Author: Ken Wolfson

I’m not sure if anyone has posted about a certain film that premiered during this semester and carries massive cultural implications in our current, racially charged climate. Since we’ve somehow not mentioned it in class, I’ll post here.

The Birth of a Nation is considered the movie that invented modern cinema.  The filming techniques it pioneered revolutionized the way films were produced.  Its huge release and marketing made it the first blockbuster film.  The Birth of a Nation is also famous for being horrifically racist, a fact that film experts have to dodge around when discussing the film, much to the delight of those who support racism.  For those who don’t know, the plot centers around two families who fought on opposite sides of the civil war uniting to end reconstruction in their corner of the south, by killing black people and preventing them from voting on election day.  The film features horrific racist caricatures, and portrays the violence perpetrated on freed slaves in the south, including lynching, as heroic actions.

This movie I want to showcase is The Birth of a Nation 2016.  Written, produced, directed, and starring Nat Parker as Nat Turner, the black priest who led the most violent slave revolt in the US, preaching a vision of ending slavery.  The birth of the nation was made with the goal of re-appropriation.  That is, taking a piece of pop-culture and stealing it back from the signification of racism.  The idea is to replace the image of the classic Birth of a Nation and the white supremacy it stands for with that of Nat Turner leading an uprising with the fury of a people locked in chains for two-hundred years by the old order.  Doing so will re-appropriate the cultural meaning of the image, and by doing so, alter American culture to a more tolerant standard.

Today I read a pair of blogposts and attached articles analyzing Toni Morrison/Paradiso that I felt would go together wonderfully.

The first was by Hannah, and included this article describing in Zhizekian terms how tyrants create their oppressive regimes.  To summarize: the tyrants create an evil other, which they give responsibility for all their nation’s problems, (problems usually caused by themselves.)  they then set about violently destroying that other.  I feel that Toni Morrison’s application of this methodology within Paradiso is blatant and twofold.  first, the obvious assault on the covenant.  Second, 8rock’s ostracizing of any family or person with lighter skin, up to letting a pregnant woman die with her baby for that reason.  “Even with their wives begging they came up with excuses because they looked down on you,” (197.) Continue reading “Scapegoats, Morrison, and how a paradise can be ruined.”

Continue reading “SPOILERS Connections Between Dante and Morrison: The World Soul”

After watching Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk about the dangers of the single story, and reading Hannah’s blogpost, I can’t help but think of the education profession in this country.  My mother’s a fourth grade teacher, so I know how teachers and education as a whole is under siege by the right wing of this nation.  After reading Hannah’s blogpost, I can finally signify why the modern Republican party is at war with our teachers, and is out to destroy education, such as Scott Walker defunding the University of Wisconsin public university sysem.

The Republican party has been taken over a single story.  One about fearing minorities because of their difference to the average white American.  Hannah discussed how easy to perpetrate fear is, and how unfounded it is, and I see that fear here.  I watched this single story begin when Mitch McConnel declared in 2010 that he would make Obama a one term presidency, and proceeded to vilify and obstruct our President like no other President had dealt with.  This single story about fearing minorities has grown into a novel where the hard right wingers are the only patriots and minorities and other political ‘dissidents’ like liberals are out to destroy America.  Social politics dominate the party, and economic conservatives and moderate conservatives are being left by the wayside with accusations of RINO for not buying into the single story.  The culmination of this single story is the emergence of the Donald Trump to head the Republican Party.  His flaws would end any other person’s campaign, but I see that his base is deep in their single story where everyone not their political cult is out to destroy America.  So deep that they will follow him without question because he speaks to their fear.

To give statistics: people who haven’t reached high school or college diplomas are more likely to vote Republican.  That’s not stereotype, that’s statistical fact.  As Hannah said, our children are impressionable, and can be shaped by their education.  Education familiarizes children with the very differences the modern Republicans fear, and they come to respect our differences..  The Republican party in recent years has watched its base shrink as the older generation dies off and our generation, with our generally superior education, has risen into voting age.  Their solution has been to purge our educational system and dumb down our schools, in the hopes that more children will grow up not understanding, and fearing difference that the modern Republican Party has made its enemy.  Even worse, Republicans are attempting to redirect public school students to charter schools, which are public money funded, yet run by corporations, and are no better than public schools.  Without good education, their single story of fear and hatred will be passed onto our children, and our next generation will be ruined.  This is a deliberate choice by Republican leaders.

Given the political makeup of SUNY Geneseo, I’m preaching to the choir, but I must state that the Republicans are believing in a single story about fear and hatred of difference.  The Republican Party is destroying our schools to commit their sins of ignorance on our children.

After our discussion of racism and reading on the first day of class, I did some research on Toni Morrison and her views on slavery.  I came across this guardian article on her views.  I paid particular attention to the part on her critique of American history.  I say that in the second chapter, Morrison makes a statement on the reasons behind the acceptance of oppression of black people, and the ideology that leads to its continuation over centuries.  Jacob Vaark is offered a payment and states “flesh is not my commodity,”(25) which gives his disapproval of the transaction, despite his eventually acceding.  I say that Toni Morrison did not use this exchange to indicate a moral superiority from Vaark.  I say that she’s in fact demonstrating Vaark’s tacit approval of slavery, and relaying to the reader the cultural and economic reasons that permitted slavery to continue for centuries before ending in the civil war, and for oppression to continue for years after.

I present French philosopher Slavoj Zhizek’s work to inform Morrison’s statement on slavery.  Zhizek discussed the concept and danger of cynicism as an ideology.  This ideology occurs when someone disapproves of an ideology (slavery for ‘A Mercy,), but participates in the system anyways due to their economic benefits from participation,  The ruling class in particular, would refuse to change a system they believe is wrong simply because they’re secure while in the current ideology.  A summary of Zizek’s writing that I am using can be found here.  Though Toni Morrison’s work never directly connected with that of Slavoj Zizhek, I say she intended to the same concept of cynicism in ‘A Mercy’ with Vaark, to demonstrate the hopeless situation blacks were thrown into with slavery, in concision with her theme of hopelessness for black people.  Zizeks’ stated ideas are merely the best quantification of that concept of cynicism I could summon.

By verbally rejecting slavery, Vaark represents moral high ground for those empowered by the system.  However, Vaark ultimately does accept a slave girl in payment, which I say is Toni Morrison’s indication that disapproval in a system but continued participation without action is tacit approval.  I’ll dig even further for Morrison’s meaning.  Vaark is also a merchant.  As stated by Hannah Embry in her post, he obeys the system by purchasing goods produced by slaves in the triangle slave trade (Africa-Americas-Europe,) and therefore gives profit to the system of slavery, therefore he’s engaging in cynical ideology by acknowledging his principled disapproval of the system of slavery, yet participating anyways.  I say that by developing Vaark, the white protagonist’s character, in this way, Morrison uses cynicism to show the way the endless cycle of slavery and greater black oppression continues.  Since the enslaving class profits from slavery, they are unwilling to change the even if they morally oppose it.  As a result, powerless black people like the narrator in Mercy are forever swept up in the apathy.