Michaela's blog

I have to confess that I am a little bit of a goody two shoes. I have been for most of my life, and my efforts to color within the lines have been rewarded, encouraging me to stay on the straight and narrow. I didn’t cut class, I never forgot my homework, I kept my room clean, and I cried my way out of detention the only time it was ever threatened (for tardiness). And, as a result, I got good grades, kept my parents’ respect, and was regarded by my teachers and peers as an overall good kid. I’ve mostly continued this streak into college. (I worry that it means I’m that kid that I’m writing this on Monday afternoon for a Wednesday due date, so, in that case, I apologize.) I do deviate in some of the socially acceptable college student ways, and enjoy my independence, but I still pride myself on being conscientious. Looking at HSBurke’s photo of the little boy standing behind the bars of his school, I could all too easily see that, through the kind of schooling that is reflected by the T chart, he could in 20 years be the grown man, locked behind the bars of a prison. All this makes me wonder how much of who we are as children, shaped by the environment around us, will be what we become as adults. And, if so, what role do our schools, which appear not dissimilar to correctional facilities, play in creating what brands us as “good” or “bad” people?

I find it really interesting the distinction that Betty Heron makes between "doing life" (as is suggested by her "lifer" status in prison) and "living life". I like that she is taking on a proactive attitude, that she will not be confined by the boundaries of her current situation, but I also wondered at her choice to say that she "dealt herself" (Doing Life, Zehr, pg. 68) her circumstances, given the nature of what we have discussed in class, that arrests and imprisonments (life sentences or otherwise) are often the choice or the "fault" of the unjust criminal justice system and not the incarcerated person themself. The sociological side of me also wants to think of Betty (though she has trouble labeling herself with her first name) as socially and environmentally influenced by many factors that are and were out of her control, both now, in prison, and before the incident that wound her up where she is today. But given the relative "innocence" of a white woman in the criminal justice system, as we have read in several texts for this 360, is she as much a victim of her circumstances as a woman of color might be? 

Will these babies one day be criminalized the way their mothers are?

I've been thinking a lot about our class discussion about the Supreme Court case that would effectively end affirmative action.

In this clip, from Real Time with Bill Maher, actress Kerry Washington debates (informally, but swiftly) commentator Will Cain on the issue, fighting his suggestion that we live in a post-racial society. I feel like this encompasses a lot of what my feelings are on the issue, and brings up a lot of great points, so please watch if you're interested!

(image and link to video under "Read More")

The Canadian police procedural TV show "Rookie Blue" is kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. Its tagline is that it's like "Grey's Anatomy" with rookie cops, and it shows the day to day lives, cases, and yes, romantic travails of 5 rookies and their superiors. This past summer, the show (in its 3rd season) had a storyline where one of the rookies, Epstein, shoots a young black man, Tyler Marks, in a convenience store because he believes that there is a robbery in progress. Tyler is wearing a hoodie and "looks suspicious" in some way to Epstein, and Epstein thinks Tyler has a gun, so he pulls out his gun and shoots, wounding Tyler fatally. In the investigation following Tyler's death, the Internal Affairs department questions Epstein's belief that Tyler was holding a weapon of any kind. This episode reminded me a lot of the Trayvon Martin case, in which a young black man was shot essentially for wearing a hoodie and being black. I had hoped that the show would address the underlying racism of Epstein's actions, and find him guilty of murdering Tyler without cause. But, instead, to make the show lighter and keep Epstein's name clean, it is decided that he was not wrong to shoot Tyler, because there was another young black man in the store who was actually robbing it, and so Epstein had "valid" concerns for his own safety. 

In Wideman's book, I noticed that he touched on the notion of life going on "on the outside" while incarcerated people seem to stay where they are, removed from the passing of time, but unable to fit back into the world without acknowledging the time that has passed. Wideman measures the first few years of Robby's sentence by his daughter Jamila's growth, seeing that, although she is growing up in a changing world, Robby's world is centered around staying put, where Jamila's growth is a strong, and perhaps the only, reliable measurement of changes in time. This reminds me of the discussion that we had in Barb's class yesterday about time and boredom as a means of punishment. The women in the prison that she is studying have so much time on their hands, so much time to do what relatively few activities that they have, and the rest to be filled with a monotonous boredom. Given both our discussion and Wideman's thoughts, I think the passage of time without activity, motion or change is an effective punishment, but a horribly cruel one, a method by which we, once again, deny the humanity of those who are incarcerated.

I found much of what I've read about Alliance and Visions in "Offending Women" to be problematic, but, in both cases, I think what has struck me the most is the idea that motherhood is a reward for good behavior, that the women who are part of these "communities" don't deserve to interact with or parent their children until an overseer tells them so. I think what hits me hardest here is the idea that, once you are marked as an "offender" you are then also branded to be an unfit parent, two labels which don't necessarily go hand in hand. Is it not keeping these women from a full recovery to keep them away from their children, or to tell them that they are not fully able to fulfill a responsibility that they have to their child(ren)? It killed me to read that the women went into the bathroom for hours at a time to calm their child down, to have precious few moments where they could be the mothers that they wanted to be, without the intrusion of administrators. They obviously were not perfect parents (but who is?), but to stop these women in a program with "Mothers" in the title from truly filling that role seems cruel to me. 

I came away from reading the first three chapters of "Offending Women" diametrically opposed to Alliance as a program--with all the unfair, hypocritical, awful practices that were described, I was astounded that Haney was able to remain (relatively) calm and objective about the whole thing as an observer. Frankly, among the young women imprisoned (and I do use the word "imprisoned" intentionally here) by the directors who called these captives "their girls" and presumed to speak of rescuing them, I'm surprised that they were so restrained, that only Maria escaped (so far as Haney reports, if my memory serves). I found Rachel Brennan in particular to be teaching in a way that seemed, after our class discussions of the past few weeks, misguided and even malicious. She taught by and enforced codes that her students were unfamiliar with, that did not fit in with what they wanted in the classroom (being able to keep their children with them, for instance). Her "I know best" attitude and penchant for changing classroom expectations and plans just because she could was infuriating! Her self-congratulatory, smug attitude was counterproductive to listening to her students or improving her techniques, as she was sure that she was teaching her students the value of performing a given task for a monetary reward through her ridiculous, patronizing "Brennan Bucks" program.

Sorry for the rant. I could go on about my frustration with this program, but I'd really like to hear what others have to say, both here on Serendip and in class on Friday. 

Maybe it's because I find myself biting off more than I have before, in activities, projects, and jobs outside the classroom (not more than I can chew, though--once I develop that attitude, I'll be swallowed whole by my own onslaught of thoughts and anxieties). Maybe it's because I've been entirely overwhelmed by this course, especially in the past week and a half or so, with the complexities of silence, voice, vision, intermingling as I try to quiet myself to better listen to others voices and see their points of view--I've been thinking about this Swedish (?) proverb.