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taytayb1993 · 3 years

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The Untold History of Gabriel Prosser

Followers, I’m appreciate and glad that you all like my “Black History in the American Old West” post that I made last year, I’m so glad you all looked and like my post, thank you. Now, since there some of you that like old western and cowboy lifestyle, here’s a post about a blacksmith and a slave rebellion that you all probably never heard about: Gabriel Prosser.

Gabriel Prosser was born in the year 1776, on the tobacco plantation owned by Thomas Prosser, in Henrico County, Virginia. Gabriel and his brother, Solomon, began training as blacksmith when he was 10 years old. According to some sources about Gabriel’s parents is that his father was a blacksmith and the skills of blacksmith were passed down generation to generation in Virginia slave families. Gabriel was taught how to read and write when he was a child. By the age of 20, Gabriel was six feet, two or three inches tall, and enormously strong according to most sources. Even older slaves saw him as a leader.

Gabriel and Solomon were ones of the slaves whose was pushed too hard, but they both were hired as skilled slaves. The practice of hiring skilled slaves was common in Virginia at that time and allowed slaves more freedom than some Virginians were comfortable with. Despite of the state legislature made laws attempting to curtail hiring out, they were not forced, because local merchants and artisans relied heavily on the cheap labor that they could get from hiring slaves, as opposed to white tradesmen. The plantation owner, Thomas Henry Prosser (no relation), allowed Gabriel to hire himself out to masters in and around Richard, giving him access to a certain amount of freedom, as well as money. Gabriel also met fellow hired slaves, free blacks, and white laborers, with whom he shared work and leisure time.

Gabriel was strongly influenced from the rhetoric of the American Revolution; the uprising in Saint Domingue, the radical words of white artisans who championed the working class; the success exhibited by free blacks; his own hatred of the merchants who routinely cheated the slaves they hired; his desire to be free and to prosper. He beginning to move toward a revolutionary stance. Solomon even stated while confessing in court: “My brother Gabriel was the person who influenced me to join him and others in order that (as he said) we might conquer the white people and possess ourselves of their property.”

In September, 1799, Gabriel, Solomon, and a fellow slave named Jupiter stole a pig. When they got caught by white overseer Absalom Johnson, Gabriel wrestled him to the ground and bit off most of his ear, just like Mike Tyson, right? Anyway, in court, he was found guilty of maiming a white man, a capital offense, but Gabriel escaped execution through a loophole called “benefit of clergy,” that allowed him to choose public branding over execution, if he could recite a verse from the Bible. Gabriel recited his verse, and then was branded in his left hand in open court. The branding, as well as the month he spent in jail, was the last in a long chain of offenses that pushed him toward open rebellion. Gabriel decided that it was time to act as he was inspired by Saint Domingue and spurred on by working class talk of a truly egalitarian society. He believed that if the slaves rose and fought for their rights, the poor white people would join them. His plan involved seizing Capital Square in Richard and taking Governor James Monroe as a hostage, in order to bargain with city authorities. One of the conspirators also was to go to the nation of Indians called Catawbas to persuade them to join the negroes to fight the white people according to one of the rebellions. Some sources also stated that a French army was landed at South Key, which they hoped would assist them. Their banner would bear the motto “death or Liberty,” the battle cry of Saint Domingue.

Gabriel conveyed his plan to Solomon and Ben, another of Prosser’s slaves, and the men began recruiting soldiers. They were later joined by other recruiters like, notably, Jack Ditcher and Ben Woolfolk. The rebels didn’t include women in their army. While the majority of the men were slaves, the conspirators also drew free blacks and a few white workers to their cause, especially those from Richmond that they had recruited. Two Frenchmen and militant abolitionists, Charles Quersey and Alexander Beddenhurst, joined the ranks as leaders. A slave recruit named King, when told the plot, said, “I was never so glad to hear anything in my life. I am ready to join them at any moment. I could slay the white people like sheep.”

Recruits came from all towns from Virginia, such as Petersburg, Norfolk, and Albemarle; recruits also from counties such as Caroline and Louisa. They were also successful in recruiting slaves from the Henrico County countryside. In this way they were preparing for the most far-reaching slave revolt ever planned in U.S. history. They also amassed weapons and began hammering swords out of scythes and molding bullets. By August of 1800, Gabriel’s militant army was ready, but their were two slaves who wanted to protect their masters betrayed the plot to Virginia authorities, so, Governor James Monroe was alerted and the white militia and state patrols began roaming and searching for the rebels. A rainstorm prevented Gabriel’s militia from assembling outside Richmond and providing the them crucial time to prepare a defense of the city. Realizing their plan had been discovered, Gabriel and many of his followers dispersed into the countryside. Gabriel and Jack Ditcher disappeared and others eluded capture for several days, but in September 9, almost 30 slaves were captured and were in jail awaiting trial in the court of “Oyer and Terminer,” a special court in which slaves were tried without benefit of jury. Other sources stated about 35 leaders of the rebellion were captured and executed. Gabriel escaped to Norfolk where he was betrayed by fellow slaves who claimed the reward for his capture on September 25. Gabriel was returned to Richmond and tried for his role in abortive uprising. On October 6, 1800, he was found guilty and executed the following day.

Here’s some facts about Gabriel Prosser:

As Gabriel was a blacksmith, he was described as a fellow of by courage and intellect about his rank in life.

Gabriel and other revolutionary leaders were influenced by the American Revolution and more recently the French and Haitian Revolution with their rhetoric of freedom, equality, and brotherhood.

Gabriel devised a plan to seize control of Richmond by killing the whites, except the Methodists, Quakers, and French people, and then establishing a sovereign state of Virginia.

Gabriel’s army also armed with swords and pikes made from farm tools by slave blacksmiths.

Gabriel was a strong believer of the Bible as he claimed that God will save his people from slavery like he did in ancient Egypt. His favorite Biblical character is Samson.

Gabriel was not just a revolutionary leader, he was also a preacher as he preached to the slaves and free black, also to native Americans, white people, French people, Christians, mulatto, the rich, and the poor.

Gabriel died in 1800, the year that Nat Turner, another revolutionary and slave rebellion, was born.

Gabriel Prosser’s legacy lives on as, according to most sources, the city of Richmond passed a resolution in honor of Gabriel on the 202nd anniversary of the rebellion. In 2007, Governor Tim Kaine gave Gabriel and his followers an informal pardon, in recognition that his cause, "the end of slavery and the furtherance of equality for all people - has prevailed in the light of history."

I hope that you all like my post as contribute to Black History Month, but, everyone, please be civil and unbias when you comment on blog especially on my post, don’t comment any offensive mean comment, okay? I just post this to share with you all and for Black History Month and I hope you enjoy this history lesson. Feel free to share, like, comment (except mean comments), and follower.

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triviallytrue · 3 years

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Some takeaways from Avengers of the New World:

-Slavery, in any form, is possibly the single most evil institution created by humans. The defenders of slavery should not be excused by the “morals of their time.” It was always barbaric, and that was obvious to decent people in the past, too.

-In addition to the intellectual bankruptcy of scientific racism past and present, a predominant narrative about racism is that it came into existence “on its own” and slavery and colonialism emerged as a result. In reality, the opposite is true: racism came to be as a justification for slavery and colonialism. As it became ingrained, for many it became an end unto itself, but it has its origins in certain economic structures.

-Racism does become counterproductive for enslavers when it becomes an end unto itself rather than a tool, though. It’s entirely possible that slavery could have been maintained in Haiti with the collaboration of the free people of color, but the white people of Haiti were too damn racist to make that alliance work.

-Haiti’s indigenous inhabitants are gone. By the time of the Haitian Revolution, their genocide by European colonizers was complete. We know very little about them, but the name “Haiti” is alleged to be their name for the island.

-The political conflicts that lead up to the revolution were largely centered on the political rights of free people of color, many of whom also owned slaves. In one notorious case, armed free people of color allied with enslaved insurgents and successfully fought for their rights, only to betray their enslaved allies after securing concessions.

-This actually was a common theme: France would attempt to put down slave rebellions by offering general amnesty but freedom only for the leaders, with the condition that the leaders would become cops to put down future rebellions. If solidarity breaks down, rebellions are broken, with only the leaders reaping the rewards.

-The French Revolutionary Government did free all of the slaves in France’s colonies, but freedom was absolutely derived from the barrel of a gun. Had the Haitian slaves never risen up in revolt, it’s unlikely it would’ve happened.

-That said, props to many French revolutionaries, specifically the more radical Jacobins, for being centuries ahead of their contemporaries on slavery and race. A lot of less radical abolitionists walked back their stances on slave rebellion after many former slaves killed their masters, but the more radical revolutionaries called them pussies and pointed out that violence is what you get when you create a system where people can own other people.

-Toussaint Louverture’s creation of a police state and a system that replicated many of the conditions of slavery, all allegedly with the intention of ensuring slavery never returned to Haiti, was... not good. Louverture feared what would happen to Haiti if they were no longer economically powerful, and he was right to be afraid. But you can’t abolish slavery and then immediately institute indentured servitude.

-Speaking of, slavery is the most efficient economic system ever. A lot of well-meaning abolitionists tried to argue that free labor would somehow be more productive, but that didn’t pan out in Haiti or the US. There is literally nothing more effective at producing value than forcing people to work for nothing through the threat of violence. The only way to escape this “contradiction” is by embracing a framework where economic productivity is not the ultimate goal, something contemporary abolitionists struggled with.

-There were war crimes committed on both sides of almost all of the conflicts in Haiti from 1791 to 1802. I don’t have much to say about this except that all war is awful and the wars in Haiti were especially awful for their time. I offer neither justifications nor condemnations for the atrocities committed by the Haitians. Other people can judge for themselves. On the other side, though? Fuck the French.

-Napoleon’s decision to reintroduce slavery in the French colonies was one of the most bigoted, shortsighted, imbecilic, and evil decisions in French history. If he just left Toussaint Louverture alone to rule Haiti, it might’ve stayed a French colony for decades after (or it might not have). Either way, Napoleon’s willingness to shoot himself in the dick because he couldn’t stand being disobeyed by an African is wild.

-The betrayal of Toussaint Louverture is a specific instance of a common refrain with colonizers: “these savages are too uncivilized to respect truces, and also because they are uncivilized savages we will not respect truces with them.” Anyway. Fuck France.

-The idea contained in the Haitian constitution, that only Black citizens can own property, but people of any skin color can “become” Black by renouncing whiteness, is very interesting. I haven’t fully parsed my thoughts on it, and may put them in another post.

-The ultimate fate of Haiti has not been great. The US played a major role in the gap from then to now, as did France, and neither country came out looking good. The idea of reparations is complex and contentious, but I think both countries owe Haiti.

-At the end of the day, it all comes back to property rights.

#i may elaborate on that last point more in the future #anw

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justtheendoftheday · 5 years

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Night of the Living Dead (1968)

“They’re coming to get you, Barbra.”

When the bodies of the recently deceased begin coming back to life to try and kill and eat the living, a group of strangers take refuge inside an empty rural home.

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Fright: 1.7 / 5 Barbras

For me the most unsettling moments of fright are near the beginning when the attacks first start occurring. Sure, packs of the undead banging on your door is a creepy idea, but the potential for some stranger to suddenly attack you is just so much more real.

I feel like this was probably a very frightening movie when it came out, but time has dulled its blade a bit. For devotees of the genre Night of the Living Dead probably doesn’t even cause a blip on their fear radar. But for less desensitized viewers I think it probably walks a nice line between being spooky enough to creep you out a little, but tame and dated enough that it won’t keep you up all night.

It’s easy to look back on this one and not remember any big scares. But that’s probably just because the movie isn’t really into big scares. It prefers to charge the atmosphere of a scene with spooky tension. Who will live? Who will die? What’s going to happen next?

Gore: 2.3 / 5 Butcher Counter Scraps

This one is tough to measure. Old school gore gore rarely measures up to modern standards, and the whole movie is in black & white (which always makes things seem a little less visceral to me). So by modern zombie movie standards this one is pretty tame.

On one hand there certainly is a bit of gore, but on the other hand it is generally used to suggest that something rather gruesome occurred instead of actually showing it happening.

For instance, they never show anyone getting bit or pulled apart or anything like that. But they do imply that such things have happened and then show the ghouls eating “human flesh.” Yet it’s pretty obvious to an adult viewer that the actors are just creepily munching on a prop arm or some meaty bit acquired from a butcher shop.

There’s also a couple of quick shots of a slightly decomposed skull.

For the most part the only gruesome things you actually see being done to people are things like getting shot or stabbed.

Jump Scares: Very few

There are a couple of potential startle moments, but they are a bit tame by today’s standards. I didn’t notice any really aggressive jump scares to speak of.

Review:

Night of the Living Dead is a film that goes beyond the confines of its spooky premise to work as a powerful metaphor for its time. While its depiction of women is unfortunately quite bland, the way it deals with race is incredibly interesting. It’s a movie that delights in creating tension more so than going for aggressive scares. While certainly tame compared to modern zombie films, it remains a really fun movie that establishes the heart of a Romero-style zombie movie: a group of survivors who are forced to question whether the real terror is being alone outside with the zombies or inside together with the other survivors.

Thoughts:

Ah, Night of the Living Dead, one of those cinematic classics that everyone has at least heard of even if they’ve never seen.

Is it just me or is anyone else always wary of “classics?” So many of them turn out to be quite boring, or dated, or—worst of all—problematic. And sure, they might have made a big impact on the field, but that doesn’t mean they’re inherently great art, especially decades down the line.

And yet sometimes you’ll watch a so-called Classic and you totally get it.

Oh! Yes, this is why everyone keeps talking about this one.

One of my favorite things about the Horror genre is that so much of it is built up from a foundation of independent works and passion projects. And so much about what makes this movie a classic is because it was made by a bunch of film nerds who just wanted to make a movie. The only limitation placed on them was the scope of their imagination and the confines of their budget.

And that is exactly what allowed it to work outside the usual studio box and synthesize something new.

Here is a movie that has lots of gore (unusual for the time), was shot in black and white (also quite unusual for the time), and it cast a handsome black man as the main character and definitive hero of the movie (very unusual for the time).

Now keep in mind that movie was made in late 1960s America! A time where institutionalized racism was clashing against the force of a powerfully determined and ever-growing civil rights movement. To see a black man being portrayed as the hero—let alone one who heroically fights against white bodies—was almost unheard of in the cinematic pop-culture of the time.

Romero has said that his script hadn’t called for a black man to be cast in the role of Ben, but Duane Jones was chosen for the role simply because his audition had been the best. And while it’s easy to believe that Duane Jones aced that audition (because he’s friggin’ phenomenal in this movie), it’s hard to imagine that they would have even considered casting a white dude in the role. If they had gone that route it would have fundamentally changed the nature of the story (which is just a nice way of saying that it would have ruined everything).

But luckily for us the creators were open-minded enough to cast the role without race in mind. And because of that Night of the Living Dead was able to (inadvertently) tap into the energy of its time. It’s charged with this backlash against American racism. Ben is literally surrounded by white people that want him dead. They either want to ignore his humanity and simply consume him, like the hordes of ghouls do, or they want him dead for threatening the status quo (like Mr. Cooper does inside the house). And in spite of everything he still sticks his neck out to protect the people around him.

In spite of how well it’s held up over the years, for a modern audience one part hasn’t aged especially well: its depictions of women. Now don’t get me wrong, it never goes for the overt sexism that many horror movies manage to. And yet its female characters still manage to be the most bland characters in the film.

The lack of depth is on full display in their depiction of the film leading lady: Barbra. She starts out well enough, but for the vast, vast majority of the movie she is reduced to a hollow character. She is near catatonic most of the time and even when she’s lucid she tends to just ramble on, only partially aware of reality.

If that wasn’t bad enough there are only 3 other women in the movie and their characters almost never step outside the frameworks of The Wife, The Girlfriend, and The Daughter. All the female characters seem to exist only to add depth to the male characters who are the actual movers and shakers of the movie.

(Although in her defense I will say that Mrs. Cooper’s occasional scathing remark to her idiot husband are highly enjoyable.)

The first time I saw this film was in high school and I had heard it hyped up so much that I ended up thinking it was all a bit silly when I first saw it. While I’m sure it was more shocking to see during its time, by today’s standards it is a rather quiet movie. But when I ended up giving it another try, I found that the quietness is one of my favorite things about it.

One of the little details I love is how they use cricket sounds throughout the movie. In spite of all the horror and death we witness, nature continues unabated. It’s as if to say the world doesn’t care about these people’s situation. That little sound that evokes quiet peaceful summer nights is twisted here and it adds this brilliant extra layer of creepiness.

One of the things I’ve always loved about Romero’s zombie movies is that they are always focused on the survivors, not the zombies. The ghouls are slow and stumbling, their only real threat is if they catch you unaware or you let them overpower you with their numbers. The real source of danger is always shown to be the people you’re locked up with.

After all, in these modern times what is more frightening: the masses pounding on your gates or the people you find yourself locked in with?

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Content warnings: I didn’t notice anything particularly triggering in this one, but let me know if I missed something!

After-credits Scene?: None.

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Directed by: George A. Romero

Written by: John Russo & George Romero

Country of Origin: USA

Language: English

Setting: Butler County, Pennsylvania, USA

Sequel: Dawn of the Dead (1978)

If you liked this you might also like: Dawn of the Dead (1978), Day of the Dead (1985), The Last Man on Earth (1964), Shaun of the Dead (2004)

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Context Corner:

Night of the Living Dead may be the great grand-daddy of the modern zombie movie, but many might not know that plenty of zombie movies existed long before it was ever made. The first zombie movie being the 1932 film White Zombie starring Bela Lugosi as an evil witch doctor named Murder Legendre [100% serious. That really was his name].

However, these original zombie movies were very different things from what we consider zombies today. These pre-NotLD films were generally based around second-hand ideas of zombies as seen in Haitian folklore (and misattributed to the religion of voodoo). They featured dead bodies that were reanimated as mindless tools of their master or living people put into a zombie-like trance, not autonomous creatures on the hunt for living flesh.

The closest precursor to Romero’s vision of zombies was seen in the fantastic film The Last Man on Earth, a 1964 picture starring Vincent Price and based on the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. There a plague sweeps across the country and the infected dead return to life as a type of vampire-esque zombies.

Fun Fact: In spite of its influence on the zombie genre the word “zombie” is never used in Night of the Living Dead. The undead are referred to only as “ghouls.”

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“So long as this situation remains, government spokesmen warn that dead bodies will continue to be transformed into the flesh-eating ghouls. All persons who die during this crisis, from whatever cause, will come back to life to seek human victims.”

#Night of the Living Dead #George Romero #John Russo #1968 #1960s #Zombie Movies

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tipsycad147 · 5 years

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The Ten Most Legendary Witches

Faye Sakellaridis

If you look at some of the most legendary witches in history, from the enchantresses of ancient mythic lore to real witches that walked the earth, a pattern emerges: the invocation of the primal. They preside over the the darkness, the moon, death, and rebirth. They collude with the earth through plants and herbs, sometimes to heal and sometimes, yes, to bewitch towards a fatal path. Their dominion is the unknown, the enigmatic, the realms beyond reason and logic. And their sexuality – unbridled and unapologetic – is perhaps their most intimidating quality, one that’s long been institutionally vilified.

Despite centuries of repression, the witch has survived and thrived brilliantly in a myriad of forms. Here are ten badass witchy women, both mythical and real, throughout time.

Hecate, Mother of Darkness

Hecate is the Greek goddess of witchcraft and magic. She rules over the darkness, the moon, and the spirit realm. A guardian of thresholds and liminal spaces, it was she who guided Persephone to and from the underworld. In ancient times, she was believed to protect people from roaming evil spirits, and perform necromancy. She also has a deep knowledge of herbology. Poisons and hallucinogens, such as belladonna, hemlock, mandrake, aconite, and opium poppy, are associated with her. These plants are dangerous and mind-altering, and, like Hecate, are dark and mysterious, bringing the user’s consciousness closer to the spirit world.

Lilith, the First Feminist Goddess

According to Jewish mythology, Lilith was the first woman created by God, before Eve. She was also much maligned as a baby-stealing demon of the night whose dangerously liberated sexuality led men astray. Like Hecate, Lilith is associated with the darkness, the moon, and spirituality. Her refusal to be subservient to Adam got her kicked out of Paradise and forced to have 100 demon babies for each day she didn’t agree to return (she never did). Because of this fierce independence and unapologetic sexuality, Lilith is considered the first feminist goddess.

Morgan le Fay, Legendary Fairy Queen

This legendary fairy queen is a charming and beautiful sorceress that’s featured prominently in the legends of King Arthur. She is connected to the Irish goddess Morrigan, who is associated with war, death, and fertility. Early works featuring Morgan le Fay, such as those by 12th century French poet Chreiten de Troye, portray her as a benign witch and a powerful healer to King Arthur. It’s in the 13th century that her character expands to that of an anti-heroine. She is sent to a coven where she becomes Merlin’s apprentice and lover. She was believed to have extraordinary shapeshifting abilities, transforming into a variety of monstrous and beautiful forms like queen, fairy, crone, and mermaid. Her narrative shift into a devious and manipulative witch is likely fuelled by the Christian prejudice towards a non-religious woman healer with great powers.

Rhiannon, Goddess of Fortitude

In the Welsh myth collection Mabinogi, this beautiful, silver-haired witch riding a white horse symbolises inner fortitude and patience. In Slavic countries, Rhiannon is the goddess of death and rebirth. She is accompanied by the Adar Rhiannon, “Birds of Rhiannon.” These three birds possess magical powers, whose song is said to “wake the dead and lull the living to sleep.” Both her and her birds have an illusory power over their position in time and space. She rides her horse Epona slowly, remaining elusively out of reach, while her birds appear far closer to the eye than they really are.

According to legend, Rhiannon went against her parents wishes and turned away a fairy suitor in favour of a mortal man. After her spurned suitor steals her infant son, she is framed by her nurses for killing her own child. As punishment, she is forced to wear a horse collar and cary visitors on he back to and from the castle. Rhiannon serves her punishment with quiet grace until she is redeemed 4 years later. Her story calls to our own inner reservoirs of endurance and strength, and reminds us to trust in the balance of the universe.

Marie Laveau, the New Orleans Queen of Voodoo

In 19th century Louisiana, Marie Laveau was known as the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. Her skills with voodoo, magic, and medicinal herbs were highly revered and sought after by white and black clients alike, all desperate to be granted their specific wishes. After her first husband, a Haitian immigrant named Jacques Paris, passed away under mysterious circumstances, she became a hairdresser with a wealthy white clientele. They say her network of informants planted in those households granted her the illusion of omniscience, cementing the perception of her as a magical, all-knowing witch. She was also said to have a snake, named Zombi after an African god, that she would wrap around her and dance with. People still visit her grave today to pray and leave gifts in the hope that she’ll aid them from the afterlife.

Circe, the Herbal Sorceress

This powerful Greek sorceress was said to be a master specialist of magical herbs and potions, and is often depicted with a magic wand or staff. She has a penchant for turning men into animals, most infamously portrayed in Homer’s epic tale The Odyssey, where she invited Odysseus’s companions to a feast, laced their meal and turned them into pigs. Only through the help of Hermes could Odysseus evade her snares, get into her good graces, and turn his shipmates back into human form. She even has a plant named after her — Circaea, also known as the Enchanter’s nightshade — which botanists in the 16th century believe Circe used to charm and lure in her victims.

Dion Fortune, Pioneer of Modern Magic

Dion Fortune is one of the most influential figures in the birth of modern witchcraft, and a pioneer of modern magic. She was a British occultist, Christian Qabalist, theosophist, ceremonial magician, and co-founder of the mystery school Fraternity of Inner Light. She discovered occultism while working as a Freudian analyst, and joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. After becoming disillusioned with it, she went on to establish her own esoteric order. In her lifetime, Fortune completed seven occult and fantasy-themed novels which initiated readers into the occult by communicating with their subconscious. These novels, particularly “The Sea Priestess” and “Moon Magic” influenced groups like Wicca, a contemporary Pagan new religious movement.

Jezebel, the Ultimate Bible Bad Girl

Jezebel is the ultimate bad girl of the bible. Her name is synonymous with cunning, idolatry, and evil. She was born to Ethbaal of Tyre, king of the Phoenicians, who were said to worship many multiple gods and goddesses, particularly to the nature god Baal. When Jezebel became queen of Israel after marrying King Ahab, her polytheistic upbringing and rejection of Yahweh earned her many enemies. She is portrayed as a cruel and evil blaspheming woman that persecuted the followers of Yahweh. Most infamously, she condemned the commoner Naboth to death for not giving land to King Ahab, which he refused on the basis of Jewish law. After King Ahab died, the new king of Israel, Jehu, ordered Jezebel’s servants to throw her from a window. Her body was then trampled by Jehu’s horse and fed to stray dogs. Despite her gruesome demise, she made it a point to go out in style. Anticipating her execution, Jezebel got all dolled up, dressing in her best finery and painting her face.

Baba Yaga, the Crone of the Woods

This formidably hideous witch of Slavic folklore is a wild crone that turns the grandmother archetype on its head. She rides around on a mortar wielding a pestle, and lives deep in the forest within a hut fenced by skulls and made mobile by large spindly chicken legs. This witch is unabashedly horrifying – her frenzied, wind-rattled movement is accompanied by bloodcurdling shrieks and the howling of spirits. Despite all this, her morality is ambiguous. She’s been known to aid the valorous hero on his quest, and cook and devour a less fortunate soul.

Salem Witches, America’s Most Infamous Witch Hunt

In 1692, the daughter of Reverend Samuel Parris and two other girls began having “fits” – screaming, throwing things, contortions, and uttering strange sounds. They blamed these episodes on three women who were outcasts of society: a slave, a beggar, and a poor elderly woman. Tituba, the slave, confessed to dealings with the Devil. Mass hysteria took over — more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts over the next year, and 20 were executed (14 were women). Many of the accused were women who threatened traditional Puritanical values in some way, whether they could control it or not. They included women who were outspoken or argumentative, had sex out of wedlock, were deemed too fertile (or too little), or broke any rule in the Bible. They also included the very old or very young, the very rich or very poor, unnatural physical markings on the skin, and midwives. While the colony eventually admitted the trial was a mistake, the incident has become synonymous with paranoid and unjust accusations.

Honouring our Legendary Witches

This range of incredible women resonates with historian Laurel Thatcher Urach’s keen observation that “well-behaved women seldom make history.” From the shape-shifting seductress to the pioneer of modern magic, these extraordinary ladies made their indelible mark by stepping out of the status quo. And many were, unfortunately, punished harshly for their refusal to conform to a restrictive and oppressive paradigm. Nonetheless, the witch persists throughout these cultural trials, and the witch is on the rise as women today are claiming the archetype as a symbol of empowerment more passionately than ever.

https://wisdom.thealchemistskitchen.com/the-ten-most-legendary-witches/

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luvb-low · 5 years

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Lost Race

Heard a disturbing audio and what maybe the video to go along with it and it made me have to take a step back and ask why. The Bahamian people are killing Haitian people saying they are the reason for the hurricane. The lady’s saying that because The Haitian practice voodoo that God sent the hurricane to destroy the islands. WTF is wrong with us. Then I began to asked these question: if you can kill someone who looks like you for what you think they have brought to your island “ btw” still under british rule. Why not kill the descendants of the people who kept your family in slavery for so long and still holding you in bondage I might add. The same people who own the land you call home. You paying taxes to them. These Bahamians can find the courage and strength to kill people who look like them, but not enough courage to free themselves from the role of british colonialism! If Bahamians knew their true history they would allow Every black person in with open arms especially Haitians. Because of the uprising in Haiti 🇭🇹 it paved the way for blacks all across the Caribbean and Americas to fight for freedom from the white oppressors and their dependents who until this day are still working hard to keep blacks across the world in bondage. It saddens me to see how much blacks can kill other blacks all in the name of material things like “drugs, white mans money, land and worst for a seat at the table with white slave masters.” We black people need to start reading and studying everything our ancestors left for us plus what the enemies are doing to this day to kill us off for their soul less gain of what they will never own this 🌍 Gods world!

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precaffeinatedsalomon · 5 years

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Could You Pass the Brains Please? Western Zombies in Korean Film, Train to Busan (2016)

Could You Pass the Brains, Please?

Western Zombie Mythology Used to Reflect on Eastern Anxieties in Train to Busan (2016)

On April 16, 2014, South Korea suffered the horror of losing over three hundred of its citizens-mostly Middle School aged children- to the neglect of what is now called the Sewol Ferry Disaster. In 2015 the Country fell into a panic as the number of Middle East Respiratory Virus (MERS) outbreak deaths increased while Governmental disclosure on the matter decreased. In 2016, One-fifth of the South Korean population saw the release of its very first zombie film, Train to Busan. This essay argues that Film Director, Yeon Sang Ho appropriated the flexibility for metaphor the Western Zombie Mythology provides to critique Korean society, their government, and reflect on contemporary anxieties.

Though Korean Zombies may be new in the East, from Haiti to Hershel’s Farm the United States has 80 years’ worth of Zombie lore in their popular culture arsenal. In How to Make a Zombie, Frank Swain recounts the first-time zombies entered into consciousness around the world. He explains how in 1889 well respected Harper’s Magazine journalist Lafcadio Hearn went to the Caribbean Islands in search of evidence about rumors of “walking dead” haunting which haunted the islands. When inquiring about zombies to locals, Hearn would get descriptions based on complex Haitian “Vodou tenets” which only confused Hearn, who never got to see one. The descriptions, in essence, boiled down to a “zombie cadaver” being “a physical entity that is living but has not will of its own.” ( Swain 3-7) Hearn’s article on zombies went on to intrigue the colorful William Seabrook, an American writer and explorer, as well as a drunk, sadist, abuser, and experimental cannibal. In 1928, Seabrook traveled to Haiti to investigate the phenomenon. In 1929, he published his findings in what eventually became a best seller book titled The Magic Island. In his book, he describes what he saw when locals took him to visit a sugar plantation: “My first impression of the three supposed zombies, who continued dumbly at work, was that there was something about them unnatural and strange. They were plodding like brutes, like automatons, the eyes were the worst…They were in truth like the eyes of a dead man…the whole face…was vacant, as if there was nothing behind it.” (Swain 8-13) It continues, that while attempting to make conversation with one of the zombies, he was told [blacks’] affairs are not for whites” (Swain 14), a line that would later be used in one the first Hollywood zombies in film rendition.

What Seabrook called zombies, were likely slaves working 18-hour days in sugar plantations during the United States occupation of Haiti. In 1804, Haiti was considered a “threat to imperialism” and was vilified in the Western world after successfully gaining independence from France with a well-staged rebellion. Despite efforts by the Catholic Church to influence Haitian natives, Voodooism was a deeply embedded part of the culture. Because of this in the West, “Voodoo culture was perceived to be a signifier of the country’s savage inferiority” (Crockett)- Anxieties that would later be reflected in film. Haiti’s freedom and independence ended when in 1918 the United States invaded the country in fear of how the political unrest there would affect their business ventures in that country, particularly the Haitian-American Sugar Company (HASCO). Haiti was recolonized until 1934, with what Swain laments as “enduring consequences for the country and its people” (Swain 6-7). Zombie’s origin story becomes important in how they would later become represented in film.

From 1932 to the present; from xenophobia to extremism, zombie representations in film have morphed over time as metaphors to externalize, examine and critique the era’s social anxieties. The Bela Lugosi led, White Zombie (1932), is considered the first full-length zombie film. In it, a man convinces a couple to celebrate their wedding in Haiti. While there, the man uses a Voodoo master to steal the bride away from her fiance and keep her to himself. Unfortunately for him, she turns into an unfeeling person in a zombie-like state. Complaining to the Voodoo master only gets him turned into a zombie himself (IMBD) Luckily, “in the end, the white couple emerges unharmed, and the voodoo master is pushed off a cliff to his death” Though criticized, the film’s success saw a series of similarly plotted and themed films. Such as, In Ouanga (1936), Walked With a Zombie (1943)VOX explains that “until the 1940s, zombies were largely a reflection of the fears of voodooism and blackness.” (Vox) In other words, an externalization of xenophobia and sense of white superiority.

After WWII, from the 1950s to mid-1960s, zombies films like Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952) Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), The Earth Dies Screaming (1964) were used to represent Cold Ward and Space Race anxieties of the time. However, after 1968 in the midst of the social unrest caused by the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement, zombies would be changed irrevocably.

The modern zombie was born with George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). Though the word ‘zombie’ is never is used in the film, from this rendition on, Leo Braudy explains how “instead of being an exotic black monster birthed in the Caribbean, [zombies] become an all-embracing metaphor for the unthinking attitudes and blind obedience of an entire society” (107) The time for zombies to aid in the protest of society begins here.

Supporting this notion, Peter Biskind claims that by taking the zombie- a monster, outside the enclosed spaces of personal dwelling and moving them to the “backyard” … horror could reflect upon contemporary life. Furthermore, having a black hero-five months after the death of Martin Luther King Jr.- killed by the sheriff with the excuse that he thought he was monster, “changed the genre into a vehicle for social commentary”. A vehicle that now is being used by South Korea, just as it has been used in the West. Biskind argues, “zombies lend themselves to metaphoric interpretation; they are an all-purpose ‘Them’, with their significance in the eye of the beholder.” ( 77) Meaning that as a new fear arises, the type of zombie we get will change along with it.

From Romero’s Night of the Living Dead monsters are “reawakened by changing cultural circumstances” (Braudy 107). From here on we get the new codes for zombie lore. Such as a never-ending hunger for human flesh, pack mentality and hunting in kind, inability to stop, one bite, one new victim. Dawn of the Dead (1978) has Romero commenting on consumerist culture as raised by a capitalist society. In the era of the ‘80s to early 2000s with fears of epidemics like AIDS, Swine Flu, and Ebola virus, we get the Contagion Zombie. Braudy claims these apocalyptic zombies reflect “an increasingly globalized world in which diseases spread rapidly across continents and populations due to increased commercial contact, ease of transportation, and openness of borders.” (Braudy 107) As expansion from these fears, we get World War Z (2013). This film shows walls as an attempted tool to keep not only zombies, but humans out. A Vox article argues that the scene in which “Jerusalem is besieged by hordes of zombies, which crawl up the walls like a slow-moving bacterial infection. Unlike the creatures of previous films, these migrant zombies move at fast speeds, with a sense of urgency, riffing on our fear of rapid migration rates.” (Crockett)Fear of migration gives us the television series The Walking Dead. Biskind claims, these zombies are a representation of America’s current extremists’ views.

In Peter Biskind’s, The Sky is Falling, he notes that the way monsters and even superheroes are now represented in Films and Television are making “America great for extremism.” The main premise in his boos is that now, instead of the word ‘extremist’ being an insult, it “has become an accolade while ‘mainstream has become ‘lamestream. These extremist notions, he insists it is this extremists’ that have given us Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. Zombies as extremists he continues, “don’t care what we want…Marauding in mobs, they huff and puff until they blow the house down” (Biskind 2, 76). Thus, in addition to representing current extremists’ anxieties in the United States, the post-apocalyptic society currently in vogue also represents a lack of reliable government that is beholden to the people and their interests.

As time passes by, is culture change or change culture? popular culture is regarded tends to be regarded quite poorly as an agent of change, always behind in credited importance to politics or economics, however, Biskind warns, “it’s a mistake to underestimate the power of culture to inflame our emotions. “He states that, despite seeming free and innocent of political ideas, films and TV series are filled with subtle political messages. He concludes, “it’s no exaggeration to say that values, and therefore politics, are embedded in the very fabric of movies. (Biskind 6) The way monsters such as zombies in the film have indexed social change can serve as evidence of how television and film mirror cultural changes.

Watching films or television shows require the conscious effort from the viewer to suspend disbelief. For horror, however, Braudy argues that it goes beyond a simple act of believing what’s on screen, he claims it “goes much deeper, if only for the moment, [you have to believe]in the existence of evil, the possibility for good, and their eternal combat” (Braudy 32) In other words, horror films require more involvement than most other genres.

Before Yeon’s, Train to Busan, there were no zombies in their national folklore. South Koreans have their own monster lore, such as ghosts, goblins, and nine-tailed foxes, but no zombies. However, the West’s zombies film influence and their symbolic traits can be noted in the way the film chose to depict its own zombies. Train, tells the story of a man (Gong Yoo) working as a corporate hedge fund manager, who prefers work above else. He is a neglectful father to his only daughter. In an attempt to make up for missing her birthday, he takes her in a train to the city of Busan to visit her mother. As the doors of the train are about to close, a girl we soon find out is infected, makes it into the train, where chaos occurs as she starts biting people and the contagion spreads.

From this point on it becomes a story of survival and exploration of Korea’s current culture. It is from here on that, the film uses a chimaera of history, codes, and the possibility for social criticism in its zombies and plot devices that Yeon borrows from all the zombie movies from the West and proceeds to break apart, contort, distil, and repurpose to evoke a thought-provoking social commentary in Train.

This LA Times review of the film, support’s this paper’s original claim that South Koreans are using zombies as a metaphor for their social anxieties by stating:

“It's not just the eye-popping visuals and a high-paced monster story that has made "Train" a hit: The movie is also touching a nerve by reflecting the present-day reality of South Korea, an increasingly stratified and competitive a society where many citizens feel elites can't be trusted to lead in times of crisis, and those caught up in the chaos have to fend for themselves. Cine21, one of South Korea's most-read film magazines wrote in a review that "Train" is "motivated by sadness and anger over a situation where the weak cannot be protected." (Browiec)

Two instances which exemplify South Korean’s dissatisfaction with their government are dramatized in Train are, the Sewol Ferry accident and the MERS epidemic. One of the greatest reasons for anger in the Sewol Ferry accident was how easily the children could have been saved if they had not listened to Ferry captain that it would all be alright. This combined with the long Coast Guard response time to come to the rescue and the Captain taking a boat to save himself while the rest drowned seemed like an inconceivable rude awakening to people in that country. Additionally, in the MERS epidemic case, the government failed to notify its citizens of what was happening with the virus, how to prevent it from spreading further, or even what symptoms to look for to get it treated at the hospital.

These moments of shared grief and anger are externalized in Train. In it, we see how the people do not trust the government, quickly set up factions, and it is the elitist corporate man who is willing to use everyone else to save himself at every turn. In a powerful metaphoric moment in the film, this corporate man and similarly minded others, expel from the finally secured train cart the pregnant protagonist- whose husband had fought and died to protect them earlier in the film, two teenagers, the main father and his daughter to a different train cart after they had finally saved themselves from the zombies. They are in essence, being sent to die. In a plot twist, an elderly woman whose sister had already turned into a zombie, disgusted with the mob’s selfish actions opens up the door that had until that moment served as the only protection from the zombie horde. The message of how such attitude and mentality will ultimately lead to collective doom is hard to miss.

It could be claimed that with the success of Train to Busan and its symbolic power, more zombie films and TV shows are being made. In Kingdom (2019) A Netflix original series takes zombies to Korea’s Joseon period, and Train to Busan 2 which is expected to hit theaters next year. Now the question is, just as South Korea learned to express their anxieties from the United States’ example of doing so, will The United States be clever enough to learn from South Korea and learn how to protest against a corrupt government and get rid of an incompetent president.

Works Cited

Biskind, Peter. The Sky is Falling: How Vampires, Zombies, Androids, and Superheroes Made America Great fro Extremism. New York: The New Press, 2018.

Braudy, Leo. Haunted On Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Monsters of The Natural and Supernatural Worlds. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016.

Browiec, Steven. "Korea's Smash Summer Hit Is A Zombie Movie That Strikes a Deep Chord." The Los Angeles Times 16 August 2016. www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-korea-zombie-movie-snap-story.html.

Crockett, Zachary and Zarracina, Javier. How the Zombie Represents America's Deepest Fears. 31 October 2016. www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/31/13440402/zombie-political-history.

Swain, Frank. How to Make a Zombie. The Real Life (and Deaths) Science of Renimation and MInd Control. Terragon: OneWorld Publications, 2013.

Train to Busan. Yeon Sang-Ho, et. al. Next Entertainment World, 2013. Netflix.

#train to busan #gong yoo #zombies #haitian vodou #george romero #world war z

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nosefearatu · 5 years

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The Zombie

After being exploited from Haitain voodoo, the living dead corpses of zombies haunted cinema since the early 1930s. The first zombie film (arguably) produced was White Zombiein which a Haitian plantation owner began zombifying people including an American fiancée, but is reunited with her husband after the voodoo master is killed. Ouanga (1936) and I Walked with a Zombie(1943) also featured plots surrounding voodoo in the Caribbean. This early era of zombie films embodied the nations fear foreign cultures (voodoo) and blackness. As Gayatri Spivak wrote, the person of color will never have a voice because of the structural platforms and as seen in this early era of zombie films, black and Caribbean culture were exploited and negatively represented by American filmmakers. The next era of zombie films embodied American fears deriving from the World War atmosphere: atomic warfare, genocide and the spread of communism.Revenge of the Zombies (1943) a film with Nazi zombies and, Creature With the Atom Brain (1955) a film with zombies created by a former Nazi scientist, embodied this post-war fear.Zombies of the Stratosphere(1952) andPlan 9 From Outer Space(1959) both play off the Red Scare fears that Americans were troubled with in the space race. In 1968 George Romero released the most iconic zombie film, Night of the Living Dead.After hordes of zombies plague America, a small community of survivors is formed and an African American main character constantly finds himself in racially insulting situations. The killing of the masses of zombies can paralleled to the consequences dealt to the Vietnamese in the Vietnam war, and the social interactions embody the era’s sensitive sentiments over race during the civil rights movements. Romero went on to directDawn of the Dead in 1978 which targeted American unequal wealth distribution and the consequences of capitalism. The next fear that zombie films played off of was the fear of mass contagion and outbreak of a pandemic disease. This fear was seen in the plot of 28 Days Later (2002) when tested apes escape a laboratory and result in a deadly pandemic.

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thisisnotdrbattista-blog · 6 years

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Essay III: Get Out

For my third critical analysis essay on horror, I chose the contemporary movie, Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele. Horror is a broad spectrum, and the most effective pieces of horror find their success in playing off the insecurities of their audience. This movie was considered a huge hit in its genre, and has such a unique and captivating story. Get Out uses race and cultural differences to uncover the social failings of a society and to entertain at the same time. Using references from literary studies on the uncanny, zombies, and much more, this essay is going to take a deeper look into the power of genre and the cultural significance of this movie.

The first connection I was able to make to the coursework when watching this film was the similarity between the Haitian Zombie, and the way that the Armitage’s were able to create their own zombie slaves, if you will, through hypnosis. David Inglis provides a great definition of the zombie in his chapter Putting the Undead to Work: “The fear that is embodied in the Haitian figure of the zombie is not the Euro American one of the dead returning to visit a cannibalistic holocaust on the living, but rather involves dread of the body snatcher –the zombie master- who takes the living body and destroys the soul within it, creating a living dead being who endlessly obeys his will” (p. 42). I think the term “body snatcher” can be easily applied to the work that the Armitage family was doing. A perfect example would be the opening scene where the son throws a black man in the trunk of his car, who shows back up later at the garden party, but this time he does not seem to have his soul. Following the same type of mentality as the witch doctor from White Zombie, the Armitage family is making slaves out of people, through hypnosis and surgery instead of magic, and selling them off as their own labor force.

Another connection I made after watching the movie was the sunken place (Chris’ hypnotized state) and the subconscious, to Freud’s ideas on the uncanny. Freud gives an insightful explanation on the relationship between human consciousness and the uncanny: “If this really is the secret nature of the uncanny, we can understand why German usage allows the familiar to switch to its opposite, the uncanny, for this uncanny element is actually nothing new or strange, but something that was long familiar to the psyche and was estranged from it only through being repressed” (pg. 148). Exploiting Chris’ subconscious by bringing up the topic of his mother’s death, she is able to repress the part of his brain that makes him Chris. After the initial hypnosis, she almost has complete control over him with her teacup. We see throughout the film that these people with someone else in their mind controlling their body and consciousness are brought to the surface when exposed to a camera flash. Meaning there is some hope for these people that have been turned, but we also see that the man taken over by the grandfather kills himself as soon as he is freed from the distressing situation of living his life as a spectator.

The term used to describe these people once they’ve been hypnotized is the “sunken place.” Once put in this trance, Chris finds his existence to be as the passenger of his own life, he screams and struggles and gets no result or reaction from the people around him. The sunken place is meant to represent the oppression of the system, and how minorities find themselves trapped, screaming as hard as they can without being able to get any sort of communication across. Peele was trying to make a statement about the underrepresentation of black people in the horror genre, and how he was upset with the stereotype of them always being the first ones to die off. Thinking about the film in that light, Peele really turns the tables around, by not only having the black protagonist survive, but having to murder his way out of the house to freedom.

To bring this all back to the discussion of cultural significance, Get Out, tells a story of racism to a group of people that think racism is no longer a problem. So what is it that makes this movie so powerful and such a good medium for a message that a nation desperately needs to hear? Author Colin Dickey sheds some light on what separates good hauntings and horror from the sheep: “A paranormal event without a story is tenuous, fragile. What makes it “real,” at least in a sense, is the story, the tale that grounds the event. The sense of the uncanny, of something not-quite-right, of things ever-so-slightly off, cries out for an explanation” (pg. 5). Dickey explains to us that to deliver a message, especially to todays disconnected population, you have to ground the idea your trying to communicate with something that seems more interesting or entertaining to the masses. Once you have captured their attention you are able to point out the reality and truth to them, the truth that they refuse to see by looking around. Even genres of horror like the ghost hunters start off by establishing the history of the buildings they go through, as well as the tragic pasts of the ghosts they are trying to provoke.

Peele does an excellent job in Get Out of building suspense. By creating those not-quite-right situations, as Dickey put it, he was able to use a realistic character. Most horror films feature protagonists who are incredibly oblivious and don’t have the sense to pick up the phone and call the cops, or to get in the car and drive away. What is so brilliant about the suspense build up in Get Out, is that nothing too out of the ordinary happens that would make a rational person leave a girl he’s been dating for months, until its too late.

So what dose this movie say about our current situation as a nation? Looking at the bonus features on the film there was a Q&A panel with Jordan Peele and someone asked him about his favorite scene in the movie. Peele responded, saying that he enjoyed the insecurities revealed in the garden party: “When you have older white people trying to connect with a younger black man the insecurities come out in a weird way.” Watching the movie, you find out that the whole purpose of the garden party was for these people to evaluate the possibility of buying Chris at the auction, which only adds another theatrical layer to the racist situation on display. Every time Chris meets with a potential buyer they let out some awkward piece of conversation as their way of trying to connect with someone with racial and cultural differences. All the other black people on the question panel agreed that this scene had a lot of truth behind it, and said that they do have to suffer through situations like this regularly

One of the biggest eye openers for me when I watched this movie is the character Rose. She is a powerful persuader and a master of lies, and to me, she reveals the most about our culture’s divide when she tries to talk down Chris as a way to prove to him she and her family are not racist. Rose will go on little tangents with Chris as her audience about her family having black servants, the way he was treated by a cop, or how her family and friends are just “so white.” Hearing her overcompensate as a way to try and come off as sincere reminded me of the same thing I see on social media every day. White people will see a video of police brutality on twitter and quote it with some witty caption and think that they have just made peace with the whole black community. The way they go into great lengths online about civil rights and social responsibility reminded me of the same empty way that Rose would overcompensate so that her cover wouldn’t be blown. I know that these people’s words are hallow because I spend time with them in real life and know for a fact that they are not actually doing anything to change the current situation, or to give up the privilege they’ve been born with.

Overall, this movie is a great tribute to its genre and does a great job reflecting national anxieties and problematic attitudes. Watching this movie again after in class discussions about zombies and Haitian culture, I was able to notice a lot of parallels between Get Out and movies like White Zombie. A lot of the ideas and theories presented in Freud’s The Uncanny, are revealed in this film. Peele does a great job of building suspense in this movie while delivering a powerful message at the same time, and I would recommend this movie to any fan of Horror.

Work Cited

“Putting the Undead to Work” David Inglis

“The Uncanny” Sigmund Freud

“Ghostland” Collin Dickey

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zeroviraluniverse-blog · 6 years

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25 Amazing Books by African-American Writers You Need to Read

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25 Amazing Books by African-American Writers You Need to Read

Black History Month gives us 28 days to honor African Americans and the ever-expanding contributions they make to culture. Literature in particular has been a space for black authors to tell their stories authentically, and bookworms seeking good reads can choose from an array of fiction, poetry, historical texts, essays, and memoirs. From literary icons to fresh, buzzworthy talent, we’re highlighting 25 books by African-American authors you should add to your reading list today.

1. KINDRED // OCTAVIA BUTLER

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Octavia Butler’s Kindred (1979) is one of a string of novels she penned centering black female protagonists, which was unprecedented in a white-male dominated science and speculative fiction space. This story centers Dana, a young writer in 1970s Los Angeles, who is unexpectedly whisked away to the 19th century antebellum South where she saves the life of Rufus Weylin, the son of a plantation owner. When Dana’s white husband—initially suspicious of her claims—is transported back in time with her, complicated circumstances follow since interracial marriage was considered illegal in America until 1967. To paint an accurate picture of the slavery era, Butler told In Motion Magazine in 2004, she studied slave narratives and books by the wives of plantation owners.

2. HUNGER: A MEMOIR OF (MY) BODY // ROXANE GAY

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In the second entry of her divulging 2017 memoir Hunger, Roxane Gay reveals, “… this is a book about disappearing and being lost and wanting so very much, wanting to be seen and understood.” The New York Times best-selling author pinpoints deep-seated emotions from a string of experiences, such as an anxious visit to a doctor’s office concerning gastric bypass surgery and turning to food to cope with a boy raping her when she was a girl. In six powerful parts, the daughter of Haitian immigrants and National Book Award finalist reclaims the space necessary to document her truth—and uses that space to come out of the shadows she had once intentionally tried to hide in.

3. THE FIRE NEXT TIME // JAMES BALDWIN

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James Baldwin is a key figure among the great thinkers of the 20th century for his long range of criticism about literature, film, culture, and revelations on race in America. One of his most widely known literary contributions was his 1963 book The Fire Next Time, a text featuring two essays: one a letter to his 14-year-old nephew, in which he encourages him not to give in to racist ideas that blackness makes him lesser. The second essay, “Down At The Cross,” takes the reader back to Baldwin’s childhood in Harlem as he details conditions of poverty, his struggle with religious authorities, and his relationship with his father.

4. BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME // TA-NEHISI COATES

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After re-reading James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, Ta-Nehisi Coates was inspired to write a book-long essay to his teenage son about being black in America and forewarns him of the plight that comes with facing white supremacy. The result was the 2015 National Book Award-winning Between the World and Me. New York magazine reported that after reading, Toni Morrison wrote, “I’ve been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates.” Throughout the book, Coates recounts witnessing violence in “the streets” and police brutality growing up in Baltimore, his time studying at historically black Howard University, and asks the hard questions about the past and future of race in America.

5. INVISIBLE MAN // RALPH ELLISON

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Ralph Ellison’s 1952 classic Invisible Man follows one African-American man’s quest for identity during the 1920s and 1930s—and decades later, this is a struggle that many continue to encounter. Because of racism, the unnamed protagonist, known as “Invisible Man,” does not feel seen by society and narrates the reader through a series of unfortunate and fortunate events to fit in while living in the South and later in Harlem, New York City. In 1953, Invisible Man was awarded the National Book Award, making Ellison the first African-American author to receive the prestigious honor for fiction [PDF].

6. BELOVED // TONI MORRISON

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Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1987 novel Beloved puts Sethe, a former slave in 1873 Cincinnati, Ohio, in contact with the supernatural. Before becoming a freed woman, Sethe attempted to kill her children to save them from a life of enslavement. While her sons and one daughter survived, her infant daughter, “Beloved,” died. Sethe’s family becomes haunted by a spirit believed to be Beloved, and Morrison provides a layered portrayal of the plight of post-slavery black life with a magical surrealism edge as Sethe learns she must confront her repressed memories of trauma and her past life in bondage.

7. ALL ABOUT LOVE: NEW VISIONS // BELL HOOKS

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In the 2000 book All About Love, feminist scholar Bell Hooks grapples with how people are commonly socialized to perceive love in modern society. She uses a range of examples to delve into the topic, from her personal childhood and dating reflections, to popular culture references. This is a powerful essential text that calls on humans to revise a new, healthier blueprint for love, free of patriarchal gender limitations and dominating behaviors that don’t serve mankind’s emotional needs.

8. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X // MALCOLM X, ALEX HALEY

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In 1963, Malcolm X would drive from his home Harlem to author Alex Haley’s apartment down in New York’s Greenwich Village to collaborate on his autobiography. Unfortunately, the minister and activist didn’t live to see it in print—The Autobiography of Malcolm X was published in 1965, not long after his assassination in February of that year. The books chronicles the many lessons the young Malcolm (born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska) learned from witnessing his parents’ struggles with racism during his childhood; to his troubled young adulthood with drugs and incarceration; and his later evolving into one of the most iconic voices in the movement for black liberation.

9. THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD // ZORA NEALE HURSTON

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During Zora Neale Hurston’s career, she was more concerned with writing about the lives of African Americans in an authentic way that uplifted their existence, rather than focus on their traumas. Her most celebrated work, 1937’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an example of this philosophy and brings to light Janie Mae Crawford, a middle-aged woman in Florida, who details lessons she learned about love and finding herself after three marriages. Hurston used black southern dialect in the characters’ dialogue, as to proudly represent their voices and manner.

10. THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS // MICHELLE ALEXANDER

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The Jim Crow laws of the 19th and 20th century were intended to marginalize black Americans during the Reconstruction period who were establishing their own businesses, entering the labor system, and running for office. Although a series of anti-discrimination rulings, such as Brown vs. Board of Education and the Voting Rights Act, were passed during the Civil Rights Movement, Michelle Alexander’s 2010 book argues that mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow impacting black American lives, especially black men. In the text, Alexander explores how the war on drugs, piloted by the Ronald Reagan administration, created a system in which black Americans were stripped of their rights after serving time for nonviolent drug crimes.

11. SISTER OUTSIDER: ESSAYS AND SPEECHES // AUDRE LORDE

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Originally published in 1984, Sister Outsider is an anthology of 15 essays and speeches written by lesbian feminist writer and poet Audre Lorde. The titles of her works are as intriguing as the content is eye-opening. For example: “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” examines the way people, especially women, lose when they block the erotic—or deep passion—from their work and while exploring their spiritual and political desires. In “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” Lorde explains how feminism fails by leaving out the voices of black women, queer women, and poor women—which are ideas that are still shaping conversations within feminism today.

12. THE AUDACITY OF HOPE: THOUGHTS ON RECLAIMING THE AMERICAN DREAM // BARACK OBAMA

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Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope was his second book and the No. 1 New York Times bestseller when it was released in the fall of 2006. The title was derived from a sermon he heard by Pastor Jeremiah Wright called “The Audacity to Hope.” It was also the title of the keynote speech the then-Illinois State Senator gave at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Before becoming the 44th president of the United States, Obama’s Audacity of Hope outlined his optimistic vision to bridge political parties so that the government could better serve the American people’s needs.

13. THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS: THE EPIC STORY OF AMERICA’S GREAT MIGRATION // ISABEL WILKERSON

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During the Great Migration, millions of African Americans departed the Southern states to Northern and Western cities to escape Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and the failing sharecropping system. Isabel Wilkerson, the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, documented these movements in her 2010 book, which involved 15 years of research and interviews with 1200 people. The book highlights the stories of three individuals and their journeys from Florida to New York City, Mississippi to Chicago, and Louisiana to Los Angeles. Wilkerson’s excellent and in-depth documentation won her a National Book Critics Circle Award for the nonfiction work.

14. BROWN GIRL DREAMING // JACQUELINE WOODSON

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Jacqueline Woodson’s children’s books and YA novels are inspired by her desire to highlight the lives of communities of color—narratives she felt were missing from the literature landscape. In her 2014 National Book Award-winning autobiography, Brown Girl Dreaming, Woodson uses her own childhood story in verse form, to fill those representation voids. The author came of age during the Civil Rights Movement and subsequently the Black Power Movement, and lived between the laid-back lifestyle of South Carolina and the fast-paced New York City. Through her work, we are reminded of how family and community play a role in helping individuals persevere through life’s trials.

15. REDEFINING REALNESS: MY PATH TO WOMANHOOD, IDENTITY, LOVE & SO MUCH MORE // JANET MOCK

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Janet Mock, an African-American and Hawaiian transgender activist and writer, began her career in media as a staff editor at People. In 2011, Mock decided to share her story with the world and came out as a transgender woman in a Marie Claire article, and after landing a book deal, she released this New York Times bestselling memoir in 2014. Mock used her platform to speak in full about her upbringing as a young girl of color in poverty and identifying as transgender—a courageous move that set her on a path to being an inspiring voice for those facing difficulty in accepting their identity.

16. FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES // CHARLES M. BLOW

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In his 2014 memoir Fire Shut Up in My Bones, New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow opens up about growing up in a segregated Louisiana town during the 1970s as the youngest of five brothers. In 12 chapters, Blow offers an extensive look at his path to overcoming the odds of poverty, the trauma of being a victim of childhood rape, and his gradual understanding his bi-sexuality. Although these are hard truths to tell, Blow told NPR in 2014, he wrote this book especially for those who are going through similar experiences and need to know their lives are still worth living, despite their painful circumstances.

17. I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS // MAYA ANGELOU

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If you read anything by the late, great, prophetic poet Maya Angelou, her 1969 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings should be at the top of your list: It provides an in-depth look at the obstacles that shaped her early life. Angelou’s childhood and teenage years were nomadic, as her separated parents moved her and her brother from rural Arkansas to St. Louis, Missouri, and eventually to California, where at different times she lived in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oakland. Besides the blatant racism she saw unfold around her in the South, a young Maya also faced childhood rape, and as a teen, homelessness and pregnancy. Angelou, who was at first reluctant to write the book, achieved much success with the text as she became the first African-American woman to have a non-fiction bestseller.

18. BABEL-17 // SAMUEL R. DELANY

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In 2015, Samuel R. Delany told The Nation that when he first began attending science fiction conferences in the 1960s, he was one of only a few black writers and enthusiasts present. Over the years, with his contributions and the work of others like Octavia Butler, whom he mentored, he opened doors for black writers in the genre. If you’re looking for a sci-fi thriller taking place in space and centering a woman leader protagonist, Delany’s 1967 Nebula Award-winning Babel-17 is the one. Rydra Wong, a spaceship captain, is intrigued by a mysterious language called Babel-17 that has the power to alter a person’s perception of themselves and others, and possibly brainwash her to betray her government.

19. SPLAY ANTHEM // NATHANIEL MACKEY

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Readers of Nathaniel Mackey’s poetry are often intrigued by his ability to merge the worlds of music (particularly jazz) and poetry to create soul-grabbing rhythmic prose. Splay Anthem is a masterful work exhibiting his style, and the 2006 collection includes two poems Mackey had been writing for more than 20 years: “Song of the Andoumboulou,” a ritual funeral song from the Dogon people of modern-day Mali; and “Mu.” Splay Anthem is woven into three sections, “Braid,” “Fray,” and “Nub,” in which two characters travel through space and time and whose final destinations are unclear. Mackey’s nonlinear form is deliberate: “There’s a lot of emphasis on movement in the poems, and there’s a lot of questions about ultimate arrival, about whether there is such a state or place,” he said in an excerpt from A Community Writing Itself: Conversations with Vanguard Writers of the Bay Area.

20. THE HATE U GIVE // ANGIE THOMAS

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Angie Thomas is part of a new crop of African-American authors bringing fresh new storytelling to bookshelves near you. Her 2017 debut young adult novel, The Hate U Give, was inspired by the protests of the Black Lives Matter movement. It follows Starr Carter, a 16-year-old who has witnessed the police-involved shooting of her best friend Khalil. The book, which topped the New York Times bestseller chart, is a timely fictional tale which humanizes the voices behind one of the largest movements in present times.

21. NOT WITHOUT LAUGHTER // LANGSTON HUGHES

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Take it back to where the Harlem Renaissance legend Langston Hughes began his novelistic bibliography. In 1930’s Not Without Laughter, Sandy Rogers is an African-American boy growing up in Kansas during the ’30s—a story loosely based on Hughes’s own experiences living in Lawrence and Topeka, Kansas. Hughes vividly paints his characters based on the “typical Negro family in the Middle West” he grew up around, he explained in his autobiography The Big Sea. In this way, Hughes paved the way for more storytelling about black life outside of urban big city settings.

22. SALVAGE THE BONES // JESMYN WARD

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Jesmyn Ward’s 2011 novel Salvage the Bones merges fiction with her real life experience surviving Hurricane Katrina as a native of a rural Mississippi town. Ward tells a new story through the eyes of Esch, a pregnant teenage girl who lives in poverty with her three brothers and a father who is battling alcoholism, in a fictional town called Bois Sauvage. Through this National Book Award-winning tale, Ward writes an emotionally intense and deep account about a family who must find a way to overcome differences and stick together to survive the passing storm.

23. DON’T CALL US DEAD // DANEZ SMITH

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Don’t Call Us Dead is a cathartic series of poems that imagine an afterlife where black men can fully be themselves. Danez Smith’s poignant words take heartbreaking imagery of violence upon the bodies of black men, and juxtapose them with scenes of a new plane, one that is much better than the existence they lived before. Upon arrival, it’s a celebration, as men and boys are embraced by their fellow brothers and are able to truly experience being “alive.” Smith’s prose sticks, and you will think more deeply about the delicacy of life and death, long after you’ve put the book back on the shelf.

24. THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD // COLSON WHITEHEAD

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Colson Whitehead brings a bit of fantasy to historical fiction in his 2016 novel The Underground Railroad. Historically, the underground railroad was a network of safe houses for runaways on their journey to reaching the freed states. But Whitehead invents a literal secret underground railroad with real tracks and trains in his novel. This system takes his main character, Cora, a woman who escaped a Georgia plantation, to different states and stops. Along her journey, she faces a new set of horrific hurdles that could hold her back from obtaining freedom.

25. DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS // WALTER MOSLEY

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If you’re into mystery but don’t know Walter Mosley, it’s time to catch up. The crime-fiction author has published more than 40 books, with his Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins series being his most popular. Mosley’s 1990 debut (and Easy’s debut as well) Devil in a Blue Dress takes the reader to 1940s Watts, a Los Angeles neighborhood where we are first introduced to Easy, who has recently relocated to the City of Angels after losing his job in Houston. He finds a new line of work as a detective when a man at a bar wants him to track down a woman named Daphne Monet.

#25 #AfricanAmerican #Amazing #Books #read #Writers #Facts

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corporateespionage · 7 years

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Longest bio ever:

“My Official Statement today is that, I speak for No One I speak for no one, EXCEPT for all the Ancient Afrikans of Kemet- the original name that was changed by the greeks to Egypt- who were invaded and murdered in mass numbers, over the course of centuries by:the hyksos, the assyrians, the libyans, the persians, the turks, the greeks, the romans, the spanish, the portuguese, the french, the british and the arabs-all of whom desecrated and pillaged Kemetic Temples, Royal tombs, and robbed from these Afrikan sanctuaries priceless artifacts and sacred texts that now sit in european museums, â€œprestigiousâ€� university basements, and the private homes of the rich throughout the world.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for all of the Afrikans who were enslaved, shackled, made to march miles and miles over the Sahara by the Arabs who committed this atrocity for a period of approximately 1,300 years. According to some research, over 50 to 80 million Afrikans were murdered during this Arab enslavement. The survivors of this savage devastation were forced onto slave ships by these same Arabs and exported over the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to parts of Asia, Europe, and the Mediterranean.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the millions of the Afrikans in West Afrika who were terrorized and kidnapped by the europeans and enslaved in the dungeons of El Mina, Cape Coast, and in the hellholes of dungeons in Senegal.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the millions of Afrikan men in those dungeons who refused to submit and were put three to four in a cell and were left there for all of the other enslaved Afrikans to see them die a slow and painful deathI speak for no one, EXCEPT for the millions of Afrikan women who were put 200, 300 and sometimes more in a stone room no bigger than small auditorium where they had to fight each other to get air that came only through a hole in the rock cell no bigger than the size of a soccer ball.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the millions of Afrikan women who were selected by the white commander of the dungeon to be raped repeatedly and sometimes left to die in their own blood.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the millions of Afrikan men and women who survived the dank, cold dungeons only to face being forced through THE DOOR OF NO RETURN and onto waiting ships that would transport them to places of grief and agony beyond their own Afrikan comprehensionI speak for no one, EXCEPT for the millions of Afrikans who were shackled to the bowels of stink ships where they had to ride next to their dead uncle, dead brother, dead sister, or dead mother on the long journey to lands where incomprehensible anguish awaitedI speak for no one, EXCEPT for the millions of captive Afrikan women aboard those ships who felt compelled to murder their own beautiful babies so these infants would never know or experience the nightmare of enslavement.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the millions of captive Afrikan men who tore off their own legs from the shackles to dive overboard from those stinking vessels and who would rather face death in the jaws of man-eating sharks than remain enslavedI speak for no one, EXCEPT for those millions of Afrkan men, women and children who suffered THE MIDDLE PASSAGE and whose bones are in the watery burial ground called the Atlantic Ocean- better known to those who know their history as THE AFRIKAN OCEAN because it overflows with the blood and life force of over 100 MILLION AFRIKANSI speak for no one, EXCEPT for the millions of Afrikans who landed in the Caribbean Islands where they underwent THE SLAVE MAKING PROCESS of further de-humanization and the breaking of their arms, legs and AFRIKAN SPIRITS in preparation for the long and hard work and burdens they were to bearI speak for no one, EXCEPT for the millions of the Indigenous of the americas who were savagely brutalized, tortured, raped, secretly given smallpox in blankets, and murdered, simply for opening their hearts, minds and arms to white strangers coming off a long and weary journey. Impact of christopher columbus, as written by Father Bartolome De Las Casas in his book, â€œThe Disruption of the Indies”, highlighted that, directly or indirectly, columbus was responsible for the deaths of between 12 to 25 MILLION indigenous. The population of the indigenous was reduced from 100 MILLION to 25 MILLION, according to T. Browder, Nile Valley Contributions to Civilization.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for all those Afrikans who arrived in North America bewildered, brutalized, weak, robbed of their culture, language, religions, families, cosmologies and longing for their own homelandI speak for no one, EXCEPT for all the Haitians who soaked the earth with their own blood in war by giving their lives to defeat Napoleon, who led the mightiest army of that time. I speak for Boukman, for Toussaint, for and Dessailines, the leaders of the Haitians who never gave up their struggle for Freedom and IndependenceI speak for no one, EXCEPT for Harriet Tubman, who made 19 trips to free enslaved Afrikans, forcing some, as she said, â€œto be Free or Dieâ€� In her moments of contemplation, she was overheard saying, â€œ I freed hundreds of slaves, and would have freed hundreds more, if only they knew they were slavesâ€�I speak for no one, EXCEPT for Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, Fredrick Douglass, and all the Black people who begged and petitioned the american government to intercede to stop white people from the wanton beatings, murdering, lynching, raping and terrorizing of Black men, Black women and Black children-the government did nothing-the deaths continuedI speak for no one, EXCEPT for all of the thousands upon thousands of the enslaved Afrikans who were set â€œfreeâ€� by the emancipation proclamation but given absolutely nothing by their former slave masters: no food, only the clothes on their backs, and no way to get awayI speak for no one, EXCEPT for the thousands of newly â€œfreedâ€� enslaved Afrikans who were arrested en masse as vagrants, panhandlers, and bums; then hired out to corporations and chain gangs to be forced to work for free, again, and these men literally worked themselves to deathI speak for no one, EXCEPT for the thousands of Black soldiers who gave their lives in the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Vietnam, and the Gulf War only to return to their america and be lynched, physically, economically or socially, while wearing their u.s. uniforms as white people sang â€œAmerica the Beautiful”I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the over 2 THOUSAND Black people, mostly men, who, at the turn of the 19th century, were lynched, castrated, some burned alive, and others whose fingers, toes, penises and eyeballs were cut from their living bodies and used as souvenirs and trophies by white peopleI speak for no one, EXCEPT for the many men, women and children who were murdered in Wilmington, North Carolina and Tulsa Oklahoma-both considered BLACK WALL STREETS- and their land stolen from them with the sanction of the american government. Mention here about Las Vegas where Black people lost their land, like they did in Tulsa, OklahomaI speak for no one, EXCEPT for the Tuskegee men who were experimented on by the white doctors who intentionally gave the Black men syphilis while the antidote was withheld as the experiment went on for some 40 yearsI speak for no one, EXCEPT for the 7,600 Black and poor women in North Carolina, and two other states, who were sterilized without their knowledge or permission in clinics as part of the population control program. These sterilizations went on from 1929 to 1974- 65,000 Black and poor women, in this country, were sterilized during this period.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the over 6 million Black people in america who were members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and who mourned the arrest, trumped-up trial and deportation of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. This man, the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, was a man who wanted only to give his people back their true BlackNificent history, teach them meaningful skills, teach them to love their BLACK SELVES, and return to AFRIKA and resurrect the Black Woman and the Black Man to their rightful place of glory and majesty among the families of the earthI speak for no one, EXCEPT for all those Black people around the country who watched in anguish as the u.s. government harassed Elijah Muhammad, W.E.B Dubois, Paul Robeson, and many others and drove one of our greatest politicians, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., out of office on concocted charges.That night, October 14, 2005I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the 1,227 Black troops who were SLAUGHTERED, BY THEIR OWN WHITE SOLIDERS, AND BURIED IN a MASS GRAVE-at Camp Van Dorn, a military base in southwestern Mississippi and near a small town called Centerville. The full story is outlined in the book, â€œThe Slaughterâ€�, by Carroll Case.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the many Black people who supported William Patterson and Paul Robeson who were two of the many authors of a petition to the United Nations entitled â€˜WE CHARGE GENOCIDEâ€�, that catalogued the evidence in the form of names, dates, times and places of Black people murdered around america at the hands of savage white people, while no one in government did anything to stop the violence or improve the social, housing, educational or health conditions of under which Black people lived..I speak for no one, EXCEPT for all the Black Panthers who were killed under COINTELPRO, and for Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Imam Jamil- Al- Amin, and all the MANY BLACK POLITICAL PRISONERS who languish in the maximum-security hell pit jail cells of america. I speak for those Black political prisoners who have been held for over twenty to thirty years and are tortured, experimented on and put on hallucinogenic experimental drugs because their crimes include trying to stop the police murders of young Black men, implementing breakfast and food programs for those in their communities, trying to provide decent housing and good health care for all those in need and trying to educate the children so they donâ€™t grow up ignorant.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for all the dead members of M.O.V.E., in Philadelphia, who the city decided to drop a bomb on and kill babies, children, women and men in an act of premeditated murderI speak for no one, EXCEPT for Emmitt Til and the countless Black boys and Black men who have been murdered by white men and their bodies thrown in swamps, rivers, streams or whose lifeless Black bodies now rest in shallow, unmarked graves all around the countryI speak for no one, EXCEPT for all the mothers, and grandmothers, who have lost their sons to the streets, drugs, prisons and graveyards, and their daughters to a concocted white standard of beauty that is absolutely impossible for them to attain. These inherently beautiful Black girls and women have spent millions and millions of dollars every year in an industry that helped to create an inferiority complex in them and then profits from it.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the untold numbers of young Black men who write to me from prison cells asking me to send them books, or who are on death row, soon to be executed, screaming to me through their letters, â€œI DIDNâ€™T DO IT, MY LAWYER OR JUDGE MADE MISTAKES DURING THE TRIALâ€�I speak for no one, EXCEPT for all the young Black men who come to me, just released from prison who, like the newly freed enslaved Afrikans under emancipation, have no where to go, no job possibilities, and no hope for a brighter future. Those who have skills and are working, are fired when it is discovered they have a prison record. The only place that will accept them is the newly built prison.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for all the beautiful Black children who are so excited to start school and have big plans for success, only to get there and find that the white female teachers already have quite a different plan for them.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the millions, upon millions of Black babies who died from poor health care during pre-natal term and for those who came to term but died from poor nutrition or malnutrition. And for the many children, teens, young adults and adults today who are raised eating techno-food, fast food, and who have never tasted any real food. And for those whose brains are short-circuited, from a lack of proper minerals and vitamins, who are labeled â€œspecial educationâ€�, mentally retarded or hyperactive-the new code words that replace those used in the early eugenics movement.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the elderly Black people, who have struggled most of their lives to navigate through a system that was against them all the way, only to reach eldership status and find they have inadequate health care, no decent food, and are trapped in a system that considers them disposable peopleI speak for no one, EXCEPT for the Herrero people of Namibia who were eradicated by the germans, the Tasmanians, eradicated by the white australians, the 130 million southern Afrikans murdered by cecil rhodes so he could control diamond and gold mines, the 13 million Congolese whose arms, legs and ears were cut off and murdered by leopold, of belgiumI speak for no one, EXCEPT for the Black people who marched-and got murdered by whites, those Black people who voted and got murdered by whites, those Black people who tried to go to school to get an education and got murdered by whites, those Black people who have tried to start their own businesses and got murdered by whites, those Black people who have become politicians to try to make a better way for Black people and got murdered by whites, those Black people who have tried to set up their own little independent groups and got character assassinated.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for the worldwide Afrikan victims of A.I.D.S and any and all man-made diseases, who have died and are in the process of dying.I speak for no one, EXCEPT for myself, as I watch while white people, who have power, guns, information and influence, ride around in 60-70 thousand dollar cars, waste millions of gallons of water watering lawns and golf courses, run off on luxury cruises, conceal their identities and criminality by hiding behind â€œIncâ€�, make 80 billion dollars in profits off of oil, while ordinary people and the elderly freeze to death in small apartments, while the government bails out (code word for welfare) airlines that lose millions in one fiscal quarter yet, simultaneously, cutback on financial aid to Black students, while Black professors in white higher educational institutions have to struggle for fairness in the hiring and tenure process, while Black students seek constantly for fairness in grading and assessment, while Black faculty and Black staff have to seek constantly for fairness in evaluations, while white people window shop in malls, play golf, play bridge, sit in T.V. studios watching Dr. Phil or at home watching foolishness, and, by their actions, convey, generally, they just donâ€™t give a damn about the great, great, great grandchildren whose Ancestorsâ€™ blood is soaked in the very ground on which we all standI speak for no one EXCEPT for the 600 million to ONE BILLION Afrikan people killed worldwide, from the time the Afrikan first encountered the white man, in the greatest atrocity this earth has ever seen â€“ some call it â€œThe Black Holocaustâ€�, others call it â€œThe Maafaâ€�, but in the realm of this context and reality, there is no word for it. And when all is tabulated about what has happened, AND STILL HAPPENING, to the Afrikan, Black people, it defies and goes well beyond human comprehension. Some have asked white people, referring here to the government and corporations, to just consider talking about reparations, and those requests have fallen on deaf ears. Are there no reparations for Black people? Who is the best qualified on this earth, other than the Afrikan, Black people, to receive justice, compensation, due process and whatever else the reparation people are proposing? Why are white people not listening to, and implementing, the National Urban League when it issues the annual report, â€œThe State of Black Americaâ€�? Why are white people not listening to, and implementing, the suggestions of all the civic groups trying to advance the social, economic, educational, health and cultural concerns of Black people?I speak for no one, EXCEPT for my Ancestors, our dead, and for myself and I am saying that I donâ€™t even know half of the true history of Black people, but I have seen and know enough to be able to say, â€œthe war and genocide against Black people, in all of the areas of life activity, worldwide, must stop.”Do you have a better solution to offer to solve this problem?”

What pill is this???

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decadesofhorror-blog · 7 years

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Night of the Living Dead (1968)

“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” -W.B. Yeats

The zombie that we know today, the decaying, slow-walking monster who wants to feast on our brains, is a relatively new version of the zombie. When zombies first made their way onto American movie screens, they weren’t travelling in cannibalistic hordes; they were mindless, subservient slaves. Their origins can be traced back to the American occupation of Haiti [1915 – 1934], where many of the marines stationed in Haiti would return to the United States with sensationalist accounts of Haitian voodoo practices — most notably the folkloric tradition of raising the dead into personal slaves by a sorcerer or bokor.

While Americans brought back a [misappropriated] idea of the zombie, it nevertheless struck a chord with depression-era society. The zombie is a creature that is consistently associated with labour; the zombie’s labour is its sole purpose as they are brought back from the dead as slaves dead to toil endlessly in fields and factories. The surplus of labour that encompassed the great-depression no doubt had striking similarities to the idea of a mindless zombie, performing alienating labour at the hands of wealthy landowners.

The first film to solidify this image was White Zombie (1932), starring Bela Lugosi as the antagonist Murder Legendre, a wealthy Haitian factory owner who raises the dead to slave at his sugar cane factory. The scene in which the protagonist first visits the factory illustrates, in a depressing parable, the physical embodiment of assembly lines of workers — the zombies are no more than mindless cogs performing monotonous labour. The camera lingers for several minutes in a long take on this scene, capturing its dreariness and eerie familiarity.

“They work faithfully,” says a stoic Lugosi. “And they do not worry about long hours.” This echoes the sentiments of the depression-era bosses who took advantage of the economic crisis to bind desperate unemployed people to poor working conditions and long hours. And at this time, labour struggles were intensifying alongside rapidly expanding union membership in an attempt to fight this phenomenon.

The fate of the zombie is a stolen consciousness and livelihood, or spiritual connection to their labour, by another (the bosses/voodoo masters). As Peter Dendle says, zombification is the logical conclusion of human reductionism; it is to reduce a person to a body, to reduce behavior to basic motor functions and to reduce social utility to raw labour. It is the displacement of one’s right to experience life, spirit, passion, autonomy, and creativity for another person’s exploitative gain.

During the ‘30s and ‘40s, the zombie also served as a parable for the plight of women in patriarchal society. Zombie movies consistently depicted undead, zombified women who were subservient to a domineering male [I Walked with a Zombie, 1943]

In the ‘50s, zombies are taken away from “exotic” landscapes and find a home in middle class America. The zombies are mindless victims of an unseen external force that forces everyday people to turn on each other [Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956]. Many readings of these films suggest a clear relationship to the looming threat of a communist invasion, essentially rendering American individualism into a mindless hoard of red zombies. But it also marks the first time that the zombies became a threat to American society, assuming their role as the dangerous “other.” This is the continued essence of the zombie to this day.

Zombies are a significant symbol in popular culture. As cultural objects, they reveal and reflect their social context through their position as the other. Anything “otherized”— feared, marginalized, or repressed—will find its way into the construction of zombies. Zombies are a barometer of which we can use to observe the collective anxieties and fears of any period or society.

This brings us to Romero’s zombie in Night of the Living Dead, the film that transformed zombies into cannibalistic ghouls that travel in hordes and turn innocent people into their kind.

Romero shot Night of the Living Dead on a small budget with the cheapest film possible: black and white 33m film. The idea came from a short story Romero wrote in college called “Anubis,” which he called an “allegory about what happens when a new society—in this case hordes of the living dead hungry for human flesh—replaces the old order.” Another economical factor was the decision to film at an abandoned farm house in Evans City, Pennsylvania.

Over two hundred and fifty extras were cast as zombies; they used chocolate Bosco syrup for blood and mortician’s wax for the decaying flesh wounds on the zombies. One of the extras owned a meat shop, and he gave Romero pounds of meat and innards to use as human guts. The scenes where the zombies feed on human flesh look so realistic because the extras were actually eating animal innards.

Romero’s zombies can be read in many ways, but the focus of the film has much more to do with how living humans react to a society on the verge of collapse. Its temporal urgency has both a narrative function and a psychological function; it takes place in the span of one day, giving it a true-to-life feel and a terrifying warning of just how quickly we can be engulfed by disaster. Romero’s conception of a contagious, cannibalistic zombie horde uniquely manifests modern apprehensions about the horrors of the Vietnam War, the struggles of the civil rights movement, and a questioning of patriotic American exceptionalism. The first scene at the graveyard has a fluttering American flag in the foreground, which represents the meaningless of patriotism as a moral compass at a time of social decay.

Only two minutes into the film, Romero introduces audiences to the new American zombie. Almost immediately after the infamous line: “they’re coming to get you Barbara,” a lone zombie appears in the graveyard and kills the protagonist Barbara’s brother Johnny. As we find out with this swift, senseless killing, the zombies cannot be reasoned with or dissuaded by logical discourse. The rationalized, civilized “morals” of America are not enough to suppress a full blown epidemic.

Just as the early enslaved zombie resonated with recession-era America, the infected decaying zombie struck a chord with Vietnam-era America. Graphic images of death and decay by photojournalists were surfacing, and the senselessness of war was stirring anger and hopelessness. Romero suggests the destruction of America is brought on by its own ruthless ventures, and it cannot be sustained by its faulty moralizing and patriotism. The dog eat dog nature of survival apocalypse is not a dismal diagnoses of human nature, but a forecast of how Americans will be left scrambling to rationalize their own survival as their moral code is rendered useless.

Romero is justifiably pessimistic in his vision of America under crisis. He suggests, and rightly so, that on the verge of collapse, the lack of solidarity caused by an alienating system rife with racism and misogyny is the ultimate damnation of humankind.

In 1964, after Kennedy was shot, president Lyndon B. Johnson declared that he would make the United Sates into a “great society,” where racial injustice and poverty had no place. But the civil rights act and the voting rights act did little to erase racism and poverty, and the Vietnam War raged on, plucking working-class blacks and whites from their communities and sending them off to die. Mass dissatisfaction — and the realization that “the great society” was nothing more than an empty echo — gave way to the radical anti-war movements and the black power movements. Still, Americans were divided on how to fix the crises their country was facing. What they did know, however, was that something was horrifically wrong.

If only the living could work together, it seems that the zombies would be easy to control. But the living can’t work together, Romero suggests. In Bowling Alone (a book I will frequently mention in my blogs), Robert Putnam notes that the proportion of Americans saying that most people can be trusted fell by more than a third between the 60s and the 90s. This was also a time when the nuclear family was turning inwards to an isolated unit preoccupied with post-war consumption.

By 1965, a majority of Americans made their homes in suburbs rather than cities. And through their greater access to home mortgages, credit, and tax advantages, men benefitted over women, whites over blacks, and middle-class Americans over working-class ones. White Americans more easily qualified for mortgages through discriminatory banking institutions, and more readily found suburban houses to buy than African Americans could.

As a result, a metropolitan landscape emerged where whole communities were increasingly being stratified along class and racial lines, while simultaneously, mass consumption was becoming commonplace in American society. Business leaders, the government, and advertisements and mass media were eager to convince Americans that mass consumption was not a personal indulgence, but a civic responsibility that was tied to standard of living.

In Night of the Living Dead, the house is no longer a home, but a site of entrapment and a prison—objects like the radio are no longer for entertainment, they are for survival. Doors, a symbolic device of many Hollywood films, are used as barricades on the windows. And just as objects are scrutinized for their utility (which can be read as a critique of the rising consumerism of post-war America) humans are reduced to their functionality and self-interest.

Gender roles and the subservience of women seems to only doom the people in the house even further. Barbara is reduced to a docile couch-ridden mute, and Helen Cooper has little say in her husband’s destructive decisions. Barbara’s clear lack of distrust for Ben (illustrated in the scene where she stares ambiguously at the knife) is also a hindrance on their mutual survival.

Romero also takes a jab at the insular nuclear family as an institution that cannot survive, and he illustrates this with the scene in which the young daughter eats her parents (Harry and Helen Cooper). In most horror films, the family is usually the prevailing site of the restoration of order, but Romero blatantly rejects the bourgeois notion of family as a site of mutual respect and meaningful existence.

And through the deaths of Barbara and her brother Johnny, we learn that being altruistic and good offers little redemption. Both characters die in their attempts to help another person. Individual acts of goodness, as well-meaning as possible, do little to save humanity. The character Ben (not quite Hollywood’s idea of “the good black man”) despite his noble actions, still meets his demise at the refusal of the white men to cooperate with him. In the scene where Ben first meets Harry Cooper, a middle-aged white man who is hiding his family in the cellar, Ben and Cooper argue over whether the cellar is the safest place in the house. Cooper insists the cellar is the safest place, while Ben argues that it is a death trap. The two men never reach a consensus, and this tension reflects the very real lack of consensus with Americans on how to address the political and economic crises of the ‘60s. A young black man, who simply wants to survive a crisis, arguing with an older white man is a perfect cinematic snapshot of racial tensions in the United States. The tension eventually blows up when Ben shoots Cooper.

When Ben recounts his first encounter with the zombies, the manner in which he reminisces about the situation evokes a pain that is clearly very real with the actor Duane Jones, and can draw a parable to the racist mob riots and even the violent police reaction to anti-war riots and civil rights riots of the ‘60s—especially the Watts riot in 1965, where 34 people were killed after the California National Guard was called in to quell the riots.

The emotional reminiscence of Ben casts a solemn mood and leaves room for reflection of the horrific state of American society. Romero prompts audiences to think of how America can continue to exist as it is, especially during wartime as it campaigns as the champion of the free world. The characters on screen undoubtedly feel this sense of doom.

Jones’ performance as Ben quickly draws in the audience’s sympathy. The look on Ben’s face immediately after he shoots Cooper quickly changes from satisfaction to pained. This self-realization encapsulates the major theme—the zombies are not the enemy; rather, the people have become their own enemies. With a lack of solidarity, there is no plausible way for humanity to survive the crisis. In the end, when Ben emerges from the dark cellar as the lone survivor, he is shot point blank by a posse of gun-toting vigilante rednecks. Following Ben’s death is a montage of still frames of Ben’s body being dragged by meat hooks into a pile of bodies that are light on fire—a scene reminiscent of the lynchings and racist violence of the Jim Crow era.

By this point, it is clear who the real monsters are. Unlike most horror films, there is no return to order. Order was disrupted almost immediately at the beginning of the film, and the audience does not get to see that same sense of order returned. On a superficial level, order is restored by the men who shoot and kill Ben, but the audience knows that this order has been achieved at the cost of an innocent man’s life.

The return to order in apocalyptic horror films, or any horror film, suggests a major obsession with the need to be constantly reassured about the strength of the status quo. For a while, horror films in the ‘40s and ‘50s had to have an ending that indicated a restoration of order. But a progressive director can suggest the fragility of the status quo. And this is exactly what Romero does.

#night of the living dead #1968 #george a. romero

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adaralondon · 4 years

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How Dystopian literature may have predicted a grim future: A Covid-19 survival guide made just for U.S?

3000BCE, the 1300s, the 1700s, and the 1900s all have something in common. They are all years that a deadly pandemic devastated a nation. As time goes on it is starting to slowly look as though we can add 2020 to that list due our newest friend: Covid-19. It has begun wreaking havoc on our medical system. It has caused students to lose the ability to attend schools normally instead forcing learning through online or paper modules. High schoolers have lost prom while college students have lost the ability to have a proper commencement ceremony to commend graduating. Worse of all, about 2million Americans have lost their jobs causing negative consequences for our economy which forced our government to issue stimulus checks to keep money circulating. With no end or cure in sight, the government unwillingly has done they only thing they can to protect its citizens: issued a stay at home order. Perhaps there was something we could have done or a guide we could have used to protect ourselves from heading towards this future that looks more and more dystopian each day? Dystopian literature is a genre that has been predicting infectious new diseases and their many consequences, most notoriously zombie apocalypses, for almost as long as they have been around. It may be time that we regarded them as more than works of good fun and entertainment and look at them as survival guides if we want to make it through this coronavirus outbreak.

The concept of zombies originated from the Haitian voodoo religion. They were thought to be the creation of “a bokor or witch doctor [who could] render their victim apparently dead and then revive them as their personal slaves, since their soul or will has been captured. The zombie, in effect, is the logical outcome of being a slave: without will, without name, and trapped in a living death of unending labor.” (Luckhurst) After the Haitian slaves won their freedom from the French it was not long before other countries took interest in Haiti and its traditions. According to Luckhurst, after the revolution America briefly occupied Haiti which led to the concept of zombies being introduced to the western world. What was once a sacred religious folklore became tainted by American ‘modernization’. In 1929 The Magic Island written by W.B. Seabrook, a self-proclaimed negrophile who was initiated into Voodoo giving him a ‘firsthand’ account of the tradition, gave the western world the earliest appearance of zombies in literature. It was so successful that in 1932 Edward Halperin produced the movie White Zombie, the story of a young woman’s transformation into a zombie by a voodoo master. It was based on the popular novel The Magic Island. These new literary masterpieces soon spawned a movement which produced some of our favorite zombie movies such as Night of the Living Dead, Resident Evil, and Pet Sematary. At first zombie movies were produced so that someone could get a good scare with their friends, but they soon took a more comedic turn. Although these movies seemed to all be created with lighthearted intentions for some the concept of a zombie was nothing to joke about.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) takes the threat of a zombie apocalypse incredibly serious. Around 2011 they warned Americans of the possible threat of a zombie apocalypse even going as far as releasing a graphic novel on how to handle yourself in a world ending event. The release of this plan caused a lot of criticism from American citizens due to the government's inability to properly and effectively handle the Ebola outbreak that had occurred around the same time. Although the administration defended the creation of their guide by reassuring us it could be used as a proxy for other worrying events. By using this guide citizens could learn things such as how to handle other infectious diseases, how to defend themselves from ‘zombies’ or looters, and even how to properly construct an emergency kit but until recently it has always been thought of as a guide that was just for giggles and a waste of government funding & resources. Since the outbreak of Covid-19 the CDC’s zombie preparedness plan has once again resurfaced. “Based on the projected infection rate of Covid-19 the CDC has predicted four possible outcomes for our future: a zombie apocalypse, the needed pause, a Global Heath Awakening, or finally A great despair.” (Inayatullah). This is alarming because this strand of the coronavirus while new was not expected to be something that would cause a black swan event or an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. (Chappelow). In fact, a coronavirus was one of the diseases on the list that would end up causing an emerging infectious disease. There are several reasons for this. The first is that a single strand RNA virus is more likely to mutate quickly leaving scientist unprepared to cure or deal with it effectively. The second being that viruses that stem from animals have been the main cause of debilitating world plagues: the black death caused by rats, Malaria by Mosquitoes, and Influenza by a multitude of animals. The familiarity with these sorts of diseases has caused numerous people to disregard the dangers of Covid-19.

The stay at home order enacted by the United States government has caused protest from numerous citizens who wish to resume their normal everyday life. “SARS-CoV causes a serious form of pneumonia that can also be life-threatening. Globally, it killed 774 people between 2002 and 2004. No other cases have been reported worldwide since.” (Sandee) Many feel that since coronavirus is such a familiar batch of viruses, as it has caused MERS, SARS, the common cold, and the flu which have all been contained quickly by the government, that this virus will be dealt with equally. Although given the current response it does not seem as though this will be the case. As familiar as these diseases may seem there is a reason that the CDC has named this one more probable of causing a zombie outbreak as opposed to the others that we are seemingly so familiar with. While some symptoms do resemble the flu, covid-19 is far more deadly. The physical symptoms such as shortness of breath and inability to breathe do a lot of damage on the infected but also the virus has potentially done more social and economic damage then the flu. Covid-19 has the potential to overwhelm our hospitals and their workers, infect 60% of the world’s population, and force our economy into an economic downturn. It spreads quickly and silently with symptoms not appearing for at least two weeks after initial infection. It is also biased against those who are elderly or immunocompromised making them more likely to die than any other infected group. Yet the thing that makes this virus the most dangerous is that it is novel or new, therefore there is no herd immunity nor vaccinations that can prevent it nor protect against it. All these factors coupled together make this virus a recipe for a zombie outbreak.

In 2016 the film Train to Busan was awarded as the first Korean film to break the audience record of over 10 million theatergoers. (Byun) This also made it one of the highest grossing zombie films at the time. The film is about a father who must take his daughter to Busan because she wishes to spend her birthday with her mother. When the father-daughter pair board the train to Busan the apocalypse begins, and an infected zombie slips aboard infecting and killing most of the passengers. The father protects his daughter but due to the selfish actions of On-Suk, a passenger who wants to save himself at the expense of many others, he must sacrifice himself to ensure that his daughter and the only other survivor, a pregnant woman, are able to make it to Busan safely. Although the movie is heart breaking what we should take from it is how the virus that causes its outbreak is explored.

We learn around the midway mark of the movie that the outbreak is a result of a leak that occurs at a biological factory in the South Korean countryside. Although the movie never shows whether the leak traveled through the air or the water or other ways of contact, we do know that the virus from the leak traveled far enough to infect almost the entirety of Seoul in one day. There are many parallels between the virus that caused the outbreak in the movie and the real-life virus that is currently causing a worldwide pandemic. It only took a short time for Covid-19 to spread from China to the entire world almost mirroring the movie. Another important aspect of the movie that mirrors real life is how the character On-Suk selfishly caused dozens of deaths while trying to save his own life. This mirrors not only events in Korea but also around the world. Upon the announcement of the virus many people flocked to the stores hoarding essential supplies such as masks, toilet paper, and milk among other things. Many infected people carried on in their daily lives knowingly infecting those around them. Not only is the movie mirroring many real-life events, the promotional posters of the sequel movie also reflect many of the real-life effects the coronavirus had on Korea. For the first time ever, Seoul, a city that depends heavily on public transportation & walking and social gatherings to survive left the streets barren as many locked themselves inside as a means of protection from the virus. As seen in these posters, the streets are abandoned because people want to avoid being zombified. This also not only copies the self-interest of people who want to protect themselves in real life but also the way the Korean government enforced a stay in place order and mandatory curfews. As the movie shares many similarities in the way the virus has spread and affected everyday life had we investigated it closer we might have been able to prevent a potential disaster.

Train to Busan is not the only movie that we should pay attention to though. World War Z also shares many similarities with the current coronavirus outbreak (as unfortunately this is not the first one). In the popular movie, that is based off the novel of the same name, the government fails to properly assess an out of country outbreak leaving the United States unprepared when it finally hits. Our reality seems to match what happened in the fictional version of the United States closely. Our government ignored the threat of covid-19 because it was far away in China and ‘unlikely’ to spread from there. This ignorance had devastating effects on both the citizens and the government when it finally touched our country. This is not the only instance of similarities this movie shares with us though. The virus in the movie that turns people into zees, the novel's unique name for zombies, is called Solanum and like the coronavirus it originates in China before it spreads enough to infect the entire world. The movie and the book also touch on how China’s government attempted to cover up the spread of the virus. There also was a lot of false information about how to cure or stop the spreading of the virus being passed around in both the movie and reality. These instances are so close to what is happening in the States that it is frightening. Something the US could have learned from both this movie and Train to Busan is that paying attention to things that are happening in other countries is important. Had the government acted as soon as they noticed things were awry in China and increased the production of essentials, started studying cures for the virus, and started testing quicker then maybe our country would not be leading the world in deaths and lack of testing. Not only are the effects of being unprepared important lessons this book teaches us it also has another hidden message. During the movie we see the main character display attributes of “intellectual curiosity and suppleness.” Which led him to discovering a cure for becoming a ‘Zee’. (Rosenberg) The same way our first responders and medical researchers are studying for a cure to be found now. Since these movies share many similarities with real world virus outbreaks, we should not only use them to study possible zombie apocalypses but also as a guide to cure this deadly virus.

Zombie movies are not only matching the cause and effect of Covid-19 they may also be a clue on how to solve the outbreak so that we can resume our normal lives. Contagion which was released in 2011-- as confirmed by its writers-- tried to warn us about this grim future. As such this film has resurged in popularity due to the panic surrounding Covid-19. The film follows a virus that can spread from human to human. The health officials and a regular family man must try to find patient zero so that they can contain the disease and they find a cure for it. Like the other movies mentioned, it resembles the crisis we are dealing with very closely but unfortunately our real-life pandemic is not as easily solvable as it was in the movie. This movie like World War Z has its deadly virus originate from China, an oddly recurring location in film and real life for a virus outbreak. “In ‘Contagion’, a bat drops a piece of a fruit, which is eaten by a pig. That pig is then slaughtered for consumption, passing on a virus to humans.” (Tucker) this mirrors how officials think the coronavirus initially spread: by consumption of a Pangolin which may have eaten a bat in a Chinese wet market which explaines how the animal was originally infected. The movie spends a lot of time trying to locate patient zero because they are the key to tracing the source of the outbreak. Watching this movie gave even regular people the knowledge that patient zero is crucial to curing and researching a novel outbreak. Contagion has also been an omen in the same way World War Z was, both movies warned us about the dangers of being under prepared and having bad leadership. The movie does a great job at teaching us many lessons that are more than “In order to find and cure a virus, you must locate patient zero.”, it’s teaching us “audacity and self-sacrifice” something that our President, Trump, did not do.( Rosenberg)Another tale that teaches about audacity and self-sacrifice is The Handmaid’s Tale.

The Handmaid’s Tale seems to be the last book what would mirror a worldwide pandemic, but it does. While a zombie apocalypse is not a driving factor of this novel it still contains foreshadowing that could have stopped this pandemic from getting as out of control as it currently has. In the novel the city is ravaged by disease and environmental disasters leading to it becoming remade as a totalitarian state. Around the world this slowly seems to have started happening in real life. According to Bogost several countries have implemented authoritarian tactics to keep their citizens inside during mandatory stay at home orders, curfewing, and lockdown. In China facial recognition, phone data, and helmet-mounted thermal cameras have helped authorities control the outbreak. Israel has started tracking the cellphones of infected people. Italy has locked down its entire country and when the police catch someone outside, they arrest them. Meanwhile in France in order to free roam the streets a signed travel pass designating that someone is doing something essential is needed. The United States is not far behind while they are not arresting citizens for leaving their house there is a mandatory stay in place order and many businesses that have been deemed non-essential have been ordered to close. Citizens of many eastern and western countries are being ‘advised’ to not leave the house without facial coverings. This has led to citizens protesting these tough restrictions, especially in the United States. Ironically, many protestors have taken to wearing the Handmaid’s clothing while chanting “my body my choice” to protest the ‘authoritarian’ restrictions the government has placed on its citizens. It all seems straight out of a dystopian novel, mirroring the way the Handmaid’s are the one that are deemed essential and forced to work despite the cruel effects of the environment that have ravished the land they once called home. The citizens of this state are not allowed to speak to each other or meet up to hang out just like our social distancing protocols. We are unable to meet up with our friends due to socializing not meeting the social distancing guidelines of staying 6 feet apart from each other. Health care works and first responders much watch over the country heroically as if they are the guardians of The Handmaid's Tale. The longer we stay in this quarantine the more we seem to be heading toward a familiar dystopian future whether it be a zombie apocalypse or totalitarian government regime

“They tried to warn us. In their television dramas, they sought to depict the most chillingly dystopian scenarios they could imagine — terrifying alternate realities in which life as we knew it had been devastated by revolutions, plagues, technology run amok or hordes of bloodthirsty zombies.” (Itzkoff) In 2019 a deadly virus wreaked havoc on Wuhan, China. It was like nothing anyone had ever seen before as it caused many to rapidly fall ill with shortness of breath and difficulties breathing. Soon the virus spread from China and quickly into neighboring countries before reaching the western part of the world. Many accused the Chinese government of covering the virus up and that because of these cover ups a cure for this virus could be delayed into next year. Now due the spread of the virus schools has been shut down, many people have lost their jobs, and many cities across the world have issued a stay in place order. This may sound like a new situation for most of us however if we look closely, we have dealt with this time after time before in both our favorite literary works and movies. They have tried to teach us vital lessons for surviving pandemics, but both the government and its citizens ignored them in favor of viewing them as simple good-natured entertainment. However now as this pandemic rages on many of these dystopian novels have forced their way back into the spotlight reminding us of the lessons, we have failed to learn from them. Maybe we should have paid deeper attention to these novels as now it is a possibility that our society is in danger of becoming a dystopia itself.

Works cited:

Bogost, Ian. “When the Checkpoints Come.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 19 Mar. 2020, www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/03/coronavirus-police-state-america/608365/.

Byun, Hee-won. "Korean Movies Prove Box-Office Gold". The Chosun Ilbo. Chosun Media.

Chappelow, Jim. “Black Swan.” Investopedia, Investopedia, 11 Mar. 2020, www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blackswan.asp.

Inayatullah, Sohail, and Peter Black. “Neither A Black Swan Nor A Zombie Apocalypse: The Futures Of A World With The Covid-19 Coronavirus * Journal of Futures Studies.” Journal of Futures Studies, 18 Mar. 2020, jfsdigital.org/2020/03/18/neither-a-black-swan-nor-a-zombie-apocalypse-the-futures-of-a-world-with-the-covid-19-coronavirus/

Itzkoff, Dave. “They Create Nightmare Worlds for TV. Now They're Living in One.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Mar. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/arts/television/westworld-handmaids-tale-virus.html.

Luckhurst, Roger. “Culture - Where Do Zombies Come from?” BBC, BBC, 31 Aug. 2015, www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150828-where-do-zombies-come-from.

Rogers, Kristen. “'Contagion' vs. Coronavirus: The Film's Connections to a Real Life Pandemic.” CNN, Cable News Network, 2 Apr. 2020,

Rosenberg, Alyssa. “Opinion | Coronavirus Is a Nightmare. These Stories Tell Us How to Survive - and Rise above It.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 12 Mar. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/12/coronavirus-is-nightmare-these-stories-tell-us-how-survive-rise-above-it/

Sandee LaMotte, CNN. “What Is Coronavirus and Covid-19? An Explainer.” CNN Wire, 31 Mar. 2020. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=n5h&AN=BAQ4h_17e79fdd3094e04fa4f071a712d735b7&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Tucker, Reed. “How the Movie 'Contagion' Perfectly Predicted the 2020 Coronavirus Crisis.” New York Post, New York Post, 21 Mar. 2020, nypost.com/2020/03/21/how-the-movie-contagion-perfectly-predicted-the-2020-coronavirus-crisis/.

#essay and formal #formal writing #writing

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jobsearchtips02 · 4 years

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Wuhan coronavirus: Asian people seeing more racism amid outbreak fears

A man’s temperature being taken.

Stringer/Getty Images

As fears over the deadly coronavirus from China grow, so are racist and xenophobic incidents against Asian communities in the US, Canada, and Europe.

People of Asian descent have described to Business Insider and other outlets being discriminated at work, Costco, and a university campus.

In larger-scale incidents, customers from mainland China were banned from businesses in Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam, and more than 126,000 people in Singapore called for Chinese nationals to be banned from the country.

“We tend to exist in social silos where we’re surrounded by people who look like us, think like us, and act like us, and we are innately suspicious of folk that we don’t have contact with and we don’t understand,” Robert Fullilove, a professor of sociomedical sciences told Business Insider.

He also said it’s “almost impossible to contain stories” of misinformation and xenophobia when news moves so quickly in the media.

Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

The novel coronavirus from Wuhan, China, has killed more than 304 people in less than two months after its first case.

Authorities in China have quarantined more than ten cities, and the US, UK, and several other countries are quarantining all travelers who have recently visited China.

Yet some of the virus’ unexpected victims are those who have never even been anywhere near Wuhan.

Members of the Asian diaspora living in the US, Canada, Britain, and Italy have in recent days described, to Business Insider and other outlets, multiple incidents of being racially discriminated and isolated at school, work, and other public places.

Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images

Here’s a roundup of apparently racist and xenophobic incidents, inflicted on Asian residents in foreign countries, in the past two weeks alone:

An eight-year-old boy — whose mother is Korean-American, and father is a mix of ethnic backgrounds including Filipino, Mexican, Chinese, Native American, and white — wearing a face mask was told by a Costco sample-stand worker to “get away because he may be ‘from China.'” Business Insider’s Sara Al-Arshani has the full story.

Students of east Asian descent at Arizona State University told Business Insider’s Bryan Pietsch their peers have started moving away from them and staring at them “a second longer” whenever they cough or sneeze.

Peter Akman, a reporter at Canada’s CTV broadcaster, tweeted an image of his Asian barber and said: “Hopefully ALL I got today was a haircut.” He has since deleted the post, apologized, and been fired.

The director of Rome’s prestigious Santa Cecilia music conservatory, Roberto Giuliani, suspended the lessons of all “oriental students (Chinese, Korean, Japanese etc.)” due to the epidemic, La Repubblica reported. Most of these students are second-generation Italian immigrants who have no relationship to the countries of origin, the newspaper said.

Le Courrier Picard, a daily regional newspaper in northern France, described the coronavirus as a “yellow alert” in a front-page headline last Sunday. It has since apologized, and French Asians have protested on social media under the hashtag #JeNeSuisPasUnVirus (“I am not a virus”).

Sam Phan, a British-Chinese Masters student at the University of Manchester, described in The Guardian overhearing people fearing going to London’s Chinatown, and seeing people physically move away from them in public areas.

A woman of Cambodian origin told Le Monde that her manager at a Paris bag store told her, “laughing: ‘I hope that your family hasn’t brought the virus back.'”

Frank Ye, a Chinese-Canadian student at the University of Toronto, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation his Asian Canadian friends had been told to move away or cover their mouths. “[It’s] this idea of ‘yellow peril,’ of this Chinese horde coming to destroy Western civilization,” he said.

Instagram users commented on a photo of a Chinese restaurant in Toronto, saying things like “No eating bats please!! That’s how coronavirus started in China!!” and “I ain’t tryna catch no virus.”

In more large-scale incidents, businesses in Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam have posted signs banning customers from mainland China; the hashtag #ChineseDon’tComeToJapan trended in Japan; and more than 126,000 people have signed a Singaporean petition calling for Chinese nationals to be banned from their country.

A woman walks on an empty road on January 27, 2020 in Wuhan, China.

Getty

Some of the conspiracy theories and misinformation circulating about the coronavirus also have tinges of racism and xenophobia.

A video appearing to show a young Chinese woman eating a raw bat with chopsticks has gone viral in recent weeks, with thousands of social media users — and some media outlets — claiming that the footage was taken in Wuhan, and suggesting that this is part of the normal Chinese diet.

(The video was actually taken in Palau, the Pacific Island country, in 2016 and was part of an online travel show about eating unusual local delicacies. Earlier this week she apologized for eating the food, saying she had “no idea during filming that there was such a virus.”)

The bat has since spurred multiple memes mocking what users think are Chinese eating habits, like “bats and bamboo and rats and s—,” and linking them to the disease.

Other misinformation surrounding the virus include theories that it can be cured with toxic bleach or oregano oil, or that it stems from a leak from China’s bioweapons program or 5G network.

—Rossalyn Warren (@RossalynWarren) January 30, 2020

—werner herzHog (@post_hog) January 23, 2020

The Wuhan coronavirus is spread from human to human, and has now spread to more than 20 countries. It is believed to have jumped from bats to snakes to humans.

The virus doesn’t seem to be as deadly as the SARS coronavirus — which, at current comparison levels, had a higher mortality rate — with experts telling Business Insider’s Holly Secon that global panic over the Wuhan virus is unproductive and unwarranted.

Blaming ‘the other’

Many people of Asian descent faced racist and xenophobic comments during the SARS epidemic too. SARS, like the Wuhan coronavirus, also originated from China.

Robert Fullilove, a professor of sociomedical sciences at the Columbia University Medical Center, told Business Insider the xenophobic fear surrounding coronarvirus is similar to the reaction toward HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, when there were no clear answers as to what caused the virus.

He said at the time, people blamed anyone but themselves — or “the other” — for AIDS, which was becoming rapidly deadly in communities of Haitians, intravenous drug users, and gay men.

This sort of reaction isn’t new, either. It dates as far back as Bubonic Plague in the 1300s, when there were false notions that Jewish people were poisoning peoples’ water to spread the infection, Fullilove said. The accusations led to the destruction of Jewish communities, and in parts of France and Switzerland, some Jews were banned from consuming food and drinks meant for Christians, while others were burned alive.

“We tend to exist in social silos where we’re surrounded by people who look like us, think like us, and act like us, and we are innately suspicious of folk that we don’t have contact with and we don’t understand,” he said of why xenophobic views spread in times of panic, adding that people use others as scapegoats.

Taxi drivers in protective suits are seen in front of a residential area, following an outbreak of the new coronavirus and the city’s lockdown, in Wuhan

Reuters

Fullilove said the best way to stop misinformation, especially when it comes to blaming a specific person or race, can be to make sure people have a clear idea of what’s happening with the virus.

Because of how quickly news spreads today on the internet, it becomes “almost impossible to contain stories” of misinformation and xenophobia, Fullilove said.

“Xenophobia works at its worst if people decide that the only thing they have to do is stay away from folk who are from China,” he said.

“There will come a point when it’s much more diverse in terms of who’s impacted, and if we’re unable to get people a clear message about what they have to do to protect themselves, not only will we not do the things that will help us stay reasonably safe, we’ll also create a lot of social damage that it will be very difficult to clean up.”

Women and children walk past personnel in protective clothing after arriving on US State Department-chartered aircraft to evacuate Americans back home from Wuhan.

Reuters

John C. Yang, president of the Asian Americans Advancing Justice civil-rights group, told NBC News that when people play off stereotypes to come to conclusions about the virus, they are “going for a simplistic and completely misinformed and frankly, ignorant answer.”

With the coronavirus, people have focused on stereotypes about Chinese people when coming to conclusions about the virus, he said.

“Unfortunately, there are definitely those people that still believe that somehow, Chinese culture generally, it’s backwards and foods are considered ‘exotic,'” Yang told NBC News. “That certainly leads to misperception and, even worse, misinformation or disinformation about what actually happens and what is the source of the coronavirus.”

The stigma appears to have become so prevalent that the medical officer of Toronto Public Health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, had to warn in a Wednesday statement: “Inaccurate information continues to spread and this is creating unnecessary stigma against members of our community … Discrimination is not acceptable.”

A Costco sample stand worker turned away a kid wearing a face mask because she thought he was ‘from China’ and could give her coronavirus

People are spreading memes and fake news online as the deadly coronavirus spreads across the globe

UC Berkeley is getting called out for saying anti-Chinese xenophobia is a ‘normal reaction’ to the coronavirus

China just completed work on the emergency hospital it set up to tackle the Wuhan coronavirus, and it took just 8 days to do it

Wuhan Virus China Xenophobia Racism

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from Job Search Tips https://jobsearchtips.net/wuhan-coronavirus-asian-people-seeing-more-racism-amid-outbreak-fears/

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lostboy-4life-blog · 6 years

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ESSAY III: Race and Gender Stereotyped in the Zombie Sub-Genre

The first time the horror genre saw the emergence of zombies in westernized civilizations was in 1932 with the film White Zombie, a movie that changed the genre of horror forever. The zombie was a new creature that would become a staple in the genre for almost ninety years now. In 1968 with Night of the Living Dead, another film in the zombie category, we begin to see reoccurring themes such as race and gender stereotypes of this genre. In 2002, the movie 28 Days Later, which was a critically acclaimed film, saw this same themes that have been in zombie films since the beginning. In each of these films a theme of racial and gender stereotyping is seen, and through the generations of the zombie genre a freedom from these stereotypes evolves.

The majority of White Zombie takes place in Haiti where a white “voodoo master” is in control of what could only be considered a representation of African American slaves as the zombies. Historically many native Haitians and imported Africans were put into slavery due to the French and Spanish plantations. During the time of filming and the release of the film in America, African Americans were still considered second class citizens and were being controlled by the government through Jim Crow Laws. African Americans were still feared by the majority of white American, this fear came from centuries of stereotypes that African American’s don’t have control of their anger, rage and mental capacity. Just as the voodoo master takes control of his zombie slaves, this control was still wanted by white Americans. Here we see African Americans represented as zombie slaves and this would their lowest point in representation in zombie film genre. They are represented as complete stereotypes based on their race. Being represented as actual slave and having no control or ability to think for themselves a notion that many white Americans watching the film would have probably wanted at this time.

The film Night of the Living Dead took a total 180 compared to White Zombie. This film was the first time ever that an African American had the lead role in a film not only did he receive the lead role but was the hero of the film. He was an African American who ended up protecting all the white people in the film. The director George Romero has stated many times that Duane Jones was just the best choice to play the Ben, the lead character and that film was never meant to be a political or racial statement. Ironically at this time in the United States the Civil Rights Movement was going on. Now, for the first time an African American was starting to break stereotypes in the zombie genre and horror films in general, even though it was not intentionally supposed to be that way. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s saw the start of change both good and bad for African Americans. The timeline of the 1960s saw; sit-ins, freedom rides, the Birmingham church bombing, Martin Luther King give his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, the Loving v Virginia ruling (legalizing interracial relationships), and the assassination of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcom X. By the time this movie came out in the late 60s most of these examples of the Civil Rights Movement had already taken place. Duane Jones’ character Ben was not the stereotypical representation of an African American in movies. The part of Ben could have been played by a white person and it wouldn’t have changed the character at all. The film really showed that for the first time that African Americans were no different than their white peers, specifically in that Romero left the scene where Ben a black man slaps Barbara a white women. As stated in Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan…and Beyond, “The film has often been praised for never making an issue of its black hero’s color (it is nowhere alluded to, even implicitly). Yet it is not true that his color is arbitrary and without meaning: Romero uses it to signify his difference from the other character and set him apart from their norms” (Wood, 104) Even though the part wasn’t stereotypical of an African American, Ben still doesn’t end up surviving till the end. Showing that he still isn’t totally free of these stereotypes to African Americans in the past but, has seen a freedom from being the controlled and enslaved and become a more positive role in the film genre.

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Often African Americans up until this point in zombie and other horror films really have not gained complete freedom from their stereotyped past, they still had not survived till the credits roll in 2002 in 28 Days Later, this all changed. Unlike Night of the Living Dead where Ben does not live till the credits, Selena survives and ends up as one of the only three surviving cast members at the end of the movie, which is interesting because stereotypically it is the African Americans or minorities in generally usually die first. So this film is certainly different in that way, even though the cast as a whole is pretty much all white. This is a British film so the difference in countries between there and here may have something to do with it. This is the culmination of race through the age of zombie films up until this point. African Americans have gained total freedom and the choice to live. African Americans have gone from total enslavement by a white leader in White Zombie to helping lead a group of white people to survival in 28 Days Later.

Additionally Selena represents the concept of a New Women, which Ann Kordus describes as “The stereotypical New Woman, who appeared in the united states in the late nineteenth century- and early twentieth centuries, was a young women who delighted in engaging in pursuits that previously though acceptable only by men” (Kordus, 26) and Zombie films show through their history that women gain more freedom for themselves. In White Zombie Madeline is one of these New Women and Beuroment, one of the most villainous characters in the film, doesn’t much like it and tries to woo and control her. This doesn’t work out to well for him as she wants to go through with her wedding and this leads to him poisoning her. The film suggests that being a New Women could be seen as her own fault for becoming a zombie and because she wouldn’t listen to these dominating men in her life she needed to be put in line. Her power to be a strong women is stolen from her by an evil man she wanted nothing to do with. Madeline reacts to the real life women during the time the movie was released and Margaret (Molly) Brown was one of these real life New Women. She was strong, independent and totally free of all previous stereotypes that where put on women. She ran multiple house holds, companies, survived the Titanic and gave tons of money to philanthropy after her divorce. At the end of the movie the death of the voodoo master Legendre releases her back to being to the new strong woman she was before. Even though she is a New Woman when she becomes a zombie she is totally under the control of the voodoo master and has no freedom or will. At the same time even when she was human, she was still being controlled by men and their different needs each wanted from her. Thus, although she was able to have some sense of freedom, ultimately she was still not free from the stereotypes of the female gender.

Night of the Living Dead didn’t see a strong woman who was alive, what it did see was the youngest cast member Karen become a New Woman with freedom but only when she became a zombie. At this point, she is featured in the most gruesome scenes of the film, when she finally stands up for herself and kills her mother and ends up eating her father. This film being released in 1968 it was the height of the hippie counter culture and many teenagers and women at this time were finding their own path in life and escaping their families’ expectations of them. It was the decade of free love and life. We could see in the film that it is Karen not being a human that gives her the ability to be free and self-sufficient at a young age. In this film it is only when Karen becomes a zombie that she gets this freedom to stand up for herself and be independent. The women in zombie films still have not been freed from their stereotypes Karen has to be a monster to gain her independence and freedom from from men and in this case her controlling father. It is not until the 21st century that we see the true break down of stereotypes in film genre both in terms of race and gender.

In 2002, 28 Days Later is the first time we see a New Women gain total freedom from her female stereotype and as a human. Selena is the epitome of definition of a New Woman and what the movie White Zombie started. Throughout the whole movie Selena is not only the strongest women but maybe even the strongest character both mentally and physically, always coming though in the clutch to save her group and herself. Blogger MaggieCat states “Selena is a very rare character in this kind of film- in her very first appearance she saves Jim’s life, yells at him for being foolish, and gives him a crash course in the rules for surviving in a world that has broken down completely. Bravery, direct action, and thorough competence from her first seconds on screen. Not only is she a strong female character, she’s a strong female character of color which is even more rare” (MaggieCat) She certainly has some of the most gruesome zombie kills in the movie and maybe the most kills in general. Selena is not just the culmination of the freedom of the gender stereotype but, also the freedom of racial stereotype in zombie films.

Through the three films there is an evolution of freedom from the stereotypes of race and gender as show in zombie films. African Americans and women are seen to gain more and more freedom to choose how their lives end up in zombie films. In the beginning, African Americans and women were trapped in a sate of slavery either literally in the case of the Haitian zombies and in Madeline’s case by men. Thirty years after that in Night of the Living Dead, we see an advancement in the freedom of both African Americans and women again, with Ben being a main character and surviving almost till the end and Karen finding her freedom on when she becomes zombie. Finally in 28 Days Later, the character of Selena not only shows total freedom of the stereotypes of African American and a woman in zombie films by being one of the strongest and most bad ass characters but also being one of the only characters to survive as the credits roll.

MaggieCat. “28 Days Later...” The Hathor Legacy, 25 July 2007, thehathorlegacy.com/28-days-later/.

Moreman, Christopher M., and Cory Rushton. Zombies Are Us: Essays on the Humanity of the Walking Dead. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2011.

Wood, Robin. Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan -and Beyond. Columbia University Press, 2003.

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paulawolsky · 6 years

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Essay 2: Fear of the Zombie

The word zombie has always struck fear into the hearts of those who hear it. With each decade a new breed of zombie was born backed by a new cultural fear. The origin of the zombie started out with a simple cultural fear; revolt of the other. It began with the fear of a Haitian revolt, it was easy to blame them for the zombie because they practiced a different religion known as, Voodoo. When zombies entered the media in the 1930’s, they were mindless and controlled by a zombie master. “One belief that the Haitian slaves do not seem to have brought with them was a belief in the creature now most associated in the American imagination with the folklore of Haiti—the zombie…However, almost as soon as the Haitian zombie entered the American imagination, American popular culture, especially Hollywood films, transformed the Haitian zombie into a creature that revealed more about the hopes and fears lurking in the American psyche than in the Haitian one (Kordas pg. 15).” This representation of the zombie was only the beginning. In the movie White Zombie, the Haitians were always seen as chanting and it was always dark. The chanting and music surrounding them were meant to evoke fear. In the movie all the white zombies were the zombie masters muscle, whereas the black zombies were forced to work in the sugar mill. These zombies were slaves when they were living, already seen as mindless controllable beings. This was a problematic representation of these people because it only furthered the racist thoughts in people’s minds. “Little more than an extension of the will of its master, the zombie of the American imagination and of American popular culture easily became whatever the American public wanted it to be. It is my contention that both the zombie and the zombie master came to represent those elements of society which America’s white middle class found disturbing or troublesome and over which it wished it could exert control (Kordas pg. 16).”

Over the next few decades the societal fear changed again. During this time, the Vietnam war was a foot and American citizens were terrified. These enemies were unknown and could not be controlled. The zombies of this decade took on those traits, this time there wasn’t a zombie master. A single bite or scratch and you could become infected with zombie virus. What scared people the most was that their friends and family could turn without them being able to save them. In the original The Night of the Living Dead, the virus just randomly happened overnight, and it spread uncontrollably. What struck the most fear was that these zombies could create themselves, they didn’t need a master to raise them. This is what terrified the audience the most, it could happen to anyone, they could just come out of the shadows. This represented the fear of radical terrorism and the containment of communism. These things could not be controlled, they were like a virus that was spreading, and there was no cure. “The fear is instead of becoming a zombie, deprived of all free will and enslaved to a powerful, predatory master (Inglis pg. 43).” The unknown, the uncanny, the other, these words are used in an attempt to separate the lesser from the dominate. American culture and society was very good at putting themselves above those they saw as the non dominate race and gender. For example, in The Night of the Living Dead, women were represented as useless and hysterical. Barbra has very few lines in the entire movie, and other times she’s either screaming or has a blank look on her face. In the end, her brother is the one who kills her because she is so hysterical from the fact that he is a zombie. Blacks were lacking representation in this film as well, yes there was a lead black character, but he was seen as a villainous hero. “The irony of the film is that, at a time in American history when it is finally conceivable for a film to have a black hero, because of Sidney Poitier, the absolutes of the classic Hollywood cinema—hero/villain, white/black, innocent/guilty, selfless/selfish, brave/cowardly, alive/dead—have been revealed as artificial and deconstructed by the upheavals of the 1960’s (Bruce pg. 73).” This film shed some much needed light on the current fears of the American culture at the time.

Moving on to the present, the fear of the unknown hasn’t changed, it’s just American’s have attached the unknown to a different race. Zombies have become more and more popular in modern culture. They aren’t necessarily meant to strike fear anymore. This may be partly because not everyone fears the idea of zombies. Many quite enjoy the lore around them, that may be why there are so many different TV shows and movies. However, they still do represent the societal fear of not being able to control an outbreak. Instead of the zombies striking the fear, it is the word virus that sends chills down peoples backs. “Zombie films and zombie literature conveyed to viewers and readers the dangerous nature of new elements within American society—new immigrants, modern women, unrestrained sexual behavior, and middle class more interested in having sex for pleasure than reproduction…The very “emptiness” of the zombie, which made the creature the perfect vessel to convey various fears, doubts, and concerns, and the ease with which the “monster” could be defeated made it the ideal cultural repository for the anxieties and interests of the twentieth century and a fixture in American popular culture (Kordas pg. 30).” Zombies are a way for people to face their fears without having to actually face them. We can tie our anxieties to them because once we do that, all we have to do is shoot them in the head and kill it. Like the leader of the zombie killing mob in The Night of the Living Dead said, “Kill the brain and you kill the ghoul.”

Inglis, D. (n.d). Putting the Undead to Work [PDF].

Kordas, A. (n.d.). New South, New Immigrants, New Women, New Zombies [PDF].

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