Protect who? Shelter who? Teach who?
Reevaluating the effectiveness of American institutions
When we define support systems, policy, etc, the necessity to speak up about social issues, barriers, and constructs is becoming increasingly more important. When examining this phenomena from an institutional standpoint, we can look and see that a large part of the failure of institutions to support the needs of everyone is because of a lack of knowledge, representation, and understanding of multiple perspectives/experiences for the people interacting with these institutions. With this in mind, and in a time where socialism seems to be slowly becoming a more futuristic option for the United States despite contention from many, one cannot help but concern themselves with the importance of social reform and the ability of institutions to account for experiences of people in gendered, racial, and economically subordinated groups. In the United States, historically and present day, institutions/initiatives that are often thought of as being for the better of communities often project subordination of these groups.
Kimberly Crenshaw’s work outlines an outstanding point about the problems that arise when you attempt to place any institutions of “support” within Black and Brown communities without any explicit attention to the intersectional identities of the people you will be serving. In her article, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color impacted by violent crime in the United States” Crenshaw speaks of the failed efforts of shelters, and other specific support systems aimed at helping women to truly meet the needs of women of color because of their unique experiences within institutional frameworks. She states:
“Where systems of race, gender, and class domination converge, as they do in the experiences of battered women of color, intervention strategies based solely on the experiences of women who do not share the same class or race backgrounds will be of limited help to women who because of race and class face different obstacles” (1991).
The relevance of Crenshaw’s work becomes increasingly important in a world that claims to be actively working against its racist, sexist, classist tendencies.
She then goes on to give an example of this phenomena through our government in 1990. Congress’s failed recognition of the experiences of immigrant women when revising “the marriage fraud provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act to protect immigrant women who were battered or exposed to extreme cruelty by the United States citizens or permanent residents” (1991). According to Crenshaw, under the marriage fraud provisions of the act, immigrant women were required to have been “properly married” in the United States at least two years before they were allowed to apply for permanent residency. During this time both spouses were required to apply for this residency. This provision led to many immigrant women having to choose between abusive marital situations and potential deportation. When the U.S. tried to apply a waiver for this requirement in the event of domestic abuse, Crenshaw notes that this waiver failed to also take into account the unique experiences of immigrant women of color who commonly lack access to proper resources that would affirm they had experienced such domestic violence such as witness accounts or medical access; language barriers, cultural barriers, and other social phenomena also contribute to such problem. Overall, we begin to see the problem with intervention strategies and initiatives. Reform of any institution without active acknowledgement/accountability for intersectionality often perpetuates inequities of systemic oppressions rather than correcting them.
The reinforcement of these identities being subordinated becomes extremely linked to similar failures of the United State to address specific concerns within the experiences people have interacting with institutions. Let’s take, for example, the workplace. In the United States, people of color are incredibly taxed with the burden of emotional labor (Wharton, 2009). Emotional labor refers to the process by which people must control their feelings to fulfill their job and maintain professional demeanor in their positions. Social psychology tells us that recurring instances of invalidating one’s identities evokes negative emotions. For people of color in the workplace, there is a constant struggle between the battle against stereotypic perceptions of ineptness/ lack of professionalism (Bobo and Fox, 2003), and fulfillment of one’s position. When we factor in the micro and macro aggressions that are targeted toward Black bodies daily, this becomes very concerning; particularly because there are very rarely times where a racially charged incident is given justice or spoken out about properly. This derives in large part from the stereotyping of Black people as angry, which often silences them due to potential institutional protocols which may see them fired for such (Evans and Moore, 2015). Overall, the lack of institutional backing becomes very beneficial to those who perpetrate such actions toward Black bodies as Black people are made often to “deal” with their negative feelings on their own, which can have significant cognitive impacts. The same case goes for the dynamics of men and women in the workplace. Women are subjected to second class employees as they experience sexual harassment, degrading expectations, lack of credit, etc that also factor into their experiences as people of color and further the amount of emotional labor being done. The labor done by Black women in these instances becomes almost unfathomable
These findings definitely made me think a lot more about other institutions which do not keep accountability or attention on significant differences in experiences based on intersectionality and how they may be harmful. While the school system, prison industrial complex, etc, came to mind, Flashbacks of a cold, winter night stood out most.
“Nah, that don’t feel right, b.”
These words hurt me in a way that is still hard to articulate when they came out of my long time friend Prince Randy Eastman’s mouth when I told him to call the police during a high speed chase from attempted robbers in my neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY.
It was a regular Saturday night in this COVID-19 plagued world. I was driving up Smith street in a rental car on my way to get some food with my friends Prince and Chy (Preferred not to give her full name) and then head back to my apartment to watch movies. The aura of the evening was thrown off before it even began as a speeding Black car almost hit us coming from behind. Luckily, I was able to evade, but was met at a red light. The both of us rolled down our windows and exchanged words; typical New York road rage. However, the situation quickly escalated when as the greenlight came, I was cut off by his car. My friend Prince and I began to brace ourselves as he walked over to the car, he seemed to be by himself.
We learned very quickly that we had made a big mistake. The man approached my side of the car screaming “oh you have money?” and suddenly four other men rolled out of the car in a cinematic mafia fashion. The driver began grabbing at his waist and his friends quickly ran back to the car. Knowing they had a gun on them, I decided it was time to go. I reversed down a two lane, one way street, and began driving with skill even I was surprised I had. The robbers quickly jumped back in the car and began chasing me. As we swerved through traffic my heart pumped out of my chest. I ran every red light I could and stepped on the petal like it was a balloon I wanted to pop.
“What should we do?” I asked Prince.
“They’re right behind us,” Chy signaled.
“Bro, maybe we should call the police?” I signaled to Prince to grab my phone.
“Nah, that don’t feel right, b.” Prince exhaled with his hands on the dashboard.
While the robbers did manage to get to the car and try to break the windshield, I was ultimately able to evade and lose them.
Whenever I tell my friends at college this story I am usually met with complete outrage over Prince’s decisions. People tell me I should’ve just done it myself, or ran the guys over.
As someone who grew up with Prince, however, I understand why he didn’t want to call the cops; I felt my stomach turn even being the person who made the suggestion.
Following up with Prince on February 21st of 2021, we reflected about the experience and specifically the reasons why he felt the way he did in this situation.
“The police never did nothing to keep me safe. I grew up feeling like everyone around me was hated by the police; like they’d lock us up or hurt us if they ever got the chance. They fear the people I grew up around. If I was around White people my whole life maybe I’d feel a little different, but the police see me, a young, Black man from Brownsville and automatically think I’m a threat” Prince stated.
Growing up in Brooklyn, Prince learned the harsh reality of police violence far too young.
“Thing is, I grew up seeing people do crime to survive. We were looked at as enemies. The police never actually help. Anytime I ever seen one of my friends ask the police for help, they asked them questions probing them, like they did something wrong themselves. Police don’t stop crime, they just harass us. If I’d seen them actually help Black people from my hood before, maybe I would’ve done it.”
The sentiment Prince has is not one he holds alone. When speaking with my friend Vivian, a Black Woman from Brooklyn, she explained that she never felt like the police protected her and her body the way they do white women.
“Black women get accused of lying about their experiences of abuse and trauma… I’ve never felt like a policeman would feel the urgency to protect me if I needed it.”
Amongst most of my Black and Brown friends and relatives, the consensus seems to be that police never actually make our communities safer; instead, they police us! The experiences Prince has feeling criminalized automatically for being a Black man and the experiences of Vivian feeling like she is not as deeply protected as white women become exemplary of the same concerns Crenshaw has. The police as an institution fail to meet the needs of people with intersectional identities.While the institution of police may be a comforting feeling for those growing up in more affluent communities, this is not the case for those that live in low income communities. While police may make some people feel like their protection is their number 1 concern, for those who bare the weight of Black and Brown bodies, the implicit biases against them diminish these feelings. Black women’s experiences of being sexualized, having their feelings diminished, and being ignored shows the same problems.
The lack of safety Prince felt to call the police in a situation where his life was in danger makes one question what their real purpose is? Likewise, the experiences of Vivian show that while Black women may not have the same exact interactions with the police as Prince, her experience still holds the same sentiment; the police do not keep us safe.
However, these unsafe feelings are not surprising. Prince, like many other Black men from low income neighborhoods, has acknowledged the truth about the police system which fails him. Because of the lack of account for the racial and socioeconomic biases that contribute to the discretion of an officer to criminalize you, the police system fails an entire race of people in the United States. Factoring in Gender, this becomes an even more complex dynamic. But what else is new?
Thinking ahead, one could only hope to continue toward a more egalitarian approach to forming these institutions that would be more incorporative of the needs of all, and actively pursue the intersectional identities that create specific problems/ experiences for people in subordinated groups. However, the development of such an approach becomes contingent upon the job of smaller and bigger actors of change to simultaneously develop a movement for complete dismantling of the racist, patriarchal, classist frameworks that exist at the cusp of every American institution.
When we speak of the possibility of changing institutions to better serve those who are not White or male, the reality becomes that no amount of reform will change the foundations of racism, sexism, classism, etc that are deeply rooted in support institutions like the police force. Instead, we must push for the dismantling of such institutions, and a call for new forms of protecting our communities that are incorporative of the unique experiences people have with figures like law enforcement. This is largely in line with sentiments to defund the police and begin investing into things that are going to make people’s lives easier, not just continue a cycle that has existed since the beginning of history when it relates to cops.
However, in a boiling pot like the United States that is not only dependent on the money it makes from criminalizing Black bodies, but is led by forces that have deep, internalized -isms, one could only think, is such a proposal possible under capitalism? Is such a radical call for change ever actually possible?
