Fumbo: who benefits from societal
order?
Interesting thoughts…on the male
control of the female body. Maybe to simply reduce the argument to ‘men
controlling the woman’s body’ is to pay scanty attention to the other rather pervasive
and equally important power players in society. Because when you think about
it, our bodies, yes both male and female, are subject to some sort of societal strictures.
It might as well be that the inhibitions placed on the female body are indeed
more pronounced but it doesn’t change the fact that Society would ‘flog’ me if I
paraded in my village square naked. So maybe we need to interrogate the basis
of societal order. Who stands to benefit more from a well ordered society with
conventions on even mundane matters like dressing? Where do we place political
and religious interests in all this? Do I hear someone say that it is even patriarchy
which stands behind these systems? But what of systems where females have
traditionally been very important power brokers? Can we not say that they are
also in that regard beneficiaries of a well ordered society of which the ‘control
of the body’ is but an aspect? I would love to hear your thoughts on where the ‘man’
stands in a matrilineal set-up…My point is, at the end of the day, we might as
well find ourselves concluding that in some instances it is the woman who
controls the male body! Quite outlandish, huh?
Of “us” and “others”…
On this I fully concur with you and I
have nothing useful to add. I posted on my FB wall a couple of weeks ago that
the “‘There is no chewa, tumbuka, sena but Malawian’ is a refrain of dubious
accuracy.” There is nothing objectionable with racial/ethnic [and whatever]
diversity. Heck! There is nothing we can do about being born Tumbuka, Chewa,,
black, brown etc is there? The problem arises when we use these differences to
disentitle others and to favour our own. I have always told ‘northerners’ who
agitate for cessation on the basis of discrimination that “ah just dare do that and you will soon see what will happen.
After the cessation Tumbukas will start discriminating against ngondes and
Tongas against lambyas and so on and so forth. Before we know it, every village
will be its own country if the solution to ethnic discrimination will be
cessation.” I would love to see how much this othering has set us backwards
as a people. We compromise on putting the right people in the right places
because they do not belong. We would rather an inept homeboy occupied the
office. Poor us…
“At what precise pace should a black man walk to avoid suspicion?”
I was watching Andersoon Cooper’s
Townhall Meeting Special on Race & Justice in the US yesterday July 18,
2013. This whole Trayvon Martin travesty feels me with a great sense of
frustration and anger. Let me start by acknowledging that it might as well be
the case that the case, merely looked at from its “merits” was correctly
decided. I believe it is the law in the US that if a jury entertains any doubt
about the culpability of the accused, then it must resolve the same in his
favour. In this case, we do have evidence that Zimmerman did in fact sustain
some injuries on the material day. We also know that there was someone between
the 2 of them who shouted for help. In other words there was some compelling
evidence to suggest that in the minutes leading up to his fatality, Trayvon was
in fact the aggressor. Now throw in Florida’s stand your ground law into the
mix and you really have a hopeless case as a prosecution. After all, we must
not allow ourselves to be blinded by our momentary anger to the fact that it is
for the State to prove the guilt of an accused. The bar to clear is rather high
in this regard. The evidence must be such as eliminates any reasonable doubt
from the jury/court’s mind. That can hardly be said to have been the case in
this case. Sadly, however, that’s not all that there is to the Trayvon travesty.
The criminal justice system is not simply an assemblage of rules, procedures
and system for enforcing a state’s penal laws. It also encompasses the
unwritten attitudes of the people who run it, from the penal lawmaker through
the cop who stops and frisks to a sentencing judge. It is informed by the policy
objectives of any given polity. And it is not value free. And because we
entrust it to human beings, they bring to it their prejudices and biases, both
acknowledged and subconscious. Now it is a notorious fact that a young black
man has got more chances of ending up in a penitentiary than he has of say a
community college. If you are black, you are more likely to be stopped by the
Police. You are more likely to be arrested. You are more likely to be shot by
the Police and you are more likely to be at the receiving end of a long
custodial sentence than would be the case if you were a white Defendant. Am saying
nothing new here. These are well researched observations. Now this is the
system that ‘processed’ Trayvon. You are right when you say that paper justice
was served here. Zimmerman had his day in court and he carried it. But we all know
better, don’t we? If Trayvon had been white and Zimmerman black….How I wish
this was a Stephen Lawrence moment for the US. But somehow, I just have a
depressing feeling it won’t be. Racism in the US is too institutionalized. It
is a centuries-old machine that may never be fully dismantled. But that of
course, is no excuse for failing to ask the tough questions. Again I must agree with you that paper justice
was served here. But we all know that the young man was screwed by the system…
