Author: pokonosky.1

Text Review: The Kite Runner

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The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

I chose to review The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini as it offers a series of injustices layered within one another; between religions, between nationalities, between genders, between social statuses, and many more. The story opens in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1975 and follows two young boys, Amir and Hassan. Amir is considered to be the social elite, owning a large property in which a servant family, which Hassan is a part of, also live and serve Amir’s family. Hassan’s family are also Hazaras, an ethnic minority in Afghanistan at the time. While Amir knows that Hassan is his best friend and most loyal supporter, when around others Amir tends to neglect and abuse Hassan, a behavior reinforced by the societal structures and injustices towards Hazaras and people considered to be lower class. Hassan becomes a Subaltern in this novel after Amir frames Hassan for stealing his family’s money and Hassan finds himself silenced and unable to defend himself due to the societal forces in play. As a result Hassan’s family is banished from the property.

Several years later, power structures shift after Kabul became a war zone under Soviet control, and Amir and his father lose all of their possessions and are forced to flee Afghanistan. At this point, the citizens of Afghanistan can all be considered Subalterns, as their homeland is invaded and they become silent ‘casualties of war’. These shifting power structures in the novel made me begin to question the way in which injustices become intertwined with in each other, but also can crumble at the face of a greater and violent One, like war.

After their escape to Pakistan, Amir and his father spend everything they have left and go to California to start a new life. Even more injustices are revealed at this point in the novel, as Amir attends college and is faced with racism from his classmates. His father has similar experiences, and while facing this, both men struggle to maintain their connections to their culture and find others that they can relate to. This feeling of alienation despite all of the experiences of Amir and his father represents yet another injustice that is present to be analyzed in The Kite Runner. 

Diary of Systemic Injustices Showcase: “The Pink Tax”

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While shopping with a friend the other day at a sporting goods store, we came across a phenomenon that I wish I had realized was such a severe issue earlier. We found a Nike brand hoodie, women’s, priced at the classic Nike logo price of $60. We quickly returned it to the rack wondering why we would spend that much on a simple sweatshirt. A few minutes later, we found ourselves perusing the men’s section of the store, and to our surprise we found that same hoodie, in the same color, identical to the one we found in the women’s section, was a mere $45. At first we figured that this had to be a mistake, and so we made a game for the rest of the time in the store of comparing the prices of men’s and women’s comparable items, and we soon found that the pricing on those hoodies was no mistake after all, and spans much further than some simple sweatshirts.

United States Representative Carolyn B. Maloney of New York brought this issue to Senate, and below are just a few of the examples she provided, urging individuals that more evidence is just a simple search on Amazon.com away (Source).

According to the National Joint Economic Committee, this is a well documented phenomenon in the United States, and has even earned a name, being called the “Pink Tax” (Source). The Pink Tax is a means by which companies market the exact same product to fit two different gender stereotypes, and in almost every single situation, charge more for the women’s version of the product. Shown below is a distribution of the average markup of products in a study conducted by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs.

Examples of these span an expansive list including clothing, hygiene products, and even foods. That is not to mention the price of feminine products, a costly investment that only women are forced to overpay for. Bankrate.com estimates that the Pink Tax costs each woman in the United States an average of $1,300 each year (Source). These economic trends are a direct reflection of societal norms and sexist standards around consumerism, and span across the nation, therefore making this yet another systemic injustice. It reinforces the fact that the color pink or other feminine details are a direct indication of being female, and ushers in different treatment and even pricing based upon these assumptions.

“Recitatif” Context Presentation (Week 5)

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In order to fully understand the complex environment that young Twyla and Roberta experienced in the fictional St. Bonaventure Orphanage in Toni Morrison’s Recitatif, a history of the orphanages and school systems of America’s largest Northern cities and their connection to race must also be understood. After the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, newly freed Black families began traveling north, to places like New York City, to find work and a chance at a better life in the North. According to New York Public Library records, though, the only work available to them in the city at the time was domestic work, and often this work would not allow for the Black mothers and fathers to keep their children (Evans). With no choice but to work, Black parents were forced to give up their children. However, the first and only Black orphanage in New York City, the Colored Orphan Asylum, was burned down in July of 1963 during the Draft Riots, leaving these children with nowhere to go but the streets (Nielsen).

An illustration of the riots and burning of the Colored Orphan Asylum, from the Illustrated London News, August 15, 1863

 

While no dates are specifically noted by Morrison, the mention of The Wizard of Oz film by “Big Bozo”, which was released in 1939, indicates that Twyla and Roberta were living at St. Bonny’s around this time. Despite this being 76 years after the burning of the Colored Orphan Asylum, circumstances had not improved for Black orphans in New York City. The systemic racism of the nation was still running deep through both the North and South during the mid 1900’s, evident through Roberta’s mother’s shock that her daughter was being housed with a child of another race. Conditions were still abysmal for all orphans in the city, especially so for the Black orphanages, which were underfunded and less supported than the segregated White orphanages. Shockingly, it wasn’t until 1984 that legislation brought about by the New York Civil Liberties Union finally made it illegal for foster and adoption agencies to place children based upon race (Rosner and Markowitz). As with any law, loopholes were discovered and these types of agencies still find ways to discriminate up until this very day.

 

References:

Evans, Rhonda. “The Howard Colored Orphan Asylum: New York’s First Black-Run Orphanage.” The New York Public Library, The New York Public Library, 11 June 2020, www.nypl.org/blog/2020/06/11/howard-colored-orphan-asylum-new-york.

Nielsen, Euell A. “The Colored Orphans Asylum of New York (1836-1946) •.” THE COLORED ORPHANS ASYLUM OF NEW YORK (1836-1946), BlackPast.org, 2 June 2020, www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/colored-orphans-asylum-new-york-1836-1946/.

Purnell, Brian, and Jeanne Theoharis. “Perspective | How New York City Became the Capital of the Jim Crow North.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 1 Apr. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/08/23/how-new-york-city-became-the-capital-of-the-jim-crow-north/.

“The Riots in New York: Destruction of the Colored Orphan Asylum.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections, Illustrated London News and Sketch Ltd., 15 Aug. 1863, digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-3fb8-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99.

Rosner, David, and Gerald Markowitz. “Race, Foster Care, and the Politics of Abandonment in New York City.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 87, no. 11, 1997, pp. 1844–1849., doi:10.2105/ajph.87.11.1844.

“Yes, The Colored Orphan Asylum Was Looted And Burned Down By A Mob.” BBC America, 3 Sept. 2012, www.bbcamerica.com/blogs/yes-the-colored-orphan-asylum-was-looted-and-burned-down-by-a-mob–51459.