http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/business/media/grand-jury-decision-leads-to-confessions-of-crimingwhilewhite.html 2014-12-04 21:48:20 Grand Jury Decision Leads to Confessions of #CrimingWhileWhite The Twitter hashtag was an act of unity with those angered by the decision not to indict a police officer in the death of Eric Garner, but it had its critics. === In the hours after a Staten Island grand jury The hashtag is a play on “driving while black,” the expression that tries to explain why black people are stopped and questioned by the police in white neighborhoods for no apparent reason. People posting under the hashtag explored the opposite situation: when police officers ignore obvious crimes in front of their eyes, presumably because the offenders were white. In thousands of posts on Twitter, users talk about being caught Dave Bonta, who writes under the handle @morningporch, posted The fates of Mr. Garner and Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager shot to death in Ferguson, Mo., by a police officer who was also cleared by a grand jury, are tangentially referenced by those using the crimingwhilewhite hashtag. The exercise, it is widely agreed, is an investigation of white privilege in American society — the built-in advantages of being white, and disadvantages of being a person of color. When many complain that social networks create echo chambers of people with similar views and experiences, the hashtag is an attempt to speak across racial lines. Some critics, however, saw the Twitter hashtag as an example of white privilege and a diversion from the larger issues like racial bias and inequality raised by the Garner and Brown cases. The Twitter user Another prominent voice on Twitter, To some, the hashtag was symptomatic of how social networks invariably turn any event into a reason to become self-absorbed and confessional. Perhaps the best thing for white people angered by the grand jury exonerations, these critics wrote on Twitter, would be to not think about the experience of white people for that moment. Still, based on the media attention and interest on Twitter, where the hashtag was the top trending topic, the comments were having an impact. Neal Taflinger Jamilah Lemieux Among many examples under that hashtag was one from