Do Asian men bring their families to the West to accommodate their abusive behavior within a judicial system immature and naïve enough to disregard their transgressions as cultural phenomena? Unlikely, but it makes prominent a major notion of cultural insensitivity that Sonia Lawrence writes about in her article Cultural (in)sensitivty: The Dangers of a Simplistic Approach to Culture in the Courtroom, whereby domestic abuse of a kind unusual to typically western perceptions, such as burning and the use of sticks (in this case in a Tamil Sri Lankan family [Lawrence 102]) is deemed primitive and third-world. (115) Lawrence correctly argues that women of colour are denied both racial and cultural respect, as they are constantly undermined in the judicial system by having their “otherness” focused on, rather than their affinity to all women, and their prejudice is sustained in having no voice in the media with which to air their grievances. Much was said to condemn Kabilaraj Kanagarajah’s behavior, in beating his two cousins with sticks, but it was the lack of opportunity for Tamil women to portray themselves as much like all others, still victims of domestic abuse regardless of the form it takes, that speaks volumes about the assumptions of Western society about the complacency of coloured women. Would they not want to speak out against this brutality the way many white women do? The patriarchal assumptions, and the subsequent reductionistic approach to the domestic abuse of women in the western world are what I would like to focus on in this post.
Lawrence quotes from the Toronto Sun days after the Kanagarajah case which stated that “Toronto Police and Sri Lankan community members said the incident wasn’t cultural, because with more than 100,000 Sri Lankans living in Toronto, there would surely be weekly incidents of this type if that were the case.” (109, my italics) The inability of the media to separate the incident from the culture; insistence that the sticks were important to focus on merely because they were unusual weapons; and the qualification that sticks were worse than any other weapon, are all reasons why we as Western citizens are not able to separate the crime from the people, and the type of people, who commit them. There is a very prominent gun culture in the United States, and is often a source of satire and ire within certain age and political groups, but the people who commit gun crimes span many cultures and engender an increasingly diverse group of people. There is something to be said for a stick being used as a weapon, and how it relates to a certain culture or ethnicity: perhaps there is a preponderance of sticks available near Sri Lankan homes, citing the convenience angle. Regardless of the reason, domestic abuse is viewed differently when perpetrated by members of the mainstream culture compared to the diseased approach taken by alien cultures. Guns, to those unfamiliar with their scorching ferocity, are likely infinitely more frightening to a person unaccustomed to its loudness, its heat, its immediate deadliness, and the stick, such a toy in its place, looks far less intimidating. But it is the strangeness of the crime, the beating of two young girls for having pre-marital interest in boys, that I suspect people cling to in an effort to justify their own violent infractions, “well at least I didn’t hit my family member over something so petty,” that leads to this intense racialization, and the superiority complex most westerners develop when comparing themselves to others. As Lawrence says, we no longer condescend upon races, but rather the different cultures within those races, and by doing so, marginalize those members of an ethnicity who do not participate in those traditions.
Lawrence states that “’Third World’ cultures are perceived not only as monolithic but also as static,” (116) and in that she makes an argument for why North Americans combine strangeness and primitiveness together when thinking of the Other. Because we, as a western ‘culture,’ are always moving forward and improving, and leave those perceived static cultures further and further behind, and by doing so perceive their strangeness more acutely as we go. It’s such a skewed patriotism that I wonder if there is ever really any respect in the way we treat immigrants. The phenomenon of cultural racism exists, as she states, under the guise of “cultural sensitivity.” We no longer denigrate a person based on his or her skin colour; instead we scoff at the smell of his food or the clothes he wears. These people are inherently inferior because they exude a strangeness that we pass off as primitive, an unlikely and uncanny ability to understand them because they are less complex than we are. In all, the foundation of our cultural sensitivities, and hence the ways we approach the punishment of deviants based on the degree that their behaviour differs from our own, is a learned pattern sustained from colonial superciliousness.
Any change in our behaviour will have to come when we recognize in ourselves that to all others our actions are just as strange and remote, and the judicial system needs to understand the notion that not all people can be culled into a single culture, the notion itself an ever-accelerating current. One may not be able to decide his place within the world, but culture is not necessarily tied to skin colour, and the Tamil girls who were beaten with sticks by their cousin may not have wanted to be thrust unwittingly into this process of racialization. Unwittingly extricated from such a place by the media, by school, by friends, they may have perceived their interest in boys to be acultural, devoid of any defined intent, ill or otherwise. Culture exists only when it is externally recognized by others, and their understanding of their positions in a minority skin colour may have conflicted quite starkly with the fact that nobody, except their own family, treated them differently from any other fourteen or seventeen year old girl.
That the media latched on to the story because of the strangeness of the instrument of abuse, the stick, and the awkwardness around the reason for the attack. People in western societies don’t typically use sticks to attack others, but many refused to see past their myopic interpretation of otherness at the telling realization that domestic abuse is merely that, regardless of whom is the perpetrator.
Works cited:
Lawrence, Sonia N., "Cultural Insensitivity: The Dangers of a Simplistic Approach to Culture in the Courtroom," Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 13 (2001): 107-36
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Introduction:
In response to Sonia Lawrence’s article, “Cultural Insensitivity: The Dangers of a Simplistic Approach to Culture in the Courtroom,” Awryter’s post addressed a variety of issues presented by Lawrence about the role of culture in the legal system. Awryter chose to focus on “the patriarchal assumptions, and the subsequent reductionistic approach to the domestic abuse of women in the western world” for his posting about the philosophical and legal perspectives upon cultural integration into the legal system. (Awryter, 30 March 2008) The title of his critique, “Domestic Abuse is No Different Between Cultures” leads the reader to anticipate an intersectional approach, to use the language of the initial author, to domestic abuse in different cultures. However, after a brief overview of many issues in this dialogue, Awryter’s conclusion remained fairly opaque. Thus, this critique has chosen to engage with a particular phrase which exemplifies the root problems found in dialogue about the space between culture and the law. That phrase is: “Culture exists only when it is externally recognized by others.” (Awryter) This response will first unpack the statement, explain its detrimental effect upon legal thought, and finally address its implications for legal perspectives about the place of culture within the framework of a legal system.
Unpacking the Statement:
Awryter’s post stated that “culture exists only when it is externally recognized by others.” (Awryter) A statement which requires attention, it is an extremely detrimental point of view which serves only to reinforce the subject-object relationship inherent within the practice of Canadian law. The statement implies that the practices, traditions, and beliefs of a specific group (commonly thought to be an integral part of one’s culture) are not designated as ‘culture,’ whatever that may mean, until they are designated as such by those who are not within that culture. That is to say, for example, that if the dominant Canadian culture, ill-defined as it is, cohesively maintained that they did not recognize the beliefs, traditions, etc of the Native people, there would be no such thing as Native culture. One who believes that the external recognition of another people’s ‘culture’ is the dominant defining factor in that decision, and what confers upon them the status of culture, removes agency from the entire cultural group. Sadly, one is forced to turn to the Kantian vision of the self for clarification. For Kant, the self is both subject and object. Laying that concept over a notion of culture (in itself, a conceptualization), one can argue that the integrity of a culture can only be conferred by those within its boundaries. It is based on this that Dorn argues that groups self-define the boundaries around their culture, their members, and what makes them a cultural group. (Dorn, 20) Additionally, the multicultural framework of the Canadian legal system merely contributes to the increasing difficulty of maintaining a single cultural integrity. (Schreiter, 230)
Its Detrimental Effect upon Legal Thought:
In fact, the Canadian legal system is already rife with the objectification of other cultures through comparison to an ill-defined dominant norm. (Lawrence, 112) Partially illuminated by Lawrence’s article is the phenomenon of objectification by the legal system of members of an ‘other’ culture. Lawrence’s article is concerned with the identification of cultural practices, in an attempt to show that defining differences also highlights similarities, thereby leading to greater understanding, awareness, and cross-cultural exchange. However, the identification of a cultural practice is radically different from the identification of a culture itself. (Lawrence, 107) Judges are often part of the dominant culture, as minority groups and immigrant groups are poorly represented on the bench. Thus, Lawrence takes objection to Canadian judges who are not careful about the cultural information that they take into account in any given case. (Lawrence, 129) The foundation of objectification of the ‘other’ merely serves as a justification for this lack of awareness, understanding, and clear decisions about the implications of culture upon the law. It results in a disconcerting tendency of legal professionals to “construct…an unhappy choice between accepting a culture while looking down on it…or requiring assimilation to some construction of ‘Canadian’ norms.” (Lawrence, 112)
The Implications for Legal Perspectives:
The creation of a subject-object relationship, where the ‘other’ is impersonally defined, generalized, objectified, and whitewashed by the demands of the dominant culture, undermines all aspects of cultural interaction within the legal system. This post argues that it goes so far as to undermine even those who attempt to discuss (or solve) the problem, as evidenced by such explanatory statements as “culture exists only when it is externally recognized by others.” (Awryter) As an academic advocate of cultural accommodation, the pursuit of true multiculturalism, and the appropriate integration of cultural differences into the legal system, Awryter does little to convince the reader that other cultures can truly be assessed on par with the dominant one. While culture ought not to be defined by outside forces, it must also not be defined too broadly. The dominant culture remains conveniently ill-defined, seen to encompass everything that the individual assessor does him or herself. (Phillips, 76-77) A more careful multiculturalism than is currently common in Canada might help the reader, writer, and judges, to avoid such abuses of cultural stereotypes. (Phillips, 77) In fact, it is a clear example of how pervasive the mentality is—that one who purports to defy patriarchal assumptions and avoid a reductionist approach could fall into the trap of creation of culture via the medium of external identification. Given all of this, it is easy to agree with Lawrence’s assessment that judges implicitly or explicitly construct and bolster, some idea of mainstream culture in their assessment of culture’s place in the law. (Lawrence, 117)
Conclusion:
What does all this mean? It hints at a deeper cultural insensitivity, one so pervasive that those who claim to be working against those who exhibit an air of cultural superiority are also ‘in on the game.’ The endemic cultural racism exhibited by the society as a whole, and particularly within the legal system is the focus of Lawrence’s article. (Lawrence, 107) More than that, it is important to remain on guard within the discourse by those with a more positive position of culture, for evidence of the very thing they purport to critique. If culture is defined by those within the society, Canadian culture has an undercurrent of cultural racism. Accepting that to be true, multicultural reactions are faced with the burden of heightened awareness. Culture is that which a group desires it to be, it cannot be defined by those who propose to fight on its behalf, protect it from the dominant culture, or embrace it in a wave of cultural integration (within, or outside of the legal system). Awryter’s own reductionist approach is but one example of an attempt at explanation which rests on the same foundation as the problem he proposes to address. What to do about that is another story altogether.
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Works Cited:
Dorn, Charles M. “Culture/Self as Subject, Object, and Process.” Arts Education Policy Review, Nov/Dec 1996; 98, 2, 18-23.
Phillips, Anne. Multiculturalism Without Culture. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Schreiter, Robert J. “Communication and interpretation across cultures: Problems and prospects.” International Review of Mission, April 1996, 85, 337; 230.
Sonia N. Lawrence, "Cultural Insensitivity: The Dangers of a Simplistic Approach to Culture in the Courtroom," Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 13 (2001): 107-36.
Interesting post, but the idea that I took away and found most thought provoking was the notion that racism has moved to hate or differentiation based on one’s culture: with cultural practice and tradition replacing skin colour or facial features as the target of our hate or ostracism. The author draws on Lawrence’s views here, who identifies the guise of ‘cultural sensitivity’ that we use to justify this behaviour. The reality is, this shift has certainly taken place in Western society; it is no longer socially acceptable to identify someone differently because they are ‘Black’ or ‘Indian’, but it is still seen as ok to point out how different an African American’s dreadlocks are.
The author also makes the claim that third world cultures are perceived as static and monolithic. As Lawrence says: “’Third World’ cultures are perceived not only as monolithic but also as static,” (116) I agree that this is the case based on my experience as a Canadian. Our perceptions of ‘African culture’ or ‘Indigenous culture’ are distorted by simplistic mainstream media stereotyping, and are likely very misinformed, misguided and outdated when compared to the reality of these cultures today.
My main criticism of the post would be that it is not focused. The post begins with a look at domestic abuse and the impact of our perceptions of culture on how we view crime within different cultures, with a slight feminist focus. The author continues to speculate on the way we react to crimes we (wrongly) view as ‘cultural’. Finally the paper changes focus to examining the nature of hate, racism and cultural insensitivity. The conclusion doesn’t quite tie all of these ideas together, but each section is interesting and thought provoking in itself.
Works Cited:
Lawrence, Sonia N., "Cultural Insensitivity: The Dangers of a Simplistic Approach to Culture in the Courtroom," Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 13 (2001): 107-36
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