{"id":1712,"date":"2010-03-06T09:05:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-06T13:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/03\/06\/the-north-countrys-blind-side\/"},"modified":"2010-03-06T09:05:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-06T13:05:00","slug":"the-north-countrys-blind-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/03\/06\/the-north-countrys-blind-side\/","title":{"rendered":"The North Country’s ‘Blind Side’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
I’m always a little queasy about books and movies that portray white people ‘saving’ people of color.<\/p>\n

That’s the narrative in Sandra Bullock’s weeper ‘The Blind Side’ — up for an Oscar this weekend.<\/p>\n

The movie tells the story of a Southern mom who adopts a big, sweethearted African American boy.<\/p>\n

“I think what you’re doing is so great,” croons one of the other privileged moms. “You’re changing that boy’s life.”<\/p>\n

“No,” Sandra sighs (lumping humility on top of her generosity), “he’s changing mine.”<\/p>\n

One problem here is that the black kid, Big Mike, is portrayed as essentially silent, a blank slate. <\/p>\n

Through the movie, white people talk at him, around him, about him, to him, but he hardly speaks. (Even little kids give him advice.)<\/p>\n

Another problem is that this isn’t an accurate reflection of how whites generally think about or act toward people of color, or of how we think about race in general.<\/p>\n

The movie is a fantasy, a comforting fable in the tradition of what Rudyard Kipling called the ‘white man’s burden.’<\/p>\n

Why is there a North Country connection?<\/p>\n

The last few months, we’ve been reporting constantly on the future of our region’s prison ‘industry.’ <\/p>\n

We have more than a dozen state and federal lock-ups in our region, along with a parallel system of county jails.<\/p>\n

For generations, corrections has been a kind of tradition in our small towns.<\/p>\n

It’s a trade just like carpentry or plumbing that gets handed down from father to son, mother to daughter.<\/p>\n

But really, incarcerating people isn’t like carpentry at all. It’s far more morally complicated.<\/p>\n

Especially when the jailers are mostly white and the people behind bars are mostly black and Hispanic.<\/p>\n

I worry that as we talk about this thing we do, we’re telling ourselves similar fables and half-truths to the ones in that movie.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, I hear people in the corrections trade describing inmates as the scum of the earth, beyond salvaging. I sense a real loathing. <\/p>\n

Other times I hear advocates for the industry claiming that we are in the business of reforming and educating people.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I hear people celebrating the fact that we separate inmates from the corrupting influences of their home communities and families. <\/p>\n

It’s for their own good, we say.<\/p>\n

Other times I hear people claiming that inmates don’t deserve to see their families. They’ve committed a crime and should do hard time. <\/p>\n

In the same breath, I hear folks up here lay claim to a healing spirit, while decrying new laws that emphasize drug treatment and job training. <\/p>\n

I also hear local people mingling concerns about their own livelihoods and financial interest with their anger and resentment toward inmates and their urban culture.<\/p>\n

Frankly, I think this confusion is hurting us, both morally and economically.<\/p>\n

If the North Country wants to remain a place where mostly white people incarcerate men who are mostly not white, we need to think about what that means.<\/p>\n

What need to talk honestly about our motives, our responsibilities, and our methods.<\/p>\n

This is especially important now, when in practical terms most of New York state’s political power lies in New York City.<\/p>\n

We need to have a real, substantive conversation with urban leaders — black, Hispanic, and white — about our prisons.<\/p>\n

Why now? <\/p>\n

In the movie, Big Mike is silent, powerless. He’s comfortingly passive. Sandra Bullock gets to call the shots. <\/p>\n

Heck, she even teaches him how to play football.<\/p>\n

That’s not the reality in New York state. People of color aren’t silent or powerless or passive. <\/p>\n

They control much of the political power in Albany. They hold the purse strings, in the Governor’s mansion and the state Senate. <\/p>\n

In a way that makes us deeply uncomfortable, we are dependent on them. <\/p>\n

And they have made it increasingly clear that the current arrangement is no longer acceptable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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