Sherene Razack Sparknotes

In the book, Dying from Improvement, Sherene Razack looks into indigenous people’s deaths in police custody. Aboriginal deaths in police custody have been on the rise, and it has always been attributed to individual errors or lack of judgment. Razack then tries to prove otherwise by looking at inquest and inquiries made of indigenous deaths in police custody. In chapter one, “The Body as Placeless: Memorializing Colonial Power,” Razack looks into inquiry made on Frank Paul. Paul was Mi’kmaq man, living in the streets of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. In addition to being homeless, his alcoholism meant he was a regular to Vancouver Police Department, BC Ambulance services (121 calls), hospital personals (Vancouver General Hospital 93 times,
From interviewing various professionals, Razack shows how Paul’s “abject body” is used by settlers to define themselves as respectable (p. 38). During Paul’s encounter with Constable Instant, video surveillance shows that he was dragged back and forth from the police station. Conroy, a volunteer bus driver, believes Paul was acclimated to living outside, and that is his reason for his homelessness. BC Ambulance workers who regularly responds to Paul’s call testified that they often had to induce pain to get a response. Finally, Kevin Low, a correctional officer believed that Paul was intentionally getting arrested because other officers fed him. As we saw from this examples, “bodies on the street are prodded, poked, and dragged”, and through these rituals “they were doing the calculated world of branding, marking the line between modernity and pre-modernity, between subject and object, and staking the claim of white settlers to the land” (p.
As I have shown through this essay, professionals that came in contact with Paul reduced him to an object. This objectification meant they saw “the indigenous body as bestial and as human waste, and the white body as the maker of order, the modern subject of settlers’ city” (p. 31). This meant these individuals did not see Paul as worthy of respect or dignity. Moreover, it was for this reason why Paul was “treated like garbage” that needed to be thrown out at night (p. 52). The inquiry made by Commissioner Davies concluded that it happened due to “callous indifference,” however, this logic repeats Razack argument of colonial commonsense. Davies remarks largely ignore the racial framework that reduces aboriginals to an