Week 5 - Angela Alejandro - A04

In Darrell Y. Hamamoto’s chapter “Empire of Death and the Plague of Civic Violence”, the author discusses the connection between imperialist acts and the upsurge of serial killers the country. Hamamoto deduces “the kinds and types of murder and killings are determined to a significant degree by the sociocultural milieu in which they occur (pg.277).” In essence, he writes that the creation of racial differences that were used to promote one dominant group is now gravely interwoven into society’s conventions. Serial killers are the darkest aspects of the public, but people don’t just kill other people naturally. According to the chapter, these killers are influenced by society’s demeanor toward certain groups of people. One of the more interesting bits in the reading, for me, was the discussion of how imperialism and militarization affected would-be serial killers. Political decision regarding war in other countries manipulates how everyday civilians perceive foreigners. The author illustrates this through the idea of hypersexualization of Asian women. Sergeant Jack Wayne Reeves obsessed over “yellow flesh” while in the military. At first this can just be seen as an individual fetish, just one guy with a weird kink. However, his compulsion was gratified through the neocolonistic idea that associating with the dominant white lifestyle was the right thing to do. Reeves’ third wife was a young Filipina whose family internalized that marrying an American would positively enhance their lives. It is common knowledge that war brings devastation to large parts of society, for both sides of the conflict. In this week’s reading we learn about how these socially engineered prejudices affect the most immoral parts of society, and how the hypermilitarization of the country breeds more bad than good. My question is, how can we rid ourselves of neocolonistics ideas that have been so heavily embedded into our society’s mindset?

References:
Hamamoto, D.Y. (2003). Empire of Death and the Plague of Civic Violence
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