Inner city pressure – Race and representation in The Wire

Sorry for the massive slacking off on this blog. I won’t promise to do better in the future – I’d like to, but I can’t guarantee that it’ll happen. I can promise I’ll try though!

In the meantime, the below article was something I had to write for University (which I’ve recently started, eek!) It’s nothing hugely special, but at least I’m posting again!

Inner city pressure – Race and representation in The Wire

Television series The Wire is set in the predominantly African-American city of Baltimore, Maryland in the United States. The majority of characters in it are African-American, and encompass a variety of personae, including drug dealers, Police officers, drug addicts and politicians. While the show has been praised by critics for offering a more realistic view of crime and policing than most other police shows (Metacritic), the African-American characters in the series cannot be classed as showing anything approaching the full range of experiences of African-Americans in the United States, especially for African-American women.

Unlike many other TV series based on crime and policing, The Wire blurs the lines between good and bad characters. Characters normally shown as good, such as Police officers, are frequently shown to be corrupt and/or brutal, while normally bad characters such as drug dealers have their background stories and social circumstances fleshed out, allowing you to see the reasons they engage in anti-social activities and the lack of choice in their upbringings. Despite this fact, African-American characters in The Wire fall into two broad categories: those engaging in illegal activity and those whose job it is to prevent it. In doing so, the writers have neglected to show what life is like for the vast majority of African-Americans in Baltimore – people whose lives are not bound up in one way or another with the trade in illegal narcotics.

In attempting to show reality for urban, African-American poor in a modern American city, The Wire falls short, largely because there is no one reality that applies to the everyday lives of such a large, heterogeneous population (Branston and Stafford, 156). African-American women are shown even more poorly than men in The Wire. Very few are shown in any of the seasons, leading to a burden of representation for those that are, especially Detective Kima Greggs, the sole female African-American character in the principal cast. To compound the difficulty of representing such a large population on screen (Branston and Stafford, 153), Greggs is also the sole lesbian character. The character of Greggs is shown to be a strong-willed, confident and intelligent tomboy, who, other than her long-term partner, predominantly has friendships with male characters. Due to this, she is seen by the male characters as “one of the boys”.

African-Americans, especially those in urban centres similar to the Baltimore portrayed in The Wire, are likely to find some resonance in at least some of the characters in the series. Anecdotal evidence exists of drug dealers watching The Wire to learn more about Police monitoring of their activities, allowing them to improve their level of security. Similarly, it seems likely that those same drug dealers have criticisms of the realism of the portrayal of their fictional counterparts in The Wire’s Baltimore. This process of implication and extrication (O’Sullivan et al, 125) shows a pattern that would be familiar to other groups who see themselves portrayed on the screen, such as Police officers.

For African-American women, a marginalised subset of a marginalised community in the United States, there is little of themselves for them to see in the series. This lack of representation could result in a reinforcement of a lack of self-worth, which may only be able to be rectified with increasing variety of female African-American characters on television, similar to the process African-Americans as a whole have gone through since the 1980s (O’Sullivan et al, 129-130).

While The Wire succeeds in creating a more realistic picture of both sides of the illegal drug trade, it fails to escape the stereotyping of African-Americans as either belonging to an underclass involved in illegality (the “bad ones”) or a ruling class involved in policing it (the “good ones”). There are still large sectors of the urban African-American population who will fail to see anything of themselves or their lives in the series, a problem that further contributes to the reinforcement of the aforementioned stereotypes.

List Of Cited Works

Branston, Gill and Roy Stafford. The Media Student’s Book. Fourth Edition, London: Routledge, 2006. Print.
CBS Interactive Inc. “Wire, The (HBO) – Reviews from Metacritic.” 1 October 2006. Web. 3 April 2009.
O’Sullivan, Tim, Brian Dutton and Philip Rayner. Studying the Media: An Introduction. Third Edition, London: Arnold. 2003. Print.

Say NO to the 90 Day Hire & Fire Act!

Download flier in .pdf format (198kb)

A flier produced by AWSM against the 90 Day Hire & Fire Act brought in by the New Zealand Government in late 2008.

Flier is formatted to be printed on double sided A5.

Solidarity #1 – Free newssheet of Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement

The first issue of Solidarity, free monthly newssheet of the Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement. This issue has a special feature on water issues across Aotearoa / New Zealand. Some of the articles were written by me

Download a .pdf of the newssheet at http://www.awsm.org.nz/solidarity/issue1.pdf or read the articles online at http://awsm.org.nz/?p=78

Contents:

* Not our crisis! Resist attacks on workers
* Water meters for Wellington?
* Profile: Auckland Water Pressure Group
* He wai Maaori – Drinking water in Parihaka
* Say NO to the 90 Day Hire & Fire Act!
* AWSM Aims & Principles

Ordinary Gazans strangled on all sides

Article written for Gyro, the magazine of the Otago Polytechnic Students’ Association:

The latest Israeli onslaught in Gaza has seen approximately 1,300 people in Gaza murdered, with 410 of them children. Approximately 5,300 Gazans were left injured. Meanwhile, Israeli casualties numbered 13 with approximately 518 wounded.

The Gaza Strip, routinely referred to as “the world’s largest open air prison” is home to 1.4 million Palestinian citizens, in an area only 3/4 the size of Invercargill. The Strip is surrounded on 3 sides by the Israel–Gaza Strip barrier, a high tech installation of sensors, concrete walls, fencing, no-man’s-land and observation towers, reconstructed in 2001 (the original barrier, built in 1996, was torn down during the start of the Al Aqsa (Second) Intifada). The fourth side is the Mediterranean Sea, with constant patrols by the Israeli Navy. Since the election of Hamas and the subsequent total takeover of Gaza in June 2007, there has been a near-total blockade of the Strip by the Israeli and Egyptian armies.

Gazan residents have long suffered from poverty (60% below the poverty line in 2001) and the resulting poor health – a study carried out by Johns Hopkins University (U.S.) and Al-Quds University (in Jerusalem) for CARE International in late 2002 found that 17.5% of children aged 6–59 months suffered from chronic malnutrition, while 53% of women of reproductive age and 44% of children were found to be anaemic.

Israeli and Hamas leaders seemingly agree on one thing – ordinary Gazans and Israelis must be made to bear the brunt of the attacks. There is mounting evidence that the IDF is following its senior partner, the US, in using white phosphorous as an offensive weapon in civilian areas. Banned under international law, white phosphorous munitions are chemical weapons with a pattern of splash damage similar to cluster bombs, but which spread blazing chunks of phosphorous and smoke laced with burning particles. The result is either death from suffocation or from severe burns, sometimes down to the bone. The IDF is responsible for herding civilians into a building before shelling it, killing scores of civilians in attacks on UN schools, shelling aid convoys, and destroying aid stockpiles during an attack on the UN headquarters in Gaza. Meanwhile, Hamas and other smaller groups in the Gaza Strip fired over 900 rockets and mortars into Israel, hitting homes, schools and synagogues in a number of towns and cities. While the weaponry available to Hamas is undoubtedly less accurate or devastating than that used by the Israeli military, the intent is the same – both sides are showing through their actions that mere residence in an area is enough to deserve attack.

During the recent Israeli attacks, Hamas leaders hid in bunkers while calling for ordinary Gazans to confront the militarily superior Israeli Army themselves, but most Gazans evidently attempted to do what was necessary to save their lives, by hiding or fleeing. Hamas reportedly prevented Gazans from crossing into Egypt for medical assistance, while Egyptian border guards fired warning shots to prevent refugees who breached the border themselves from crossing into Egypt.

While it is clear that the vast majority of the populations of both Israel and the Gaza Strip have received no benefit from this period of intensified conflict, the question must be asked as to who has. The governing parties of Israel, Kadimah (Forward) and Avodah (Labour), were facing electoral defeat (in Avodah’s case, virtual electoral oblivion) prior to this operation. Now, Avodah (who’s leader is Ehud Barak, the defence minister) looks like it will remain in government after the election on February 10, albeit with a new partner, the Likud Party. Hamas, meanwhile, has consolidated it’s grip on power in Gaza, and no doubt many of it’s allies will be licking their lips at the prospect of gaining a piece of the US$1 billion of reconstruction contracts being funded by Saudi Arabia.

One thing cannot be doubted – no matter who won the war, it is the working class of both Israel and Gaza that have paid the price in broken bodies and shattered lives.

No state solution in Gaza

No state solution in Gaza

Statement produced by the Manchester (UK) Anarchist Federation branch on the conflict in Gaza, in solidarity with the victims of the conflict, and for internationalism.

One thing is absolutely clear about the current situation in Gaza: the Israeli state is committing atrocities which must end immediately. With hundreds dead and thousands wounded, it has become increasingly clear that the aim of the military operation, which has been in the planning stages since the signing of the original ceasefire in June, is to break Hamas completely. The attack follows the crippling blockade throughout the supposed ‘ceasefire’, which has destroyed the livelihoods of Gazans, ruined the civilian infrastructure and created a humanitarian disaster which anyone with an ounce of humanity would seek an end to.

But that’s not all there is to say about the situation. On both sides of the conflict, the idea that opposing Israel has to mean supporting Hamas and its ‘resistance’ movement is worryingly common. We totally reject this argument. Just like any other set of rulers, Hamas, like all the other major Palestinian factions, are happy and willing to sacrifice ordinary Palestinians to increase their power. This isn’t some vague theoretical point – for a period recently most deaths in Gaza were a result of fighting between Hamas and Fatah. The ‘choices’ offered to ordinary Palestinian people are between Islamist gangsters (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) or nationalist gangsters (Fatah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs brigades). These groups have shown their willingness to attack working class attempts to improve their living conditions, seizing union offices, kidnapping prominent trade unionists, and breaking strikes. One spectacular example is the attack on Palestine Workers Radio by Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, for “stoking internal conflicts”. Clearly, a “free Palestine” under the control of any of these groups would be nothing of the sort.

As anarchists, we are internationalists, opposing the idea that the rulers and ruled within a nation have any interests in common. Therefore, anarchists reject Palestinian nationalism just as we reject Israeli nationalism (Zionism). Ethnicity does not grant “rights” to lands, which require the state to enforce them. People, on the other hand, have a right to having their human needs met, and should be able to live where they choose, freely.

Therefore, against the divisions and false choices set up by nationalism, we fully support the ordinary inhabitants of Gaza and Israel against state warfare – not because of their nationality, ethnicity, or religion, but simply because they’re real living, feeling, thinking, suffering, struggling human beings. And this support has to mean total hostility to all those who would oppress and exploit them –the Israeli state and the Western governments and corporations that supply it with weapons, but also any other capitalist factions who seek to use ordinary working-class Palestinians as pawns in their power struggles. The only real solution is one which is collective, based on the fact that as a class, globally, we ultimately have nothing but our ability to work for others, and everything to gain in ending this system – capitalism – and the states and wars it needs .

That this seems like a “difficult” solution does not stop it from being the right one. Any “solution” that means endless cycles of conflict, which is what nationalism represents, is no solution at all. And if that is the case, the fact that it is “easier” is irrelevant. There are sectors of Palestinian society which are not dominated by the would-be rulers – protests organised by village committees in the West Bank for instance. These deserve our support. As do those in Israel who refuse to fight, and who resist the war. But not the groups who call on Palestinians to be slaughtered on their behalf by one of the most advanced armies in the world, and who wilfully attack civilians on the other side of the border.

Neither one stare nor two states, but no states

Whoever dies, Hamas and the Israeli state win

Rembrandt Suits picket in Wellington

Workers from Rembrandt Suits held a picket on Saturday 6th December outside the Kirkaldie & Stains department store in central Wellington after receiving a pitiful offer from Rembrandt bosses.

The workers, skilled and experienced machinists (one of whom has worked for the company for 20 years) are currently on the minimum wage and are asking for $13.50 / hour. They have been offered only a 24 cent increase, which would take them to $12.24. Most of the workers require Government subsidies just to survive.

Recently, almost half the workforce at Rembrandt were made redundant (some “voluntary”, some not), meaning those workers left will be required to absorb much of the work once done by those colleagues.

The workers are unionised by the National Distribution Union (NDU), who are asking supporters to contact Rembrandt Managing Director David Lyford to tell him to stop being such a miser. You can reach him at (04) 567 4820 or on lyfordD (at) rembrandt.org.nz

If you can’t see the embedded video, click here.

New Anarchist-Communist Organisation Launched in Aotearoa / New Zealand

A new organisation has been formed with the aim of building a revolutionary anarchist communist movement in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement (AWSM) is an organisation working towards a classless, stateless society: anarchist-communism. We are made up of revolutionary class-struggle anarchists from across Aotearoa / New Zealand. For now, we are a small organisation with members in Wellington, Christchurch and a few smaller towns across the country.

AWSM came together when a few anarchists saw the need for a coherent and organised group of anarchist communists, inspired by the “platformist” strand of anarchist thought. Informal chats over the last few years turned into serious planning a few months ago and a little conference at Labour weekend (late October) in Wellington.

As class struggle anarchists our priority is active involvement in workplace struggles and industrial action as well as community based campaigns in our neighbourhoods.

We aim to publish a monthly newspaper starting in 2009, and a less frequent but more in-depth theoretical magazine as well. If you think this is your kind of group and you agree with our aims and principles then please get in touch with us.

Visit us at http://www.awsm.org.nz

Aims & Principles

1: The Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement is an organisation working towards a classless, stateless society: anarchist-communism. We are made up of revolutionary class-struggle anarchists from across Aotearoa / New Zealand.

2: Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class by the ruling class. But inequality and exploitation are also expressed in terms of race, gender, sexuality, health, ability, age etc, and in these ways one section of the working class oppresses another. This divides us, causing a lack of class unity in struggle that benefits the ruling class. Oppressed groups are strengthened by autonomous action which challenges social and economic power relationships. To achieve our goal we must relinquish power over each other on a personal as well as a political level.

3: We believe that fighting all forms of oppression and exploitation is necessary. Anarchist-Communism cannot be achieved while sexism and racism still exist. In order to be effective in their struggle against their oppression both within society and within the working class, oppressed groups may at times need to organise independently. However, this should be as working class people only, as cross-class movements hide real class differences and achieve little for those in the oppressed groups. Full emancipation cannot be achieved without the abolition of capitalism.

4: We support Tino Rangatiratanga and stand in solidarity with grassroots indigenous struggle and direct action, while not supporting Maori capitalism and corporatisation (we acknowledge the lack of anarchist theory on the indigenous struggle in Aotearoa / New Zealand and are in the process of researching, debating and discussing a more detailed position on this point).

5: While trade unions can never be revolutionary, we recognise that the majority of collective workplace struggle today occurs within unions and therefore our members should join unions where they exist in their workplace, while being wary of any attempts by union bureauracrats to stifle rank and file struggle. Where unions do not exist we encourage our members to engage with their fellow workers to initiate collective action.

6: We recognise that the general strike is one of the working class’ most powerful weapons and oppose all restrictions on worker’s rights to take collective action, including strikes.

7: As well as exploiting and oppressing the majority of people worldwide, Capitalism threatens the planet through war and the destruction of the environment.

8: It is not possible to abolish Capitalism without a revolution, which will arise out of class conflict. The ruling class must be completely overthrown to achieve anarchist communism. Because the ruling class will not relinquish power without their use of armed force, this revolution will be a time of violence as well as liberation.

9: We acknowledge that by implementing the organisation section of the The Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists – theoretical unity, tactical unity, collective responsibility and federalism – we will be best able to move forward in promoting the aims and principles of the Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement.

RIP Steve Luke

Steve Luke, an Otautahi / Christchurch based anarchist, has tragically passed away. He was 52 years old.

Steve first got involved in anarchist politics and activism in the 1970s while at Massey University in Palmerston North. In more recent times, he has been a welcome presence at Otautahi / Christchurch protests and meetings, and has in the past year been involved in groups and projects like the Otautahi / Christchurch October 15th Solidarity group, the Otautahi Social Centre and the Otautahi Men’s Hui.

Steve had a car crash on Tuesday. He suffered broken ribs, collarbone, deep cut, concussion / fit, fluid on the lung and bruising. The hospital discharged him after less than 20 hours. He was at home with his cats and frequent visits from friends, but sadly and tragically he died Friday night. A friend found him Saturday morning.

Steve was a great talker…at pot lucks and parties you could easily start chatting politics with him and, before you knew it, it would be a bottle of wine and 2 hours later.

He will be sorely missed…

And they wonder why anarchists don’t care about elections…

Wow. I just sat through the leader’s debate on TV. I didn’t need any more convincing not to vote, but fucking hell, what a joke that was!

And some people wonder why anarchists are against electioneering and parliamentary politics…

A comic about a friend…

From Jitterati, a comic that appears in one of the local free newspapers.

More details on the protest in question at Aotearoa Indymedia.