Justified’s Message of White Superiority
ROD CARVETH
Being set in Harlan, Kentucky, it’s not surprising that Justified would be dominated by white characters. The African-American population in the real-life county seat of Harlan is just seven percent, while the population in the county itself is just over two percent.
Rarely Seen
African Americans are rarely seen on the show, and when they are seen, they’re depicted as criminals or involved in criminal activity. In Season One’s “The Fixer” Raylan is introduced to Arnold Pinter, a bookie and con artist from Brooklyn who, like Raylan, longs to get out of Eastern Kentucky. Towards that end, Pinter informs on criminals for the marshals’ office. Art tasks Raylan with trying to give Pinter a $20,000 reward for information that Pinter provided. Pinter hired Curtis Mims, an African-American enforcer from Detroit, to collect gambling debts from customers. Pinter sends Mims to collect a debt from Travis Travers. When Mims goes to collect, Travers talks him into double-crossing Pinter. While Mims and Travers try to get Pinter to divulge where he is keeping his “nest egg,” Raylan arrives to see if Pinter is around to give him his reward money. Mims meets with Raylan and says he will pass the money on to Pinter when he sees him. When Raylan leaves to get the reward money, Mims plots to kill Raylan when Raylan returns. Mims is instead killed by Travers, who sees an opportunity to get both Pinter’s nest egg and reward money. Unfortunately for Travers, he meets his match with Raylan.
Another African-American character featured in Season Four is Jody Adair, a bail jumper wanted for the murder of two heroin dealers. Raylan takes a side job from his bondsperson Sharon Edmunds to capture him. Raylan finds Adair attempting to visit his estranged wife. She refuses to let him in the house, so he goes back to his car and grabs a gun. Before Adair can get out of the car, Raylan intervenes. Adair declares “You ain’t gonna shoot me.” Adair is correct—Raylan shoots the steering wheel, instead, exploding the air bag. Raylan takes Adair into custody, and eventually turns him over to Sharon.
While Sharon and her partner, Mitch, are taking Adair back to the authorities, the van blows a tire. A driver, Kenneth Flix, comes across the van and offers to help. Mitch tells him that they don’t need help, and then checks on Jody. Flix jumps Mitch and strangles him. Adair then grabs Mitch’s gun and shoots Sharon in the neck, killing her. Flix and Adair then drive off. Raylan will later track down Adair, killing him in a gunfight.
With the exception of Rachel, the African-American characters are linked to criminal behavior. While there are many white characters who are involved in criminal enterprises, the representatives of social control—law enforcement—are dominated by white characters. In other words, in Justified whites are seen as keeping African Americans in line.
Critical Race Theory
Critical Race Theory arose out of a movement of legal scholars who focused on race and racism as it applied to the law. The essential founder of Critical Race Theory was Harvard law professor Derrick Bell. Bell and other legal scholars argued that while traditional anti-discrimination law assumed racism was an individual and aberrant act, they proposed that racism is pervasive and normal.
Critical Race Theory insists upon race-consciousness in making legal decisions (such as college admissions or voting rights cases) in order to level the playing field between whites and people of color. The notion of being neutral or “color blind” merely supports the status quo of white supremacy instead of eliminating racial inequality. In an effort to focus on outcomes, critical race theorists have shifted their attention from a civil “rights” discourse, which is almost always procedural (to achieve a “fair” process) to one focusing on structural inequalities. The ideas that Bell helped to develop and nurture in legal theory inspired scholars in education, history, social sciences and even literature to re-examine traditional interpretations of race and racism.
There are also a number of ethnic sub-disciplines of Critical Race Theory, each emphasizing different issues. As an example, Latino Criticism, or “LatCrit,” scholars often discuss immigration and language rights; Asian-American critical race theorists deal with issues such as the “model minority” myth; and Native American scholars explore aspects of indigenous rights and sovereignty. These perspectives complement Critical Race Theory’s critique of the dominant civil rights paradigm—a discussion often framed in terms of “black” and “white.”
Principles of Critical Race Theory
There are several central principles that characterize the thinking of much Critical Race Theorty scholarship. The first principle is that racism is a normal part of American society. This principle of the ordinariness of racism—that racism is not an aberrant type of behavior—means that racism is difficult to cure or address. For example, popular images and stereotypes of various minority groups shift over time. In one era, African Americans may be depicted as happy-go-lucky, simpleminded, and content to serve white folks. A little later, when conditions change, that very same group may appear in cartoons, movies, and other cultural scripts as menacing, brutish, and out of control, requiring close monitoring and repression.
Although many more minority group members participate in collegiate and professional sports, studies of sports and media show that overt and covert forms of racism persist. As a result, civil rights legislation and affirmative action laws that promote formal equality may remedy the most egregious and blatant expressions of racism (such as housing discrimination or denial of voting rights), but have little effect on subtle, business-as-usual forms of racism that people of color experience as go about their everyday lives, leaving racism’s structural core untouched.
The second feature is called “interest convergence” (or, sometimes, material determinism). Because racism advances the interests of both white elites (materially) and working-class people (psychically), large segments of society have little incentive to eradicate it. Thus, when social changes occur to at least appear to benefit people of color, it is only because the interests of the dominant white society and the subordinate people of color in society have temporarily converged. Ultimately, though, any social change that benefits people of color actually has greater benefits for whites.
Bell argued that the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education—a landmark case in civil rights litigation—may have come about more from the self-interest of elite whites than a desire to help blacks. Bell proposed that after World War II, the United States had become the primary world power. In order to maintain that position, however, the US government needed to expand its influence over developing nations. One barrier to achieving this influence was the symbolism of legally mandated segregation that existed in the US. So, while Brown v. Board of Education got rid of the “separate but equal” doctrine that prevented African Americans from having equal access to a quality education, it also helped the white power structure by elevating its prominence in global affairs. In addition, the inclusion of the statement that the provisions of Brown needed to be accomplished with “all deliberate speed” meant that racial progress would occur at a comfortable enough speed to not disrupt the social system.
A third theme of Critical Race Theory, the “social construction” thesis, holds that race and races are products of social thought and relations. The argument here is that “races” are categories that society invents, not biological or genetic realities. While it is true that people with common origins often share certain physical traits such as skin color, physique, and hair texture, these characteristics are dwarfed by that which we have in common. These physical similarities also have little or nothing to do with higher-order traits, such as personality, intelligence, and moral behavior. That society frequently chooses to ignore these scientific facts, and endows these socially constructed races with pseudo-permanent characteristics is of great interest to critical race theorists.
Thus, race is a social construction defined by the dominant culture at a historical moment in time. In the United States, this historically has meant that whites are accorded benefits and non-whites are disadvantaged due to their position in the social structure. Being white (or possessing whiteness) makes one part of the most powerful in-group in society. This in-group defines who is non-white (which includes African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and Native Americans) and then denigrates the out-group.
Differential Racialization
Another, somewhat more recent, development concerns what is referred to as “differential racialization” and its many consequences. This concept refers to the tendency for the dominant parts of society “racializing” different minority groups at different times. Historically, by 1940, the Japanese had achieved general acceptance into US culture, at least on the two coasts. Yet, with the attack on Pearl Harbor, these same Japanese were removed to war relocation camps, while African Americans were recruited for the war effort—either as troops (albeit in segregated units) or for jobs in war industry. Additionally, fifty years ago, the dominant economic class in the United States had a great need for Latino workers in the agricultural industry. Now that the US economy is suffering through a prolonged slump, these agricultural workers are illegal (and often “dangerous”) immigrants.
For example, the portrayal of African Americans on Mad Men illustrates differential racialization. Black characters are there to support white characters, not to challenge their privileged positions. For example, in the episode, “Six Month Leave,” the Drapers’ African-American maid, Carla, begins to offer marital advice to her employer, Betty. Betty will have none of it—“This is not a conversation I am going to have with you.” In other words, stay in your place; you are black and thereby subordinate to me in terms of societal power.
Later, African-American elevator operator, Hollis, laments the death of Marilyn Monroe to passengers Don and Peggy: “You hear about Marilyn? Poor thing.” Hollis not only knows that Don and Peggy are part of the dominant white culture that has lost one of its icons, but also relates to Marilyn being a victim of the male power structure of Hollywood. Peggy then observes, “You just don’t imagine her ever being alone. She was so famous.” Hollis replies, “Some people just hide in plain sight.”
Hollis should know—he’s been hiding in plain sight to the people of Sterling Cooper for a number of years. Yet, while Hollis can talk to his white riders about the death of Marilyn Monroe, he is silent when black civil rights icon Medgar Evers is assassinated. Maybe Hollis knows that his riders will be uninterested, or even offended, if he mentions Evers’s passing. Overall, then, the picture of race as seen through the lens of Mad Men is one where oppressed blacks are there to serve the dominant white power structure.
African Americans on TV
Research reveals that African Americans portrayed on television are generally depicted in service or blue-collar occupations, such as a servant, cook, entertainer, musician, or athlete. African Americans are seldom depicted as having a professional or supervisory position in comparison to white television characters.
Many African Americans have negative personality characteristics; they’re portrayed as being disrespectful, violent, greedy, ignorant, and power-driven. Research also indicates that African Americans have lower socio-economic status roles on television than whites, as well as possessing lower educational levels. Most importantly, African Americans are over-represented as criminals on television compared to white characters.
Ellstin Limehouse
Ellstin Limehouse is the most prominent African-American character on the show. Limehouse is a butcher and runs a diner in Noble’s Holler, where the residents frequently eat. He is first shown at the end of the Season Three episode “Cut Ties.” While butchering a pig carcass in his shed, Limehouse reprimands his assistant Bernard for sleeping on lookout duty. He tells Bernard a story about arguing with Bernard’s father regarding training dogs. Limehouse tells Bernard that some dogs can learn obedience without being punished, but that others take lenience as weakness and will thereafter disobey you. Those dogs will never behave again if they are shown lenience and have to be killed.
Limehouse suggests that if Bernard can remember and learn from this warning, he will never make another mistake. On the other hand, if Bernard does make another mistake, Limehouse will have no choice but to kill him. Limehouse offers Bernard a choice: he can be punished by having his hand dipped in lye, or he can promise that he will never fail Limehouse again. Shaking, Bernard promises that he will never fail Limehouse. Bernard is then led out of the shed by Errol, who has had his hand mutilated for previously failing Limehouse.
Despite being off in Noble’s Holler, Ellstin Limehouse is well-known in the area. He had a past (unspecified) relationship with Mags Bennett, who trusted him enough to leave him the three million dollars she received from selling her land to the Black Pike coal company. Mags instructed Limehouse to give the money to Loretta, a teenage girl she took in after she murdered her father. Limehouse also provided a place for women to hide from abusive husbands. Ava Crowder used to take refuge in the Holler when her husband Bo beat her. Raylan’s mother Frances also once hid out from Raylan’s father Arlo when he got out of control.
Aside from being a butcher and running a BBQ restaurant, Limehouse is a drug trafficker. In addition, there are at least several folks in the area who “bank” with Limehouse, depositing money and getting information. In the episode “Get Drew,” Limehouse attempts to extort a total of $600,000 for the return of Drew Thompson and Ellen May—another criminal enterprise the audience sees Limehouse engaging in. Yet, in “Slaughterhouse,” Limehouse has hundreds of thousands of dollars stacked in a pig carcass.
Tight Ship
Limehouse runs the Holler like a tight ship. Decades before, white supremacists tried to drive the African Americans out of the area. Since that time, residents of the Holler have kept a low profile. When Errol wants to take over the drug operations of Boyd Crowder and Robert Quarles, Limehouse objects vehemently, warning Errol that encroaching on territory outside their tight community could bring back the same type of horror from whites as before.
Limehouse not only likes to control business operations in the holler, he also likes to control information. When Boyd Crowder wants to do business with Limehouse, Boyd asks why Limehouse knows so much about him, but he knows nothing about Limehouse. Limehouse replies that it is in his community’s best interest to know what is going on outside of his community. That way Limehouse knows what is coming.
Despite his criminal activity, Limehouse has managed to avoid prison. Limehouse is indeed brutal, but he is also cunning. The death of Errol in the episode “Slaughterhouse” serves as an object lesson for those who would cross Limehouse.
Influencing Perceptions
In and of itself, the portrayal of Ellstin Limehouse is not a major issue. Research suggests, though, that the cumulative portrayals of African Americans on television have an influence on viewers and their perceptions about African Americans in general. These negative portrayals often lead to the continuation of stereotypes of African Americans in general. Research further suggests that when there is no first-hand knowledge of African Americans, television images have a significant effect on viewers’ perceptions.
Not all of the African-American characters on Justified are involved in criminal enterprises. Deputy US Marshal Rachel Brooks is African American, and while her character is essentially a positive portrayal of race, the character is also a bit of a mystery. Over the course of the series, viewers find out information about Rachel in bits and pieces. She apparently spent her childhood in Hendersonville, Tennessee, and was raised by a single mother. Her family later moved to Lexington, Kentucky. While her mother was out working, Rachel was a surrogate parent for her younger sister. Once she finished high school, Rachel went to the University of Mississippi, and later joined the Marshal’s Service as a Deputy US Marshal. A car accident took the life of her sister, and though her brother-in-law survived, Rachel took custody of her nephew, raising him with the help of her mother. When office director Art Mullen is shot in Season Five, Rachel is named Interim Director.
We can see that Justified is quite similar to other prime-time television series in its depiction of African Americans. From the perspective of Critical Race Theory, Justified is yet another media vehicle that, through its depictions of race, reinforces the superiority of “white” over “nonwhite.”
When the dominant paradigm of corporate exploitation is the bottom line, there can be no alternative other than the creation of a violent rabble seeking to balance the scales of justice by tipping those scales completely over.