ARCHIVE - AN EXTENDED READ: BLOOD IN THE WATER - DISCUSSION THREAD - NON SPOILER THREAD - Start Date September 1st

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Ani - fear is palpable while reading or listening to this selection. To find a first hand source is amazing.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Derek - thank you for your post - we do not allow any self promotion of links to author's pages - sorry. It is nothing personal.

We have a business folder in this group and Douglass would love to have some assistance with it. However, you cannot self promote over there either.

You wrote:

You know, I'm a business school professor (entrepreneurship), and it's so eye-opening to see how the kids in my classes often come to me with complete belief that if all they have to do is work hard and they'll have everything they ever dreamed of.

I try to communicate to them how many structural forces are at play that will determine their success...and that addressing them is not just a bygone relic of the long-ago '60s.

One of the books I assigned that helped open some eyes was The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality by Angus Deaton.

In the second decade of the 21st century, it is impossible to talk about entrepreneurship without also talking about inequality. On one hand, we are living in a time of unprecedented prosperity. On the other hand, the vast majority of the wealth created by the most (financially) For those looking to understand the deep sources of this inequality, this is the go-to book.

Check it out!

Note:

This is how we do the add for the book so that the goodreads software globally populates our site for our members and for goodreads as a whole. You can on any thread check the white space to the right on each thread and you can see the books and the authors of any books listed and also the number of times they were mentioned on this thread or other threads. However, we do not allow self promotion.

by Angus Deaton

You are correct - inequality has very deep roots and not everyone has a level playing field and hard work does not make up the difference the majority of the time. When you are struggling with even your very basic needs - achievement in any sphere of your life is impacted and doubtful.

You may also want to add this book with the book cover, the word by, the author's photo and the author's link like we did above to the glossary thread which is a great resource thread for the book.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Jeff, a great comment - why years later all of the secrecy?

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Dave that is pretty sad about the lip service given to rehab. That should be key. I guess we could say that so much lately is built up and accomplishments are simply inflated. It seems to be like everything else - just tell the people what they want to believe and hear. You really do not have to deliver. But then again it has been going on and has been that way as you mentioned in your example for the last 10 to 15 years.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Patti welcome - I think folks are just worn out and really do not like their jobs. I am sure that being a correction officer is stressful and probably scary. But it goes without saying that it does not give them a reason for bad behavior either.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Michelle - as I read further - glad that you are caught up.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Deb - it is sad to realize that a lot has happened in our lifetimes and not all of it good. Here we are going through another impeachment and things have been going on which do not seem to jive with our Constitution - we have a lot of things going on in a lot of places which do not reflect the progress that we think we have made in this country. I sure hope we can do better because we are lucky to be in this county but we have to remember that this luck and good fortune is now what everybody is experiencing.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

This is a great article:

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/...

Some questions brought up in this article are some that we could begin to discuss while reading this book:

1. Are state officials and prosecutors willing to rethink not just long sentences for drug offenses, but the reflexive, simplistic policymaking that has served to increase incarceration for violent offenses as well?

2. Do policymakers and the public have the stamina to confront the second largest slice of the pie: the thousands of locally administered jails?

3. Will state, county, and city governments be brave enough to end money bail without imposing unnecessary conditions in order to bring down pretrial detention rates?

4. Will local leaders be brave enough to redirect public spending to smarter investments like community-based drug treatment and job training?

5. What is the role of the federal government in ending mass incarceration? The federal prison system is just a small slice of the total pie, but the federal government can certainly use its financial and ideological power to incentivize and illuminate better paths forward.

6. At the same time, how can elected sheriffs, district attorneys, and judges — who all control larger shares of the correctional pie — slow the flow of people into the criminal justice system?

7. Given that the companies with the greatest impact on incarcerated people are not private prison operators, but service providers that contract with public facilities, will states respond to public pressure to end contracts that squeeze money from people behind bars?

8. Can we implement reforms that both reduce the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. and the well-known racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system?

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

I think this response from the author is important to discuss as well:


Inmates at Attica State Prison in Attica, N.Y., raise their hands in clenched fists in a show of unity, Sept. 1971, during the Attica uprising, which took the lives of 43 people. (AP Photo)


Old Cell Block and Guard Tower at Sing Sing Prison in 1938, Ossining, NY, New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)


Delegates to the Eighth International Penal and Penitentiary Congress held in Washington, D.C., in 1910, Bain Collection (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)"

The author of our selection writes:

"It is rare when one has the opportunity to have a group of historians whom they respect so deeply read their book, and do so with such care and wisdom. Their essays made me think again about my own subject position as a writer, they made me consider how I might have more powerfully problematized some key points that I tried to make in the book, and, finally, they raised a question about the concept of “justice” that I suspect I am not alone in finding both vexing and vitally important.

I found myself facing the question about how my own history might shape my recovery and retelling of Attica from the moment that I began Blood in the Water. How could I be a historian whose job it is to make sense of the heroic as well as heinous acts of prisoners and members of law enforcement, of lawyers and judges, of radical activists and military brass, and blacks as well as whites, when my own family is populated with all of these people—people who each shaped me, people whom I love, and people who so often see the world very, very differently from one another?

For good or ill, the way I tried to mitigate against the perils of my positionality was by trying truly to “hear” from as many of Attica’s actors as possible and, then, take seriously how they understood what were doing in any given moment–even if their actions were, from our vantage point, weak or reprehensible. In short, my goal was first to humanize and then to take the step back necessary to place their actions in a broader historical context. Some in my book would, in the final analysis, be villains, and some would be heroes and heroines. But all, I hoped, would be understood.

I am deeply thankful that my efforts to humanize Attica’s many actors were recognized by the historians in this forum, as was the depth and breadth of my source base. I am also so grateful, however, they also pushed me a bit in both areas. For example, although LaShawn Harris commends the book for situating prisoners “at the center” of the struggle to bring about a “transformation in prison policies,” Russell Rickford also rightly points out that my focus on certain prisoner sources over others perhaps gave short shrift to what he calls “the global sensitivities” of their struggle. And Kali Gross wonders about the book’s focus on so many non-prisoner, and white, actors—be they villains, heroes, or even victims themselves.

On the one hand, and as I think a close look at the book’s notes indicates, this history is indeed, and throughout, prisoner-driven and -centered. It was these men’s decades-long efforts to speak out that provided me with the sources to tell readers not only what was happening in D Yard, but also during the bloody retaking, throughout the months of their brutal torture, and during the state’s extensive cover up. The book begins with how they experienced and resisted Attica, and it ends with why it is they who make what happened there still matter."

More:
The Remaining Response:

https://www.aaihs.org/blood-in-the-wa...

Questions to ponder while reading this book:

1. What was the concept of “justice” that is evidenced in the story of the Attica uprising? Does that concept vex you like it did the author? What are your feelings pro and con as you read and discuss the book?

2. The author stated: "How could I be a historian whose job it is to make sense of the heroic as well as heinous acts of prisoners and members of law enforcement, of lawyers and judges, of radical activists and military brass, and blacks as well as whites, when my own family is populated with all of these people—people who each shaped me, people whom I love, and people who so often see the world very, very differently from one another?"

a) Do you see the dilemma that the author is describing? How does being a member of law enforcement or a lawyer or judge differ greatly or be polarized from the perception of the prisoners or the guards? Do you understand what the author describes as the "perils of my positionality"?

b) The author says "The book begins with how they (the prisoners) experienced and resisted Attica, and it ends with why it is they who make what happened there still matter." As we read and discuss the book - we should continue to discuss how the prisoners were telling their story either justly or unjustly depending upon their perils of positionally or whatever the "peril of positionaly" of the reader happens to be or even other participants in the story of the Attica uprising.

3. The author stated: "Yet, it is also the case that a great many of the men who shaped what happened at Attica–from those who ran the prison, to those who planned the massacre, to those who carried out the torture, to those who litigated the cases, to many of those who orchestrated the cover-up–were not incarcerated. These men were deeply privileged, some had unimaginable access to power, and all were white". What exactly do you think that the author meant about the "racial divide"? How is that relevant to the understanding of how the idea of justice or what that means is different for the races?

4. The author stated: "How would I recount the full scope of the atrocities carried out without somehow numbing the reader to their horror? How could I make sure that the violence I described was not read as either spectacle or pornography? As worrisome, how might I tell the violence of prisoners and troopers alike, without in any way muting the fact that the horrors perpetrated by members of law enforcement and the state were incalculably greater?" Do you as the reader feel that the author handled the historical events surrounding Attica is a balanced and unbiased way? How can the reader explain that there appeared to be horrors on all sides of the law (prisoners, troopers, law enforcement, state, etc)?

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

This was an interesting last segment of the author's response which I noted in the previous post:

The author stated: "Would it have been “justice” if the troopers who had shot and tortured prisoners been tried, convicted, and jailed back in 1971? Well, only if one believes that the prisons to which they would have been sent were indeed about levying justice. My book is unequivocal that they are not. Would it have been justice if the architects of the assault at Attica had simply admitted responsibility and had owned the trauma they had wreaked? Well, only if one believes that their apology included the acknowledgment that racism undergirded the abuse they visited on black bodies, and suggested that they were actually and actively working to dismantle the very structures of white supremacy and the apparatuses of white privilege that gave them the power to carry out such abuse in the first place. The book makes clear that neither were possible.

And so, ultimately, I could only sum up what the Attica’s survivors themselves had concluded about their own decades-long fight: what they got wasn’t justice. It wasn’t even close to justice. But it was the closest thing to justice that they would ever get. Indeed, there was only one thing about the concept of “justice” in this history about which I had become unshakably certain: The struggle of the men to be heard at Attica “testifies to the irrepressible demand for justice. This is Attica’s legacy.”

Discussion Question:

1. What are your thoughts on the above?