Month: May 2023

I would like to illustrate some gruesome, ghastly consequences of August 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and its subsequent relief response inflicted on the proud, passionate denizens of New Orleans. The waterlogged bodies of cherished loved ones meander and dwell in swamped, putrid city streets rife with rot. Said streets have been unrecognizably mangled and uprooted into jagged, desolate landscapes, filled with the anguished cries of those with fervent enough will to return. Countless exhausted, defeated citizens confined to dwelling in their ever-accumulating filth in a shelter whose resilience and competence as such crumbled too many weeks ago. They are assured by a visiting former first lady Barbara Bush that due to their “underprivileged” state, “this is working really well for them”, conscripted to play the role of pitiable supernumeraries appreciative of any morsel of aid the government graciously extends their way. Spike Lee deliberately highlights these abhorrent glimpses into carnage in his documentary When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. I believe some of his intentions were to convey how negligence towards the strife of others and an apathy towards care can precipitate rampant violence among the recipients of said apathy. Violence never fails to manifest and fester in society in an abundance of ways. I feel as though this can be attributed to the intrinsic amorphousness of which the concept of violence can cultivate and proliferate as. Violence can be as macrocosmic as pertaining to an entire society being thrusted into turmoil over a geological catastrophe or a series of fervent civil protests. It can relish on a more microcosmic scale as well, injecting heaps of torment into an individual’s emotional health. Spike Lee offers fruitful insight and perspective through his documentary into how a lack of care facilitates violence to flourish. However, Lee does not abstain from demonstrating an inverse, how a wellspring of care and passion can prove an impetus for emotional violence as well. A woman and her son return to their home following the aftermath of Katrina to assess the structural state of their home, only to be stricken with intense despair and lament while looking upon its ravaged, defiled state. Out of care for oneself and family, violence becomes rife throughout stores and streets to protect the vestiges of their home and community they invested so much labor and passion into. A turbulent marring of emotions swells within those who are compelled to confront the loss of cherished loved ones. While I am not insisting that these emotions and passions are bad or unwarranted, I am proposing that it is entirely possible for violence to exist as care. Saidiya Hartman’s assertion that “Care is the antidote to violence” fails to recognize these prospects, only accounting for how an utter lack of care can exacerbate the influence of violence. I believe this course provides ample evidence to propose that violence can exist through the intrinsic intensity of which an individual’s passions erupt into when said passions are threatened or tarnished in some manner. 

Violence can exist due to the ardent extent of someone’s care. This notion is affirmed in Joseph Roach’s “Echoe in the Bone”, an intensive discussion and reflection of Circum Atlantic performance. In his writings Roach proclaims that “Violence in human culture always serves, one way or another, to make a point”. If Roach is affirming that violence is seldom acted without intent or conviction, then I believe it is reasonable to suggest that a substantial catalyst of care is an intrinsic necessity for violence to thrive or act. Roach additionally posits that “all violence is excessive, because to be fully demonstrative, to make its point, it must spend things–material objects, blood, environments”. Here, Roach further fortifies the assertion that the presence of care invested into an obstacle can often precipitate violent situations. I believe that humanity’s need to “make a point” through their passions or beliefs can inflict collateral consequences onto unwilling victims if this passion breaches into gratuity. Roach himself states that to fully demonstrate one’s caliber of care, they may resort into expressing their sentiments in tumultuous, violent ways that come at a deficit of “material objects” and “environments” around them. If Roach affirms that “violence is excessive”, then I believe it is plausible to propose the degree of care that fuels said violence must be corresponding to that same measure of excessiveness. “Echoes in the Bone” also explores the roles effigies play in violence. Roach explains in his writings that Effigies are surrogate constructs whose sole existence serves to be the target of someone’s anger or fierce emotion. It is a common practice to burn and scorch these effigies, acts that are both inextricably associated with violent or forceful sentiments. I affirm that this demonstrates another way for violence to exist due to an abundance of care and passion. Anger itself exists solely due to an overflowing torrent of emotion within one’s psyche, an excess of care for a given topic or situation. The existence of effigies demonstrates it is a desired practice to purge this tremendous tumult of emotion through violent activities. I believe through his rumination on the intricate components of violence Roach can fortify the notion that violent situations flourish when individuals desire an outlet to relief or express an overflow of fervency and investment towards another entity, whether it be a person, place, or belief.

            The various readings throughout our course effectively demonstrate mankind’s penchant to cultivate violence from their flourishing surplus of care and fierce sentiments. This is additionally evident throughout William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, wherein Prospero, a former Duke of Milan, conjures up a ruthless, colossal torrent of a storm to sink his brother Antonio’s shift out of fervent revenge for deposing him during a coup. Prospero is willing to contort and submit reality itself to his will to acquire a sufficient medium to exert his violent, adamant emotions regarding this treachery. His violent deed fuels further unrest on the vessel his contempt has fixed upon, with the crew frivolously hurling the blame onto others for their misfortune and recklessly insisting someone “lie drowning the washing of ten tides” as punishment. I believe this demonstrates the infectiousness of which one violent deed fueled by impassioned wrath can inflict similar heedless, destructive emotions onto others. Prospero’s actions here jeopardize both the physical state of those he possesses scorn for and pollute their emotions as well. The crew begins lashing out in a violent manner to manage their influx of sentiments towards a turbulent situation. Prospero’s fervent, furious response at an opportunity to express his scorn for this treachery is further fueled by his love for his daughter, Miranda. I believe it is evident that Prospero vehemently desires to support his daughter and provide her with the lavish life of leisure that she has been robbed of. He mentions that she has been the pillar of which his resolve has been fortified upon throughout their remote plight, declaring to her “(T)hou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile, Infused with a fortitude from heaven.” Prospero’s adamant care he expresses for his daughter and pride in his deprived prestige is what compels him to unleash violence at the expense of others’ safety. If Prospero’s anger and resolve were not as fervent, I affirm he would not have needed to express his scorn in such a colossal, calamitous fashion. His fierce compulsion to demonstrate his impassioned sentiments in such a violent manner he is willing to warp both his environment and surrounding fellow man in a manner of magnitude that transcends the confines of a normal man. This demonstrates the drastic, destructive measures one will take to appropriately convey the scale of their care and sentimental investments.

            An excess of care can manifest itself in violent, emotionally turbulent ways. This is a notion explored in Patricia Smith’s Blood Dazzler, a compendium of poems conveying the tumultuous agony, betrayal, and wounds imposed upon the people of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. One poem, “Voodoo V: Enemy Be Gone”, encapsulates the harmful ramifications fervent investment into one’s community can inflict upon their psyche. The speaker in this poem laments about the various ways Katrina damaged New Orleans, reflecting in a wistful, yet bitter manner about how Hurricane Katrina “took with her a kingdom of sax and dream books”. I believe this line makes it explicit that the speaker possesses considerable passion and investment in their environment, their community, that was so mercilessly marred by Katrina’s force. Exclaiming that this storm “took” with it a kingdom suggests the speaker feels scorn over being robbed of the bountiful, vivacious culture they have come to cherish so greatly. The notion of Katrina robbing it from them adds a deeply personal component to the loss, as if it were a deliberate act of malice by Katrina. The speaker additionally mentions how “the storm left a wound seeping” because of its catastrophic deeds. This confirms that the speaker’s emotional well-being has indeed been lacerated and devastated because of Katrina. I believe the tremendous care and passion they exhibit for their city’s rich artistic culture instigates their sorrowful frustrations of loss, a violent and tumultuous emotional state that leaves the speaker discontent. The brimming passion they exude for their city is consequently susceptible to curdling into emotional wounds if the object of their passion becomes threatened or marred. This leads to the speaker harboring harsh resentment towards the storm, personifying its damage as thievery to make the wounds and vitriol feel like a more personal slight.

            I confidently affirm my belief that many of our readings throughout this course offered evidence into the various ways violence can often exist in or become exacerbated through care. The intense emotions and convictions teeming within individuals have the capacity to be expressed in ways that may be harmful or detrimental to themselves or others. Roach affirms that no violence is executed without conviction, thus positing care is a core component of violent expression. Prospero disregards the safety of dozens for the sake of expressing his passionate pride and care for his daughter with spectacle. A speaker from Blood Dazzler is stuck dwelling with resentment over forces that challenged the culture and community he cares immensely for, far from a mindset free of discontent. I understand that this essay may have come across as cynical, that I believe caring is a deficit to human behavior. This could not be farther from the truth, however. I ultimately hope this serves as a dirge, reflecting on the bad, to contrast to a flourishing second line, the reward, as everyone looks around at all the people who exercise care so wonderfully in their daily lives. A lack of care, after all, would lead to widespread apathy throughout society. If no one possesses care then that negligent aid afforded for Katrina survivors, as seen in Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke, would be the status quo. No one in our society could be bothered to lend a hand to a struggling neighbor or tirelessly work to improve conditions for those in need because of natural disasters. Care is indeed crucial in combating the spread of violence through negligence, but it is not the antidote. I believe it is important to have passion and care towards many attributes of life. However, it is equally important to reflect and tend to this care so that one can elevate others through its expression as opposed to risking others through a more outwardly destructive expression of these feelings.

Throughout this course, I have had access to a wide range of tools and resources, all of which have helped me to develop my understanding, thinking and grow as a student. Reinforcement of learning and reviewing course material aids in enhancing comprehension and memory of topics and ideas. Repeated exposure to the same content can strengthen knowledge and increase the likelihood that it will be remembered. As I write this essay, it all makes sense because I learned a lot about violence and tropical storms throughout the semester, which helps to explain why it was so crucial to think critically, pay attention, and double-check all of the documents. This was actually the first time I had a professor emphasize thinking, or in other words, that you must actually do the work in order to succeed.

I was curious about the where, how, and who of fictitious beings that are half dead, half alive as I read Colson Whitehead’s Zone One.  So I looked into the origins of zombies and discovered that reanimated corpses are the basis for mythology from Haiti and Africa. These myths claim that zombies are simply humans who have been magically revived and are now in the control of a sorcerer or witch doctor. However, George A. Romero’s 1968 horror film “Night of the Living Dead” is mainly responsible for the way zombies are portrayed in modern culture as monsters that consume human flesh. This film introduced the zombie apocalypse, in which the dead rise from their graves and hunt down living creatures to eat. Since then, zombies have been a staple of horror fiction and have appeared frequently in films, television shows, and video games. The modern zombie is essentially a product of popular culture, despite the fact that its origins may be established in folklore and superstition. The idea of a relentless horde of undead creatures pursuing living humans can be both terrifying and exhilarating, which made me wonder why society idolizes and romanticizes these fictional characters, such as those from The Walking Dead or Vampire Diaries. Escapism, in a world that can often feel overwhelming and unpredictable, the zombie apocalypse represents a complete break from reality. Some people may find comfort in the notion of a world in which everything has crumbled and survival is the only objective. Social issues are another concern for some individuals; in some zombie stories, the living dead serve as a metaphor for problems with consumerism, conformity, and fear of the unknown. In order to remark on broader societal issues, authors and filmmakers often examine these themes through the lens of a zombie apocalypse.

We have explored the ideas of “violence” and “care” in a variety of ways throughout this course. I was unsure whether to agree with Saidiya Hartman’s claim that “care is the antidote to violence” or Davina Ward’s counterclaim that “violence can exist as care” after reading Zone One and understanding what zombies stand for. Based on the various course materials, some things are just very circumstantial. We have discussed the conflicts between violence and care in class by reading, analyzing images, and watching movies about natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy that all go back to course ideas like diaspora, memory, and forgetting. 

The story of a survivor of a zombie apocalypse is told in the book “Zone One” as he aids in the removal of infected “stragglers” or “skels” from lower Manhattan, which has been separated into different “zones” for reclamation purposes. The book does a fantastic job of demonstrating the severe trauma and long-lasting effects that catastrophic events and ongoing catastrophes cause. Mark Spitz, the main character, is a former office worker who has been given the responsibility of eliminating the last mass of zombies from the city. As Mark and his team navigate the various zones, they come across a variety of challenges and threats—both from the undead and other humans. Along the way, Mark reflects on his past and his relationships with his fellow survivors. Consumption, conformity, and the struggle for power in a post-apocalyptic society are just a few of the social and political concerns that Whitehead utilizes the zombie apocalypse as a metaphor for throughout the book. I’ve considered the zone between life and death that exists among zombies, which is similar to the zone between land and water that existed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina when the levees broke. One interviewee in the film “When the Levees Broke,” which was shown in class and was about the survivors and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, said, “The aftermath to me is worse than the actual levees breaking.” There were also times during the evacuation process when it appeared as though the government had no interest in aiding the people who had been impacted by such violence. The premise behind Hartman’s statement that “care is the antidote to violence” is related to this. The New Orleans Morial Convention Center was recommended to a huge number of people who were seeking shelter from Hurricane Katrina, according to the documentary.  But because of the extreme overpopulation and the lack of food, water, and medical supplies, the situation became even worse. This is an additional illustration of how violence exists as care. 

We then looked at photos from Hurricane Sandy, and watching and viewing material like this is raw and sometimes really hard to look at. Our discussions regarding Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina frequently focused on the aftermath, including hearing people’s tales of survival and those they have lost. In the same way that Katrina survivors discussed the long-term physical, psychological, and PTSD impacts of their experience in When the Levees Broke, Zone One describes how trauma extends beyond “last night” stories and permeates a world that has seen tragedy. The recollections of the storm’s victims that the survivors have are comparable to zombie fiction — a life between the living and the dead. A zombie may still have the same physical composition as a person who wishes to continue living a human life, but they are no longer that person. Some storm survivors may have memories of their lost loved ones and be able to see them while also realizing that they are no longer alive. Death is what separates a person’s memory from them; those who survive hold onto those memories.

Additionally, the devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy serves as a stark reminder of the devastating power of nature and the value of learning from the mistakes of the past. Millions of people’s lives were interrupted, the storm cost billions of dollars in damage, and many lives were lost. Many initiatives were made to strengthen communities after the storm in order to better prepare them for future storms. In this regard, Hurricane Sandy stands for the necessity of reflecting on the past in order to plan for the future. 

It was challenging to think through the tension created by both Hartman and Ward’s assertions. The ongoing discussion, revisiting earlier material and making connections to other works, and being able to hear other people’s ideas and interpretations have all been very beneficial to me. As a student, I am eager to identify new problems in life and learn as much as I can from them. I am grateful that the challenges I have faced in this class have allowed me to grow. 

Over the course of this semester, the exploration of  “violence as the performance of waste” (Joseph Roach) has become the backbone of most of my thinking throughout the course. Though now, having to consider this violence as care, I have found myself also relying on former Geneseo student, Davina Ward’s paper, where she proposes that violence can take on the form of care and vice versa. In her essay, Ward pushes back against Saidiya Hartman’s assertion “care is the antidote for violence”, where she argues that both violence and care “each serve as a justification for an action”. Thinking back to the course concepts revealed at the beginning of the semester, sacrifice, effigy, and expenditure will be involved heavily in my analysis here. Really early in the semester, an example was presented to the class of a picture of a bounce house called the “Tot-Tanic” an inflatable rental for kids parties. An effigy at its core, somehow its performance of violence –violent in the way it is discrediting the tragic deaths of the incident, or rather,  forgetting the severity of that event.– a community was brought together by an effigy, and its violent performance. So the morality of it all comes into question here; can a violent performance be considered an act of care if the end result brings people together? 

Looking to Superstorm, by Kathryn Miles, the audience is brought into Hurricane Sandy, the surreal depictions and tragic details of the storm’s impact, grant the reader a perspective to understand the violence of the storm. Focusing on the afterward, the audience is enlightened on the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, with survivors struggling without power, Miles describes the torment these individuals had to face. She writes, “For many, the torment continued. Across Appalachia, residents struggled against freezing temperatures and no power. They risked asphyxiation by using camping stoves and gas ovens to keep warm. Nursing home workers swaddled elderly patients in blankets and sleeping bags. The snow continued to fall.” (Miles, 254). This quote depicts the violent circumstances these people had to endure. Continuing along in the afterward, Miles writes about Bellevue Hospital, where the patients had to stay in unsanitary conditions with limited food supply. One thing to take away from this part of the afterword is the way Dr. Ford took the initiative in bringing everyone together during that time of hopelessness. Miles writes, “The situation was now a crisis. She approached the corrections officers there. “I want to bring together all of the patients,” she said. “I think it’s the only way.” They agreed. Her staff began walking patients one by one. It was dark. The only lights they had were the flashlights they had brought on Sundaayy. Once they were all assembled, Ford called for her staff, too. She waited for them to settle in. And then she began to speak. She told them just what they were up against. She promised to take care of them. “We’re all in this together,” she said.” (Miles, 245). This quote shows how the circumstances brought people together to care for one another. What is demonstrated here reflects the concept of violence acting as care, or more in-depth, a violent state invoking care. 

After evaluating the correlation between violence and care, my final question pushes through: Does an act of violence initiate care? When considering examples of this, I think back to when I would get hurt and would need to be cared for in order to get better. After an injury is obtained from a violent act (purposeful or accidental) care is required to maintain stability and heal the injury. This draws on scholar Saidiya Hartman’s assertion that care is the antidote to violence. When care is necessary, it typically seems to follow a violent circumstance. From the video on Vimeo, In the Wake: A Salon in Honor of Christina Sharpe, Saidiya Hartman reads and provides a brief statement about Sharpe’s work before introducing her to speak. Hartman gives more on the “antidote to violence” concept during the time she speaks, bringing up the encountering of black suffering and stating “When looking at images of blacks suffering, I keep looking because that cannot be all there was to see or to say. I had to take care. Care is the antidote to violence.” (Timestamp: 8:29). This presents the idea that violence can lead to the action of care, although care is not always the guaranteed end result of violence. Care can also be a way to resist or combat violence, but it may not “erase” the violence before it, the memory still exists.

It is important to evaluate this correlation between violence and care, and not fully understanding that correlation is completely okay as well because it is a complex moral concept. Violence as care, because violence calls for care, is just one way to see that connection. It is worth examining how violence, despite not always appearing as care, can bring people together or spark the need for care. Through the examination of several course materials, I have learned how to grasp a better understanding of how violence and care interact with each other in many different settings.

Saidiya Hartman proposes the idea that care is the antidote to violence. I both agree and disagree with this statement. Care is the antidote to violence but only when it’s paired with the actions of the general population and the government. Care without the actions of the public and politicians results in unresolved issues that continue to build causing even deeper issues for the present and future. While the public has to care and take action, it’s the people in power that make true change. Without the actions of politicians change can not occur. The public can take action to force people in power to care and take action to make change more permanent, however, sometimes this doesn’t work and change doesn’t occur. In Joseph Roach’s Cities of the Dead Circum Atlantic Performance, the second chapter Echoes in the Bone explains the idea of memory and forgetting, connecting it to the past, present, and future. During class discussions, we discussed how the past “comes back to haunt the present.” An example of this is the history of mass shootings, specifically school shootings, in the United States. Mass shootings and gun violence have been a persistent issue in the United States for decades and the government has yet to take action to prevent more from continuing to happen. The result of their failure to take action despite the pleas from citizens across the country was the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that happened on May 24th, 2022 that resulted in 22 deaths and 18 injuries. Instead of taking action after one of the deadliest mass shootings in the United States, politicians offered “thoughts and prayers.” This display of apathy for the victims and citizens of the United States resulted in more mass shootings as the year continued and into the following year of 2023. In the first three months of 2023, 131 mass shootings occurred. Memory plays a factor in care and how that could be the antidote to violence. As this problem continues to go unsolved and shootings become more and more frequent, much like politicians, the general public are beginning to forget how devastating these events truly are. This leads to apathy among people resulting in less care and less action.

Throughout the Hurricane Stories course, we learned about course concepts such as memory and forgetting, violence and its connection to waste and performance. These course concepts can be found in the texts we read and the media we consumed in class. Roach’s Cities of the Dead Circum Atlantic Performance introduced the ideas of memory, forgetting, and the idea that violence in the performance of waste. Beth McCoy’s Second Line and the Art of Witness: Steve Prince’s Katrina Suite explains how Steve Prince uses The Dirge and The Second Line in his art, its connection to Hurricane Katrina and how survivors were treated by law enforcement, and how they allow us to move forward without forgetting and dismissing the painful past. We read Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith, a collection of poems that describe Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. We watched When the Levees Broke, a documentary that allowed survivors the space to share their stories and the realities of the situation and put a spotlight on the parties that failed the city of New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina.

The first step to determining if care can be the antidote to violence is to understand what violence is. Violence can be defined as behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something. However, Roach defines violence as the performance of waste. He gives it this definition because in human societies violence is performative and always meant to be meaningful, in order to commit acts of violence “it must spend things”, and lastly because every act of violence must have an audience. During class we discussed what waste could mean as it relates to violence. We determined that waste could be a disregard of life. When believing yourself or a group of people to be better than others it allows for apathy toward other groups allowing for lives to be wasted because violence performed on them by yourself or others. We determined that forgetting the past results in violence and can be seen as waste in that context. The person or thing that violence was performed on can become waste itself. Wasting of resources was something else we determined could be seen as waste.

Just as there are many forms of violence, there are multiple forms of care. Understanding these forms of care is also important in determining if care is the antidote to violence. When researching on the different types of care I discovered two types of care, passive and active. While passive and active care are usually associated with chiropractic therapy, this essay will define passive and active care differently. The term passive care will be used in this essay to describe avoiding active harm while not taking action to remedy a situation. When caring passively, one cares, but not enough to take actions to make change for a cause or people that you care about. Active care can be defined as caring enough to take action for the betterment of a cause or group of people. To understand active care, action must also be defined. In this sense action can take many different forms. Protests, voting, calling representatives, and donations are all forms of action. These actions usually have consequences that lead to change. Passive care achieves nothing because no action is being taken to make change while active care can result in change however even when practicing active care change may not come.

Throughout the history of the United States active care has been practiced in hopes of change. On example of this was the March on Washington that happened on August 28, 1963. The March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech forced the president at the time, John F. Kennedy, to put support behind civil rights protestors. This event led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In addition to prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in hiring, firing, or promotion. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discriminatory voting practices against people of color in the United States and aimed to desegregate schools. A more recent example were the protests in 2020 after the death of George Floyd. Along with the protests, when the presidential elections were held a record breaking number of Americans took to the polls to vote out Trump who introduced extremely harmful policies and took actions that did significant damage to many different communities in the United States. While the harm done by Trump and his party continues to affect us, the people of the United States demonstrated care for effected communities and used action to strip Trump of power.

Unfortunately, there are cases were both action and care from the public just aren’t enough. Just as there are instances where action from the public allowed for change, there were many instances where no action has been taken by the government even when it’s clear that the general population cares for these issues and takes actions to demonstrate care. When watching When the Levees Broke in class we witnessed as the government ignored protestors and Hurricane Katrina survivors as they asked for help. This resulted in even more people in New Orleans dying as they went without aid for days. In more recent events, more and more children are dying at the hands of gun violence, not for a lack of care and action by those in the community, but because of the lack of care and action of the United States government. While the general public cares very much about this issue and have taken many actions in an attempt to make the government care about what’s happening and take action, unfortunately, action has yet to be taken by the government to put an end to or at least reduce mass shootings and so they continue to happen.

There are some instances where only passive care is practiced and so action by the government is not taken. The fight against climate change is one of these instances. While there are some taking action to reduce the effects of climate change there just aren’t enough people willing to take action against companies and policies that continue to harm the environment. The lack of care by most people around the world has led to inaction and unresolved conflicts that continue to grow. This lack of care has already begun to effect us and will continue to effect us in the future as we continue to do nothing. As we continue down this path the past will come back to haunt the present and future resulting in more violence to life on Earth.

When considering the prompt, care is the antidote to violence, I find myself disagreeing. The answer to the prompt is no. While care is a part of the puzzle, action is the real antidote to violence. However, action can not exist without care and this action needed to be done by the people in power. While actions done by everyday people can convince people in power to care, it must be those put into positions of power that need to care and take action to resolve conflicts and create a better future for all. While politicians and the general population can care about a subject or issue, the issue with continue to exist and grow if action is not taken to irradicate the problem.

Saidiya Hartman’s assertion that “Care is the antidote to violence” is an optimistic view of the world. Prior to taking this course I may have, for the most part, agreed with her. After all, comfort or care following an act of violence is what is supposed to make people feel better.  After reading Davina Ward’s counter statement that “violence can exist as care,” and taking this Hurricane Stories course, I can recognize the tension that exists between the two words. Care is both the sickness and the cure in regard to violence. The two are most often thought of as opposites, but through my time in this class I have learned to distinguish the two not as mutually exclusive, but sometimes interconnected. 

At the beginning of the semester, as a class, we read part of Joseph Roach’s “Echoes in the Bone.” One of the main themes of our class has been the act of performance itself and also Roach’s claim that “violence is the performance of waste,” (41). Roach follows this idea with another claim “that violence is never senseless but always meaningful, because violence in human culture always serves, one way or the other, to make a point;” (41). I read this as Roach saying that there is always something behind an act of violence. A reason that others possibly cannot see. This brings me to one distinct difference between the concepts of violence and care, which is how they can be disguised. Throughout our readings this semester, I have learned that care can be disguised as violence. By this I mean that someone could show or perform an act of violence when they really mean to show that they care. With that being said, everything has an opposite: violence can also be disguised as care. In this case, someone will perform an act of violence under the guise of being caring. 

We see this performance in The Tempest, a play by William Shakespeare. The play follows Prospero, who is now seeking revenge on his brother, Antonio, after Antonio usurped his position as Duke of Milan and stole the crown. After the usurpation, Prospero and his daughter Miranda were left on a deserted island. At the beginning of the play, Prospero orchestrates a shipwreck. Among the survivors of the wreck is his brother Antonio and the Prince of Naples, Ferdinand. This violent act is hidden from his daughter Miranda, so Prospero does not appear aggressive in her eyes. Prospero acts as if he is genuinely caring towards his daughter then, in reality, decides to use her in his plan to regain power on the continent. He wishes to marry Miranda to the prince. Prospero leads Ferdinand into the scene and encourages Miranda to look at him, saying “The fringéd curtains of thine eyes advance, / And say what thou seest yond” (123). Prospero describes Ferdinand to his daughter as “gallant,” and “a goodly person” to which Miranda replies that he is “a thing devine.” When Ferdinand and Miranda meet they are immediately infatuated with one another, and Ferdinand proposes. Prospero then speaks to the audience, saying, “They are both in either’s powers; but this swift business / I must uneasy make lest too light winning” (126). Here Prospero is letting the audience know that his plan is happening too swiftly and he has to slow them down so it does not look orchestrated. I would consider this usage and view of his daughter as an object or pawn in his game as an act of violence against her and their relationship, however he disguises it as care for her as a father making sure his daughter is choosing the right man.  

Another tension our material from this class has led me to notice between these words is that care cannot always erase the violence that has occurred. I see this in Spike Lee’s documentary When the Levees Broke about the effect of hurricane Katrina on the city and people of New Orleans. These people went days without proper help and care from the government, of whom was supposed to provide it. There was rapid spread of disease, malnourishment, dehydration, and lack of general care before they got the help they needed. Spike Lee’s document shows the crushing reality the people of New Orleans faced in these conditions, pleading for days that they needed assistance, with no answer. Of course, they have been helped since, but in this case, they will think of the lack of care much more often than the care itself. The people of New Orleans are still, and will forever, be living with the aftermath of the violence of Katrina, both nature and human. 

Engaging with the tensions between care and violence has taught me different points of view towards ambiguous situations. By looking at these tensions and connecting them to materials we have read and watched in class I have a deepened understanding of human actions and reactions. I understand that violence and care can be opposites, but also exist within and next to each other.

One of the main course concepts thus far of Professor McCoy’s Hurricane Stories has been the concept of violence. Throughout this course we have seen many forms of violence and have at length discussed the author Joseph Roach’s definition of violence in a previous discussion post. To summarize here, Roach argues that there are three main aspects of violence: it is always purposeful, it must be excessive in order to demonstrate its purpose, and it must have an audience to receive its message. The scholar Saidiya Hartman proposed the idea that the antidote to such violence is care. There is more than one definition of the term care, however, I find the most relevant definition to be Oxford’s definition as to “feel concern or interest.” Past Geneseo graduate Davina Ward disagrees with the idea that care is the antidote to violence, stating that “Violence can exist as care.” This dichotomy of this discussion represents a gray area when it comes to the concept of violence which gives the term much more nuance that brings up an interesting discussion. Both points are in a way correct, yet neither alone correctly describes the full picture of both care and violence. Only together can these points make a cohesive description of the dichotomy of care and violence.

I find the usage of the term “antidote” to be striking and deserving of a discussion on its own as it applies to my own background in both medicine and biology. In the medical sense, the National Institute of Health defines an antidote as a drug class which “negate[s] the effect of a poison or toxin.” If Hartman was correct in discerning that care is the antidote to violence, we then can consider violence to be like a poison which falls in line with Roach’s definition of violence. Many animals that are poisonous, such as pufferfish for example, will use this poison to protect themselves from predators as eating such animals will lead to the absorption of the poison, causing the predator to ultimately perish. In this way, the poison is purposeful as it protects animals from being eaten by predators, it is excessive as the predators who attempt to eat the poisonous animals will perish, and it is demonstrative as predators will avoid eating this certain type of animal as a result of the poison. Thus, the concept of care in this case would act as antidote, counteracting the effects of the poison, or violence. For the most part, this logic is sound; however, there is one glaring flaw with this train of thought.

The term antidote brings with it a certain context that it negates all effects of a poison. This is misleading as even when an antidote is administered, it does not guarantee that the effects of the poison will be negated and one may still perish. When many think of the fields of biology and medicine, they tend to think in absolutes, however, this could not be further from the truth. There are many exceptions to most principles of biology as biology is a field of “should-bes.” One major example is Darwin’s idea of “survival of fittest” which can be more accurately described as “survival of what works.” This same logic can be applied to care as well. Even if there is care, it does not mean that this care will negate the effects of violence and in some cases, it may make the violence worse. A great example of this is demonstrated in the case of New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass as described in the documentary When the Levees Broke and the collection of poems Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith.

Eddie Compass was the police chief of the city of New Orleans during the events of Hurricane Katrina who on live television made unfound claims about the people taking refuge in the Superdome, even stating that “We had babies in there. Little babies getting raped.” This villainized the survivors of Katrina and led to more violence toward them. Although saying this was an act of violence, it came from a place of care. Compass had family members that were in the dome and he was worried for their safety during a tense time. Thus, Compass used his platform and these extreme claims in an attempt to gain more help for his struggling city and people. Unfortunately, these claims were unfounded and only seemed to worsen the situation. Chief Compass may have cared greatly, but this care would ultimately only spew more violence. I believe the word treatment would be far more accurate in describing the complexity of the term care. A good analogy would be that violence is like a cancer, infecting the body whilst care is like chemotherapy which may be effective for some but may also only cause harm to others.

After establishing that treatment is a far better description of care than antidote, we can now better tackle the dichotomy of care and violence. There are many examples in this course of how care helps to alleviate the symptoms of violence. One such example during the events of Hurricane Katrina was how the local communities of New Orleans worked together to help reduce the effects of the violence created by the storm. As portrayed in When the Levees Broke, many inhabitants of the lower ninth ward created makeshift rescue teams to help as many people as they possibly could. In this case, the care of the inhabitants for their community led to an alleviation of some of the violence created by the storm. We have also seen in this course how a lack of care during violence only creates more violence through both the compilation of works Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas and Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Throughout many sections of Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas, it is made abundantly clear that many of the authors believe that a lack of care by the government ultimately led to the effects of Hurricane Katrina being much worse than they needed to be. One section of the collection that highlights this well is the section Snakes and Ladders: What Rose Up, What Fell Down During Hurricane Katrina by Rebecca Solnit. Solnit makes many claims about how authority in New Orleans lacked care saying how “the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had [not] built adequate levees” and that the police had “gone berserk.” Solnit highlights best this idea of a lack of care by authority leading to violence in the quote “Imagine that even though the levees failed and people were left behind, everyone in a position of power had responded with urgent empathy so that no one was left to die on a roof or in an attic.” It is evident from Solnit’s work that care can ultimately limit the effects of violence.

The Tempest expertly crafts a narrative on how violence can lead to even more violence when there is a lack of care through the plotline involving Sebastian and Antonio’s attempt to usurp King Alonso’s throne after their group is involved in a shipwreck. After experiencing the violence of a shipwreck, it is evident that none of the members of the group care about the violence that just took place as they make banter, wordplay, and jokes about the situation in which they have found themselves in. After the rest of their groups falls asleep, two members of the group, Sebastian and Antonio, who especially lack empathy attempt to use more violence to take advantage of the already present violence to better themselves off. In Act II scene I, the two discuss the possibility of usurping the throne, even mentioning how Antonio “did supplant [his] brother Prospero.” Both works expertly demonstrate how in the absence of care, violence will continue to grow like tumor a plaguing a body. This further supports the idea care is like a treatment for the cancer that can be violence.

There are far less examples in this course of violence being used as a form of care but they do exist. As mentioned early, Chief Compass committed an act of violence due to his care for his family and his city during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Another example is found in the book Zone One by Colson Whitehead which takes place in New York City during the events of a zombie apocalypse. Throughout the novel, the main character nicknamed Mark Spitz performs many acts of violence upon both types of zombies in the novel, killing them. However, the reason for these acts of violence is care for his fellow man as these “skels” and “stragglers” provide a threat to humanity. During the climax of the novel, one of Mark Spitz’s acquittances Fabio is in a situation in which “four blood-streaked hands snatched him into the vortex” and he is going to be torn apart by zombies without any way out. Instead of letting Fabio die brutally, Mark Spitz instead performs an act of violence, putting “three rounds into Fabio’s chest [terminating] the man’s screams.” Because of Spitz’s care for Fabio, he kills Fabio quickly rather than letting him die slowly. Although this is a very extreme example that is hard to apply to the real world, it demonstrates excellently how violence can be used as a form of care.

It may seem that this is a shut case that Ward is correct then. Violence can exist as a form of care and thus Haiyman was incorrect that care is the antidote to violence. However, just because Ward is correct that violence can exist as a form of care, that does not mean that care is not a treatment to violence. Rather violence as care can be used to treat other forms of violence. For example, if Spitz were to let Fabio die brutally and painfully, this would be another form of violence and a lack of care. However, when Spitz kills Fabio quickly, he is performing both care and violence which creates a better outcome. A medical analogy would be a doctor performing surgery on a patient to remove a tumor that is growing within them. In this case, violence would be used as a form of treatment; however, only due to the threat of further violence towards their patient. A doctor would not perform a surgery on a patient that did not need it but only those with whom a greater violence is already present.

The idea of care being used as a treatment of violence is one that I find especially relevant to my own life now as throughout the semester, I have been attempting to increase my own level of care, both in and out of class. One of my major struggles in this class has been my dominating approach to working in groups which can often be interpreted as an act of violence. This dominating approach is often one which is reinforced in the field of STEM as those who are most dominant tend to receive the greatest number of resources. However, this dominating approach conflicts with many of the core principles which I believe a future physician should have, most notably equity. Thus, I have been working to integrate the criticisms of Dr. McCoy, attempting to care more about the opinions of my peers and to decrease my violent approach of domination. I believe that I have ultimately improved myself because of this new found care which can be displayed in my group’s collaboration on Typhoon Tembin.

Although care can come in the form of violence, if I have learned anything in this class, it is that care is the ultimate treatment to violence. This has been demonstrated both through course content and my personal journey and struggles through this course. In this case, the approaches of both Hartman and Ward weave together to create a full picture on the true nature of the dichotomy of violence and care.

By Katlin McNeil

Violence is “behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.” When typing violence into the search engine, one can find this standard definition on Google. Still, after taking an entire course dedicated to the word violence and the actions behind that word, this definition does not encompass what violence is behavioral. Violence is more than just the intention of harming someone, but how someone might do that. Violence can come from power, waste, and care. Davina Ward states, “Violence can exist as care.” Saidiya Hartman asserted, “Care is the antidote to violence.” Ward and Hartman take a stand on where the word violence has taken the most impact and harm towards others, but what if both are correct in their answers? Violence can be care while at the same time, care can help combat the violence at hand. It is all about the person’s intentions behind the words and actions they decided beforehand. This idea that violence can come from power, waste, and care shows prominently in the popular movie “I Care a Lot” directed by J Blakeson. The popular movie of 2020 shows how caring can be used as a violent act. The main character Maria Grayson is portrayed by actress Rosamund Pike who embarks on taking ‘care’ of elderly people, ultimately putting herself in charge of their financial holdings. Grayson becomes the sole caretaker of the elderly people who live within a home, starting a persona that she cares deeply about their needs and wants. Still, once she gets a hold of their financial holdings, she takes their money and lets them fend for themselves. This is what it means to use care as an act of violence. Violence can be used to manipulate the public into thinking one cares.

Violence is a vital course concept that we were instilled within our class right from the get-go, with it being one of the first essays we read where it stated, “Violence is the performance of waste.” Joseph Roach and his concepts have been the center of the class understanding from his article about Hurricane Katrina, Cities of the Dead Circum Atlantic Performace, “Echoes in the Bone.” When it comes to the concept of care being an act of violence, this shows throughout Roach’s idea of violence too. The portrayal of violence happens in many ways. However, care is something that many do not think about, but what if not only care can exist through violence but through existing through care and waste simultaneously? Hurricane Katrina was a horrible natural disaster that changed lives forever. Still, with the performance of care as an act of violence, Katrina’s victims and survivors had the worst outcomes due to the care given by the United States government. Roach uses the idea of the United States government using violence against the Katrina victims and survivors to show how they were depicted as waste just in the same context as the United States government uses care as an act of violence. The United States government knew about the levees that broke, causing severe flooding within New Orleans once Hurricane Katrina hit the city, resulting in many deaths rather than Hurricane Katrina. The government knew but did not intervene until it was too late. They tried to instill acts of care, but this resulted in more violence. The government relocated many of the Katrina survivors to get them out of New Orleans but ONLY bought a one-way ticket for victims, causing them to be stranded in an unknown place without people they knew with nothing, resulting in them being alone in isolation after losing their livelihoods in New Orleans. This caused them more harm than good. This act of ‘care’ resulted in violence towards those individuals not being able to go home to New Orleans, which was very sacred to them. This idea that New Orleans residents could not go back home and had to move was a tremendous event for them since most residents of New Orleans are known to be ‘born and raised’ within the city, never wanting to leave, which can be seen prominently throughout, the documentary series “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” by Spike Lee. Spike Lee interviews real people who were impacted by Hurricane Katrina, following them throughout their journeys of recovery from the storm. Lee gives the survivors and victims the power, allowing them to have a voice about what has been genuinely happening to them by the United States government in the aftermath of the Hurricane. 

The act of care through violence can be seen clearly throughout this course, but there are times when care can combat violence done to a community. The Hurricane Katrina survivors often find themselves being ‘saved’ not by the government but by their people and people representing their identities. Through many representations of art and craft, people have helped reclaim the voices of the Katrina survivors to help reclaim that idea of care being genuine instead of an act of violence. “Blood Dazzler” by Patricia Smith helps show this through her poems of raw emotions that many would have felt and been dealing with before, during, and after the hurricane. Of the many poems, Smith’s poem 34 showcases a side that is left undiscussed within horrific events, the elderly. “St. Bernard Parish, L.A., Sept. 7 (UPI)-Thirty-four bodies were found drowned in a nursing home where people did not evacuate. More than half the residents of St. Rita’s Nursing Home, 20 miles southeast from downtown New Orleans, died August 29 when floodwater from Hurricane Katrina reached the home’s roof” (Smith 50). This is one of the first times a forgotten group of individuals is remembered and memorized. Elders are often expenditures by society, being one of the first groups to be left alone to defend themselves. Smith helps highlight the individuals lost through this tragedy while showing their voices are heard. 

One idea lingering from this course is that one can carefully combat violence like the victims of Hurricane Katrina and other horrid natural and unnatural disasters. Violence causes a lasting effect on the individual state of being that makes them rewire their daily habits and needs, but there is a process to get through this: mourning. The behavior that has struck the most is the first and second lines of a funeral possession within New Orleans. The “first line” is where all members who knew that person walk along mourning the person they have lost on the way to the funeral, after which the funeral is considered ‘over.’ The “second line” begins with anyone being able to join in to celebrate the life of the person lost. As Nicole Young states in her article The New Orleans Funeral reminds us that grief is a burden that can be shared, “the term second line refers to the crowd of community members and mourners who follow the first line of the parade — the casket, family, and musicians. In New Orleans, that first line includes percussion alongside a brass band, with trumpeters, tubists, and trombonists like Agee. Funeral second lines are community events, with sometimes hundreds of people joining the procession….” The second line allows life to begin again through grief, paying tribute to the lost life. The idea of mourning, memorizing, and celebrating life after a tragedy done through violence can be combated by care itself, as the second line in New Orleans does. The city’s people did this to mourn, memorize, and celebrate the life lost after Hurrian Katrina went around the city, trying to rebuild it within the idea of a ‘second-line’ possession.  Memorization of the horrific events of Katrina can be captured below within this memorial that shows the water levels that once filled the city, causing the deaths of many individuals. 

This image shows the level markers in which Hurricane Katrina was—taken by the Washington Post.

Not only has the memorization of the people of Hurricane Katrina been in effect to try and combat the usage of violence throughout the whole disaster, but to try and bring care and comfort to the people still living. Through the play, The Tempest by William Shakespeare, the ending of the play captures this idea perfectly within the epilogue, “now my charms are all o’verthrown, and what strength I have’s mine own, which is most faint: now, ‘t is true,…in this bare island by your spell; but realize me from my bands with the help of your good hands…mercy itself, and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardon’d be, let your indulgence set me free” (Shakespeare 69). The epilogue captures the true emotions of mourning and grief, trying to get on with one’s life and close that section of one’s life. Nevertheless, this survivor is still guilty of being alive while the others are not around one. One feels guilty for living through this tragedy while they did not cause one to ask for the dead victims to release one , the survivor, from this turmoil of guilt. This is why memorizing, remembrance, and celebration of life are so pivotal. They help combat this violence one puts within oneself because one uses care to showcase that one also cares about the ones lost but not forgotten. 

No matter how much care can is inflicted through violence, the act of care can always combat the violence. The people within numbers have the strength to ease each other’s pain caused by others. This is why communities are so important because they help ensure that people are cared for even after violent acts are committed against them. The United States government used to care as an act of violence against the people of New Orleans and those affected by Hurricane Katrina by minimizing their trauma and connection to their city of New Orleans. No matter how much the government minimized or tried to minimize them, the people of New Orleans always found a way back to their community through memorization, grief, traditions, celebration, and rebuilding. Not acknowledging the ones lost during Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters worldwide would minimize the number of people who did not get to be a part of rebuilding their community. Not everyone returned to the ‘second line’ to celebrate the rebuilding of their city, dead and alive, due to the relocation of those left after the disaster and never made it back to New Orleans and known knowledge of the levees being unstable for a hurricane by the United States government kept from the people of New Orleans. Care, power, and waste are all used as an act of violence against the people of New Orleans, which can be seen today as having a last impact on the people there. However, no matter what the cost, a community like New Orleans will try and combat the care being the act of violence by the government by replacing it with community care themselves. People will always rebuild, but that trauma will also be embedded within them for future generations. 

Works Cited

Ambrose, Kevin. “New Orleans: Then and Now Photos, 16 Years after Katrina.” The Washington

Post, WP Company, 29 Aug. 2021,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/08/28/hurricane-katrina-orleans-rebuilt-

hotos/. 

MobileReference. The Tempest: By William Shakespeare. MobileReference.com, 2008. 

Roach, Joseph R. Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance. Columbia University Press,

1996. 

Smith, Patricia. Blood Dazzler: Poems. Coffee House Press, 2008.

“When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 21 Aug. 2006,

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0783612/.

Young, Nicole. “The New Orleans Funeral Reminds Us That Grief Is a Burden That Can Be

Shared.” Vox, Vox, 21 Jan. 2022,

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/22876551/mourning-grief-second-line-new-orleans-j

zz-funeral. 

Care is not the antidote of violence, rather care is the start of recognizing what we can do to prevent violence and alleviate the problems that stem from violence. I have learned that care, at times, is all we have to offer, but at others it’s an empty signal that does nothing more than perpurate violence. This very idea has changed how I view my own care and how it affects myself and other people when I consider my own actions. The idea of violence being considered care on the other hand is very dangerous. The mindset of violence being care could lead to a perpetual cycle of violence which is a far greater danger than the passivity of care being an antidote. 

Saidiya Hartman’s quote, “ Care is the antidote to violence”, in context is very interesting and powerful. By offering care to people who need it the most we can change their lives for the better such as those who are victims to the prison industrial complex. However if someone read this quote out of context or believed simple care could end all violence It would be a gross misinterpation. Care is a powerful thing in our everyday life, caring is what keeps people connected. We care about our family, we care about our friends, we care about strangers, and we even care about more abstract things like laws and morals. Yet, our level of care can vary greatly. Let us compare a climate activist and a regular person who is aware of their plastic intake. Both care about the environment, but who makes more change? An active participant or a passive one? 

This is why care is not strictly the antidote to violence. Rather care is the foundation of wanting to prevent violence while action is the structure that actually does something about violence and its outcomes. This very idea has been very challenging for myself, yet it’s been one of the most important lessons I’ve learned so far. 

One example I find very important to discuss this idea is through president Bush’s reaction to Hurricane Katrina as well as my own initial reaction. Hurricane Katrina was massively devastating for the city of New Orleans. Over a thousand people died, with a million people being displaced. Homes were washed away, with people’s history also being a victim to the storm. What was especially tragic about Hurricane Katrina, which was greatly highlighted by Spike Lee’s documentary, When the Levees Broke, is that a lot of this suffering and waste could’ve been prevented before AND after the storm.  

Whether that be the US Army Corps of Engineers poorly constructed levees that barely held up against the power of Katrina, the lack of resources for the elderly, people with disabilities, or the people who simply didn’t have the financial means or transportation to evacuate New Orleans. Or afterwards when we see insurance companies deny victims of the storm due to fine print and people waiting months for a trailer from FEMA.      

One person who got a lot of criticism, rightfully so, was the then president, George W. Bush. George Bush was not the greatest president nor the greatest person, especially with his choice to see New Orleans from within Air Force One. In Patrica Smith’s poetry book, Blood Dazzler, she follows Hurricane Katrina’s path over New Orleans including George W. Bush’s response, “Stifle the stinking, shut down the cameras, wave Dubya from the sky”(Blood Dazzler, Pg. 27),showing  that he was completely separated from those stuck in ninety degree heat and in multiple feet of water.

 People argued that Bush did not care about these people, the very people he was supposed to serve as president. It’s quite hard to argue with these people because George Bush’s actions spoke for himself. For all we know, Bush could have been torn to shreds over the suffering and destruction that Katrina brought upon New Orleans but will people remember him for that? The memory of Bush will be a negative one for the people of New Orleans, he will be remembered as someone who ignored their suffering because of his lack of action. George Bush was the most powerful man in the United States, the head of our government, which was why so many people were frustrated and angry at him because he had direct authority to make a systemic change that would help the people impacted by the violence of Katrina and alleviate their suffering. 

This is an example of why care isn’t a direct antidote to violence as well as a learning moment for myself within this course. Being angry towards people who caused or exacerbated the violence we see in New Orleans is a valid response but what does it do? I can be as mad as I want to be towards a certain politician, an insurance company, or an organization but what is productive about that? Or rather how can I channel this anger into something productive. Anger can be just as unhelpful as passive caring. 

To be clear, Anger can be an effective form of care. Much like care, anger is only helpful when it is constructive. Anger can be used as a form of passion that drives someone to make change. But, anger can also be destructive, both within ourselves or towards others. 

This concept and feeling also came up in a group project about Cyclone Idai, a tropical storm that greatly impacted southeastern Africa. When the storm hit people were very concerned about the well being of the peoples of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. People donated, engaged in conversation over the conditions that people are living through but then the conservation stopped and so did the care.

The same situation was also highlighted when we covered Hurricane Maria in class, which impacted the island commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The behavior of then president, Donald Trump, is a funhouse reflection of Bush’s reaction towards Katrina. President Bush and Trump are both guilty of greatly dropping the ball during their respective Hurricanes. Bush was too passive in his response to Katrina, viewing the destruction from Air Force One. Trump on the other hand made a joke of this grave situation by tossing paper towels to the people of Puerto Rico who saw their communities destroyed and left without electricity for almost a year and water for 6 months. 

 This revelation challenged my thinking, altering my mindset. Angrily doing nothing is not helpful, even though our actions do not hold the same weight as world leaders, apathy is dangerous. But this leads me to the question of then what? What can we do? What could I do? Violence is something we can not escape, we have been afflicted by violence for so long that it has shaped the world we live in. 

This is why I think people will gear towards Davina Ward’s quote, “violence can exist as care” , and see violence as a tool. Although this is easy to do, this is quite dangerous. Historically we have seen violence used as a tool during the Reign of Terror. In the middle of the French Revolution, more radical revolutionaries sought to rid society of ‘counter revolutionaries’ which saw innocent people be executed when clashes against the beliefs of the revolution which is liberty, equality, and brotherhood. No matter what, we must try and prevent heading towards violence to prevent it because that will lead to a never ending cycle of violence and destruction. 

Violence being used as a tool can be seen in Colson Whitehead’s post-apocalyptic novel, Zone One,  which sees the world ravaged by a pandemic that turns the infected into the living dead. All is not lost, humanity hangs on by a thread, fighting back against the dead and trying to rebuild the world. The Novel is focused around Mark Spitz and his team clearing ‘Zone One’ which is located in lower Manhattan.

Mark Spitz and his team are ‘Sweepers’, not quite soldiers but rather mercenaries, directed to kill the remaining undead in Zone One so that New York City can be habitable once again. Mark Spitz and his team are on a mission of care with their main tool being violence.  The bulk of the undead were already killed by soldiers and this was seen as a great thing, a necessary thing, so humanity can rebuild. But even though these soldiers were fighting the Undead, it still affected these soldiers, “They knew they were being fundamentally altered, in their very cells, inducted into a different class of trauma than the rest of the survivors.”(Pg. 95), and for this very reason care can not exist as violence.

The course concept of memory and forgetting has been a recurrent topic in our readings, such as in the case of Mike Spitz. The Novel may take place through a long weekend, Friday to Sunday, we are filled into what happened to humanity through Mike Spitz’s memory. Whitehead’s use of memory helps flesh out this ravaged world but it also helps the reader tap into the mindset of the survivors. 

All of the survivors are afflicted with PASD, the post-apocalyptic variant of post traumatic stress disorder, “Everyone suffered from PASD. Herkimer put it at seventy-five percent of the surviving population, with the other twenty-five under the sway of preexisting mental conditions”(pg. 67), which makes sense due to their situation. Much like the victims of a natural disaster, war, or a pandemic, these people have had everything stripped away from them and forced into a period of high stress, especially when you consider that many of these people saw their loved ones turn into cannibalistic monsters. 

The violence, the act of sweeping, that Mike Spitz and his team engage in is seen as care. a necessary action because they’re making Manhattan liveable again yet it’s at a cost. Not only are the sweepers and soldiers putting themselves in harm’s way but they are traumatized to such an extent that ‘the Forbidden Thought’ is something the provisional government views as a threat, “Killing yourself in the age of the American Phoenix was a rebuke to its principles”(Pg. 251), because the weight of the violence is too much for survivors, especially those in the thick of retaking back the world from the undead who were once family, friends, and strangers. 

The parallels to Sweepers and soldiers of Zone One to real world combatants and veterans can also be made. Often these people enlist to make a difference, to protect one’s country, to serve in good faith, and utilize their care. Yet their good intentions are used against them and these people end up seeing and committing terrible acts of violence that stick with them for the rest of their lives. Sadly their sacrifice and care does not end violence, more so their care is seen as a justification for their violent acts.  

Overall, Hartman’s and Ward’s quotes sharply contrast one another. Hartman views care as a triumph of force over violence while on the other side of the spectrum, Ward see’s violence as a tool that can be wielded as a force of care. I see where these two writers are coming from. But I can not subscribe to their black and white view on violence and care due to what we’ve learned thus far in class because each situation is different. 

Although I view the gray path of active caring as the more successful path of understanding violence and the problems that stem from it and working towards combating it, this has also challenged me in my own way of thinking. Often people, myself included, enjoy things that are black and white such as good and bad. Situations and ideas that are not complicated, situations and ideas that have a clear answer. The gray path is uncomfortable and leaves a lot up to interpretation. But what I’ve learned from our experience in class is that exact discomfort fosters growth and understanding. 

One important thing that Dr. McCoy said to me that they learned from their Tai chi teacher which relates to my understanding of care is the idea of, “practice makes permanent”, because there will never be a perfect answer. However,  it’s through my own input and dedication that I can make change. I have learned that I have the power to use my care and go out and find these answers by discussing differing interpretations. We as people do not yield the same power as world leaders, government organizations, or fictional protagonists to prevent violence but we have strength with all of us. We must be active participants in our care to be able to alleviate the preventable violence and suffering that surrounds us and make a change. If we can recognize that violence yet choose not to do anything about it we are also to blame for the perpetuation of that violence. 

Saidiya Hartman and Davina Ward have opposing views about violence and care. Saidiya Hartman says “Care is the antidote to violence” while Davina Ward countered with the idea that “Violence can exist as care.” The existence of these two sides of the argument is very interesting. There is no way to fully prove or disprove either side. Both sides made me think about examples from the course where violence and care intersect, in one way or the other. Throughout the course we have talked about violence and its consequences in both fiction and real-world events, like in Hurricane Katrina. We have also talked a lot about care and where that exists in violent real-world events and fiction. I believe that both of these claims about violence and care are correct, but only when looked at through the correct lens.

Saidiya Hartman’s claim that “Care is the antidote to violence” is a great idea to explore. Is she saying that as long as someone cares about someone or something, they are immune to violence, that they will be safe? I don’t think that interpretation can be seen as true. It could be easily disproved by any number of areas we looked at in the course. The example that comes to mind first is Hurricane Katrina. People near and far cared about Hurricane Katrina, they cared about the people of New Orleans, they cared about the city, but that did not prevent the horrible violence that struck the city in August of 2005. Nor did it prevent the violence that developed and lasted in New Orleans for the months after. We witnessed the violence from the storm and the people by watching Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke. During the second act of the documentary, we see an interview with Darnell Herrington, a resident that was impacted by the violence of the storm, and the violence of people that developed after Katrina. Darnell was just walking down the street with his cousin after Hurricane Katrina hit when suddenly he was shot with a shotgun for no reason other than that he was walking by. There was a lot of seemingly senseless violence during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, despite all the care that people around the country felt. So that should completely disprove Hartman’s theory, right? Care is not the end to violence in this situation, so she was wrong, it is not an all-encompassing truth that care is the antidote to violence. However, I would argue that Hartman’s claim could be true when looking at it through the right perspective. Going back to Hurricane Sandy, the violence could have been prevented and/or lessened through care, but it had to be the care of the right people. People all over the country cared about the people of New Orleans, but they did not have the resources to prevent the violence. However, some people did, the government officials and the Army Corps of Engineers who built the levees that failed. From the book Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas, we found out that the levees built to protect New Orleans failed due to negligence on the part of the Army Corps of Engineers. They knew that the levee walls needed to be higher to prevent overtopping. They knew that the levees were not properly reinforced in many areas. Why did they allow these inadequacies to slip through during the construction? It was because of the cost. The government did not care enough to spend the money necessary to prevent disasters like Hurricane Katrina. During Hurricane Katrina, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were President and Vice President of the United States. After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the people in the city were in desperate need of assistance, they lost their homes, their jobs, their families, their entire lives. Despite this, the care for Hurricane Katrina’s victims and the city came very slowly. There was not enough government aid coming to truly help the people or the city. We saw that in When The Levees Broke through a number of different ways. We saw the amount of people suffering in the streets and dying while little to no help was arriving. We saw people waiting for weeks and months to get temporary homes after their home was destroyed. And all while that was happening, while the city was in ruin, garbage everywhere, George W. Bush made an appearance in New Orleans. A camera crew and government team tidied up an area and set up lights and generators to make the city look like it was close to being back up and running, minimizing any signs of damage when the president gave his speech. His visit to New Orleans came far too late, and with far too little actual help. He was there for himself, to boost his image. If George W. Bush had cared about the tragedy that hit New Orleans, he could’ve sent aid that would have prevented so much of the violence and further tragedy that occurred after the storm hit. Essentially what that means is, Hartman’s claim is not wrong, it just needs to be interpreted the right way. Care can be the antidote to violence, when that care comes from the right people.

Davina Ward’s counter to Saidiya Hartman’s claim is that “Violence can exist as care.” When considering care, violence is not something that first comes to mind. Violence almost seems like the antithesis to care. When you care for someone or something, you treat it kindly, you may try to help it, and act gently. However, when you are violent toward someone or something, you are physically attacking it, hurting it, trying to tear it down. It seems impossible to have violence exist as care, because something cannot be the opposite of itself. However, after considering Ward’s claim, it makes sense. Consider William Shakespeare’s final work, The Tempest. In that story, Prospero wields his power to inflict violence on nearly everyone in the play, excluding his daughter. The reason Prospero inflicts violence on the others in the play is because he cares for his daughter, he wants to provide her with a better life, and violence is the avenue through which he is caring. In that example, violence is being used because of care, but the violence is not inflicted on the person that is being cared for. Is it possible for violence to be used on the thing you’re caring for? I think yes. We can look at Colson Whitehead’s Zone One for examples of that. In the book, Mark Spitz is a survivor of the zombie apocalypse. In order to survive the zombie apocalypse, you have to kill zombies, even if you recognize them. “It happened every so often that he recognized something in these monsters, they looked like someone he had known or loved. Eighth-grade lab partner or lanky cashier at the mini-mart, college girlfriend spring semester junior year. Uncle.” (Whitehead, 19). This is a very important idea because it deals with death, memory, and forgetting. These zombies that Mark Spitz recognizes were once people too. Some that he loved and really cared for, despite that, he has to kill them. But that is an act of care itself. Once those people that he knew and loved turned into zombies, they were no longer really themselves, they looked like them, but they forgot who they were. Mark Spitz holds the memories of these people and cares for them, and himself. The best thing that he can do for them, and for him, is to kill them. And that act of violence is the best care that they can receive. From these examples it’s clear that violence can exist as care, but not all violence is care. For violence to exist as care, it needs to be in the right circumstances, and be used in good faith. 

Both Saidiya Hartman’s and Davina Ward’s were correct, as long as you looked at them through the right lens. Care can be the antidote to violence, and violence can exist as care. If you take the quotes at face value and apply them to everything, they don’t work as well. However, if you take the time to unpack and understand what the quotes mean, then they will take on a new meaning that can be applied in the right cases. These quotes helped to illustrate how important it is to look at things through different lenses. They wouldn’t make as much sense unless you really looked at them in the right way and unpacked them. This is also a great example of why it is so important to unpack every piece of information you can, that way it leads to a deeper understanding. Saidiya Hartman’s and Davina Ward’s claims about violence and care are both correct in their own respects, when looked at through the right lens.

Saidiya Hartman’s claim that “Care is an antidote to violence” leaves me with mixed emotions. While I see where she is coming from, especially in the cases of Bresha and Marrisa, I believe that people who care are still powerless in the long run. In a society run by people who don’t care violence is rampant and no change is administered. This causes me to ask myself if care is really an antidote when it comes to the lives of other people. Wanting to save a life is something that is inherently created from a place of care, and while saving a life is always important, that life only becomes more difficult when there is no plan of action afterwards. An antidote is a cure that has no lasting negative effects, but when there are situations where a lasting negative effect is so apparent, I do not believe I could agree that care can be an antidote. 

In Beth McCoy’s Hurricane stories class there were many pieces of literature we consumed throughout the semester, the stories of disasters we’ve researched, and the images we’ve seen and put stories to, I’ve seen an abundance of “violence” characterized in these works and true stories. Whenever I think of violence in the sense of this class my mind automatically goes to Hurricane Katrina and the victims of the whole situation. Whenever my mind goes to Katrina I think of how when the people of New Orleans were struggling the people in charge let them struggle, they did not offer help, compassion, or understanding. In one of the pieces, we read called, “Unfathomable City,” by Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker, the narrators wrote, “Oil spills have also continued. From September 2010 to September 2011, more than 2,300 offshore incidents occurred, resulting in the release of more than 2.5 million gallons of fuel and oil into the gulf.” This oil issue caused many issues for the people who lived off of what they caught from the bay and one of the citizens they interviewed said, “There’s no work. No Jobs. No Oysters. Maybe once in a while they may get a good day where they can go out and, you know, catch a few sacks, and it’ll keep them going.” If the government had cared more about what was happening in New Orleans, if they didn’t delay the rebuilding of the levees when they first broke in 1995 and actually build them to withstand even a category one hurricane, or if they even had a system they knew wouldn’t make the city more vulnerable, I wonder if it would have turned out differently. When reading, “Unfathomable City,” the authors touched on that, “In the name of “public safety,” politicians and power brokers have sought to contain the longest river in the United States by building levees, regardless of known flaws in the systems that leave the city increasingly vulnerable to flood waters.” It astonishes me that the people in power that are supposed to have our best interests in mind could even implement and keep in place a system that puts the people there supposed to serve at a disadvantage. 

 Though this situation was disheartening I will not lie and say that there was no ounce of care. Within the documentary, “When the Levees Broke,” we were shown people who risked their lives to save others when the government wasn’t doing anything. From what I remember of the film the coast guard and even troops from Canada coming to offer aid when the government was offering no support themselves. This, for what it is, is a good example of care but even when they were no longer in immediate danger some people had nowhere to go, no money to spend, and no one that was there for them in their time of need.  “From the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund to Common Ground to Emergency Communities; in the local and faraway church groups that organized demolition and reconstruction, from Mennonites to Baptists to Catholics; in the big-name groups such as Habitat for Humanity that came to salvage the city” (Unfathomable City). Even when there were attempts to restore the city, there’s not much incentive for people to return, especially when the city itself has shown a lack of care for the residents’ well-being consistently. 

In our viewing of, “The Day After Tomorrow,” I noticed a similar lack of care when it came to the people of the United States. Within the movie, Jack Hall, the protagonist’s father and a scientist, tries to warn people in the U.S. government that if they don’t do anything to prevent the rise of global warming then it will have negative effects in the future. Instead of heeding his warnings they brush him off and not to long later natural disasters such as tornadoes and a new Ice age start to ravage the country. Due to the U.S. government’s unwillingness to listen to a professional, many people die in this movie or are forced to quickly evacuate the country. 

Jack Hall is one of the only few people shown to care in this movie along with his son Sam Hall and some of Jack’s friends/ coworkers. Jack does his best to make it to his son throughout the movie when everyone else thought the people left in New York City were a lost cause. Though he ends up saving some of the people left there they still have a global issue to solve, without any plans to work off yet. Sam tries his best to stop people from leaving the library but ultimately fails in the long run, only managing to keep very few people in the long run. While he does keep them safe, when they are finally saved these people have nowhere else to go and no idea what to do. Lastly, one of the father’s coworkers who had volunteered to go help find his son ends up sacrificing himself when he fell through a roof in order to prevent the other two from falling with him. Though he sacrificed himself for the greater good I believe that the loss of one life for the sake of care is still inherently violent in its own right. 

When reading Shakespeare’s, “The Tempest,” I noticed it seemed to be a book full of only violent acts. Prospero, our lead character, seeks revenge throughout most of the play and does things that only benefit him in the long run. He uses his own daughter’s love for a man for his own benefit and shows no remorse for a good chunk of the play. Even by the end of the play Prospero doesn’t forgive his brother or anyone else because he necessarily truly cares for them but because he cannot throw away his own “noble nature” for the sake of revenge. In the beginning of the pay we discover that Prospero has promised Ariel his freedom as long as he is loyal to him, “I prithee, remember I have done thee worthy service, told thee no lies, made no mistakings, served without or grudge or grumblings. Thou did promise to bate me a full year.” Prospero however keeps delaying Ariel’s freedom as he feels he’s still of use to him, willing to bend his words to suit himself even if it sacrifices his own integrity. While he does grant Ariel his freedom, he doesn’t grant Caliban that same kindness, instead Caliban once again resigns himself to Prospero’s authority. In the moments where Prospero can be argued to be at his “kindest” he treats Caliban as if he is less than him in every way as he and Alonso speak of him as if he is not there. “ ALONSO: This is as strange a thing as e’er I looked on. PROSPERO: He is as disproportioned in his manners as in his shape.” “The Tempest” is a play with very few acts of care and yet when care is shown it is muddled by another violent act that is committed. 

Through reviewing some of the work we have carefully explored through the course of this semester I feel confident in my belief that care is not an antidote to violence. I think care can help heal wounds that have been left by a system that keeps failing its people over and over, but I don’t think it’s able to solve all problems. While I’m unsure what an antidote to violence can be, it may start at being in agreement. For true healing to take place I think everyone needs to be in agreement that there is a problem, but even that isn’t a guarantee that violence won’t persist.