Month: December 2019

As we all know, racism and slavery is one of the most talked about topics in the history of society. For decades and decades, minorities all over the world have received backlash and poor treatment because of the way they look, carry themselves, or practice religion. Some people believe slavery and racism was completely gotten rid of during the civil war times of America. However, people on the other side of the debate believe segregation and unfair treatment of minorities is still present today. Especially veterans like the instance we saw in Toni Morrison’s Home. Also, the connection that came along in my head after reading Zone One was the aboloshment of slavery and the potential end of the humane society in Zone One.

Frank Money, is a 24 year old Korean War veteran who serves as our main character in Home. Unfortunately, Frank suffers from post traumatic stress disorder which is defined as a trauma and stress related disorder that may develop after exposure to an event or ordeal in which death or severe harm occurred or was threatened. On top of that, he faces racism as he is summoned to Georgia to find his sister. A random woman sends him a letter saying “Come fast. She be dead if you tarry” (Morrison 8). This is in the second chapter of the book. Having some knowledge on the background of the book I knew that him traveling to Georgia being a black man was only gonna stir up more chaos. Being that Georgia is a very southern state which, people in Georgia were not going to be fond of his presence. He did not need more chaos after he woke up the morning after being found passed out by the police due to manic acts which is a side effect of his post traumatic stress disorder. Specifically, he has post traumatic stress disorder because he witnessed a young defenseless Korean girl get shot and killed after he had felt a certain way about her.

I was alerted to the kind of connection that racism and slavery had in Zone One. During class, the term “notice” was brought up a lot. It is a verb that I’ve begun to start doing way more. It sounds sort of cheesy but ‘noticing’ more when you read can help you write much better. I noticed Zone One was really unique when I realized the author was trying to display a snapshot of a dead society. Race is a social characteristic that has no serious evidence to stand behind. It’s something that we as a culture and society have adopted into our brains and everyday life because that’s just how it goes. In Zone One the plague is a huge part of the plot and if you think about the abolishment of slavery, it is a landmark in American history. Even though the plague in the book had no positive benefits, it is still very important because of the idea of holding onto past ideas and theories that will not blend in society anymore. Since slavery is a huge part of or history as a coutntry and it had a positive benefit on the society, people still to this day in 2019 are practicing racism and using slurs that are harmful to minorities and African Americans in specific.

Thanks to Dr. McCoy and the rest of my classmates, I was able to notice thoroughly the connections between these two books and slavery and racism. The topic of slavery will continue to be argued upon even though the conversation should be considered one hundred percent outdated.

Everybody in the world has a name and nicknames are prone to be created throughout time as they have been apart of human society since way back when. Dating back to the 14th century,  ‘ekename’ was the word used for nickname because in Middle English ‘eke’ meant also, so it was like “also name”. Over time however the term ‘eke’ became less familiar as a word and it was turned to ‘nickname’. A personal connection I have with nicknames relates to my Father. His middle name is Louis, however, when he was growing up in Rochester in the 70s he was apart of a very racially and religiously diverse neighborhood and his friends called him Luigi. They would use this nickname on him because he was the Italian one out of his friend group and as many of you know Mario and Luigi are two Italian brothers. 

As I think to myself after I finish the book, Zone One by Colson Whitehead I realize many things. I noticed that it sounded like a living hell on Earth was the setting. It revealed to me how Whitehead views the Earth now and how we are treating it and acting on it. Also, the way he used names in this book really intrigued me. It didn’t even hit me until the end of the book but then a lightbulb went off in my head. Mark Spitzer, that name for some reason made me think twice. I did a quick google search on Mark Spitzer and one of the first things to pop up was how he won 7 gold medals in the 1972 Olympic games which is the most by any individual. The irony behind this is that in the novel, Mark Spitzer is a black man and the people he was with gave him the nickname because he wasn’t able to swim. This is a racial stereotype used in the book on the character Mark Spitzer. “It was perfect: From now on he was Mark Spitz” said his mates (Whitehead 182). 

Spitzer’s buddies never called him anything else. This goes to show the importance of the name in the book and nicknames in general. They have a tendency to stick longer than actual names given at birth. I have a friend named Mitchell that has not been called Mitchell by any of our friends since middle school. He will forever go by Gibby to my friends and I. We started this nickname the first year we all met each other in junior high and that was around the time when iCarly was huge all over the internet and television. The character ‘Gibby’ in the show reminded all of us of Mitchell, so it stuck from then on.

The use and display of the importance of names to people is present in Medical Apartheid as well. Saartjie Baarman was one African American female that Washington writes about in the novel. In one instance, the female gets her name taken away from her during dangerous operations as she loses the precious right to identify as her real name. She is given the disrespectful nickname of “Hottentot Venus” (Washington 84). The fact that this is included in a book that goes into detail the horrible things done to African Americans during medical treatment exhibits the concern of people and the names given to them.

Nicknames have been prevalent since the beginning of time and will continue to implement in people’s lives. The importance of a name is astronomical and many do not even realize. It is a way of identity and a way to stand out and be unique among a world of boring and plainness. It is just one more way people can describe themselves and have a good feeling about knowing where you got the name and what you are going to do with it. Throughout the school year, everyone has to learn new names that someday might be in our lives somehow. That is why I enjoyed the first few weeks of this class when Dr. McCoy would start every class with everyone’s name.

When the remains of enslaved people are discovered years after the burial, how should we continue to treat the bodies? This is an interesting conflict because society today is dealing with human remains that date back hundreds of years. The issue now becomes how to respect the religious traditions of the deceased individuals with the little information provided for the deceased. Enslaved people were often buried haphazardly without any respect for the various faiths held by the individuals. If the enslaved people were denied basic human rights their entire life, then it seems highly unlikely that their dead bodies would have been treated any better at the time of burial.

The African Burial Grounds in Manhattan reminds us of how the disrespectful treatment toward black bodies has been a part of American history as early as the original 13 colonies. According to Alondra Nelson, Manhattan has been the site of burial for African American bodies since the late 1600s. The originally segregated cemetery was named “Negro Buriel Grounds,” designated for enslaved people in New Amsterdam whose deceased bodies were separated from the city’s inhabitants by Dutch colonists. The remains were buried in areas that weren’t considered a part of the city at the time. When New York expanded into what is now Lower Manhattan, the city was constructed literally right on top of these resting places. (Nelson, 44)

Years after the burial grounds existed beneath the city, the corpses were a shocking discovery to modern citizens. Although it was an important unearthing of history, the digging of these corpses was met with push back. According to Nelson, the Descendants of the African Burial Ground (an activist group) believed that archaeologists were disturbing sacred grounds while attributing racial prejudice to the methods used in handling the bodies. As a result of the various concerns raised about uncovering these bodies, there grew increased attention to preserving the bodies and respecting the many faiths of the deceased. (Nelson, 46)

There is now a public memorial to remind us of the injustices committed towards individuals left behind in the former “Negro Buriel Grounds.” After viewing a video tour of the African Burial Ground Memorial, I couldn’t help but notice its relatively small size for a monument of historical significance. Perhaps this was done by the memorial’s architects to provide a minimalist aesthetic to reflect on the deceased bodies. However, monuments such as Mount Rushmore and the Jefferson Memorial are far more grandiose and receive more attention as a result. Why is that the commemoration of a few privileged men is given a brighter spotlight than the countless bodies of enslaved people? The memorial is buried away in the concrete jungle of a modern city, making the task of awareness for history more difficult than it already is.

This issue is not limited to New York because slavery existed throughout much of American history. In a Huffington Post article, Nina Golgowski reports on a discovery of nearly 7,000 humans buried beneath the University of Mississippi Medical Center in the state’s capital city. The current university campus is located on land that once was home to the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum (1855-1935.) According to Mississippi State anthropology professor, Dr. Molly Zuckerman, the bodies remain from nearly 35,000 individuals institutionalized during the asylum’s operation.  

Like the corpses found in Manhattan, there are many questions yet to be answered. Why have so many records of these patients been lost over the years? Is the lack of documentation suggestive of a societal disregard for the lives of mental health patients? Ancestors of these patients, like the descendants of the African Burial Grounds, are now attempting to understand their family’s dark past. The issue for both groups, however, is that the large gap in time between burial and discovery makes identification an almost impossible task.

Constructing a memorial for the deceased patients is one way in which their lives can be remembered in a similar fashion to the African Burial Ground Memorial. Zuckerman points out that the research team responsible for the discovery of the 7,000 bodies is determined to identify the remains of every individual. They propose to create a memorial that commemorates the lives of the deceased along with a genealogy research facility to further education. However, the location of the graves on public land means that the public would be burdened with the cost of upwards to $21 million. My initial reaction was that such an expensive proposal would not be widely accepted by taxpayers. After some consideration, however, I am led to believe that opposition to these efforts ignores the historical significance of these disrespectful burials. Considering the perspective of descendants, we can sympathize with their desire for closure. Imagine not knowing the entire story of your family’s history, only to find out that your relatives were not given a proper burial.

Although each burial site discussed has a much different historical background, there are parallels that can be made between both groups of people. In the case of Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum, Zuckerman states that many patients at the time “had relatives who couldn’t come and claim them or notified of their deaths in time.” The enslaved people of the “African Buriel Grounds” were left to a burial site that was not even considered part of the metropolitan area. The disregard for human bodies is a repeated offense throughout American history whose solutions will likely continue to be debated if more corpses are discovered.

Sources

Nelson, Alondra. “Ground Work.” The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome, Beacon Press, 2016, pp. 43-52.

Golgowski, Nina. “Up To 7,000 Bodies Found Buried Beneath University Of Mississippi Medical Center.” Huffpost, www.huffpost.com/entry/bodies-buried-at-university-of-mississippi_n_5911d47fe4b05e1ca201e553. Accessed 5 December 2019.

This course has continuously shown me the importance of class discussions and of a liberal arts college. For instance, today in class we discussed with our groups our reflective essay ideas. Through this, I learned that one of my group members was also a science major. We talked about how in order to apply for medical school, you need to complete a full year of English. Another group member asked us if it was also a requirement for our majors. When we informed that group member that it wasn’t, they asked us whether or not we thought a full year of English should be a requirement for science majors. This wasn’t something I have considered prior. Since I entered SUNY Geneseo through a pre-med track, I was always knew that a year of English was a requirement, but their question as to what I believed to be a part of my own major’s requirement caused me to wonder, what do I think should be a part of it?

Together, my group discussed further about courses such as humanities, sociology, and English that a majority of students at SUNY Geneseo are required to take. We talked about how they have all aided in our personal growth as students. However, if I had not taken these courses, I believe my educational experience and growth would be different. These classes exposed me to the humanities and parts of our history that none of my core classes for science would have done. Therefore, I feel that a year of English would be beneficial for all majors, including science majors, regardless if they plan to enter medical school or not. There is a wide variety of English courses offered at Geneseo, and they could all further a student’s educational growth. An article by Valerie Strauss references George Anders book, You Can Do Anything: The Surprising Power of a ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Education, and highlights the essential claims that he makes about the benefits of taking classes outside of one’s major or skillset. Strauss quotes Anders, “The more we automate the routine stuff…the more we get tangled up in the vastness and blind spots of big data, the more essential it is to bring human judgment into the junctions of our digital lives” (Anders, 2017). This shows that classes outside our core requirements are what shape our humanity and help us step back from all the science and data. Personally, the numbers I see all day in STEM classes can be consuming, but when I step back and learn in courses such as English or humanities, I am exposed to concepts of culture and humanity. Our group discussion then caused me to consider the classes that I am currently taking or have completed in the humanities/literature field and how they shaped my learning.

I have completed almost all of my general education requirements for my undergraduate degree, with each of them showing me a new aspect of culture or humanity. However, the only English portion of my general education classes was a semester of an introductory freshman writing course. That introductory course class was helpful, but it simply was not enough. There was a lack of exposure to the humanities through literature. Thus, I believe a full year of an English course would be beneficial to all majors. As Anders said, we often get caught up in numbers and the digital aspect of our world and that we can lose our touch with humanity. Therefore, with a year of English as a requirement in the general education portion of our degrees, it would be beneficial to our growth as students. Strauss also mentions in her article, “Within the humanities, one can learn another language, which can open the window into a new culture, a new worldview” (Strauss, 2017). Although English courses may not be labeled as humanities, it’s a close parallel. According to Stanford University, humanities can be defined as, “…the study of how people process and document the human experience” (Stanford University). English courses highlight human experience through literature, and within in these classes, it’s analyzed. Overall, a full year of English could provide students with even more exposure to the humanities. 

This course has not only opened my eyes to so many new aspects of literature, but it has also shown me just how important collaboration and my experience at a liberal arts college is. I am thankful for discussions like the one I have mentioned, and I hope to encounter more like them in my further studies. The idea of English being a two-semester requirement versus just one appears to be a beneficial proposal. As stated before, this could increase students’ exposure to the humanities, as I have experienced within my own English classes. Even in our syllabus for this class by Dr. McCoy, the course epigraph is by Dione Brand and it states, “My job is to notice…and to notice that you can notice.” A part of this job of noticing is studying humanity, and English courses expose us to this. 

For my Women’s and Gender Studies 310 class this semester, Race, Class and Gender, our final essay prompt asks us to discuss the importance of intersectionality and the course material in relation to our major(s) and our academic discipline(s). Although I spend a lot of time in that class thinking about the real world implications, I had never spent time reflecting on the ways in which it connected to my major. I was excited by this prompt, because immediately, so many ideas came to mind. When I sat down to begin writing this paper,  I was struck with the countless connections to this English 101 course. It was very clear to me that conversations about social justice and intersectionality connected in many ways to my English major and my goals in regards to it. Something I have appreciated about my major from day one here at Geneseo was its awareness of the value of interdisciplinarity, and understanding that disciplines are more connected than people often acknowledge. 

Although this is an English course, there are deep connections to many other disciplines around campus in the material that we are discussing and covering. This is something that I have noticed within many courses within the department as I progress through the major, but it is a big reason that I chose to enroll in this course in particular. I knew that this would be a course that I would value for reasons other than the growth it would provide me within my major. I knew that there would be value outside of the skills that I would gain within English as a discipline, and I knew that exposing myself to literature that discussed things people often shy away from talking about would allow me to learn information that my education may otherwise not expose me too. This semester certainly exposed me to ideas and conversations that I had not yet encountered within my education, and in many ways, this was problematic to me. Realizing that the history I have been exposed to avoided the harsh realities of the way that medicine’s history has horrifically harmed and abused black and minority communities was a wake up call. It made me question the education system and has made me feel that I need to continue to seek out courses that will provide me with perspectives I have not yet been exposed to. 

In class today as we were working on and discussing our final reflective essays, some of my peers with majors in STEM shared that although they entered this course expecting it to just be a requirement to complete, it ended up really shifting their perspective and understanding of the medical field. In my group, we discussed that science is often only seen in an extremely positive light, and that the dark past of medical history is pretty much ignored and erased as people progress through their schooling in these disciplines. Although a few people shared that they had entered this course to fulfill a requirement, it ended up opening their eyes to something incredibly relevant to their intended careers.

We have been talking about the importance of getting to the “so-what?” within our essays. Something I am grateful to this course for is the way that it teaches every student who takes it the importance of acknowledging information that is often ignored. My major is something I love and am extremely proud to be a part of, and this prompt I was assigned in my Women’s & Gender Studies course made me really reflect on why. Every student that enters a course like this one comes out with a new perspective and understanding of not only the material they have worked with, but of the attitudes with which to approach their own disciplinary, academic and career goals.

While reading Zulus I often questioned the author, Percival Everett, with the way he wrote about one of the characters weight, Alice Achitophel. I, myself, am not a woman with the average body society says we should have. There is often a standard one must meet; one that certainly isn’t achievable by all women. One’s body type is determined by 80% of genetics, and 20% environmental factors. To achieve such a body type could be considered harmful for some, because they are just not made for it. Notably, women are often put on a pedestal by men. Women must act, look, and speak certain ways to be considered “ideal”. Society pushes for the white, skinny, and blonde woman more frequently than a woman with curves or of any other particular race. I relate this back to when I was a child and used to play with Barbie dolls. These dolls were white, skinny, busty, and blonde. I perceived the dolls I had loved to be what an ideal woman had looked like. But, I hadn’t looked like that, so it used to upset me. Being an “ideal woman” had meant I had to have the perfect curves, fat in the right places, and to be outgoing and sociable. 

In Zulus, Alice Achitophel is referred to as fat, obese, and other obscenities. Alice herself says how the people at the hospital would think of her differently, “…that she was fat and ugly and could see from her file that she was an old maid..” I relate this back to Zulus in regards to Alice Achitophel seeming to be the only overweight woman, more likely only person, to reside on the planet. Where Alice resides, there is no discussion of healthy appetites and lifestyles, she is left to fend for herself. 

 I believe in the past decade or so the talk of obesity has increased, and people have become more aware due to the acts of Michelle Obama and her “Let’s Move” movement. Obesity is growing at a much faster pace than in previous years, which I believe is related to our access. When I say access I’m referring to our access to different chains of fast food restaurants that have become more present. No one is really telling you how you should be eating, so how can this be fixed? Everyone is different, and what they intake depends on the individual and the influence from others, their environments, societal factors, etc. But, as per healthdata.org, there are approximately 160 million Americans who are considered obese or overweight. I ask again, how can we fix this health epidemic that is encasing our communities? Now as a college student, I find myself eating more processed foods along with food from fast food restaurants. Considering my status of wealth is little to none, I can’t afford fresh produce and other items to fulfill my daily vitamins and suggested diet. According to the CDC, “men and women with a college degree have lower obesity prevalence,” and another article from the National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health also agrees with the same statement. The article goes on with the theme of discussing how people with a degree are often healthier than those without. 

I can conclude this has something to do with the prevalence of health awareness in the two discussed environments. On one hand, people who don’t have a degree generally find themselves in working class jobs where health awareness and appreciation is scarce. Those with degrees are more frequently employed in professional and upper class jobs where an abundance of people who want to look good are present. These people are often wealthier and can afford the resources to stay fit and healthy. Fresh produce in particular can be on the pricier side, and generally off the radar of a working class family. An article from National Health Corps says, “eating healthy costs about $1.50 more a day than the unhealthy alternative,” which further helps prove my point. 

Having been exposed to different forms of health awareness and being on a campus where a balanced diet is often plastered across the walls, I can see in other places where this may fall short. Being aware of things, and noticing them is a task that is difficult for some and even harder to comprehend and understand. Not affording or being able to grasp these different items or concepts for that matter makes me thankful for the exposure I’ve seemed to encounter in the different settings I find myself in.

Each individual on earth is a part of least one community in some way. Typically, when we use the word community, we associate it with a positive connotation, however, there are many different types of communities and ways in which they are formed. All around the world there are communities of action, circumstance, interest, location, practices, and there are hybrid communities that combine some of these. Not all communities are good and not all are bad. So the question is: How voluntary is community?

You, reader, live in a community formed by living proximity and legal boarders giving you a connection between yourself and your neighbors and all the people that fall under the legislation of a particular area of residence. Other common examples of communities are those of a certain school district formed by boarders and taxes, college communities that are formed by the people who aren’t accepted, work communities which are formed by a group of people working under the same boss, and religious communities formed by people who have very similar religious beliefs. Communities can form around the smallest aspects of life that people share as well as the biggest like living under the same government.

Although positive communities are the first people tend to remember, the negative ones are just as impactful. One example of a negative community in history was the Holocaust where a community of Nazis were formed by Hitler’s followers. This group was able to control other people and harm them due to the power of their community. Any groups of combat fighters getting into a dispute causing a war could be considered negative or positive communities depending on which side the person forming such an opinion is favoring.

In the books we are studying in class each book has at least one example of a community within it. In Clay’s Ark by Octavia E. Butler there are communities called enclaves where a group of people infected with the same disease live and there are also groups of biker gangs that travel around the desert creating crimes. In Zulus by Percival Everett, the city is a forced living community where everyone has to live and work unless they find some way to escape. If they do escape from the city they may run to one of the rebel camps where they have to be accepted into the community that these runaways have built. Religious communities, such as a church, most often create more tight knit groups of people, like in Home by Toni Morrison where the reader gets a taste of this reliance on others when the character Frank Money shows up to the church to receive help and enough money to try and put him into a somewhat better situation. Also, in the book, diversity leading to separation is very relevant. Different skin colors and different income levels affected the characters living situation where they lived in a community consisting of lower-class African Americans who were close to the low-income earning job of working in a field that most of them spend their time doing. Furthermore, the treatment they received from their surrounding communities affected their lives. Another community within Home was Frank’s army group who all resided together, followed the same orders, and worked as a group with the same goal in common; beat the enemy and stay alive.

Every person who is involved in multiple communities throughout their lives receives the effects of them whether they are positive of negative. Community can be voluntary, however, most of the communities are not necessarily a choice but rather a societal placement/label. Reflect upon what communities you are a part of, if you chose them or not, and how they effect your life as well as others.