Section 01
Week 5
Reading the chapter by Hamamoto titled Empire of Death and the Plague of Civic Violence was absolutely gut-wrenching to me. I had to stop reading it quite often to take breaks from its intensity. Do not get me wrong, I am fully aware that the world is full of cruelty because I read this stuff on a regular basis due to my major, but this was just a lot of violence in a condensed reading.
So this is what the article taught me...
The way in which the U.S. decides to portray an 'Other' in order to validate violence and war is a means of perpetuating and creating stereotypes. And this may not seem like too big of a deal, but it become some of the only means of knowing and understanding people who are different to us. This then becomes internalized, as is evident in the killing and raping of young asian women who are often exoticized and hypersexual. Because of these imbedded ideologies, people can therefore justify their actions of violence against these women. Also, it is evident that the U.S. is very centered on being a global and economic rather than taking care of their own issues, such as racism. I feel as if because the U.S. has a sense of privilege and comfort, it takes for granted the safety for their livelihood (although this is not true for marginalized peoples living there). As Andrea Smith has explained before, the U.S. must always be at war in order to maintain and constantly reassert their power around the globe.
Since when is economy more important than lives? (Also, Andrea Smith also speaks about how wars effect the environment and those damages disproportionately are affected.)
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