Re: ASC Membership Directory
SOC_HENRY@ONLINE.EMICH.EDU
Mon, 29 Dec 1997 00:57:39 -0500 (EST)
Well, well well. Perhaps Brian MacLean has it right. Has the criical
criminology division lost its way? The listserve does have some useful things
on it, occasionally, but when notable crits start worrying that their status is
misrepresented then we are in trouble. There are a thousand issues we could be
debating, such as: the expansion of the invasion of privacy from satalites for
an $11 subscription; the expansion of the prison building program (in Michigan
Engler wants to build five more prisons); the false celebration of community
policing as the solution to the crime problem which is more likely a reflection
of the absorbtion of street crime into the privacy of publicity-shy
corporations and the growth of the unpoliced hidden economy; the failure of
traditional radical feminism to accomodate to the new 90s feminist resistance to
alienation and the new feminists'valuable investment in developing their own
empowering agendas that don't validate those of males; exploitation of African
Americans with power by those without; the expansion of information freedowm
through the web while technology increasingly disempowers the already
powerless...shall I go on? What was that? Some of our status and affiliations
are wrong. Well excuse me! Come on folks. Shit doesn't just happen; you have to
eat first, and some people arn't. Or to put it more bluntly, as a dear-departed
colleague, Steve Box, once said "If shit became valuable, the poor would be born
without assholes!" Now let's get serious. I know Marty was trying to be helpful
here but this kind of "help" reaffirms the existing order of power relations and
inequality, and does not bode well for a world in which crits worried about
how their status is represented, replaces a world of folks obsessed with their
status. Can we deal with some issues here? I've outlined a few. What about
some more? What about "Critical Criminology's Top Ten Concerns for 1998"? What
is getting to you? What is not being addressed? Enquiring students want to
know? Let's not leave 1997 with limp worries about self-obsessed status. Is
that what American Critical Criminology really cares about? I may have missed
something here. Did we join ASC for status and recognition or to have a
platform to agitate against institutional complacency and moribund ideas? Are we
investing in mainstream criteria for what's important? Please tell me I'm wrong!
Disillusioned of Michigan
(aka Stuart Henry)