I just began a class titled Communication, Prisons, and Social Justice, but I am beginning to think it should be called "All the Political Views of this Particular Professor" An outline of this class so far has been about how transformative this class is and about how unfair the justice system is, particularly to minorities. I am not by ANY means saying that these facts aren't true, or that I am anything but a liberal especially when it comes to topics of equal rights. But, with that said, I cannot stand the realization that I have paid thousands in tuition to take a class in which I learn one sole perspective. I like to think that even with the massive holes in our justice system and the biases in number of arrests and death penalty sentencing to African Americans that we ended up with these results because somebody had some (horribly wrong) rationale to create a justice system like so. I would like to know what those rationales were so we can properly avoid them in the future and refute them in the present.
The increase in drug related offenders that have been convicted and put in prison is astonishing, no doubt, but this punitive change in the justice system happened in 1904 for a reason. I would assume that this change occurred because the medicinal approach to addiction was not working, most likely due to lack of medicinal knowledge, but how are we supposed to know if we avoid the analysis. I understand compassion is the way to produce happy, healthy citizens and that the current system is failing us. The substantial amount of our society that does not agree with this though (usually conservatives) has their own argument against it and frankly, I would like to know what it is. I get Professor X thinks he is totally right, but I guarantee that all he is able to do in a debate over these topics is regurgitate his overused statistics and avoid addressing the other parties' defenses.
Sue me for wanting to know ALL the facts to a situation, especially one so heavily debated because I like to know how to refute the opponents' viewpoints considering they are most likely retarded. What could people be arguing? That African Americans are the ones committing the crimes because they are just naturally bad people? NO! That makes no sense. If anything it has to do with the profiling and the low income environments that drive offenders to commit crime. Would they argue that we should continue handling it by removing the offenders for a few years then just returning them to inevitably fail? That argument still makes no sense because its a temporary bandaid on a problem that our own society has created.
This is why it seems important to me though. How am I supposed to know what the other side is thinking when all I am being taught is an individual's personal views. I bought five books for this class... I thought it was to get a well-rounded perspective on the subject of the industrial prison complex issue, but I am beginning to believe that I was sadly mistaken.
So, long story short I needed to vent because even though everything my professor says I agree with- its pissing me off that EVERYTHING MY PROFESSOR SAYS I AGREE WITH. Where is the challenge and the reflective thought? I didn't pay to be taught viewpoints I already know, I paid so I could learn how to defend my viewpoints and perfect them if necessary based on potentially gained information.
The thought that
really irks me about this entire issue is that I have been taking classes about topics I have little opinion on prior to the course and I was probably taught the sole perspective of those professors without realizing it. It's like going to spark notes, yeah you get the gist of a reading, but the summary only included what the writer thought was important, and what the writer interpreted- where's the fun in a world like that?
