Postmodernity and Oppressed Groups

Nabil Marshood, Ph.D. Professor of Sociology Hudson County Community College

Presented at 41st Annual Conference, 2015 EAST COAST COLLEGES SOCIAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION About me

Social consciousness Fulbright research Narrative of the invisible man Give voice to the voiceless Sociology is supposed to make people uncomfortable Some Questions 1. After the many accomplishments of the Civil Rights movement, why are young black men still targeted and killed by the police? And, why do they constitute the largest share of the prison population in the U.S.? 2. After more than 400 years, why do Native Americans remain trapped in reservations and isolated from the rest of the nation? 3. After more than 60 years, why do remain trapped in refugee camps? 4. Why do black and minority ghettos remain standing in the United States? 5. Why are Palestinians angry? Why don’t we hear their story? And, why don’t we believe them? 6. Why don’t we hear about or from the Native Americans? 7. What is behind the blind U.S. support of Israeli attacks on the Palestinians and their property? Oppression

• Minority Groups are Oppressed Groups. They experience double consciousness, liminality and oppression • To oppress refers to the act of pressing down, to flatten and to construct a reality of essentialism. It is an act of repression, of tyrannizing and coercing the other. It is an act that also includes subjection and domination. Said differently, oppression is designed to strip the oppressed from their humanity and render them invisible. The classic novel Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison makes the link between oppression and invisibility so very real and undisputed. • Oppression is a multidimensional construct. It is both cultural and structural. For oppression to be operative, there must exist structures that would make its cultural manifestation possible. Sherman Alexie https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/236x/48/a1/91/48a191202299b93d0e0712c3c3e96b90.jpg My Question

As social transformation is ongoing, and as we have entered the postmodern era, what happens to oppressed/minority groups? Objectives Short Term 1. Address the gap in the literature about this topic 2. Examination of the narratives of three oppressed communities from different parts of the world illuminates the structural conditions of oppression in this era. Long Term Examine the dynamics of power between dominant and subordinate groups in the postmodern era by applying a socio-historical content, of the power structure and oppression. The long-term goal of such an exploration is to highlight a genealogy of knowledge about oppression. Method

1. Critical Review of Data and Literature 2. Examination of facts on the ground of three oppressed groups: • Native Americans • African Americans • Palestinians Their similar experiences and the convergent history have never been thoroughly examined. Selected Literature • Max Weber on power • John Stuart Mill on oppression • Gramsci on Hegemony • Edward Said on orientalism, colonialism and permission to narrate • Foucault on oppression, power and institutions • Giddens and other sociologists on postmodernity • Michelle Alexander, Cornel West, Bell Hooks, Ilan Pappe • Howard Zinn on People’s history • Robert Putnam on bowling alone • Richard Sennett on the fall of public man • Charles Derber on the Wilding of America Postmodernity: Selected Features 1. Globalization and international capitalism 2. Fragmentation and theology of the Non-person (Eduardo Mendiata) 3. Decline of intimate social institutions – Family, Education, (Religion?) 4. Ethnic differentiation and the rise of identity politics 5. Rise of state power and hegemony: Militarization and the blending of the prison industrial complex with the military industrial complex 6. Colonialism changed its face - Expansion of the empire 7. Weak solidarity and lack of empathy 8. Language of tolerance and exclusion 9. Uncertainty about the truth and illusion about reality 10. The Silent Generation Postmodernity: New Forms of Alienation Floating in space and hooked to their electronic gadgets without solid anchors Not Grounded: Swept away from History, Land, and Progress Militarization of the American Society http://www.constitutioncampaign.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/copmorph.jpg http://media.vocativ.com/photos/2014/05/Militarization-Of-Police- Riot-Units-05840340742.jpg How Cops Became Soldiers In her new book, sociologist Lesley J. Wood examines how law enforcement officials increasingly employ military-style tactics and technologies to deal with protests and everyday crime http://www.vocativ.com/usa/justice-usa/cops-became-soldiers/ New Colonialism Different culture, same structure Culture 1. Cultural “tolerance” and indirect control of governments 2. Illusion of individual freedom. No group liberation Structure 1. Control of Land and Resources 2. The United States is in control with NATO 3. Military presence of more than 1000 bases in 191 countries (Global Research: Center for Research on Globalization, 2014) 4. Global corporations and economic control 5. Beneficiaries: The West and allied nations Urban Ghetto, USA Native American Reservations Native American Holocaust Hottps://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e2/95/fb/e295fb8e75f500d6a233d52c88d17560.jpg Obama's Indian problem http://www.theguardian.com/global/2010/jan/11/native-americans-reservations-poverty-obama Vine Deloria Jr. (1969). CUSTER DIED FOR YOUR SINS:AN INDIAN MANIFESTO • One of the finest things about being an Indian is that people are always interested in you and your "plight." Other groups have difficulties, predicaments, quandaries, problems, or troubles. Traditionally we Indians have had a "plight." (p.1) • The more we try to be ourselves the more we are forced to defend what we have never been. (p. 2) Palestine Loss of Land "Israeli impunity has gone so far now that they think they can do whatever, with whoever, and they don't consider Palestinians even human, according to how they treat them now.“ (Dr Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian surgeon working in Gaza in the operating rooms of the Shifa hospital.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzIf7Bk8CHM Published on Dec 20, 2014 (Talk to - Mads Gilbert: 'People are questioning Israel‘) Forced Removal Palestinian Refugees, 1948 The refugee camps which sprung up in 1948 became permanent residences in exile BBC © 2014 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle- east-11104284 (Retrieved, Sept. 27, 2014) Palestinian Refugee Camp, Al Hussain, Jordan, 2006 Convergent History: Native Americans, African Americans and Palestinians Some features they share • Forced removal from their ancestral land • Colonialization – domestic and international • Dispossession from their property • Essentialism, negative stereotypes and discrimination • Segregation, poverty and isolation • Social and political fragmentation Convergent History: Native Americans, African Americans and Palestinians (Cont.) • Political and economic marginalization • Imprisonment • Denial and/or rejection of their political and/or human rights • Suppression of their resistance by force and propaganda • Cultural extermination • The US has and continues to play a major role in the oppression of these communities, in promoting violence against them, in denying them the right of self-determination, and in the suppression of their narrative. Obama about Native Americans

“Few have been more marginalised and ignored by Washington for as long as Native Americans, our first Americans. You were told your lands, your religion, your cultures, your languages were not yours to keep. I know what it means to feel ignored and forgotten, and what it means to struggle.“ (McGreal 2010) You are Invited

• Write a statement to the African Americans • Write a statement to the Palestinians A Statement to the African Americans

“You were forced to leave your homeland. You were shackled and transported on board of slave ships over the oceans. You were sold in the market to the highest bidder to slave for your owner for eternity. You were forced to change your name, your language, your religion and to take on the features of your slave master. You had no control over your destiny and were called nigger, Negro and a person of color.” A Statement to the Palestinians

“Your nation was colonized by Europeans who gave your land away to other Europeans. They forced you out of your homes and property. Your land became theirs to enjoy and left you out homeless and stateless in the desert. They put you in camps and forced you into years of imprisonment. They called you a terrorist and killed your family. They insulted your religion and culture and stripped you of your humanity.” Relevant Research

• Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow • Cornel West: Class division • Bell Hooks: Decolonization and liberation • Ilan Pappe: Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine • Sherman Alexi on the native Americans • Vine Deloria Jr.: AN INDIAN MANIFESTO Michelle Alexander

“What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with the language we use to justify it.” (2010, p.2) Ideology of Expansion

• The US : Manifest Destiny • Israel: Fated People Quotes: Moshe Dayan about Israel At a Kibbutz across from Gaza (1956)

"Before their [the Palestinians in Gaza] very eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived. This is the fate of our generation, the choice of our life – to be prepared and armed, strong and tough – or otherwise, the sword will slip from our fist, and our life will be snuffed out.“ (Avnery 2008) Quotes: Moshe Dayan about Israel After the occupation of the Golan Heights (1968) "We are fated to live in a permanent state of fighting against the Arabs for the hundred years of the Return to Zion we are working for two things: the building of the land and the building of the people That is a process of expansion, of more Jews and more settlements That is a process that has not reached the end. We were born here and found our parents, who had come here before us. It is not your duty to reach the end. Your duty is to add your layer to expand the settlement to the best of your ability, during your lifetime … (and) not to say: this is the end, up to here, we have finished.“(Avnery 2008) Resistance or Movement?

• “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” – resistance and submission • The Occupy Movement – labeled as terrorists • Militarization of the state and blending of the prison industrial complex with the military industrial complex • Suicide, drug addiction, alcoholism, homicide, suicide bombers Hypotheses 1. A decline of intimate social institutions and their authority leads to a decline in informal control, and consequently to a rise in formal control by the state. 2. Increased militarization of the state is associated with mass incarceration and the rise of the prison industrial complex. A blending of the military industrial complex and the prison industrial complex is more evident in the postmodern era. 3. Sharing the narrative of three oppressed communities is empowering and can set the stage for a new theoretical framework about oppression. 4. Weak solidarity reduces the chances for an organized transformative movement. An exchange between two African American Female Students in my Sociology of the Family Class Student A: I have a great relationship with my white boyfriend Student B: You are in love with your slave master Student A: No! Love is color blind Student B: You are wrong. By falling in love outside your race, you don’t preserve our heritage and culture. On Belonging

“As an African American, I have never felt I belong here.” Student

“A poor man is like a foreigner in his own country.” Ali ibn Abi Talib Thank You