In this blog post, I would like to get into a technical aspect of reading literature and talk about how form can make a lasting impact on how you understand and interpret what you read. Form can be defined as “the manner or style of arranging and coordinating parts for a pleasing or effective result, as in literary or musical composition” according to dictionary.com, therefore, the way a piece of literature is physically structured can make an impact on how we perceive it. Specifically, I want to talk about the effectiveness and importance of a line break. Although this is more prominently used within poetry, it can be just as effective in many other types of literature. By using a line break, it creates a emphasis on the following line, leading the reader to pay a little more attention to it. In this post, I would like to talk about an instance where this happens within Fortune’s Bones that really stood out to me.
Continue reading “The Impact of A Fresh Start”
Dwarf the Soul and Preserve the Body
In PhD Alonda Nelson’s The Long Duree of Black Lives Matter, she explains that immediately after the Emancipation Proclamation freed African slaves throughout America, there was a tremendous spike in lynchings and also police violence against Africans, a problem which persists today. While I would never denigrate all police officers with a broad brush, especially considering the proliferation of illegal guns in poor, often predominately black communities in America, there is undoubtedly an epidemic of police brutality against Africans in the form of excessive force, racial profiling and even shooting unarmed civilians because of a perceived threat based on racial biases. In response to abolition, whites who lost their free labor spurred a counter movement aimed at suppressing the liberties and literal existence of Africans in America. This manifested itself through occupational and educational discrimination, redlining and extrajudicial murders but even more sadistically and methodically through mass sterilization by doctors who blacks had no choice but to trust.
In the article, Nelson describes what Fanne Lou Hemer experienced, calling it the “Mississippi appendectomy.” This referred to a method of sterilizing poor African women in her home state, an injustice she herself experienced at the hands of a white doctor in 1961. In chapter 12 of Toni Morrison’s Home, which takes place years after the Korean War during the same time period Nelson was actually victimized, Frank discovers Cee unconscious at Dr. Scott’s office with blood around her genital area. Earlier in the novel, Cee admired Dr. Scott for helping poor, underprivileged blacks out of what she presumed was the kindness of his heart. What she did not notice was his books on eugenics. In chapter 12 when Frank arrives at the doctors office, Dr. Scott is so scared that Frank has come to exact revenge on him that he tries to shoot Frank, but fails because he is out of bullets. To him, Cee was dispensable and he therefore didn’t feel guilty about experimenting on he r or sterilizing her, but was instead only fearful for his own life. Dr. Scott was a fraud like so many doctors must have been at the time. For people to summarily dismiss Black Lives Matter as either fringe or unnecessary in modern times, they must ask themselves if medical professionals in their parents’ generations had drugged someone they knew unconscious and sterilized them and people like you or them on a systematic level if you would feel like people cared about your life.
When BLM protests in the streets on behalf of current, prevalent police brutality and murdering of black people, people say they are themselves the problem and should organize and protest respectfully and totally nonviolently. Yet when Colin Kaepernick of the NFL took a knee during the national anthem (he was the first to do so), he was ultimately fired and essentially blacklisted by all teams. He vocalized that he was protesting racial inequality in America and received minimal support. It was only when President Donald Trump actually called the NFL players who protested “sons of bitches” while saying they should “be fired” that NFL owners supported the protest during the national anthem. Before Trump had called out the NFL brand, only the players, many of whom are black, supported the protest and it wasn’t until after his comments that the billionaire owners supported the movement. This support is not because they wish to fight racial inequality, but rather to preserve a profitable brand which takes young men and swallows them to feed the beast in exchange for temporary fame and fortune, almost always causing the individual permanent physical injury in the process. The article writes about Fred Hampton, a Black Panther’s Party leader who was killed in his sleep by law enforcement ultimately for spouting ideas like “policing the police” and endorsing wider social justice. Kaepernick is a more mild, modern equivalent martyr in the sense that he compromised his promising, lucrative career as an NFL quarterback in order to stand up for his inconvenient beliefs (ironically by kneeling).
Dark Usage of the English Language
The more one looks into racism, the more prevalent it appears. From investigating racism further in this class, I was astonished at the profound effect it has on many disciplines. Its integration into literature and the English language in particular is astonishing. Max’s description in class of the field of gynecology being “dark” sparked my further investigation into terms in English that have racist backgrounds. When I looked up the word “dark”, I found various definitions: “gloomily pessimistic”, “a situation characterized by tragedy, unhappiness, or unpleasantness”, and “not fair in complexion” (Merriam-Webster). Continue reading “Dark Usage of the English Language”
Ignorance vs. Knowledge
In brainstorming potential collective course statements, I saw repetition of a common idea: increasing knowledge is essential. Grace, Jennifer, Sabrina, Emma, myself, and other classmates all emphasized that a vital takeaway from this course is that we should increase learning to create societal change. This necessary increase in knowledge is overwhelming. Faced with the impossible task of attempting to learn everything conflicts with the common saying–“ignorance is bliss”. Is ignorance bliss? Or is knowledge power? Continue reading “Ignorance vs. Knowledge”
What is PTSD?
In Home, by Toni Morrison, Frank Money appears to have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after returning from the Korean War. Money is among many other people who suffer from PTSD. After class discussion on Wednesday, I decided to research the disorder to help me gain a better insight to what Money is experiencing, and the reasons for his actions. Continue reading “What is PTSD?”
My Geneseo “English Class” Rule
When I first decided to double major and add the English major to my course schedule here at Geneseo, I was told by a friend who was an English student to take your English classes slowly. When I asked her why she stated, “English classes are all different, the professors are different they ask for different things, you expect different things from each class”. So that is precisely what I have been doing, since my freshman year I have been taking one English class a semester, slowly getting through the English major and very quickly getting through my Communication major. Continue reading “My Geneseo “English Class” Rule”
From Vice to Virtue: How We Confront Amoral Experimentation
In reading both Medical Apartheid and Home, readers are confronted with a slew of injustices committed against African-Americans. Perhaps none are as gruesome and distressing as the experimentation in female anatomy carried out by white physicians against unwilling black victims. In her novel, Home, Toni Morrison shows us one such grim scene through the eyes of Frank as he looks upon his nearly dead sister, an unwilling victim of “research.” Her life and death struggle is made all the more immediate through Franks calculated approach to helping her, checking for pulse, breathing, and temperature with the familiarity of one who knows things about the dead. (Morrison, 111) However, this scene pales in comparison to the one painted by Harriet A. Washington in describing the exploits of Dr. James Marion Sims. Here, readers are forced to imagine the pain and terror helpless, enslaved women went through under his knife. The details of vesicovaginal fistula are particularly graphic, as are the descriptions of Dr. Sims carving the vaginal region and sewing it up, only to force it open once more as physicians gazed in awe while slaves screamed. (Washington, 64-65)
This brings me to the main argument of this blog. Although this was only one example of abuse, it is symptomatic of early research in the field of Gynecology. Although this may seem strange coming from a male, gynecology has played an important role in my family. Both of my parents are Obstetrician/Gynecologists and although this makes an impartial view of their work impossible, I can attest to the good they have done. Are town is not large and few days go by without strangers thanking my parents for delivering their children or helping them through surgical intervention. It is distressing to learn just how much of my parents field of practice was built upon the pain and brutalization of voiceless women. It brings to question how exactly we can square the good that has come from medical research with the inhumane methods it was derived from? The same question has been raised across history and is well documented in books and media sources, not least of all in critically acclaimed television series like Star Trek: Voyager and games like Mass Effect. My own view on the subject is that such practices are barbaric and should be left in the past, especially with advances in technology making research less invasive and scaring. However, the hardest question is often what to do with research obtained through these immoral means. Some advocate its destruction to discourage others from advancing science at the cost of human life and suffering. I disagree. People willing to sacrifice their humanity for scientific gain are unlikely to be concerned with what others think of their methods. Regardless, there may always be wicked people willing to profit off the suffering of others. Unfortunately this seems to be part of the darker side of human nature. Destroying such research would guarantee that the victims of experimentation died in vain, that nothing good came of their suffering. People who commit these acts should be punished to the full extent of the law for it is truly a crime against humanity, but punishing their victims with obscurity and pointless suffering is an insult. I’m curious as to what other people think? Feel free to comment or bring it up in class.
Why has DACA been repealed?
Ever since we discussed the strategy of the “both/and,” found examples of it from Medical Apartheid, and watched Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk, I have been thinking a lot about how I can apply these concepts to other areas in my life. Continue reading “Why has DACA been repealed?”
The law inside the Law
Today in separate groups, Dr. McCoy introduced the fact that after the emancipation proclamation, new laws were invented that would allow free slaves to be forced back into slavery. Once the 13th amendment was made, the first section states, ‘Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duty convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction’ (constitution center) Basically stating, you are a free man or woman, as long as you don’t commit a crime, for if you do, you can be put back into slavery. Outside of stores, there were signs stating ‘No Loitering’, and if someone was seen standing outside of the store (loitering), they could be arrested.
The discussions in our groups today, about which topics resonated with the course title within Home, it was brought up by Grace what ‘vagrancy’ means, homeless, and Frank Money stated as he was escaping the Psych Ward, that he could be arrested for either loitering, being barefoot, or for vagrancy (page 9). Frank was in a mental hospital, but he doesn’t remember how he got there; now Frank is a Korean vet, just out of the war, but he is still being treated lower than dirt, even though he fought for his country. At the Psych ward, his top and jacket were taken, but he still had his pants only because they weren’t effective for suicidal attempts; they took everything he had on him except for his medal (page 8). When thinking of a vet, you immediately think of the respect they deserve for the service they have done for the country, but for Black Vets, they are treated as they were before the war. They are not shown the respect that any vet deserves for putting their lives on the line for freedom. This could be contrasted, for in the novel Home, when Frank is out with Billy from the diner, the police show up, and when the younger policeman notices his medal, tells him to ‘Get lost pal’ (page 37).
A Reminder
As we were discussing examples within Home that relate to the topics in the course title, Sabrina B. and Adaeze brought up an interesting point to consider whilst reading Home. They pointed out that we should think about the overall message of the book and how it relates to the title of Home.