Whiteness and “Making a Murderer”: Manitowoc, the “One-Branch Family Tree” and the Sinister Race Science of “Degenerate Whites”

Untitled Document “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, “Buck v. Bell”

“I don’t want to be a criminal. I want to be normal.”
— Steven Avery, “Making a Murderer”

Everyone in the world, it seems, is watching “Making a Murderer,” the Netflix original documentary series about crime, punishment, guilt and innocence. The 10-hour series, which follows the legal drama of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man jailed 18 years for a rape he didn’t commit only to face new charges in a local murder soon after his release, has grabbed viewers with shocking twists and turns, infuriating examples of shoddy police work, and the emotionally wrenching question at its heart: Was an innocent man railroaded twice?

Twitter is abuzz. Hollywood has opinions about the case (People magazine quoted tweets from Rainn Wilson, Ricky Gervais and Emmy Rossum, among others). Former prosecutor Ken Kratz has been all over the media lately lambasting the filmmakers, claiming they left out important evidence (the bits he mentioned don’t feel particularly crucial, or even verifiable, and of course his own credibility...