Authored Post – Philosophical Issues in Race and Racism

Prison sentences are getting shorter. But racial disparities are getting worse.

A new study conducted after a 2005 Supreme Court decision gave judges more flexibility in sentencing suggests that this newfound judicial discretion is being used to help white defendants more than black ones. Judges determines a prison sentence by consulting a set of federal guidelines which provides a recommended range of term length based on factors like the offense and the defendant’s criminal history. The study shows that given the same recommended sentence on almost any crime, white offenders receive a shorter punishment than black offenders — a disparity that has grown since 2005.

This creates an unfortunate double bind for those who aspire for equality in the criminal justice system: When judges are given more power in setting sentences, people are punished differently for the same crimes. When judges lack that power, everyone is treated harshly in court, especially the black Americans who already experience racial bias in the justice system through disproportionately more arrests and criminal charges.

Click here to read more.

Questions

What are some contributing factors for this disproportionate amount of arrests, charges, and lengthy convictions for black Americans?

Is there a foreseeable solution for this problem of racial bias in our criminal justice system?

Do you think that judges should have more or less freedom in sentencing? Why?

Who Gets To Be A Superhero? Race And Identity In Comics

In artist Orion Martin’s project, X-Men of Color, he reimagined this famous X-Men cover by recoloring two characters as brown. This cover comes from a storyline in which mutants are being rounded up and exterminated by the government.

The X-Men comic franchise is a story of a minority group struggling with discrimination due to their superhuman mutations — a sci-fi allegory that illustrates the troubles of real people dealing with bigotry regarding race, sexuality, health and a host of other social issues. However, many readers note that the comics fail to actually depict the people that face real-life discrimination, and instead include mostly straight, white men.

Neil Shyminsky, an academic who’s written about the X-Men‘s complicated relationship with real-life racism:

[He] argues persuasively that playing out civil rights-related struggles with an all-white cast allows the white male audience of the comics to appropriate the struggles of marginalized peoples … “While its stated mission is to promote the acceptance of minorities of all kinds, X-Men has not only failed to adequately redress issues of inequality – it actually reinforces inequality.”

Orion Martin reimagined several iconic X-Men covers, recasting the superheroes as people of color. The move sparked a discussion on race in comics, both on the page and in the writers’ rooms.

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Click here for the rest of the NPR article.

More about Race & Racism in Marvel Comics

Malala Yousafzai and the White Saviour Complex

“Malala’s message is true, it is profound, it is something the world needs to take note of; education is a right of every child, but Malala has been used as a tool by the West.”

This Huffpost article examines Malala’s rise to international recognition as part of a history of the institutionalized, racist narrative that has been used by journalists and politicians to quell the guilt of the white man and justify the West interfering in other countries. Part of this narrative is the demonization of the non-white Muslim man, who is portrayed as a savage without the capacity for reasonable negotiation, leaving the West with no choice but to resort to violence, war, drone strikes, etc.

Click here to read the long form of the article.

This article resonated with me because, while I admire Malala’s spirit and message, it always bothered me that she was getting immense amount of Western attention when there are hundreds of thousands just like her who are overlooked. Why was this one girl singled out? What about the others that have undergone similar abuse, not only by those we mark as enemies and extremists, but by our own soldiers? Why does we choose to focus only on the brutality of the Taliban, but not on our own nations’ contributions to the conditions by entering into war and destabilizing the regions and making them vulnerable to groups like the Taliban?

Aziz Ansari on Acting, Race and Hollywood

From left, Mr. Ansari, Noël Wells, Lena Waithe and Eric Wareheim in the Netflix series “Master of None.” Credit K.C. Bailey/Netflix

The hilarious Aziz Ansari recently wrote an article for NYTimes about the lack of opportunity for PoC actors in the entertainment industry. He notes that even when the rare non-white character is available, the challenges of casting tend to lead to either a white-washing of the role or to the casting of a white actor in black/brown/yellow-face.

“Even at a time when minorities account for almost 40 percent of the American population, when Hollywood wants an “everyman,” what it really wants is a straight white guy. But a straight white guy is not every man. The “everyman” is everybody.”

On Facebook, Ansari calls for more effort on the part of producers to cast non-white actors to represent diverse roles: “We are all more sophisticated, compelling, and interesting than our ethnicities, accents, and stereotypical jobs. Let’s see that on TV and film.”

Click here to read the full article.

Ansari’s been on a roll tackling Race in America; during his Tuesday night interview with Stephen Colbert on The Late Show, Ansari pointed out the rare 50% percent diversity rate of a white guy and an Indian guy sharing the stage… “an all-time high for CBS!” ???

VIDEO: QI – Where are 1% Of Americans?

QI (Quite Interesting) is a British comedy panel game show hosted by Stephen Fry, which brings together four comedians a week to share anecdotes and trivia.

In this clip, Fry asks the panelists “Where are 1% Of Americans?”, which kicks off a conversation about mass incarceration, bringing to light unsettling details and statistics on racial disparity in the criminal justice system and the three-strikes law.

“No society in history has imprisoned more of its citizens”

While it’s illegal to import good made by forced labor or prisoners, American prisons produce “100% military helmets, bulletproof vests… and other items of uniform … 93% of domestically produced paints… 36% of home appliances”. It could be said that America “reinvented the slave trade”; these prisoners are paid way below minimum wage, allowing the country to compete with factories in third world countries.

“5% of the world’s population is American, 25% of people in jail worldwide are American.”

Though QI is a comedy show and this particular conversation ends in a laugh, it doesn’t detract from the gravity of the pervasive existence of racial discrimination and the business side of the American criminal justice system.

Affirmative Action: Is It Still Necessary?

In a 2003 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to uphold affirmative action and said it expected that in 25 years, “the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.” Here’s a conversation between Boyce Watkins, assistant professor at Syracuse University, and Linda Chavez, chair of Center for Equal Opportunity, about the 2013 SCOTUS case revisiting University of Texas, that (at the time) could ban affirmative action in higher education once and for all.

VIDEO: How Racist Are You? with Jane Elliott

“For this Channel 4 documentary Jane Elliott, a controversial former schoolteacher from Ohio, is recreating the shocking exercise she used forty years ago to teach her nine year-old pupils about prejudice.

Elliott is asking thirty adult British volunteers – men and women of different ages and backgrounds – to experience inequality based on their eye color to show how susceptible we can all be to bigotry, and what it feels like to be on the other side of arbitrary discrimination.

Does Elliott’s exercise still have something to teach us four decades on and in a different country? Presented by Krishnan Guru-Murthy, the exercise is observed throughout by two expert psychologists, Prof Dominic Abrams and Dr Funké Baffour, who will be unpicking the behavior on display.”

Video: How racist are you?

Questions:

What do you think about this social experiment?

Are we all more racist than we realize or would like to admit?

Solving the School Discipline Gap

Joseph C. Phillip frames the debate in terms of students’ family life and single vs. two parent homes, rather than bigotry in school disciplinarians. He thinks that focusing only on race-talk on this issue will lead to unsatisfactory solutions that institutionalize the idea that there is something inherently different culturally that leads to black children misbehaving.

“A 2006 study claims Seattle school teachers discipline black students more than their white peers. How about a solution that doesn’t involve pulling the ‘race card?’ […] We can either march forward under the illusion that a discipline gap exists because teachers are a bunch of racists, suspending black children more than white for no other reason than the color of their skin. Or, we can finally realize that a breakdown in the traditional family structure, and an embrace of the destructive social behavior and attitudes that have accompanied it, is playing the devil with our children.”

Click here to read/listen to more.

Questions:

Do you agree of disagree with Phillip’s interpretation of this issue?

Do you think that solutions should be focused on race or family life? Another related factor? A mix of these?

See the Changing Face of American Marriages

According to a TIME analysis of U.S. census data, mixed-race marriages are growing at rapid rates. Click here for an interactive graph tool that allows you to choose any combination of race and gender to see whether such marriages are on the rise or decline.

It’s interesting that they chose to include “non-white” (Hispanic, Black, Asian, American Indian, or Multiracial) as it’s own variable amongst the racial identities. It brought to mind the racial binary Professor Gordon writes about in Race, Biraciality, and Mixed Race — In Theory.

The Two Asian Americas

“What have I made of myself and my children? … We cannot exercise our rights. Humility and insults, who is responsible for all this? Me and the American government. Obstacles this way, blockades that way, and bridges burnt behind.”

The quotation above was excepted from the 1928 suicide letter of Vaishno Das Bagai, an Indian immigrant victimized by racist Anti-Asian legislation which stripped him of his citizenship, property, employment, and ultimately, his self-esteem in America. This New Yorker article looks at history and the experiences of people like Bagai to explore how systemic racism continues to influence the lives of Asians in America. It describes the duality of the Asian American experience:

“There are now, in a sense, two Asian Americas: one formed by five centuries of systemic racism, and another, more genteel version, constituted in the aftermath of the 1965 law. These two Asian Americas float over and under each other like tectonic plates, often clanging discordantly. So, while Chinese-Americans and Indian-Americans are among the most prosperous groups in the country, Korean-Americans, Vietnamese-Americans, and Filipino-Americans have lower median personal earnings than the general population.”

Click here to read more.