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First-Essay-1

            For centuries, African American history has been repeatedly suppressed, ignored, and undermined in education despite the importance and vast amount of information that can be found within. As stated by Suzan-Lori Parks in her work “Possession,” one of her tasks is to “locate the ancestorial burial ground, dig for bones, find bones, hear the bones sing, write it down.” This statement is referring to the need for African American history to be dug up and expressed through literature, a task that Patricia Liggins Hill and the many other editors also set out to do in her book Call and Response. Call and Response is a chronological anthology of African American literature that places emphasis on both written and oral dimensions of the black aesthetic. The book is guided by a folk aesthetic that shows the cultural production of ordinary people, who despite the hardships, racism, and brutality towards them created a cultural identity for themselves through community that has empowered them by giving them both comfort and a voice to share their stories. Through both a folk aesthetic and the conscious structuring of Call and Response, Patricia Liggins Hill and the many editors of this book were able to convey the beauty of community and African American culture as well as its significance.   

            In music, call and response is a technique in which a phrase of music serves as the call and that call is answered by a following phrase of music. Call and Response is set up in exactly this way, starting with the call, which expresses the hardships inflicted upon black people and black culture, and then following their response, which shows how they overcame it and continued to empower black culture. This is a continuous theme throughout the book showing how everyday people came together as a group to fight for basic human rights that they weren’t receiving. On page 1354, we see a response to the call for social revolution and political strategies. The major response was the Black Renaissance, which resulted in the rise of newly emerging African intellects, artists, poets, novelists, and dramatists. They began to teach, perform, travel, and turn to black journals that allowed for their independence from commercial publishers who censored their language. This was a time in which black activities and events began to flourish and “for the first time in the nation’s history, black was considered beautiful, and Black Power and black pride were images and attitudes to be celebrated and revered, not hidden and feared.” Vibrant murals were painted outside portraying black hero’s and black goals for everyone to see, powerful images of black heroes were on movie screens, black comedians and actors began to be recognized, black music captured the interest of white people even before the civil rights movement, and big afros and African beads were being embraced; however, these accomplishments were not written about to be marked as a “high culture aesthetic,” but instead quite the opposite.

            High culture is commonly defined as cultural objects, material or nonmaterial, that is held in the highest esteem by a culture, and typically looked at as superior. High culture is also usually associated with wealth and those of higher class. The goal of the Call and response isn’t to boost their accomplishments as more important or more valuable than those of Euro-Americans, but instead to show how everyday people, with no special political power, money, or influence, were able to come together as a community to express their shared values and beliefs. This directly reflects a folk aesthetic, which is defined as traditions that root from community and culture. Black traditions and movements have rooted directly from culture and community. We see the Black Arts Movement, originating off the concept of self-determination; the idea of Black Power, beginning from a rallying call for black pride and unity; folktales, which were either based on the belief of native-born Africans to call on African-derived power or the African archetypal pattern; jazz music, originating from an intertwining of European classical music and African and slave folk songs; and Spirituals, which were drawn from native rhythms and African heritage.

            Call and Response is effective in using a folk aesthetic to guide the presentation of the African American Tradition because they show the black community as a group of everyday people who had not one powerful influence, but instead several members of the community working towards a common goal. In “Nobody Knows the Trouble I See” by Bernice Johnson Reagon, she mentions how people try to make public figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., viewed as either a hero or evil, when in reality, “He needs to be shared as a member of a community.” Call and Response does this by not only writing about several members of the black community, but by also showing their roots, which did not start with any heroic figure, but instead a group of slaves fighting for their lives and freedom.

            Going back to the very first call in the book on pages one to sixty-eight, we learn about the development of oral traditions as well as African survival in folk culture. Here we are exposed to the truth of Africans involvement in the exploratory expeditions of the new land and the fact that African Americans arrived as slaves even prior to the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock. Despite arriving to the new land in shackles, African culture was already being further developed through work songs, folk cries, spirituals, and folktales. Additionally, much of their creations were carried over from Africa and strong connotations of their place of creation can be seen, which is an element of folk culture. I believe this first call was consciously placed at the start of the book to not only begin to unveil the truth about African history, but to also show how even early on, community was a huge factor in the works and art being produced at the time. We can see from this section, that folktales, spirituals, folk cries, and sermons weren’t being created to be popular or well liked, but instead to bring together a group of people who were fighting a continuous battle of oppression. Here we can see that these enslaved people were no heroes, but instead as Reagon says about Martin Luther King Jr.: “A man who did brilliantly with the greatest challenge facing him, he also often operated ordinarily, and at time disappointed others and probably himself.” This same thing can be said for other figures shown in Call and Response such as, James Madison Bell, David Walker, William Wells Brown, Benjamin Banneker, Claude McKay, Margaret Walker, Chester Himes, Sonia Sanchez, and John Edgar Wideman, who all made great strides in their fight for freedom.

            One man in particular who embodies the image of “A man who did brilliantly with the greatest challenge facing him” is William Wells Brown. The man who wrote the first African American novel, protest play, travel book, and history of the black soldier in the civil war. He played a huge role in helping pioneer African literature, but he was no lucky or wealthy man. William Wells Brown started from nothing and was very much an ordinary man, living among many other members of the black community as a slave. He managed to escape from slavery by slipping away from his owner’s steamboat that was docked in Cincinnati Ohio in 1834; however, William Wells Brown didn’t manage to make it far alone. He was taken in shorty after by a white Quaker family and helped to safety by Mr. and Mrs. Wells Brown. Out of respect and appreciation for their help, William decided to adopt their last name. William Wells Brown is an example of someone who was able to gain freedom and the ability to help pioneer African American literature because of the help of others working towards a common goal. Although Mrs. And Mr. Wells Brown were not part of the Black community, they held the same values and beliefs as William did, acknowledging the wrongs of slavery, and putting themselves on the line to help a stranger make his escape. William Wells Brown was not portrayed as a hero or someone with the ability to escape on his own in Call and Response, but instead as someone who could not only acknowledge those who helped him, but as an ordinary man who was able to overcome a horrible situation and make strides for the Black community in despite of it.

            The many traditions, groundbreaking works, and achievements made by members of the black community were not written about in Call in Response to brag about how far they’ve come, but instead to show the community effort and determination it took from an ordinary group of people to work their way up toward more and more freedoms. The Black Renaissance, where we saw African intellects, artists, poets, novelists, and dramatists emerge was just a long awaited and deserved moment for the Black community, as well as only a beginning step to a long battle for equality. Black journals, black heroes in movies, black art, and black music will all continue to emerge in mainstream media and be recognized by the rest of society due to the determination and unity of the Black community. The underlying folk aesthetic of Call in Response is meant to guide us through the reading with the idea in mind that these figures we are reading about are no heroes, but instead everyday people who are trying to make their history and experiences come to light, despite every effort made by society to bury them. Their shared beliefs, values, and pride in their cultural identity is what has taken them this far and is what will continue to empower them to make their voices heard.

After reading and reviewing “Call and Response” over the past couple of weeks, I have found that this anthology does not fit one single aesthetic. In my opinion, “Call and Response” falls into three main aesthetic categories: extensive, historical and dynamic. The extensive aesthetic behind this anthology goes to show the visible elements behind the text that work together to form an in-depth book in both the physical and substantial sense. The historical aesthetic supporting this anthology works to emphasize the sequence of time that the book covers. Including works from as long ago as the 1600s, “Call and Response” is able to display the evolution of African American culture as well as the maintenance of traditions and culture. I found that one of the main underlying principles of this anthology is its dynamic aesthetic due to its active nature in offering new ideas and perspectives to a wide range of readers. 

It is clear that just by looking at “Call and Response”, the reader is able to acknowledge the book’s extensive aesthetic. The book’s epitextual elements including its physical weight, the quality of the paper, and the size of the font, all contribute to its overall sense of endlessness. Consisting of over 2,000 pages, the weighty anthology does not care for the time and effort it takes to read “Call and Response” cover to cover, as each page and each selection is important to the book’s final message. In my opinion, the thin and fragile paper living between the covers signify the fragile lives that humans of all races possess, yet risk in order to gain freedom and make meaningful change in their world. In my opinion, the small font size was made that small in order to incorporate a multitude of information from songs, letters, stories, speeches, poems, and journals into the work. Although I do not believe the authors and editors lengthened the book to emphasize the significant messages they wish to convey, I do think that the physical weight and appearance of the book help represent the important ideas mentioned throughout the piece. Paratextual elements, such as the Table of Contents, also support the extensive aesthetic that the book gives off. With a 25-page long Table of Contents, the reader is able to prepare themselves for the immense amount of information they are about to read. I believe this extensive aesthetic I have assigned to “Call and Response” is only a small piece of the larger, more dynamic aesthetic.

The anthology consists of material dating back to the 17th century, which is why I have allocated a historical aesthetic to the book. One of the earlier pieces included in the book that caught my attention was Benjamin Banneker’s Letter to Thomas Jefferson. Banneker was a very intellectual and persistent African American who lived during the 18th century. In 1791, Banneker expresses his disagreement of the statesman’s justifications for racism and slavery to the hypocritcal yet sentimental Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson. Banneker writes in his letter, “he [one universal Father] hath afford us all with the same sensations… and that, however variable we may be in society or religion, however diversified in situation or in colour, we are all of the same family, and stanf in the same relation to Him” (Banneker, pg. 159). I believe that when readers read an authentic document personally written by someone who has reflected on their experiences during a crucial period of time, the reader is better able to gain a sense of understanding and respect for the writer. It is always difficult to take yourself back in time and try to understand the unthinkable challenges that people had to endure. However, with personal accounts and historical evidence of such challenges taking place, it allows the reader to obtain the smallest understanding of what another person or group of people went through. It is so unbelievably interesting yet saddening to read and compare historical works that fight for the same freedom, yet are written hundreds of years apart. Martin Luther King Jr. was a brilliant and motivated African American minister and Civil Rights activist. With the power of his voice, Dr. King led nonviolent protests against segregation and in favor of racial pride. Dr. King remarks in his infamous I Have a Dream speech, “one hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still badly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination (King, pg. 1423). This statement in Dr. King’s speech took me back to Benjamin Banneker, who bravely spoke out for the same, critical freedoms and rights as Dr. King 200 years earlier. “Call and Response” radiates an immense amount of history and calls for the reader to recognize the overwhelming amount of injustice implemented across generations of human beings. 

“Call and Response” has such a dynamic aesthetic as it includes a wide range of different works written by an immense variety of different people. It is comprised of poems, songs, plays, stories, essays, speeches, pamphlets, letters, journals and more. A piece of poetry I appreciated was Sunday Morning Prophecy by Langston Hughes, an respected writer of the 20th century. Hughes recalls an older man who powerfully concluded his sermon with the importance of attending church and beliving in God through both your high and your low moments. A gospel song I valued was Take My Hand, Precious Lord by Thomas Dorsey, who wrote this song after he tragically lost his wife and child from childbirth. This song along with the poem mentioned before both emphasize the importance and reassurance of maintaining faith through hardships. I focused on a short story, Spunk, written by Zora Hurston, a prominent African American female writer of the 1900s. While Spunk tells a story of adultery and vengeance, Hurston also emphasizes Black culture and language. I believe Hurston includes words such as “thass”, “figger”, and “skeered” in place of “that’s”, “figure”, and “scared” in order to reflect her pride and comfortability with this authentic dialogue between her characters. I also reflected on Elizabeth Keckley’s Behind the Scenes as I found her consistent relationship with Mrs. Lincoln, the President’s wife. I found it absorbing yet disheartening that Keckley’s very much earned and deserved literary reputation also caused her to lose central friendships and endure poor memories. Keckley wrote, “I was awakened…with the startling intelligence that the entire Cabinet has been assassinated, and Mr. Lincoln shott, but not mortally wounded. When I heard the words I felt as if the blood had been frozen in my veins, and that my lungs must collapse for the want of air” (Keckley, pg. 505). I found that these short excerpts from Keckley’s memoir provided by “Call and Response” were chosen very carefully by the authors and editors. Although the anthology is packed with different texts and materials, each historical work serves a purpose and must be respected and analyzed critically by the reader. 

To say that “Call and Response” can be attributed to only a few different aesthetics is an understatement, as I feel that one cannot limit this book into only a few categories. However, the three aesthetics that I have chosen throughout this essay are what I signify as three of the main, broader aesthetics of the anthology. It is important to examine such complicated and informative books through both a physical and literary lens. This is why I found the extensive aesthetic along with the historical and dynamic aesthetics to be an agreeable blend of aesthetics within the text. I also found it extremely useful and essential to analyze “Call and Response” with a readiness to connect major movements, ideas, and cultural traditions.

Connor Canfield

Coming into this class as a first-semester senior I had my doubts as to what I would be able to gain from this course, knowing just how close I was to leaving Geneseo and being released into the real world. I walked in with a preconceived notion of what to expect and after spending some time with the material and looking over our course epigraph I knew I was destined to be wrong about my first impressions. “My job is to notice… and to notice that you can notice”. This quote from Dionne Brand shut up my senioritis and proved that I had much more to learn with my time left in Geneseo than I initially thought. After some time I began to notice how each of the pieces that we spent time with linked to each other, and how our thought process as a class seemed to flow seamlessly from one topic to the next, allowing us to form strong conclusions that not only taught us something about the course but also the larger world outside of Wells 119. For the first time in my time in Geneseo, I took the opportunity to step back, slow down, and truly notice what I was learning and why. I gave myself the chance to notice what my peers around me were writing and what ideas they were coming up with. Considering their ideas I was able to not only learn more from the connections I was making on my own allowing myself to notice that I was being noticed but also opened my eyes to a perspective I would have never known without listening and noticing them. I learned more from my peers, by taking the time to step back and notice than I have during many hours of studying for a test that I would have inevitably forgotten the answers to right after turning in my scantron. I think that is the true power of our course epigraph: the level of learning that you can get out of something really has to do with the level of noticing you allow yourself to do, for others and for yourself. 

While I believe that the majority of the learning that I gained from this course came from my peers and the ideas and questions that they proposed throughout our time in class, these questions and ideas stemmed from the various readings that we covered. Now looking back I can see how our course epigraph truly does find a way to link each of these pieces. The readings we looked at revolved around the idea of medicine and racism and how those issues have been portrayed in literature. I think that the pieces that we looked at did a great job of indirectly or directly looking at these issues, but also gave us the opportunity as a class to come up with our own findings and ideas about what we were reading. Rather than just looking something up in a textbook and memorizing it we were able to constructively take what we were learning between a number of texts and come up with an organic thought that we could apply to the world that we live in. We were able to notice not only what the text was trying to teach us, but we were also able to notice within each of our individual experiences different ways to apply what we were looking at that we couldn’t have gotten without the constructive format that this class took. This format is something that I wasn’t used to after a year of only being able to do school work through a screen.

Last year brought many hardships to us all and because of our distance from each other, I felt it was hard for me to stay connected to what I was learning. I believe after last year in which we lived in a world that was so separated and isolated that coming together like we were able to do in this class allowed us to get back to what really teaches us and I was able to connect with what I was learning again. The opportunity to listen and notice others’ thoughts was monumental to my success this semester. Hearing all of our different perspectives throughout this semester was incredibly refreshing after feeling so far away from the college community for so long. We were able to work together throughout all of this semester, constructing collaborative essays, having meaningful conversations with each other, and fostering a classroom community of a bunch of special individual stories really allowed me to be successful this semester, in this class but also in the rest of the classes I have been taking. I think that while we learned a lot about racism and the medical malpractices that have been committed throughout our history on African Americans we also were able to learn a great deal about the world that we live in now, and in a sense reintroduce ourselves to said world after a year of shutting ourselves off from it. We not only taught each other about the course and what we could take away from it, we also learned how to communicate and work together again which I think is possibly more helpful to me at this point in my life than what the course itself could have given me. The power to sit back and notice others, or notice what you are doing is being noticed by others is such a fundamental strength that this course has taught me for the classes I’ll be taking next semester but also all of the jobs that I will find myself in after this year. I think back to my expectations walking into class the first few weeks and the anxious ignorance that I found myself in, while I sit here now at the end of the semester feeling ready to take on the world, noticing as much as I can from here on out. 

The course epigraph states, “My job is to notice…and to notice that you can notice.”

Throughout the course, I have continually noticed that the course epigraph is integrated within the material and ideas shared. When I first registered for this class, I was eager to strengthen my literary skills and learn about the interrelationship of science and racism. To my surprise, the class consisted of students enrolled in English 101 and English 439. Initially, I was a little apprehensive toward this classroom approach but through the multiple class discussions and collaborative essays, I believe that this approach maximized our academic and individual growth. As the 439 students have had more exposure to English courses than others may have enrolled in 101, our differences are what drove the class. Hearing different perspectives regarding the same concept is what nurtured our discussions and further promoted thinkING and unpackING as we shared ideas aloud. Moreover, the importance of unpackING and thinkING has been emphasized, making it apparent that it is truly beneficial to share our ideas aloud through class and group discussions. As we all come from different majors and backgrounds, each person’s input is valuable as this provides an opportunity for our own growth and our peers’ growth to expand. This also ties back into the course epigraph where not only we can see each other noticing but that Beth and Kya can notice that we notice. 

From previous sciences courses, I have already learned that exploitation is not an uncommon theme within the field of science. Some of the most famous examples include Rosalind Franklin and Henrietta Lacks. Around the mid 1950s, the structure of DNA was a major topic of interest as scientists were racing to make a huge breakthrough. Through rigorous research, Rosalind Franklin discovered that the DNA structure consisted of a double helix. Scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick, took this work and gave credit to themselves for this discovery. At the time, women were not taken seriously in the field of science and so Franklin did not receive any credit for her contributions. To be even more infuriating, Watson and Crick received the Nobel Prize in 1962 for discovering the structure of DNA. In addition to Franklin, a Black woman named Henrietta Lacks was also taken advantage of for the greater good of science. Without her knowledge, some of her cancerous cells were taken and used for further research as her cells kept dividing, in comparison to other cancerous cells that died quickly. Her cells were used to form the HeLa cell line, which are still widely used nowadays for medical research. In Medical Apartheid, Washington continues to address the injustice and manipulation within the field of science and medicine that has been imposed on to African Americans. The novel reveals that an African American man named Williams had shared his medical experimentation experience within the Holmesburg Prison system at a showing of Acres of Skin. He explains to the audience that he endured radiation burns, sulfuric acid burns, cuts to his armpit to study the glands, and even rubbed acid on his scrotum until the skin fell away. He said that the purpose of these research experiments were never discussed nor did the experimentees have a receipt for anything they signed (Washington, 245). His story and many others within Medical Apartheid reinforce the both/and situation of both addressing the harmful procedures and treatments done to African Americans by white doctors and consider that these practices occurred at a different time of life. Despite the exposure to these stories, there are unfortunately many untold stories of the malpractices within the field of science. Reading Medical Apartheid opened my eyes to the severity and magnitude of injustice that has been inflicted and noticing that there is more than just the tip of the iceberg.                                                                                                                                                      

In my goal setting essay, I mentioned I wanted to continue to recognize the both/and situations within the course novels as the semester progressed. While reading and discussing Clay’s Ark, Kya asked the class if Jacob rescuing Keira was in good faith or bad faith. I initially thought that his actions were in good faith since he risked his life to rescue Keira. Jacob specifically mentions that he didn’t tell his parents about coming to the car people’s house, indicating that he had every good intention to rescue her (Butler, 211). However, diving deeper into the text, we learn that Jacob’s actions were in bad faith, despite his good intentions. By rescuing Keira, this ultimately led to Blake infecting a truck driver and initiating the spread of the infection across the nation. Blake describes his encounter with the truck driver before infection by saying that he couldn’t help it and that he tore at him like an animal(Butler, 217). From this, one of the main both/and situations that I noticed was recognizing that good faith practices can both be beneficial and also unintentionally harmful. This ties back into my participation effort that I mentioned in my goal setting essay. Lacking to contribute to class and group discussions can ultimately be detrimental and in bad faith as this limits the growth of my peers and myself. To avoid hindering my peers’ and my own thinkING, I began to contribute more in both scenarios. One experience that highlighted the benefits of sharing aloud and unpackING among each other was when we were discussing Clay’s Ark. Beth asked us to analyze how our perceptions of the characters had changed since the beginning of the book. As I shared my ideas within the group discussion, I noticed that many others began to build off of my discussion. This further prompted me to supplement my peers’ thoughts and opinions with my own interpretations of how I saw a specific character develop. By thinkING and unpackING together as a group, this created a safe space to have meaningful conversations that contributed to our peers’ growth and our individual growth.

My quick assumption of thinking that Jacob’s action had been in good faith had also reinforced that I should slow down even more when reading. Even through the middle of the semester, I still had not acted upon this goal that I established in the beginning of the semester. As we read Zulus, this was my goal to slow down on reading to facilitate the understanding process. Since the novel contained many unfamiliar words, I felt somewhat lost with interpreting the text accurately. Despite this, I was reassured that Everett’s novel was more challenging than previous texts as we spent time in class researching unfamiliar words. With this in mind, I continued to read Zulus more attentively. From this, I was able to recognize my own both/and situation. It is important to both recognize the harmful impacts of internalization and also realize how easy it is to lose your identity when you are reduced to one thing. Alice Achitophel is continuously described as “the fat woman” (22). Throughout the entire book, she is constantly used by the people that she encounters: Lucinda, Theodore, and Geraldine. Due to her body size, many people have reduced her to being fat. In particular, Body-woman Rima said to Alice, “you’re a stupid woman and probably a slut… and let you know how much of a thing you are” (Everett 106). Instead of referring to Alice by her name, she’s reduced to her physical appearance, contributing to her low self esteem and reducing her humanity as she’s referred to as an inanimate object. This further reinforces that Alice’s identity is lost because she now views herself as fat/worthless and doesn’t see herself in a positive light. Even after Alice’s rebirth, we continue to see that she still struggles with her self-worth as others continue to take advantage of her, despite the change in physical appearance. As I reflect on the course as a whole, I see how this both/and situation applies to us. If we as students were reduced to students enrolled in English 101 or 439, this would inevitably suggest a hierarchy and a sense of superiority/inferiority. However, with the environment that Beth and Kya created throughout the semester, the course number did not define our capabilities in contributing to thinkING, unpackING, and learnING. This ultimately stressed the negative impacts of what reducing oneself to one thing can cause.

Referring to the GLOBE’s insistence that Geneseo students should gain practice in the ability to “reflect upon changes in learning and outlook over time”, I think this aligns with the course epigraph well. With a huge emphasis on thinkING and unpackING the course documents and central course concepts, this enables us to learn more effectively than from straight memorization of the content described in the course documents. Similar to other classes, memorizing a bunch of information is not a reliable way to learn as this information will be forgotten in a short period of time. Rather it’s important to understand the how/why and the application of this information. As the semester comes to an end, I’ve realized that my ability to notice has greatly improved since the beginning of the semester. By becoming more aware of the long history of abuse of African Americans within the medical field, this will be something that I keep in mind as I prepare for a career in scientific research. Being more aware of the ethics and morality of research is very important as this topic is still something that is often discussed. Overall, I truly value the experience and lessons that this course has given and taught me. Not only did I become more comfortable with writing and reading, I also became more comfortable with contributing to discussions and listening to my peers, ultimately enabling me to notice and to notice that others are noticing as well.

The course epigraph— My job is to notice… and notice that you can notice— has become so ingrained into my understanding of how American Ways: Literature, Medicine, and Racism connects itself. There have been so many different opportunities that demonstrate what it means to be noticING from the beginning of this course and continuously into the future. In my goal setting essay, The Process of NoticING and ThinkING, I stated that it was my goal to create a “proper process of noticING and thinkING, and take what I unpack with those processes and apply it to my understanding of the course themes: literature, medicine, and racism.” Furthering this, I also contended that my ability to think and notice is critical for stimulating legitimate discussions with peers. Reflecting on this goal, it has been proven that having a process, being actively engaged with works, and continually circling back to previous experiences creates a greater opportunity for noticING critical themes and ideas. 

One of the major components of our class is the collaborative nature structuring the work throughout the semester. Historically, for myself, I have usually dreaded doing group projects because they can easily become overwhelming in the effort of figuring out how we’ll meet outside class time, figuring out who does what part, etc. Group work had been “You do this part, I’ll do this part, they’ll do this part,” and that was it; really it was separate assignments just stapled together and labeled “group” work. What became relieving is that Dr. McCoy’s collaborative assignments are constructed to foster discussion and unpack course texts. In my previous experience with group work, this stage was non-existent and I believe that is where group work fails.

However, with the collaborative projects in Literature, Medicine, and Racism the emphasis on peer collaboration proved to be significant and rewarding. Within the first collaborative essay that we worked on, my peers and I used what we pulled from course texts including Home, Fortune’s Bones, and Medical Apartheid. Through unpacking and starting to interpret the evidence we as a group had brought into the discussion, it was clear just how important it was that I had attempted to use a thorough process with these texts. By closely reading and picking out what appeared to be significant passages and moments within the text, then revisiting them again after unpacking in a class discussion, allowed not only for my understanding but also for active engagement with my group. One example of the benefit this had was when we had that moment in which our discussions—which resulted in what seemed like so many pages of just notes and brainstorming—clicked and one of the group members just said out loud what would be our throughline. In our essay, The Power of Identity and Imagination, our throughline reads “the act of stripping one’s name, and therefore reimagining their identity as an individual, which makes it easier to ignore the consequences of treating African American individuals as objects rather than humans.” Reflecting on our process, I think that we were able to get to this conclusion after a group member brought us to “Kyrie of the Bones” in the requiem Fortune’s Bones. Within the first stanza of the poem, “I called him Larry. It was easier to face him with an imaginary name” (Nelson 21), a group member offered their connection to Medical Apartheid and the chapter that discusses a professor’s use of cadavers in their classroom claiming that students couldn’t learn just by watching the professor. This was his attempt to justify stealing Black bodies and using them without consent. Now that we had brought together all of our textual examples of imagination and naming, we had the breakthrough which led us to our connection. 

Synthesizing and noticing themes and elements of the course texts proved to be so significant in our classroom discussions, and in turn our real world ones as well. In the last collaboration effort in the course, our group had the entire course content to think about and connect to the work of William Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen From Here to Equality. What became so apparent is that the ways we were thinking and what we were noticing from early on were still A) evident in what we read and unpacked in the later half of the semester and B) still fresh in our minds. For example, we ventured all the way back to Toni Morrison’s Home from Module 3 and discussed the implications of reducing the character Cee to just someone who needs Frank in order to live her own life. We synthesized that by reducing Cee to this one quality or aspect, her autonomy and her identity become seemingly absent as this leads to harm and having herself walked over by others. We ultimately decided after our periods of discussion to focus more on Zone One, Clay’s Ark, and Zulus in crafting and synthesizing our connection to the effects of limiting a person’s capabilities. 

Reflecting on the course epigraph, through both the peer discussions and my own process of thinkING and noticING I feel that I am leaving this course with a better understanding of racialized harm and some of the ways that has been implemented in the United States. Two of the most prominent themes that I will continually use and explore are Identity and Care, specifically how the two work together. Circling back, the removal of a person’s identity demonstrates the implicit ignorance of care and certain moments in the course have been catalysts for provoking my thoughts and understandings of this. One of the most memorable times I have with Dr. McCoy in  Literature, Medicine, and Racism is when we spent a large amount of time analyzing the “Fortune was born; he died,” (Nelson 13). Those five words and the semi colon were given so much focus and attention, but what came out of that were sprouting ideas of thinkING about identity and care. Feeding this idea forward in the course, another notable moment was in the class discussion regarding the literature references within Home, featured in Dr. Beau’s office in which we (readers) noticed Cee did not notice what the books were referencing. Discussing what it meant for Cee and the novel when we noticed the eugenics references and  the fairy tale references proved to deepen both the connection to the importance of literally noticing things and also the implicit harm in not noticing. 

Literature, Medicine, and Racism has helped me in several different ways relating to my career as an English major. However, the most important aspect I am leaving this class with is the knowledge and ability of how to think about and notice things in a way where I can engage in discussions outside of classrooms. My noticing, as well as my peers’ noticing, has been so instrumental in connecting the inherent danger of eliminating Fortune’s identity to “Larry” to create ease of memory of the racialized harm brought on to him; the implicit harm in making decisions and taking action in the name of others like Frank does with Cee, as well as in Clay’s Ark where saving someone from captivity ultimately led to their death. While the time in Dr. McCoy’s Literature, Medicine, and Racism course has come to an end, I know that like the course content there is always continual looping and feedback needed. Now that I feel I have a process of noticING and thinkING, what it both means to notice (or not), and how noticING leads to greater understanding and application of unpacked content, I can carry this forward into my last semester at Geneseo and hopefully outside this community and into other aspects of my own life as well. 

Quentin Wall

We began the semester by noticing as much as we could through a variety of lenses; science, medicine, law, racism, fiction writing, poetry, and scholarly essays made up the works that we as a class engaged with. While we worked through the semester the course epigraph and its meaning when applied to our studies became more clear. The course epigraph is this: “My job is to notice… and to notice that you can notice”. I feel strongly that this epigraph can be applied to any piece of art. It is the artist’s job to interpret the world they see and present it to us so we can understand. When applying the epigraph to the work we have done this semester, my interpretation of it would be that writers notice the world around them and trust that the readers of their work will notice how the world within the writing interacts with the real world. All of the works we’ve read this semester have engaged with racism and gender in some shape or form. Since I am in the position of the reader, it is my job to notice how the author relates the world of their story to the real world. Through my own personal reading and reflecting on the literature as well as the knowledge I gleaned from conversations with my peers I would say my understanding of race and gender has improved, yes, but my ability to perceive both is where I have seen the most growth. With that in mind, my personal growth this semester can be phrased rather simply; without good faith engagement with the course and its materials I would not be able to notice the things I now notice.

The 2021 fall semester has been one rife with new and unforeseen challenges. Coming back from a global pandemic into a semester saturated with uncertainty posed unique challenges to me as a student. Because of these challenges however, the growth I’ve made in and because of this course has been meaningful. Zulus by Percival Everett for example, is a book I would have had considerable trouble understanding on my own. The course’s requirement for active thinking and engagement with my peers and their thoughts on the book led me to a whole new level of understanding. In Zulus, while Alice and company are making their journey away from the city they come across a great scar in the land caused by the war. Upon first reading this my understanding was that this landmark represented the damage war can cause on the earth and its inhabitants. While this interpretation is not necessarily wrong and I was not wrong to make it, it is still a shallow understanding of what Percival Everett was attempting to convey. It was only through our in class discussions that I was able to peel back the layers of symbolism and reach a new understanding. The gash in the land was the result of war, yes, but the deeper and more applicable understanding of the red mud gorge was in fact about the female body and its autonomy. To simply state that I would not have noticed that on my own would not give due credit to the level of thinking and collaboration involved in reaching that conclusion. It was only through working with Professor McCoy and my peers that this understanding was reached. Zulus is just one example in a semester full of new ideas and concepts that were originally foreign to me. 

In this course there was a great deal of attention given to the idea of “good faith”. In the first few weeks of the semester this seemed to be a simple concept to me, essentially translating to “do the work and do it well”. I would not say that my original interpretation of good faith is wrong. Rather, I would contend that it was not a deep enough reflection of what was being asked of me. If my job is “to notice.. And to notice that others can notice” then simply doing to work is not enough. It took time, but good faith slowly became more and more important to me as I contributed throughout the semester. My understanding now is not as shallow as it once was. Good faith does not mean doing the work, it does not mean completing what is expected of me. Good faith is putting forth the best effort I can muster. Some days that means going to class and gushing about all the cool things I found in the reading. Some days it means listening thoughtfully to my classmates and letting my own thoughts take the backseat. On days where I cannot seem to find any motivation or any reason to contribute, good faith means coming to class and doing my utmost to find the motivation.

Whether it be from my classmates, Professor McCoy, or myself. Nowhere along the path of this semester was I working solely with my own ideas. I was guided through by my peers. The work I’ve done would not have been what it was without them. If my job in this course has been to notice, and to notice that others can notice, then there is no more appropriate example of this than the group work we have done this semester. Working in a group is not an easy thing. Anyone who says otherwise most likely has not worked in groups enough. It is a tough and complicated process. I cannot count the times I’ve wanted to break away and just write what I want to write in our collaborative essays. Regardless of how I felt at the time, doing so would have been a mistake. I myself for instance am not someone with a comprehensive background in medicine or science, yet those are two lenses that we examined the literature frequently. But, I was able to listen, learn, and make good faith contributions to our class because of what my peers noticed and taught me. The action of noticing my peers and their insights led me to a rich understanding of the literature. An understanding that would have been impossible on my own. Through them I learn, and it is my hope that they would say the same of me.

To begin, I would like to start this essay by emphasizing the significance of the epigraph, “my job is to notice…and to notice that you can notice”, that we related back to throughout the course of this semester. I believe that this statement has been of importance to not just the work, readings, and writings for this class, but even more so for our classroom community. Nevertheless, turning back to the epigraph always made me stop to think and realize what the goals of this course were, what they were trying to teach me and what I have learned throughout it.

With the unpredictability of this semester, I think this course epigraph was just as important for the students’ life both in and out of the classroom, as it was for the understanding of the content presented to us within the class. To start, from my perspective, there were a lot of unexpected ups and downs throughout the semester. I believe that the attendance to this class was very important, as most of our work was done in class, and I tried my hardest to make as many as possible. However, with the many factors like injuries, sicknesses, and team events, it prevented me from having the opportunity to fully be involved within the course. 

Moreover, with the insight of the course epigraph, and focus on care in the structure of the class, it provided me with the best experience I could have had considering my circumstances. I believe several people shared similar experiences, and also appreciated the amount of care, and the ability to notice these struggles throughout the year. The fact that Professor McCoy was able to notice and care for her students how she did, and how the students were also able to notice her care and make up for it in multiple ways, was something that really astonished me throughout the semester. Never have I had a professor or teacher care and take the time to notice and much as Professor McCoy, and relating back to the course epigraph, I think the students were really able to realize and notice her efforts to accommodate us. In the end, I feel like although initially some decisions may have felt like they impacted the quality of our time in class negatively, I think that taking the effort to step back and notice the situations of some students ended up being of beneficence to our classroom community as a whole. Many of these decisions, I believe, actually made us students work much more effectively and intuitively, compared to if we were rushed or forced to complete assignments through difficult times, or periods of illness.

To continue, going back to noticing the actual content of the course, one idea that has really stood out to me and really stuck with me was Heng’s definition of racism, “In the attempt to suggest how we might rethink the past, I should therefore begin with a modest, stripped-down working hypothesis: that “race” is one of the primary names we have – a name we retain for the strategic, epistemological, and political commitments it recognizes – attached to a repeating tendency, of the gravest import, to demarcate human beings through differences among humans that are selectively essentialized as absolute and fundamental, in order to distribute positions and powers differentially to human groups. Race-making thus operates as specific historical occasions in which strategic essentialisms are posited and assigned through a variety of practices and pressures, so as to construct a hierarchy of peoples for differential treatment. My understanding, thus, is that race is a structural relationship for the articulation and management of human differences, rather than a substantive ​content”. This definition brought light to me on the fact that race is a built in social construct, that basically just systematically separates individuals of different backgrounds. Throughout almost all of the readings I was able to notice how this definition was significant to my understanding of the racism present within them. I noticed I was able to relate back to it as I read, and it became one of my main focal points to connect back to within group discussions.  With that being said, I think our group collaborations enhanced our ability to really comprehend the content provided to us within our readings and elaborate on the true meaning of these stories. In all, I feel that this course, the epigraph, the content,  and the ability to notice and care throughout the semester greatly strengthened my overall understanding of others, along with several other students in the class.

Marissa Volk, McCoy- ENGL 101

The epigraph for our course comes from Dionne Brand, she states that “ My job is to notice… and to notice that you can notice. According to Dictionary.com, to notice is ‘ ‘ to pay attention to or take notice of” and “ to percieve; become aware of” (Dictionary.com). In an essay I wrote earlier this semester I reflected on how once we work to notice things we were previously unaware of, we become not only better scholars in the classroom but better human beings for everyday life. The most significant thing we have noticed and become aware of as a class this semester has been the very long and extremely unfortunate history of abuse towards African Americans by the medical industry. This has been made easier to notice due to the fact that the course epigraph forms a through-line for the literature and ideas we’ve engaged this semester. One of the works of literature we have studied this semester, Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington goes in-depth into this part of American medical history and the author gives her readers a very thorough understanding of the abuses suffered by African Americans during this period. Once we are able to notice and understand these abuses, we will be able to understand why African Americans are hesitant to get the covid-19 vaccine as well as why the need for reparations is much larger than one singular event. 

Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington does an amazing job chronicling the history of abuse towards African Americans by the medical industry. The book is filled with countless examples of the horrors African Americans endured during this time period. Many of these examples are centered around James Marion Sims. Sims is an important figure in the history of abuse towards African Americans by the medical industry due to the fact that “he so well embodies the dual face of American medicine to which racial health disparities owe so much” (Washington,61). While it is true that Sims did great work in the cause for women’s health, he did so by conducting “years of nightmarishly painful and degrading experiments, without anesthesia or consent, on a group of slave women” (Washington,61). One example of Sims’ nightmarish experiments involved an innocent black infant, “He took a sick baby from its mother, made incisions in its scalp, then wielded a cobbler’s tool to pry the skull bones into new positions” (Washington,62). There are many more examples of these horrifying experiments conducted by Sims which sound more like crimes against humanity rather than legitimate medical research. Unfortunately, James Marion Sims was far from the only person carrying out these bloodcurdling types of experiments on innocent African Americans at this time. 

Some more examples of these horrendous experiments were found in the records of Dr. Walter F. Jones. These records detail how in one of his experiments Jones poured “boiling water on naked enslaved typhoid pneumonia patients at four-hour intervals” (Washington,60). He described one of these shocking experiments as follows, “The patient was placed on the floor on his face and about five gallons of water at a temperature so near the boiling point as to barely allow immersion of the hand, was thrown immediately on the spinal column, which seemed to arouse his sensibilities somewhat, as shown by an effort to cry out” (Washington,61). Tragically, nothing was gained from this awful experiment as Jones offered an absolutely terrible rationale for conducting them. He stated that “it worked somehow by “re establishing the capillary circulation”” (Washington,61). 

By working to notice and become aware of events such as these despite how awful they are will help us become better scholars as well as human beings. This has become especially crucial considering the recent rise of covid-19 cases due to the omicron variant. Horror stories of the medical industry towards African Americans have spread via word of mouth for centuries. This has unsurprisingly created a massive level of distrust towards the medical industry amongst African Americans. This distrust can help to explain why African Americans have been so hesitant to receive the covid-19 vaccine.  According to kff.org, “ CDC reported that race/ethnicity was known for 59% of people who had received at least one dose of the vaccine, among this group, nearly two thirds were white (60%), 10% were black” (kff.org). By working to notice as to why African Americans distrust the medical industry, we can work together to help build up this trust, get the nation’s vaccination rate up, and hopefully be able to move past this pandemic. 

By working together to notice these events previously unknown to most of the population, we can begin to realize that the need for reparation goes far beyond one singular event in American history. Most people view reparations as a solution to only slavery and do not take into account all of the other abuses African Americans have suffered throughout history. The events documented by Harriet A. Washington in Medical Apartheid don’t even begin to scratch the surface of abuses suffered by African Americans outside of slavery. If we are able to work together as a society to become aware of these abuses, hopefully we will be able to better understand the need for reparations and not be so hesitant to distribute them. It is also very important for us as students to work to notice these events due to GLOBE’s insistence that Geneseo students gain practice in the ability to “reflect upon changes in learning and outlook over time”.  The epigraph for our course comes from Dionne Brand, she states that “ My job is to notice… and to notice that you can notice. The most significant thing we have noticed and become aware of as a class this semester has been the very long and extremely unfortunate history of abuse towards African Americans by the medical industry. This has been made easier to notice due to the through-line formed by the course epigraph for the literature and ideas we have engaged this semester as a class. One piece of literature that we have studied this semester as a class, Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington documents this history of abuse by the medical industry towards African Americans in great depth. Examples of horrific experiments carried out by James Marion Sims, Dr. Walter F. Jones, and many others towards innocent African Americans. Events such as these help to explain why there is so much distrust towards the medical industry felt by African Americans to this day. I believe that once we work to notice events like these previously unknown to us, we can move forward as a society by both improving our nationwide covid-19 vaccination rate as well as finally distributing reparations to those affected by these tragic events.

As a writer “my job is to notice” the work provided to me by the professor, thoroughly read over articles and books from class, and deeply reflect about the work in order to fully comprehend and make connections to the course learning outcome. The readings that I read over the semester, “Fortune’s The Manumission Requiem Bones” by Marilyn Nelson, “Zulus” by Percival Everett and “A Political History of America’s Black Reparations Movement” by Darity and Mullen were all works that I was able to relate to in terms of the character’s growth or finally realizing their true self. 

In the beginning of the semester, I did not speak up in class often because of my shyness. Speaking in large groups makes me nervous because all eyes are focused on me. This puts more pressure on me and sometimes makes me forget my thoughts. During discussions, I found it difficult to rephrase someone else’s thought that I was going to say. For instance, when talking about the book, “Fortune’s The Manumission Requiem Bones”, we discussed the quote “Fortune was born; he died” (Nelson, 13). Many of my classmates thought that even though the doctor did many procedures on Fortune’s body he could not take away his identity from him. I agreed with this but did not want to repeat what anybody had already said. Sometimes I would have a good thought in my head and try to phrase it in a way that makes sense, but by the time I do this someone else already spoke up on it. This has been the main issue for me throughout the semester. In the book, “Zulus”, it states, “you will be treated as the thing you are” (Everett, 104). Achitophel was only seen as a fat person, which made her view herself as an ugly person, lowering her self-esteem. Reading books like this made me realize that people will only view me as a person that does not speak up in class and nothing else. Once I started to realize this it made me question how I viewed myself as a person. I did not want to end off the semester without at least seeking other ways to participate in class discussions.

It took a while for me to speak up, but I can say that I’ve grown from the first day of class. I started being more comfortable with my classmates once I got familiar with their faces. Most people that I worked with in groups, I had already worked with before, so it was easier for me to talk to them. For instance, in my previous group, I was familiar with seeing Tommy, Dineen and Rebecca faces because I had already worked with them in small groups. I spoke up on evidence that could be used in the essay and made connections to the prompt and book. Also, this group acknowledged my thoughts which I appreciated because other groups that I were in made it difficult for me to speak up at times. Sometimes I just felt like my points were not worthy enough to put into the essays. The few times I did speak up, I felt like my ideas were disregarded as well. Similar to Achitophel, I started to feel unworthy and unimportant. However, throughout all of this I noticed that I worked better in small groups because there is less pressure on me and less faces watching me as I speak.

In the article, “A Political History of America’s Black Reparations Movement”, it states, “America must acknowledge its roots in the slavery empire, apologize for it . . . and work on some plan to compensate” (Darity and Mullen, 19). Similar to how Americans must understand the struggle of blacks and help them, it is important that I too understand my struggle of speaking up. However, it is my job to notice this behavior and “and work on some plan” (Darity and Mullen, 19) to overcome this challenge or grow as an individual. I can definitely say that I learned a lot as a reader and gained awareness of my true self as I slowly began to be comfortable and confident in speaking up. With that being said, it is essential that Geneseo students practice the skill to reflect on their changes in order to gain awareness and learn about themselves. 

Works Cited

Nelson, Marilyn. Fortune’s Bones: The Manumission Requiem. ISBN: 9781932425123

Everett, Percival. Zulus. ISBN: 9780932966971

Dye, Keith A. “From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century by William A. Darity Jr. and A. Kirsten Mullen.” Journal of Southern History, vol. 87, no. 4, 2021, pp. 759–761., https://doi.org/10.1353/soh.2021.0134.