Orange Is The New Black

Tempus 22, I think the show's graps on institutional racism seems to be a lot better than yours. It's not just a force that "lets scumbags like that get away with things", it's also a system that makes ordinary people complicit. Maybe some police violence has involved assholes on a power trip, but some was also done by people who were legitimately scared, or confused.

Institutional racism is in the law that puts black people behind bars and white peope in uniforms. It's in the otherwise good intentions of feeling sorry for an involuntary manslaughter's perpetrator. It's in the brave, honorable announcement that still somehow forgets to mention the victim's name. It's in the kid that follows the order to "get that animal". It's in the woman who makes a feeble argument about shared responsibility, yet accepts the counterargument for in-group solidarity. It's in the corporate mook who browses Facebook for "thuggish" pictures.

If Poussey got killed by Piscatella being a rampaging racism monster, and by Caputo enabling him, then the inmates going righteously rioting to hold the two of them accountable, would send the incorrect message that institutional racism is a two-man job, with the obvious solution of coming down hard on whoever's hand it finally blows up in.

The inmates' anger IS justified, but taking it for granted that it must have a justified personal target, is a dangerously naive fiction. Ultimately, the desire to come down hard on "the perpetrators" of institutional racism, is a close relative of the desire to come down hard on any other criminal in whose hands an elaborate societal ill ends up blowing up in.

edited 20th Jun '16 3:37:17 PM by Ever9

I disagree. Tempus has been saying things I've been seeing a LOT of the black community say. If this was a midseason plot point with an inmate extra, I'd say there's validity to the argument, but they chose to end on that after an entire season of building poussey's happiness and validation up. Which now makes it clear they were only doing it for the sake of shock-factor.

How would downplaying it's importance make it more justifiable? Yes, they thought this was an important theme to tell, as viscerally as possible, so what?

If anything, the complaints about why it had to be Poussey in particular, make me think that this problem is not so much about the general idea of the concept, but about Poussey fans in mourning lashing out at the show just for taking away their favorite character, justifiability and narrative themes be damned.

If you want to denounce institutionalized racism, then in my opinion it is more powerful to do it by showing it causing the death of a young woman who is literate, smart, nice and physically non-threatening, basically a woman who would never have ended up in jail were she not black. If Taystee had been killed, then the reason for her to end up in jail might have been numerous - sure, race will be brought into the debate, but poverty and lack of education or bad influence from her neighbourhood would be equally as good explanations. For Poussey, there is just zero way to avoid facing the fact that she ended up in jail because she was black.

edited 20th Jun '16 3:57:02 PM by Julep

Ever 9, saying that people are mad just because something bad happened to their favorite character and as a result are "lashing out" is... kinda dick.

@Ever

Again, all of that would imply that the person having done the murder is always just a poor misguided sheep, which just isn't true. The guy who murdered her did so because he was a moron, undertrained, and tried to fight off another inmate. Obviously institutional racism enables people, but portraying the murderer as a poor innocent otherwise "Nice Guy" and as a victim of it too? It's just inaccurate, and pretty insulting to the victims. Sure some cases happen that are similiar to Bayley's murder, but looking up black people's deaths at the hands of cops will tell you that it's not the norm. I'll point out that they obviously referenced Eric Garner with her death, who did not die this way. At all; so even at the very least their comparison is wrong. Institutional racism is inherent in the system, but it needs people who act it out too, who are responsible for individual cases. Most of the time there just is the obvious bad guy you can blame, who just needed something to nudge them into doing it. You can blame the obvious bad guy in the situation while also adressing the bigger issue. They're not mutually exclusive things. It's just up to the show to adress it.

also it's really awkward hearing them talk about the writer's attempts at making it 'two forces clashing' because it basically sets up this racism-"conversation starter" with no actual racism in it, because it was completely an accident and whatnot. It takes something that is often racially motivated and turned it into a "well could have happened to ANYONE in jail."

edited 21st Jun '16 9:15:43 AM by MrAHR

I agree with Julep here, and the show itself seems to have tried to make the point that Poussey was in prison only because she was black what with the very obvious "ships passing in the night" thing with the two actually literally passing each other in person. Yet by portraying Bayley as Not So Different they end up effectively absolving him of responsibility.

The show seems a bit confused in certain respects - MCC are unrepentent jackasses, that's obvious and we're meant to hate what they do. Yet we're also supposed to agree that Bayley isn't a bad guy and this wasn't his fault? I really thought Caputo was going to blow the lid on the whole thing, but his character is seemingly so obsessed with finding middle ground that he can't take a firm stance on anything.

I'm also seriously worried about the implications of that last scene. I mean, even if Daya doesn't kill Humps (and I don't believe for a second she will, either the gun will jam or is empty, or else she'll be bluffing), the mere threat justifies the fears of white people that those awful blacks are really dangerous. Even if she doesn't kill him - she has a gun in his face. That bridge has already been crossed and burned. The non-whites are being shown as a dangerous mob. It just overall doesn't work.

Some other random thoughts on the series:

I love Frieda. She's pretty much a Heroic Comedic Sociopath, in that she has a very very violent past and how she's in minimum is beyond me, though she is trying to help some of the nicer characters, but she's really entertaining. She seems to have slowly increased her role as the show has gone on and I like it. Her scenes of not being able to remember which murders she's actually in prison for were unexpectedly funny. She's not a remotely sympathetic character of course, but she's not meant to be. She's not really antagonised any sympathetic characters, I suppose, which stops her being a villain as such. Red and Alex are also clearly good guys and she's working with them

Piper was frankly pathetic. I couldn't feel sympathy for her when she was being branded, she's just that horrible of a person. Got better second half of the season but she's fundamentally self-centred and driven by her own awful personality, not true altruism.

I hope Maria's plotline goes somewhere next season. It was interesting see her take over the Hispanics, but ultimately she faded out of relevance as things went on, and she ended up as still the leader of that group, but not actually doing anything. That was disappointing, as conflict was building but never happened between her and other groups, such as the white supremacists.

Tucky may be one of my favourite characters on the show now. I mean she's still an idiot, but she's a lot more sincere than most of the others. She seem to genuinely want to change for the better. I don't buy that Donuts is sympathetic now (he clearly has a teenage inability to control his basic desires) but Tucky wanting to move on makes sense. Tucky also slowly appears to be showing more tolerance, what with her real friendship with Boo, which both know goes beyond just hatres of Coates. Her connection to Nicky makes sense given their pasts, and I hope to see more of that. Maybe she, if anyone, can get Nicky on the right track.

Healy checking himself into a hospital was interesting. He's still clearly a horrendous person, but at least recognises it enough to get help. He's clearly got a bit of resilience, as doing that wasn't easy, nor was abandoning his suicide attempt to go back to work.

edited 21st Jun '16 2:16:38 PM by EruditeEsotericist

Yeah I agree that's what the show was TRYING to go for, but there is a secondary issue here,

Respectability Politics. The idea that you are worthy of sympathy and sadness if you are a perfect angel. Think about how often black deaths are immediately criminalized, and the backlash is to usually try and prove they aren't bad people — but it misses the main point that black people are not allowed to have any flaws or issues, else they will be demonized without sympathy. So by making Poussey the perfect victim... I think it kind of implies the reason we should feel bad for her is BECAUSE of her "superiority" over the other inmates. It's just kind of weird to me. Definitely a misfire imo.

My problem is that Poussey's death is directly compared to Eric Garner (obvious), Michael Brown (Body left where it was for a day) and Sandra Bland ("They didn't even #Say Her Name"). Those real-life cases are of cops directly overstepping their bounds and escalating to violence and murder when they didn't have to. But Poussey's case wasn't murder. It was involuntary manslaughter at best. It makes the Black Dorm's anger and grief seem that much less justified, and then reflects back on the real-life cases.

Another thing is using her death as a way to start converting the Neo-Nazi girl. Because getting killed by the people in authority for no reason has done so much good in terms of people sympathizing with us, right?

How exactly does it make their anger less justified? The entire situation happened because budget cuts led to overcrowding led to hiring psychos led to psychos abusing their position of power and turning Litchfield into Guantanamo. It happened during a peaceful protest. The only reason Suzanne panicked was because she got tortured beforehand. They have every right to be angry. It's not because it is not murder according to the law that somehow you have no right to be angry.

Racism is a big part of the point the writers allegedly tried to make, but the psycho guard didn't really discriminate. Hell, before he made Suzanne and whatsherface fight, he abused and mistreated the literal nazi character. When Flores was forced into standing on the table, they did the same thing to Piper. The peaceful protest happened because Piscatella had a personal grudge against Red and the mistreatment of her is what directly caused the protest to happen. I wonder if the OITNB team even has a black person on their writing team.

Episode 12 was written by Samira Riley's girlfriend. She is not black, but I assume she knows what it is about.

Also, after Piper's shenanigans, there were entire episodes dedicated to the systematic groping of non-white prisoners because the guards were looking for contraband. If it is not institutionalized racism, nothing is.

That's... really not the same, and kind of a variation of "Well I have a friend who's black, so..." And I'm not saying they failed everywhere with the racism thing, but everything that directly caused the protest and Poussey's death were very strangely done and involved white people as victims too. I mean, the very white Red being the victim is what openly started the protest to begin with.

It's just that you connected the way racism is depicted on the show to the lack of black writers out of nowhere. Plus, while Piper also got subjected to the "standing on table" punishment, Flores was the first one to be for the longest time, and it happened because of Piper's actions and the fact that Piscatella automatically thought that a white, blonde inmate had to be a "nice" one who could help him against prison gangs. Dixon's main act of dickery was also directed towards Taystee, and he dehumanized afghan people in his speech to Bayley. The sadist targeted Suzanne for his fight club. So while the racism is not as outspoken as the one from the nazi inmates, I think it is there too, in a more insidious form. It is even largely focused on with the Judy King storyline, the racist who can force herself to get along well with black people...except when things start heating up, where she has no qualms leaving them be. Also, while she did promise to give a job to Poussey, the only characters who directly benefitted from her "generosity" were all white - Yoga Jones, Luschek and Nicky.

Not really out of nowhere, I mused about what happened this season and wondered if the lack of black writers might have anything to do with the wonky racism writing this season. And like I said, I know that they tried to write racism, I just don't think it was done all that well. The sadist guard picked Suzanne to fight against the nazi, but it was the nazi who he terrorized this whole time. Not Suzanne. They literally laughed while the black Suzanne beat White Whatsherface to near death, that's not something that shows "wow these guys are racist". In general these guards are portrayed as creepy psychos who do the same things to inmates of every race. The fact that for every latina/black woman who was mistreated, there was a white woman who was mistreated in the same/similiar way just undermines the point they were trying to make.

On a completely unrelated note, anyone else think that the whole baby mouse thing was over the top? Yeah, I get it, this guy is evil. But come on.

It always started with a non-white inmate. Dixon with Taystee, the sadist with Maritza - he was shown obsessing a bit over her since he spoke Spanish - and the third guy with Flores. Meanwhile, Piscatella started by targeting all Latina inmates at once. The systematic groping never targeted white inmates either, since the old Italian whose name escapes me right now had to lie to get touched. The thing is that most systematic racism this season was against Latina inmates, not black ones, ditto with racism between prisoners (the nazis primarily complain about Ruiz' gang), so I can understand that in this regard, Poussey's death might seem coming5out of nowhere. I think the writers simply wanted to talk about all kinds of racism and its global effects on society, not only the institutionalized one against black people, and simply used the imagery viewers were most familiar with to raise the issue.

edited 22nd Jun '16 2:53:36 PM by Julep

The vast amount of anger was directed at Bayley. We the audience knows that it was an accident. The Black inmates are all saying it's a murder. A lot of the anger coming from them is directed at the "murderer," and then at Piscatella, and then at Caputo when he didn't follow up. There's no anger at "the system" to be seen.

I didn't really get that feeling. T starts the riot because of how Caputo responded to P's death, I don't think anyone but sports-girl-whose-name-escapes-me was specifically gunning for bailey. Hell that last shot is of all the factions united in their hatred of the system that's been fucking them for so long. It was a great flip of last season's ending.

Overall I really dug it. The soldier guards felt kinda comically evil compared to the well rounded group from S1/S2 and The panty plot ran waaaay to long but rather then that no complaints. Oh and that they're just kinda ignoring that luscheck got raped is fucked up. It feels like there's supposed to be a point about how society treats male rape victims but unless it's brought up at some point in S5 that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I'm watching season 4 and I just gone done with episode 8. Like.....what in the actual fuck has happened to this show.

So I know Piper has been absolutely terrible in season 3 and in this one too, but her getting branded with a swastika is by far the most genuinely uncomfortable and horrifying thing I have seen in a work of fiction in like what, the last 2 years maybe? I know this will probably sound weird, but it felt even more awful than Pensatucky's rape somehow, and that's saying a LOT. I wanted her to get some sort of comeuppance, but this is what not I was expecting. I guess it's a testament to this show that I actually feel this way towards a character I absolutely found insufferable in season 3. I know that she's a shitty person but I can't help but pity her all the same.

Safe to say this show has undergone a definite shift to Cerebus Syndrome. I almost wanted to stop watching after this, which is funny given that I've seen some pretty fucked up shit in fiction before, but I have to see where this goes now.

EDIT: Found out about THE huge spoiler while carelessly browsing the TVT page for the show (Poussey's death, to be precise, which I promised myself I wasn't going to do this time around since it always ends up happening to me, but I was kind of upset and wasn't thinking straight. Oh well.

edited 22nd Jun '16 10:37:55 PM by wehrmacht

I don't understand how some of you hate Piper. That swastika branding was the first step to redemption. She became a better person after it. It brought her back down to earth. The writers were trying to make her a better person. She didn't even intend to start an aryan gang; she only wanted to start a task force. She's not racist. She doesn't believe in any of this nazi disgusting bigotry. She wanted to help Alex and she apologised during Red, Alex and Norma turning her swastika into a window. I'll admit, I hated her for the first 6 episodes, but then in episode 7, she changed and episode 8 onwards she became good.

The same woman who aided and assisted in the swastika branding, Piper helped her and fought her her and literally stood up with her on the cafeteria table. Went to Piscatella to try and get Blanca off the table. I think for those of you who still hate her need to retwatch the show or reevaluate your conclusions. She's not the worst person in there. There are tons of other inmates and guards in that prison who've done worse things than Piper. Come on now.

She gets branded as a Nazi, at which point she makes a Heel–Face Turn... into a White Savior.

Yeah, fuck her tbh.

All my hate for Piper evaporated after her branding. She became likable to me again after that episode.

, Haven't finished the season yet, but I agree.

I'm not denying that Piper was a pretty shitty person for pretty much all of season 3 and did some pretty horrible things, but she's a human like most of the other inmates, she isn't so horrible that she doesn't feel regret or legitimately doesn't care about people even if she is self-centered. I'm honestly happy that they decided to use this as an opportunity to make her more likable. Season 3 gave us the impression she was going to become a villain, but in retrospect it's kind of obvious that Piper doesn't really have that kind of coldness or grit necessary, she's too soft and cares too much, there's lines she won't cross.

Speaking of which, I thought the season was going to get even more depressing afterwards but thankfully the next two episodes added some much needed levity. I'm glad the writers decided we need some kind of break from that extremely intense episodes and episodes 8 and 9 had some seriously heartwarming moments like Gloria and Aleida bonding, Piper becoming a better person and friends with Alex and the rest of the white prisoners again, etc.

Also I have to say, I love Judy King. It would have been really easy to make her a stereotypical rich entitled super racist person, but she is much more nuanced and self-aware than that. Not that she's a super good person or anything, but she feels like an actual person instead of a caricature and I really appreciate that. Also she's fucking hilarious.

edited 23rd Jun '16 10:13:49 PM by wehrmacht

Piper is not a racist. Piper does not believe in white supremacy or any of that bigoted rhetoric. Her face was one of consternation and surprise when they chanted white lives matter. She didn't want to start an aryan gang. She wanted to assemble a task force to stop gangs. Nothing to do with race or discrimination. The whole nazi thing happened by chance and Sankey misunderstood what Piper was trying to do.

Piper does not deserve that nazi symbol. Sankey deserved it, the one with the confederate tattoo, anybody part of that who believed in Hiltler's vision, but not Piper.