The Scandal of White Complicity in US Hyper-incarceration

Reviewer: Dawn Nothwehr, Associate Professor of Ethics at Catholic Theological Union; Chairwoman of the Department of Historical and Doctrinal Studies, Director of the Certificate in Healthcare Mission Leadership. * A broad outline of the project Over all I think the intent of this proposal is very good. In the descriptions there are references to 'Hyper-incarceration of African Americans and Latinos.' It is also implicit in the language of the introductory materials that the authors desire to address this total reality - African Americans AND Latinos. If the authors wish to do both- then the proposal needs to be reworked in its entirety to truly address both. As it stands it is very uneven - especially if Mikulich's chapter represents the inclusion/lack of inclusion the authors' intent. For Latino/a insights on all of this I recommend to the authors the work: Carmen Nanko-Fernandez, theologizing en espanglish (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2010) and the other books in the Studies in Latino/a Catholicism series. * Critical analysis of its strengths and weaknesses In fact (see above) most of the descriptive material, especially Part II, but most blatantly chapter titles and content 1-4 name only 'Black man' and 'Blackness' (See pp.1-4 of the proposal). My biggest hesitation in recommending this proposal is that it calls for some very advanced engagement on the part of the reader both in terms of general awareness and comprehension of 'white privilege,' dynamics and concepts of cultural, religious and moral formation, and most certainly in the final chapter that focuses on spirituality. At the very least, the authors need to be explicit about whether this book is targeted at experts, graduate students, or undergraduates. I have strong hesitation about this text being all that useful for undergraduates. Most students at this level are just coming to basic awareness of racisms and whiteness as anything problematic at all, let alone moving to such a specialized area of study. (I find it very surprising that the authors think this material can be digested by undergraduates, when most theology departments don't even have basic courses on racial justice.) * A recommendation on whether it deserves to be: 1)published as it stands or with minor revisions; 2) resubmitted after reworking; or 3) rejected. Other important points to address are: * The quality and significance of the project Generally, Catholic theology and ethics has neglected both racism and the criminal justice system. I think this would be an excellent study for graduate students or experts. * Its originality and relation to existing works in the field There is no study that attempts to do this kind of integrative work with theology, ethics, and the social sciences. * Structure, organization, and presentation of the material If the authors wish to include undergraduates in this work - then more user-friendly charts, graphs, glossary, stories, photos, web-related interactive material should be included. * Recommendations for revision (please indicate whether these are fundamental to the project's success or discretionary issues that should not affect a publication decision. Please specifically mention if any sections should be cut or expanded) See above * Any problems regarding citations, terminology, accuracy, etc. In the Chapter 2 by Mikulich similar treatment and lack of clarity of focus (See above) - i.e. explicit treatment /absence of data on Latinos continues. 'People of color' seems to be used synonymously with reference to African Americans. But, then we find terms like 'Hispanic' and 'Latinos' are also used, but no explicit data is given. Also - use of these various names for peoples have particular histories and synonymous use is not advisable generally. Certainly at the very least, some kind of notation and definition of each is in order early in the volume, and then repeatedly referenced for the reader. Incidentally - throughout, the terms are inconsistently capitalized or not - as well. This needs to be remedied for credible reception of the author's otherwise important work. Generally Mikulich writes making rather broad claims, but then does not 'nail down' the exact citation of materials he seems to rely on.(This will be more or less problematic - depending on the audience.) Throughout his chapter, he makes several statements and then only after a half page or more we see a footnote - and then often it is to a wide range of pages, leaving the reader to search for where he actually is drawing the unoriginal thought. (See examples - p. 2 quote ending in Negro; p.6 - line 2 - ending in drug sentencing; p.8 - the discussion on the educative power of law - needs more explicit citation of foundational material that substantiates what Mikulich says here; p. 8 - the place in Haney Lopez that discusses 'natural' and scientific - needs exact page citation; p.8 sources for Hume, Kant, Hegel need explicit citations; pages 10-13 cases need explicit citation in the U.S. Legal Code or some kind of reference so the reader can check the case for Mikulich's reading of it; p. 12 - need explicit citation of the 'one drop of blood' law; p.17 sources in notes xx - xxi are rather dated - newer sources would be helpful here to see if trends are getting better or worse; Terms like 'unconscious racism' need explicit definition and source citation. * Timeliness and likely shelf-life of the research The data the authors raise provides evidence of the urgency of this issue. Often it is such very use of data that can limit the shelf-life of the text. Thus, that authors need to use references that can be accessed via ongoing periodic studies - government websites, NGOs that keep useful data, etc. so that later readers can compare the on-going validity of the author's claims. * Likely competition or comparable books NONE * Likely readership (what fields will it appeal to? what level is it written to?) See responses to other questions (above & below) * Potential use in courses (At what level? As primary or secondary reading?) The listing of courses the authors provide seem reasonable - yet, if they have not already done so, I would caution that they have extensive conversations with actual professors of such courses, and then that they write to that level. AUTHOR RESPONSE We are delighted to respond to the helpful critical insights of the first anonymous review of our book. If our previous book Interrupting White Privilege: Catholic Theologians Break the Silence responded to Reverend Bryan N. Massingale's call to moral theologians to shift from examination of 'race' to critical interrogation of our white participation in privilege, our new collaborative effort represents a shift from white privilege to critical examination of white complicity in the hyper-incarceration of African Americans and Latin@s. In terms accessible to undergraduates, our book links white benefiting from to the ways that whites contribute to the hyper-incarceration of African Americans and Latin@s. We agree with Carmen Nanko-Fernandez's critique of the U.S. Catholic Church and theologians: 'We are not your diversity, we are the Church!' The key point here is that by marginalizing African American, Asian and Pacific Island, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, and 'Migrants and Refugees' into 'Cultural Diversity in the Church' section of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Church reifies the way society lumps together, flattens, and denies the historical and cultural particularity of each of these groups, misses the diversity inside of these groupings, and hardens the normativity of a Eurocentric, white Church. This ecclesial ghettoization of racial and ethnic minorities erodes human dignity and underscores the need to examine the scandal of white complicity in the hyper-incarceration of black and brown members of the Church. Our book focuses on the white/black binary in the U.S. historical context for a reason. As Eduardo Bonilla-Silva and Bryan Massingale explain, among many others, current and future population trends point to the 'browning' or 'Latin-Americanization' of U.S. society. However, these authors warn that a U.S. racial hierarchy endures with whiteness at the top and black at the bottom. While whites disproportionately benefit in every sphere of life in the U.S. including health, education, income, wealth, housing, and the criminal justice system, whites simultaneously remain ignorant of, or justify, the fact that African Americans, more than any racial or ethnic group, bear the greatest burdens of substandard health care, inadequate education, declining income and wealth, and that they suffer the indignities of a system of incarceration that imprisons African American men at a rate higher than that of South Africa during apartheid. We will incorporate the latest Census Bureau and nongovernmental data sets and analyses to describe this reality. The social construction of valuing whiteness at the expense of people who are seen as black is the historical taproot of white racism in America. The 'watermark' of slavery that endures in U.S. society is the construction of white as beautiful, good, and moral in relationship to black as ugly, bad, and immoral. Although the actual historical formations of this binary have morphed throughout U.S. history, this dualism remains foundational to the social construction of U.S. reality. Moreover, the inability to contend with this history has created what psychologists term a knot, which means that as a church and society we are tied up in a binary that is continually replayed in language, culture, law, education, and the criminal justice and prison systems. As white people we are contending that the only way to loosen the knot is to address its causes. Our book is one such intervention to loosen this knot and create the possibility of moving beyond it. We contend that deconstructing the white/black binary in the structural and cultural formation of U.S. institutions is a constitutive dimension of our responsibility as white U.S. American Catholic theologians and ethicists. This is why our text begins, in the first part, by examining the social, economic, and historical processes that create a racial geographical divide that both shapes and is shaped by whiteness, and simultaneously nurtures fertile soil for hyper-incarceration in the ethical landscape of America, and then moves, in the second part of the book, to relate how the cultural reproduction of black criminality in the white mind constitutes a U.S. historical pattern repeated in the practices of contemporary culture and hyper-incarceration. Unbinding the white/black binary through interconnected analyses of structural and cultural processes is a condition of the possibility of alleviating massive unjust and unnecessary suffering of all peoples of colors. In other words, explicating how the white/black binary endures materially, geographically, and culturally in U.S. society is one condition of the possibility of overcoming the invisibility of Hispanics, Latin@s, Asians and Pacific Islanders, First Nation peoples, and many diverse newcomers to North America. We further contend that this critical interdisciplinary examination of white social location is necessary both to understand the complex contours of white complicity and to suggest a theology and spirituality of embodying the risk of white resistance to our complicity and hyper-incarceration. In other words, as Miguel de la Torre contends in Latin@ Social Ethics: Moving Beyond Eurocentric Moral Thinking, the starting point of theological ethics should not be abstract universals of the good, or virtue, or the divine. Rather, with Miguel de la Torre and many feminist, womanist, political, and liberationist theologians who inform our work, we agree that we must begin with a power analysis of our own complicity in white supremacy as a step toward becoming responsible with and for communities of color who disproportionately and unjustly suffer the brutality of hyper-incarceration. This book represents our contribution to a growing body of scholarship and scholars working to put theological ethics in context, so that we may yet engage and share in the work of a common struggle for liberation and transformation of society. REVIEW #2: M. Shawn Copeland, Associate Professor, Department of Theology, Boston College In the interests of full disclosure, I personally know the authors-Laurie best of all, Alex fairly well, and Margaret somewhat. I very much like these three ethicists, admire, and have encouraged their efforts to awaken white Americans-white Roman Catholics, in particular-to issues of race, racism, and white privilege, which aids and abets racism in both intentional and unintentional ways. 1. THE PROJECT AS A WHOLE: What is really good in the project as a whole is that it (1) identifies a real and scandalous problem-high rates of incarceration of blacks and Latinos in the US, (2) shows how U. S. culture (i.e., our meanings and values, common sense) produces images of black men, in particular, and (3) offers ways Christian approaches to address this in church and society. This is ethics or moral theology at its best. The authors' claim that the book would contribute to a major lacuna in Roman Catholic moral and theological reflection on race and racism is no exaggeration. Since Barbara Hilkert Andolsen wrote Daughters of Jefferson, Daughters of Boot Blacks: Racism and American Feminism (Mercer 1986) no substantial ethical monograph on race or racism from a U. S. Catholic perspective appeared until Bryan N. Massingale's Racial Justice and the Catholic Church (Orbis Books, 2010). U. S. Catholic moral theologians, ethicists, or political theologians, sadly, seem not to be interested in race or racism as a theological or ethical issue. While Cassidy and Mikulich edited Interrupting White Privilege: Catholic Theologians Break the Silence (Orbis, 2007), this new project enters deeply into the discussion on racism and concentrates on the impact of whiteness in (racist) culture and on public policies regarding incarceration. I can vouch for the authors' assessment of Mark Lewis Taylor's, The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America (Fortress, 2001). This is a fine contribution and I have taught this book, but, again and sadly, the topic of prisons, like that of racism, has not gained the scholarly attention of U. S. theologians (Catholic and Protestant). The spiraling rates of incarceration and overcrowding in prisons have been much in the news of late. Moreover, 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War; our remembrance is muted, we have never really reconciled and so do not know how to commemorate. The authors are careful not to draw a direct line from slavery to contemporary incarceration, but their analysis, especially in Chapter 1 and in proposed Chapter 3, displays the 'watermark' of slavery on the U. S. social imagi...