Spike Lee’s 2018 film BlacKkKlansman tells the story of Ron Stallworth, a black police officer who successfully infiltrated and sabotaged a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. It’s a true story, and it happened in 1979 in Colorado Springs, CO, where Stallworth was the first black officer in the Colorado Springs Police Department.
After Stallworth works his way up to the intelligence department, he sees a newspaper ad for a local chapter of the KKK and calls them. On the phone call, he acts like a hopeful Klan candidate, and he gets invited to a meeting with them. However, he is black, and obviously cannot show up to a meeting with the Klan. This is where his partner, Flip Zimmerman, comes in. Flip is white and Jewish, and he agrees to go to the meetings on behalf of Ron, who is the one talking with them over the phone. Over the course of the film, they successfully infiltrate the Klan and
dismantle it from within.
BlacKkKlansman explores race and identity in a very interesting way, and the characters of Stallworth and Zimmerman each have monumentally high stakes throughout. For Stallworth, it is more obvious, because he is black and is sabotaging a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. If he were to be found out, it would be very dangerous for him and he would certainly be harmed. For Zimmerman, the stakes are high in a different way. He is white, so overall, he is able to be safe around the Klansmen. However, he is Jewish, an identity that he needs to hide from the Kl
ansmen when he is with them. And, as he is the one going to the meetings, it is dangerous for him.
BlacKkKlansman is a potent exploration of race identity, an
d I think that the idea of “the Other” is constantly at play in the movie. Almost every character is Othered by another. The Ku Klux Klan Others just about everyone, from African-American Ron Stallworth to Jewish Flip Zimmerman.
BlacKkKlansman might seem absurd, but it is not. It is based on real events, and although Spike Lee added some things to make it more “cinematic,” the core story is 100% true. The film is hilarious, shocking, frightening, and emotional all at once, and it is a very critical exploration of identity in America.
In this week’s reading, A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid, one of the main themes is tourism as a neo-colonial structure, particularly in her home country, Antigua. Colonialism and tourism are very closely linked, and colonial tourism is very problematic in a lot of places.
People have been traveling for all of human history, but it wasn’t until the years following World War II that tourism became a multi-billion dollar international industry. One could argue that there isn’t another industry that has impacted society in so many ways. In her journal article Cultures For Sale: Perspectives on Colonialism and Self-Determination and the Relationship to Authenticity, Christine Ballengee-Morris talks about the rise of tourism around the world, and how many cities try to lure tourists by tailoring their museums, entertainment, parks, food, and even language to the tourist industry. While tourism is one of the biggest and most profitable industries in the world, its effects on native people everywhere tend to go unnoticed.
Tourism tends to reinforce ideas that members of the dominant group have about minorities or native people in other countries. For example, when wealthy, white Americans travel overseas, they see native people living in societies they deem as inferior to theirs, and ignore the reality of their lives to instead view them as some sort of attraction. When tourists see native people going about their daily lives and then return home to simplify their existence into some sort of attraction, colonial and imperialist ideas are reinforced. Examples of this are when people discuss a place they’ve visited, and say things like “the people there are so beautiful,” or “the people are so nice.” While these may seem like harmless sayings, they represent a bigger problem in society that is people traveling to other countries and using human beings as attractions, often taking a bunch of photos of them (probably without consent) and then showing them off to their friends and family back home.
Most people are probably unaware of the effects they have when they travel like this, but the tourism industry is a very big reason that a lot of people view “third world” countries the way they do. If you are staying in a resort in a place where real people are living their lives, you are not immersed in culture, you are just invading it.
Bibliography:
Ballengee-Morris, Christine. “Cultures for Sale: Perspectives on Colonialism and Self-Determination and the Relationship to Authenticity and Tourism.” Studies in Art Education, 2002, pp. 232–245.
“’The People Are so Beautiful!’ That’s Enough of the Colonial Tourism | SE Smith.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Apr. 2014, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/08/people-beautiful-colonial-tourism-travel.
Hello, welcome to my podcast, my Yo, is this black? podcast. My name is Hayden Steiss. I am a junior studying political science and history. And yeah, I mean, yeah, I’m probably gonna get right into it. Um, so for this podcast assignment I am, I’m by myself, I’m not talking to anyone. Um, but what I do want to talk about is something that I think is really important. And that has gotten a lot of attention. A lot more attention than normal this past summer, as I’m sure everybody has seen all the things that have been going on, and that’s police brutality in America, and then the subsequent Black Lives Matter movement. And then the people who are against that movement, also. But yeah, I’m just gonna, I’m gonna be talking about policing in America. And in doing that, I’m going to not only just talk about some problems that exist today, and you know, especially racial disparities, but I’m also going to take a look at the history of policing in America to try and figure out, you know, how we’ve gotten to this point and why. So to start, I mean, policing itself is rooted in racism. I mean, policing has roots in southern states, in slave patrols. Obviously, this is during slavery in America. So back then. But yeah, slave patrols were squadrons made up of white volunteers who would use vigilante tactics to enforce laws related to slavery. And some of these tactics included. Yeah, tracking down, escaped slaves or punishing slaves who were believed to have broken the rules of on their plantations. So the slave patrols the state back to the early 1700s. In South Carolina. Actually something interesting Michael Robinson, who is a University of Georgia Social Work professor, he says that by the time John Adams was president, every state that still allowed slavery had slave patrols. So I mean, you could see that, obviously, that would be a widespread thing. While slave patrols are definitely a precursor to the American police system, the more commonly known origins of American police came about in the early 19th century, where centralized municipal police departments started in Boston, Massachusetts, and then subsequently, you know, developed elsewhere in the country. These early police departments were almost entirely white men, and were focused more on responding to disorder than to solving crime and stopping crime and stuff like that. And officers were expected to control the so-called “dangerous underclass”, basically, meaning African Americans, immigrants and poor people. Which doesn’t sound too far off from a lot of the things that go on today. But one thing about these early police departments that has also kind of carried on is that there were very few standards for hiring and training officers. And so while you still had to do things to become a police officer, it wasn’t it wasn’t some anyone could do it. If they did the training, anyone could do it, if they could just if they could make it through to do anyone can do it if they wanted to, and could go through the training. And so throughout the Jim Crow era, black people were often victims of police brutality. I mean, they are now but I mean, in a time where white people don’t even face punishment for lynchings and police officers don’t care about those lynchings they don’t do anything to Stop them, it’s obvious that it’s easy to see that police were definitely not held accountable if they did something wrong, which, in those days probably would not have even been seen as wrong. So all of this is relevant today. Because, although since the Civil Rights Movement, the federal government has forbidden the use of racist regulations at the state and local level, people of color are much more likely to face police violence and be killed by police. And the numbers back this up, just a few statistics. One thing is just the rate of being killed. Although black people make up about 13% of the United States population 26% of people shot and killed by police are black person a white people who make up 61% of the United States, United States population, but only 50% of all are people who are killed by police. So essentially, the percentage of black people killed by police. Essentially, people of color are killed by police at a doubled rate of what their percentage of just the overall population is, whereas white, white people are killed by police at a lower rate than theirs. And furthermore, out of everyone killed by police who was unarmed 36% of those are black. So even higher than just the overall percentage of people shot and killed by police. So obviously, the numbers like the raw numbers would show that every year, just far more white people are killed, shot and killed by police. Those can only tell kind of a story because I mean, when black people only make up 13% of the population, but 20 – over a quarter of the people who are killed by police. I mean, that’s a, that’s a that’s a ginormous disparity. That’s an alarming disparity. And it’s more than just police killings, it’s, it’s everyday encounters and just the way that police departments operate and serve, surveil areas and just make people like, just unnecessary things. I mean, the surveys show that black adults are five times more likely than whites to say they’ve been unfairly stopped by police because of their race or ethnicity. And if you — and a study that looked at information from more than 2 million 911 calls, white officers dispatched to black neighborhoods fired their guns five times as often as black officers dispatched for similar calls to the same area. So you have an area where there’s police being called. And the white officers in that area, doing the same things as the black officers fire their guns five times as often as black officers. And it’s not that they’re doing drastically different things, they’re not responding to drastically different calls. I mean, the study made it clear that these officers were responding to similar calls and in the same area. And, yeah, there are a number of factors that can determine how likely any given officers to draw on fire their weapon. And obviously, I mean, black police officers can do all the same things as white police officers can but it’s less about that than just the whole system. I mean, individually, racial bias, just a bad temper, and other individual characteristics like that can cause violent situations. But with all the data that shows racial disparity, I mean, that’s, that’s concerning. And I mean, the problem is, it’s deeper than the individual officers. The problem is in the police system itself. And one of the most, I think infuriating things we see very often is in these like big, big, like, just these high attention police killings such as George Floyd such as Breonna Taylor, Alton Sterling, these types of things that have happened more recently with like video, video, especially if there’s video evidence, just by a civilian on the street. I mean, These officers don’t face consequences the way that a lot of people think they should. And that’s what leads to these big demonstrations and things. I mean for like George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin. He was acquitted on all criminal charges and didn’t go to jail, after he said that he shot Trayvon and self defense. And that’s because the system is, the system is designed to protect police officers, the legal system, the criminal justice system, it’s all designed to protect officers. And they have a lot of protections and immunities, and so they’re unlikely to go to jail. If they, if they kill someone in line of duty, I mean, they’re, they’re unlikely to even lose their job. And a lot of a lot of times — I mean, it’s, it’s impossible to 100% know, someone’s intent on just anything, but I mean, watching the video of George Floyd being within with a knee on his neck for nine minutes. I mean, it’s, it almost seems like there’s no way that that police officer was not trying to kill him. And even officers who are fired for misconduct are often rehired. I mean, in my city, Cleveland, the police officer who shot and killed Tamir Rice. He had resigned from another Police Department after they had deemed him unfit to serve. But since the Cleveland Police Department didn’t review his file before hiring him, he got hired, he worked and he ended up shooting and killing a 12 year old boy on a playground. And all these problems go back to the history of American police forces back to slave patrols in the first police officers in Boston. I mean, when the, when the system’s routes are more about responding disorder than crime in the and the requirements and hiring process aren’t very strict, there’s obviously going to be a lot of individual police officers that are gonna, you’re gonna hire a lot — I mean, if you live in a country that is as racist as America, you’re going to hire a lot of racist police officers, whether you know it or not. And when the system itself is rooted in so much racism, it’s easy to see why there’s so many race, racial problems in policing. I mean, the disparities and the racial disparities and policing is horrific. And it has very deep roots that make it a very systemic thing. These killings, unwarranted police stops, petty, misdemeanor arrests, just simple racial profiling, that make the lives of black and brown people in this country really hard in a lot of ways whereas white people can do a lot of things without, without a worry in the world. I mean, police brutality is nothing new. But nowadays with everyone carrying a camera with them at all times and social media being the way it is, there are a lot of encounters that are now broadcast for anyone to see. And that’s what has kind of stirred up these movements sparked these movements, these ginormous movements, a lot of people pay more attention to the issue that previously weren’t. I mean, attention isn’t going to save anyone’s life from being stolen by a police officer though, structural change is. And whether that comes in the form of some big huge nationwide top to bottom police reform, or defunding and reallocating the resources of police departments or a stretch and unlikely, but you never know, situation just abolishing police departments entirely. I don’t know. And there’s a lot more that I could cover. But I would be talking for hours and hours. I just wanted to do a quick kind of context and history to some of the problems we see today and some of the most eye popping statistics that we have available. But something definitely does need to change. And that — and that’s the system itself. It’s not, it’s.. Yeah, I mean, yeah. But I guess I’m going on 15 minutes now. Geez. So I guess that about wraps it up. Thank you for listening. I hope that — I hope that this was informative. Is it the first podcast I’ve ever recorded. I hope that I was interesting enough to even keep you listening this long but thank you.
The United States criminal justice system is a pillar of American government and society, and it is always visible: we see police when we go out in public, we drive past jails and prisons on the highway, and we watch TV shows and movies about drugs, violence, and the consequences characters face for their actions.
However, the criminal justice system in the United States has some very unjust aspects, and in this entry of systemic injustices, I will focus on mass incarceration in the United States.
In the criminal justice system, there is systemic racism at every level; from policing on the street to prosecutorial decisions, trials, and sentencing, there are racial disparities. Mass incarceration affects people of color more than others, and is especially harmful for people who are marginalized in other ways, such as gender and class.
The racial disparities in the criminal justice system begin all the way at the start, in police interactions. Black people are stopped on the street by police much more often than white people, while white people are more likely to call the police. White people make up 60% of the adult population, they only account for 60% of police stops, whereas black people make up 12% of the adult population and make up 18% of police stops (prisonpolicy.org).
Furthermore, the disparity in rates of actual incarceration are mind-boggling. In state and federal prisons, 2,272 per 100,000 black men are incarcerated, as opposed to just 392 per 100,000 white men. For women, there are 88 black women per 100,000 behind bars and 49 per 100,000 white women (prisonpolicy.org).
All of this information makes it very clear that there are some serious problems within the criminal justice system, with mass incarceration being one of the most devastating systemic injustices in this country today. To properly uproot the racial injustice of mass incarceration, there needs to be some very serious changes made to the system, top to bottom.
Mass incarceration is a systemic injustice because it is a group of people being treated unfairly by the government that is supposed to protect them. Police, judges, courts, jails, etc., are all systems in this country, and when systems discriminate, systems are unjust. When thinking about mass incarceration in the context of this class, I can’t help but think about the early theorists we studied who focused on otherness, particularly Hegel and his master-slave dialect. Although mass incarceration is just modern, legal slavery, it is not as much about the system of slavery itself as it is about the power dynamics that exist in so many levels of our criminal justice system, and the fact that the criminal justice system is designed to keep certain groups down.
