Brilliant student says: "The Shamefulness of Shaming Shaming is a form of punishing an offender who commits a crime. One form of shaming is advertising a crime someone committed on television. For instance, the other day I was watching T.V. and an advertisement came on with a young Caucasian male on the screen. It was an advertisement of not texting while driving. Apparently, this young man ran over and killed three children with his vehicle while texting “I love you” to his girlfriend. I personally did not have a problem with the commercial. I felt so bad for the three lives lost. Then it hit me like a truck. Would a Black and a Latino person(s) get away with just an advertisement for killing young children? I do not think so. If the commercial were of a Black or of a Latino persuasion on the screen, he or she would have been dressed in orange filming the commercial in a maximum security prison and not in the comfort of a living room like the Caucasian man I previously mentioned. Shaming works for some cultures but not for others. Caucasians probably would have seen the commercial with the white guy and felt sorry for him because he felt remorseful for committing this heinous act. I personally feel Caucasians (not all but some) would not feel the same way if it was someone of a different race or culture. Karp writes, “The object of these penalties is to clearly communicate that the offending behavior violates not only legal but also the moral order” (2). For decades, Blacks and Latinos have been depicted as immoral in the eyes of some racist White Americans, so shaming only works when someone in a respected white community comes forth and feels apologetic for a crime that he/she committed. On the other hand, Blacks and Latinos who feel remorseful get prison because they are really not an asset to mainstream society. “Shame is felt when one is concerned about the social status. One might even feel ashamed by the knowledge that complete strangers hold a low opinion of this behavior” (Karp, 5). People living in a disenfranchised society could care less of what people in society in general feel about them. Why? Because they did not care in the first place so why care now! “Individuals who are isolated and disenfranchised from the community’s institutions and relations are going to be impervious to shaming, for they do not have a position in the community worth preserving” (Karp, 12). Of course, I am not alluding that the disenfranchised never feel remorse for doing something bad because they do. I think they rather do the time for the crime than apologize to a society that is not raising funds for higher education, equal housing, employment opportunities, and other situations that poor people face today. In my opinion, shaming Blacks and Latinos is like separating the good from the bad. Didn’t they try that in the South with segregation insinuating that other cultures and races were beneath the privileged? I think it is another form of racism to put people of other races or cultures in an even more awkward position that would make them even more spurious in people’s eyes. Works Cited Karp, David R. (1998). “The Judicial and Judicious Use of Shame Penalties” Crime & Delinquency. Retrieved from HYPERLINK "econ.brown.edu/fac/Glenn_Loury/louryhomepage/teaching/Ec%20222/judicial%20use%20of%20shame.pdf" "_blank" econ.brown.edu/fac/Glenn%5FLoury/louryhomepage/teaching/Ec%20222/judicial%20use%20of%20shame.pdf
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 12:42:23 +0000