Most recent public comments by Julie;Julianna Zink https://nowcomment.com/users/28003 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735696 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735696 I'm not sure if we have talked about this in class yet, but your comments remind me of the concept of equating "urban communities" with "black communities". The subtlety of the language can have huge effects of perceptions of black communities, especially when urban communities are portrayed as inherently dangerous, drug ridden, and undesirable. Words like these can have hidden but strong effects of public opinions and biases and can easily be exploited by politicians and people in power for either personal gain or to fulfill racist vendettas. Wed, 12 Apr 2017 21:27:02 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735695 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735695 When comparing North Korea and the US, the US is perceived as being light years ahead of North Korea in terms of justice and human rights. However, the point you make here about convicts becoming "slaves of the state", as well as Alexander's idea that once someone is convicted of a crime they enter a Jim Crow system, highlights the huge lack of justice in the American justice system. We like to think everyone has a fair chance to be tried and given justice, but obviously this is untrue. Not only may the public be racist in convicting individuals through a jury, but even when a jury isn't racist, the structure of the justice system will ensure that a black criminal earns as little justice as possible. Wed, 12 Apr 2017 21:23:10 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735694 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735694 This is a bit more generalized, but what everyone is saying reminds me of the belief some people hold that poor people are poor because they are lazy. This is a dehumanizing belief that functions to keep poor people low down on the social and economic scale by attributing their poverty to their character. To me, it seems to be similar to the argument that Native Americans and African Americans are "uncivilized" and therefore don't deserve or even need human rights. By saying the poor are lazy, it allows the higher-up populations to justify their oppression of and lack of assistance for the poor. Wed, 12 Apr 2017 21:13:31 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735692 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735692 I think that part of what Alexander is getting at here is the fact that people may use Obama's success at being the first black president as a way to brush off suggestions that racism and racist institutions still exist. This idea, "black exceptionalism" as Alexander calls it, is connected to our class discussion of individuals like Oprah and LeBron James being used to represent upward mobility for African Americans. These unique and relatively rare success stories may actually be detrimental to conceptions of upward mobility because they seemingly prove its existence, when, in reality, upward mobility is not readily available to African American citizens. Wed, 12 Apr 2017 20:53:46 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735689 https://nowcomment.com/documents/76206?scroll_to=735689 This brings me back to the beginning of this excerpt where Alexander says that, even as a civil rights lawyer, it took her a while to understand and accept the new racial caste system. Her initial reaction was that anyone saying that "The Drug War is the new Jim Crow" would be considered crazy. I wonder then if this is part of the reason that no one seems to be fighting mass incarceration at the scale they should be. Is it because the Jim Crow nature of these incarcerations is too hard to accept? Would it be acknowledging a huge lack of progress that we would rather not see? I wonder what other sorts of reactions people had to this lack of action devoted to criminal justice reform. Thu, 13 Apr 2017 10:42:56 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668464 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668464 I agree, this is a very interesting and important idea. Creative freedom of portraying fictional characters allows the show to explore multiple different perspectives and biases when considering the same event. Wed, 01 Feb 2017 19:20:33 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668462 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668462 This description of the decent, "churchgoing, brave" etc., people in The Wire made me think of D'Angelo's mother. The scene where she brings him food in a rare moment where we see tenderness between family members who seem to care for one another, outside of "the game." However, we later find out that she lives in an apartment that is financed by Avon, which means that although she is a nurturing mother and a presumably good person, she is still undeniably tied to the game. Thu, 02 Feb 2017 00:24:02 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668459 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668459 I also found this paragraph to be very interesting. Specifically, the way Simon describes all lives under capitalism as being worth less makes me think about how Simon seems to give each of his characters equal value, and does not place the cops above the drug dealers as many crime shows do. Wed, 01 Feb 2017 19:14:21 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668440 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668440 It is interesting to consider who makes "moral compromises" in the Wire, and for what. Obviously Bodie and Poot are morally compromised when they have to murder their childhood friend. These moral compromises are evident, but some others in the show are more nuanced. For example, when Griggs wakes up from her coma after being shot and chooses not to identify Wee-Bey as one of her shooters when she didn't actually see him, viewers are left to wonder what exactly motivated this decision to remain "moral." Does she want to "do the right thing" or is she trying to play "the game" a certain way? Wed, 01 Feb 2017 21:36:30 -0500 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668436 https://nowcomment.com/documents/70146?scroll_to=668436 Despite this one major difference between the Sopranos and the Wire (that episodes of the Sopranos are more of less contained and that episodes of the Wire build upon one another) I have really enjoyed observing the similarities between the two shows. They both portray complex family dynamics, status with regard to age, merit related to time served in "the game," and other similarities. I find it interesting to consider the implications of these similarities being played out across two different races, (white) Italian Americans in the Sopranos, and African Americans in The Wire. What do the similarities and differences between the shows have to say about the statuses and perceptions of the two different groups? Wed, 01 Feb 2017 18:56:52 -0500