I recently read part five of Wayward Puritans by Kai T. Erickson. In part five Erickson not only explains Puritans ideas of deviancy but also links it directly to current U.S. ideology.

Puritans believed that once a person was revealed as deviant through their behavior (committing a crime) that they should be forever viewed as a deviant person. The Puritans believed that a person wasn't just committing a crime but also displaying their true colors as a born deviant.

This immediately made me think of California's intensely harsh "3 Strikes" law. For any who are not familiar with proposition 184, please let me illuminate. Prop 184 was passed in March of 1994 and states that a mandatory life sentence in prison must be handed down to any person convicted of 3 felonies with no consideration to the circumstances or environment. California was the second state to pass this 3 strikes policy and many states have since adopted the same policy but California is notorious for having the harshest enforcement of this policy. This seems to be a perfect illustration of the Puritan ideal of "deviance for life".

Another way U.S. institutions enforce this "deviance for life" message is in the treatment of people who have previously been committed of a felony. Once you have a felony on your record it is almost impossible to be hired, you cannot vote and you are constantly harassed by law enforcement officers. Once the courts have classified you as a deviant person you are shut out of social function and survival for life, much like the Puritan practice of banishment.

Erickson states that the Puritans have been judged harshly by history and viewed as vicious, cold, rigid and vindictive people but it is clear that little has changed. So the question I ask is; What makes us much better than the Puritans? How will history judge us? And finally, if we have such a clear example on what is now considered "horrific" practices why are we so bent on following in the same footsteps?

World War II

During World War II, when Japan aligned themselves with the Germans, Japanese-Americans were considered dangerous to U.S. safety and to the American war time effort so they were imprisoned (many of which were from the bay area) in camps.

What about the German-Americans? Why weren't they imprisoned? Wouldn't they be the larger "threat"?

We dropped the Atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and didn't drop any Atomic bombs in Germany.

Can someone with some real deep knowledge of history justify that to me?

I am asking these questions because I would really like to know and have some justification to put my mind at ease.

The Black/White Paradigm

I recently read an article entitled "Smells like Racism" by Rita Chowdury Sethi. In this article Sethi explains how racism in the U.S. has become a "caricature" of it's former self. Racism is no longer about institutions of power denying equal opportunity to people of color, according to Sethi racism has evolved to only include the Black/White binary.

Essentially, that means that if the race based incident does not include a White person harming or hindering a Black person then it does not count. Sethi furthers her discussion by incorporating how this narrow idea of racism affects Asians. Sethi provides clear and convincing examples to illustrate her theory but I would rather not go into detail. To me, the most interesting part of the article is the angry dialogue it inspires.

The point of this article was to move beyond the blame game, and what many people have dubbed the "oppression olympics" , to establish a dialogue between people of color. Unfortunately this has not happened, instead I ended up in a discussion regarding the animosity between Black and Korean groups in Los Angeles. Violence against Koreans was justified, Asians were called "shifty and secretive" and I was told that since I was in America I should get with the "American way". Silly me, I thought we were a nation of immigrants...I guess I have no clue as to what the "American way" is.

This is social control at it's finest. The dominant group no longer needs to persecute and tear apart the subordinate groups in society, they are happy to do it to one another. We have all subscribed to the racial hierarchy set forth in U.S. "culture" and are more than willing to do the work of the master.

Goggle it!

Today for a fun little experiment, I decided to take a look at google images. I typed three different terms into google images and I yielded three very interesting pictures in return.

In an effort to be as balanced as possible I did decide on a method prior to my experiment: I would enter my terms one at a time and select either the first or second image that was yielded. (All images are discussed from left to right)

The first picture is of musician Snoop Doggy Dog walking down the MTV video music awards red carpet with two women on leashes. This photo was the first to come up in google images under the search "Black Women".

The second picture is of women in military uniforms armed and marching in form. This photo was the second to come up in google images under the term "Korean Women". I chose an ethnic group rather than a racial group in this instance because...well, I'm Korean and I was curious as to how I was being represented.

The third picture is of a white women who just gave birth to a child that appears to be of mixed race descent when clearly the white man standing next to her is her husband, who seems very surprised at the skin tone of the child.

Now, clearly there is a lot to be said of these images and how controlling images shape the lives of women and men (I did this for men too, it's very interesting!). I'm not at all surprised by the images I found for both Black and Korean women but the image I pulled up for White women was initially, a bit surprising. But...then again, I had an expectation for Black women and Korean women but I had no expectation for White women, I'm ashamed to say that I threw that one in more as a control group then for anything else. I guess that is exactly why many groups should be considered in any experiment.

Upon further contemplation of the White women image I came to the conclusion that this picture is more a testament to the fear of the "corruption" of White women by Black men more than an actual reflection of White women. Of course, the same can be said for the other two images, Black women are depicted as overtly sexual and animalistic (Patricia Hill Collins expands this idea in a wonderfully readable way in her book Black Feminist Thought) and Korean women are sexual but in a very reserved and militant way which makes perfect sense considering the political climate of today.

I wonder what do you think??

Yeah for PDAs!!!!!

Social Control has come a long way, baby! In the days of yester-year working full time entailed a standard 9-5 discipline and if you were truly ambitious then perhaps even an 8-6 tenacity would be applicable. Of course, anyone who has worked full time knows that this is a laughably dated idea! If I had worked a 9-5 day I would have, with out a doubt, been fired.

So how did this happen? When did we decide that work was far more important than friends, family, pets, exercise and hell, even siting in front of the T.V. scratching my butt?

The answer is, "we" didn't decide it, it was decided by the heads of industry that, to make more money, the worker bees needed to increase productivity.

The question is, how can that happen with minimal conflict? History has taught us that people can only be pushed so far before before they begin to unionize and make costly demands. How can we make people demand their own bondage? I know! Let's make the chains shiny, costly and we'll even link it personal status so people will spend their earnings on thier own enslavement! Enter the PDA! Imagine how wonderful your life could be if you were forever attached to everyone and everything! Think of how easy your life would be if your work could email you 18 times while you take a bath! How much more enjoyable would your kid's soccer game be if you could process spread sheets on the field?! You could work around the clock, it could be like you never left! Yeah!!!! Ulcers for everyone!!!!