Systemic Racism

There are often upsetting numbers thrown about regarding the disproportionate number of African Americans incarcerated compared to Caucasian Americans. The when you add in the numbers/percentages of other minorities, the picture is even more disturbing. It s easy to argue that socio-economic status is the cause (lack of money leads to lack of good defense leads to increased chances of incarceration). It is becoming increasingly apparent that the disparity in these numbers may also be due directly to racism.

More disturbing is the idea that crimes may have a decreased response from law enforcement if it is a crime against a minority. Again SES could be blamed, but the widespread nature of it suggests that it too could be due to  systemic racism.

It could be that the history if segregation in our country, which legally ended in 1967 but continues via ghettos, is also continued in the culture of the justice system. Disturbing, but this could lead to a culture of racism in the justice system that could be conscious or subconscious. This coupled with the people who are actively racist explains the racism in our justice system. 

Women, Infants, and Children

Women, Infants, and Children is a program that formally began in 1972 as an addendum to the 1966 Child Nutrition Act. It provides for the nutritional needs of pregnant and post-partum women, children under age 5, and infants, found to be at risk for malnutrition. The risk is usually attributed to lack of finances sometimes in combination with a medical condition.

WIC is a rare breed of government programs, one that anticipated the needs of the population. Obviously malnutrition was an issue at the time tat the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 and then WIC came about, but this program also has grown as a greater percentage of households are single-parent. Today more than 25% of all families are considered single-parent. Many regions, including Washington D.C., report the majority of the single-parent households to have women parents. In 1960 only 15% of women with young children even worked outside of the home. Today, be it for necessity or for a career, more than 50% of all mothers of young children work outside the home.

The ability of women to separate from abusive situations is a positive effect of the increased social acceptance of the single-parent home, and this acceptance undoubtedly improves women’s lives. Part of this acceptance is due to the goals of the Women’s Liberation Movement. However great it is that single mothers no longer bear a Scarlet Letter in the U.S.A., it is still a reality that it can often take weeks for a postpartum mother be able to return to work, yet not working risks their very means of survival. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty about 60% of single parent households are considered low-income. This makes these families dependent on the nutrition provided by WIC.

WIC is found in every state, commonwealth, Native American Nation, etc. WIC was cut $500 million in the national budget cuts. Below are a few stories about how that is affecting the population in various regions.

Idaho

Illinois

Massachusetts


Maryland

Ohio

New York

Texas

Sex Trafficking

The subject of sex trafficking is not one for the cocktail parties or for casual conversation. This is partially because it is so horrendous, and partially because it often seems ignored in the media next to stories of Trumps bid on the presidency. Sex trafficking has the feel of something that happens in a far off place like a nightmare, not a mere continent or mile away. 

In a recent report from the Washington Times, the Project Meridian Foundation states that over $1.6 million children are in the US sex trade. The Project Meridian Foundation website states that child sex trafficking grosses $42.5 to $200 billion a year. Why such a big gap? Because it is impossible to get exact numbers from this deeply underground criminal world. 

The Children of the Night recovery center for child prostitutes in California is discussed in the Washington Times article.  Disturbingly closer to home is the fact that a certain Alexander Rivas was arrested by Alexandria, Va, police for prostituting a 14 year old girl and running a prostitution ring. So where is the Children of the Night equivalent in Northern Va?

I couldn’t find it. Yes Alexandria houses the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and  DC The Polaris Project, and  Restoration Ministries (also DC), but none of them seemed to be doing the rehabilitative work that Children of the Night are doing. 

It seems likely that there is no Children of the Night for the DC region, even though The Polaris Project lists us as one of the highest call in areas in the country.  It is bad enough that the abusers are getting away with their crimes, but worse is that the victims may end up in a jucvenille hall rather than a rehab facility. Jailing these children will only damage them further. 

Hate Crimes

It is a sad truth that U.S. history is enmeshed with hate crimes. One can argue that the pilgrims fled Europe and the hate felt towards them, and that turned into perpetrators of such hate by taking land from the Native Americans, etc, until we get to what is often considered the resolute pinnacle of anti-hate legislation in the U.S.: The 1969 Federal Hate Crimes Law.

 

Though the 1969 Federal Hate Crime Law was a huge step in the right direction, it was by no means the end of hate in the U.S. Unfortunately, crimes continued to be perpetrated under the monstrous mask of one group being superior to another, as is demonstrated by what happened to many victims, including Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr.

Eleven years later, the Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Obama in 2009. The law had to be piggy-backed on a defense spending bill in order to reach the president’s desk due to its extensive opposition.

The majority of those in opposition to this bill came from the Republicans. Some Republicans claim they are opposed to the bill because they feel all hate crime laws favors some victims over others. Other Republicans claim they support the 1969 Federal Hate crime Law, which would then invalidate the previous argument, but do not support hate crime laws against traits that are “immutable” Others feel hate-crime laws threaten freedom of speech.

The Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act makes crimes committed against others due to their gender, gender identification, sexual orientation or disability, all hate crimes.

Time has yet to tell if the Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act will cause a decrease in hate crimes, including those against homosexuals, across the U.S. A subtext of this law requires the FBI to keep statistics on hate crimes. This will help us understand what may decrease hate crimes in the future.

Looking at some of the FBI’s most recent statistics from 2009, I was surprised by the striking cliché of the numbers. Let me explain that these numbers are cliché in that they are against minority groups historically disliked; a dislike I naively believed we were done with as a society. Of the 4,000 racially motivated crimes, 2,900 were against African-Americans. Of the 1,500 crimes done to people of religion, 1,100 were done to Jewish people.

Perhaps our society uses prejudice to express a solidarity that is lacking in our heterogeneous population. This type of solidarity is solid like a tumor, and though at first it may seem to bring people together in the long run it will act as a cancer and eat holes in society. The FBI statistics reflect a trend that is not new or (I fear) possibly even dying out. It is not something that is influenced by popular trends but by deep-rooted fears feeding a deadly intolerance of the type that has toppled societies for centuries.

Milgram Experiment Redo

The original Milgram Experiment took on a terrifying side of humanity. The experiment sought to explain what motivates an average person to take part in, or passively allow, mass atrocities like the Holocaust. Milgram’s haunting conclusion was sharp in its simplicity: They did it because someone told them to.


Milgram reported that 2/3 of his study’s participants thought they electrically shocked another human being at the highest possible voltage in response to the eerie line from the social scientist, “The study requires that you continue.”




It seems the question of would humanity behave the same way in a repeat experiment was a question that Dr. Jerry Burger, of Santa Clara University, decided to try and answer. He repeated the Milgram Experiment, with a few tweaks. Primary changes were that participants could not be led to believe the fake electrical shocks went above 150 volts, and he tried to make it very clear that participants could leave at any time.


Burger obtained similar results to Milgram. It does seem that Burger’s experiment was at least a little more ethical. Probably more so than the French game show equivalent where, study participants thought they were on TV, not in a social science experiment. Even the audience was full of unknowing study participants, not actors. The game show experiment found that, encouraged by the crowd, the game show contestants “shocked” another person 80% of the time (the recipient of the “shocks” was an actor).

It makes sense that some level of deferment to authority and mob mentality must be present in order to have a cohesive society. The challenge is to figure out where that cohesiveness ends and personal responsibility starts. At some point in the future we may be able to encourage free will without fear of anarchy. For now, it is the fear of anarchy that makes the line between free will and mob mentality so hard for people to navigate.

Television's Influence

Similarities:

Both the Zimbardo and the Milgram experiments sought to demonstrate an individual's capacity for, and/or ambivalence towards, hurting another human being when placed in a position of power.

Ramifications:

In the Zimbardo Experiment (a.k.a. the Stanford Prison Experiment) some of the young men playing prisoners had mental breakdowns.

No similar reports of mental issues following the Milgram Experiments were reported. 

The Zimbardo Experiment claims that it displays that the very structure of prisons denotes violent behavior.

The Milgram Experiments claims to display that people are likely to obey authority even if it means hurting another human being.

Ethics:

The mere fact that anyone had mental issues at the hands of a psychologist screams unethical. That is exactly what happened in the Zimbardo experiment.

For the Milgram Experiments one can only assumed there were psychological ramifications for the participants (if one believes that there are [psychological ramifications for hurting another human being which the “teacher” participants were led to believe they did).

How Successful:

Both experiments seem possibly skewed towards results the experimenters wanted.

Zimbardo's very verb usage implies he was biased against the guards. Using statements such as "warned of their Miranda rights" opposed to "given their Miranda rights" makes the guards seem more threatening. 

Milgram sought to understand how something like the concentration camps in Nazi Germany came to pass. Although he did stumble upon some unconscionable attributes of human nature, the experiment does seem to disregard historical context of the rise of the Nazis.

My Conclusion About These Experiments: 

Both reminded me a bit of the experiments Henry Murray, a Harvard psychology professor, performed on a group of students, including a then teenage Ted Kaczynski.

If any of the participants, in any of the above experiments, knew what they were signing up for, would they have done so? Kaczynski said he would not have.

 Experiment I would Perform:

Since I am against most animal testing, I am invariably against human testing. Though I think Ted Kaczynski was predisposed to become the UnaBomber, I also believe it is possible that Murray’s experiment pushed him over the edge. The presentation of Kaczynski’s paranoid schizophrenia did not have to take such a dramatically violent turn.

If I were to do an experiment I would like to not have it be geared towards negativity, if that is possible. Maybe grab two strangers off the street and hand one $2 and present the option of giving one-dollar to the other person. Then, of course, both would have to fill out basic demographic info. Maybe it could be used to determine which socioeconomic strata are most likely to share, or if people with kids are more likely to share, etc. Maybe an experiment geared towards having results that reflect the good in people would find positive things in human nature.

At the minimum this experiment could be done indifferent manner making the results less likely to be skewed.