Leid Stories - 07/31/13

Edward Snowden & The Prism of Whiteness It’s enough, in many quarters, that Edward Snowden has disemboweled Prism, the NSA’s massive cybersurveillance program, and is serving up its entrails at his whim on silver platters for the whole world to see.  He’s hit Big Brother where it really hurts. He’s recalibrated the power equation between the government and the governed. He’s a world-class hero, worthy of unqualified, no-questions-asked, global support. Leid Stories takes a look at Snowden, his actions and expressed beliefs and the current situation through the prism that shapes his world—the prism of whiteness. It is an undemocratic world that negates certain realities and histories while arrogating onto itself the “natural” power and “right” to reorder and reshape things to its own liking. People of color in the United States and all around the world know this story only too well.