Jillian Turner Blog # 7: Violence Strikes Again

In both "Who Killed Vincent Chin" and "Amigo," I can't help but say that violence is a dominant trait of American culture. Miscarriage of justice after another and we don't seem to learn from our mistakes... how frustrating!

In "Who Killed Vincent Chin," I was struck by the two foils of women characters. On one hand Mrs. Chin was portrayed as a strong women who fearlessly fought for justice after her son was brutally murdered. On the other, however, I saw in Mrs. Ebens a woman who almost senselessly stood by her husband. Yes, they had been married for years and her loyalty should be honored BUT at some point something inside me snapped. I lost respect for her because she couldn't see that her husband beat a man to death with a baseball bat. I personally thought that the weapon alone should have been enough to convict Roy Ebens. Chin had no weapon and Ebens did. As the film continued, however, and jury members were interviewed, I was irritated by the repeated concept of "beyond a reasonable doubt." This seemingly helpful phrase has debunked slam-dunk court cases since day one. Casey Antony, OJ Simpson, Roy Ebens. All seemingly guilty but, because of a formality, walked free from murder. This simple phrase led to the debauchery that became Chin's case as it was later tried as a civil rights case.

Amigo also raised questions for me regarding Americans and inherent violence. Ever since the days of manifest destiny, Americans have believed it was their right to rule what they believed were inferior races... As it turns out, that mean everyone who wasn't of European decent. We see such motifs in "Amigo." I personally enjoyed this movie very much, never having learned much about the history of the Philippines or the Spanish-American War. I felt that the film portrayed many different angles: Amigo, the insurgents, the Americans, and of course the Priest. I thought it was interesting how, before he was hanged, Amigo admitted to his wife that, regardless of what he could have done, he would have been executed anyways. I still can't decide if this is morbid or brilliantly profound because he was absolutely right. As we discussed in class, I enjoyed watching as over time, the Americans developed ties with the natives and became personally invested. I thought that this gave a different perspective to something that I had previously written off as classic American aggression. Finally, I thought the priest played a key role in the film. Often shady, I honestly couldn't place his angle in the story. What were his motivations? I also found it interesting that, towards the end, the women of the village were seen repeating "mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa" which is a Latin phrase of lament http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/mea-culpa.html . This line is also featured in the Jimmy Buffett song "Fruitcakes" (Funfact!)

In Mark Sawyer's article on Racial Politics in Multiethnic America, he discusses public opinion on race. He admits that much of the research as of today is "focused predominantly on white attitudes about blacks" (Sawyer 529). I thought this was particularly interesting because neither film involved tensions between blacks and whites but rather exposed tensions with people of Asian decent. It was an interesting change in the class, I will admit. Racism against people of Asian decent is something that is often omitted from school curriculums. Who hasn't heard of Rodney King?! But no one at the end of the "Who Killed Vincent Chin?" film had even heard of him before. Here again, we see an American injustice. It was not just African Americans that were oppressed by the Europeans but also Native Americans, Asians, Philippines, and countless other ethnicities. Later in the article, Sawyer states that, today, "Blacks and Latinos share support for affirmative action" (Sawyer 529). Needless to say there seems to be a disconnect here.

Anderson affords yet another prospective. In Chapter 4 on Creole Pioneers, he discusses the affect of newspapers in American development. I interpreted his discussion on newspapers similarly to our class discussion on bias in both the Vincent Chin and Amigo films. According to Anderson, early newspapers contained, along with "news about the metropole,"and "commercial news" (Anderson 89). I could imagine that such a newspaper would produce similar bias to what we saw in the two films. So I must ask, what is the full impact of bias? Media and otherwise...

Blog 6 Coleen Herbert

      Anderson discusses the preemptive strategies put into place by Wachiwarut. These tactics included education, militarism, and a rewriting of history (Anderson 104). When the dominant groups anticipate the reactions of the oppressed, they succeed in marginalization and exclusion. This was by far the greatest triumph of colonialism. It is important to note that class had the largest influence on these policies: "In the end, it is always the ruling classes, bourgeois certainly, but above all aristocratic, that long mourns the empires, and their grief always has a stagey quality to it" (62). When I read this statement, I was immediately reminded of what I observe to be white nostalgia for the 1950s. Anderson uses the term “mental miscegenation”(54) to explicate the philosophical, innately racist strategies of the colonizers. While this tactic is successful, it is obviously a form of covert, manipulative oppression: "The banquet to which they were invited always turned out to be a Barmecide feast"(62).

      To quote the title of one of Audre Lorde’s famous essays, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”. The trick to colonialism is that it makes this appear to be untrue. As we covered in class, the oppressed group comes to adopt the “tools” of their oppression. We observed this in Amigo. Religion is prescribed to the Fillipino women. It appears to provide an “outlet”. We discussed in class how this relationship is also an avenue of sexual exploitation, however.

      Instead of looking abroad, I think that we can find examples of anticipatory strategies within the boundaries of our own nation. For instance, we can consider the oppression of women’s sexuality. Starting an early age in our country, gender is made explicit to both women and men. Health courses, including the one my own school provided, are predominantly heterosexual and exclude several options of birth control. Abstinence programs and poor sex education disadvantage millions of women. Many women believe that this tactic is actually an exercise in agency. Education is preemptively withheld from the marginalized group. I have met women who hold this belief and postulate that access to sex education materials and birth control for young women especially is a form of oppression. What I argue is that patriarchy has been such an established institution in our country for so long that women have come to adopt its ideology and now express their independence using the “master’s tools”.

Blog 6 Nationalism and Imperialism by Matt Antezana

In chapter 6 "Official Nationalism and Imperialism" Anderson writes about King Wachirawut of Siam (Thialand) quest to model himself on the "self-naturalizing dynasts of Europe," and held strong anti-Chinese sentiments towards the Chinese his father had "imported" into Thailand (Anderson, 100-101). Even though the United Kingdom controlled 90 percent of Thailand's trade at that point in time, it was the Chinese that garnered Wachirawut's ire. Anderson writes how following his coronation in 1910 Wachirawut, Chinese merchants and workers went on strike but were put down by the police. According to Anderson the Chinese represented "republicanism" which was seen as a threat to the dynastic principle (Anderson, 102). Wachirawut even used racist terms to refer to the Chinese that were traditionally used by the English even though he himself had Chinese blood in him. Anderson claims that this is an example of official nationalism - "an anticipatory strategy adopted by dominant groups which are threatened with marginalization or exclusion from an emerging nationally-imagined community" (Anderson, 101).

In this same section Anderson mentions that Wachirawut also employed all the policy levers of official nationalism which are "compulsory state-controlled primary education, state-organized propaganda, official rewriting of history, militarism, endless affirmations of the identity of dynasty and nation" (Anderson, 101). It can be argued that the US themselves were/still are guilty of an anticipatory strategy and of utilizing the policy levers. The current trend in US demographics is that minorities (especially hispanics) are composing a larger ever growing portion of the population and that soon the white majority will become the white minority. Up until college I myself was not aware of how many states omitted certain parts of American history pertaining to the US involvement in Latin America in the late 19th century as a part of the so called "Manifest Destiny" in order to avoid any negative connotations for the US. This allows states like Texas to manipulate the way history is portrayed in their textbooks and even control parts of the media. Of course military was a major aspect of the whole US involvement in Latin America and other territories like the Philippines. This is evident in the movie "Amigo" where the US soldiers are supposedly protecting the natives but in reality they want to control the territory for its value as a trade/market post, the US soldiers are clearly the minority exerting their influence.

Blog 6 Tenille Jensen

While reading Judith Butler’s piece on global violence and sexual politics, I came across a quote that really resonated with me. It stated, “the body implies morality, vulnerability, agency: the skin and flesh expose us to the gaze of others, but also to touch, and to violence; the body can be the agency and instrument of all these as well. Although we struggle for rights over our own bodes, the very bodies for which we struggle are never quite only our own.”

In that moment, I believed Judith Butler said something so profound that it made me stop and think, reread it, and think about the quote some more throughout the day. I had never thought about the body in this way before and by the time I got off of my shift today at work, I felt very sorry for society. It made me sad because it made me think back in relation to this weeks prompt surrounding anticipatory strategies, dominant groups, marginalization, and imagined communities. In her article she explains that the body is a social phenomenon within a public sphere. If that is correct, than our body is never truly autonomous. However we as a society are constantly holding on to this fear of loosing our autonomy, our self. In reality, what we are is a blank canvas that bears the imprint of our imagined community over time, constantly being shaped by our vulnerability as humans and our dependency on one another. We as humans have more similarities than differences despite our urge to resist through stereotypes, classifications, and hierarchies.

Throughout history we have migrated in packs, built imagined communities through states, empires, and civilizations because we were biologically woven to desire that connectedness. Butler goes on to further explains that through violence, we exploit the primary tie that makes us humans interconnected, which in turn creates an unnatural disconnect, throwing off the balance of society. I became sad for that very reason. We have a tool that allows us to teach, and learn, and grow but when used as a strategy to secure this imagined belief of autonomy, it can become our greatest enemy. I think of the movie, Who Killed Vincent Chin by Renee Tajima Pena, is a primary example because it depicts the very act of violence as a way of creating the ultimate disconnect and natural way of life. It describes a case of anticipatory strategies dominant groups use when threatened with marginalization and this fear of loosing autonomy. 

Blog 6 Tonisha Spratte

Blog 6:   The Power Of The People To Amass

There is strength in numbers; this is demonstrated in the case of Vincent Chin.  If the people weren’t outraged, then Ebens would have never been retried.  Although he never served jail time and it seemed that his attitude was less than apologetic, he was punished in other ways.  He was fined, the amount of which now amasses to millions of dollars, lost his job and couldn’t find another because he was “infamous”, lost friends and family, and ended up divorced from his wife (and in class one person had said something about “how could she still be with him”, well apparently, she couldn’t stand to be with him too much longer.  Maybe she just didn’t want to leave the man in his time of need like that.)  In no way am I saying that justice was served, it should have been served in the first trial with the idiotic and racist (and not so honorable) Judge Charles Kaufman.  As mentioned in class, this is where the most injustice was served.  The original case and sentencing was the first step in this story and the judge took a huge leap backward.  Maybe a little background on this man will shed some light.  He was a navigator in the Air Force during World War II and at some point became a POW, prisoner of war, in a Japanese prison camp[1].  This is evidence behind my thinking that this man is a racist, especially against those of Asian descent.  However the power of the people, or the subaltern, to come together to speak can be quite powerful and can be related to the creation of ‘official’ nationalisms.

The power of the people to amass is strong, so strong that when those in power recognize that the people are coming together they quickly maneuver and develop a strategy to become the power-wielding authority once more.  Anderson speaks of this power-struggle in chapter 6 of Imagined Communities.  The creation of an “official nationalism” was the response from those in power when threatened with marginalization by the masses, in order to regain control.  The example he mentions is that of King Wachirawut of Siam.  He talks about how the relations with the Chinese were deteriorating and how the Chinese were the forerunners of a “republicanism” that Wachirawut felt threatened by.  He continues on page 101 saying “It goes without saying that Wachirawut also began moving all the policy levers of official nationalism: compulsory state-controlled primary education, state-organized propaganda, official rewriting of history, militarism – here more visible show than the real thing – and endless affirmations of the identity of dynasty and nation.”  He is doing all of this to ensure that the popular nationalism didn’t develop “very differently from that of nobility”, he is manipulating the people to ensure that he does not become irrelevant and remains a powerful authority figure.  This can also be tied into Spivak’s article Can the Subaltern Speak?  One could view this as the subaltern trying to speak.  The Asian community at that time was hated and discriminated against, so, in a way, one could say that they were the subaltern or had some notions of subalternity.  Of course the ultimate finding in Spivak’s article was that the subaltern cannot speak, but I believe that they can, although not alone.  And also not just through vertreten, darstellen, vertretung, or darstellung (which are the various words that translate as ‘representation’ in English with slightly different meaning of which English has no equivalent words for) but through coming together.  This banding of the masses is how the subaltern can speak, alone their voice is not heard but together, they are a force to be reckoned with.

The Vincent Chin case reminds me of something that happened quite recently, down in Florida, the case of Trayvon Martin.  This was another act of senseless violence, although not as brutal as the Chin beating.  Trayvon was an unarmed 17 year old African American teenager wearing a hoodie who was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, head of the neighborhood watch in the gated community where the shooting occurred.  The outrage in the community was made well known, with candle-light vigils being held throughout the nation.  The case against Zimmerman, who pleads not guilty and that the killing was an act of self-defense, will begin on June 10 of this year.  With the media coverage and overall vocality of the people, I doubt that the same thing will happen that happened with the Vincent Chin case.

The notion of assembly is powerful.  I am not saying it is the answer to all of our prayers, but if people could organize themselves in an intelligent way and for specific goals, then there will be voices heard and changes made.  Everyone may not be able to get what they want, but at least the subaltern can get a chance to speak using this collective voice.  Of course, the power of assembly is much stronger in democratic nations like the United States and similarly designed governments, so just how effective will this be in places ruled more like a dictatorship?  Honestly, this can still work, because I know that the held down, subaltern, masses greatly outnumber those in charge and they could easily work together to overthrow those in power, but how realistic is it?  How many regular people will be willing to risk their lives just so that they can be heard?  When one looks at it in this light, then, according to Spivak and her notion that the subaltern result to suicide in order to be heard, and therefore are not afraid of death,  this notion of the people amassing should work.  But why doesn’t it?

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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Kaufman_(judge)

Jessie Dzura, Blog 6: Colonialism and Amigo

As a government major, the film "Amigo" has struck me as more relevant to my other studies than anything else that we have seen. Colonialism and violence are major themes in government, especially concerning how they are utilized. In the film, American violence is perpetrated in order to dominate the hearts and minds of the local people (notice the ironic twist on the American mission of "winning hearts and minds"). The movie reminds me of more contemporary contexts... For example, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the American intent is to win the war and the local population, we go in without understanding the local culture, customs, or ways of life.

It is ironic that the movie is called "Amigo". The head of the village only serves as an "amigo" to attempt to salvage the situation between the natives and the American soldiers. It is doubtful that his real name is amigo. It is only the name that serves him to work with the American's and their simplistic understanding of the language and culture.

Rather than wax poetic on the evils of colonialism, I would like to add a few songs for consideration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua0pR06pevU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY9TbZMlTaI

Mayssa Chehata, Blog #6: Anticipatory Strategies, Fear Politics, the Subaltern, and the Middle East

In chapter 6, Anderson discusses an “anticipatory strategy” as it pertains to “official nationalism.” He describes Wachiwarut employing “all the policy levers of the official nationalism: compulsory state-controlled primary education, state-organized propaganda, official rewriting of history, and militarism” (104) Anderson is discussing the anticipatory strategy especially in regards to colonialism, in that the colonizers—the British in India for example—would preemptively seek to control the nation through official nationalist strategies. I really liked this chapter and thinking about how the dominant or hegemonic power in imperialism, i.e. the colonizer, is actually the entity which is threatened, or at least which feel threatened, of being marginalized. This can occur if the population arises against them through their own national identity.

In terms of the present day, I think the Middle East is a really good region to consider. Looking at the way leaders like Saddam Hussein and Bashar al-Assad have led (Iraq and Syria respectively), it really reflects that “anticipatory strategy,” with a great fear of becoming marginalized. Saddam Hussein kept power over the Iraqi people primarily through the Mukhabarat institution, which were basically his secret police and a highly sophisticated and effective intelligence agency. This allowed Saddam’s regime to keep tabs on everything going on within the country, and make sure people were behaving as Saddam saw fit, and ensuring they were punished if they were not. While this is a little different from official nationalism, I think it is similar in many ways, in that the leader is using nationalism to quell dissent in society. And I think in these cases the fear of internal dissent, almost to the point of paranoia in the case of Saddam and arguably Muamar Ghadaffi (and other leaders as well), is representative of that “anticipatory strategy” Anderson discusses.

Another instance where a current case of an anticipatory strategy comes to mind is in the oil rich countries of the Middle East. For example, you see wide scale social welfare projects and low tax rates thanks to extremely high government revenue from oil in several Gulf states (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Oman, Kuwait, etc.). These political strategies allow the government to control dissent before it even arises, because the people of those countries are kept at bay because they don’t have grueling economic concerns to protest about. Furthermore, the government can suppress any opposition by buying them out. And in exchange for those economic benefits, the population forgoes many of its social and political rights. In Bahrain, there actually were protests that broke out following the Arab Spring, and the government’s response was to issue a multi-billion dollar ($70 billion to be exact) social welfare package which was handed out to the citizens of the country. This has since kept the protests to a minimum. So you see how oil wealth has served as a key driver for an “anticipatory strategy” in the Middle East.

Another important Middle Eastern case to mention is Tunisia. This is where the Arab Spring began, and it all started with a man named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire after having his vegetable cart confiscated, the only source of income for him and his family of 8. This brings me to Spivak, and her discussion of self-immolation. She discusses the issue of banning sati, and the way the practice is conveyed to society and to the world. The question, can the subaltern speak, is raised in this context in that everything we know about sati, and whether we should think it is good or bad, comes from Western, particularly colonial, sources. So what about the women participating in sati? How do we hear from them? I think the question is extremely complicated and makes me think about the Tunisian revolution. As we learned about the revolution through social media, the news, and now scholarship which is emerging about it, who was speaking? Was it Bouazizi? Did he speak through his self-immolation? I don’t think that he did, but in turn he had others, the Tunisian people who engaged in protest and ultimately revolution, speaking for him. But nonetheless, even if these people were trying to give him a voice, it still was not his voice. Bouazizi still has not and now never will have spoken.

Then you think about how we learn about the revolution, which is through the news. The news shows us things, as much as it may attempt not to, through a Western lens. So when watching MSNBC or Fox or even Al-Jazeera, the Subaltern is still not speaking. Spivak writes about an important problem with information which is that knowledge is never innocent, and there is always an interest in mind when it is produced, which she argues is often Western economic interests. I would say the closest, in this particular situation, we get to the subaltern speaking is through social media, which was an extremely important catalyst and driving force of the revolution, in Tunisia and elsewhere. However, who is that written for, and who is accessing that? I would say those sources are the subaltern communicating with the subaltern. I don’t know many, if any, Americans who were getting their news on the Arab Spring through social media.

I guess I come to two main questions from this long and unorganized train of thought. When considering the anticipatory strategy of threatened groups as discussed by Anderson, do you think that governments which are the most paranoid and act on fear are engaging in official nationalism, or do you think that is something different entirely? And secondly I am curious what people think about the subaltern and its ability to communicate with the First World. Shouldn’t we be skeptical of information about the subaltern which is not coming from the subaltern? And more importantly, why aren’t we more skeptical of it?

Jonno Marlton Blog 6: Deconstructing the European Model

As we can see through the process of colonization, power shifts as one group asserts its dominance over another.  Anderson discusses reasons for and manifestations of these power shifts.  Looking to language (administrative and spoken,) print media, and conscious imperial efforts to spread nationalist sentiment that reflects, in a sense, the conqueror, Anderson offers examples of “the European model” of colonial reign (Anderson 99.)  The point I am making is that the European model, which was adopted by Japan, inherently involves racism (a not-so-subtle, almost confessed-to racism) that privileges the goals and characteristics of the dominant group over those of the groups being pushed aside, used for the dominant group’s advantage, or both.  Matt R. made a terrific point in his blog when he asserted that empires employing anticipatory strategies, as opposed to exercising what I think of as straight-up imperialism, were adeptly fortifying themselves from outside influence as they used a uniform nationalist image to expand their realms.

Looking for a current case of an anticipatory strategy proved difficult for me, but I landed on South Africa because I have been studying it in another course.  South Africa has a complex and tumultuous history that involves many different groups that often get shoved into about four or five different categories, despite consisting of many separate nations that identified as distinctly different from the others.  The colonial powers involved (the English and the Dutch) competed for South Africa against each other because they had the power.   The native African tribes were in many ways an afterthought.  Fast forwarding quickly (and not doing any justice to the rich history of the territory and its many peoples,) the Afrikaners, a group descended from the Dutch (but distinct from their Dutch forefathers) became the dominant power in the country.  Whiteness of course still dominated the top of the hierarchy, but the Afrikaners were above the English, who were above everybody else.

An anticipatory strategy was completely out of the picture.  The Afrikaners instituted ‘separate development,’ which is best of as separate, but intentionally unequal.  People of color were excluded from the cities.  So, you may ask, how could I be talking about anticipatory strategies when the Afrikaners, who importantly never made up the majority –even almost- in South Africa, never used one?  Well, in 1994, Nelson Mandela became president of a new South Africa.  Apartheid was abolished and the mistreated majority now had one of their own as a leader.  Mandela is on record as having refused to tell militant black groups to stop using violence, but as a candidate and as President, he ran a non-race-oriented campaign.  Therefore, he and his administration cleverly developed an anticipatory strategy that served many groups of the country.  The difference from Anderson’s examples is that the group soon to be dominant padded the blow for the takeover of the other group instead of the other way around.  Being South African, clearly, now meant something very different. 

Matt Raimondo, Blog #6

Change can be a difficult transition, especially for cultures or groups that continually feel marginalized by the world around them.  People themselves are generally inclined to desire being attached or a part of something bigger than himself/herself; being with a group of other individuals can serve this purpose.    Some people may even force others to adhere to a certain group's ideology or rules in order to prevent marginalization of the dominant party.  Anderson touches on many historical examples of this throughout chapter 6 of Imagined Communities, such as the English attempting to convert Indians to Anglicanism, the Japanese influencing Koreans and Slovaks being "Magyarized".  Anderson points to the concept that these Empires- such as the English -were inherently resistant to any foreign rule or influence.  In order to prevent being ruled by others, these Empires established colonies to exert their own rule over these newly acquired subjects; this ultimately led to Imperialism prior to the 20th century.  This trend boiled down to effectively stating, "rule over others, or be ruled yourself".  Instead of practicing Imperialism as an anticipatory action against being marginalized, these Empires moved to influence all those around them, and to effectively influence the entire world as a result.

That being said, there are modern day examples of groups practicing preventive strategies to avoid marginalization from the 21st century world.  When looking at the current conflict in Egypt, especially between the ruling Muslim Brotherhood and other Egyptian interest groups, I believe that we can see anticipatory strategies being utilized to prevent the Brotherhood's marginalization within their own borders.  For example, as many in Egypt are showing resistance to the Brotherhood's seizure of more and more power, the Muslim Brotherhood has called for ancient Egyptian monuments to be destroyed due to their pagan origins.  Relics like the pyramids and the Sphinx would be destroyed because they deviate from Islam being the one true religion in Egypt; this move would seemingly unite fundamentalist muslims within Egypt as well as appeal to the fundamentalist community throughout the Middle East, such as Hamas and Iran.  This move would effectively seek to unite the Brotherhood's sympathizers within Egypt while also appealing to the greater community across borders, preventing other sympathizers from marginalizing Egypt's Brotherhood in the process.

I feel that this example reflects this week's topic about avoiding marginalization from the nationally-imagined community.  Throughout the world, both everyday muslims and others are rejecting the practices of fundamentalist Islam, and even countries like Iran have seen protests against such fanatical perversions to the Islamic faith.  The Muslim Brotherhood still has a dominant position in Egypt and in other states; radical Islam arguably is still a force in the North African and Middle East regions.  This move is meant to try and resist these forces, both internally and externally.  I feel that this is a move to try and avoid marginalization, maybe not from the perspective of a globally dominant force seeking to resist marginalization, but rather from a regional force resisting the forces of the world around them.      

Sarah Smith Blog 6: At What Cost?

A technique employed my dominant groups under threat of marginalization is implementation of a national or standardized language. Anderson mentions this technique repeatedly in Chapter 6, "Official Nationalism and Imperialism," of Imagined Communities. Throughout history, dominant groups faced by significant minorities often assert their authority through linguistic domination. Anderson references Gaeltacht being Anglicized in Scotland (Anderson 90), the emergence of German in Western Europe (Anderson 87), and, of course, there is the overwhelming spread of English with the advent of mass printing and global communication. Language, for centuries, has proven itself to be a channel by which dominant groups might protect themselves from encroaching minorities.

The relationship between language and culture is something I have studied extensively as a linguistics major, both in a classroom setting and through my work in ESL classrooms. Dominant groups tend to have prestige languages, or languages socially superior to those of minority groups, and begin to impose language limitations that benefit the majority over the minority of other-language speakers. Anderson's chapter made me think of two current examples of language domination: the US English-only debate and Haitian Kreyol.

With the rising prevalence of foreign language speakers, particularly Spanish-speakers, in the United States, the debate over whether English should be the national language has become an important conversation. We hear all kinds of projections about what percentage of the country will be represented by minority groups in a few decades, and many English-speaking Americans (i.e., part of the dominant group) feel threatened by this--and thus the desire for nationalizing English. It serves several purposes: streamlining language, so that government documents only need to be printed in one language rather than many, forcing foreigners to learn the dominant language and in doing so assimilate themselves into American culture, and, effectively, producing a barrier that keeps the dominant group dominant and the marginalized groups marginalized. While there is undoubtedly some utility in a national language, it is also a form of maintaining the inferiority of minorities. Speaking as a linguist, the practicality of a national language is so minimal compared to the loss that results from it. Bilingualism is a huge asset in terms of intelligence: those who can speak multiple languages have greater cognitive and metalinguistic awareness, a greater understanding of how words work, and greater memorization and comparative capabilities. Already the United States is far less bilingual than most industrialized nations, and making English the official language would do nothing to help. While language can be a means of unification, loss of native tongues is tied to loss of culture. The dominant group wants to remain dominant, but at what cost?

The situation in Haiti has similarities. Haitian Kreyol takes two forms: Rough Kreyol and Smooth Kreyol. Rough Kreyol is the vernacular form, spoken by the uneducated masses. Smooth Kreyol is much more like French, spoken by the educated elite. Generally, Smooth Kreyol is taught in schools. This has been changing in recent times, with government-sponsored initiatives to also teach Rough Kreyol. In Haiti, there has been a huge push from educators, professionals, academics, and parents to eliminate Rough Kreyol from schools. They know that Smooth Kreyol is the prestige language, and their children are more likely to be successful in Haiti and abroad if they are speakers of Smooth Kreyol. But again, these are members of the dominant group. By making Smooth Kreyol dominant and the standard, they marginalize those who speak Rough Kreyol, banning them from academia and making education a far more difficult process. It is not so different from US efforts to eliminate African American Vernacular English (previously "Ebonics") from schools, at the expense of those students who grew up speaking AAVE and were subsequently disadvantaged by being schooled in a dialect quite different from the one they spoke at home and outside of school. Again, the dominant remain dominant, but at huge cost to the minority and marginalized groups, who are effectively banned from upward mobility by their linguistic environments.

In class, we have experienced several films and lectures that epitomize anticipatory strategies of dominant groups who feel threatened by marginalization. Kunta Kinte is beaten into accepting an American name, no doubt that his masters want to avoid allowing the slaves to associate themselves with their cultures and potentially uprising against their masters. He must trade in his heritage, his name, for a name that represents the culture he has been forced into. Similarly, Diouanna in Black Girl is marginalized and mistreated by her mistress, who anticipates feeling like an outsider upon her return to Europe. In mistreating Diouanna, she allows herself to be dominant as she was before. Dr. Chinua Thelwell's lecture on minstrelsy shows a great example of the dominant white men portraying black men in a negative light, to patronize the rising number of blacks and let them know that they remained inferior in the eyes of whites. 

The dominant groups continue to assert their power over marginalized populations--but at what cost?!

Yue (Ivy) Blog #5: “Where is woman in the foundation of a nation?"

Anderson suggests that the departure from feudal and monarchic power structures in Europe was foreshadowed not only by a growing mercantile class but also by a growing number of readers. We have all been taught about the importance of the printing press but as Anderson points out, it literally created an unprecedented dispersal of information in the form of books, music, art- all of which reached a receptive audience, which in turn innovated and created new and other valuable information.

Anderson mentions the equalizing power of friendships but he fails to talk about the fact that words and ideas can be just as much a level playing field on for communities can grow, as skin tone or facial features. As I read the book I couldn’t help thinking about Scarlett O’Hara and Elizabeth Bennet. Were these books as familiar to men at that time as they are now? That is when the feminist movement truly took form- when the woman’s perspective and the woman’s art became known to other women. My mother always told me that Arabian countries are destined to fail because their women are oppressed, while China, which allows for greater gender equality, can only prosper because we will have twice as many intelligent minds to work. In countries that foster equal opportunities for both genders, the concept of nation involves both male and female members of society. Whereas countries that only allow culture-production to occur in the male sector of society will have a nation representing only men. This is exactly the issue in Diouana’s story. Her death has nothing to do with her actions, except for the act itself. What killed Diouana were her employer’s perceived expectations of how French people treat Africans. Anderson would have said that Diouana’s employers were overly sensitive about being judged as foreign or tainted by being so long in Africa that they took it out on Diouana.

This makes me think about Vincent Chin’s murder. This Chinese man was executed in the most primitive way man knows how outside a McDonalds somewhere in Detroit. The question of course is whether or not his death was motivated by racism. We all know the circumstances of Detroit’s failing automotive industry, Toyota and the hasty trial and the sketchy judgment. Anderson’s perspective on this would be that there is always some stress between different communities- blacks, yellows, whites are colors that exist and that human minds categorize differently. These are differences that exist on the personal level, but there are also super-categories such as the concept of nation, which is extremely complicated to explain because it involves integration of multiple layers of influence ranging from primary education to the nation’s socioeconomic policy. In the case of Vincent Chin’s murderers, Anderson would say that they were moved to break with society’s expectations because the behavior of the nation at large, on matters of industry, allowed for an attack on the concept of yellow-skinned community. Vincent Chin was Chinese and China was where Chrysler reopened their factories after they closed them in Detroit. And Toyota is a Japanese enterprise.

John Muller Blog #5 Womanhood in "Black Girl"

In the film “Black girl,” the state of womanhood starkly contrasted when looking at the two main female characters. On one hand we have Diouana, the protagonist, and the other hand we have Madame who plays the main antagonist in the film. These two female roles portray their characters as complete opposites which offer us a glimpse at the state of womanhood. Madame does not have many characteristics of a traditional woman, she smokes, drinks, and is very abrasive. Diouana, on the other hand, cleans, is courteous, and takes care of the children, the duty of a traditional woman.

 When viewing the two female characters in “Black Girl” it seems Madame has traditionally viewed masculine traits while Diouana has feminine ones. When looking at where the two are in society, Madame living in luxury while Diouana is almost enslaved, it raises many questions about womanhood and gender biases. The film intentionally puts a female with masculine traits in charge of Diouana to emphasize the enslavement of women when following their traditional societal role. Diouana cleans all day and is looked down upon much like women were in the past. Eventually, Diouana rebels against her employers and eventually takes her life. Diouana was stripped of everything about her and forced to be put into a cast of societal norms, this ultimately lead to her death.

One of the biggest question I have from watching the film is how do we change the status quo and upset the norms. How can women, who feel helpless like Diouana, fight for change when nobody will listen. It is a complicated question and a harder solution, especially when normalcy is so hard thing to fight.