HBO’s Game of Thrones was a widely popular TV show that aired on the network from April 2011 through May 2019. It consists of many powerful houses who are in competition to rule the seven kingdoms. When the legitimacy of the current king’s claim to the throne is called into question other rulers begin to claim that they are the rightful ruler and plan to seize the throne.
Daenerys (Dany) is a Targaryen who believes she is the rightful queen of the seven kingdoms. She is disgusted by slavery and her goal is to set all of the slaves free and kill all of their masters. In her eyes, she is bringing justice to the world. However, the slaves are viewed as property by their masters and after years of slavery they have begun to see themselves as such. They do not have any belongings to their name or any purpose in life other than serving their masters. Thus, when they are set free, they have nowhere to go. Dany always gives those she conquers the choice of if they want to follow her or not, but they have nowhere to go if they decide not to follow her.
Dany realizes that having a large army and conquering a group of people is a lot easier than ruling over them. Ruling requires a consistent effort and compromises. She was able to look at the masters, see the evil in the way they treated their slaves, and conquer to set the slaves free. But then the slaves were left with nothing and had no purpose in life. Their entire economic system was lost and while masters did not have direct control and authority over their slaves, they still had power in other means such as economically and socially.
Martin Luther King Jr. was witnessing similar experiences. The slaves had been set free by the U.S. government in 1865 with the addition of the 13th amendment, but racism and inequalities were still largely present in the 1900s. Former slaves were not yet equal to their previous masters. There were still large injustices that Dr. King fought with nonviolent methods such as the Montgomery bus boycott. In his Letter from Birmingham Jail Dr. King explains his rationale for his actions and explains the injustices that were present.
In both situations the subaltern is set free but does not have an equal voice to the former ruling group. Slave masters were very profitable in both America and the cities in Game of Thrones for years. When their slaves are lost, they are still left with wealth and power while the slaves are left with nothing and must start a completely new life with no resources. The subaltern then must work increasingly harder than the Subject in order to achieve the same level of success.
I’m Jordyn we’re going to talk about our systemic injustices today. This January Food Hall posted a dress code that discriminated largely against African-Americans the dress code restricted items such as saggy pants, flat billed hats, some types of tennis shoes, athletic wear. They did come out and apologize for a large part of the dress code and took a decent amount of it back. What are your thoughts on this?
Okay so believe it or not I went to Food Hall with some buddies and I own a pair of timberlands. And they’re not real worky or nasty or anything and I walked in like, I was in line for like 10-15 minutes and i got there and the guy was like “hey buddy you can’t get in” and i was like what. It was still kinda wild because it’s like because of shoes you’re not going to let me in somewhere. Like I had shoes on there was no reason for me to not be able to enter the bar at all so I do agree that the dress code is you know completely out of whack. And if you do look at it I actually had for one of my weeks I wrote a systemic injustice about it too and I completely agree because the code included I think it said ill fitting or excessively baggy clothes, work boots, athletic clothing, jerseys, sagging of pants, excessive jewelry and stuff like that. And that does you know, tend to go towards a certain race and stuff like that simply isn’t right. I completely agree with you in that being an injustice.
I have a lot of friends who have gotten in with ripped jeans, no issues, and then there are other people who get turned away. It’s just very inconsistent. Also the fact that you can’t wear flat billed hats but regular baseball caps that creates a very specific rule.
Yeah that’s pretty crazy I actually did not know that but that’s definitely something that needs to be addressed and needs to go away, that’s for sure. Alright so I’ll talk about one of mine. So a couple weeks ago me and my girlfriend we went out to a regular dinner and we set down and at the end of the dinner the waiter went straight to me to hand me the bill. And i know it’s not anything incredible and you can say it’s just being a man or being a gentleman but why did he hand me the bill? What structure is put into place because this happens all the time and quite frequently generally I do take care of the bill but we have an agreement where she pays sometimes and I have to pay some other times. But 9 times out of 10 when i go to a restaurant they’re like, “here you go, here’s your bill.” And back in the day and what I wrote was back in the day women stayed at home and it was a man’s job to provide the income. But you know obviously this changed and in a good way and it shouldn’t be the responsibility for a man to pay the bill because both men and women should be treated equally. And I do understand that sometimes it is more of being a gentleman and stuff like that but in today’s society I think this is an old tradition that needs to be changed. What’s your thoughts?
I agree I think that it’s not wrong if you do and it’s not wrong if you don’t but I think when both parties are bringing in the money. And back in the day only men worked and women didn’t have the income to pay and all that so i think it is important that it shouldn’t be all on the man. It should be considered that whoever is paying for it is paying fo r it because both parties are working. If women want equal rights in the workplace they should take equal responsibility for stuff like that.
I completely agree with you. Alright i guess we’ll move along to another one of yours.
So CelebrateOne is an organization in Columbus. They focus on decreasing the infant mortality rate. They have a list of high priority neighborhoods and they have found that African American infants have a mortality rate of 2.5 times that of a white baby. There are many factors that contribute to that but one of them is the overall lack of resources for new parents to raise their children. A lot of items in these high priority neighborhoods there are not a lot of grocery stores it’s a lot of gas stations that sell food and it’s like drug mart type places and the food is more expensive. So not only do they not have access to a lot of the stuff they have to pay a higher price and then they can’t get out of a poverty system. And a lot of the women don’t have access to birth control and what they need to provide for their kids and so it all just attributes to that.
And are you saying that’s in like the area where the low income families are generally like the stores and stuff are generally higher priced than if i go say to Kroger in New Albany or something like that.
They have generally said that it’s not like Kroger is more expensive there it’s more just like they don’t have it and so basically if you go to buy milk at CVS it’s going to be more expensive than if you do at Costco.
Yeah I completely agree. Yeah I mean that definitely makes sense you know why these places aren’t in these areas is kinda concerning. It kinda looks at why? And you know they think “I’m not going to make as much money there” but that becomes a problem when you’re isolating areas from other areas based on income or race or anything becomes a problem. I completely agree that was a good one. Alright so I’ll move on to another one of mine and this was my main one this was what I wrote for our last week’s blog post and I was talking about the systemic injustice in our criminal justice system. And i think there is a lot but one i went into specifically is the money bail system. And essentially the thought process is that people have to pay a certain amount of money to get out of jail until their court date and then when you go back to your court date you get the money back. Well what happens if you can’t pay? If you think about it and you know what happens, you stay in jail. And this is highly impactful to the lower class people who simply can’t afford to make bail. Why is it right to say that a person who has money can get out of jail and then another person who doesn’t has to sit in jail until their court date? It is really targeting the lower class people. And I was looking into it, I have statistics but I’d have to pull them up. Generally if you are falsely accused of something (I forget the exact statistic) but there are people who are falsely accused for these crimes because you know until your court date you are innocent until proven guilty is what its called. And these people are innocent, sitting in jail, that could possibly be proved innocent so they just sat in jail for however much time for absolutely no reason. And I do think this is a major issue and upper class people are given a major advantage for having money in their pocket. I think a new system needs to be put into place that doesn’t focus on social classes determining being put in jail or not.
I completely agree and I think even when bail is set at half a million dollars but you’re a multimillionaire you either have access to it or you have it in your bank account. Where it’s set at $100,000 for someone else most people don’t have that laying around and it does create a major injustice because you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty but if you’re forced to be in jail you are basically being wrongfully accused it just isn’t fair.
And I completely agree, let’s move on to another one of yours.
So I actually was in a conversation with some people and we were talking about suburbs of Columbus and everything and there were some older people in the conversation and they were talking about an area that has become a little more run down and it was becoming more diverse and they were like “oh it’s time for wite flight” and that’s just not really acceptable in today’s society. I think that we are creating a more diverse culture and it shouldn’t be a term that we commonly use and it shouldn’t be a term that is viewed as positive. There shouldn’t be a need for it.
Can you define white flight? I’ve actually never heard of it.
It’s when an area becomes more diverse and then all the white people move.
Really? Well that doesn’t sound right. I completely would agree with you and I think that phenomenon needs to be addressed. So it’s literally like a group of people a diverse culture are living together and then the caucasion just bounce from there leaving it strictly a minority area.
Yeah.
Yeah i definitely don’t see how that is right. WHy do you think that happens? Do you think it’s like a racial backing behind that?
Yeah the term basically implies a racial issue like they want to be only around each other and that is what leads to it.
Well interesting because i’ve honestly never heard of that term. That’s definitely something that i will look into after this conversation is over. Well thank you very much i will go ahead and move onto one of mine.
Alright so me and my dad were having a conversation and my dad is kinda naive, the man he is. And I was like I do think there is still a decent wage gap between women and men that needs addressed. And he was like ya know today i think it’s not that bad. So I did some digging and I found out that he was completely wrong. So in just Ohio, I learned that Ohio has the 14th largest wage gap in the nation. In just Ohio women are paid $10,000 less than men on average. And you know, how is this right? Supposedly we live in a society that promotes gender equality yet there is still a $10,000 wage gap and it doesn’t really make much sense. Men in Ohio just for being a man are given a strong financial advantage just for being a man.
I agree. And I also saw something recently that was saying how much the minority wage gap difference is. And it’s significantly lower as well than like a Caucasian male in the same position.
Yeah so i think all these things need to be addressed and you hear so many things that “were promoting gender equality” and this and that and the other yet you know behind the scenes there is still this large wage gap that you don’t really hear too much about unless you do research on it. I definitely think that men are given an advantage in the workforce than women. I think people should get paid based on the job that you’ve done and their work ethic towards it. Gender and race should have nothing to do with the amount of money you do on the job.
I agree. Well it was great hearing your thoughts on all of this.
This past January, the Short North Food Hall posted a dress code list that discriminated against African Americans. The dress code restricted items such as sagging pants and flat billed hats. It also did not allow for athletic clothes, sandals, and a long list of other items to be worn into the bar. Food Hall did come out and apologize for the dress code and have taken the majority of it back, but it exploded onto social media sites and had many people upset about it. While having a dress code for health or safety reasons is understandable (for example, not allowing backpacks to be brought into the bar) their entire dress code is unreasonable. However, Food Hall specifically not allowing flat billed hats while allowing regular baseball caps is unnecessary. Also, baggy clothing would be a subjective call for the bouncer and there is no clear definition on what would be acceptable and would likely lead to discrimination. Even though the dress code listed specific items, it was not clear on what would be allowed and where the line would be drawn for items such as baggy clothes.
This relates to the Civil Rights Movement and demonstrates that while we may all appear to have equal rights there are still numerous cases of injustice. We are still dealing with racial discrimination in America today. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. worked with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and fought discrimination with nonviolent and economic methods. They did things such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956.
America has come a long way, but racial discrimination is still present today. Food Hall’s dress code is not acceptable, and we should not tolerate or support actions like this.
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was established in January of 1957 by group of black ministers and leaders in Atlanta, GA. Their objective was to end segregation in all forms by using nonviolent and economic actions. The SCLC contributed to many major Civil Rights activities including the Albany Movement, the Birmingham Campaign, March on Washington, St. Augustine Protests, the Montgomery March, Grenada Freedom Movement, and the Jackson Conference.
While many blacks supported the group and the movement, they were still governed and controlled by whites. Most of them had white employers and landlords, and they could not afford to risk getting fired or evicted by actively supporting the SCLC. However, black churches were run and controlled by blacks and offered black ministers a voice into the SCLC and the Civil Rights Movement without fear of their direct superiors. It also gave self-employed blacks a voice in the movement.
The goal of the SCLC was to plan and support nonviolent methods of desegregation in the South. In February of 1957, Martin Luther King Jr. was elected as the group’s president, and it was also run by a board of elected members. The SCLC was described “by one member as ‘a bunch of Baptist preachers,’ and by another as “a movement, not an organization.” (Fairclough, 2). The group was founded in response to the protest movements in Montgomery, Tallahassee, and Birmingham. It included primarily black ministers.
The March on Washington was one of the most notable events throughout the Civil Rights Movement. It was held in August of 1963 to advocate for civil and economic rights of blacks. The SCLC assisted in supporting the protests held and fought for new legislation to get rid of segregation. During this march, King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in which he painted a picture of what he hopes the Civil Rights Movement will result in.
In 1967, King gave a speech, “Where Do We Go from Here?” at the SCLC conference. In his speech, King called for the ethos of the group to be rebranded. According to Werner, King’s speech, “reinterpreted the trajectory of the SCLC’s accomplishments; articulated the ‘character’ of established SLC principles; and reconstituted the ‘dwelling place’ of the civil rights struggle.” (Werner, 110).
Works Cited:
Adam Fairclough. (1986). The Preachers and the People: The Origins and Early Years of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1955-1959. The Journal of Southern History, 52(3), 403. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.2307/2209569
Ewell Reagin. (1968). A Study of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Review of Religious Research, 9(2), 88. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/10.2307/3510055
