation within the discussion.But wait! Doesn’t “four legs good, two legs bad” get used to silence discussion later? Why yes, yes it does, and quite memorably at that. However of the ten times the phrase shows up in the novel, four of those times are used to expand the discussion, not contract it.Later in the novel, Napoleon (Stalin, for those playing the analogue game at home) starts using the sheep to silence discussion by blasting out “four legs good, two legs bad” at opportune moments. Napoleon is capable of doing this not because “four legs good, two legs bad” was designed as a sledgehammer, but because it is an uncontroversial idea within the farm (and so cannot be shut down) and because he’s the only one who even thinks to reach out to the sheep at all after the education efforts fail.“Four legs good, two legs bad” is never presented in the course of novel as being incorrect: the narrator does not like the human characters at all (fitting insofar as they represent capitalists of various stripes, and Orwell was an ardent socialist), and Animalism is never portrayed as being wrong — the tragedy of the novel is not the adoption of Animalism, but the betrayal thereof.So the premise of this question? Yeah, this is how one fails English class — when one cannot get the literal meaning of the text right, let alone the thematic side of things, all one has left is hoping the professor believes in a “gentleman’s C.”And I know this sounds petty, but here’s the thing: making literary allusions is a cheap way of making oneself sound smart.[1] Like, yes, it can be an argument from authority, but the idea is “I have read books, therefore I am clever, therefore you should listen to me,” which is an example of the Aristotelian mode of persuasion called “ethos.” So, because this question is putting forth an argument — and yes, Virginia, that does make it a bad faith question — I need to deal with all parts of it.[2]But okay, let’s talking about the larger point.II. What is Privilege?I live on a ground floor apartment. I had no issues moving into it — did that myself — and I’ve never had any problems living in it. However, this is because the apartment building was designed with me in mind. It was not designed with wheelchair users in mind. The hallway in my apartment is too small to accommodate wheelchair navigation, and while it is a ground floor apartment, you still need to walk up seven steps to get there, with the last step being practically adjacent to the door, which swings out. Oh, and mine is a studio apartment. Room for one.All of this is to say that my apartment is completely inaccessible to a wheelchair user. I’ve never had any complaints living in my apartment — okay, I could go with lower rent — and frankly, I have not even noticed the number of steps, and had to specifically count them to write this answer. You know what else is inaccessible? The New York City subway system — there aren’t a whole lot of elevators present there. Taxis often can’t accommodate wheelchair users and ride-shares almost never can.And chances are, if you don’t have to use a wheelchair or have any other similar disabilities, you do not think about any of this. If you don’t have any disabilities, the system was built with you in mind, and navigating it is simple and easy. This isn’t to say that the people responsible for designing my apartment building were twirling their moustaches, evilly thinking about how to keep out paraplegics. They just never thought about paraplegics.That I do not have to think about whether or not there are any steps to get into my ground floor apartment is an example of privilege. The system was built with me and people like me in mind, and I can benefit from not having to think about any of this. But those steps may prove an insurmountable hurdle to others.Here’s another example: most offices in the United States give Christmas as a day off, and often Good Friday, too. So if you’d like to celebrate those holidays, that’s easy. However, if you’d like to celebrate Eid al-Adha, Diwali, Rosh Hashanah, Vesak, etc., congrats, you’re almost certainly going to have to burn vacation time to do it. Christians get their holidays off without burning vacation time, everyone else, nope. If you’re Christian in the US, you probably haven’t thought about this at all. If you’re an adherent of a different religion, you very likely have run into issues with this in some regard or another. The system was designed with Christianity in mind, and so Christians occupy a place of privilege.“Privilege” does not mean your life is easy. “Privilege” means that you get to avoid bumps other people have to deal with. So when we talk about privilege, this isn’t about beating the privileged into submission. It is making the privileged aware that the rough patches they do not ever have to think about actually exist.III. White PrivilegeThe two examples I’ve given — the privilege of able-bodied people in New York and the privilege of Christians in the US — are not examples of intent. They’re examples of privileged people intentionally screwing the non-privileged, it’s just an example of the majority not considering the potentially different needs of minorities. This, by the way, is why minority representation matters: if a wheelchair-using architect had designed my apartment building, it would probably have a ramp and an elevator, neither of which would inconvenience me but would allow a wheelchair-using person to live in the building.This, however, is in stark contrast to white privilege, which does exist due to active intent.One of the founding documents of the United States is the Declaration of Independence, which famously declares:We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of HappinessEqually famously, the man who wrote the first draft of the document, Thomas Jefferson, owned slaves. By the by, here’s another quotation from the Declaration of Independence:He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.So even from the beginning, being black or American Indian in the US meant that you not actually being accorded personhood. This continued to be the case with other founding documents, including the Articles of Confederation[3] and the US Constitution.[4] The Constitution has been amended, this is true, and most of its more obnoxious sections have been stripped of the force of law. However, it is worth pointing out that the United States, from the jump, was explicitly a state designed with white men designated as the default, and everyone else could go kick rocks.The state is always going to be a reflection of the culture that creates it, but it will also always reinforce the values of that culture, violently if necessary. So you have a bunch of slaveholders writing the foundational documents of the state, and then the state subsequently declares that black people "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens of the United States." That quotation is taken from the majority opinion in the Supreme Court case Dred Scott v Sanford (1857).Now, the bright-eyed and clever among you may remember that 1857 is before 1861 and certainly before 1865, and therefore from before the Civil War. Some of you may use this to argue that the Civil War brought such broad changes to American culture that it is unfair of me to point out that pre-Civil War America was actively and officially hostile to black people. And, while it is true that there are people still living whose grandparents were alive during the Civil War[5] thereby demonstrating that slavery wasn’t actually that long ago, maybe consider that this is still a crappy point insofar as legal segregation was in living memory.And it’s not just legal barriers and rough patches that matter here. Consider a passage from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail":But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.You’ll notice: a lot of what King is talking about? It’s not legally enforced segregation. It’s about being part of a society that genuinely hates black people. That letter was written in 1963 — a scant 57 years ago. There are plenty of people alive now who could have read that open letter then.Of course, you need not go back that far. Taking this back to New York City once again, the city’s police department had a policy of “stop-and-frisk” from 2002 to 2013. The NYPD would stop people based on “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity and search them. At the peak of this policy, over half a million New Yorkers were stopped and frisked per year. About nine in ten people were let go without any charges.The overwhelming majority of the people stopped were people of color. This was intentional, and approved of at the mayoral level by then-mayor Mike Bloomberg. These “stops” were also not “sir, would you mind emptying your pockets,” they were “get on the fucking ground or (sometimes and) I will pound the crap out of you, then roughly search your person.” And again: they were racially targeted. You did probably did not have to think about stop-and-frisk if you were a white person in New York City at the time — the worst I ever got from the cops was some ribbing over wearing a Broncos cap — but if you were a person of color, seeing a cop meant there was a very good chance your day was about to go to hell.Speaking of law enforcement and privilege, if I wanted to open carry firearms in most places, I could almost certainly do so, secure in the knowledge that the cops would attempt to de-escalate the situation supposing that open carry was not legal in that jurisdiction. In 2014, twelve year-old Tamir Rice was murdered by the Cleveland Police Department because he was playing with a toy gun in public. For that matter, the GOP enacted gun control laws in California in 1967 simply because fewer than a hundred black men in Oakland were openly carrying firearms.The fact of the matter is that there are numerous ways I can behave as a white person in America that a black person cannot do, sometimes on pain of death. That is my privilege. We need to discuss this, because the current system is unequal and the only way we can possibly fix this is to discuss the ways the system screw people without other people ever noticing.This isn’t about silencing people. This is about giving people a voice.[1] Obviously not in all cases — if you’re making allusions to Animorphs, it’s not going to work, even if that series of books was way cleverer than “teens fight an alien invasion by shape-shifting into aliens” was ever going to be given credit for being.[2] And by the by, I find it absolutely hilarious that the person who “asked” this question writes answers about how socialism is doomed to fail, and yet quotes George Orwell — who was an ardent socialist to the end of his days, and who fought in a communist militia in the Spanish Civil War — in the next breath.[3] Here’s a sample quotation:No State shall engage in any war without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, unless such State be actually invaded by enemies, or shall have received certain advice of a resolution being formed by some nation of Indians to invade such State, and the danger is so imminent as not to admit of a delay till the United States in Congress assembled can be consulted…And in case you’re thinking it’s because of the relative proximity of the American Indian, nope, at the time, Canada bordered New York, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. The American Indians were not considered political actors in the same way other nations were.[4] The Three-Fifths Compromise declared that black people were to be counted as sixty percent of a person. (Yes, I know, specifically enslaved black people, but that was the overwhelming majority of the black population at that point.) Oh, and yeah, there’s the whole issue of “legally enshrined chattel slavery” as well.[5] Barring two very recent deaths, the earliest president of the United States with still living grandchildren is John Tyler, the tenth president, who was in office from 1841 to 1845.