the sanghera post

    The construction of an individual or group as foreign derives from nationalistic processes that prefer homogenized people and cultures. As nations accept ideologies of foreignness and banning the foreign, the migration and conditions of ethnic groups in particular become an issue. The United States has manufactured a public us versus them dichotomy against Latinx (gender neutral term) populations by posing them a foreign threat in attempts to halt support for their immigration. I argue that such a strategy has functioned through its usage of moral panics and manipulation of American values as well as the legal and cultural naturalization of borders and detention. It must be acknowledged that Americans diversify with a vast range of belief systems but I focus on those that hold anti-immigration or extreme conservative values.

    It is undeniable that American values and policies have been impacted by the September 11 terrorist attacks. Moral panics of foreignness and external threats were embedded into the public by politicians and community leaders at that time. The same narrative and language has been employed to alarm citizens of Latinx immigration. Illegal, aliens, job-thieves, rapists, and criminals are words that have been used to describe Latinx and particularly Mexican populations (Branton, Cassese, Jones & Westerland, 2011, 664).  The impact of 9/11 on Americans has caused some of them to view immigration through a certain homogenized lens as the border became associated with terrorism and now illegal immigration (Branton, Cassese, Jones & Westerland, 2011, 664). A foreigner, and a brown-skinned one at that, is often seen as a threat that has little place among the true Americans. Media and structures manipulating core American values, such as patriotism, allegiance, and family, serves as a useful tactic that advances the dichotomy of native against foreigner. By presenting Latinx individuals crossing the border as invaders, it is then the American duty to support government and security efforts to remove such threats. The same rhetoric was applied to the War in Afghanistan and those critiquing it were often labelled anti-American. It has been studied that those with a strong dedication to the national identity and its protection show greater support for tight immigration policies compared to those with weaker national identities (Branton, Cassese, Jones & Westerland, 2011, 676). A quantitative study looked at factors of acculturation, fear, anti-Latinx sentiment, and media exposure pre-9/11 and post-9/11 and concluded that those factors had little influence on attitudes before the terrorist attacks but contributed largely to immigration views after (Branton, Cassese, Jones & Westerland, 2011, 677). It raises the simple question of why are these immigrants, who are sometimes fleeing persecution, considered a threat to Americans? Homogenization and the maintenance of Anglo-American values have been cited as reasons for the fear or exclusion of immigrants. Possibilities of non-assimilation, rebellion to American laws, and acculturation contribute to anti-Latinx attitudes (Branton, Cassese, Jones & Westerland, 2011, 674). The different skin colour, the different language, and the difference of cultural norms causes a barrier between Latinx and non-Latinx Americans—it is almost human nature to cling to similarity but this can also be damaging. Deep-rooted nationalism within the United States has been a contributor to various conflicts and the most recent one seems to be the discontent for the increasing “Hispanization” or foreignness of their states.  

    Along with inciting a moral panic and using emotional narratives upon citizens, the United States has legalized and naturalized militarized border patrol and detention—barriers that should not exist in any democratic nation. The legal process surrounding immigrants crossing the border for asylum can be considered very flawed. Border agents have complete control over which asylum seekers can have entrance with many sharing their stories of being illegally denied access or intimidated with incarceration (Cabot, 2014, 366). With incidences of migrants being shot at the border and thousands of children being separated from their families, the border system works to threaten the community. It creates a long and complicated entrance process in efforts to minimize immigration with only a few authorities (government officials, border agents, lawyers, and judges) deciding upon their stay or citizenship in America. Slow access to counsel, delayed court trials, and backlogging are only a few of the legal issues that arise for asylum seekers (Cabot, 2014, 369). With hundreds of thousands dying from the War on Drugs in Mexico, there is desperation to cross the border (Cabot, 2014, 373). The problem is that the heavy securitization of the border and legal process for immigrating is complex and since it is so naturalized, safer and more practical solutions are less campaigned for. Those with anti-immigration or far-right winged views may even prefer the militarization and concreteness of the border through “Trump’s Wall.” The ethics of detention—a form of imprisonment, confinement, and captivity—must also be questioned since it has become naturalized despite its destructive properties. The United States has normalized such a practice through various factors including their racist and gendered attitudes, outlawing of Latinx migrants, and xenophobia (Silverman & Lewis, 2017, 96). In fact, it is shown that these centres only affect the health of detainees and become economic burdens on the state without meeting their aim of decreasing illegal immigration (Silverman & Lewis, 2017, 96). By pushing the narrative of foreignness, detention is accepted as an appropriate method of protecting citizens from possible threats and eventually becomes normalized. Locations meant for separating migrants from the public should be prohibited because these physical spaces are built on fear and alienation. It functions to divide, isolate, and segregate groups to protect those deemed deserving of American resources.

    The regulation of and experimentation upon the black community in the United States throughout various moments of history and contemporary time shows that the pattern of institutionalized racism has merely been redesigned to blend into current standards. In regards to health, black people have been continuously used as laboratory projects creating a medical hierarchy in which their wellness has been neglected. I argue that despite progressive social policies and technological advancements, racial disparities within medical systems subsist due to communal distrust, ineffective racial bias training for medical professionals, and the intersection of factors like gender and race. I will discuss this by focusing on three cases consisting of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, Jamaica Kincaid’s experiences in A Small Place, and pregnant black women in America.

    Many black Americans have expressed their distrust for the government and its health system due to the physical maltreatment of black people both pre and post-emancipation. The syphilis experiment (1932-1972) conducted by Tuskegee Institute and funded by the American government in Alabama denied treatment to hundreds of black men with syphilis in order to study the course of the disease as well as its differences from white men (Gamble, 1997, 1773). As a result, reasonable precautions were taken by black individuals when interacting with the biomedical community and this continues to be the case for some. In the 1980s, during the intense spread of HIV/AIDS, a 1990 survey showed that 35% of 1056 black church members believed the illness was a type of genocide (Gamble, 1997, 1775). Many also claimed that HIV/AIDS was manufactured by the government and that healthy black men were actually injected with syphilis during the experiments (Gamble, 1997, 1775). This issue of trust can cause disparities as some black patients do not feel comfortable undergoing surgery and obtaining medical opinions particularly from non-black professionals (Gamble, 1997, 1776). Some have also not participated in potentially beneficial programs, like needle exchange programs, because of such fears (Gamble, 1997, 1773). Even if the details of historic mistreatment are not known, there is a common and instilled suspicion that has been passed intergenerationally (Rosenthal & Lobel, 2011, 979). The government’s lack of understanding or respond to this historical distrust has been a problem because acknowledging the distorted relationship between black patients and doctors would be monumental. It would recognize and accept the racialized discrepancies that existed and continue to exist and perhaps even take accountability.

     Along with distrust causing disparities, the medical professionals working within these structures often have personal prejudices despite taking Hippocratic oaths that preach certain ethical requirements. Racial discrimination can be witnessed in various social structures and the medical system is one of them due to the conscious and unconscious biases of professionals and its effect on people’s health. These biases are also commonly ignored, ineffectively addressed, and professionals are repeatedly not given appropriate training. So-called post-colonized, post-racial, or multicultural societies congratulate themselves on their progressive health policies but they continue to have racial and class inequities. The healthcare in United States especially segregates individuals depending on socio-economic status with those unable to afford costs getting poor or no care. Medical professionals interacting with those from lower classes or racialized backgrounds may be insensitive to their needs or show lower quality of care. In A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid (1988) discusses growing up in Antigua with the local doctors and hospitals treating the black population as if they carried contagious diseases. She described how one doctor hated them to the point where he wanted individuals to be inspected of smells and dirtiness before he even saw them (Kincaid, 1988, 28). While black Antiguans were sceptical of doctors and often risked their health to avoid seeing them, the Minister of Health and other government officials would travel to New York for the best care (Kincaid, 1988, 8). Even in the United States, black people reported that physicians did not spent much time with them, inquire about pain levels, appropriately answer questions, or provide details about their health status (Gamble, 1997, 1776). A study also found that heart disease is treated differently in white and black patients with the former being more likely to receive effective surgeries even after controlling factors like income (Gamble, 1997, 1776). The colonial rule in both the United States and Antigua built structures in which white groups advanced. The black or non-white populations then experienced neglect and racial disparities within all social structures and these disparities persist due to the lack of decolonization.

     More recently, studies have shown that racial disparities in the medical community are not a thing of the past because despite having more technological tools to help diagnose and treat illnesses, black women still have poorer health. These women have undergone abuses from various institutionalized spheres and their intersecting factors of race and gender create greater difficulty in resolving issues or escaping the abuse. A study looking at pregnant black women in particular found that the infant mortality rate for black Americans is 13.7 per 1000 live births—twice the rate compared to white Americans. They cited stress, racial oppression (such as forced sterilization), and the performance of multiple identities (pregnant, black, and female) as a few of the reasons that affect them (Rosenthal & Lobel, 2011, 977).  Rosenthal and Lobel discuss how a young black woman in San Francisco, Sharon Ford, was denied treatment by two hospitals despite having health insurance causing her to have a stillborn birth. They state there is often an assumption made that black women are uninsured, on welfare, or exaggerating conditions causing them to be neglected by the medical system (Rosenthal & Lobel, 2011, 979). Pregnant women report higher rates of dissatisfaction during visits to physicians or hospitals but pregnant black women face an even greater dissatisfaction due to the “heightened power asymmetry” between them and non-female or non-black doctors. Since pregnant black women are not always likely to have a female and black doctor, issues such as communication and comfortable decision-making arise leading to poor care (Rosenthal & Lobel, 2011, 979). Increased education and socioeconomic status are also associated with decreased rates of low birthweight and infant mortality for white Americans but the same is not true for black Americans (Rosenthal & Lobel, 2011, 978). These incidences are not isolated events or a coincidence but happen because of structural neglect, racial oppression, a faulty healthcare system, and white hegemonic control.

     The perception of white crime within the media, government, and courts of law often repositions accountability from the perpetrator to their emotional disorders or mental health. White terrorism and shootings become individualized rather than understood in larger social contexts and as a result, white individuals are not associated with the crimes of their racial counterparts but the same does not apply for Muslims or Arabs. I argue that such deflections and repositioning of accountability serves as a strategy for in-groups (white and male) to preserve their hegemonic status by first framing an out-group as the opposition and then advancing sympathy narratives for white perpetrators in the structures of media and law. I will discuss this phenomenon by focusing on the Oklahoma City bombing, Charleston church shooting, and Orlando nightclub shooting.

    In a precarious environment of fake news, editable social media posts, and click bait, the news stories made available must be assessed for reliability because biases and tactics of perception exist everywhere. Throughout the course of history, various groups have occupied the position of enemy or out-group depending on location and context. Irish immigrants, Jewish folks, those from a Japanese background, black people, Arabs, and Muslims have been just a few groups that have been given this status. In the context of terrorism and extremism, Arabs and Muslims have been constructed to be the face of such crimes even pre-9/11. The formation and support of Israel after World War II, Arab countries’ refusal to export oil to the United States in the Arab oil embargo of 1967 and 1973, and the Iranian-Islamic Revolution of 1979 are only a few events that enhanced the contemporary perception of Arabs as the opposition to the United States (Klassen, 2014, 137).  Under this framework, intensified by the September 11 attacks, various structures formed the perception that Muslims and Arabs are an out-group filled with anti-democratic and anti-American terrorists. Terrorism became an act that could only be carried out by them. The notion of how perception functions to stereotype groups and present a certain image can be seen with the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. The first few news reports and investigations into the incident claimed it was committed by a Muslim man with the public agreeing that it had “Muslim terrorism” written all over it (Klassen, 2014, 141). The bomber was white American Timothy McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran, who was motivated by his frustration with the government. By framing Arabs and Muslims as the foe, citizens may feel a need to be protected. The protector then becomes the white saviour men and the government allowing them to preserve their hegemonic rule as control and decision-making powers are placed in their hands.

    With white terrorism, narratives of mental illness are often employed to divert the fact that white people could also be agents of terrorism and carriers of radical political ideologies. In attempts to maintain the very biblical and historical idea that white leaders are the civilized ones and thus know how to govern nations, any “outlier” from that idea is hidden or excused (Kunst, Myhren & Onyeador, 2018, 1889). The media tends to play a critical role in pushing this narrative shown through studies on U.S. news coverage. It was found that terrorism committed by non-white individuals was associated with a political or religious ideology while white domestic terrorists were often humanized (Kunst, Myhren & Onyeador, 2018, 1889). Life stories, personal details, and accounts by family or friends are a few techniques news outlets use to invoke sympathetic responses. In the Charleston church shooting of 2015, Dylan Roof killed nine black church members. His family described their shock stating, “We didn’t see this coming” (Powell, 2018, 4).  He was framed as a lone-wolf and a mentally ill young man that was failed by society but he later cited in a prison journal that he did not regret his crime and is not psychologically unwell (Zapotosky, 2017).  In fact, he was clear about his racial and political motives yet the words white supremacist, radical, extremist, and terrorist were rarely being used to describe him particularly by mainstream media. The sympathy narrative does not only arise in the media but the legal system as well with lawyers using insanity claims or past traumas to deflect crimes. Roof even fired his lawyers because he did not want his mental health evidence to be presented in the court claiming he was mentally fine (Zapotosky, 2017). To compare Dylan Roof to Muslim perception, the 2016 Pulse club shooting in Orlando committed by Omar Mateen was immediately linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In a call to the police, he stated his allegiance to the group and asked America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq (Visser & Couwels, 2016). Both Roof and Mateen committed acts of terrorism with known political ideologies but the framing of the stories were different with Roof not being labelled a terrorist and Mateen’s mental health not being considered despite reports of his disruptive and unstable background. These narratives are presented by white-controlled structures and work to protect the in-group’s value and level of trust among societies (Kunst, Myhren & Onyeador, 2018, 1890).