Politics of Sexuality, The "Color" of Evil, and the Treyvon - Zimmerman Case

Weird title indeed. Well as a disclaimer, this post will be made up on 3 distinct themes. The first will be about sexuality especially as it pertains to the politicization of the female body; the second will be on the distraction afforded by the racial "colors" that seem to underpin societal perceptions of evil; and lastly I will comment on the Zimmerman case which I think exposes the nexus between legality and justice, the former representing the procedural and in a way material standardizations brought about by law, and the latter, the ideal of justice whose definition can only be partisan amidst diversity and pluralism.

 

SEXUALITY AND FEMALE BODY

 

A vast amount of work has already been written around the politics of the female body - a body that has become the subject of the great violences of control. I wish to provide a rendition of similar analyses particularly with regard to Africa and how over time we have accepted an absurd mystification of the female body, ascribing to it the definition of oddity even pertaining to features of its natural design.

 

Presently, the female body is locked away and kept outside the public sphere underneath the comprehensive traditional attire and other kinds of clothing. The carrier of that body presents her face as the disembodied interface through which she engages with the male dominated public sphere. The female face is perhaps the only part of her body which is also constituted within the definitions pleasantness and beauty but which carries no connotations of nude [oddity] or "inappropriateness". The rest of her, particularly from the neck downwards is the object of control bound up in definitions of appropriateness.

 

This keeping out of the public domain of the female body does not only represent an oppression on the part of the female person but also affords the society with a basis upon which the exposure of that same body can attract physical and emotional harm which in those instances hides itself from the term "violence" behind the apparition of that regulated female body. Jointly, the society comes to view the act of violence as the result of the coming-to-the-fore of the female body which facilitated the occurrence of a disruption  in the prevailing social order. The fallacy is that controlling the female body is but one fundamental aspect of the various pillars of social organization and order. Hence the rampant arguments about how "loose" dressing is an affront to the cultural traditions of Africa; and hence an underminer of African social order.

 

The male body however continuously seeks to keep itself apolitical. By being apolitical, and deviating body politics towards the female body, the male body ascribes upon itself the neutrality that permits it to "naturally" venture into the ever expanding spaces of the social and political world. It therefore becomes only nature for men to explore, while it remains unnatural for women to be adventurous. With each new venture, discovery and enterprise,  the male body reserves to itself the right to be the first to experience it, categorize it and then pass it on to the politicalized female body as an already made and classified artefact. The female body's first task at best must be to overcome its own political "decorum" in order to fancy a shot at the new venture, discovery or enterprise. At worst, the female body amalgamates within its prescribed conventions with the conventions of the passed own artefact.

 

In some of the more apparent gestures of just how much violence the female body endures with regard to various social, political and economic avenues, the female body emerges naked to the public sphere selling razor-blades, sports cars, perfumes, exotic holiday resorts and other items that are considered to be of value by men, and therefore by women. These cases demonstrate a power nexus of control between the "wrapped up" female body and the public space. This is how it is done. Because of the established conventions that regulate how the female body is presented in the public eye, and the collective understanding that no appropriate woman would ordinarily "disclose" her body to that public eye; the naked bodies that accompany the advertisements of various items depict a powerful key in the hands of the men with the ability to unlock and make accessible that otherwise hidden female body. Also, it teaches women just what the keys to their bodies are, thereby instilling within them the fallacious value of exchange of social benefits for sexual access to her body. On the other hand, the woman whose body it is that has been unlocked is for that moment temporality excluded from condemnation. She is allowed to display her obtained freedom to all, including other women whose own bodies are locked up. This woman has been allowed access to the social, political and economic life dominated by men, and she has been granted her citizenship to that sphere by men themselves.

 

In the last instance, women go about life waiting to be liberated and set free by men through the things that men own, the money that men have, the power that men command, and the wealth that men amass. My solution to this huge atrocity on women is that their bodies be set free. That their bodies come to populate and fill up the public spaces. Once the regulations on the presentation of a the female body are broken, the accompanying commodification of those bodies will also be broken. Their bodies will become depoliticized, and avenues will likewise be available to them in the same manner in which such avenues are available to male bodies. Women would be misinformed to think that reverting to tighter controls embedded in traditions would serve to protect them from the sexual and other violences they are put under. I say the opposite is true. The more we see a de-regulation of the female body, the more we will see a de-politicization, and the more we will erase its accompanying violence.

SATRICALLY PUT: FREEDOM OF DRESS IS THEREFORE GOOD!!!

 

The Color of Evil

 

People have indeed visited great atrocities on others based on some imagined characteristics for othering. In much of Africa, colonialism othered on the basis of race. In Europe, perhaps it was on the basis of ideology, or ethnicity and even race itself. I am no professional in the subject matter of ethnicity, tribalism and racism but I do think that while various distinctions for othering do create "us-es" and "them-s" it also creates a false sense of rightness within those who become either the "us-es" or indeed the "them-s". This subtle distinction will be come clearer below.

 

When the "them-s" - that is, Africans - finally overcame their prior political conditions into eras of self rule, they very rapidly began to engage in state patronage, ethnically charged divide and rule postures, cultural and political hegemonization and outright authoritarianism. Now, the arguments prior to self-rule mostly centred around admonishments about "we are all humans and no one should be segregated on the basis of race, colour, gender or creed" and similar highly noble calls. However, step into government and with the "them-s" becoming the "us", the very features that constituted the marks of evil during the prior political organization become alright because "hey, it us our turn now" to enjoy.

 

It is in this sense that I largely feel that Africans after acquiring self-rule have failed to transcend the very obstacles that halted the colonial and apartheid projects. This is because, while the so-called "whites" where in power,  the evil they propagated towards the African was at once evil and good based and anchored around that fluid terminology of "them" and "us". Bad things were bad when they happened to "us" and were good and permissible when they happened to "them". And this posture has not changed in modern Africa in which various forms of "us" and "them" punctuate the entire political process. Corruption becomes okay for us to do it, but prosecutable when it is done by "them". Disobeying court orders is prudent for "us" and tolerable for "them" to do it. Or more emphatically, to dominate Africans is bad for the "Europeans - them" to do but okay for other "Africans - us" to do it, as was the case with Kamuzu Banda.

 

The problem with this simple distinction between "them" and "us" is that it reduces the African political process down to the status of the same people we called evil during our oppression. The devil is the devil whether or not he is working in your favour or in the favour of your imagined enemy. Unless we transcend this duality, we will remain as we are for the foreseeable feature.

 

Zimmerman: The Triumph of Law and the Crucifixion of Justice

 

Protests are running throughout some of the major cities of the United States due to the acquittal of Zimmerman who killed Treyvon on that fateful day. I have experienced family loss myself and so I have a sense of what the family is going through.

 

This case was interesting because it is hinged upon the very values that found the nation of the United States. The constitution of the United States and the manner in which it has been interpreted by congress and more especially by the Supreme Court largely approximates towards a vision in which "all rights not accorded to the States remain the rights of the citizens of the United States". And what this means is that the individual American as a citizen, while having duties to their country, is accorded the full protection of the law pertaining to matters of that individual citizens entitlements and rights. Such a posture also implies that the modalities by which justice could be arrived at can not be embedded in sentimentality but rather in the symmetrical and equitable application citizen rights and entitlements to all citizens of the United States. It raises the status of due procedure over sentiment and other grand visions of morality. After all, it is only precisely through this elevation of procedural equity that all citizens can at once be allowed very wide and expansive rights, too numerous to name or count.

 

In the Treyvon and Zimmerman case, the procedural processes of trial were observed; the court process was spot on in as far as such procedures were concerned. The court took into consideration all the evidence presented, and disregarded all the other suspicions as well as sentiments that were aloof. The jury deliberated, and arrived at the verdict of "not guilty". Some of my lawyer friends tell me that the prosecutors fielded a very poor case for Treyvon's family, and that the defense showed up with a superior argument and case. I too, having seen the various footage agree. But moreover, I particularly was more concerned with the possibility of a court of law issuing a verdict based on matters that were not presented as the material facts of the case in question, because to do so would be to invite a precedence in which the verdicts and judgements of the courts become the substance of vague and prejudicial visions of justness and justice.

 

While the Law is indeed an instrument through which we hope to arrive at justice, the most immediate function of the law is procedural fairness, and that means, the law and its procedures must be capable of being scrutinized, evaluated, and assessed. That is how fairness especially as it pertains to citizen rights can be ascertained. In this case, all such expectations are met, and a re-reading of the court procedures will show that all stipulations were indeed followed regardless of race, gender or creed. But by extension, it also means that where the facts or the evidences coming into the case are wanting, then legal fairness will not always translate into the provision of justice because to do would be to require the law to temporarily uphold the rights of one citizen and undermine those of another. Therefore, Americans are better off with a procedural system such as the one they have, than to call for a sentimentalist system which not only puts procedures and other standards of fairness into flux but also pushes out verdicts on the basis of sentiment that can not be assessed, accounted for and scrutinized because such as system would undermine the much touted citizen rights that Americans are already so proud of.

 

Treyvons death is a tragedy, and most likely he was murdered that day. To that effect, justice was denied to Treyvon and his family. But in as far as the Court system adhered to the procedural requirements of American law, then the case was a "disguised" triumph of that country's legal order. However, America would have to decide if what they want is procedural fairness or arbitrary justice.

 

Our prayers and thoughts however remain with Treyvon's family.

Shortly, I will post an article in which I discuss in more detail the problems with certain legal entitlements such as gun-ownership for instance, and the sorts of crimes that come before the courts following those legal entitlements. The conclusions will suggest interesting that the court process merely becomes a system of re-calibrating prior verdicts which are pre-issued and accorded to the perpetrating citizen once those laws and their entitlements are enacted. As such, the courts will only ever see typically a certain kind of criminal representation in their courtrooms, and therefore are more likely to issue out certain kinds of verdicts, the root cause of which are the priory enacted laws in the first place. But more next time.