Renowned feminist, author and educator Dr. M. Jacqui Alexander said “Mark this moment, not as a moment of democracy, but a moment of empire-building and militarization,” during a speech to a diverse audience in the EMU Ballroom Wednesday evening.
Center for the Study of Women in Society Director Sandra Morgen introduced Alexander as “a scholar who has been enormously influential in shaping feminist scholarship.”
Alexander’s talk, entitled “Not Just Anybody Can Be a Patriot: The Militarized State of the Empire,” covered an array of subjects having to do with what she calls the “privatization, militarization and imperialization” of the United States during this historical moment
of crisis.
Alexander points to The PATRIOT Act of 2001 and 2002, and the national security act as examples of how the U.S. government is “building a new empire” based on a sort of neo-imperialism in which ordinary citizens are being drawn into surveillance of each other and an “army of cops” maintains a constant, known presence.
The purpose of the lecture, Alexander said, was to reveal the link between immigration, militarization of the U.S.’s police forces, homeland security, the threat of weapons of mass destruction, “heterosexism” and the “empire of imperialism that is happening in our geographic boundaries.”
Cuts in public assistance led many desperate men and women into the armed forces, said Alexander, thus perpetuating militarization even further. She also said there are programs that encourage welfare moms to get married in an attempt to get them off public assistance in a heterosexism fashion.
Alexander said in order for the United States to feed its war-based economy and build its imperialistic empire, it manufactured enemies both inside and outside of itself. She went on to say that by emasculating the enemy and placing suspicion on immigrants and foreign students, “the state” has created the “hetero-masculine patriot.”
“Every decade since the second world war has been marked by U.S. intervention in other countries,” said Alexander. She also mentioned that the American flags everyone was waving around following the Sept. 11 attacks were made by immigrant labor while we were being encouraged to believe they were the enemy.
Alexander suggested her audience read both The PATRIOT Act and the national security act to get a better understanding of what is
really going on.
In conclusion, Alexander said ignoring the empire-building and the imperialism is a “dangerous privilege,” and encouraged “becoming fluent in the struggles of the person next to you.”
Alexander’s visit was supported by the Rethinking Security: Gender, Race, and Militarization Program, the Ethnic Studies Program, the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics, the ASUO Women’s Center, the Multicultural Center and the departments of anthropology and sociology, Director of Women’s Gender Studies Julie Novkov said.

[email protected]