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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