Diversity, Social Justice, and Inclusive Excellence: Transdisciplinary and Global Perspectives

4: Beyond the Pale: Reflections on the Vulnerability of Black Life in the United States

CHAPTER FOUR Beyond the Pale Reflections on the Vulnerability of Black Life in the United States MECHTHILD NAGEL The trope “beyond the pale” seems mostly identified with ghettoization of Jews in Imperial Russia. However, it originated from­ seventeenth-century British paled settlements in occupied Ireland to keep the Irish rebels out. It denotes a transgression of decency standards, namely the proper place of living for Christian (Anglo or Russian) citizens. What does this trope mean to a colonized, enslaved people, to subjects—not citizens (cf. Mamdani, 1996)? Interrogating the trope of “beyond the pale,” the chapter brings into conversation criminological considerations with philosophical ones by focusing on the constructions of normalcy and deviance within the United States. Examples draw on the enduring presence of White supremacy and its intersections with age, gender, sexual orientation, and gender nonconformity . Of particular interest is an elaboration of the fragility of Black life given the specter of mass incarceration. Finally, abolitionist alternatives to the carceral society are explored. In utilizing the metaphor of Beyond the Pale, I want to highlight the endurance of social control ideologies in particular those in the name of White ethnocentric patriotism. They make it possible that some ethnic groups become national scapegoats, usually following a political crisis or war. Some of the worst excesses of casting the subaltern beyond the pale have been the residential schools imposed on American Indians (cf. Andrea Smith, 2005, and Richie’s documentary film Our Spirits Don’t Speak English, 2008), on African Americans 69 70 Mechthild Nagel (think slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration), on Chicanos who endured the Catholic Church’s repressive mission system, and on Japanese Americans who were interned in concentration camps during World War II (cf. Takaki, 1995). More recently, it has affected Muslim and Arab boys and men who were disappeared in federal and local prisons and jails in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Many of them were eventually deported, and thousands of families left “voluntarily” to Canada (Barlas, 2004). The world over, others, too, are catapulted beyond the pale who defy social ideologies of heterosexism , ableism, and sexual mores such as sex workers, gay, lesbian , bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex (GLBTQQI) persons, disability activists, people living with AIDS, persons engaged in interracial relationships undermining the de facto policy of antimiscegenation . Being conferred a status beyond the pale may result in imprisonment or social/spatial dislocation for the crime of transgressing the social norm. As I have done elsewhere (2008) with the trope of diaspora, I wish to deploy “beyond the pale” specifically to discuss anti-Black racism in the United States. In order to understand the fragility of Black life in the United States, the notion of “pale” is significant in several ways. First, it is a fitting metaphor for the acute color consciousness in the United States, dating back to chattel slavery; that is, the division of labor in the fields and in the master’s house according to one’s hue; and even today economic, juridical, and psychological rewards come with joining the “pale” complexion of those deemed “White” or “light-skinned” (e.g., Viglione, Hannon, & DeFina, 2011). Second, the device of the pale is a stake used for fencing. Marking the binaries and borders Kipling’s tale “Beyond the Pale” advocates: A man should, whatever happens, keep to his own caste, race and breed. Let the White go to the White and the Black to the Black. Then, whatever trouble falls is in the ordinary course of things—neither sudden, alien, nor unexpected (1888). This leads to (third) the expectation of normalcy. Whites live within the pale, a place of decency (White supremacy, settler colonialism and concomitant systems of oppression of heteropatriarchy, and ableism) shrouded in the myth of belonging and attaining merit: “I deserve to live in peace even if it’s at the expense of others who will live in permanent insecurity or war.” The pale then no longer only signifies an object but a place of “possessive investment in whiteness ” (Lipsitz, 1998), which purchases security and tranquillity—a 71 Beyond the Pale gated community. In the color scheme of things, the pale functions in opposition to Blackness, as imperial writer Kipling bluntly asserts, never shall Black (female) bodies meet romantically with White men. In his short story, Blackness signifies both Indian and “going native.” Kipling’s Anglo male protagonist finds allure in the Indian girl who is in...