Race in Social ProblemsJoin now to read essay Race in Social ProblemsLast semester when I signed up for classes, I thought Sociology 260: Social Problems in the US would be a course where a minimal amount of time would be spent on discussing social problems and a maximum amount of time would be used to discuss public policies to combat such social problems. I wanted to jump the gun. I did not see that in order to implement a public policy, which would be of use, I had to fully understand all facets of the problem. Through these various books and articles, The Condemnation of Little B by Elaine Brown, “The Ghosts of 9-1-1: Reflections on History, Justice and Roosting Chickens,” in On the Justice of Roosting Chickens by Ward Churchill, Perversions of Justice: Indigenous Peoples and Angloamerican Law by Ward Churchill, No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Justice System by David Cole, Welcome to the Machine: Science Surveillance, and the Culture of Control by Derrick Jensen and George Draffan, “Mastering the Female Pelvis: Race and the Tools of Reproduction,” in Public Privates: Preforming Gynecology From Both Ends of the Spectrum by Terri Kapsalis and “Race and the New Reproduction” in Killing the Black Body by Dorothy Roberts, a better understanding came to light on social issues currently seen as problematic like poverty, health care, race and discrimination, gender inequality and crime.
In the book The Condemnation of Little B, Browns central theses is the criminal justice system. Throughout the book the one argument she is constantly supporting is the idea that young black boys, in their early teens, are arrested and put through the criminal justice system in a new age version of lynch-mob justice. The alleged crimes of these young black boys receive
much media fanfare, but when they are cleared of any wrong-doing nothing is said about it in the media. She makes her arguments by using the story of Little B as a frame for her theses. By taking his story and stripping away the prosecutions rush to judgment in the investigation and trial; using the words of drug dealers awaiting sentencing and addicts, such as Little Bs mother, to ramrod through a conviction in which there was no physical evidence connecting the boy to the killing. To supplement the frame she recaps high profile cases of young black children being arrested and charged for crimes despite evidence to the contrary.
The Condemnation of Little B bored me, but at the same time it was a wake-up call. It sparked an interest in me, and I found that in 1999 two-thirds of juveniles on death row are children of colour. Like Little B many of them did not receive
proper legal representation or full Constitutional protection. Little B wasnt read his Miranda Rights and maybe its because I went to school in Rockland County and maybe its just stemmed from where my family and I stand on a socio-economic level, but I was taught getting read your Miranda Rights was standard. Browns book to me was a work of protest for all coloured youth who are constantly beind demonized and underrated by the media and society.
In “The Ghosts of 9-1-1: Reflections on History, Justice and Roosting Chickens” Churchills central theses is American Imperialism. The one argument he ramrods throughout the reading is that 9-11 was not a random act of hate; 9-11 was the culmination of 225 years of American Imperialism. He points out that assuming a 15-to-1 US-to-Iraq population ratio, 7.5 million children and 22.5 million adults must die in the US in order to achieve parity with the Iraqis dead from US-imposed sanctions after the first Gulf War. He shows how the dead from 9-11 is minuscule
in comparison to the murders we perpetrated around the globe. Using a somewhat controversial comparison, Churchill compares our national criminality and denial to that of German citizens during World War II. He uses the philosopher
Karl Jaspers four part formulation of guilt.“The Ghosts of 9-1-1: Reflections on History, Justice and Roosting Chickens” is controversial, and I liked it. This section of On the Justice of Roosting Chickens came out in the wake of 9-11. It made people think. Like if one US citizen must die for every death our country was responsible for around the world, we would have no citizens left. Churchill compared us to the citizens of Nazi Germany, essentially calling all American citizens little Eichmanns. Eichmann was a mere mid-level officer in the SS, by all accounts a good husband and devoted father, apparently quite mild-mannered, and never accused of having personally murdered anyone at all. His only crime was that he saw what was going on and did nothing. For that reason, that comparison is more than accurate. This reading is a wake-up call to all Americans who turn their heads when they see American Imperialsm at work and say
” The Ghosts of 9-1-1: The American Dream is a concept the US military and State Department do NOT want to share with us – an ideology to the contrary. We are supposed to be looking at the future while we’re still on the job, which is what is wrong with both. America is supposed to be part of the future. As for our leaders, let’s keep focusing on keeping America the one good world we want, and not about the past. This is really why I was so disturbed by the statements of President Obama on 9-11 in 2011. I had come across one of his statements, which was: The world is not a good place. We need to be better all the more so. We need to put our problems for ourselves and our children and stop trying to fix them. We need to work together on a broad global agenda of economic growth and human well-being, so that everything in that world is a good place. This is what the world looks like in the long term, not like a picture and a dream. But this is America now! You have lost our children. They need something better. A better world. More life. And I have not lost any children through 9-11. And we owe a great deal of gratitude and encouragement to our heroes and our families for their sacrifice in the defense of freedom. I love and cherish that Americans of all backgrounds feel the same way about the American Dream. Let me put this on a pedestal to honor: It was the American Dream made possible by the American people; not some imagined fantasy dreamed up by some shadowy military mastermind, an imaginary dream of America we did not see in any of the failed wars in the world. We did not dream of being the nation of immigrants, but of the people who made America what it is – the perfect nation. And the American Dream is also true in our time, in our democracy, our way of life, and in our nation. And many of these things are going to change under our government and be fulfilled in our lifetime. The American Dream doesn’t come easily: we need the support of people to give it to you, for now, we need your support, and in the years ahead let’s get it together. I have been to Afghanistan and Iraq in my lifetime, and I am thankful for your support. The things that have inspired me to do this are things like those that were created by your government. America has so many great ideas that made it possible – our great ideas are in America NOW, not in Iraq. Those ideas are America and I do not want to see this country run on false promises. We have a lot of flaws in every part of the world from the Middle East, the South, Africa, or Indonesia to Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We have problems that the leaders have brought to the Middle East, too, but that also make America and not our allies the problem. To tell the world that America is about to run on false promises is outrageous and absurd. Our leaders are being stupid – and you can tell when they have been duped and have lied and abused you, with the intent of being blind. America is about to fall apart. America and the rest of Europe must go to hell. America and our allies are about to be lost. America’s best chance of survival has been lost. We have been bombed and flattened, and more than once we have been shot, in an act in the name of terrorism and war. And yet if we do not act now and make the right decisions and take what we have learned from this past five