Category Archives: Official Violence

Into the Dark Chamber (220/415/485)

INTO THE DARK CHAMBER: THE NOVELIST AND SOUTH AFRICA

Date: January 12, 1986, Sunday, Late City Final Edition Section 7; Page 13, Column 1; Book Review Desk
Byline: By J. M. Coetzee; J. M. Coetzee, whose most recent novel is ”Life & Times of Michael K,” teaches at the University of Cape Town.
Lead:

WHEN a colony is founded, wrote Nathaniel Hawthorne in ”The Scarlet Letter,” ”among [ the ] earliest practical necessities [ is ] to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.” Prisons – Hawthorne called them the black flowers of civilized society – burgeon all over the face of South Africa. They may not be sketched or photographed, under threat of severe penalty. I have no idea whether laws against visual representations of prisons exist in other countries. Very likely they do. But in South Africa such laws have a particular symbolic appropriateness, as though it were decreed that the camera lens must shatter at the moment it is trained on certain sites; as though the passer-by shall have no means of confirming that what he saw – those buildings rising out of the sands in all their sprawl of gray monotony – was not a mirage or a bad dream.

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manufacture

One way consent (hegemony) is manufactured and maintained is through particular uses of language. Here’s an example from the New York Times:

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Note the use of passive verb construction when the police originate violence and the use of active verb construction when ordinary people do.

Honors

Get bent.

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50

On this date in 1969 Fred Hampton was murdered by Chicago police.

Ellen and Mike and Empire (225/303/310/485)

Imperialism is hegemonic in the sense that the citizens of Empire are often shocked or angered by the assertion that they do, in fact, live in one– usually before they bother to define that term.

In honor of Fleet Week– which is clearly a symbol of American Empire– here are two speeches that have been supplemented with images.

First, a by-now viral video of Ellen.

I’d never heard of this next one until yesterday. I don’t know who originally made it.

Consider our discussions about hegemony and interpretation. What codes and values are invoked by these clips? How does form shape or undermine content? Do you live in an Empire? What evidence and arguments support your claim?

This is official… (415)

… violence by a militarized police force in the service of Capital and the State.

Good Neighbor

see https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/latin-america/article225949200.html

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9/11/73 (455/415)

After the coup, Chile became the first neoliberal state. This clip comes from Patricio Guzman’s classic film, The Battle of Chile.

From Occupied Territory (310/415/485)

I haven’t screened this documentary yet but in his recent book Race, Class, and Marxism David Roediger writes that it is a striking account of the ways that race and for-profit policing intersect. Let’s watch it this weekend and talk about it next week.

Spring Collection

This Spring’s Torturer’s Collection features a feminine look such as Gina’s black and red, belted floral print dress. This relaxed style also includes a practical touch: the quick-drying material allows the wearer to seamlessly transition from an interrupted drowning (water-boarding) session to a working lunch.

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analepsis

“So as to give them courage we must teach people to be shocked by themselves.”