A Continuation of Alexander

After reading Michelle Alexander’s groundbreaking book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, I watched an interview with Ms. Alexander and journalist Bill Moyers on his show, Moyers & Company. On its website, Moyers & Company describes itself as “a weekly series of smart talk and new ideas aimed at helping viewers make sense of our tumultuous times through the insight of America’s strongest thinkers.” The interview takes place three years after the 2010 publication of The New Jim Crow. Since her book’s publication, Alexander has worked to bring her book to life by ending the mass incarceration in America, which currently holds 25% of the world’s prisoners. During the interview (which you can find here), Moyer and Alexander brought up many interesting questions and topics that I wanted to explore further.

About six minutes into the interview, Bill Moyer states, “How do you explain this [the difficult life that released prisoners face], given the fact that this is a society that celebrates second chances, for politicians in particular, a society that is built around the theme of renewal, born again and yet doesn’t extend that same act of forgiveness to people who have paid for their sins.” Alexander quickly responds with the statement, “Well, we say we’re a society that supports second chances. But in reality, we’re not.”

I found Moyer’s assertion to be extremely intriguing because, in my opinion, I agree with Alexander. I think American society is more willing to crucify someone—even white elites—than give him or her a second chance. Media outlets hunt for any scandal that can ruin a reputation. Campaigns attack their opponent’s character, past actions, and ideas in order to convince American society that this opponent shouldn’t be trusted. I am even reminded of high school where rumors can brand a teenager throughout their four years as “weird.” Yet, I ask three questions. First, do you think we are a culture that gives second chances? Second, what do you think defines a second chance? I think of Bill Clinton and Tiger Woods whose reputations were ruined by their womanizing ways. Yet, their elite status remains intact. Third, as scholar Ian Haney López points out, we are a culture permeated with white privilege that whites refuse to give up. Thus, do you think whites are granted second chances more than blacks?

Bill Moyer also asks how mandatory minimum sentences have contributed to the mass incarceration rate that results from the War on Drugs. Alexander answers, “Well, mandatory minimum sentences ensures that you will get the harshest possible sentence under law. The mandatory minimum sentence. And so it shifts the power to the prosecutor so the prosecutor can then say to you, ‘Well you take this plea or else you’re going to get this harsh minimum sentence.” Once again, we see how Robert Cover’s article, “Violence and the Word,” comes to life. Alexander highlights a prime example of legitimized violence here. Her explanation parallels Cover’s idea about a shared reality; the prosecutor destroys the accused’s reality until they live in a newly fashioned one that he or she has created. The power dynamic has shifted in the prosecutor’s favor, but his violence against the accused is legitimized by the legal system. Do you also think the prosecutor’s actions is a type of legitimized violence?

The interview is well worth watching, and I found myself buying even more into Alexander’s argument as she expanded and explained certain points in her book. Yet, I found it most intriguing when Alexander spoke about how she came to her conclusion in her book. Alexander stated, “Right around the anniversary of the march on Washington I found myself doing a fair amount of internal reflection about my own role at this time in building the kind of movement that I would hope for social justice. And what I had to admit to myself is that for the last few years, you know, I have spent all of my working hours talking about mass incarceration and trying to raise consciousness about what has happened in this country, how we’ve managed to birth a caste-like system again. You know, that there are more African-American under correctional control today, in prison or jail, or probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850. That we’ve created this vast new system again. And to try to raise consciousness so that people would wake up to this reality. And I realize that as well intentioned as all that work was it was leading me to a place of relatively narrow thinking. That I wasn’t connecting the dots between other kinds of social injustices that are occurring here in the United States and abroad to the work that I was committed to and the cause that I had been committed to over the years.”

I find her explanation so intriguing because what if we had more people reflect as Alexander did and realize the scope of their narrow thinking? She is one person who (1) realized that she had narrow thinking, (2) realize that the racial problem needs to be seen as a social injustice problem instead, and (3) did something about it by writing her book and speaking out. Thus, as I write this final blog, I can’t help but ask this simple but broad question: Can’t we change the world one reflection at a time?

 

 

 

 

The Exclusion of the Chinese Exclusion Laws

In my Women and Literature class, we recently read Amy Tan’s novel The Joy Luck Club. The novel, published in 1989, centers around four sets of Chinese American mothers and daughters: Suyuan Woo and Jing-mei “June” Woo; An-mei Hsu and Rose Hsu Jordan; Lindo Jong and Waverly Jong; and Ying-ying St. Clair and Lena St. Clair. The story is set in San Francisco in 1949, but Tan gives her readers plenty of flashbacks set in 1930 China. The novel consists of four sections, and each mother and daughter has two chapters told in her perspective.

The plot begins in June’s point-of-view after her mother Suyuan passes away from a brain aneurism. As she attempts to take her mother’s place at the mahjong table, the other women in the Joy Luck Club quickly show June that she much to learn about her mother. Amy Tan continues to focus on the bond between mother and daughter as well as the struggle to reconcile two cultures. Ultimately, Tan examines the difference between the Chinese-born mother and American-born daughters, reveals a multitude of secrets about each woman, and sets her readers on a journey to unravel the truth about the life each woman lives.

Amy Tan’s book has been a major hit, achieving fame for its portrayal of Chinese-American culture as well as its feminist focus. The Joy Luck Club has even been made into a film and play. I fully enjoyed Tan’s book, and yet, I find it extremely intriguing that while the novel centers around Chinese immigrants, it never mentions the actual process. At the same time that I was reading The Joy Luck Club in my Women and Literature class, I was reading Mae M. Ngai’s book Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. In Ngai’s book, I learned—for the first time—about Chinese exclusion laws and quotas set by the American government to keep Chinese immigration to a minimum. It was astounding to me that I had never learned, or really heard, about the Chinese exclusion laws that “barred all Chinese from entering the United States save for merchants and their families, students, treaty traders, and diplomats” (Ngai 2004, 204). The laws existed from 1882-1943, and yet the consequences lasted far after 1943.

In fact, American attitudes toward Chinese immigrated fluctuated from the 1930s to 1960s. Yet, even when the American people and government felt sympathetic toward Chinese people, the government held strong to a quota that limited the number of Chinese people. Interestingly, most quotas would limit the number of people from a certain country. However, this precedent did not apply to the Chinese. Instead, it did not matter whether Chinese immigrants were from China or Great Britain; the quota limited all Chinese people and not just people from China. Therefore, because of the Chinese exclusion laws and quota, many Chinese immigrants had to enter the United States using illegal means.

I find it so interesting that most textbooks and books in literature fail to mention this event in American history. Amy Tan’s novel highlights many provocative issues—divorce, abortion, rape, arranged marriages, the choices one must make to survive the second Sino-Japanese war, the culture of Chinatown in America, daughterly duty, and more. Yet, while the novel is set in San Francisco and focuses on Chinese immigrant families, we never once hear about the aftermath of the Chinese exclusion laws. Tan never mentions the words “Paper son,” “the San Francisco Chinese Six Companies,” or “quota.” This lack of reference is not uncommon. Yet, I ask the simple question, why do we not hear more about the Chinese exclusion laws? Do you think books need to emphasize it more? Are there other ways to portray this time in history? I think it is extremely important to explain this time in history, as well as other margalinized events in history, and I think authors such as Amy Tan can help accomplish this task.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whiteness in TV

As an avid television viewer, I am constantly on the lookout for new shows: dramas, mysteries, thrillers, sitcoms, and more. Currently, I’ve been watching many ABC shows, including but not limited to Modern Family, Black-ish, Fresh off the Boat, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder. Yet, I look at the title of each show, and it seems to speak volumes about today’s culture.

In Ian Haney López’s book, White by Law: The Legal Construction of Race, he makes a bold claim when he says, “White should renounce their privileged racial status. They should do so, however, not simply out of guilt or any sense of self-deprecation, but because the edifice of Whiteness stands at the heart of racial inequality in America” (López 2006, 23). If I look specifically at the sitcoms, Black-ish and Fresh off the Boat (Scandal and How to Get Away With Murder deserve their own blog post), then it seems that the dominant white privilege remains instilled in the minds of Americans. ABC shows reach millions of viewers, and, yet, in the two sitcoms, we see how difficult it becomes for whites to renounce their privileged status.

In the two sitcoms’ titles, we see a lack of appreciation for other cultures. The “ish” on the end of Black is a direct connotation toward the family’s white tendencies. They live in a wealthy suburban home. The kids attend a predominantly white private school. Andre and Rainbow each have high-paying jobs as an advertising executive and doctor. In each episode, they are trying to establish their black culture or black tendencies, and yet they ultimately do “white” actions.

The title, Fresh Off the Boat, denotes an “otherness” about the family. The title can also be association toward immigration or slave boats, which demonstrates a “non-whiteness aspect” about the family. Thus, we see in the show’s plot that the family is indeed trying to be white. The show stems around the concept of an Asian family trying to fit in a white suburban neighborhood in Florida. The family moves away from Chinatown and, suddenly, they are constantly trying to mold themselves to their neighbor’s standards. The father figure opens a western-themed restaurant with white workers. The mother power-walks with the white upper-class women in her neighborhood. They go to American cookouts, and the oldest son is trying to fit in with the cool white kids in his school. The oldest son is also constantly trying to distance himself from his family in order to be “cool.”

While each show is merely exaggerating the stereotypes found within society, I wonder if these are the types of shows that ought to be airing. While they are satirical, sarcastic, and hyperbolic, do you believe that they are merely perpetuating the stereotypes or pointing out how ridiculous the stereotypes are? While cloaked in humor, the concepts of these shows center on a common theme: the superior white culture v. an inferior non-white culture. It also seems that the shows demonstrate López’s claim about the transparency phenomenon. He states, “transparency is established and maintained first in the assertion that Whites are a physical grouping and second in the assertion that everyone knows what White is” (López 2006, 19). We intrinsically recognize when each of these characters are acting “white” and “nonwhite,” which I believe is a problem in itself. What do you guys think?

A Lack of Violence

In early March, ex-con David Potchen walked into a bank, robbed it, and then sat and waited for the police to pick him up. The Caucasian man wasn’t interested in the money; instead, he was looking forward to the prison sentence where he would receive a hot meal and a bed to sleep on. A welder by trade, Mr. Potchen recently found himself homeless, hungry, and desperate after his company laid him off. His situation led him to rob the Indiana bank so that he could return to a more stabilized environment. After hearing the man’s case, Judge Murray said out loud in court, “I hope to God someone reads about this and offers some help to you.” His story led to many tears within the courtroom and job offers outside of the courtroom.

When we analyze court cases, we often don’t consider Robert M. Cover’s investigation of the legal system. In Robert M. Cover’s article “Violence and the Word,” (which you can find online here) he posits, “legal interpretation takes place in a field of pain and death” (Cover 1986, 1601). In simpler words, the legal system is a legitimized system of violence. We can easily see violent actions reflected in the courtroom. First, a prisoner’s normative reality must be destroyed. Thus, the court system places these prisoners in a “shared world” where they are dominated by the authority figures around them, subjected to violence, and immersed daily in this new reality and role (Cover 1986, 1603). For example, a judge sits in an elevated position in order to demonstrate his authority and power. A bailiff controls the prisoner and atmosphere, ensuring that the court has control of the situation. The prisoner is not allowed to speak or act unless approved by the judge or lawyer. Finally, he is given a punishment if found guilty, which is seen as “just” in the eyes of society. All in all, we have a system that uses violence—in a way similar to the accused’s use of violence—and yet it is accepted.

Interestingly, in the case of Mr. Potchen, we see an obvious diversion from the “normal” court case. The judge, lawyers, and society have broken from their normal pattern of legitimized violence. For example, the judge steps out of his authoritative role to sympathize with the prisoner. In fact, he goes as far as to invoke help from outside the courtroom, demonstrating how he has refused to create a “shared world” with Mr. Potchen. Instead, he has given Mr. Potchen the idea that an external world exists, which allows Mr. Potchen to retain some of his reality. Other actors have also contributed to this lack of legitimized violence against Mr. Potchen. Car companies have offered to give Mr. Potchen a job as a welder in order to keep him out of jail. The very system of violence seems to have become destabilized due to the situations surrounding Mr. Potchen.

After hearing about this case, I asked myself a simple question: “Why?” Why did the court not use the same type of violence that Cover has observed? Did Mr. Potchen’s motive affect the court’s use of violence? Did his race have any factor in the decision? Would a man of color be given the same opportunity if he acted in the same way as Mr. Potchen? Did Mr. Potchen’s actions (or lack of direct violence) at the bank lead to a lack of violence within the courtroom? This case intrigued me and also made me question Cover’s argument.

You can read more about David Potchen’s case here.