Book Review: Fugitive Thought Prison Movements, Race, and the Meaning of Justice
Book Review: Fugitive Thought Prison Movements, Race, and the Meaning of Justice
Seldom are prisoners viewed as people with ideas that can influence the world positively. In most cases, people see the prisoners as lawbreakers and people who are out to cause havoc and disorder in the society. Michael Hames-García however tries to demystify the view that prisoners are bad people out to hurt the society. In his book, Fugitive Thought Prison Movements, Race, and the Meaning of Justice, he refers to the prisoners on the same level as the judges and philosophers. He says that the prisoners were people with ideas that could change the world in terms of justice, freedom, and solidarity (Hames-Garcia, 2004). He refers to a number of cases in different countries that show that the prisoners did not mean harm but progress and development to the society. This paper reviews the book, Fugitive Thought Prison Movements, Race, and the Meaning of Justice in view of the author’s claim that the prisoners were people with ideas that could change the world.
Furthermore, the film presents a chance for the author to play his claim on the prisoners. As much as the society may want to judge the prisoners based on their actions, some of the actions are morally justified. The reasons for the actions that lead people to prison are sometimes solid enough to be granted as justice and not the reverse. When a person commits crime because of his/ her defense of other people, it is difficult to comment on whether he deserves a hero’s welcome or a prisoner’s condemnation. The film, however, condemns the people based on their actions without reviewing the grounds for their actions. The prisoners do not receive true justice. In fact, the prisoners are condemned to their activities by the rigid law that does not recognize the evolutional nature of the changing world. In essence, moral concept should also play part in the decision of cases by the judges without them being idealist.
Representation is another aspect of the criminal judgments and the view of natural law that do not adhere to the moral requirements (Cheeks, 2008). The author notes that when the prisoners are represented in their cases, their intentions are never represented. In fact, he notes that lawyer representation is out of bounds for some of the prisoners. The prisoners have a right to be represented in cases that pertain them in court but rarely does that fairly happen. Lawyer representation should be a fully combative process that requires one to present the grounds for the actions, or lack of it in a case and the grounds be fairly viewed and analyzed. In the modern cases, lawyer representation is not given the weight it deserves. He notes that the prisoners’ views and actions target to improve welfare in the society while the law limits their thinking to the old rigidity.
The line drawn between law, justice, and people’s racial background is too thin for the people to claim any meaning to the application of justice. While many people may claim that the law applied fairly to all the people, the author has a different view of the idea. The application of natural justice, principles of representation, and the rule of natural law applied to some people more fairly than it did to others (Cheeks, 2008). Racial indifference of the law never actually existed among the people. The author notes that the people lived in the dark by condemning prisoners based on their races. They surely had brighter ideas compared to some of the people who lived free.
However, the author is quick to note the diverse nature of the definition of freedom. Some people define freedom as the absence of oppression. The author digs into freedom as having meanings depending on the state of the person demanding it. In slave trade for example, what the slaves define as freedom is not what a king’s son would refer to as freedom. Maybe the line between the two is an absolute world apart (Sweeney, 2005). The author shows the struggle to attain and practice freedom through rich but undervalued people in the society. Some of the prisoners fight for their freedom in hope that they will get true value for their efforts but they fail. The Assata’s struggle shows the existence nature of what the people referred to as freedom and the materialistic nature of justice.
Freedom can also be a form of resistance. Sometimes the prisoners have to resist the set procedures for them to feel the freedom that they yearn for (Sweeney, 2005). However, how long does the resistance last? They are prisoners anyway and they cannot resist forever. Several writers put forward words, which the author used in referring to his sense of perception about freedom. He notes that attaining freedom is easy for the prisoners. What challenge the prisoners was claiming possession of their freed selves. Freedom entails ethical choices and moral separation of a choice from another. Ethical indifference does not mount to freedom. The prisoners should get a chance to make their honest ethical choices and not the absolute rule of the law even over their choices.
Poets and the supporters of the prison life argue that the prisoners are mental tanks that can accomplish a lot just like the other people. They argue through their poems that prisoners were great minds cornered together and denied the chance to execute their thoughts. Assassinated prison movement leader George Jackson noted that the prisoners had more potential than the law condemned them to (Aldama, 2006). He says that creativity behind the prison walls and the innovative courage was massive. He also claims that if the prisoners got the right environment and the just chance, they would change the world for the better. Jackson, however, does not see the release of the political prisoners as the ultimate attainment of their freedom. He says that development of the prison circumstances and policies under new progressive methods that would enhance the vision of his movement was the ultimate justice. According to him, justice went beyond a mere show of fairness.
In his book, Fugitive Thought Prison Movements, Race, and the Meaning of Justice, Michael Hames-García explores the fact that the prisoners never received true justice and that prison movements to free the prisoners were justified. The prisoners did not get fair chance to show their creativity and their initiative in many activities. Most of the prisoners found it increasingly hard to get representation in cases. Cases in courts were decided based on racial inclination. Michael Hames-García notes that the movements for the freedom of the prisoners went beyond their mere release from prison. Freedom and justice for the prisoners would mean giving them a fair chance for pursuing their creativity. Poets and writers about the prison encounters emphasized that the potential among the prisoners superseded any views that the people had on them. In essence, the author deviates from the norm and says that the prisoners were mental tanks and weapons of massive change.
References
Aldama, F. (2006). Drug Wars: The Political Economy of Narcotics (Loca Motion: The Travels of Chicana and Latina Popular Culture)(Fugitive Thought: Prison Movements, Race, and the Meaning of Justice)(Book review). AZTLAN - A Journal Of Chicano Studies, (2), 155.
Cheeks, R. C. (2008). The resistance (The Fugitive Legacy: A Critical History)(The Southern Agrarians and the New Deal: Essays After I'll Take My Stand)(Madison Jones' Garden of Innocence)(The Unregenerate South: The Agrarian Thought of John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Donald Davidson)(The Rebuke of History: The Southern Agrarians and American Conservative Thought)(Book review). South Carolina Review, (1),
Hames-Garcia, M. (2004). Fugitive thought : prison movements, race, and the meaning of justice / Michael Hames-García. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, c2004.
Sweeney, M. (2005). Fugitive Thought: Prison Movements, Race, and the Meaning of Justice (Questionable Charity: Gender, Humanitarianism, and Complicity in U.S. Literary Realism)(Book review). American Literature, (4), 864.
