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Announcements. Questions on midterm study guide? For Tues  Bring BLANK blue book. Post-Racial Politics. The Death of Asian America?. Question 1. Why does Bedi argue that “law constructs race, and race shapes the criminal justice system”?. “law constructs race”.

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  1. Announcements • Questions on midterm study guide? • For Tues  Bring BLANK blue book

  2. Post-Racial Politics The Death of Asian America?

  3. Question 1 Why does Bedi argue that “law constructs race, and race shapes the criminal justice system”?

  4. “law constructs race” • Law and the legal system as primary mechanisms of racialization • Article 1 of US constitution • Three-fifths compromise  Black bodies as less than a person • Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 • Chinese immigrants as perpetual foreigners

  5. “race shapes the justice system” • Vincent Chin (1982) • “These aren’t the kind of men that you send to jail…” (Judge Kaufman) • Latasha Harlins & Soon Ja Du (1991) • "Did Mrs. Du react inappropriately? Absolutely. But was that reaction understandable? I think that it was.” (Judge Karlin) • Malice Green & Rodney King (1992) • “’[African Americans] are defined as criminals and crimes is defined as what [African American] people do’” (Bedi 187)

  6. Question 2 What are postracial politics? How are they potentially complicit in white supremacy?

  7. Postracial politics “This euphoria and his new message of hope and change have led some to characterize and interpret this as a ‘postracial’ era in which racial discrimination, hierarchies, inequities, and strife are simply erased. A racial barrier has been broken; however, given the legacy of our historical past and persisting racial disparities, reading this election as signifying the postracial era seems premature and disingenuous” (Vo 330)

  8. Postrace is not postracism • “the election of one of ‘us’ does not change the social realities for all or even the majority of ‘us’ given the systematic and pernicious entrenchment of racism in this country” (Vo 330) • “The error is when postrace is mistakenly conflated with postracism, so that the presence of a black family in the White House does not equate to the dissipation of embedded societal disadvantages” (Vo 331)

  9. Changing Race & Class Formations • “The fact that the Obama presidency is occurring simultaneously as the worse economic recession since the Great Depression is consequential” (Vo 332) • Displacement of white middle-class “removes the racial stigma from poverty” but obscures how communities of colors have been disproportionately affected • Black welfare queen of the 90s versus black First Family and Wall Street bail outs (333)

  10. Changing Social Movements • Sept 17, 2011 – mass protest in Zuccotti Park near Wall St • Main points of critique: • Increased disparity between rich and poor (1% vs 99%) • Deregulation and increased rights of corporations versus decreased bargaining power of workers (“Corporations are not people!”) • Austerity measures and slash to welfare programs versus big business bail outs (“Where’s my bail out?”)

  11. Question 3 Did coalitional politics fail in the Occupy Oakland movement? Why or why not?

  12. The Death of Asian America? • Jean Quan • Mayor of Oakland, former member of TWLF • Proof that postrace does not mean postracism • Oscar Grant • Jan 1, 2009 - shot by Bart police officer Johannes Mehserle who was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter & sentenced to 2 years • Renaming of Ogawa Plaza as Oscar Grant Plaza • “It was not hard to see the irony of an ‘occupy’ movement displacing a man of color with another man of color, both targets of different kinds of state violence.” (Kenji Liu)

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