Blog Post 3

 One term brought up in the Lozano-Reich & Cloud article that stuck out to me was "civilizing strategies". From what I gathered, this means strategies to condemn those seeking change by focusing on the means by which people are seeking change rather than what the actual change they seek is (or why they seek those changes in the first place). Lozano-Reich & Cloud bring up numerous examples of this, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of a recent controversy surrounding US Senator Krysten Sinema.              

The context around the controversy is that Senator Sinema is one of two Democrat senators who are opposing the president’s ambitious bill to provide relief for Americans and funding for infrastructure. The bill is widely popular among her constituents, and two votes could get it passed. So, people are expectedly curious as to why Sinema opposes it, and are trying to get answers from her, as she is notorious for often not being available to receive questions from her constituents. This all led to Sunday, when a social justice organization followed Sinema around their campus to get answers out of her, and even followed her momentarily into a public bathroom when she avoided questions. This led to the controversy, with a lot of people being very upset at the organization for questioning her, claiming that it went “too far” [1]. 

While Lozano-Reich & Cloud are mostly talking about dominant groups versus minorities and the situations aren’t exactly alike, their point that “dominant groups have repeatedly enacted civilizing strategies to effectively silence and punish marginalized groups” (Lozano-Reich & Cloud 223) strikes me as similar. Sinema is holding back a popular bill that will help many people, so her constituents take aggressive action to get answers out of her, even going as far as to follow her into a bathroom, and suddenly large news organizations come out with tons of opinion pieces talking about how uncouth Sinema’s detractors are in their actions. Thus, using civilizing strategies to focus on the actions of Sinema’s constituents, rather than their needs or why exactly they are confronting Sinema in the first place. As Ashley Reese from Jezebel points out, “There was no violence, no rude language, nothing. Just a few constituents following their representative into a large bathroom to air their grievances” [2], and yet the civilizing strategies are still apparent and holding back the people who are asking, pleading for help. 

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/04/politics/kyrsten-sinema-bathroom-confrontation/index.html

[2]https://jezebel.com/absolutely-bully-kyrsten-sinema-outside-of-her-bathroom-1847794904