This year, my New Year’s resolution was to use the terms “white privilege” and “white supremacy” more in 2016. These concepts are normally confined to the halls of academia, Black Lives Matter rallies, and/or conversations among people who already agree with each other, whether they’re KKK members huddled around the want ads or white Buddhists huddled around a yoga mat. Either way, I don’t feel like these two concepts get enough mainstream attention. As Kanye would say, “Facts!

Still, I was worried about how I would get the ball rolling. Would this be yet another New Year’s resolution left by the wayside, like the great *“I’m gonna eat kale and quinoa every day!” *resolution of 2015? Well, thanks to the events on January 2, when a bunch of “militia” members who look like Duck Dynasty: The Early Years seized a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, my New Year’s resolution is off to a great start!

We had to laugh. Who seizes a wildlife refuge to prove they mean business? That’s got to be pretty low on the danger scale. Whom are you impressing, exactly? The phrase “wildlife refuge” is only slightly scarier than “cotton-ball factory” or “chamomile-tea festival.” This story line also involved the spawn of 2014’s No. 1 late-night talk-show-monologue punch line, Cliven Bundy. This was too good. Really, what else could you do but laugh?

Before you could say “hashtag,” Black Twitter was all over it with jokes on jokes. And it wasn’t just Black Twitter’s day. Muslim Twitter, Arab Twitter (yes, those can be two different things), Native American Twitter, and even white Twitter (a.k.a. Twitter) had fun with it. The hashtag game was strong that day. From #Al-Shabubba to #TrailerDaesh to #YallQuaeda waging #YeeHawd, it was on! My personal favorite was #VanillaIsis, which captures the whiteness, the terrorism, and just a soupcon of the out-of-step-ness with the 21st century that I think is key to understanding the Bungling Bundys. (Yes, I am soft pitching their reality show. Ryan Seacrest, get at me.)

And as the hashtags showed, we were all commenting on how the whiteness of this crew made all the difference. Even as they ostensibly committed a number of crimes (of laws and fashion), they were still slathered in white privilege and white supremacy. People of color (and non-Christian faiths) couldn’t (but then really could) believe that 150 militia members were just allowed to take over a place owned by the government and just (possibly Netflix and) chill. No cops barging in, guns blazing. Not even any threats of cops barging in, guns blazing. Not even one of those Guantánamo-style unasked-for playlists blasting the same Megadeth song over and over again. (Although, they’d probably like that. Kanye would probably be a better choice.)

Now admittedly, it has turned out that the Bungling Bundys (hereafter referred to as the #BungBuns) slightly exaggerated their numbers. It turns out that there may be only two bowling teams’ worth of #BungBuns wailing about the “tyranny” of their friends going to jail for crimes they definitely committed, crying about how taxes are the devil’s workshop, demanding that the government give them the land it stole from Native Americans, and also seriously asking, “Where the hell are our snacks? Hot Pockets! Lunchables! We’d even take Fiber One bars at this point!”

Ten days into the so-called standoff, the most aggressive thing law enforcement has done to Ammon Bundy is offer him a handshake from Sheriff David Ward. And it wasn’t even one of those action-movie handshakes where the hero grasps the villain’s hand just to G.I. Joe–kung-fu-grip him into handcuffs.


Listen, I’ve read the articles about how law enforcement has learned from the sieges at Ruby Ridge and Waco that going in guns blazing is not the best way to resolve tense situations. Maybe that’s true. But it seems like law enforcement has applied those learned lessons only to white people.

As we all know from reading the news, if you are black in America and at the business end of law enforcement, you aren’t given anywhere close to 10 days to calm down and state your case. Twelve-year-old Tamir Rice wasn’t even given 10 seconds before Cleveland police killed him. Unarmed Sandra Bland was arrested for what amounted to being upset that she was getting a traffic ticket, and three days later she was dead in jail with no evidence of how or why. John Crawford III was killed in a Walmart in Ohio while shopping and casually talking on his cellphone. He didn’t even get a chance to respond to the police before they killed him. A Chicago police officer spent less than 30 seconds on the scene before unloading his gun on Laquan McDonald, a 17-year-old with a knife. And the officer did so even though no other officers at the scene believed deadly force was necessary. I could go on and on and on and on, giving you example after example of black people killed for things white people do every day: shopping, walking, having opinions.

And everybody knows that if there were even a rumor of 150 armed black people (or, God forbid, Muslims) taking over a kiosk at a mall, 10 days later Al Sharpton would be attending a lot of funerals, and Twitter would have to fast-track its launch of 10,000-character tweets just to account for all the hashtagged names.

Meanwhile, the #BungBuns get to shake hands with the sheriff, talk to the press, and even come and go as they please so they can get their own damn snacks. I’m not saying that is necessarily the wrong way to handle this situation; I just wish that black people had the privilege and the supremacy to expect the same level of courtesy and respect.

But the benefit of the doubt is just the beginning of the benefits package that comes with white privilege and white supremacy.

Keeping my New Year’s resolution this year is going to be nowhere near as hard as last year. Yay?