Post #11

I really liked the “In Defense of Southern Womanhood,” I never realized that a woman could literally get away with murder in the South. I guess this means that part of what goes into a jury decision is image—the jury found it hard to convict a well-dressed, petit southern woman. I found it interesting how many of the women in this story claimed a black man committed their crime. This seemed weird to me because women and blacks are historically repressed groups so I would think that women would be less likely to exploit blacks. Maybe these women were exceptions because they seemed pretty insane already or I might be wrong and maybe women were just as racist and exploitive as men. Another point I found interesting was when the article noted, “southerners do not question unexplained phenomena or the mysteries of nature, human or otherwise.” Of course this is a generalization but I wonder to what extent is it true, why did this author think to include it—was it merely her critique of Southern society or is their some strand of truth to it?

I also read the Etheridge pieces and I liked “The Essential Etheridge Knight” better because I thought the poems were definitely worth reading and thinking about whereas in the second Etheridge handout I thought the part about people living off blacks’ dreams was kind of far fetched and didn’t really leave me with something to think about. Specifically, I liked “The Idea of Ancestry” which made me think about how lonely and frustrating it must be to sit in a cell and watch your relationships fall apart. Not only that, one person in jail affects and can really bring down a whole family. The “wasp” that come to visit the prisoner made me think of how just little things like this could remind the prisoners of their humanity and of the world that they’re a part of but yet at the same time cut off from. Etheridge mentions how this woman made the prisoner walk softly for a day. In other words, I think the behavior of the prisoners is largely dictated by their environment—if they’re treated “softly” then they act “softly.” This makes me question how much prison violence went on considering the terrible violence that the prisoners were subjected to.

Finally, the piece on prisons made me consider what a world without them would be like. The author makes a great point that we grow up thinking that prisoners are an essential part of society just as at one time slavery was considered a permanent part of society. It’s strange to think about how we would deal with criminals otherwise—maybe through rehabilitation or maybe there’s a world that would be possible without crime (which of course as the author mentions would require a restructuring of society at every level).