Cacho: Reduction & Racialization

     One of the themes apparent in Lisa Marie Cacho’s Social Death is that of reduction. Cacho adequately illustrates that criminalized bodies are treated as always already criminal, thus rendering them inevitable of and already guilty of law-breaking (4). Because these bodies are simultaneously racialized, they are regarded as “just another thug/gang member/criminal/etc.” This reductionist language further removes personhood and the right to have rights from these criminalized, racialized bodies. Cacho writes “Journalists rarely represent gang members and drive-by shooters as complex people, let alone as victims of law or as teenagers and young adults who make mistakes” (59). This lack of addressing complexity is significant not only because it further proves Cacho’s point, but also because when looking at other bodies in the news media – those that are not racialized and not criminalized --  there seems to almost always be a trend of expansion. For example, the typical white male school shooter is never referred to a “just another shooter/psycho.” Instead, there is extensive coverage of his past, his family, his personal relationships, his morals, his interests, his hobbies, how he spent his free time…the list goes on. Inherent in this effort to find the root of his deviant behavior is the assumption that he was not supposed to end up this way and furthermore, that this behavior is not “natural.” The failure to expand upon the potential causes for racialized and criminalized bodies signifies first, that the behavior is “typical” and is not in need of digging further, and second, that an exploration into the social problems and issues that contributed to such behavior is not necessary and/or relevant. In this manner, criminal behavior falls under the umbrella of essentialism for certain types of bodies, and thus, they are guilty of the crime of being, or as Cacho refers to it: de facto status crimes (43).

            Although there are probably many who would refute Cacho’s claims, her theoretical arguments are sound and can be seen in the media on a daily basis. For example, there was a news story about a white youth not too long ago who drove intoxicated, even causing a death. The court ruled that he was not fit for jail, and he was put on house arrest instead (a Google search of this is coming up blank, but it happened!). This is quite the opposite of the situation involving Cacho’s cousin Brandon, who was not only portrayed as undeserving of sympathy in death, but also completely responsible for the death of himself and his friends. The term Cacho would use to differentiate between these scenarios would be the intelligibility of the crime; for the white youth, his crime of drunk driving was seen more as an anomaly or a one-time mistake (unintelligible for his white body), whereas Brandon’s crime was seen as “making sense” and/or inevitable (intelligible for his body of color). Another example that comes to mind is the situation that occurred after the passing of the anti-immigration law in Alabama:

Then, in a widely publicized, awkward incident in November of 2011, cops in Alabama stopped a Mercedes Benz executive driving a rental car and were forced, under the new law’s provisions, to arrest him when he couldn’t produce acceptable ID. The executive was driving near Tuscaloosa, where Mercedes Benz has a manufacturing plant — Alabama, like many Southern states, has bent over backward in recent decades to attract foreign automakers by giving them generous tax breaks and other incentives.

(Source: http://www.buzzfeed.com/davidnoriega/alabamas-draconian-anti-immigrant-law-dies-with-a-whimper)

Because the law’s intent was to encourage self-deportation, the aforementioned was not seen as a potential outcome. According to Cacho: “…illegality, like criminality, is also unrecognizable in popular discourse without a body of color” (101). I wonder how the story would have played out differently had the executive been a man (or woman) of color from the Middle East or Latin America.

            The end of Cacho’s book left me with many questions regarding both current events and the state of feminism. I would like to learn more about the racialization of the riots and protests in Ferguson due to the death of Mike Brown, especially after the recent comparison to the ridiculous situation involving white people in New Hampshire and pumpkins (http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/21/living/keene-pumpkinfest-riot-ferguson/). My next question is about the reflexivity and personal aspects of critical feminist theory. More specifically, is there a way for critical feminist theory to be less personal or less reflexive and if so, is it necessary? Or, is the reflexive and personal nature of critical feminist theory what makes it so unique and important? I keep returning to this question because some of our more recent readings have a very self-reflective lens to them: Downtown Ladies, Adopted Territories, and now Social Death with the telling of Brandon’s story. One of the most offensive things I learned in my feminist pedagogy class is that Women’s Studies in general is critiqued for easily morphing into “group therapy sessions.” Although I was upset by this, I could see how others’ misinterpretation of the discipline could be framed that way. How many times in class do we tell personal stories, and isn’t it necessary to do this in order to “theorize from the the flesh?” I believe it is, and I do not mean to question the validity of Women’s Studies in any way or suggest that personal experience is irrelevant. Furthermore, I do not wish to portray that we should not theorize from the flesh because it is too messy or sticky. However, what I do wish to question is how big or small of a piece it should be when it comes to writing feminist scholarship.