The White Knights of America: Vigilantes of the 2008 Election

Tomorrow will be a historic moment in the annals of the United States. For a generation which has often been labeled apathetic, which has felt like the events of our time do not galvanize enough passion to inspire a movement, we have lived and live in a time which is a turning point in history.

We watched September 11th happen from the desks of our high school and college classrooms. We went to the funerals of our friends fighting in two wars. We saw one of our cities drown and six more kids get caught in a system of unequal justice.

Race continues to be both decisive and divisive. In watch lists. In recruitment. In evacuation. In classrooms and in justice. Tomorrow will be a historic moment.

Contrary to what you may think, I am not talking about who actually wins the election. I am talking about the election.

White privilege has little to do with the body, with the pigment of the skin. It has to do with power, and how we read the body in relation to power. It has to do with how we think, who we see as entitled, as belonging, and who we do not. It has to do with the fact that white people never have to think about being white. Their bodies are read as citizens, entitled to the rights of a nation. White people do not have to prove their belonging; it is assumed.

Tomorrow we expect to see record numbers of African-Americans, Latinos, and other people of color going to the polls. They will be exercising their citizen right to vote. Yet their citizenship is not assumed. They are read as the other: the criminal, the illegal, the fraud.

Groups like the Minutemen--which have been explicitly labeled as white supremacist and hate groups--are openly organizing "poll watches" to video people that might look "suspicious," "out of the ordinary," or "illegal." They say they are focusing on "illegal aliens"— people who don't speak English or "look" American.

Yet how do you see citizenship written on the body? How do you determine status from behind the lens of a camera?

You read the body in relation to power. Read white: innocent. Read black: guilty. Guilty until proven innocent. Assumed slave unless carrying the papers of a free man. Assumed illegal until verified documentation. The white knights of America remain vigilant in their cause.

No matter who wins tomorrow the system of racial inequality of our country will remain in tact. The historical significance of a person of color being so close to the White House should not be underestimated; it is a dent in very thick armor. But as Langston Hughes often reflected, why do we only hear talk about racism in classes on African-American history when racism is fundamentally a white issue? Why do we expect the skin tone of one man to correct a history of racial injustice?

Why would we expect it of Barack Obama any more than of John McCain?

As the polls open tomorrow, the most important question on my mind is what happens come November 5^th? Will we permit our new leader, our country, to still be led by knights and wizards?

Tomorrow will be a historic moment.

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