predominately responsible for crime has the potential to have a number of policy implications that may result in Black over incarceration, racial profiling, police mistreatment, and the justified killing of Blacks by police and citizens. Michel Foucault’s theory on race provides an intriguing Skelton to analyze forms of state racism. For Foucault, racism is a “basic mechanism” of government power (Foucault 1976. Pg. 276). Foucault further argues, “racism is the indispensable precondition that allows someone to be killed, that allows others to be killed. Once the state functions in the biopower mode, racism alone can justify the murderous function of the State” (Foucault, 1976. Pg. 256). For Foucault, the modern state operates certain mechanisms that manage populations (Havis, 2013. Pg. 122). Through mechanisms such as biopower and disciplinary power Foucault links seemingly mundane state actions to legitimated forms of state racism. For Foucault, many explicitly race neutral laws act as vital mechanisms to further particular racialized discourses and agendas (Foucault 1976. Pg. 244). While racism is most often considered to be performed through explicit means for Foucault, it is more implicit methods of disciplinary and biopower that regulate and manage populations.
Disciplinary Power
Disciplinary power works through normalizing, hierarchical observation, and examination. (Foucault, 1976. Pg. 242-‐246). For example, the standard classroom, good behavior and study habits are prescribed. Average grades and behavior are defined and students who do not meet particular academic or behavioral standards
are prescribed to get after school help (additional training) or normalizing
medication via a medical professional. Trayvon Martin’s presence within the gated community was not consistent with acceptable socially prescribed norms, or location for Blacks. The neighborhoods gated feature afforded extra security to its residents and was designed to keep people like Martin out. The norm, (or
stereotype) for Blacks is criminal. To the observer, Martin must be in the
neighborhood with some sort of criminal intent and needs to be confronted and banished to re-‐establish neighborhood safety and order. Martin’s attire makes it easy for Zimmerman to associate Trayvon with the Black criminal stereotype and examine his every move and supposed actions as suspicious.
Biopower
Biopower is designed to deal with population categories such as race. According to Foucault, race is one of the most prominently used characteristics for population control. Biopower is “addressed to a multitude of men, not to the extent that they are nothing more than their individual bodies, but to the extent that they form…a global mass that is affected by overall processes, characteristics of birth, death, production, illness and so on” (Foucault, 1976. Pg. 243). Individuals are not seen as a singular, but as members of a larger category with certain essential attributes. Consistent with Barthes and Fanon, there is a stripping of individual characteristics and a branding of personal qualities. According to Foucault, the modern state has a racial hierarchal system where particular “human subspecies” are valued more worthy then others (Foucault, 1976. Pg. 247). Under this
undesirable populations are left to wither while the more desirables are made to thrive (Foucault, 1976. Pg. 247). To control this issue, the state induces particular practices that ‘make live and let die.’ Tools such as COPS, over incarceration, and tough on crime policies work to limit the ability of Blacks to flourish and climb social, political, and economic ladders all the while allowing elements of White culture to thrive.
For Foucault, it is only through the death of undesirable populations, that it becomes possible for the desired subspecies to truly flourish (Foucault, 1976. Pg. 256). This acts as a form of population hygiene designed to limit the populations that drain the greater society and limits the threat the inferior subspecies poses. The inferior subspecies are the criminals, impoverished, and those of low socioeconomic status. Therefore, Blacks need to be controlled, surveilled, and segregated from the White population. This population cleansing works through biopower infiltrating itself into disciplinary measures and jointly produce state sponsored racism (Havis, 2013. Pg. 124).
If the state makes conditions that decides whom to “make live and let die,” then consistent with Foucault, the mechanism, which do so, need not, and do not work through conscious decision (Foucault, 1976. Pg. 247). Therefore, many policies that on the surface are racially neutral are instilled with particular racial bias
unbeknownst to the majority population. In the United States and Canada, policies dealing with crime, may appear racially neutral however, because of the rampant association between Blacks and crime it is easy for the state to implement state-‐ sponsored racist policies. As Havis (2013) discusses, not explicitly racist individuals
have “automatic racialized responses” with individuals “seeing Black” as violent and dangerous (Havis, 2013. Pg. 123). Florida’s “Stand your ground law” provides an example of governmental justification for citizens to confront the threat of Black violence with force. ‘Stand your ground’ authorizes citizens to defend and protect their property and themselves in cases of threat or perceived threat. Citizens are permitted to “meet force with force, including deadly force, if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony” (Florida Legislature, 2015) This is incredibly general and allows for a great deal of personal discretion for one to decide what/when a reasonable threat is present.
Black bodies are considered de facto guilty and with biopower, the Black population in whole comes to be seen as criminal. Thereby, a person’s perception of Blackness is not simply personal choice, but a form of knowledge confined within a larger structure where Blackness is perceived as inferior and dangerous. As noted, stereotypes are powerful enough to infect and unconsciously alter civilians
decision-‐making even if they are not explicitly racist (by creating automatic
responses when dealing with what they perceive as a threat especially in instances that require quick, immediate decision making). In order to allow the White race to flourish, it becomes necessary to segregate and police the borders between Whites (superior) and Blacks (inferior). Castle doctrine legislation has given citizens and police the authority to deal with Black intruders who come into White
neighborhoods.