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In the movie Get Out, directed by Jordan Peele, the racist history of medical experimentation in the United States is transformed into an iatrophobic individual’s nightmare. The horror film is about an African American man named Chris who visits his white girlfriend’s family for the weekend. Chris eventually notices that the other African Americans around him at this family residence are disturbed and he concludes that they have been brainwashed by Rose’s mother, who is a psychotherapist. The situation ends up being much worse than he imagined. The father of Rose is a neurosurgeon and he has completed successful surgeries that made the grandparents immortal by transferring their brains into healthy African American bodies. The foundational racism that created the horrors of medical experimentation on African Americans to be exacted is shown through racist myths about the African American body, of which is made obvious in the film. The racism within this film is obvious, but how racism is examined in Octavia Butler’s novel Clay’s Ark was not as obvious to me until I compared two important scenes in both mediums. 

Continue reading “Literature and Movies Tackling the Exploitation of the African American Body”

The lack of respect from the African Americans in the burial ground can be compared to Fortune’s Bones and the lack of respect he had while alive and deceased. Throughout history African Americans are ridiculed, tortured and disrespected. With the African Burial Ground National Monument, it is a step to finally give them the respect and peace that they deserve.

In Fortune’s Bones, Fortune, was a slave, his wife’s name was Dinah, he had two sons, Africa and Jacob, and two daughters, Mira and Roxa. Dr. Preserved Porter, was Fortune’s master and a physician whose specialty was setting broken bones. Fortune lived in Waterbury, Connecticut, it the late 1700s. “His wife was worth ten dollars. And their son a hundred sixty-six(Nelson, 13).” This quote shows how most African Americans were not treated like human beings. You cannot give humans a price and sell them for money, they are not an item. The one thing that shocked me a lot was how much of a price difference there was between Fortune’s wife and his son. His wife was worth only 10 dollars, where his son was worth 66. This is still unacceptable but the older woman was worth so much less than the young boy. This was because the boy had more to offer, he could work longer and harder than the woman. Fortune died in 1798, and Dr. Porter died in 1803. “In Dr. Porter’s will, he left Dinah to his wife, Lydia. He gave Jacob to his daughter Hannah. No one knows what happened to Africa, Mira, and Roxa(Nelson,14).” Not only did Dr. Porter give away people to his family as gifts, but he separated a family from their loved ones. He separated this family in a time when they needed each other most, after a loved one died. I found it sickening that these people could just be written away in a will, they had no choice of what happened to themselves and it was their own life. It’s sad that these people lived in fear, not knowing what was going to happen next in life, whether it was being separated from your family forever, or not making it after a hard day of work. Not only was Fortune’s life hard as he was living it, but it was just as difficult when he was deceased. “When Fortune died, he wasn’t buried. Instead, Dr. Porter preserved Fortune’s skeleton to study(Nelson, 16).” Not only did Fortune have a difficult life while he was alive, but now even when he has passed away they will not let him rest in peace. Dr. Porter took apart Fortune, bone by bone, he boiled the bones to clean them of fat and drilled the bones to drain them of fluid. Fortune should have been buried in a cemetery so that he could rest eternally in peace, but he was not so fortunate. While studying Fortune’s bones, scientists found that Fortune’s lower back had been broken, then healed and his shoulders, hands, and feet all had been injured. This proved that Fortune’s life had lots of strenuous labor, but the scientists could not discover the diseases Fortune supposedly had and the cause of his death. Fortune’s bones were passed down throughout Dr. Porters family for generations until Fortune’s name was lost and forgotten and the bones were renamed as, Larry. Over the centuries “Larry” was lost in an attic, until he was discovered by a crew of workers hired to renovate a new building. Over the years, not only was Fortune’s name forgotten, his story was too. People made up so many rumors about who it was but no one knew Fortune’s story. Eventually Fortune’s bones were placed in the Mattatuck Museum, one Waterbury resident even said, “Larry was the thing to see when you go to the museum. I don’t think anybody ever envisioned that this was truly a human being(Nelson, 22).” Fortune was kept there for years until he was taken out of his case and put into storage. “The museum now believed that displaying the skeleton was disrespectful. It wasn’t just a bunch of bones. It was the remains of someone’s son, maybe father(Nelson, 26).” In the 1990s, historians researched Fortune and found local records and archaeologists and anthropologists studied Fortunes bone and found the truth about Fortune’s life, how he worked, suffered and even how he died. Fortune finally had the ability to rest in eternal peace. 

The fact that Fortune did not get the respect he deserved until he had been deceased for so many years can be compared to the African Americans buried at the African Burial Ground National Monument. The African Americans buried here did not get to rest in peace either, they suffered when the ground they were buried on was dug apart and their remains were rediscovered. “Excavations began in July 1991, several skeletal remains were recovered. One year later, 390 burials were removed and GSA intended to remove 200 additional burials.”

Archaeologists and anthropologists studied the bones they found and discovered the remains were individuals with filed teeth in hourglass shapes, which is a popular cultural tradition in West Africa. “Based on lesions found on the bones, slaves suffered from hard physical labor and malnutrition. Some of the anthropologists assert that the bone pathologies indicated slaves were literally “worked to death.” This is almost exactly like Fortune’s life, he was worked to death and when he was dead, he was still treated like he did not mean anything. These African Americans did not have names to know who they were, just like how Fortune’s name was changed while his bones were getting passed along. These people were treated like they were good enough to be treated like human beings, they did not get the respect that they deserve and it is sad to think people thought it was okay to treat others like this. The African Burial Ground National Monument ensures that these bodies are kept at rest, and in peace, not bothered at all. The African Burial Ground National Monument is designated a National Historic Landmark, so it is protected and can not be dug up and built on. On October 1, 2007, the memorial was completed and opened for visitors and you can still visit it in Manhattan New York City today. Mayor David Dinkins had spoke about the memorial and had said, “The African Burial Ground is irrefutable testimony to the contributions and suffering of our ancestors.” Although these African Americans did not have respect and peace for a long time, just like Fortune, they are able to have it now. This memorial gives all of these African Americans, their families and ancestors security that they will not be bothered and will now be able to be honored and respected as they deserve.

It was very upsetting to me to read about Fortune and these African Americans who had a life full of suffering and torture, were not able to pass with peacefulnes and dignity attached to them. The African Burial Ground is a step in the right direction but there are still so many cases where slaves and other African Americans never get to rest eternally and obtain recognition.

Something in this class that has been talked about over and over again is discrimination. This has been talked about throughout the books we have read, the articles provided, and many other resources as well. Before this class I never thought about discrimination in the medical world. This was not a topic that was ever brought up to me before college. Even in my senior year while I was taking more advanced classes that were more college-like classes, I never learned about this kind of discrimination. We may have glanced over something like this in a history class along the way in high school, however, it was never really brought to my attention on this type of level. There was and still is so much discrimination in the medical world. There was obviously much more medical discrimination before slavery had been abolished but even after slavery was gone there was still an extreme amount of racism and even now there is still a lot of racism. Until I started digging into this subject and researching more, I found that there is still discrimination which I also was not aware of before now. 

Some very huge examples of discrimination that we read about were in a book called Medical Apartheid by Harriet A. Washington. We read chapters of this book throughout the semester. This book really opened my eyes to the problems in the medical community. Especially these problems I had never thought about. Starting in the times of slavery, was a chapter called “The Surgical Theater”. A man with jaw cancer had no choice but to have surgery on his jaw. He did not get to make the decision to have the surgery or not. Page 102 states “Sam was enslaved, so the decision was left not to him but to his owner, who was eager to return his slave to profitable work. Sam was sent to Montgomery despite his loud and constant protests.” Sam did not want the surgery because in his own words it “would hurt too bad”. In this time, it was not common to use effective anesthesia and sterile techniques. So, the surgery in this time would have been extremely painful and most likely would result in infections that could be fatal. After recuperating, Sam escaped so we don’t exactly know from this book how everything turned out with him. Sam was forced to have an extremely painful and risky surgery just because he was an African American during this time.

In this same chapter of the book, Dr. T. Sullivan ran advertisements for his infirmary. The advertisement read “Any persons having sick negroes, considered incurable by their respective physicians and wishing to dispose of them…”(page 103). These people had no legal rights and could not stop these doctors from incarcerating them and treating them. Dr. T. Sullivan tested new techniques and medications on the blacks while correctly treating the paying whites. He treated the sick African Americans like lab rats and experimented on them. The owners of the slaves were happy to give away their sickly slaves. I understand that this was during the time of slavery so discrimination towards African Americans was not uncommon at all. But to me I never thought about the other parts involved in being a slave. Not only were they owned and treated horribly by their owners, but they were also just sent away to be tested and experimented on by doctors who didn’t even think of these people as human.

In 2002, a more recent case from Medical Apartheid, an African American man by the name of James Quinn was implanted with an experimental artificial heart. Quinn spent the rest of his life, 9 months, in a hospital bed. He eventually was declared brain-dead. Many other cases just like this were appearing around the same time. On page 349 it says “Geography, tradition, and culture intersect to make blacks likely research subjects for new technologies, but race and economics tend to place them outside the marketplace for these same technologies when they are perfected.” These cases are all showing me that African Americans are much more likely to be tested on even now after slavery has been abolished. They get the not yet perfected treatments and then once they are perfected a lot of them can no longer afford these things.

Throughout the years African Americans have been discriminated against in the medical world. How much has the world changed since slavery? Yes, now they can choose their own treatment, but they are being offered the things that are not yet perfected. What percentage of these more experimental treatments are being offered to whites? There is a significantly higher percentage of the people who are black than white. If you thought discrimination in the medical world towards African Americans had significantly decreased maybe take another look. Lots of these things are not talked about anymore but this is still happening today. I was hardly taught anything about this in high school, and why is this? Do we ignore these problems? I have never heard about any of these things on the news but when you simply google search discrimination in the medical field today, lots of articles and cases about this show up. This is something that I believe should be taught to us growing up and something that should be completely eliminated today. It does not matter what your skin color is. Everyone should be getting the exact same medical treatment. I think if we are taught about this topic while growing up that we would have adults that are aware of these things and therefore it would be less likely to happen. Discrimination in the medical world needs to be talked about and awareness of this topic needs to be talked about.

As the semester comes to an end, and as I have began to practice self reflection, one reoccurring concept I have discovered to have been helpful in my growth within this course is perception. In practically every text, article, and discussion in this class, I have analyzed some form of perception. Perception may seem to be a minuscule aspect to conversation and literature, but it has been very prevalent in my studies so far. It can often be overlooked, but in my mind, it has been very prominent upon my analysis of our course texts. In particular, I found the aspect of perception to be vital in my understanding of Zulus by Percival Everett. In this reading, the main character, Alice Achitophel, goes through a peculiar transformation and refers to herself being present in two different forms. Without thorough unpacking of her perception and the perception I held as a reader, I would have found myself utterly confused.

In the text Zulus, the setting is set in the future after a thermonuclear war has occurred. The government controls everyone’s food, handing out rations of cheese, making it the only food source for those placed in this futuristic world. The government also controls the population from growing by sterilizing all of the women. However, Alice did not attend to her sterilization appointment as she was supposed to, and she becomes pregnant. Outside the city and government control, there is a secret village where rebels live. Alice’s coworker, Theodore Theodore, is good friends with these rebels, and offers to take her to them upon finding out she is pregnant. Alice Achitophel goes with him, and gives birth in a strange manner- the child is a grown woman. This woman is told through the text to be Alice herself, as though the birth was a form of transformation. Even Alice herself is confused, but she is sure that she is still herself, just in the new body. She also states that the remaining form of her old self that gave birth is another living form of her. When conversing with a character after Alice’s transformation who knew the “original” Alice that gave birth, the new Alice states, “’It’s me, Alice, Alice Achitophel’…telling herself as much as she was him, feeling the voice different in her throat…” (Everett, 112). From a reader’s perspective, I found this very confusing at first and couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of a birth like this one. In the text it is shown that Alice’s original form coexists with her new form as it is stated, “She could see every step of theirs, every stare and reaction, her brain lying sleepy in her cranium on the ground. Her head was just a human head…by which people walked without glance nor notice” (Everett, 140). Here, the original form of Alice Achitophel is described, and is presented as though she is still alive, and is still at the rebel camp. Upon expanding my analysis of this perspective Alice’s new self holds, I was able to ponder the possible presence of a metaphor. Could this “new self” Alice has birthed represent that she is trapped? Is Alice’s new self meant to be presented as alongside the readers looking in at this “trapped” old Alice?

When taken in a literal sense, it may be interpreted from the text that Alice truly gave birth to herself and is existing as two forms. However, this can be confusing as it is not something we might consider possible in reality. To further unpack, the analysis of this character’s perspective and view presented in the text can open more doors of interpretation, leading to possible underlying meanings or metaphors. Another aspect of the plot that encourages me to further push the possibility that Alice’s new self shares the same perspective as the readers is the fact that Alice’s old self is encased in a glass box. The head of the original Alice is trapped in this case. In the text it is stated as, “She was in a case, a cube, transparent glass on at least three sides, the view for her distorted at the corners, bending forms which stood at her sides, if a disembodied head could have sides…” (Everett, 183). I question, is Everett demonstrating the trapped state of Alice through a parallel of the new Alice’s perception to that of those outside the novel? Could the new version of Alice be herself stepping back and reading the situation from an outside point of view the way those who read the text view it? Through the analysis of Alice’s possible perceptions, I myself perceive a metaphor may be being drawn through this demonstration in the text.

In this course, we are continually unpacking, analyzing, and digging deeper through the possible meanings being brought about by the texts we read. The book Zulus was a particularly challenging text to grasp and comprehend, and I wonder if my focus on perception enabled me to unlock a hidden metaphor. In this course, we discussed the possibility of Everett demonstrating that Alice Achitophel is physically trapped in the novel, which added to my questioning of there being a similar metaphor present. I wonder if Alice is trapped not physically in the book, but metaphorically, as the possibility of her new self being an outside perspective prevails in my thoughts. I hope others reading this question underlying meanings and metaphors through the concept of perception as I did.

Secrets are something we learned starting at a very young age to never have.  Don’t lie to friends or family, don’t cheat on tests, and don’t keep secrets from anyone.  Parents used to say “you’re too young to know what’s going on” or “I’ll tell you when you get older”, but when are we “old enough” to know and how long do we have to wait to know important secrets that are being kept.  At this point in time, you may not know what secrets are being kept from you whether it’s by the government, your friends or even your family, but I can guarantee that you’re never too young to know the truth about something or what you could be getting yourself into.  

Within the medical field, many secrets are kept daily across doctors and different boards.  Patients don’t always know the whole truth, which is morally and ethically wrong since the information is regarding them and their health.  People have a certain set of expectations regarding the medical field; they assume doctors are going to keep their patients’ health in their best interest and do anything they possibly can to make sure that everything is perfect and goes smoothly.  When this expectation is not lived up to or a patient finds out the doctor has not disclosed all important and necessary information, trust will be lost between the doctor and patient and may cause health issues.  

Throughout the book Medical Apartheid, there were many cases where people were not aware of what they were getting themselves into and had secrets kept from them which in turn, allowed health issues to develop over time.  In my opinion, this is morally and ethically wrong and should never be done; informed consent should always be present in certain studies. Say one is going in for surgery and they are told one thing by the doctor but come out of surgery having something completely different done to them while under anesthesia.  The patient was expecting the doctor to stick to their word and follow through with the given consent but in return, was blindsided and did not foresee the actual outcome that was not given by verbal or transcribed consent.  

Cases in the past decade have had similar situations, where the patient was told one thing, or nothing, and something was done to them where they had no say.  For example, sterilization or birth control techniques. Sterilization became a huge deal in the past few years, although many people had never heard of the matter, or the great significance of it.  It was most popular amongst black women and black teenage girls since they didn’t seem fit enough to have an opinion and give consent. In 1991, a procedure occurred that involved planting, the now popular Norplant birth control device, into teenage girls in Baltimore, Maryland in order to “reduce the underclass”.  To convey how messed up doctors and people in general were regarding certain procedures, observers applauded this technique and found it fitting and just in order to “reduce the underclass” in such a degrading and subjectifying manner.  In just over fifteen years later, a similar study was conducted in 2007 due to the government’s approval. Men, women, and children that were classified as “poor, unwed, and mentally disabled”, had been sterilized because the government decided on its own conscious and say-so.  I don’t know where the people involved, including the doctors, figured they had every right to decide who could have children in the future whether they wanted to or not, but they had a skewed view of the world and the people in it. I could never imagine growing up and knowing someone who was already sterilized because the government ruled them fit to be “poor” and/or “mentally disabled”.  

After finding out and reading about so many discrete studies, including this one, it makes me think how many others are out there and do I know someone who had gone through something similar to this without anyone even knowing?  I had become taken aback by how secretive and selfish these doctors could be conducting such invasive studies and procedures on other humans due to the fact that they purely wanted to or the government told them to. I do not see this issue going away anytime soon but if more insight to this issue was brought forth, I believe something could be done about it or more people would become open to the fact that things like this do truly happen in this day and age.  

When becoming immersed in literature that connects so heavily, it can become easy to see the connections between characters amongst different literature. In class, I was able to discuss the attitudes of some of the women we were able to read about during the semester. Specifically, the group I was in compared Keira’s attitude at the end of Clay’s Ark to the attitude of the women who took care of Cee in Home. In both cases, Keira and the women who cared for Cee have been through traumatic situations, and they are forced to get through these situations by whatever means necessary. Mentally, it seems that they all put up a barrier in order to protect themselves, even if it makes them come off as detached from the situation or unkind to those around them. There is no time for empathy when getting through the day is a struggle in itself.

At the end of Clay’s Ark, Keira is reflecting on the death of her sister, Rane. Eli tells Keira how strong Rane was, and she thinks to herself, “Not strong enough, Keira thought. Not against the car family. Not against the disease. Not strong at all (621).” Keira has been left alone in the world following the death of Rane, as well as her father. In addition to that, she has become contaminated with the organism that has infected everyone else on the farm. As she has to move on with her life and face what it has become, she seems to become hardened to it. When you are forced to move forward with your life before you are given the opportunity to grieve, you cannot properly handle your feelings about the past. Even though we, as the readers, know that Rane fought to get herself away from the car gang, she still didn’t make it out alive. Rane killed people as she was about to die, and she tried to make it to her sister, but Keira doesn’t acknowledge this when thinking about her. Instead, she acts as though Rane was too weak to make it through this situation with her. Keira has gone through the same situation as her father and sister, but now she is the only one that has to keep living without the two of them. Even at the very end of the book, she talks about her father, saying that she “shook her head, not wanting to think of him. He had been so right, so wrong, and so utterly helpless (624).” By being forced to keep on living her new life, how is Keira expected to properly come to terms with the death of the people closest to her? It may be easier for her to resent the people that have seemingly left her behind than to properly grieve.

In Home, we become acquainted with the women who take care of Cee after she is experimented on by Dr. Beau. When Frank brought her to these women he was sent away for weeks while they were trying to heal her. They took complete control over the situation, preventing her closest relative from being allowed to see her, because he would have just interfered. Once Cee is better, they let her know that they do not trust the medical industry, and she shouldn’t either. As black women, they understand that historically they have been subjected to the kinds of tests and experiments that Cee underwent, and they want her to be more aware of this as well. Although there are a multitude of examples to draw from, the first that comes to mind is that of the Mississippi appendectomy, when black women would be made unable to have children without their consent (Washington). When she tries to stand up for herself and ask how she was supposed to know his plans, one woman responds by saying “Misery don’t call ahead. That’s why you have to stay awake – otherwise it just walks on in your door (122).” Although these women heal her in the ways that they can, they are not what we would think of as kind about it. They are clear that they don’t trust doctors, and they let her know what they think about her actions. They make her better and they make sure she is okay, but they are not easy on her when it comes to their opinions on her situation. 

Keira seems to me like she is progressing towards being like the women who cared for Cee. The women who take care of Cee are older, and they have arguably been through more in their lives than Keira. While Keira had cancer, and dealt with the death of her mother, and eventually the death of her father and sister, there is something to be said about longevity. She is only sixteen during the events of Clay’s Ark, while the women in Home are at least middle aged. Keira’s trauma happens in a short period of time, while the other women have dealt with a lifetime of pain, even if we don’t know the specifics of their situations. If they know enough to bring Cee back from the brink of death, and they are clear about their distrust of doctors, they must have gone through something to learn so much. When you have to constantly handle traumatic events, it seems as though you have to become numb to a certain extent. People do not have an endless amount of energy to put into their emotions, or to put into caring for others. At a certain point people must separate themselves from the situation in order to care for themselves. While Keira has only just gone through the events of Clay’s Ark it seems plausible that she could come off as cold one day, just like the women in Home.

What is the true power of words? They string together our stories and can be exhibited in the form of names to give us identities. The innumerable diction of the human languages speaks volumes to our complexity as a species. In novels such as “Zulus” by Percival Everett and “Zone One” by Colson Whitehead, we see this deep love and appreciation for language and words as both authors use them to assert their points pertaining to the larger themes within their writing.

In Everett’s “Zulus”, he masterfully crafts phrases and plays on words to deliver the theme of the absurdities and hypocritical nature of his post-apocalyptic world, and thus mankind. Alice Achitophel’s drive to bring and support life to an already barren world is both ironic and hopeful in the melancholiest sense. Her hopeful character juxtaposed by her lover, Kevin Peters who is deeply cynical and hopeless when it comes to the future. To express these absurdities Everett often misspelled words: “…realx and let things happen as they would…” (Everett 153). Why does he choose to do this? Reading and rereading the novel it becomes clear that by misspelling the words of our known language, Everett is creating modifications of his own to change the language and thus give the word an entirely different portrayal. By creating his own spin on such a common word “relax”, he is showing us how we can and are constantly evolving as humans, whether physically or linguistically. Delving deeper into this, we can analyze Everett’s choice to write “Zulus” from A-Z, a purposeful narration as Alice Achitophel is the one retelling her story within the book, her only line of sight being the alphabet with her ever-conscious mind even after human extinction. After the world ends, it is ironic that Alice is still able to evolve, changing the story slowly word by word, phrase by phrase; it is these small misspelled words that show this gradual evolution of both the novel and Alice Achitophel herself, as they are one and the same. 

Everett additionally uses several Latin phrases to display his themes, most notably: “And the words, scrawled and printed. GIKICKIGWEJUG MUTATO NOMINE” (Everett 212). “Mutato nomine” is a part of the Latin phrase “mutato nomine de te fabula narratur” which translates to with the name changed, the story applies to you. A flexible phrase as it can be applied to several elements within both “Zulus” and “Zone One”.  In “Zulus”, Alice Achitophel is urged to obtain a fake identity in order to work with Geraldine Rigg in the hospital and help the supposed “rebels”. Alice Achitophel takes on the name of a deceased infant, Esther: “We find a baby that died, get the name and go to the Bureau of Records… They’ll know she’s dead. No one will know…Births and deaths are not cross-referenced. And who would have time to care anyway?” (Everett 171). This lack of acknowledgment and care of death record keeping can be compared to the dehumanization of the skels in Whitehead’s “Zone One”. The skels were not kept record of and no one felt that it was even important enough to bother. In Everett’s post-apocalyptic world, human life is seen to have a deadline, as there are no children left to be born and those who are left on the barren-earth are there simply just to die. The skels similarly have no future, no life to look forward to, as they are aimless and purposeless just as the characters are in “Zulus”. A fact that Alice Achitophel comes head to head with when her and Kevin Peters decided to release the chemical agent. This is why it is so deeply ironic that Alice goes through such measures to change her identity and thus life to try and make a world long past saving, a better place.

Bridging the Latin phrase to Colson Whitehead’s “Zone One” we can take a closer look at the naming of the novel’s main character “Mark Spitz”. Mark Spitz is the name of an Olympic swimmer from the 1970s, yet Whitehead’s main character in a post-apocalyptic world is purposely given this name. This “renaming” of individuals (both Alice and Mark) demonstrates the complexity of a name and the weight that it bears on our own identities. Just as the words in our languages are innumerable so are the individuals that these words pertain too. This concept of being “innumerable” is applied in Whitehead’s diction throughout his novel. Whiteheads vocabulary is so ridiculously expansive that you find yourself holding open a dictionary throughout your entire experience reading the novel just to understand the plot. Whitehead is so meticulous with his complicated word choice that he even utilizes words such as “defenestration” which literally means “the act of throwing something or someone out of a window”. It is with this absurd use of language that Whitehead makes his point within the novel not to forget the stories of the skels and thus those who are often disregarded. By using these uncommon words, Whiteheads brings them to the spotlight making the point that all words and thus individuals deserve to be acknowledged and known, and maybe even understood. Tying this back to “Zulus” we can compare Everett’s sarcastic use of language with Whitehead’s indirect complexity and purpose to his novel’s diction.

Both Percival Everett and Colson Whitehead expertly craft their prose to display deep and insightful themes that leave you questioning several aspects about society. It is with their love for language and cleverness that the reader is able to play a game of “catch” as they read their works, grasping at each clue and bread crumb that is left to analyze the bigger picture. Both “Zulus” and “Zone One” take place in post-apocalyptic settings as to invoke that things need to change in order to prevent the realities that these characters are living through. It is with carefully weaved language that the reader is able to digest and truly learn from the stories told by these authors; thus, the true power of words.

When you bury a loved one, you are able to respect them and have a tombstone with their name on it, but some people do not get this privilege. Although it seems so simple, to be able to have a tombstone, many African Americans were not fortunate enough to be remembered and respected how they deserved. This is also shown in Zone One, by Colson Whitehead. 

In Zone One, the readers do not figure out the main characters real name throughout the entire time. The nickname he is given is Mark Spitz, which we later find out was the name of a very famous olympic swimmer. Mark Spitz was described as average, “He was not made team captain, nor was he the last one picked. He sidestepped detention and honor rolls with equal aplomb… but his most appropriate designation would have been Most Likely Not to Be Named the Most Likely Anything, and this was not a category(Whitehead, 11).” This explains how Mark Spitz was considered mediocre which I found ironic. I found it ironic that the nickname given to him was Mark Spitz, since he was anything but mediocre. The olympic swimmer Mark Spitz, won nine gold medals and set up to thirty-five world records. But Mark Spitz name was deemed unimportant just like the “skels,” the skels were people as well and I think Mark Spitz, Kaitlyn, Gary, and the rest of the “pheenies” forget that. “He had a particular dislike for No Mas, who bragged around Wonton about his scrapbook of straggler humiliation(Whitehead, 142).” These hunters are taking pieces of these zombies as a trophy, they do not understand that at one point, and even still could be considered human and do not deserve to be treated with such disrespect. At first I forgot that they were humans at one point too, that was until I read, “Fifty-five? Can you look for IDs, Gary(Whitehead,34)?” This made me realize that they had to go through the person’s pockets and belongings to try and find some sort of identification to see who it was. I was shocked when I read this part because it did not register to me that these zombies had to have come from somewhere, they had to be people at one point of their lives. I believe that even the skels were disrespected when it came to being remembered. The skels were not given names, other than “skels,” they did not individually get remembered, after they were killed they were forgotten. They did not get a proper burial or even a tombstone with their name on it. 

While reading Zone One, all I could think about was the African Burial Ground National Monument. It is located in Lower Manhattan, New York City and is administered by the US National Park Service. According to the U.S General Services Administration, “GSA’s African Burial Ground project began in 1991, when, during a pre-construction work for a new federal office building, workers discovered the skeletal remains of the first of more than 400 men, women, and children. Investigations revealed that during the 17th and 18th centuries, free and enslaved Africans were buried in a 6.6 acre burial ground in lower Manhattan outside the boundaries of the settlement of New Amsterdam, which would become New York.” These bodies did not have names attached, no one knew who they were, their families did not know that they were buried at all. In class we watched a video showing us what the Memorial looked like and I noticed giant hills in the memorial, these hills were where so many bodies were buried, and no one knew who they were. It was crazy to me to know that these families did not get closure, because they did not know that their ancestors were even buried at all. “Over the decades, the unmarked cemetery was covered over by development and landfill. The finding deeply impacted the descendant and broader community and, at the same time, renewed awareness in cultural significance and historic preservation.” Building the Memorial was a step in the right direction, although these people were not given the respect they deserve, today people know how wrong it is to not recognize them at all. This is so similar to Zone One because no one realized that these are human beings too. When the African Americans passed away, they were not thought of as human beings so they were just thrown away and forgotten about. These African Americans were probably not respected as they were alive and they deserve to be at rest in peace, and remembered. 

The lack of respect from the African Americans in the burial ground can be compared to Fortune’s Bones and the lack of respect he had while alive and deceased. Throughout history African Americans are ridiculed, tortured and disrespected. With the African Burial Ground National Monument, it is a step to finally give them the respect and peace that they deserve.

What would the world we know be like if we experienced it without our senses? Nothing to hear or see, no smells to make our mouth water, unable to experience the thrills touch brings us, and food becoming tasteless. With this being said, it is understandable why the best most effective texts often incorporate vast and effective amounts of sensory into their descriptions. Sight allows us to visually understand our surroundings, express ourselves through objects and actions we are able to experience due to our eyes. Sound allows us to experience music, language, the sounds coming from our environment. Touch allows us to feel things and complete everyday tasks. Taste gives us motivation to eat certain foods. Smell fills our nostrils with the good and bad odors that surround us. All of these senses enhance our everyday lives. What’s also amazing about humans is that when one sense is taken away the others become keener. When the use of sensory words is applied the descriptions are enhanced and the meaning of the book can be more clearly understood in many cases.

 Using the texts I have studied during my time in this English class, I have complied a list of ways these senses have enhanced the meanings of the novels we have read. In Clay’s Ark by Octavia E. Butler, there was a disease that each member of an enclave had contracted and continued to spread. When the disease began to take over parts of their brain, there senses were stimulated and enhanced. This sensory enhancement was an important part of the book when it came to how the infected were feeling especially in comparison with the uninfected humans they were surrounded by. One of the characters informed another; “We read body language. We see things you wouldn’t even notice- things we didn’t notice before” (Butler, 486). In addition to enhanced sight with the ability to more quickly recognize body language and the meaning behind it as well as see clearly in the dark, the infected could hear much more keenly, and smell things humans would never even consider to have a specific smell like when a woman is at the stage of the month where she is most fertile. Their sense of smell also allowed them to distinguish who else was contaminated with the disease and what stage they were in, and who was uninfected. Their taste preferences also morphed in such a way that raw meat became desirable and the amount that they ate increased tenfold. The children that the infected population produced had senses even keener than their parents. The kids were more animal like in their features and have what we seem to consider more animal instincts and senses. Their hearing, sight, smell, and tastes gave them more animal like abilities. By explaining all of these sensory changes in the text it allowed the reader to have a better understanding of what the infected population was experiencing which in turn enhanced the overall effectiveness of the text in being able to rely certain themes and messages. In another book, Home by Toni Morrison, the main character, Frank Money, had been affected by his past traumas in such a way that in times of stress would alter his vision. His vision would go from vibrant and colorful then turn into a black and white scenery. In one scene when this happened to Frank, he was “just sitting next to a brightly dressed woman. Her flowered skirt was a world’s worth of color, her blouse a loud red. Frank watched the flowers at the hem of her skirt blackening and her red blouse draining of color until it was white as milk,” and the world became devoid of color (Morrison, 23). Then later, when the world had become black and white through his vision, “whatever the world’s palette, his shame and its fury exploded,” meaning that all the color reentered into his world (Morrison, 24).

The book Zulus by Percival Everett was heavily filled with descriptive language. One reoccurring theme I noticed throughout the novel was the importance placed on the color white and how the color was altered and effected depending on the situations. The white was described inside and outside of buildings and even to aid in explaining the feelings of emotions. The main character, Alice, describes a scene where the a building was “sickly white and clear, reflecting the sky’s hue” which was pink in color, meaning that the building had been painted white but was tinted with the pink from the sky, no longer pure (Everett, 143). This being said, it seems that most of the buildings looked this way in the tinted world. At one point Alice discovered “the one white building looked white” (Everett, 81). Later in the story, Alice was captured and beheaded by a woman running a rebel community named Rema. When Alice was exposed to what was called the Body room Alice noticed that “the white wall behind Body-woman Rima seeming more than white” (Everett, 105). The novel also uses the color white to aid in expressing Alice’s emotions. Fear and pain are described as “[flashing] white through Alice,” a few times in the book (Everett, 176).

Without our senses life would be dull just like books without descriptive words using senses would be much less enjoyable. The tastes, smells, sights and colors, feelings, and sounds of the world change our perspective. They change our experiences. They make the world better.