Racism and the Sons of Anarchy series.

This review is a discussion of the relevant topics in the blog article "How Sons of Anarchy Got Racism Right," from the blog Racialicious.

By “doing racism right,” Racialicious refers to the Sons of Anarchy’s depiction of biker gangs as they operate in the real world. That is, they are a violent, trashy, criminal organization that live by their own rules and some of those rules are antiquated traditions that are still followed merely because they have been before, and no one questions these things. When Juice is told that it is his birth cettificate that matters and not his father, one is also reminded of the ‘one drop’ problematic, where race becomes what Stuart Hall refers to as a floating signifier and not a real thing even determined by your more concrete racial categorization according to your parents.

The racism in Sons of Anarchy isn’t right, but television rarely presents it so real that we forget that media and art are not supposed to be there to comfort us like a blanket, but to challenge or reveal the world around us. Racialization is real, and although SOA might not be anything close to high art, the racism is done right because it is portrayed the way it really is. Juice’s self perception is shattered by being racialized, his position in his ‘career’ is threatened by it and even his life may be threatened. In previous episodes, those who are ejected from the club but allowed to live are subjected to a cruel and painful method of removing the significant amount of tattoo work a fully patched member of the club must have.

Another striking factor in this sub-plot of the series still relates to the idea of Juice’s race and his own perception of his racial identity and the floating signifier but also to the idea of ‘becoming white’. Myself, I thought it was interesting how it was OK that Juice was Hispanic but not if he was found to be black. This is, apparently, an old pillar of MC’s, albeit one that may have changed over the last few years. The racism is internal but not external, with ‘sister clubs’ being exclusively black and such. This makes more sense when one views it in the sense of who is  considered white in the U.S. As the Hispanic population morphs into a majority level in numbers, the white majority is accepting Hispanic racial categorization as ‘white’ and identifying with whiteness in order to accept them into the fold and have them emulate white values and institutional frameworks rather than oppose and change from the outside. It is changing the definition while leaving the societal model intact, so the power structure remains inherently the same. This has been happening for years and in this light Juice’s acceptable Hispanic categorization but potentially unacceptable black categorization begins to make much more sense. (Yancey, 2003)

In summary, these issues would not be present if Sutter (thedirector/writer) had decided to morally sterilize the show and act like this doesn’t happen in real MC’s. I feel like hiding real issues and sterilizing their location in society in media can be equally pernicious as endorsing them to vulnerable of impressionable minds. SOA gives one a brief respite of artistic integrity within a medium that rarely affords such luxuries. At first, as a fan of the show, I was kind of bothered by the racism, but after reading the compelling endorsement by Racialicious, my mind had been changed. I’m not watching the show for role models, I’m watching the show for entertainment and a gritty portrayal of a famous American subculture. It would be unfair to paint the subculture in an untrue light and by avoiding such imperfections one must do racism right in the process. I was skeptical when I stumbled upon the article as to how racism can be "done right," but Racialicious