Examining the Connections Between Schools and Prisons

Examining the Connections Between Schools and Prisons

The goal for this post is to practice the fourth tool of the Analytical Methods for making the implicit explicit: Recognizing Difference within Similarity. (pg 99).

Here is the School-to-Prison pipeline game: http://www.aclu.org/school-prison-pipeline-game

I re-present it here so you have another opportunity to think about it. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) released a game to get us to think about not only how schools and prisons are alike and children are prepared for prison by schools, but also the ways those similarities are damaging our schools and children (here is their information in article form: http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice/school-prison-pipeline). Can you see the similarities they are pointing out between prisons and schools? Can you make note of any important or illuminating distinctions? Try the Difference within Similarity activity to find examples of ways the difference between prison and schools (in spite of other more obvious similarities) seems to be working to make meaning.

Step 1: Decide what difference (in spite of the many similarities) you want to serve as a basis of analysis. (For example: Even though prisons and schools have their similarities, guilt defines prisons and innocence defines schools.)

Step 2: Briefly explain the relatively obvious difference by asking “So what?” Why is this difference significant? (For example: Guilt allows us to punish people for their wrongdoing. We aren’t hurting them for no reason when they are guilty. It gives us the right to take away freedoms and make people pay for their crimes against civilized society. It is not as acceptable to punish innocents. Punished for what?)

Step 3: Then focus your attention on the less obvious but revealing difference within the similarity. (For example: if children are being treated “like criminals” in schools, are we treating them like they are guilty? What could they be guilty of? No tolerance policies seem to presume guilt of children in a way that might not respect the difference between guilty and innocent parties. Are children treated like they are guilty though they are not? Zero tolerance policies seem to assume children are guilty so that it can punish them pre-emptively.)

Try this method for making the implicit arguments explicit and see what you come up with.

Good luck!

Prison Rape and Advertisement

Prison Rape and Advertisement

The goal for this post is to practice the second tool of the Analytical Methods for making the implicit explicit: Uncovering Assumptions. (pg 91).

Here is a commercial for 7-Up that aired in 2002. The setting is a prison where the advertiser (a comedian, Godfrey) is trying to appeal to a “captive audience” of prisoners and get them to take his product. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHyD5_qSV-U

There was some negative response to the ad for its treatment of the subject of sexual assault in prisons (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/06/09/IN181350.DTL).

Step 1: Notice something that is done or said explicitly (for example: a prison rape joke is made in an advertisement for cola)

Step 2: List the implicit ideas the statement seems to assume to be true (for example: prison rape can be funny; rape in prison is recognizable to the average viewer as funny)

Step 3: Further analyze the original claim by drawing out implications of those underlying assumptions; asking questions and trying to pose possible answers for them  (for example: the idea that prison rape is funny assumes that forced intercourse can be funny in certain contexts. What is it about a prison context that makes rape funny? Perhaps because we feel like people deserve the punishment they receive in prison. But does that mean we think people can deserve rape? What are the implications of that?)

Try this process for yourself. Use this method to try to uncover some assumptions a speaker might be making. Then, try to figure out what is implicit in these assumptions.

This process doesn’t just work for the commercial. You can do the same process with the article criticizing the  commercial for its insensitivity. You can do the same process for the comments viewers of the video have made (and boy oh boy, I hope some of you do…).

Good luck!