Warning: This post may contain spoilers about the Harry Potter series, if you have not yet seen it.

In the series Harry Potter, there are many instances of injustice, power dynamics at play, and identity. As a baby, Harry Potter’s parents were killed and he goes to live with his relatives. These relatives force him to live in a cupboard under the stairs, where he is essentially a subaltern. Harry has no ability to speak up for himself and is constantly treated like he doesn’t belong and blamed for issues he hasn’t created. Harry has no access to power at this point in his life, although being one of the most powerful wizards alive, without his realization. Harry is essentially treated as a servant to his family. When Harry goes to Hogwarts school for witchcraft and wizardry in his teenage years, his life entirely changes. At this point in his life, he has been raised entirely by muggles (people who aren’t wizards), and encounters an entirely new culture of wizards and witches, at his new school. Harry doesn’t have much of a difficult time adjusting to this new school, as it is a much better life for him than he previously has. However, one of his friends, Hermione, is constantly belittled for her identity, being called the slur of mudblood (someone who has a muggle parent), by the other students. This is an example in the text, where Hermione is being cast out as a, “Other”. Mudbloods are assumed to be less powerful wizards and witches, which in later books becomes quite a “Single Story” rhetoric to Hermione’s identity. Hermione is quite focused on her education and is able to become quite well-versed in many spells, charms, and potions. This is a contradiction to the “Single Story” narrative that is portrayed of her identity. Their friend Ron is also casted out as an “Other” many times in the books for his low level of skill in magic and for his fathers profession, as his father is interested in learning about muggles. These are some examples of Ron being discriminated based on his identity. Despite these things, Ron and Hermione are essential to Harry becoming the powerful wizard he is and saving the wizard world in the final book.

Introduction:

Garrett: Hello, welcome to the “Yo, Is this systemic Injustice/Racism?” podcast. My name is Garrett and I’m joined by some of my fellow students in the Comparative Studies 1100 Class. Today we’ll be discussing several unjust situations in America. I will be discussing injustice in the criminal justice system, and asking some follow up questions, on my topic. Corinna and Cole, why don’t you guys go ahead and introduce yourselves.

 

Corinna: Hello, my name is Corinna. In this podcast I will discuss issues within police brutality and answer any questions you may have on this topic.

 

Cole: Hi, I’m Cole and I’ll be discussing the issues surrounding minority acceptance on campus at major universities.

 

Topic 1: Police Brutality:

Corinna: What is police brutality you may ask? It is “the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement.” I will be discussing the issues of it giving examples of victims that weren’t treated so fairly in the system because of it. A local example here in Columbus, Ohio is Casey Goodman. He was just simply walking home with his lunch. For some reason, the police mistook his sandwich as a gun. They shot him. Goodson had done nothing wrong, he even had no criminal records. This wouldn’t have happened to a white man. This is systematic injustice because he did not violate any laws. The police are just racist.

 

Garrett, Cole, is there anything you would like to add?

 

Garrett: Wow! A sandwich! You’ve got to be kidding me… How do you mistake a sandwich for a gun? That’s ridiculous… What other unjust killings have you seen Corinna?

 

Cole: In most of these scenarios, I’d like to believe that there is something else to the story that makes what happened justified but time after time its completely unlawful.

 

Corinna: Yes I agree, it’s completely ridiculous. Another case is kind of similar but the case involved a toy gun. It’s sad that the victim Tamir Rice was only 12 years old. He wasn’t pointing the toy gun at the police or anybody. The police shot him and didn’t even talk to him about it. It’s sad an innocent child got killed doing nothing wrong. He was just being a kid. This case was definitely targeted on his skin color. It was descripted in the phone call.

 

Garrett: That’s crazy to think about that could have been me, as a kid, if I was a minority. I loved my toy guns when I was younger. I definitely agree with you. How did this police officer feel threatened by a 12 year old? How does one mistake a toy gun for a real one?

 

Corinna: I have no clue. I guess he didn’t raise his hands when asked and that was right after he got shot. He was only a child. Could you blame him? He was probably so scared and confused! Also, the toy was realistic looking. The police could have communicated with the child better.

 

Garrett: No you can’t blame the kid at all, at that age, we all would’ve been pretty freaked out and confused. An adult cop should understand how to communicate with a child. I’m sure the kid would’ve told him it was a toy if he would’ve just asked.

Corinna: Yes, it was sad because he was a child. Now let’s talk about mental health. A case that really caught my eye was Kevin Desir. He broke some laws and was put into jail. One being possession for marijuana and the other being property damage. Kevin was smoking marijuana for health reasons, he was getting it approved from his doctor. It was set in stone, but the court still charged him for the crime. Desir struggles with self harm. He was put into a restraint chair at the Broward jail. He became unresponsive. He died 10 days later in the hospital. Police should not be in charge of people with mental health issues in jails. We need health care professionals to go to scenes to properly take care of them. Police often make them more scared and act out more on their episodes. If they don’t get the response they want, they kill them. Just like what happened to Desir. This is systematic injustice because he was being treated differently because of his skin color and mental health. The police broke the law, they violated the court agreement and tried to hide this case from the public. If the police did their job and listened to court agreements & had mental health care workers Desir may still be alive.

 

Garrett: It sounds like police are using our Jails to house mentally ill people, leaving their mental health issues untreated, and on top of that a tarnished criminal record. This is definitely predatory toward people with mental illnesses and minorities at large. I recently read a study that showed mental health clinics in Chicago have reduced from having ~35,000 patients in 1960 to now having only ~1,500 patients in 2017, on top of this ⅓ of people in Chicago jails identified with having a mental illness. This shows a clearly bad trend toward not giving people the care they need, which is a dangerous precedent to have in America.

 

Topic 2: Criminal Justice System:

Garrett: Corinna previously talked about police brutality facing minority communities. Building on this issue, minorities are much more likely to be targeted by police forces for crimes, and are much more likely to be put in jail by the criminal justice system for them. This creates a dangerous sort of “double jeopardy” for minorities in America. As a minority walking in the street you’re much more likely to be arrested or confronted, and then on top of that you are much more likely to be prosecuted and put in jail for the crime. This leaves minorities at a huge disadvantage, when compared to white individuals.

 

Let’s bring in some statistics to support this claim. In Ferguson, Missouri, a study was done in 2013, which found that out of a population of 63% African American individuals, these individuals accounted for 86% of drivers stopped by the Ferguson police. In the same study, people of color were searched nearly twice as much as white individuals. Corinna, Cole who do you think carried more contraband of these two groups?

 

Corinna: Probably white people

 

Cole: I’m going to have to agree with Corinna on that guess

 

Garrett: The study found white individuals had contraband 34% of the time and black individuals had contraband 22% of the time. Now tell me that’s not racist…People of color are being searched more for contraband

 

Corinna: Sounds pretty racist to me.

Cole: Yeah that’s pretty racist.

Garrett: On top of that, in Ferguson, Black individuals were twice as likely to be arrested as white individuals. This isn’t just Ferguson alone, a study done on New York City, found the Latino population over 16 to be 2.5x as likely to be summoned to court or arrested, and the Black population over 16 to be 3x as likely to be summoned to court or arrested. This is a high risk to our minority communities, in America as a whole.

 

Cole: This sounds like a systemic issue. This isn’t just happening in one city. It’s happening in many cities across the country. Our policing and criminal justice agencies definitely need some reform.

 

Topic 3: University Acceptance of Minorities:

Cole: The previous two topics we covered have been about the blatant mistreatment of minorities, let’s dive into a topic that deals with not overt mistreatment of minorities. Major universities promote the inclusion and acceptance of minority students, often having certain events or organizations specifically to make them feel included. So why do stories continuously pop up of minority students feeling unwelcome on campus especially with the most progressive thinking generation of students to attend universities? Does this problem on campuses across America mean that the American higher education institutions are racist?

 

Corinna: I guess it depends on the school. Yes, they do have these organizations to help them feel included but it doesn’t help out much. If they still feel unwelcomed it’s probably because they feel their peers are racist.

 

Garrett: I think that these minority groups probably feel underrepresented. I’m sure these organizations help them in some capacity, but in another light, they probably want to see more of their own groups in these organizations and on campus as a whole. To answer your second question, Cole,  I think it’s difficult to make a judgement on all campuses in America, however, I think these colleges should be seeing similar numbers represented from all groups.

 

Cole: Most colleges have decently similar if not higher percentages of white students compared to the national averages, however african american and latino populations on campuses are usually significantly lower than national averages. Many minority students come from areas where their culture is heavily represented and coming to a college campus where their ethnicity is not nearly as prominent can be a shock. It is also not as much of a problem for white students as most campuses have upwards of 60% white students

 

Ending:

Garrett: Well that’s all the time we have today everybody. Thanks for tuning in to our podcast. We hope this conversation sparked your interest and gave you a new perspective on the issues minorities in our country face.

 

Cole: Thanks for Tuning In!

 

Corinna: Thanks for Listening!

 

Works cited:

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/family-of-man-who-died-after-altercation-with-broward-jail-staff-wants-answers/2372059/

 

https://apnews.com/article/ohio-columbus-shootings-police-44e8d192397dbde3346bbf2a962f3d23

 

https://apnews.com/article/oh-state-wire-tamir-rice-cleveland-courts-2e12663668827df2e58b66ce0a2c079f

 

https://images.app.goo.gl/4p2Kf4bcwMoXHfBb9

 

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/wellness-checks-are-broken/

 

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/black-lives-matter-eliminating-racial-inequity-in-the-criminal-justice-system/

 

https://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Congressional-walkout-BEST.png

 

https://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Protest-crowd.jpg

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20170516005605/https://politics.uchicago.edu/fellows-program/fellow/tom-dart

 

The Leavers by Lisa Ko is a book, which takes the reader through the cultural experience of a boy named Deming Guo and his mother, Polly Guo’s, sudden dissappearance, who both emigrated from China. One of the major themes in this book is migration and cultural identity. The beginning of the book starts out with Deming struggling in school, while his mother is still present. During this time, Deming is not quite content with his cultural identity after migrating from China. Although living in Chinatown with family friends, they are the only household to Deming’s knowledge which speaks Fuzhounese. “Individuals who migrate experience multiple stresses that can impact their mental well being, including the loss of cultural norms, religious customs, and social support systems, adjustment to a new culture and changes in identity and concept of self.” (Bhugra, D., & Becker, M. A., 2005) The research on migration directly supports Deming’s experience as he is losing his cultural norms by the dillusion of his language and goes further in the next section of the book. Deming goes on to his mother disappearing on a whim shortyly after, where he further loses part of his social support systems.

The book skips forward to a decade later, where Deming has now been integrated in to an American family, who is actively trying and have been trying to make him the poster child for American culture, thus forcing him to adjust to a new culture threatening his sense of identity. Demings name was changed to Daniel by this family. Daniel has moved away from his new family and is trying to start a band, but is clearly struggling with mental health as his new parents visit and are trying to assure he is not falling back into addiction. His new parents Kay and Peter are urging him to go back to college after dropping out, leaving Daniel stuck in an identity crisis between his current support system and his new parents, whose approval he desperately seeks. He is also presented with the possibility of new information about his mother’s whereabouts which had not before been revealed.

The book skips back to the time period when Deming’s mother has disappeared. Deming is left constantly wondering and worrying when she’ll come back. Deming is eventually put in foster care and moved in with the previous American family, Kay and Peter, who are a suburban family. Deming’s new family switches his name to Daniel Wilkinson. Daniel is required to speak english and go to a school where he is one of very few people not from America, but eventually finds a friend Roland, who has been put in a quite similar situation. This new friend helps Daniel keep some sense of identity in his time of moving again. Later on, Kay and Peter take him back to the Bronx, where a new friend helps him go see his old appartment, but finds a new family living there, both helping and hurting Daniel, making him feel like he is losing his past.

The book jumps back forward a decade and returns to the point shortly after his talk with Peter and Kay about going back to college. Daniel decides to reach out the E-Mail about knowing his mother’s whereabouts. Daniel finds out his mother had significant financial debt to loan sharks for moving them to America and thus is left with no choice than to forfeit daniel to the foster care system. Daniel is infuriated when he eventually meets up with Vivian, the mother of the family they lived with at the beginning, but eventually comes to terms with the fact that his mother had no choice.

Overall, Deming endured many of the aformentioned challenges with migration when integrating into American society. He was forced to lose his cultural norms both when moving to America and also when being integrated into an American family. He lost and gained social support systems many times throughout the many moves he endured. He struggled with his identity, as he was very different from the people around him after his moves. I believe this is why he faced the addiction to gambling, sparked by his mental health issues, related to migration and cultural identity.

 

Citations:

Bhugra, D., & Becker, M. A. (2005). Migration, cultural bereavement and cultural identity. World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 4(1), 18–24.