The Construction of Race

Razack's discussion of the Pamela George trial, racialized spaces and bodies made me think about how identites are embodied, and in particular, how race is constructed. Race is overall disregarded, Razack points out, in terms of George being aboriginal and her murderers being white because they are claimed to be "equally raced" (126). And yet race comes up throughout the trial to develop a case that George's risky "lifestyle" through the spaces she inhabited and the work she participated in resulted in the violence she endured, and ultimately, caused her tragic death. Razack says that any woman, regardless of her race, loses her "status" as white when she engages in prostitution (129). "Whiteness" is therefore equated with spaces that are "safe" and inhabited by bodies that are perceived to be "responsible" sexual subjects. It is an identity that be can be gained and taken away. White bodies inhabit a space that exists within the constraints of justice, where violence is more easily recognized for what it, separate from the body it inflicts. It is a criminal act rather than a inherent, naturalized category of identity. Aboriginality, as the colonized Other, serves to embody this violence and becomes equated with it (122). It becomes societally expected and accepted- engrained in our identity categories and norms. It becomes reflected in law- the violatable aboriginal body is often understood to exist beyond judicial jurisdiction. Who is accountable for the violence done to these bodies if the law does not protect them and enforce justice? Razack draws attention to the way colonization has structured our value systems and how we continue to be embedded in "relations of domination" (129). Razack calls for individual social context and collective colonial history to be addressed in the courtroom in hopes of breaking down these raced/gendered/classed aspects of subjectivity, but I wonder if this can be achieved without deconstructing how these create and perpetuate the actual spaces they exist in. 

Trickling up to Canada?

I’m interested to see how Dean Spade’s suggestions of centring the attention of social justice to those who are most vulnerable could play out in Canada. Namely, I’m curious of how this framework could be applied to sexual violence within the Canadian colonialist, or if it’s even relevant or applicable to racialized issues. 

What social justice movements need, Spade insists, is “more than a single-issue identity politics” — i.e. more than just voting for pro-gay politicians, who may just as easily “hate” people on welfare or vote in favour of building prisons. Instead, social justice needs to be based in “a commitment that understanding that social justice doesn’t trickle down.” Rather, we should centre the attention of the people who are most vulnerable, he says. 

Spade expands on this concept of “trickle-down social justice” in a 2012 interview with the Laura Flanders Show. He speaks about how he is most excited by decriminalization movements in the States, such as challenging the criminalization of immigration, and stop and frisk laws. These attempts to disrupt oppressive structures, he says, dismantle, “brick by brick,” the systems that are making communities unsafe and, in turn, incarcerated.

I think this is a really interesting approach to addressing a myriad of social issues: by questioning the state and the necessary criminalization and surveillance of “deviant” peoples, what effect would it have on the policing of deviant bodies? This framework rethinks the centrality of legality. After all, Spade says, all of us break laws all the time, but some people are criminalized more and some people’s communities are policed more.

I’m trying to find a Canadian parallel to the “gay and lesbian” social movements trumping queer and non-binary social movements described by Spade. I feel as if Canadian discourses are not really budging on uplifting any vulnerable groups, let alone “the least vulnerable” margin of the vulnerable group. While the States recently legalized gay marriage, have we had any notable legal change in uplifting any vulnerable group? The only close examples I can think of is how universities give scholarships to aboriginal youth (who are attending university), or how many sexual assault centres in universities tend to attract a white, cisgendered crowd.

Or, I wonder if it’s even necessary to try and parallel the two country's problems to apply a similar solution (it’s probably not). I just think trickle-up social justice is a neat concept, and I’d be interested to see how we could apply this in Canada. 

Personhood and a Trickle Up Model in Capital Punishment Decisions

In one of my sociology classes we have recently been looking at race and crime in the United States. While we have already discussed the racial disparities in prison populations, I would like to focus on the impacts of race on death sentence decisions. By drawing specifically from Cassia Spohn’s work I believe we can make connections to the discussions of racialized space presented by Razack, as well as realize the importance of Spade’s notion of "trickle up social justice". 

In the US, capital punishment decisions are understood to be “characterized by systemic racial discrimination” (Spohn 183). This systemic racism is evident when we look at who is most likely to be sentenced to death. Spohn demonstrates that the whiteness of the victim influences capital decisions. The race of the victim as white has a strong impact on the decision to seek the death penalty and the jury’s decision to impose it (Spohn 183). In sum Spohn’s work on capital punishments reveals that “blacks accused of murdering whites are substantially more likely than any other race-of-defendant/race-of-victim category to be charged with capital crime and sentenced to death” (185).

I first want to consider this “victim-based racial discrimination” (Spohn 184) in relation to Razack’s exploration of space and personhood. As Razack discusses, the white male bodies of George's murderers are understood to belong to a realm of justice and respectability (Razack 95). Through their adventures past the realm of justice and into the space of the unrespectable and racialized, the white "in control"citizen is formed (Razack 95).  I think that this notion of subject making and personhood is important when considering the impact of the whiteness of homicide victims on the offenders likelihood to be sentenced to death. We can understand the white victim as deserving this most severe form of punishment because they belong to a space of justice. In a colonial society the white personhood is fully realized; therefore the most extreme “justice” must be applied to these bodies. Their personhood is valued and, unlike George’s, the enormity of their violence is easily recognized. In the space of whiteness and personhood it is easier to realize violence and, accordingly, to hand out punishment to those who perpetrate that violence.

If we continue to consider Razack's notion of spaces, we come to realize the racialized perpetrator belongs to a space of inherent violence and injustice. The implications of this is that violence done to bodies of those in radicalized spaces cannot be fully realized (Razack 93). So while it is because of a racist understanding of personhood that we value the lives of whites and recognize their violence, our conceptions of racialized bodies belonging to violent spaces prevents us from realizing the enormity of the harm of capital punishment. It is black men whose life chances are being abruptly stripped away based on these racist understandings of personhood. This is why I believe we need to consider a "trickle up social justice" model. Spade argues that this social justice model involves focusing on the lives of the most marginalized in society, those whose life chances are most harmed, to improve the lives of all affected by such an issue as benefits trickle up the ladder of oppressed persons. If we choose only to focus on white inmates or white prisoners on death row, we risk leaving behind the most marginalized. If capital punishment is harming the life chances of black men particularly, if the criminal justice system is not able to realize the violence of capital punishment on these bodies, then efforts for re-trials or to remove the death sentence must be focused on the experiences of black men to create meaningful change. 

Spohn, Cassia. "Racial Disparities in Prosecution, Sentencing, and Punishment." In The Oxford Handbook Of Ethnicity, Crime, And Immigration. 2014. Print.

Low Risk of Criminalization

What I find most interesting about the Gotell article this week and the Dean Spade lecture was that they both touched on the societal sense of the “idealized subject.” While Spade argues that neoliberalism enacts the idea of the “healthy citizen”, Gotell argues that neoliberalism also promotes this, but in the way of the “ideal victim.” For both, I think that they touch on such important topics of who government and society care about, and how laws effect people in such extremely different ways based on race, class, gender, etc.

One aspect of the Spade lecture that really stood out for me was when he spoke about how just because certain laws have been passed, this does not mean that anything has actually been changed (Spade, 2009). For me, this makes me think of disparate laws, and how some laws which are intended on being race, class, or gender neutral, actually have more of an impact on anyone who is not your typical white, middle class, CIS gendered male. This becomes most problematic I feel, when we talk about rape laws, and the racialized subject who is far from the “ideal victim.”

“Only yes means yes.” With this consent standard, there should be no way for an offender to use the defense of mistaken belief, and most importantly, this should apply equally to all women/men within society. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and most often it is racialized women that suffer the most from this disparate impact. Keeping this in mind, Gotell states that, “it is the risk of criminalization, rather than the insistence on respect for sexual autonomy or recognition of the harmful consequence of coerced sex, [which] functions as the main inducement to comply with a specific consent standard,” (Gotell, 2008). As we saw today in “Finding Dawn,” and in the Pamela George reading, Aboriginal women seem essentially to lack this risk of criminalization due to the racialized space that they encompass. As it has been mentioned on so many occasions, society and colonialism have made sure to exclude Aboriginal women from any part of these laws, therefore, “only yes means yes” in no way is applied equally among subjects.

Thinking of this, there is an alarming rate of Aboriginal women carrying the HIV virus, which further distances them from the idea of the “healthy citizen” that Spade speaks of and the “ideal subject” for Gotell. Furthermore, because there is a  prevalence of myths and stereotypes about Aboriginal people within our language, the Ewanchuk rules of “only yes means yes,” are so inconsistently applied by Judges and Juries who’s ideologies are plagued by them. In this sense, some of the alarm and shock at the decision that was made for the Pamela George ruling wears away when the deaths and disappearances of Aboriginal women have become so naturalized in our society.

I feel that this “wilful blindness” that we speak of in perpetrators has become consistently applied within neoliberalist ideas and laws mainly because the idea of the “drunk Indian” and the “native prostitute” has consistently been shoved down society’s throat.

Razack’s spatialized justice and Cece McDonald

        This week I will engage with Sherene Razack’s article, “Gendered racial violence and spatialized justice: The murder of Pamela George”. The article not only forced us to be more critical of space and the current implications of certain bodies in certain spaces but discussed the historical context through which these spaces were “made”. Razack also makes the vital argument that to discount all the factors of race, gender and colonialism in the murder of Pamela George would be unwise and actually miss the point entirely. George's intersectional identities as a woman, a sex worker, an indigenous body and one that had repeatedly been subject to colonial violence layered on top of one another to shape the way that her  case was received by the court.  

All of these arguments made me think of the fairly well known story of Cece McDonald (Here is a brief outline of her story, although I should warn you that the narrative itself is definitely problematic http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-transgender-crucible-20140730). McDonald is an African-American trans-woman in her twenties. One night, she and her friends, all of whom were also African-American and some non-binary, went out to buy groceries. On their way, a "handful of cigarette-smoking white people” began to yell derogatory racial, gay and trans slurs at Cece and her friends. The situation escalated and in self -defense, Cece stabbed one of the men, Flaherty, "in the chest, burying the blade almost three and a half inches deep, slicing his heart”. Cece was charged with second degree murder and sent to jail for 19 months.

I think that this is an interesting example of a role reversal to the Pamela George case. What stands out the most to me are the ways in which it seems to prove that vulnerable bodies are meant to die, not meant to fight back. Both George and McDonald were targeted by white males as vulnerable/easy victims due to their race, class, gender and sexuality.

One of the major differences in the cases is that Cece lived and Pamela did not. But Cece’s fight back was criminalized. McDonald was punished by the legal system for being a survivor. In the case of bodies that are racialized, gendered and seen as “expendable” by society, there is no real alternative to violence. In the eyes of the court, vulnerable bodies should accept victimization. Any resistance to fulfilling this role in the script is unacceptable. Looking at these two cases, we can look at the justice system as another space in which certain vulnerable bodies are subjected to another kind of violence.

I thought that another interesting difference between the George and McDonald cases was the physical spaces that the crimes occurred in. Razack states that George’s perpetrators identified George’s body as one that was subjected violence because of her profession and the pervasive violence that occurred in the spaces that she worked. The hate crime against McDonald occurred, according to the article, in the "tree-lined streets of her quiet working-class Long­fellow neighborhood in Minneapolis”. I think that this should prompt us to think about what happens to certain spaces when certain bodies with certain mindsets of entitlement enter them. As discussed in class today, Razack touches on how certain white male bodies who feel like they can do whatever they want, wherever and whenever they wan, transform spaces that they're in symbolically, resulting in very physical results. 

The Subject Making of an Asylum Seeker

Today’s discussion of the ideas of spatialised justice and racialised space brought to mind a recent case which I think Razack’s ideas speak to.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-17/pregnant-asylum-seeker-sent-to-nauru-changed-mind-about-abortion/6862922

This link is gives a brief overview of the story of an asylum seeker. In Australia’s offshore detention facilities, she was raped and became pregnant. She lobbied the government for access to an abortion, but this was ultimately denied.

This scenario is perhaps different in that the spaces the subjects of this case (the asylum seeker and her rapist) occupy different spaces from the subjects in George’s case, and are not set behind the backdrop of colonial history. However for me, Razack’s ideas are still useful in thinking about the state’s response to the asylum seeker’s requests for help.

As an asylum seeker, the societies of both Australia and Nauru accord little value to her body and experience. Discourse around people seeking asylum speaks to perceptions of deceitfulness, opportunism and incompatibility of values. They are deemed not respectable, to the extent where they have to be removed and detained outside of state borders. To me, Razack’s idea of spatialised justice would assert that because of this (lack of) accordance of value to the bodies of asylum seekers, they are perceived as undeserving of full personhood or full access to justice. I think the government’s response to this case definitely speaks to this idea; there has been no investigation into her rape from Nauru or Australia, and the Australian government has not been active in giving her access to an abortion. Because as an asylum seeker she occupies racialised space, the state sees no reason to treat her as a full person, allowing her rapist to violate her spaces with impunity.

Dispossessions and marginalizations

The film clip from, "Finding Dawn" and Sherene Razack's article, “Gendered racial violence and spatialized justice: The murder of Pamela George," reinforced for me the idea of a connection between the violent loss of space and the violence enacted against Indigenous women's bodies, as we have already discussed in class. Within this framework, the initial dispossession of Indigenous people is rendered especially meaningful in regards to an Indigenous connection to land, and as such, it is important that we continue to trace these connections through to the dispossessions occurring today. In understanding this connection, we can see the ways that a physical dispossession of land is intrinsically related to the sexual violence enacted against Indigenous women, especially in constituting one another as consumable or rapeable through this affiliation. This concept was explored in Audra Simpson's lecture, "The Chiefs Two Bodies," and has great relevance to Razack's ideas about spaciality, especially in the linking of physical spaces and social positions in constituting one as either respectable or degenerate. We can think about the ways that people are rendered "marginalized," and how this occurs for Indigenous people socially as well as physically, with reserves and "bad" neighborhoods, as well as how these work to reproduce one another.

I was also thinking about the ways that dispossession is both the exhibition and byproduct of dominance, in that one's presence as a dominant subject can, intentionally or otherwise, displace marginalized bodies. This, too, occurs on both the physical and social levels, and serves to constitute people as racialized and sexualized subjects. Razack's article specifically was reminding me of the prevalence of entitlement in white, middle class, men, and how frequently, and with what ease, the line which separates frat boy from murderer becomes blurred, or erased entirely. Likewise, I was thinking about notions of capitalist security, and how this produces an entitlement and sense of belonging, and indeed, a perception of social dominance, which works to legitimize these kinds of subjectivities. The dominant institutions are thus co-constituting and self-perpetuating, which is extremely distressing, but of dire importance to understandings of systemic violence enacted against Indigenous women.

Sexual Assault Laws and Privilege

Lise Gotell's writing on, "Rethinking Affirmative Consent in Canadian Sexual Assault Laws," does a great job of pointing out how much our laws have progressed in recent years, while still enumerating the ways in which they are still inherently flawed. I particularly like how she compares these new laws to economics, suggesting that, "normalized sexual interaction becomes understood as being like a market transaction" (873-874). Affirmative consent is a good law in theory, but it fails to encapsulate the complexities of human relations and of power dynamics that exist between people. I agree that it is important to consider the foundations on which these laws are built upon, and what they represent in terms of the structure of our society. As Gotell points out, "law exerts power by engaging in the conduct of conduct." Or in other words, "legal decisions on sexual assault do not simply fix the line between rape and normal heterosexuality; these discourses prescribe normative heterosexuality, and privileged forms of masculinity and femininity" (875). I believe that this is paramount in considering the effectiveness of these laws.

For example, these laws fail to consider power dynamics between individuals that are not rooted in legal structures of power. They do not consider how matters of race, gender, sexuality and ableism might have long term effects on someone's ability to consent. This makes me think of when we read the article earlier in class about women with "mental disabilities," by Janine Benedet and Isabel Grant. This work exposed that women who had cognitive impairment only seemed to be protected by the law in terms of power dynamics when they were under the age of 18. Furthermore, these laws do not seem to account for the disparity between the typical white heterosexual women and women who are queer, trans, non-white, and who are sex workers. It seems to me that the legal system is enforcing a type of normativity that does not benefit those who are most often survivors of sexual assault, and laws cannot protect those who they are not designed to protect.

Implementation of Theory, on what scale is what we learned effective?

This week had a strong focus on subject formation and the racialization of space. Razak and Gotell talk at length about how the intent of the law is circumvented through the use of historically constructed ideas to undermine the subjectivity of the, often First Nation, women. As always I am interested in how this can be applied and the issues in taking these ideas into practice.

                I have been thinking of this vaguely over the past couple weeks but I feel as if one of the larger issues with implementation is the scale and receptivity of the idea on multiple levels. Obviously there is the interpersonal scale, which would be the most effective means to implement any idea, but it is limited in scope. Furthermore, it is also problematized by the existence of the racialized spaces discussed by Razak. This is not to say that it is impossible to communicate and implement ivory tower ideas to communities that have been marginalized and isolated, but it is admitting that these scenarios would have the most resistance and issues in implementation.  

                Both Razak and Gotell discuss the legal application of consent laws. Clearly the neo-liberal government application of consent law has been problematic but Gotell goes further to even point out the application and adherence of these laws to economic utility and risk. What disturbed me was the discussion of a perpetrator taking “serious risk by founding an assumption of consent on passivity and non-verbal responses” (Gotell, 876). This is not a risk; it is a violation of the other party. The risk is being charged in this scenario. Comparing this to the “risk” of not getting caught for charges like theft of murder break down because in this description of “risk,” there is no admittance of immoral act.

                So the interpersonal level  is not a possible scale to affect large change, especially because the legal system is too flawed with the social legacy of race and the “risky” body used to deny women their right to safety and reinforce oppressive social structures rather than protect its citizens. Then what means are there to combat the socio-historic constructs of race and the racialized violability of bodies? This is especially disheartening when there is already so much power and inertia driving the reinforcement of these concepts through the legal system and ignorance driven social interactions.

                Dean Spade also speaks on the formation of the Trans subject and the resistance structures that they face through the law. What I enjoyed most about the lecture we viewed was the suggestion Spade provided on mobilizing Trans communities. Spade pointed out that the prison system was a significant issue for Trans people, albeit not the largest but a tangible subject from which to use as a starting point to unpack and, eventually, solve the issues in the treatment of these people. Spade showed, tangentially, that arguments and articulations against the institutions which reinforce oppression are a good starting point for mobilization. 

Subject making

As the theme of this week’s readings have been identified as “Subject making” I am trying to work through the concept of identity in Dean Spade’s lecture. My central focus is on how identities are created by external forces, specifically through law.

Firstly Spade’s call for “trickle up” social justice was eye-opening. To be honest I had naively thought that social justice was already operating under a trickle up policy. Yet as Spade’s direct my attention to Trans* rights there is evidently a gap in my knowledge. This was further exemplified to me whilst watching the clip form Finding Dawn. As Janice Acoos spoke about her upbringing and the multitude of barriers we faced I became keenly aware of the ways in which government institutions have failed her. Of course having seen only a clip I cannot make a blanket statement that no one ever helped her, but I think it is no exaggeration that the system itself failed her as a child, as a woman, as a sex worker. Similarly in Spade’s lecture I was drawn to the ways Trans* were distinctly alienated from conversation of legal rights. In Spade’s American context and Acoos’s Canadian context, it is evident that whatever “social justice” is being performed it is not helping those who are most marginalized.

In relation to how identities are constructed I was struck by Acoos’s comment “[I just thought] that’s how you treated Indian women” when speaking about her own experiences of rape. Her comment was most poignant as it highlights the long colonial history of denigrating Indigenous women, as mentioned in Razack’s article. The maltreatment of Indigenous people, specifically women, is traceable in Canadian law. In contrast Trans* people are not even included in many laws. Legally they have been largely omitted, which causes issues and concerns of its own. So here two identities have had to fight against law to create their own identity.

Furthermore, on the topic of identities within law, I wanted to continue on the discussion from weeks past about our relationships to law enforcement. Although I think Spade makes valid points about resisting inclusion through legalities, he does also acknowledge the necessity of legal rights. Beyond obvious reasons I would argue that one key point of legal inclusion would be the relationship different populations have with law enforcement. The perceptions and assumptions held by society and most importantly those with authoritative power create identities. The continual maltreatment of certain demographics continues to create ‘good’ and ‘bad’ citizens. For example, in my last post I mentioned how privileged I was to have a neutral relationship with police. This neutrality is not apolitical of course, by having no history with the police I am constructed as a ‘good citizen’. Whereas those who are more likely to encounter the police are already constructed as ‘bad citizens’, regardless of their encounter. This is obviously a very simplistic understanding of how identities are constructed with the police, but I am still trying to flesh out the nuances. Overall I am curious what other people think about how our relationships with authoritative bodies create subjects/identities? 

Subject Making in Finding Dawn

The theme for this week is subject making, how the reality of sexual assault shapes us as subjects, and how we as subjects shape how we think and feel about sexual assault. I want to reflect on this theme in light of something Janice Acoose said in the Finding Dawn clip we watched in class.

In the documentary she says: “I didn’t call it rape, because I thought that was how Indian women were supposed to be treated.” This statement reveals that a long and continued history of colonization, along with Janice’s own experiences and the social environment and discourses she grew up in created a perception of the Aboriginal subject in which sexual assault is inevitable and expected. Her language reflects an internalization of racialized and spatialized justice that shapes both the understanding of herself as a subject and her understanding of sexual assault. However, the process of subject making is continually evolving. At a later point in the clip, Janice says that in her family, she knew that the violence had to stop with her. Because of Janice’s rediscovered connection to her cultural practices and beliefs, sexual assault and violence stopped being tied to being an Aboriginal women.

I think the internalization and embodiment of racialized and spatialized justice is exasperated by a neoliberal framework that pushes a rhetoric of personal responsibility. In such a framework, the conditions born from a violent colonial history are ignored in order to emphasize the role of individual choice in creating the circumstances you experience. This is particularity harmful in the context of systemic sexual assault experienced by Aboriginal women.

Janice Acoose’s initial conception of subject and sexual assault shared in the clip reflects an understanding shaped by a history of colonialism that promotes racialized justice and a neoliberal framework that insists on having personal responsibility at the centre of circumstances.

Life Chances

Some individuals have the idea that because we live in Canada everyone has an equal chance in life. In the Dean Spade – “Trans Politics on a Neoliberal Landscape” talk, he described how much of a difference there is between the opportunities a white, cis, straight person has over someone who falls outside of those labels. I really like that he pointed out that he used to be highly involved in the gay rights activism but that he has grown. The ability to think critically of your own work is rare. His comments about changing the law will not change the people is such an important point. The reaction in the United States when gay marriage was legalized was to move. Those people are not automatically accepting of all because the government decided it was the right thing to do. In the words of Macklemore “no law’s gonna change us, we have to change us”. Education is key, we need to keep sharing ideas and opinions in order to open people’s minds and change their ideas. I think this generation in university is going to make huge changes for the better.

The increased or decreased life chances is what I have a hard time explaining to people when we get into an argument. That we were not all born equal. That if two people put in the same amount of work they would not end up in the same spot due to who they know, what they look like and where they started. It is not ok that the life expectancy for some individuals are automatically less because of who they are. The argument (from my father) is that “the opportunities are out there, it is their own decision to not act on it or work harder to get themselves out of their high risk lifestyles.” Great opinion Dad, too bad you know nothing about how hard they are working just to survive. The neoliberal attitude in our society today is leaving the vulnerable to die. If they are not able to keep up with the ridiculous pace the world is running at right now they should not be successful, is the current attitude. In school we are teaching kids to share, listen to each other and have compassion and understanding for others but the adults have created a cut throat, every person for themselves way of life. I will not disagree with the argument that there are programs out there but there are not enough and they have an absurd amount of hoops. Trying to find and keep a job when you do not have a home to keep your belongings, shower and sleep in is near impossible. Getting and keeping a place to live when you do not have a job to pay for it is actually impossible. “Just try harder” is not helping anyone.

The Implications of Neo-Liberalism

It seems like lately, discussions of neo-liberalism have been cropping up everywhere in my life. From academic classes, to discussions with friends over a pint, neo-liberalism has been a force which is being more and more noticed in the circles I travel in, and because of that, more and more discussed. Most of these discussions are on how we hate the way neo-liberalism sets us up to believe we will "win" when in fact we have very little power in our lives.

I think there are a lot of different conceptions of what neo-liberalism is out there, and I really appreciated the Dean Spade talk we watched which gave us a really good base understanding of neo-liberalism. I found this video which has a really interesting discussion of what neo-liberalism is, and interviews a number of different academics, activists to get a concrete understanding of the ideas that circulate around neo-liberalism. It's a really thorough discussion of the economic policies that have led us to where we are and how neo-liberalism intersects with gender, sexuality, race, class, and concepts of nation.

Watching the Dean Spade talk, "Trans Politics on a Neoliberal Landscape" reminded me of another Dean Spade video that I have seen that serves as a kind of manifesto of trans* politics. The "Impossibility Now" video is a really great reminder of neo-liberal politics because he films it outside of state institutions (prisons, schools, etc.). It really reiterated the points brought up in the talk we watched for class.

I also recently read an article by Robert McRuer which discusses the implications of neo-liberalism on the (dis)abled community, which is really interesting and if you have some spare time (maybe reading week if you're eager) I would highly suggest reading it. In it, McRuer states that "neoliberalism is the dominant economic and cultural system of our time. It is a system that positions the market as the answer to everything. And problem is supposed to be addressed - most effectively and efficiently - through the market." I think in regards to sexual assault, this is especially poignant. If we apply this neo-liberal concept to sexual assault, we can see how survivors are expected to invest in their own  recovery and individualize their healing. Evidently then, "trickle-up social justice" is a crucial ideology that we must adopt, as Spade suggests, where we centre survivors of sexual assault and their experiences, rather than economic solutions. And we must also not centre only the "approved" survivors, but all survivors of violence.

The System That Is Suppose to Protect Us, Fails Us.

      Reading through Gotell's "Rethinking Affirmative Consent in Canadian Sexual Assault Law: Neoliberal Sexual Objects and Risky Women" makes me wonder as to why the justice system still  seems to fail survivor's of sexual assault in spite of the thorough outline that is embedded in the criminal code.

Gotell commences her article with the case of the aboriginal 12 year old girl who was intoxicated and violated by three men in which only one of the men was convicted and given a two-year sentence. She was 12 years old. She was running away from home. Lied about her age(by two years) and name. Was given alcoholic drinks to the point where she could not get up. The three men attempted to each have sex with her. She was still named the "sexual aggressor" (890). How can the jury and judge come to this conclusion on just common sense alone, but also in regards to the law? A 12 year old cannot consent. Edmondson (the accused) did not take reasonable steps to ascertain her age and she was too intoxicated to give consent. All of these instances go against the criminal law, and she was still victim-blamed as well as the insignificant charges that were laid on Edmondson. The justice system FAILED a 12-year-old girl by blaming her for the actions that these grown men took. The judge stated that she "deliberately" attempt to appear older than she was (by literally two years) and that she voluntarily drank alcoholic drinks (891). It's absolutely astounding how an educated individual can compose of such nonsensical statement, but also have others concur with it regardless of the actual facts of the case.

Another matter that struck with me was how she mentioned that "women are counselled to avoid taking risky actions and placing themselves vulnerable situations"..."A Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) website providing a list of "safety tips" for women "at risk" emphasizes that the "most important tip is to not be involved in a high risk profession, lifestyle or activity such as prostitution or hitchhiking" (884). I found this extremely ironic for the RCMP to state because of the fact that since July 18, 2014, there has been 336 sexual harassment claims against the RCMP. A lot of these claims arise from women who work(ed) in the RCMP, so are they indicating that their job is a "high risk profession"? How can they victim-blame those who work in "high risk professions" but do not even acknowledge the sexual harassment that occurs in the police force?

It just demonstrates how it is NOT the women's fault for "putting" themselves in high risk situations as working for the RCMP isn't considered one and sexual assault still takes place in the force. It is the perpetrator's fault for committing illegal acts which should correspond with the verdict, not the thought of women deliberately placing themselves in such situations.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/sexual-harassment-claims-against-rcmp-reach-336/article19669218/

Consent and Violence

Today in class we discussed Sherene Razack’s piece, “Gendered Racial Violence and Spatialized Justice: The Murder of Pamela George”, before watching a portion of “Finding Dawn”, a documentary which followed Janice Asooc as she recounts her past and present as an Indigenous woman in Saskatchewan. Throughout both of these pieces, the prevalent theme is violence; where does it come from and who does it impact? In both cases, who the violence was perpetrated against is significant in determining the severity of the violence. In the case of Pamela George’s murder, “both the Crown and the Defense maintained that the fact that Pamela George was a prostitute was something to be considered in the case” (page 92). In the case of Janice Asooc, she didn’t recognize her multiple rapes as violence because "that's the way you treat [Indigenous] women". These two cases parallel each other in their exemplification of how a justice system is severely limited when it operates under the notion that spatialized and racial violence are in any way different from… violence. In dealing with violence toward Indigenous women, the justice system personifies irony; violence is a serious topic, except when someone isn’t white, and except when someone lives anything other than a perfectly ‘conventional’ lifestyle. It’s this irony that I can’t get my mind around. That certain conditions above and beyond death have to be met by the victim of murder before their murder is recognized as such has no merit. There are no dots to connect. If an individual is murdered, or raped, that fact cannot be reputed on the basis of their occupation or skin colour not only because the thought of such is horrendous, but also because it is impossible to consent to violence. Regardless of how ‘risky’ a lifestyle an individual lives, their right to not have violence done to them is inherent in their existence. No other criteria need to be considered.

Concerning the case of Pamela George, Razack writes that “because Pamela George was considered to belong to a space in which violence routinely occurs, and to have a body that is routinely violated, while her killers were presumed to be far removed from this zone, the enormity of what was done to her remained largely unacknowledged” (page 93). According to those deciding the fate of George’s murderers, the lifestyle she led meant that she deserved to be violated. I just don’t have any words for it. I feel it is pertinent that something be done to stop trials from proceeding in this manner.   

Neoliberalism and all its beauty

I strongly dislike neoliberalism. I am angry that it has even infiltrated what I consider the conscious of society, in the way that I believe we can make change, social justice. It fucked with my social justice, and I'm pissed. As Dean Spade kindly pointed out, you can now have the pancake breakfast without the politics. You can donate money, and feel good about yourself and never once feel connected to the issue. I don't know why I never saw issue with this, but now it seems so obvious that there is one.

I am angry that it has stolen the language of resistance movements and twisted it into their own screwed up system. I am even more angry that it has taken the language of these movements, that are created, organized and driven by collectives and then individualized this language.

What I dislike most of all is the responsibility of the individual to act alone. To take move through this world alone, as though that is something to be so incredibly proud of and freeing. To me, it sounds incredibly lonely. It does not create systems where you can lean on others, where you can form as a collective, where you can be supportive by networks of people. The only networks you are allowed to create are those that will advance capitalism. This is part of the reason why rape culture is an epidemic. This is how we have been allowed to pin the survivor's actions against them, because we do not live in a culture of support.

We are social beings, meant to thrive in collectives. Meant to work together to solve problems and protect our society. We keep each other accountable and and create stability within our society.

So why did we sign up for this? How have we become so removed that this is the norm? My soul is starting to crave revolution, because I starting to see less ways we can change the system we're currently in without one.

Education and the Law

     In Dean Spade’s lecture he touched on the misunderstanding that we come to believe that everything is done because the laws have been passed. This belief is a part of the top-down belief of power or visibility politics that says that what is said on the larger scale about a group will matter. I completely agree with his point but it was hard for me to formulate how activism would work when a legal end point is no longer the focus. It is not that I do not think it could work I just wonder how it would work. In group discussion on the Spade lecture we were stuck with the idea of how a trickle-up social justice model would function. Being mindful of the un-encompassing nature of laws this model would have to function in a way that it did not depend on the legal system for action. In our current society this would be complicated. Even if you started this model with basic education starting in primary or secondary school this would involve a change in curriculum. This would mean the Ministry of Education would have to decide it was in the ‘interest’ of the children to add this component of education. This is not actually changing the law but I think it is easy to see this as a similar process. Educators who believe in this model would not be able to just start teaching it without facing some sort of ridiculous backlash. Therefore, what we are left with is a very neoliberal idea of being personally responsible for teaching yourself and enacting this trickle-up social justice model. The issue of curriculum change is evident in the fight for teaching about consent, options other than abstinence, and inclusive sexual education. The impact of not receiving this education could be extremely detrimental to adolescents. It is often hilariously sad hearing what people were taught in sex education because it basically amounts to absolutely nothing useful.

     Another part of Spade’s lecture that was thought provoking was the idea of abolishing the coercive norms of family structure; questioning the ideas of health care, inheritance, etc. The current family structure tells us we must marry our partner to have access to their benefits etc. and if we do not marry there is worry of what happens when something bad occurs to one partner (power of attorney, life insurance etc.). This structure leaves us with a narrow definition of partnership. I know there have been laws to assist with some of these issues but again we cannot rely on the passing of laws for all types of justice for all people.

This ended up being quite a mishmash of thoughts so I apologize for clarity issues. 

Violence and Subjectivity

I have been considering the word “violence” and how it is used in different contexts. Particularly, I have contemplating Sherene Razack’s suggestion around space and positionality and its relationship to violence. Razack argues that “violence establishes the boundary between who he is and who he is not. It is the surest indicator that he is a subject in control” (107). I interpret this as the notion of “violence" as being responsible for dictating who is permitted and belongs to which spaces and positions. It is intriguing that violence can act as a barrier between spaces and this is something I would like to explore. I would also like to break down what I mean by “violence” and briefly discuss how this term constructs subjectivity.

I understand violence in two parts. Part one: as a set of actions and attitudes towards someone who is more advantaged than them. Part two: as a way to reinforce existing systemic oppressions. Both parts of violence explains why Steven Kummerfield and Alex Turnowetsky were essentially let off for the murder of Pamela George. When considering the ‘part one’ of violence, Kummerfield and Turnowetsky were not read as doing violence because, I argue, they were exercising their racial advantage and privilege over George. Furthermore, the two men were acting under colonial structures that inhibit these actions and attitudes towards George, and the existing system designed to deal with violence and injustice was also operating under the some colonial structures.

When considering ‘part two’ of violence, assaulting and killing George reinforces the racial and classed privilege Kummerfield and Turnowetsky held. To further demonstrate this, Razack claims “[George’s] murder was characterized as a natural by-product of the space and thus of the social context in which it occurred, an event that is routine when the bodies in question are Aboriginal” (117). These men were only exercising their privilege. Reading George’s murder as a “natural by-product” further strengthens the marginalized position of indigenous women in space and positionality. This argument of naturalizing violence and oppression is also applicable to any other dynamic.

In these ways violence creates lines between spaces and by doing this, it also creates subjectivity. Subjectivity is created by people in positions of power and authority and projected onto others. People of different demographics will either avoid or exist in spaces defined by how safe they feel or how much violence they perceive can happen to them in those spaces. Those who are able to effortlessly move between spaces create subjectivity and in turn, defines spaces and positionality for others.

The story needs to be told

   I had a conversation with my sister who is a high school teacher.  She had an Aboriginal woman come in and talk to her class about residential school system, about the missing and murdered Aboriginal women and about her experiences as an Aboriginal woman.  She had the class reduced to tears by the end.  They had had no idea how the reality that an Aboriginal woman faces on a daily basis and how their history has impacted their present lives.  More importantly my sister was shocked because she knew almost nothing of this history and we both remember never being taught this in school.  The Truth and Reconciliation Committee has brought out all of this into the public sphere where it needs to be.  It has also high lighted how this education is sorely lacking in schools, kids have grown up simply not learning of Canada's history with its Native peoples.  When you learn the stories, you understand what is happening and the horrible, ignorant comments that are said about Native people and other marginalized people can be stopped because there are educated people out there who can stand up and say that this is not the truth and the reality and you are wrong.  My sister is doing that with her high school students, even though she had to learn all of this at the same time as them.
   This is what I was thinking of when I was reading the paper by Sherene Razack.  We need to know the stories behind the names.  I know this happened ten years ago, but how much has really changed? I felt this especially when Shawna was talking about how the prostitutes were still treated by the cops and how how when one was found dead around the police officers funeral, there was no news about her.  This is reinforced by Razacks statement "Primarily, I claim that because Pamela George was considered to belong to a space in which violence routinely occurs, and to have a body that is routinely violated..."(93).  This is important because many people still feel this way.  When I have conversations with some of the people that I know, this is the prevailing theme, they deserved it.  This is not too surprising unfortunately when the judge himself reinforced to the jury that Pamela George was a prostitute "The judge sparked a public furor when he instructed the jury to bear this in mind in their deliberations"(92).  I found this to be infuriating.  This is why education is so important.  Canada's unsavory history needs to be taught so people don't forget and actually just learn what really happened and how the repercussions are still being felt by the families today.  Not every teacher is like my sister so this has to be implemented in the curriculum by the government.  I have had to explain to too many people what the reality is for Native people and it is disheartening to see that people still don't know the truth and are believing the stereotypes.

I Am Very Angry

As we were watching that clip from "Finding Dawn" in class today, I began to reflect on the pedagogy and information I've come across through my years in the public education system and as a university undergrad. It is appalling that I have to be in a WGS class to begin to undo my current "knowledges" on indigenous people in Canada and that a lot of people without the privilege of post-secondary education will have a harder time unlearning (or just not unlearn) the falsehoods about indigenous people in Canada. I am angry at myself, angry at public schools, and angry at the general apathy around lives of indigenous people in Canada. It is frustrating that colonial violence is still alive and well and I don't feel like there's anything I can do to help undo this violence. I suppose I can keep checking my privilege as a white settler, but what good does that ACTUALLY do for indigenous people who still first hand experience this violence? UNDERSTANDING ONE'S SPACE DOESN'T FIX THE PROBLEM. I AM SO ANGRY.

(This post isn't my weekly blog. I am just frustrated and this seemed like an appropriate outlet.)

Profiting from Rape Culture?

Charity organizations are strange, often scandalous things. It seems that every other week one non-profit or another is being exposed for unethical practices and incredibly rich CEOs. Dean Spade brought up how neoliberal society has created this phenomenon of “professional” social justice, something we also discussed briefly in Wednesday’s class. Ever since I started developing my identity as a feminist, working for a rape crisis centre or women’s shelter has been on the list of desirable career steps. It’s not that I never thought about the moral gray areas working for charities or non-profits, but it never fully occurred to me that to be working for a women’s shelter meant also profiting from rape culture.

I get it in my head that this is how I could really make a difference working in a place like Kindred House. That’s not to say I couldn’t, but it is to say that Dean Spade definitely make me re-think why I think it’s okay to be paid for work helping marginalized people.

I would love to make my living helping other people, but to join in with the current system the way it is means that I would be relying on women being beaten, raped, abused, and living in poverty in order for me not to have to join those same women in the river valley overnight. How much are you really helping those people if you are making money because of their suffering? How do you work in these jobs in a way that is not contributing to trickle-up social justice?

It’s the same thing with feminists and scholars and feminist scholars and social justice activists who write all these terrific books and articles full of great ideas and valuable insights and then go on to become rich and famous. And the whole reason they are rich and famous is because the world is fucked up. Using your privilege as a platform to speak for the oppressed and marginalized is a very noble thing to do, I think, but as Dean Spade said, we have to centre the voices of our most vulnerable, and non-profit social justice work doesn’t do that. The government hands out awards for excellency in community service, but the people who are being helped are still sleeping in the river valley, still being abused. We listen to the voices of those given awards and prestige but we don’t listen to those who are being harmed by the system. We listen to the ones profiting from it.

I want to leave this on a few questions that Spade himself asked that I think are also relevant to my central question (and I’m sorry this post doesn’t offer any answers, I’m hoping you all might have some):

Does the industrial non-profit system “divide our community by leaving out vulnerable people? Is this incremental step conveniently eliminating the people who are easiest to eliminate in our community?” And maybe most importantly, “Does this invite backlashes that will harm our most vulnerable?"