Throughout the main crux of this book, I mostly nodded my head in both agreement and disappointment. The fact that these thoughts and ideas have been printed in a book for distribution, yet the majority of voters for the upcoming presidential election have no idea of how the policies that these potential propose can and will negatively effect marginalized groups is astounding yet not surprising at all. I feel like I'm constantly bouncing back-and-forth between conversations where people are knowledgable and understanding to those that claim to "know politics" yet are the least knowledgable, in my opinion. But, just as Cacho says, "Most propositions on the ballots are drafted primarily by wealthy citizens and politicians" (Cacho, p. 38).
Especially in the state of Alabama, I find myself constantly dancing the line of loving and hating this place, but every time our state politicians open their mouths, I nod myself in disbelief. How could these people possibly be seen by the majority of the state as competent and knowledgable? Particularly in the case of the state of Alabama requiring IDs for voting. When that law particularly came up, people raved saying it was going to crack down on "illegal voters" and keep elections honest. At that claim in particular, I have to literally laugh out loud because when have elections ever been completely honest? I won't even go into the term "illegal voters." This law, in particular, caught my attention because I knew this could not be good. It sounded good, it looked good, but in the state of Alabama, looking good and sounding good can only mean that something is lurking in the background. Just a few weeks ago, we found out what was lurking. The state of Alabama closed 31 drivers license offices. The state claims this isn't discrimination because 22 of those offices are in white-majority counties. However, every county in which 75 percent or more of the registered are black will lose its office. The budget cuts and voter registration IDs sound great, but that's where they want you to stop. They don't want you to elaborate on those facts at all. How are these counties truly affected. We're not only going to close their drivers license offices — which will limit their abilities to obtain legal ways of transportation — but we're also going to limit their abilities to vote on the very laws that are pushing them further outside the margin. "Many are aimed either at expanding state powers in order to police marginalized populations or at decreasing state resources that help these same aggrieved groups" (Cacho, p. 38). This quote rings all too true.
White entitlement is a real thing. As a white, female American, I am somewhat aware of some of my privileges. But even I can see how these laws are made in selfish ambitions seeking only for self entitlement and gain. We purposefully devalue bodies that are not our own in order to move ourselves up the ladder. White bodies devalue any body that is not white through criminalization. Light colored — but not white bodies — devalue bodies darker than themselves. Bodies devalue other bodies in order to prioritize their own and prove their worth.
At the end, Chaco claims that in order to value another body, we must devalue our own bodies. I'm not sure that I agree with this, but I don't disagree. The optimistic side of me wants to claim that we all have some decency, some human, some logical sense that would keep us from being terrible human beings. But then I watch presidential debates and my optimism shrinks as Donald Trump's hair, Carly Fiorina's smile and Hillary Clinton's emails are prioritized over human bodies. "The choices we made to become valuable members of society validated U.S. society's exclusionary methods for assigning social value. These methods also assign not-value, fixing the other's devaluation" (Cacho, p. 149).
Cacho, Lisa Marie (2012-11-12). Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected (Nation of Nations) (p. 38). NYU Press. Kindle Edition.
Did you see the follow-up story? on Alabama budget-cutting that showed they had the same choice to make about closing state liquor stores in those same counties, but THAT was not something they were willing to do.
ReplyDeleteI think that you're right, but I also think that Cacho is pointing us in a different direction as well. For me, this work is particularly impactful because its analytic interests exist in the interstices between guilt and ignorance; irresponsibility and responsibility; meaninglessness and meaningfulness. While I understand that it becomes necessary from a pragmatic standpoint to locate blame and apply it to others, I think that Cacho is asking us to suspend that tendency as well so that we might think differently. Any characterization of an/other, if we are to believe Cacho, is to participate in a symbolic recapitulation of already existing structures of power and to implement those structures, even if we do so unwittingly. So, perhaps we are not supposed to think solely about the (White, Wealthy) Other as the source of these issues but, rather, the system itself, as it is practically, symbolically, materially realized, is the 'thing' to be examined.
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