Reading Reflection #7

"When children pledge their allegiance to the American flag each morning in school, they conclude with the phrase, "... and justice for all." " (p 265) The pledge of allegiance originated during the late nineteenth century, and weaved its way through our educational and political systems. Around this time, the Anglo Saxon's in the U.S. were attempting to assimilate the enormous amounts of immigrants coming into the U.S. in the White man's culture. The pledge of allegiance was made to further along this assimilation. Every child, including the immigrants would say this every day in school to basically ingrain into them what being American meant. After I first learned this, I developed a totally new perspective around it. It clearly was a time when "justice for all" meant justice for the White, middle class men. Maybe that is why it still doesn't ring completely true in the twenty first century as well.
After finishing this chapter, I was really shocked. Mostly by the statistics of all the injustices in the world today. Statistics that showed racism, class ism, sexism, and discrimination against gender being prevalent today. It made me open my eyes. I never realized that the percentage of African Americans that make up the population in the U.S. is not equivalent to how many are in jail compared to the numbers of White Americans. It really is sad. The most upsetting part was how Black youth are subjected to longer, and more severe sentences for committing the same crime then the White youth in this country. In no way is that considered justice.
I changed my attitudes on corporate crime versus street crime after I read this chapter. I never realized how many upper White American males get short sentences for stealing billions of dollars from their company and therefore effecting every one in the community by doing so, while both White, and Black lower class individuals get longer sentences for stealing or attempting to steal billions of dollars in a bank robbery. It seems incredibly unjust to me. I understand if that person who committed the bank robbery got a longer sentence if they murdered someone , but initially they are committing a crime very similar to that of the upper white class individual who stole billions from their company.
I felt as though the authors own biases should have been put into this chapter to make it more personal. He explained how every one has their biases, and it is good to know which ones those are, but he never explained what his were. I just felt like if he included that information it wouldn't make it seem as taboo, because in order to fix something we really need to lay all out and be honest about how we feel. That is the only way we can really fix things in order to make America a place where every one gets the justice they deserve.