America

MAKEUP
“The fact that the Fourth Amendment was specifically adopted by the Founding Fathers to prevent arbitrary stops and searches was deemed unpersuasive” (Alexander, 68). From this point it’s apparent that our safety has taken precedent over our freedom. Strange tidings from the Land of the Free. I hope by now it’s obvious that saying something is for our safety- or better yet keeping us safe- does not make us safer or satisfy our humanity. For those of you doubting the first half, let me point out that the Nazis, slave owners and ‘red-scare politicians’ claimed their tactics were for the benefit and safety of the people. Furthermore even if something literally keeps us safe doesn’t make it good. I remember IRobot and the idea that putting people in cages is the best way to keep us safe (especially from each other). We all feel the sin in that. 

          The ideology that allows someone to say one thing, knowing the way it will be interpreted by the populace, and meaning another, a meaning designed for the empowered, has been around for a long time, virtually all of history. The difference today is that the purveyors of justice, the means of information, and the psychology of society molded by history, are aligned against the populace. However, there is a place in our society where even a single voice may be heard and taken heed of- the courtroom. Terry is a supreme court decision giving law enforcement the right to, “stop, question, and frisk him or her- even in the absence of probable cause. Justice Douglas dissented in Terry on the grounds that ‘granting police greater power than a magistrate judge is to take a long step down the totalitarian path” (Alexander, 63).

        In a civilization so stratified and indoctrinated, on individual and systemic levels, where is the time to allow for totalitarian control? If stop and frisk (let alone the other atrocities of the penal system) were distributed equally throughout America, would you not call us a police state? And how do you think the ghettos feel?

Manufacture Content

It’s come to my attention recently that, probably many, people don’t remember the Civil Rights Movement or believe race is not a significant part of their life.

“Indeed like nearly everyone around the world- want safe streets, peaceful communities, healthy families, good jobs, and meaningful opportunities to contribute to society. The notion that ghetto families do not, in fact, want those things, and instead are perfectly content to live in crime-ridden communities, feeling no shame or regret about the fate of their young men is, quite simply, racist” (Alexander, 170).

There is enormous stratification, historical precedent and legal barriers in the United States, but how do we otherwise explain the persistence of colorblindness?

“A Propaganda system will consistently portray people abused in enemy states as worthy victims, whereas those treated with equal or greater severity by its own government or clients will be unworthy. The evidence of worth may be read from the extent and character of attention and indignation… U.S. mass medias practical definitions of worth are political in the extreme and fit well the expectations of a propaganda model. While this differential treatment occurs on a large scale, the media, intellectuals, and the public are able to remain unconscious of the fact and maintain a high moral and self-righteous tone. This is evidence of an extremely effective propaganda system” (Chomsky, 37).

Black history- minorities started in the lowest socio-economic class and for a long time carried the lowest caste as well. The Civil Rights Movement did a spectacular thing- destroyed the explicit racial caste. Now it’s time to acknowledge the complexity of the consequences. A new caste system utilizing our prisons, feeding on our fear, and belittling us all has emerged. Using the socio-economic  circumstances a racial system of control is designed ‘colorblind’. The oppressed are disenfranchised, the courts are mandating the social control, people need solidarity without barriers, now more than ever.  

“If we had actually learned to show love, care, compassion, and concern across racial lines during the Civil Rights Movement- rather than go colorblind- mass incarceration would not exist today” (Alexander, 177).

Bibliography

Chomsky, Noam and Herman, Edward. Manufacturing Consent. New York: Pantheon Books, 1988.

Double-Speak

This is a make up.

The quote at the beginning is from Nixon’s electoral campaign,

“’It is time for an honest look at the problem of order in the United States. Dissent is a necessary ingredient of change, but in a system of government that provides for peaceful change, there is no cause that justifies resort to violence. Let us recognize that the first right of every American is to be free from domestic violence. So I pledge to you, we shall have order in the United States’… The late 1960s and early 1970s marked the dramatic erosion in the belief among working-class whites that the condition of the poor, or those who fail to prosper, was the fault of a faulty economic system that needed to be challenged” (Alexander, 46-47).

It only takes a little scrutiny for the racist agenda to come to bear. There is no substance, in those who support colorblindness, but what you allow to go unexplained. “Nixon reported remarked with glee that the a ‘hits it right on the nose. It’s all about those damn Negro-Puerto Rican groups out there’” (Alexander, 47). In 1984 it’s called ‘double-speak’. What’s really happening is a sort of code, partially for others who are inaugurated, but more importantly it’s for the public psyche.

“Despite claims that these radical policy changes were driven by fiscal conservatism… the reality is that government was not reducing the amount of money devoted to the management of the urban poor. It was radically altering what the funds would be used for. The dramatic shift toward punitiveness resulted in a massive reallocation of public resources. By 1996, the penal budget doubled the amount that had been allocated to AFDC or food stamps… The law and order perspective, first introduced during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement by rabid segregationists, had become nearly hegemonic two decades later… Ninety percent of those admitted to prison for drug offenses in many states were black or Latino, yet the mass incarceration of communities of color was explained in race-neutral terms… The New Jim Crowe was born” (Alexander, 57).

Hating someone for their skin color is no longer allowed, but social control is fine so long as it comes in civil rhetoric.  

Race

“In an effort to protect their superior status and economic position, the planters shifted their strategy for maintaining dominance… the planters took an additional precautionary step, a step that would later come to be know as a ‘racial bribe’… barriers were created so that free labor would not be placed in competition with slave labor… it may be impossible to overstate the significance of race in defining the basic structure of American society. The structure and content of the original constitution was based largely on the effort to preserve a racial caste system… As James Madison put it, the nation ought to be constituted ‘to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority’” (Alexander, 24-25).

If this seems like something that has passed and you find yourself wondering how the same race antagonism could exist today let me remind you, “In Wacquant’s words: ‘Racial division was a consequence, not a precondition of slavery, but once it was instituted it became detached from its initial function and acquired a social potency all its own’” (Alexander, 26). Finally, how and why would any of this still be happening or relevant in a colorblind society?

“Tom Watson, a prominent Populist leader, in a speech advocating a union between black and white farmers: ‘You are kept apart that you may be separately fleeced of your earnings. You are made to hate each other because upon that hatred is rested the keystone of the arch of financial despotism that enslaves you both. You are deceived and blinded and blinded that you may not see how this race antagonism perpetuates a monetary system which beggars you both’” (Alexander, 33).

You live in a socially and systemically racist society. While white privilege affords much of the population a semblance of benefit from this condition, the primary beneficiary is the opulent minority. However, thanks to the civil rights movement and the new ‘colorblind’ agenda, the social potency of racism is turning. We have a civilization that mostly believes that racism (not just slavery, or disenfranchisement) is wrong. Use that power here, fight the colorblind propaganda now.

Institutional Racism and Colorblindness

A key distinction that still seems unclear in our discussion is, “Institutional racism, which allows racial disparity to be produced and maintained with or without the deliberate and bigoted intent of those producing the disparity” (Wise, 162). “The kind that had worked to marginalize… millions of black job applicants across the nation in any number of professions for decades, ever since the passage of civil rights laws” (Wise, 162). The Civil Rights Movement was a time of questioning and progression, but it created a more insidious system of oppression. Now the energy wanes and institutional racism, fueled by historical precedent and other incentives, supports the colorblind ideal that is pervading this society. Another movement will need to address this or simply feed colorblind oppression. Even now these ideals are rooting themselves deeper in our psyche and our society, “American jurisprudence on racial discrimination makes it very difficult to prove a case without clear evidence of intent to injure” (Wise, 163). We need more than a movement, we need to realize we’re in motion.