As you all should know by now, I am requiring attendance at Dr. Peter Caster's lecture on "Prisons, Race, and Masculinity" on Tuesday (11/1) evening at 7PM in the Olin Theater. Because of this event we will not have class this Thursday. In addition to attending, I want each of you to respond to Dr. Caster's talk on this blog. What I am looking for is a one or two paragraph comment in which you address the following: (1) what you thought of the lecture as a whole.
(2) what did you believe was the most relevant part of the lecture for our class and why.
(3) any point or idea or argument you disagreed with and why.
So, make sure to come with something to jot down a few notes.
This exercise is worth 3 activity points.
PLEASE POST YOUR COMMENTS NO LATER THAN THURSDAY, NOV. 3RD.
****FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT MAKE THE LECTURE DUE TO A CONFLICT, I WANT YOU TO WRITE A RESPONSE IN WHICH YOU REFLECT ON WHAT YOUR CLASSMATES HAVE WRITTEN. SPECIFICALLY, I WANT EACH OF YOU SINGLE OUT WHICH RESPONSE TO EACH OF THOSE THREE TOPICS ABOVE YOU FELT WAS BEST OR YOU LEARNED MOST FROM, AND TELL WHY. NOTE: YOU MAY PICK RESPONSES FROM MORE THAN ONE OF YOUR CLASSMATES. TO EARN THE SAME 3 ACTIVITY POINTS, PLEASE POST YOUR FOLLOW-UP COMMENTS NO LATER THAN MONDAY, NOV. 7TH.
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12 comments:
Overall the entire lecture was not what I expected. I expected to only hear just about his book, but instead his presentation was filled with evidence, shown through film, books, song lyrics and history. However, I thought that the segment that dealt with people’s curiosity with imprisonment and the effect it had on the increase of prison based shows, did not apply to our class. What struck me as important and pertained was his segment on Public Opinion and Habeas Corpus, how it effects racial profiling. Peter Caster showed this notion through Wille Horton, where we saw an increase in black males in prison for rape and assault charges due to public opinion and unfair trails. I think that public opinion and views of certain crimes plays an effect on ruling. Most people assume that if a white woman claims a black man raped her, that he committed the crime just because he is black.
Another topic he discussed that I thought was relevant to our class was the fact that the drug problem was not just a minority problem. The reason that it seems more prevalent in the Black community is because they are not given the privacy to possess drugs. This notion of not having the privacy was a topic that Michelle Alexander talks about in her book, The New Jim Crow. The main reason in my opinion for blacks and other minorities not having the privacy was due to there being a high rate inequality and lack of education in these areas. The authority figures believe that minorities with fewer advantages are more likely to commit a crime, so they target those areas for incrimination, which is what were have been studying to s certain extent this semester. Although we have mostly studied how these less privileged people have been discriminated against on things such as housing and education, which directly affect the drug problem being looked at a majority minority neighborhoods.
As a whole, the lesson was informative. Even though this has nothing to do with the lecture itself, I was taken back when I saw that the speaker was white. You hadn't given us any reason to think he was black, yet I took the initiative to believe so. At the beginning, it was hard to grasp the information due to the fact that Dr. Caster read a speech aloud rather than discussing the topics at hand. Once he actually began to discuss the topics rather than read about them word for word, I was able to take into account information being presented. Learning about the history of my ancestors is always liberating..eye-opening..informative.
Although i found a lot of the points mentioned within the lecture to be relevant to the class, it wasn't until Dr. Caster discussed the idea of "hysterical white fear of black masculinity" while briefly answering a question after the lection that things were placed into perspective for me. As the saying goes: we fear what we don't know. It was this fear that lead to the ideas of slavery and racism. Stemming from the need to recreate the idea of slavery came the concepts of prisons. Therefore, it should be of no surprise that black men were, and still are, over represented in prisons. Due to the inequalities placed on black men alongside the constant suppression of the criminal justice system, the black men were caged. The "hysterical white fear of black masculinity" served as the guidelines for racism.
I also found it relevant and interesting that Dr. Caster defined crime as socially constructed and regularly redefined resembling the definition of race. If this is the case, was the guidelines of crime also socially constructed to futher diffrentiate between those considered superior and inferior?
After hearing the lecture, I didn't find any points or ideas that I disagreed with. I found the information to be informative and logically correct despite whether or not it was morally correct.
Dr. Caster's lecture was an informative overview of the racial overtones of the current justice system. Beginning with the first "model prison" proposed in the 18th century, to the quadrupling of inmates since the 1980s. Dr. Caster drew from popular movies and songs to show how the publics idea of the prison system is shaped by portrayal. The idea that the drug war is racially based was reflected in the lecture, as well as in our class room reading "The New Jim Crow".
Saying that the criminalization of typically "minority" drugs has caused the high representation of African-Americans and Latinos in the prison system. That 1 of every 3 African Americans will at one time be in a correctional system is startling, and scary.
The biggest disappointment of the lecture was that Dr. Caster failed to mention a workable solution to the status quo. Also, he mentioned "the criminalization of black masculinity" without explaining this idea, leaving me with the question as to what this actually means.
Overall, I thought Peter Caster’s lecture was interesting. I was able to connect much of what he spoke about with our class on Race and Ethnic Relations so the topic intrigued me and seemed relevant to what we are studying. Of the topics discussed, I think the most applicable to our class is how the number of black men in prison was justified. Caster said that, in our culture, this reality is contributed to people’s racial attitudes that black men are more likely to commit crimes. Overall, however, social injustice is the root cause of a high number of incarcerated blacks. One contingency that I had with Caster’s remarks was when he stated that “people’s morals haven’t worsened over the past forty years but imprisonment has increased for-fold.” I think it is presumptuous to make such a sweeping conclusion when the morals and standards of society have changed since the 1960s, as evidenced in explicitness of television programs and music broadcasted to people of all ages.
As a whole, the seminar was informative. Dr. Caster presented us with a lot of interesting and new information about African Americans and the prisons of America. Walking into the seminar, I was expecting it to be mostly on his book. Instead, the talk was more of him providing us with his opinion as well as facts about the United States and prisons. The only aspect of the seminar that I did not like was the pace in which he spoke. The pace paired with the amount of information was nearing to an information overload. In addition, I felt as if the small segment where he touched on how some TV. shows and movies had the same back story was not relevant to our class.
A point of his that I did not agree with was that going to prison was a rite of passage. From my knowledge and experience, going to prison is not a rite of passage. In fact, going to prison is something no one wants to do. Committing a crime maybe a rite of passage but going to prison is not, partially due to the stories that are told of what happens in prison.
Prisons, Race, and Masculinity
Overall I felt that Dr. Caster’s lecture on “Prisons, Race, and Masculinity” was well done and considering Dr. Caster’s field of expertise seems to be in literature I was impressed with the depth of his knowledge regarding prisons. It was interesting to me that prisons and penitentiaries are generally a modern phenomenon and were not conceived of in their modern form as a place for long term incarceration and, at least theoretically, a place for reform, until 1787 by Benjamin Rush. However, despite their intention as a place for reform and specifically learning it is apparent that the modern judicial system has failed in regard to both of these goals, and instead of reforming prisoners only serves to punish, and, through complacency in regard to issues such as prison rape and prison violence, to torture.
In a country that prides itself on supposed equality it should be a wakeup call that one out of three African American men will be imprisoned at some point in their lifetime in contrast to the dramatically lower rates for Whites. As seen during the lecture, this seems to be in large part due to inequalities in law, such as the disparities between laws for drugs associated with African Americans and Whites (e.g. the disparity between prison sentences for crack cocaine and powdered cocaine or the disparity between sentences for illegal use of prescription drugs verses Schedule I drugs.) Furthermore bail is set much higher for African Americans and African Americans are generally sentenced to much longer prison terms than Whites are. In addition this disparity seems to be partially due to inequalities in the depiction of minorities in the media. An example of this is film depictions of Blacks as being typically guilty of whatever crime that they are accused of and redeemed by, generally, a White character.
While I cannot think of any point’s made by Dr. Caster I disagreed with, I wish he had perhaps put prisons less in the foreground and focused more on race and masculinity. I would have liked to have heard more about the role of masculinity for example and specifically the white fear of black masculinity he brought up during the question and answer session.
I though that Dr. Caster’s lecture was informative and entertaining. He seems to be passionate about what he is writing books and lecturing on. I appreciated him giving us statistics to back up the thing he was saying. To often it seems that people tell you things and just expect you to take their word for it. I think that the most relevant part was when he said that in 1888 someone stated that the reason prisons were started was to house the freed slaves. I think that this shows how people truly felt about the blacks in those days—that they needed to be controlled. The one thing that I did disagree with him on however was when he was talking about legislators being unwilling to lighten sentencing on drug crimes. In fact because our prison systems are so over crowded many people never actually serve a quarter of their sentenced term for non-violent crimes and are paroled early. So in actually they are not staying in prison for as long as it would seem. Also drugs are a huge problem in American society and are one of the leading causes for gang related violence. I do not think that we should lighten any sentencing for drug possession in America. Overall I agreed with a lot Dr. Caster said and though he was an excellent speaker that kept our attention fairly well. I personally enjoyed listening to what he had to say.
From reading these responses it sounded like the lecture was very interesting. It was crazy to read what Jessi said bout the fact that 1out of 3 african americans will sometime be in a type of jail some time in their life. That is a crazy statistic to me. It is just horrible.I like how Shelby quotes Dr. Caster saying that peoples morals haven't changed over the years. I would agree with that because it seems to me by reading the posts and my day to day experiences that it seems that law makers think its easy to accuse minorities of crimes because they are already known for crimes. I do agree with Nygia and her disagreement with Dr. Caster on him saying that prison was a right of passage. I enjoyed her post the most because she took time to think about what he said and then made her own conclusions. From reading all the posts the lecture sounded very informative and I am excited to hear more about what I missed in class.
After reading Theron’s response, I found it very interesting to hear about this disparity between African Americans and Whites. Finding out that 1 in every 3 African American men will be locked up at a point in their life really puzzles me, and for the rate to be drastically lower for whites is angering to me. It seems as if African Americans are put in a position to fail and this relates to our class in many ways, as we study such issues on a consistent basis. Moving on, from reading Jessi’s response it sounds like Peter Caster was a very engaging speaker who seemingly made clear and effective points. From her analysis I am a bit distraught that I was unable to attend for it sounds like he both knew what he was talking about and was interesting to listen to. I will remain focused on Jessi’s post in reference to a disappointment, for I believe she has a very valid point. While there is undoubtedly a massive problem that is worthy of analysis, we must not become so focused on these issues that we avoid looking for a solution. It is disgusting how poorly African Americans have been treated, but our anger at the situation cannot be allowed to cloud our ability to focus on a solution. Overall this sounds like it was a very entertaining lecture and I hope I can attend another one similar to it in the near future.
Jarell Byrd
I believe that Mimi and TJ both had very interesting points.
First of all, I am glad that Mimi wrote the part that she wrote that "has nothing to do with the lecture itself" about Dr. Caster being white because I, too (and I'm not even sure why), was under the impression that this was a Black man.
I found TJ's post to be among the most informative because i was unaware of the history of the prison system involving it not being for long periods of time. This was something I had never heard before. I also appreciated that he discussed inequalities in the law. This is something that I had never contemplated. I knew that there is not always justice and laws are not always equally enforced, but did not realize that actual laws were unequal.
Ultimately, reading all of the posts left so many questions that I would love to know the answers to, it is slightly difficult to put these posts together to try to understand what exactly the Dr. Caster spoke on, and I do regret that I had to miss out on the opportunity to hear what seemed to be a very intriguing speech.
Thanks for your thoughtful responses, folks.
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