Welcome, new Verons,
I’ve taken the liberty of taking my notes from today’s
class, combining them with Marina’s (thank you Marina!) and synthesizing
them in such a way to identify the issues on your minds and “what
you’d like to learn” over the course of the semester (at least as far as I "read" the conversation and the notes!). Please read, reflect,
expand on, subtract, revise or respond to what I've written as it strikes you.
In writing out this blog post, one thing that came to my mind was the recent video posted on youtube of another police
shooting in Missouri. Warning: This is a difficult video to watch—even as it incorporates nearly all the issues touched on in today’s class: media, brutality, stigmatization, mental illness, violence, the ambiguities and
meanings of bystander in the Internet age, fear, safety, humanity--and more, I am sure:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTBPtWUJqPM
Social Justice
Issues; Goals for the Class
Ferguson, Missouri, police brutality. Police brutality: it’s
not a new phenomenon, it’s not just Ferguson. WHAT I’D LIKE TO LEARN: What
people think about it? What are the issues? What exactly you can do? Why
is it happening? How pervasive is it? Help educate me about these issues.
Children and migration crisis at the border; the media. WHAT
I’D LIKE TO LEARN: How the media portray the
situation in Arizona and NY, differences and similarities in portraits and
portrayals and how these portraits shape people’s perceptions. Also, what are the immigration
policies and practices in different states?
Larger issue related to the media: "(We live in a world) where media is allowed
to tell my parents to buy into what the media says is 'true" (i.e., 'This is
the truth.'). I could be more of an optimist if people would see things
differently.” What does it mean when cops (and others) say, “Well, the cop needs to protect
himself.”? WHAT I’D LIKE TO LEARN: How
does the media shape perception? WHAT I’D LIKE TO LEARN: What does safety and protection mean?
Palestine/Israel. “Same exact thing” in terms of how “truth”
is constructed: How is Palestine/Israel being portrayed? Why does one “side” seem to have “the right”
and the other doesn’t? Isn't that situation about the oppressed versus oppressor? It’s not a conflict since "conflict"
suggests two equal sides--and these two sides are not equal. Is it true you can’t change the media? How can you
ever get to the truth? Also what is the role of the Internet in promoting or
silencing voices? Who controls the filters and how are they determined? How do
we manage to advocate for more freedom on the Internet? What does such
“freedom” look like? WHAT I’D LIKE TO LEARN:
How to deconstruct the situation (the situation being about Israel/Palestine; the situation being about the shaping of perception) and try to get at what is true.
The educational system: Interested in how it is great for some and not so great for
“others.” Who are those “others”? They include the disabled, disenfranchised, marginalized. WHAT
I’D LIKE TO LEARN: Why is the educational
system we have the way it is? How did it get like that, and how can it be
improved?
People with mental illnesses or diagnoses of mental illness:
Concerned with how they are viewed and how they are treated. Issues around
stigma, lack of access to care (health and mental health care), especially in
prisons. What is the intersection of mental health and the criminal justice
system? Also, the strengths, talents, abilities, potential contributions of
people stigmatized as “other” are rendered
invisible by virtue of their disabilities. WHAT I’D LIKE TO LEARN: What are
the sources of such misperceptions? What are the consequences? How to address
this?
The world is at war. Humanity is at risk. We need to step
out of the specifics to ask: Are we safe anywhere? What are the roots to the
issues that give rise to all the violences? And what of the bystander? Are we
all bystanders? Why are people bystanders? How does “complacency” and/or
“conformity” fit into the equation? What is the line where individual “rights” end and being a
part of the larger community matters? How to understand the tension between the
individual and the larger social? How do we look at someone’s experience and
extrapolate from the personal to the political and from the political to the
personal? WHAT I’D LIKE TO LEARN: How can we connect the dots to understand all
of this?
Reading the 2 summer reading books: The solutions are
Band-Aids, but these solutions/programs are not adequate. WHAT I’D LIKE TO LEARN: What are some other kinds of solutions, what
are the substantive solutions that will really change things?
Wow! What an agenda. I'm glad to be a part of this class.
19 comments:
I would also like to add that there is definitely a connection between the educational system and the current issue with mental illness we are struggling with today. I believe that often times mental illness is misdiagnosed as a developmental delays and vice versa. Often times these students are placed into programs that do not cater to their specific needs. I believe there is so much untapped potential as the classes these "groups" are being placed into have very little opportunities for developing creative and artistic skills.
Hi Professor,
Thank you for posting this video. When situating these killings (Kajieme Powell, Michael Brown, Eric Garner etc.) in a broader context, I notice an intersection of themes that are worth discussing: police brutality, militarization of police forces, implicit racism, us vs them mentality, civilian-driven media, law enforcement’s handling of people with mental illnesses.
I find it interesting that technology today enables civilians to take a more active role in media by enabling them to record first-hand and subsequently broadcast the information via easily accessible portals like the Internet. Because the Internet is largely unregulated and uncensored, we, as media consumers, now have access to a much larger variety of sources beyond conventional broadcasting mediums like the television. Does this mean that we can get closer to the “truth” (as Marina mentioned in class today)?
Seeing the video, I was speechless and disbelieving. At first glance, you’re inclined to believe that the police officers had used excessive force and I was very sure that their actions were completely unjustified; after all, how much of a danger could one knife-wielding man pose to armed officers? The taking of a life in such a swift callous fashion is shocking but the fact that the police officers were deemed to have followed protocol what does it say about the law that gives primacy to protecting law enforcement officers at the expense of precious life? I am sure there many steps police officers can take before resorting to deadly force, which I believe should be a last resort. There are so many non-lethal options that can be explored in training and so many scenarios that can be practiced so cops are aware of how to handle a confrontation like this without the loss of life. My question is, why do police standards authorize shoot-to-kill?
That's an excellent question Gina, and one that begs significant consideration. As I expressed in class police brutality is an issue I have always been astounded by. How can the people ostensibly trained to "serve and protect" the entire populace function in a culture that breeds 1. Using aggression to fight aggression (It would be great if police could be trained in Buddhist de-escalation interventions and conflict resolution strategies) and 2. Using biased-racist, sexist, classist and homophobic, lenses to intervene, in particularly, targeting young men Black men as perpetrators.
I've worked with youth in the juvenile justice system for 20 years and have seen first hand how the culture of policing creates a culture of distrust in communities. I wanted to figure out what could actually be done to address this seemingly intractable dynamic. I was introduced to the Youth Police Initiative (YPI) through the North American Family Institute (NAFI) in 2004. NAFI provides community based alternatives to institutions for youth and families.
Jim Isenberg a PhD in Criminology, one of the leaders at NAFI, investigated the link between police training with youth and arrests and shootings of youth. He found that only 1% of all police training is about working with youth and young adults, even though the majority of arrests that happen are of 18-25 year olds who have a juvenile record (DCJS, 2014). Dr. Isenberg developed the Youth Police Initiative to bring youth from communities that are highly surveilled by police and have a history in the criminal justice system, with police who patrol the communities. Youth and police tell each other their stories. Youth use real time scenarios to train police about how youth want to be treated. Police train youth about their tactics and what gives them the "right" to shoot i.e. if a youth has their hands in their pocket a police can rightly assume they have a weapon and shoot. Youth and police role play the scenarios and do role reversal to further understand each other. At the end youth and police develop an action plan about how they want to improve the community together.
I was very resistant to this strategy at first because of my own distrust of police. I was completely transformed by what I saw. YPI proves that when you know someone, even if it's just their name, you use other strategies besides arrest or shoot. I became a trainer and continue to be moved by the transformative effect of humanization through shared narrative and relationship building.
Check out http://youthlinkusa.org/ watch video at bottom left, read description under Youth Police Initiative and Press: http://content.youthlinkusa.org/2011/01/press.html. YPI is definitely not the panacea to address the macro issues scaffolding the oppressive culture of policing. It is a start to address what Kevin was discussing yesterday: the everyday aggression that feeds the powder keg.
Over the course, I would love to hear other ways folks think police brutality can be addressed.
Dear All,
Thanks for the great discussion on Thursday. That is really nice to realize that people are ready to share their experiences without shame, and we can work together towards finding solutions and ways to pretend that from happening.
First of all, I would like to confirm that two hours of class is not enough. That is why, I suggest to use this blog for our thoughts that we had in class, but we never got chance to say them out loud.
Here is once of them.
Most likely, as I said in class, media tends to demonstrate things as those who owns it wants. In my view, that is perfect creative article posted on Upworthy.com. What makes it creative? Just take a look: http://www.upworthy.com/here-are-10-images-by-the-time-i-reached-the-third-one-i-was-crying-by-the-10th-i-was-furious . This Gallery represent the last words that people said before they die. When I went deeper from one images to another, it makes my imagination to create a picture what might happen to cause this. For example, how somebody else’s last words might be «Mom, I am going to college»? Who were those people who made a note of that last words? Another example is when the person said: « Why you shoot me»? Most of us would believe that our spirit will go somewhere, and ask this question to the world forever. I was close to crying when I’ve read backstories of this pictures. I do not want discuss them, because I really want you read this article, if possible. We can always return to it, and discuss it.
Truth is another question, which might bring us far away from the question of criminal justice. Moreover, I would say that almost every conflict causes social injustice, and discrimination of one side by another. Probably, every conflict is fought on two grounds: the battlefield and the minds of people. The «good guys» and «bad guys» can often both be guilty of misleading their people with distortions, exaggerations, subjectivity, inaccuracy, and even fabrications, in order to receive support and a sense of legitimacy. The biggest concern of mine is that propaganda in totalitarian regimes is easy to recognize, but how we can define propaganda in democratic societies, in which we suppose to have freedom of speech? In many democracies, people suppose to have freedom of speech. Unfortunately, propaganda exists in democratic societies. It is only harder to see. As a result it is important to keep such elements of propaganda in mind when we see coverage of conflicts or even other issues in the media, regardless of the media organization and their apparent regulation.
I am a huge critic of a lot of police and criminal justice practices. I'm a huge cynic when it comes to the actions of humanity in general, but I desperately want to be an optimist. Though I think humanity as a whole is incredibly horrid, I always give each individual the benefit of the doubt. I constantly search for the good in people to the point where it tiptoes the line of making excuses for misdeeds. I have my own personal horror stories about police, not necessarily brutality, but definitely corruption. However, In our blog and in society as a whole there has been increase on the outrage and blame being placed on not specific police officers, but "cops" themselves.
It doesn't make much sense to me. The general census opinion of cops today are bullies who are drunk on power. If you really wanted to be a cruel bully to society, why would you become a police officer?
As a rookie police officer, you risk your life everyday to protect citizens who associate you with the devil. You make very little money for the hours and risks you take, and it's rare you ever get thanked for it.
For the most part I think people originally become cops because they really do want to help people. Yes, there are some police officers who never cared about the community, but I think at the beginning most people who become police officers care about justice. The sad truth is, whether it's the system or the environment of the job, most rookie cops change. They become ruthless, cold and often cruel to the people they at one point wanted to protect.
I think what we all (the world) is forgetting is that not all cops have transformed into merciless arresting machines. Some cops still care and protect, no matter how much violence and hatred they witness.
What we really need to be asking is what experiences and system errors are turning young crusaders for justice into heartless bullies? More importantly what are the differences between the cops who turn bad and those who stick with their convictions?
By attacking the profession as a whole and condemn police officers entirely. The cycle is being further perpetuated. How can an officer continue to protect a society that lashes out at him/her for a deed done by someone else? In addition, how can we expect to change the police force and fill it with outstanding citizens, if we demonize the profession and discourage anyone kind or just from entering such a "deplorable organization"?
Instead of condemning all police officers as corrupt and evil, as a society, we need to figure out what in the system is causing such horrible tendencies and how to fix it.
First off I want to thank everyone for being so honest about their opinions. It makes everything more comfortable. Speaking of comfortable, I apologize if I made any of you uncomfortable when I cried...but I am emotional and human so it happens. haha
I think its great what everyone is stating. When you just sit and think what caused those police officers or any individual to view their brutality as acceptable. Many times as Sydney stated we categorize the majority of police officers as the bad guys, but I am also curious to know how they viewed justice in the beginning of their careers. Where they desiring power or justice?
Unfortunately, all the injustices that have occurred in our parents and grandparents lifetimes continue to occur. Racism is still present. As Gina said the "Us v. Them" is a mentality that many have adopted. I can't even lie I grew up in a household where my parents continuously brought up this issue. My mom always told me to let life shape my ideologies my reasoning for feeling certain ways and to try my best to not let society and my family define who I am. I am eager to know which issues will be addressed and where this class will lead to.
Dear Professors and Classmates,
Before anything, I would like to thank you all for the brainstorming of ideas that we were able to come up with last Thursday in class. I think the agenda of discussion and regulations are set, and we are ready to roll.
It also gives me great pleasure to learn that, most of us do share interest in common. Which I believe, will make this class more fun and facilitate the exchange of ideas.
As I was reading through most of the previous comments, I saw plenty of interesting ideas that I would like to expand on. However, I am not going to get through all of them in this post. But as we progress through the semester, I will get to share my ideas on them.
One of the most reoccurring themes here is the cycle of violence that our society is being subjected to. In the past two months alone, we have lost three young black men (Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Kajieme Powell etc.), their lives were taken not by brigands, but by police. Those who we have place all our trust in for protection. By analyzing the interval between those 3 killings, we come to realize that; there is a serious problem that many of us are failing to see. I am assuming that, in every functional society, when an anomaly persists, the community comes together and tries to resolve the problem. By stepping out of the box, or leaving our biases, I am hoping that we will be able to visualize, how society has failed to come together and respond adequately to the issue of police brutality.
It seems like many police departments around the nation are losing their credibility in inner neighborhoods. They are becoming more of a threat to minority youth. Apparently, their mission has changed. To serve and protect is no longer the motto, it seems like "Oppress and Exterminate" is the new slogan when it comes to their contact with youths of color. I would like us as a class to analyze some of the fundamental elements of policing, as we try to situate the current state of relationship between the police and minorities. The question that we should all keep in mind is, to what direction is the relationship between police departments and minority leaning towards?
In regards to the media, it seems like we are dealing with an excessive freedom and a prearranged media. By excessive freedom, I mean, there is almost no regulation on what people can say and propagate on the Internet. Of course, it is a constitutional right; the freedom of speech but this freedom of speech should not be the opportunity for us to promulgate malicious ideas. Throughout this semester, I would like us, to see the media as an entity, which some of the primary goals are, making profit, maintaining the status quo and advancing a particular political view. Even so, how do we, as a community, help reform the media and help it serve us better?
This is just an intro. Looking forward to a productive semester.
Cheers!
Hello All,
I am more than excited than ever to be able to sit here and share my thoughts, especially on a day like today. While I haven't been able to log into my computer the whole weekend, I am glad that today was the day when I was able to.
Coming home today, blasting music in my headphones, I failed to hear the commotion going on around me. When I look up from my phone while walking and texting, I notice everyone around me running. A young man, who I went to middle school with, almost knocked me over as he ran pass me while people called out after him. People were running into stores and withing seconds the block cleared out. I take off my headphones and heard, "They shot him. They shot him!"
Undercover cop cars were in front of me five seconds later asking if I was okay and once I nodded, they kept driving. A block to my left, a crowd was forming, so I ran to see what had happened. Ambulance sirens were blasting, police was every where, teens and young men were running in all directions.
I have lived 11 years in the same place.I grew up with these kids. The younger generation are often related to my middle school piers and their families are my community. I had to see who had gotten hurt.
On the floor, laid a young man of about 18-21 bleeding. He had been shot three times. Women were around him crying and the crowd kept whispering,"he's just a kid". However, among these comments I also heard,
"This is what happens when it is hot outside. They look for it hanging out outside all day."
"What can you do? He's probably in a gang with the other ones."
These are comments that I am used to hearing when something bad happens in my neighborhood. Last summer, a twelve year old girl got raped and I heard many neighbors comment about what she was doing out so late, how she looked older than she seemed.
Reading the comments of the video Dr. Waterston shared triggered even more questions today, as they were also saying he got too close to police therefore he was asking to be shot.
This a question I would like for our class to think about.
We have a great deal of controversy revolving around suicide. Doctors are no allowed to give patients drugs for them to terminate their lives, even if they have a terminal illness, even if they suffer from mental illness or depression, even if a person is in pain, we'd rather give them drugs to shut the pain temporarily than to shut down their life. When someone commits suicide, we often hear people comment about how sad it is, how they should see that problems are only temporary.
However, how come when someone dies at the hand of a police officer, when a girl or woman gets raped, when someone gets harmed at the expense of something or someone else, many look for a justification of the harm. Are we saying as a society that the harming of a human being is justifiable as long as it does not come from their own hand? What does that say about our definition of autonomy?
When a person commits suicide, they make a decision.
(I am in no way defending suicide.I know that suicidal thoughts have to do a lot with mental illnesses. That is not my intention. I am just putting these two situations into perspective.)
When a person is killed or harm, someone else makes the decision for them.
Why is it that one, however, receives more empathy than the other?
I would love to hear/read your thoughts on this and I am so grateful to be able to have this conversation with all of you.
This blog, like the seminar which preceded it, is overflowing with ideas. I look forward in the weeks ahead to being able to sort through them, clarify our language, figure out how these ideas are related (as both Gina and Kevin point out there are an "intersection of themes") -- and how they aren't. One of the things that seems to connect these concerns is the question of representation. For me as an English professor, representation tends to be textual, how something gets portrayed (or represented) in a text (or film, song, play, etc.). A journalist ostensibly tries to represent the truth in his/her reporting, though as many of you point out this itself is a fraught claim. A filmmaker uses both visual images and text to represent his/her ideas. I would love to hear from Professors Rose and Waterston what representation means in their different fields.
A few random thoughts on various posts: I was struck by Marina's statement that "truth brings us far away from the question of criminal justice." It sounds like many of us would agree and yet how did we get so far from what must be the basic idea behind a CJ system: getting at the truth? I also like Marina's question about how we define propaganda in democratic societies. This will be something we explore at length in our Orwell & Ngugi week.
Sydney's point about rookie cops made me think about the movie "Crash" (2004). If you haven't seen it, I think you should -- it is a great representation of the intersection of multiple perspectives on just the issues listed in this blog. I often think it would be a good text for this seminar. One of the characters is a rookie cop, which reminds me of Brenda's question about how they viewed justice in the beginning of their careers. That would be a great subject for a documentary. Any budding filmmakers in this class?
Lauren’s comments about mis-education and dis-education, and about issues around diagnoses of mental illness and learning disabilities led me to wonder about the following: What are the stated goals of “education”? How does that differ from what really happens in schools? What factors account for what “really happens” in schools? Are all schools created equal? What accounts for the differences in quality of education? Also what are some “forces” involved that we don’t “see” on the surface but that play a role in what happens in terms of diagnoses and responses to those diagnoses? For example, how does the medicalization and pharmacolization (I think I just made up that word) of illness, mental illness, and learning disabilities intersect with what happens in school policy, administration and in the classroom?
Within the discussion on police brutality, Gina asks: “ why do police standards authorize shoot-to-kill?” In turn, my question: is this standard across place (across all villages, towns, cities, counties, states in the US)? If not, what are the policies? What accounts for differences between policies? What are the justifications for any given policy?
Prof Rose’s distrust (of the police) and hesitation (about a proposed approach to addressing an entrenched hostile dynamic between the police and a particular segment of the public) is not a knee-jerk reaction but a reasonable one considering the facts on the ground. She also describes how her view changed because she saw how change actually did occur, demonstrated by evidence. In the end, Prof. Rose discovered “the transformative effect of humanization through shared narrative and relationship building.” My question: What are the effects of “dehumanization”? Are any “interests” served by such “dehumanization” processes? If so, what interest or interests are served as certain segments of the population are dehumanized?
Marina states, “propaganda exists in democratic societies. It is only harder to see.” I’d like Marina to be more specific about “propaganda”—what propaganda are you referring to? About what? About whom? I do think the topic is important and I am also interested in understanding whose interests are served by “propaganda,” and am also interested in understanding the mechanisms that make propaganda difficult to “see.” Before we can get to that, I would like to know more about the specific “propaganda” in question.
I am so sorry and actually feel very sad that Sydney’s faith in humankind has been diminished. At the same time, I am so glad she has come to the question: “What we really need to be asking is what experiences and system errors are turning young crusaders for justice into heartless bullies? More importantly what are the differences between the cops who turn bad and those who stick with their convictions?” I think these are CRITICALLY IMPORTANT questions because it shifts explanation from “humanity” (i.e., human beings are just greedy or violent or vicious or whatever) to the social systems and structures that enable the kinds of violences we see on the ground, in real life. What is it about the “system” (and by this I don’t just mean the criminal justice system but I mean the larger “system” in its political, economic and social arrangements) that nurtures people in behaving in certain ways over behaving in other ways? For example, are we surprised to find enormous competition in a system that by its basic principles requires competition (over cooperation)? In such a system, wouldn’t you expect people to relate in a “dog-eat-dog” way? In such a system, isn’t it amazing to find so many people who relate in a cooperative way? I also think Sydney’s question about heterogeneity among “the police” is important. It would be good to find out what research has already been done that looks at the micro-factors that may come into play in accounting for differences between individual police working under the same set of conditions. Overall, Sydney’s last questions are so key: “what in the system is causing such horrible tendencies and how to fix it?”
continued from last post:
Brenda references the “us versus them” mentality. We are all familiar with that “mentality”—we know what it means. Yet I don’t think we go deep enough into it to ask: “who or what benefits from this mentality?” Also, I would very much like to share with you a chapter in my first book (not required reading!) that addresses these issues. The book is titled “Street Addicts in the Political Economy” and the specific chapter that addresses the relations between “cops and criminals” is chapter IV “Crime and Punishment” (you can find most of the chapter on Google books, see especially pages 150-end: http://books.google.com/books?id=pJuILHXlcWAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false
Kevin notes, “To serve and protect is no longer the motto, it seems like ‘Oppress and Exterminate’ is the new slogan when it comes to their contact with youths of color.” While I do not disagree with the spirit of Kevin’s question, I am concerned that he puts it in a temporal context that erases a whole, long history of “oppression and extermination” when it comes to people who have been racialized, oppressed and exterminated throughout US history (which could not have been accomplished without use of “enforcement” mechanisms such as the police and the military).
Danyeli offers a vivid anecdote that reveals the ways in which that “them versus us” distinction and dynamic plays out at even the most local level. If stereotype constitutes a collective cultural fiction or ideology (about the poor or about black youth or about girls and women or about those with a mental illness or about whichever group), what benefit do these ideologies serve and for whom? Also, any guesses as to why keep asking these same questions?
Prof. Reitz asks the other two professors to comment on how our respective disciplines address the issue of “representations.” This is a very complex issue in anthropology that would require a semester-long course to review. I will say that in my own work among the poor, marginalized and dispossessed, one among my goals has been to take apart stereotypes/popular conceptions of “the other” (whoever those “others” may be) and reveal that behind these cultural fictions are flesh-and-blood human beings struggling to get by and make do in a world they did not create but in which they have a particular “social positionality” (we can discuss what this means when we actually talk in class), and to help us “see” (understand) the ways in which these ideologies have political-economic roots.
I love the movie “Crash.” I think it’s a great one for this class to watch and discuss.
It’s Tuesday morning. We would very much like to hear from those who have yet to post…..
One more thing:
This is so relevant, considering this week's blog:
"After Police Abuses Caught on Video, a New Guide Teaches How to Best Archive and Distribute Footage" from "Democracy Now!":
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/8/28/after_police_abuses_caught_on_video
AND:
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/8/28/pt_2_yvonne_ng_on_the
Witness: http://witness.org/
Hello everyone,
We have a great agenda to cover and I am glad we will work together to grow personally and professionally in the process. This video shared by Dr. Waterston reflects some of the issues we were talking about last Thursday. Although each case of “police brutality” should be looked at separately, I am one of the group of people that believe that in each of the scenarios, including this video, police officers should had use a different approach. How can an officer shoot and then handcuff someone? I didn’t see an ambulance in the area. How many people were in contact with this young man before the police arrived? There were a time in which you could tell someone “don’t do that to yourself”, “don’t get into trouble”, and they would listen to you. Instead, the first thing people do now is to take out their phone and start recording with the hope of taking a good video. It is true those video can be helpful sometimes but people are forgetting this situations are happening to our own people, in our own communities, and we do little to prevent this to happen.
I remember the NYPD commissioner, Bill Bratton, saying that the police department will be re-trained. This can be a great “first step.” However, I believe this is a broader issue than what the leadership in the NYPD states. Our communities are losing trust in the people that are supposed to protect them. We could re-train each officer, but it would be pointless if we don’t get the communities to trust the police.
I am glad we will discuss the issue of safety. We already mentioned that the word “safety” can be seen from different standpoints. The reality is that police officers also need to feel safe. As my fellow Veron Sydney mentioned, sometimes rockies police officers change. Is it because they submerge in a police subculture, or is it because they believe that being “tough” is the only way they can feel safe?
I am particularly interesting on answering the question of “how safe is our information on the internet?” The sharing and negotiating with our information is getting too far. I have hear people complaining about how the government is spying in everybody but we should also be aware of how companies such as Google are using our information.
I am looking forward to keep the conversation about all these issues, and to take them to the next step.
Truth is such a very difficult thing to search for, as we mentioned in class. Truth is entirely unique: relative and real to each persons perspective. Should truth be what we're searching for in the videos and in the broken world? or should we start thinking critically about other things to look for? Indeed, as mentioned (by whom I forget)justice and truth could not be further from each other, in different universes. I'm not sure.
On the issue of the attack of the Young Black Male, it is with extreme mixed emotion I show you this article: http://www.theonion.com/articles/tips-for-being-an-unarmed-black-teen,36697/
which I do not find as funny as I do find it realistic. It is a shame that these could be legitimate tips. Where has America come?
I am always being challenged by a close friend of mine for over emphasizing the evils of the nation we live in. He is constantly reminding me, "It was much much worse in the days of the Roman Empire, you must think in a broader context! Society is becoming more humane!" But I simply cannot accept this logic. The new Jim Crow is not more mild, it is not an improvement- the people of color of America are not safe, and safety is one of the key pieces of a healthy and happy humane existence. The police, though a majority do in fact go into the police force with the best of intentions (I firmly believe this, I know its been questioned here) we cannot, as a society, deny the obvious truth that we have allowed police officers the power to do whatever whenever they want so long as it is in the name of "safety", when reality the only thing that is "safe" is the officers power complex-- not even the officer himself is safe.
The more rational side of myself, perhaps the hopeful side as well, is forcing me to stop on that line of thought (because it will just become an emotional mess of thoughts and feelings that are incoherent), and to offer this- what of the idea that some how long ago (I think the Reagan era) police officers were given a little extra ground and became a little extra controlling and a little extra violent and the people noticed and started trusting the police officers less and respecting them less and then they reacted more violent and more controlling to gain the respect back and now, after may cycles of this we are here. A hyper sensitive, safety, security, and profit obsessed nation without a concept of justice or truth that continually becomes more violent.
The reality is this, our media is ruled by a capitalist regime. And since the Supreme Court (ever-so-wisely) decided that corporations CAN and SHOULD be treated like citizens with all the rights to whatever, they can now give $$$$$$$$$$$ times infinity to politicians in their efforts to be elected or re-elected thereby influencing policy with money.
In my opinion, we are not living in a democracy anymore.
While I definitely agree there must be something done concerning the power and brutality being used within the police department, I believe we are looking at this macrocosmically. As certain groups being marginalized do not usually fit the stereotype society has given them, the same stands true for many members of the police department. Sadly, the media tends to focus on the negative and puts much too little weight on the positive. You will always hear about a police officer who brutalizes a man who did nothing more than, say, throwing trash in the street (I'm being highly hypothetical here), but you will barely, if ever, hear a story about a police officer helping a woman/man who was burglarized or aiding in numerous other ways. I believe we, being the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, need to learn skills that will help us thrive in the police department. As Sydney said, many of the young rookies are seeking justice, not brutality. There must be a way to be proactive and stop this awful tradition of brutality and abuse of power before the corruption even begins in these young rookies. What could we do as an institution to prevent this?
"bgiac" reveal yourself! Actually, I'm guessing this is Bekah (I know, I am so good at close reading!!). Thanks to Prof Waterston and Lauren for circling back -- repeat comments always add so much depth to the discussion.
Hey all,
So in reading this post and the comments I notice a ton of themes race, the culture of violence, class, and cynicism, amongst many others. But, at least for me, a chunk of the conversation that's missing in the actual idea of victim blaming which obviously perpetuates this cycle of violence everyone is so frustrated about. Now obviously this links back to our "lovely" (SARCASM) societal stereotypes and our capitalist, Eurocentric, heteronormative, patriarchal society. All this talk about police brutality is, as previous mentioned/alluded to, a result of our..."society"... It's part of the status quo. Race, class, sexuality, gender, etc. are all things that continually perpetually and facilitate the murder- or victimization- of humans. We, as a society, unexplainably dehumanize and devalue the colonized man of color whether that's at the Mexican border, in the Middle East, or in Brooklyn/Ferguson. It's terrifying to know how that people will quickly say, "He was a thug", "He must have done something", or " He should have stayed quiet". It is in seconds that we wonder what the victim was doing and we ask what the victim could have done to prevent the crime. WHY DO WE DO THIS? WHY DO WE BLAME THE VICTIM? Is it not the perpetrator's fault? Is it not the attacker's fault? Everyone so far has been pointing to the fact that "institutions" need to change, right, that's true. But isn't this dismissing that fact that we're still perpetrating or allowing the perpetuation of a belief system or a thought process (victim blaming) which allows us to devalue not only the colonized man of color but also women in a patriarchal society. Our society and our norms/standards are terrifying, intrusive, invasive "things" for a lack of a better word. There are just so many implicit biases and categorizations that we cannot escape. We, whether consciously or unconsciously, perpetuate this crazy and unjust ideology with our actions... choosing a seat because X person is in one side and you want don't want to sit there, going to X restaurant because all people from Y ethnicity are dirty so you don't want to eat at Y restaurant, crossing the street when a person of X ethnicity or race is walking towards you and all of the sudden you think you're not "safe". We are a society that has been traumatized and that trauma has been historically passed down generation to generation. It's very disheartening...
These are factors that instigate and perpetuate the continuation of violence. Again, its scary to think how much of our mental processes would need to not only change but totally eradicate in order to really improve the sociopolitical/economic status of colonized men and women of color.
I'll leave you all with this.
If I punch you in the face because I think your shirt is stupid is it your fault for wearing that stupid shirt or is it my fault for not controlling my reaction to your stupid shirt?
If my assumption is correct I'm guessing you all think it's my fault. If that’s the case can we please use the same logic with other violent crimes? NO her skirt did not cause the rape and NO his saggy pants and "ghetto" English did not cause his murder... the attacker or the perpetrator caused the crime.
Plot twist... I'm sharing a ted talk: "can prejudice ever be a good thing?" It is quite the interesting argument pro-prejudice.
http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_bloom_can_prejudice_ever_be_a_good_thing?language=en
bgiac was in fact Bekah. Apparently my middle school blog account still exists! I fixed it so that I'll show up as bekah now.
Monica’s TED talk really left an impact on me and I highly recommend it to everyone. In it, Paul Bloom explains that prejudicial thought is more rooted in us than we might expect. In fact, even children are “guilty” of forming preferences based on observable traits, and acting on them. Contrary to what we might think, children are capable of forming biases on the basis of skin color and have more positive perceptions of peers and adults with the same skin color as them (see Nurture Shock by Branson and Merryman). But Paul Bloom urges us to reconsider how these prejudicial thoughts may serve an evolutionary function of survival. At it’s most harmless, these thoughts (which we are not even aware of most of the time) take the form of generalizing, which helps us navigate the world we live in, but at its worst, this sort of thinking can manifest itself as genocide and xenophobia.
Labeling and categorization seem intrinsic to human behavior and knowing this, how can we then overcome this tendency? How can we be made to be aware of our own prejudices? School curriculums are a great starting point but they’re subject to resistance from school boards who adamantly oppose the teaching of certain subjects like evolution and history of minorities. Yet again, we see prejudice rearing its ugly head.
I agree that Sydney’s 2 questions are an excellent starting point for our investigation on what pre-existing factors are responsible for creating the conditions that make incidents like Ferguson, Trayvon Martin etc. possible.
A few bad apples certainly don’t taint the entire profession and we should attempt to discern the institutional practices and subcultures that are conducive to the development of such behavior on the part of the police since their behavior doesn’t occur in a vacuum. For instance, in adopting more punitive police practices in response to the terror threat brought about by 9/11, how have police departments all over the US exacerbated tensions in the communities they pledge to protect and serve? Going back to images and representations, to what extent does the image of a heavily armed policeman among residents instill fear and distrust, thereby worsening the us-versus-them tension? Also, a police force that isn’t ethnically representative of the community they serve is only going to worsen tensions that may exist between civilians and police, especially in minority-populated neighborhoods.
As Arturo mentioned, the police needs to regain the trust of the neighborhoods they serve, and since community relations are an important part of their work, it is imperative that police departments should reflect the ethnic composition of the districts they police. (Paul Bloom might attest to this fact that minority populations would feel more safe and secure knowing that members of their own racial groups are serving them).
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