Why Race Matters in the Amanda Knox Case

Given the popularity true crime series covering O.J. Simpson, JonBenà ©t Ramsey, and Steven Avery have recently enjoyed, it’s no surprise that Netflix released the documentary â€Å"Amanda Knox† on Sept. 30 to enormous fanfare. The program stands out from others on Knox—the U.S. exchange student in Italy  accused of killing her British roommate  in 2007—in that it is largely told from her perspective. Teasers for the film show Knox sans makeup with a severely cut bob. Her features are now angular, the round cheeks that led the European press to call her â€Å"angel face† gone.   â€Å"Either Im a psychopath in sheeps clothing or I am you,† she says sternly. But the documentary only pretends to be interested in pinpointing the real Knox. The omission of information that reflects badly on her makes that clear throughout. Whether she’s guilty or innocent was never the most compelling aspect of her case, anyway—the culture clash, the false accusation of a black man for the crime, the slut-shaming and the idea that U.S. courts are somehow superior to Italian courts—are what drew in people from across the globe. Nearly a decade after Meredith Kercher’s murder, my questions about the case are unchanged. Would the press have given Knox as much attention if she’d been a student of color accused of killing her roommate abroad? Would Kercher, born to an English father and an Indian mother, have garnered more press had she been a blonde like Natalee Holloway?  People of color make up a disproportionate amount of crime victims and those falsely convicted of crimes, but they do not generally become celebrities like Knox and other whites, such as Avery, Ryan Ferguson and the West Memphis Three have.   The Central Park Five, the group of black and Latino teens wrongly convicted of attacking a white woman jogging in 1989, are the exception to the rule. Their conviction was the subject of a 2012 Ken Burns documentary. But from the outset, the public widely believed they were guilty. Donald Trump even referred to them as â€Å"animals† and took out a newspaper ad calling for their executions. When the real attacker confessed, Trump refused to apologize for his previous comments. In contrast, when he heard about Knox’s murder case, he offered to help her, demonstrating how an accused person’s race and gender affect public perception of her guilt or innocence. Reflecting on the Knox case in the age of Black Lives Matter makes it rather comical that Americans argued that the U.S. legal system was more just than the Italian counterpart. Only a few days after Knox’s 2009 conviction for killing Kercher, I wrote about my concerns with media coverage of the case for the now-defunct Racialicious blog. The conviction was later overturned, but my observations about Knox’s defenders remain relevant today as the Netflix documentary shines a spotlight on her case once more. Here’s what I had to say:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  * * * I first heard the name Amanda Knox nearly a year ago. As someone who, like Knox, traveled to Europe to study abroad, even visiting Italy during my time there, I sympathized with the young Seattle woman charged with killing her roommate while an exchange student in Perugia, Italy. Numerous articles portray the University of Washington student as an innocent wrongly targeted by a corrupt Italian prosecutor and victimized by Italians who were misogynistic and anti-American. Despite my sympathy for Knox—found guilty of murdering Meredith Kercher by an Italian jury Dec. 4—I take issue with the articles written in her defense. They reveal that America’s ideas about white womanhood have changed little since the 19th century, the whiteness of Italians remains tenuous and black men continue to make convenient crime scapegoats. I’ve no idea if Amanda Knox is innocent or guilty of the charges leveled at her—a jury’s already deemed her the latter—but some American journalists decided that she was innocent long before a verdict was reached. What’s disturbing about some of these journalists is that Knox’s race, gender, and class background played central roles in why they considered her innocent. Moreover, in defending Knox, their xenophobic and arguably â€Å"racist† feelings about Italy came to light. New York Times columnist Timothy Egan is a case in point. He wrote about Knox for the Times both in June and just before the jury issued its verdict in the case. â€Å"All trials are about narrative,† Egan remarked in the summer. â€Å"In Seattle, where I live, I see a familiar kind of Northwestern girl in Amanda Knox, and all the stretching, the funny faces, the neo-hippie touches are benign. In Italy, they see a devil, someone without remorse, inappropriate in her reactions.† What makes these â€Å"touches† benign—simply the fact that, to Egan, Knox was â€Å"a familiar kind of Northwestern girl?†Ã‚  While waiting to be interrogated, Knox reportedly did cartwheels. Egan chalks this up to Knox being an athlete. But if Donovan McNabb or LeBron James were being investigated for murder and did cartwheels during an interrogation, would their behavior be taken as that of a benign athlete or make them look unfeeling and flippant? Egan attempts to undermine Italy by making it appear as if sinister Italians were angling to punish this girl who not only reminds him of numerous girls from the Pacific Northwest but also of his own daughter. Yet, non-Italian friends of British murder victim Meredith Kercher considered Knox’s behavior to be strange as well, counteracting Egan’s attempts to discredit Italian sensibilities. â€Å"While I was [at the police station] I found Amanda’s behavior very strange. She had no emotion while everyone else was upset,† Kercher’s friend Robyn Butterworth testified in court. And when another friend reportedly remarked that she hoped Kercher hadn’t suffered much, Butterworth recalled Knox replying, â€Å"What do you think? She f___ing bled to death.† At that point, Butterworth said, the way Kercher died hadn’t been released. Amy Frost, another friend of Kercher, testified about Knox and Knox’s boyfriend at the time, Raffaele Sollecito. â€Å"Their behavior at the police station seemed, to me, really inappropriate,† Frost said. â€Å"They sat opposite each other, Amanda put her feet up on Raffaele’s legs and made faces at him. Everyone cried except Amanda and Raffaele. I never saw them crying. They were kissing each other.† Egan could have written a defense of Knox that focused on the fact that there was virtually no physical evidence of her having been at the crime scene and what little there was came under dispute because it was collected more than a month after the murder and, thus, thought to be contaminated. Instead, he chose to characterize Italy as a nation of backward, inane people. â€Å"As this week’s closing arguments showed once again, the case has very little to do with actual evidence and much to do with the ancient Italian code of saving face,† Egan wrote on  Dec. 2. Just as Egan chose not to explain why Knox’s odd antics during her interrogation were benign, he doesn’t explain why â€Å"saving face† is an â€Å"ancient Italian code.† It’s seemingly so just because he declares it to be. In the same editorial, he discusses the Italian jury much in the same way whites have traditionally discussed people of color, such as Haitian practitioners of Vodou, Puerto Rican practitioners of Santeria, Native American medicine men or African â€Å"witch doctors.† â€Å"Their verdict is not supposed to be about medieval superstitions, sexual projections, Satan fantasies or the honor of a prosecution team,† Egan writes. Egan implies Italy’s legal system is filled with people who can’t be trusted to make rational decisions, a matter of crucial importance when the future of a young American white woman is at stake. How horrible that Amanda Knox’s fate is in the hands of these crazy Italians? These people still believe in superstitions and Satan, for heaven’s sake! The way Egan and Knox’s own relatives described Italians reminded me that Americans haven’t always regarded Italians as white. This makes undermining the rationality and trustworthiness of the Italian people and court system go largely unquestioned. In a book called Are Italians White?, Louise DeSalvo writes about discrimination Italian immigrants to America faced. â€Å"I learned†¦that Italian-Americans were lynched in the South; that they were incarcerated during World War II. †¦I later learned that Italian men who worked on the railroad earned less money for their work than ‘whites’; that they slept in filthy, vermin-infested boxcars; that they were denied water, though they were given wine to drink (for it made them tractable)†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Some of the comments about Italians in the Knox case certainly seem like throwbacks to a time when Italians weren’t viewed as white. I have a hard time imagining that if Knox had been tried in England, consistent efforts would be made to discredit the British judicial system. To make matters worse, while American xenophobia is being aimed at Italy, American supporters of Knox are painting Italy as anti-American. Former prosecutor John Q. Kelly even used racialized language when discussing Knox’s plight, likening treatment of her to â€Å"a public lynching.† Isn’t this how racism works today? People who exhibit clearly racist attitudes and behaviors accuse President Obama of being anti-white or blame Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson for perpetuating racism rather than historic, institutionalized white supremacy. After Knox was found guilty of murder, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell stated, â€Å"I have serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted this trial.† This argument of anti-Americanism falls apart considering that Italian national Raffaele Sollecito was also found guilty of murder. Are we to believe that an Italian jury would sacrifice one of its own to spite America? The problematic racial overtones in the reporting of the case not only involve Italians but black men. Following her November 2007 arrest, Knox wrote to police that bar owner Patrick Lumumba killed Kercher. â€Å"In these flashbacks that I’m having, I see Patrik [sic] as the murderer, but the way the truth feels in my mind, there is no way for me to have known because I don’t remember FOR SURE if I was at my house that night.† Because of Knox’s repeated insinuations that Lumumba murdered Kercher, he spent two weeks in jail. Police ended up releasing him because he had a solid alibi. Lumumba sued Knox for defamation and won. While Egan has mentioned that Knox mistakenly linked Lumumba to Kercher’s murder, he quickly let her off the hook for it, as did a commenter at women’s Web site Jezebel who remarked: â€Å"I don’t judge her for that at all. She was held in an Italian prison, questioned for days, and encouraged to ‘confess.’† But to ignore Knox’s transgression on this front is to ignore the history of sympathetic (but guilty) white Americans fingering black men for crimes the men never committed. In 1989, for instance, Charles Stuart shot and killed his pregnant wife, Carol, but told police that a black man was responsible. Two years later, Susan Smith murdered her young sons but told police initially that a black man had carjacked her and kidnapped the boys. Although Knox said that she fingered Lumumba for the crime under duress, her doing so casts suspicion on her and shouldn’t be overlooked by those who find it hard to believe that a pretty American coed is capable of murder. Another black man, Rudy Guede from the Ivory Coast, was convicted of killing Kercher before Knox and Sollecito were, but evidence suggested that more than one assailant was involved in Kercher’s demise.  If authorities believe that Guede didn’t act alone, why is it difficult to believe that Knox also played a role in Kercher’s murder? After all, Knox gave inconsistent statements about her whereabouts the evening of Kercher’s death and did not call police after reportedly finding the door to her home wide open and blood on the floor. To boot, her lover, Sollecito, bought two bottles of bleach the morning after Kercher’s death allegedly to clean up the crime scene, where police found his bloody footprints as well as Knoxâ €™s. These facts hardly reflect well on Knox, so I’m willing to consider her guilt as well as her innocence. Perhaps her use of hashish the night of Kercher’s death clouded her memory. But those who refuse to consider that Knox is guilty, all the while attacking the Italian justice system, remind me of those who struggled to believe that Lizzie Borden hacked her parents to death in 1892. â€Å"The horrific ax murders of Andrew Borden and his third wife, Abby, would have been shocking in any age, but in the early 1890s they were unthinkable,† writes Denise M. Clark in Crime Magazine. â€Å"Equally unthinkable was who wielded the ax that butchered them†¦The idea that the murderer could possibly be†¦Lizzie took days to register with the police – despite overwhelming physical and circumstantial evidence that pointed only at her†¦.What would end up saving her was the remarkable violence of the murders: The murders were simply too grisly to have been committed by a woman of her upbringing.† Isn’t this the argument that Egan makes when he described Knox as a benign hippie type from the Pacific Northwest? Knox, we’re told, worked multiple jobs to save up money to study abroad. She excelled in athletics and academics  alike. Girls like her don’t commit murder, many Americans believe. And if she were tried stateside, perhaps she would have gotten off as Lizzie Borden did. But apparently, Italians aren’t burdened by the cultural baggage that weighs down America. White and female and from a good family don’t equal innocent.

Legal And Ethical Issues Of Medical Consent - 1559 Words

In Australia it is a requirement for a person to give consent when receiving any medical treatment. Whether it be consent by an adult on behalf of a minor or an adult consenting for themselves. This concept appears to be quite candid; however when faced with a complex and challenging situation, it becomes difficult to distinguish the validity of the individual’s consent. The case Re Bruce [2015] will explore the legal and ethical issues of medical consent in exceptional circumstances. The examination of relevant legislation including the Guardianship and Mental Health legislation and the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights will assist in answering this question. Furthermore, a number of stakeholder positions, such as spouses, medical practitioners and contents of the law and its application in practice will be investigated in order to identify if this case possess a lawful justification. Legal Issues: There are four major elements involved on the concept of consent to medical treatment to establish its validity. These elements consist of: decision-making capacity, voluntariness, informed consent and consent to the specific treatment. Common law ensures that a competent person over the age of 18 has the right to accept or refuse the commencement of invasive procedures. This can be communicated verbally, written or it can be implied. 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Managing People and Organisation for Framework-myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about the Managing People and Organisation for Analytical Framework. Answer: Introduction Employees are the most important as well as the major resource of every organization and allocating them to the positions they are worthy of are the responsibility of the Human Resource Management. This report is going to elaborate on an insight view of Sir David E. Guests Human Resource Management Journal. It is going to focus on the three basic question related to what the author mean by the term employee well-being; why is employee well-being important in the field of HRM; and what is the purpose of the framework that the author has proposed. Finally the report shall end up with a conclusion that shall sum up the whole paper in a precise manner. Discussion Employee Well-being By the term employee well-being David E. Guest refers to the part of overall well-being of an employee that he perceive to be purposive primarily by his work and could be affected by the interventions in the workplace. It is associated with the physical and managerial workplace considerations, advancement and the psychological health of the employees. Importance of employee well-being in the field of HRM Employee well-being is associated with their physical and emotional health, which are likely to affect the performance of the employees in their workplace (Guest 2018). The employees with good mental and physical heath are committed to their job roles, as they feel appreciated and supported by their seniors/employers. They then willingly go to the extra miles, knowing that their efforts will be recognized and rewarded. On the other hand, un-healthy employees or the employees with physical or emotional issues call in sickness more often. They probably do not work at their utmost productive level, which in turn affects the overall business. On the other hand, supplying the employees with a supportive environment, which puts focus on their wellness, will create a happier working team. Supportive environment, when paired with benefits like competitive pay and retirement options motivates the employees to stay with the company for a long haul. Purpose of the framework proposed by the author The framework proposed by David E. Guest sets out an optional approach to the Human Resource Management, which gives importance or priority to the practices that are designed particularly for enhancing employee well-being as well as for building a positive employment relationship (Guest 2018). The main purpose of the article is to promoting awareness of the fact that both these elements are equally essential for improving the organizational and individual performance. Conclusion From the above discussion it is to be concluded that employee well-being is directly proportional to organizational performance. Taking care of employee well-being is an essential part of the HRM practices, as there is a very strong linkage in between supportive workplace and happy employees. Employees feels more motivated when their physical and mental needs are look after by the organization. Hence, making the employee well-being as a priority would always have a favorable and positive return on the workforce performance and availability of the organizations. References Guest, D. 2017, Human resource management and employee well-being: towards a new analytical framework, Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp.22-38.

Madde Poulter Essays - Abuse, Shania Twain Live, Shania Twain

Madde Poulter Professor Wedemeyer Song Analysis The song "Black eyes, Blue tears" demonstrates how it is to leave a domestic violence relationship. Tempo- upbeat and is at a moderate pace, very casual Timbre- soft-toned but upbeat Pitch- middle and high pitches Rhythem- The song is fun to sing and has more a positive vibe when normally songs about abuse are down and The song makes me feel empowered and to make you strong enough to realize what you are worth The chorus simply is "Black Eyes, i don't need em, blue tears give me freedom" The refrain is "begging, please no more" The verses are "No more rolling with the punches, no more usin or abusin'" and "no more crying in the corner, no excuses no more bruises." The chorus is obviously repeated but some words frequently mentioned are bruises and and freedom, pretty much saying she wants freedom from this life she had before with bruises and abuse. Shania Twain was in a domestic relationship w her father, and had to help her mom out of the situation. She was also raped by her father, almost forcing her family to run away from this man. Shania lived in Poverty and how she was able to become the country- pop star she is, took alot of hard work. Shania claims "I was more to be a fighter and a survivor" Black eye is a symbol for abuse Freedom is a symbol of freedom from her dad Its about being in a bad situation and having your own voice and power to leave Domestic violence is something that is sometimes overlooked and not many people realize that they have the strength to leave a situation which is sometimes the hardest part about the relationship. The conflict is pretty self explanatory- leaving an abusive relationship All of the lyrics are pretty powerful, not one just sticks out http://oneweekoneband.tumblr.com/post/101422017189/shania-twain-black-eyes-blue-tears-out-of-all another analysis of the song " While revenge songs certainly are fun to sing and certainly have a sort of kickass quality about them, the fact is that in most domestic abuse situations, the abused will not retaliate by shooting the abuser or dropping their body in a lake. Sometimes leaving is the hardest choice to make. ** i know this isn't a real analysis but go w it** Critique The thought of leaving an relationship especially an abusive one is always a scary thought. You never know what might come after you finally have strength to leave. The song "Black eyes, blue tears" is a great song for woman who need the strength to do that. Shania Twain has a past of domestic violence and this song reflects how she was able to build up courage from that. The song explains how she doesnt want black eyes anymore from abuse and came up with strength and she is done begging for it to stop and made a movement for herself. Domestic violence is a serious issue these days and the fact that Shania was able to make an upbeat positive song about controlling the domestic violence relationship you are in, and teaching you its ok to stand up for yourself is amazing. I also found out that everytime the song is sung in concert, money gets donated to domestic violence foundation and that shows how much Shania actually cares about the issue and wants everyone to have strength like sh e did.