Social Death Response

            Cacho argues that race and gender are “ways of knowing” that allow us to make sense of reality in the U.S. She argues we don’t necessarily see “stereotypes” when we see/think we see images of people of color as criminals, but rather, we are recognizing criminality. Without the bodies of color, we wouldn’t recognize criminality because white bodies are not coded as criminal. In fact, white bodies are coded as exactly the opposite, and even when white people are criminals, we have trouble recognizing them as such. It doesn’t fit into the reality we live in/understand. She uses the example of the group of white teenage boys who robbed and violent assaulted a group of elderly Mexican men to illustrate this. Despite the obviousness of the boys’ crimes, they were represented in the media as “good” kids, and sympathetic stories were written about them. They received light sentences despite how disturbing their crimes were because it was believed they could/would be rehabilitated. They were not yet lost causes in the eyes of the legal system, but that’s not because of their ages, which one would think if they just heard about this case. The fact that they were in their early to mid-teens isn’t why they were seen as able to overcome these crimes and become “good citizens”, but rather, because they were white. Had they been African American, Hispanic, or any other race/ethnicity, they probably (definitely?) would have received much harsher sentences and no sympathy from the legal system or the public.

            The “social death” of the title is what happens when certain groups are denied the protection of the law, are criminalized, and are basically considered “dead” to those groups who do have the protection of the law and do have power/privilege. The socially dead have no legal or social rights; how can they? It seems as though they are the groups society doesn’t want to deal with and doesn’t want to exist, but also, society cannot function without them, at least, not the way it currently functions.

The law is not “blind”, though we (as a society) might like to think it is; it’s influenced and structured based on the same issues that plague all other aspects of society. Certain populations are denied the protection of the law because of race and class. They are criminalized based on their identities rather than on anything they have actually or will ever do. Being a member of a gang or being suspected of or simply assumed to be a gang member criminalizes a person, and this criminalization results in a lack of public sympathy, harsher sentences, and the reinforcement (perpetuation?) of racism, classism, sexism, etc. The fact that being an “illegal alien” basically means you are an illegal person means that no matter what you do or don’t do, you are a criminal. Part of me wants to say, “Well, shouldn’t there be regulations/laws about coming into a country/crossing a border?” And I’m sure that many people have that reaction; it seems logical and legitimate, but it isn’t because of the ways movement in general is constricted, because movement within the “system” is a privilege. When we say we want to regulate who crosses the border—and really, we mean the U.S.-Mexican border most of the time probably—we’re saying we want to regulate how many people of color come into the U.S. We don’t care how many white people come here. Or if we do, I’m unaware of it.

 “Cultural differences” are blamed for why some groups fare better than others, as though that alone can explain it, and also for why some people, who are representative of their group (it seems) behave the way they do. Cultural difference as an explanation both “normalizes and abnormalizes” not only the violence committed by Southeast Asian gangs, but also, really, all of the behavior of marginal racial groups, especially if they’re from a lower class/working class background. Nothing is the result of systemic oppression or the neoliberal global economy or etc; it’s all because of “cultural differences.” “Immigrant rights” and “civil rights” are basically the same thing in that both are seeking the legal protection and enfranchisement of marginalized groups, specifically people of color. (Because what white immigrants are in need of immigrant rights?) Arguing that they are unrelated struggles seems to just pit the marginalized against one another and obscure the real problems.

The aftermath of 9/11 and “war on terror” changed the way the U.S. looks at illegality, with Hispanics receiving more sympathy, especially in the early days after 9/11. They were/are seen as doing whatever it takes to live in the U.S., which is used to illustrate the power of the American Dream and that living in the U.S., under any circumstances, is better than living anywhere else. So, people/groups who would have been criminalized and stigmatized before were/are lauded as patriots. At the same time, Muslins and people from the Middle East are stigmatized and subject to intense scrutiny. Their movement is policed. They must constantly make clear, to reassure society and the legal system, that they are not terrorists.