Racialized Justice

Andrea L. Zorro
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
SOC 309.97 Youth, Crime, & Justice
Professor Amy A. Rodriguez
May 2023
Racialized Justice
 Description

White supremacy, punishment and mass incarceration are all related to race. This aquarelle
painting (with fine marker re-touching) intends to express the correlation between these
institutions, how they act and how all together conforms society. I chose the word RACE to be
the vertical center piece. Starting from the bottom, there are solid and diverse colors that keep
banishing until the top of the picture. The letters also represent different groups in society. I
wanted to show that these groups are not equally distributed as the majority of the population
would be in the bottom part. Justice is represented with part of a scale that is commonly used as a
meaning of rightness. The justice symbol is along the whole page (vertically) as is something all
groups in society and every person is related to (although they think they do not). In the upper
part of the scale the colors diminish as a way of representing how the justice system sometimes
changes according to the group it is applied to.

E in my picture is laying down to represent mass incarceration and how the legal system is over
watching what people from the bottom (low class, mostly Black/Latino people, poor economic
resources) do. People in this group constantly find themselves 'locked' between the lack of
opportunities/resources, over vigilance and the depraved justice system. Letter C (a little smaller)
would be the middle class, those who try their whole lives to keep a job, study and 'be something
in their lives'. Sometimes they are the representation of justice, but they are not the ones who
made justice. A letter states that those people who are wealthy enough to go to college, get
companies or well-paid jobs, are a little upper on the scale of society. Even though they may
have benefits (than the lowest part of the scale). Last, R (a globe) intends to illustrate that part of
society to whom justice does not apply (as they 'own it'). They set the rules and blindly lead
society for them to have economic benefits and keep in power.

In my painting I tried to represent this group just slightly connected to the rest, as that is how
they show to the rest and work through being apart from those who are not 'same' as them. I do
not know if my work is important, but I wanted to condensate at least a small part of everything I
have learned from this class. Art is not only a way of expressing one's perspective but also a way
to bring back spaces for minorities and communities whose voices have always been under heard
in society. Baca (1995) in her article Whose monument where? Public art in a multi-cultural
society mentions the importance of art to be from people to the people and not a private luxury
that few can afford.
 Annotated Bibliography

Brown, E., & Barganier, G. (2018). Race and Crime: Geographies of Injustice. Univ of
California Press.

Brown & Barganier’s book examine the interaction of criminal justice activities that
permeates social interactions in society. Policing and imprisonment, although present in today’s
society, have their bases in the criminal justice since the European colonial conquest. They
describe how historically racial colonial legacies permeate the legal justice institutions in today’s
society.

Dayan, C. (2013). The Law Is a White Dog-How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons.
Princeton University Press. Ch. 3 “Punishing the Residue,” (continued) pp. 92-113

Colin Dayan explores the connection between the law and the repercussions its practices
have on people's identities. She also examines how the legal system through punishment and
torture has consequences in how people live their lives. This system defines what a person is or
is not, once someone is inside the legal system, they become human material and are no longer
subjects of rights. This is because the American incarceration system comes from slavery and
deprivation of knowledge, presented through the text.

Okun, T., & Jones, K. (2000). White supremacy culture. Dismantling racism: A workbook for
social change groups, Durham, NC: Change Work. Retrieved from
http://www.dismantlingracism.

Okun & Jones show main characteristics of white supremacy that impede the proper
development of the culture. They state that rules such as individualism, paternalism, sense of
urgency, among others; hurt black people and other non-white groups as they perpetuate odd
practices to maintain white imaginaries alive in society. They infer that such characteristics from
white supremacy culture while used in different organizations (claim to be multicultural) do not
leave room for new rules and just ask people to fit in with them.

Baca, J. F. (1995). Whose monument where? Public art in a many-cultured society. Mapping the
terrain: New genre public art, 131-138.

Baca reinstates the importance of Public Art in the culture. In her text she makes a route
in different cities of the United States where art is exposed in the streets. She claims about the
role of artists and art as a way to raise the voice of a culture from a diverse point of view. She
narrates how artists, architects, environmentalists and history groups interconnect their
perspectives about Chicanos culture. Resulting in art pieces that expose different views through
murals, graffiti and landscapes that also recover public spaces.
 References

Baca, J. F. (1995). Whose monument where? Public art in a many-cultured society. Mapping the
terrain: New genre public art, 131-138.

Brown, E., & Barganier, G. (2018). Race and Crime: Geographies of Injustice. Univ of
California Press.

Dayan, C. (2013). The Law Is a White Dog-How Legal Rituals Make and Unmake Persons.
Princeton University Press. Ch. 3 “Punishing the Residue,” (continued) pp. 92-113

Okun, T., & Jones, K. (2000). White supremacy culture. Dismantling racism: A workbook for
social change groups, Durham, NC: Change Work. Retrieved from
http://www.dismantlingracism.

Rios, V. M. (2011). Punished: Policing the lives of Black and Latino boys. NYU Press. o
Chapter 4: The Coupling of Criminal Justice and Community Institutions.

Sampson, Robert J. & Laub, J. (1997) A Life-Course Theory of Cumulative Disadvantage and
the Stability of Delinquency. Pp. 133-161 in Developmental Theories of Crime and
Delinquency. (Advances in Criminological Theory, Volume 7), edited by Terence P.
Thornberry. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.