Thursday, September 15, 2011
Confused :/
So I was pretty confused all of class today, which is why I didn't have as much to say as usual. I felt like we kept repeating the same things over and over. Yes there are more non-whites in prison, yes they are minor drug charges, yes having a felony conviction seems to make you a second class citizen, etc. But I feel like I missed the actual point. Was it just to prove that racism still exists today? Isn't that what we do every class? Was it to prove that the justice system is flawed? I think everyone has known that for a very long time. Just look at the Casey Anthony case, if she was black do you think they would have dropped ALL charges??? So sorry for the lack of exciting things in this post but I'm still a bit confused and wondering what exactly we were supposed to take away from today's discussion. I certainly got some ideas, but they were all ideas we had already talked about...
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I was actually thinking the exact same thing as you all class. I felt the same questions were being asked over and over. I didn't know what I was suppose to take away from the class. You aren't the only one that feels this way!
ReplyDeletei also felt the same way today. its almost like i had nothing to say cause i felt like if i said something it was gonna be me repeating what everyone else has already said...but oh well gotta just go with the flow!
ReplyDeleteI first wanted to make mention that if anyone is ever confused, unsure or troubled by the conversation we are having in class, please chime in and let us know. We are hear to help you learn and explore these key issues, but not to force anything, so by all means ask anything at anytime during class. And like Im sure you have heard a million times, if you are confused about something in class, that means one of your classmates is also unsure or confused but afraid to ask. So please dont hesitate to ask questions.
ReplyDeleteThe point of todays class was two fold -
1. Like we have done in almost every class, the first goal was to show the ways the race and racism works within major social institutions. And to make clear to everyone the ways that race and racism are utilized to create a larger societal wide system of advantage that benefits whiteness over people of color. It is really important to see the complex ways that race is used in so many diverse and complex social institutions to create these racial hierarchies that can have profoundly devastating impacts on peoples lives. These are not abstractions. Racial logic and racism when operating within these complex institutions can hinder, disadvantage and even destroy peoples lives and its important that that is clear. It is also important to understand the complex ways the race is used especially when so many feel that race is no longer relevant, that our society is post-racial or that we are all or should be colorblind.
2. The second goal was to show the ways that the legal system uses race (and class) to unjustly incarcerate and criminalize people of color and the poor. This was not just to show that racism still exists but rather to show how the legal system and the prison industrial complex is through criminalization is taking away the rights of people of color across our nation, in ways that is similar to slavery, Jim Crow and other means of legal and structural dehumanization. We also wanted to introduce everyone to the prison industrial complex and the ways the private companies profit from this system that puts large numbers of people of color behind bars.
We will spend a few minutes going over this material again on Tuesday. If you have any questions please jot them down and bring them up in class. We are more than happy to help everyone work through these pretty complicated ideas.
Hi Everyone!
ReplyDeleteI would like to reiterate some of what John has already said above - please don't hesitate to ask questions in class, especially, if they relate to something as basic as why we are discussing and reading what we are! We want the classroom to be a space where everyone can feel comfortable asking questions, expressing confusion, and even respectfully disagreeing with each other on occasion!
We chose to teach about the prison-industrial complex and mass incarceration as another case study (in addition to housing and education) that demonstrates how entrenched racism is in many of the most basic social institutions that we usually take for granted. As John notes, the idea that we live in a post-racial or colorblind society and, thus, have overcome our past racial problems is very deeply entrenched and we wanted to present concrete examples that provide evidence to the contrary.
What we have also been trying to do is to show that racism is more than just an individual act of hatred that one person expresses against another. I know that we have already discussed this point several times in the class already, but I think it's often really easy for us to settle into thinking, "well, I am not racist, thus, race doesn't matter," and continue to ignore how racial discrimination often operates systemically and requires a more fundamental change in the way we organize our society. So, the point is more than just "yes, racism exists" but "how is it entrenched in our social institutions in a way that systematically oppresses people of color."
And, of course, most of us know in some way or the other that the legal system is flawed. I think what is not often apparent to most people is to what extent and how, as John notes above, it disproportionately criminalizes people of color and forces them into a never-ending cycle of poverty and oppression.
I think it's great that some of these points were already obvious to some of you! Perhaps, the next step then is thinking about what it is that we can do, as a society, to change some of these institutions. It is easy to see these systems as self-perpetuating and hard to dismantle, but there are groups of people out there fighting to change them. There are several prison reform and prison abolitionist groups out there who have been raising their voices against the injustices of the prison system for years. You might want to look into some of the work they've been doing and what arguments they've been making. A good place to start is “Are prisons obsolete?” and “Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture” by Angela Davis.
Kritika