- Whiteness and racism are connected because “whiteness” is not just as a skin color. When looking at it as a social category, we see that white people have been giving things like power, privilege and the ability to set the norm. In that sense, racism isn’t only about individual prejudice. It’s works as a system that organizes who gets valued, protected, and included, and whiteness has historically sat at the center of that system.
- Gilmore argues that prisons create “criminals” by tracking and restricting ex-convicts. Convictions block housing opportunities, jobs, education and social opportunities. It makes existing as a normal person harder, and they might turn to doing illegal things again just to get by. In her view, the system responds to crime, but it also helps with creating it. The system pushes the conditions that keep people instead of jail, instead of it being a sort of rehabilitation.
- I think Gilmore means that a liberation struggle is when people work together to change the conditions that keep others oppressed, not just talk about freedom in a general way. To me, she’s saying real liberation takes collective action and is about building better housing, jobs, safety, and support systems. I agree with her because freedom is more real when people actually work to improve the conditions of everyday life.
Stephanie Cesar Discussion Board 12.1
- The Betty Dukes v. Wal-Mart case, where Betty Dukes set up a class action lawsuit against Walmart for their discriminatory practices towards women. There was pay inequality between men and women, women getting the shorter end of the stick. The Supreme Court decided that the Walmart employees could not proceed as one giant class action lawsuit because they failed the commonality requirement. Commonality means shared experiences or features. It justified that decision by saying the workers had not shown a single companywide policy of discrimination that tied all their claims together. Their situations were too individual to produce one common answer for the whole class.
Stephanie Cesar Discussion Board 11
The court system is better suited to protect the induvial instead of elected branches of government. The court runs on laws and constitutional rights, judges make their decisions based off of these things. While on the other hand, elected branches from congress to the mayor of NYC act somewhat like a popularity contest. Whatever side supports them more with reach and funds is the side that gets their concerns addressed first with elected officials. An example of this would be the recent NYC mayoral election. Andrew Cuomo was a mayoral candidate that was funded by a super PAC that he would ultimately get in office to cater to. Judges don’t cater to people in cases for the money.
I would say the Supreme Court is anti-democratic in structure, but not necessarily anti-democratic in purpose. It is anti-democratic in the sense that it is intentionally shielded from direct elections, yet that shield is meant to protect democratic principles like equal rights, fair trials, and constitutional limits on government power. In other words, the Court is designed to stand against majority rule when majority rule threatens constitutional freedom.
Stephanie Cesar – Discussion Post 9.2
- The war of terror is a new type of war that’s way different from traditional wars that the United States has partook in. It didn’t manifest as the typical war, two or more opposing countries that clash on a battlefield. As it implies in the name, it’s vague and targets all terrorist groups globally. And to protect against these groups, mass surveillance is been placed everywhere in the US. It’s a new type of war that extends way past the battlefield.
- Roving wiretaps exist to aid with mass surveillance. They’re able to monitor phones and internet accounts without gaining a warrant, targeting suspects who may have a ‘burner phone’. Roving wiretaps violate the Fourth Amendment because they have loopholes to avoid the the warrant requirement. This violates probable cause and is extremely invasive to ones privacy.
- “Sneak and Peak” warrants violate the Fourth Amendment because they let police search a place without telling the owner right away, which diminishes the Fourth Amendment. It weakens the right to be free from unreasonable searches and it’s way harder to fight against this warrant.
Stephanie Cesar Discussion Board 9.1
- The establishment clause is within the first amendment, and it pushes the fact that a government cannot establish an ‘official’ religion. It cannot favor one religion over another. Lemon Test, stemming from Lemon v. Kurtzman is used as a judging mark to see if any laws disrespect the establishment clause. By using the Lemon Test, it ensures these things: it has no secular purpose and it could not create excessive government entanglement with religion.
- Burning the US flag is protected by the first amendment. In Texas v. Johnson (1989) the Supreme Court decided that burning the flag in political protest was safe under the amendment. The court decided that they can’t punish Johnson based off of others finding his expression of burning the flag in protest of a Republican National Convention. The first amendment exists to protect expression whether it is offensive or not.
- When someone says, “I’m taking the Fifth” they’re refusing to answer a question because their answer could get them in legal trouble. It refers to the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, often called the right to remain silent.
Stephanie Cesar – Discussion Board 7.1
- In the federal system, voting is a key thing that citizens partake in. On a national level with presidential elections, state elections with governor elections, and local like mayoral elections. Within the unitary system, citizens direct their efforts towards the central government because it holds most of the power. Local offices like mayoral elections and school boards commonly carry decisions made by the central government. Finally in the confederation system, citizens direct their main participation toward their state or regional governments. The central government in a confederation system doesn’t hold the most power, instead it’s more important for citizens to put pressure on their own state.
- The division of government splits up the power so no one can take all of the power for themselves. They do this with branches of government, legislative, executive and judicial branch. The legislative branch makes laws, the executive branch enforces them and the judicial branch presents them.
- The federal government shapes state and local actions through funding with conditions, legal mandates, guidance, and emergency powers, as seen in its heavy influence on New York during COVID-19. New York received billions in aid, which guided state budgets, local spending, and public health measures.
Stephanie Cesar – Discussion Board 5.3
- The statistic with the biggest impact on me was that 90% of American families have very little net assets, while the top 1% owns up to 40-50% of Americas wealth. This was very jarring to read because it solidifies the inequality between the 1% and the rest of the country. It gives the impression that no matter how hard people who come from lower-class backgrounds come from, they could never reach a high level of wealth no matter how hard we try.
- Wealth inequality is very prevalent in our society. It looks like families struggling to put food in the fridge while billionaires and trillionaires are able to buy islands, living on with no dent in their pockets. Living in NYC, this dynamic gets played out constantly. Whenever I step outside, I see gentrification. There are so many mom and pop shops that have been pushed out of my area, just to serve as grounds to build another apartment complex where rent is sky high. All of that money roots itself back to billionaires to be able to buy out more shops and continue the process. Comparing Hudson Yards to the South Bronx, areas that are extremely close to each other and just a train ride away—but are in entirely different financial standings. Hudson Yards has condos for comfortable and posh living, while the South Bronx suffers as their culture and community continuously gets pushed out due to poverty.
Stephanie Cesar – Discussion Board 5.2
- To maintain their wealth, capitalists live under the M-C-M’ formula. Capitalists start with a sum of money, often obtained by generational wealth (M). This amount of money serves as an initial investment to be able to purchase commodities (C). Commodities cover a lot, it pays for the raw material and tools that are necessary to making goods. But it also contains the amount of money that the capital owner pay workers for labor. Capital owners pay workers for their labor power, instead of the amount of labor they produce. Labor power is how long somebody can work for/what is socially acceptable, like an 8 hour work day. Since workers are paid for the working power and not at the price point of the goods that they make, a gap of wealth is created. This wealth is represented as surplus value (M’). Surplus value is all of the unpaid labor from the workers, back to the capitalists. Leaving them with more money than they started with to invest into more means of production and the cycle starts all over again.
Stephanie Cesar – Discussion Board 5.1
- Means of production stands for how we’re able to make something. They can be physical tools, resources or even an entire place that’s dedicated solely to producing. Means of production is the starting point for how we’re able to maintain goods. An example would be a baker owning a bakery. If I were a baker, my means of production would be my kitchen equipment: mixer, oven, and fridge. Next, labor is the human exertion that’s applied to be able to make goods. Without labor, means of production wouldn’t really mean anything. The value of a good comes from the labor that was put into it, not the means of its production. It’s the interaction with the equipment to make a good. Furthering the baker example, the skills the baker utilizes to make goods would be the labor. Knowing precisely how to turn flour into a cake, the exact form and temperature to bake it in is all labor.
- Value is the worth/price of a good based off of the time and amount applied to produce it. All the time it takes to produce a specific item determines if it’s cheap or expensive. One vanilla cupcake is priced at how long it takes the baker to make it.
- Labor and value are related because one determines the other. Labor determines the value that’s assigned to a product. The amount of time/effort that’s put into creating something (labor) tallies into a final price point based on this (value). Since a vanilla cupcake takes less effort than a three tiered cake, it will be priced at a way lower point than the cake.
- Labor is the effort put into something, the interaction of a human and the means of production. While labor power is a worker’s capacity/ability to perform. We sell our labor power in exchange for hourly pay. The key difference between these two is that our labor power is paid at the bare minimum just so we can do it again. But our labor is valued way more than our labor power. For an example, someone will be paid $15 dollars an hour at a bakery to make cupcakes. But if the cupcakes are priced at $6.99, and the bakery sells 20 of them in 1 hour, the bakery makes $139.80 dollars while the worker is paid $15.
- Surplus value is a separate type of value that comes from unpaid labor produced by workers that capital owners profit off of. Workers produce way more than what they are paid for by the hour, and all of this extra money is pocketed by the employer. It highlights the imbalance between the working class and the rich. The rich profit off of all the extended labor of the workers, but the workers are skimped solely for the gain of higher class people. An example would be how the baker making $15 dollars an hour produces 20 $6.99 cupcakes that all get sold within the hour. Totaling to $139.80 for the hour. A portion of this, lets say $40 dollars would go to keeping up the means of production. Taking away $15 for the worker, and $40 dollars for the means of production, the owner is left with a grand total of $84.80 to keep.
Stephanie Cesar – 4.2 Social Classs
- In reading 4.3, Parenti describes a very bold line between owners and employees. Owners gain their large amounts of wealth off the backs of others, they get rich off of others’ labor. On the other hand, employees gain their wealth by putting the work into it, they live off of salaries and wages. But these wages represent only a fraction of the value that workers actually produce. This is a give and take relationship, but the benefits do not extend both ways. For example, minimum wage at Mcdonald’s ranges from $15 to $20 per hour, which means they bring in from 30k-50k for the year. But the people who share ownership of the company make upon millions.
- On page 28, Adam Smith describes a quote where he talks about how labor is the real defining margin on placing value to things. Without labor, goods to buy simply wouldn’t exist. He puts a pin on the effort it takes to create an item, and that’s how it should be priced. It should be priced keeping in mind the steps that it took to get the good-the tools, the manual effort.
- I agree with the take that class is not an identity presented in the 4.4 reading. It’s not a ladder as the opposing idea simply implies. The existence of a ladder means that the ‘steps/stages’ are fluid, and it’s easy to switch back and forth between them. With a change in income, or receiving higher education, people believe things will change. This isn’t true, in my opinion, it’s very hard to rotate between classes. The socialist opinion of two distinct categories, capitalists and workers seem more likely. A large majority of us are workers. We all work to obtain wealth to sustain our lives. We have to put effort into this, while the ‘owners’ profit off of our work. They profit off our work for the company without having to actively intervene.
- This close form of dependency described is how the capitalists rely so heavily on the workers. Without workers coming in everyday and producing for the company, the flow of money abruptly stops, and the billionaires are the top no longer have their empires. Workers rely on their salaries/wages to sustain their lives, eating, owning a home, etc. Which owners exploit because the workers cannot just abandon their own flow of money abruptly. But if it did happen that way, the empire would tumble down.
