(Im)Possibilities

Throughout Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas, Solnit and Snedeker present various color maps which simultaneously reveal details about both New Orleans geography and culture, many of which contradict each other in subtle ways. Whether it be map 11 showing the locations of seafood shacks contrasted with nightclub and brothel locations, or map 16 showing key locations of music development juxtaposed with types of sediment, both maps paint New Orleans as dirty, but also as a hotbed of cultural development. The map from chapter 11 also gives locations of where Judeo-Christian televangelists were caught with prostitutes, which paints a more accurate picture of where these money making preachers’ morality often times truly lies. Esteemed members of the church getting caught with prostitutes dirties the church’s reputation which is the only counterbalance for New Orleans’ moral sanctity against prostitution and political corruption.

In chapter 11, readers learn that “one out of every seventy jobs in the Pelican State is seafood related” (Solnit and Snedeker, p. 84). As a result of the BP oil disaster, seafood prices rose as much as $3 in some instances. While this is not a problem for the allochthonous tourists, who are able to spend their outside money on both seafood and prostitution/nightlife(alcohol consumption) at higher rates when on vacation, the everyday, working class New Orleans citizens have to pay these absorbent prices regularly. BP, a company not even based in the US, nevermind New Orleans, reap the economic benefits of New Orleans natural resources (oil) while burdening the city’s everyday citizens with the dirty, polluted aftermath. The Atlas mentions people having to eat shrimp that have tumors, while paying more for them.

Prostitution and corruption represent New Orleans’ lack of moral cleanliness, while the marshy swamps, increasing sea level and results of both Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill left literal dirt. Whether it be the influence global climate change has on New Orleans, or the allochthonous industry titans like BP which ravaged the Gulf of Mexico, it is outside activity that has devastated New Orleans’ fragile ecosystems which the locals rely on for life, and leisure. Tourists bolster New Orleans illegal prostitution industry which exploits its sex workers (disproportionately black and transgendered workers report the most abuse). Out of this muck however, a multicultural society with a thriving nightlife, food industry, and music scene has blossomed. This pursuit of leisure, in concert with the prevalence of crucial natural resources, is what ironically attracts the allochthonous people in the first place. Shutting down these cultural and literal borders would preserve New Orleans’ longevity, however, this would simultaneously trap them, which seems to be a trope which will be revisited throughout the semester.

One important aspect I found when reading Solnit and Snedeker’s Unfathomable City was the apparent racial tension in the city after Katrina. There was an obvious boundary that law enforcement, government officials, and the media put between African American citizens and white citizens resulting in murder, hysteria, and moral ambiguity in a time when altruism was as valuable as currency. This boundary produced armed stand-offs between police and African Americans, botched autopsies, and the outright murder of African Americans who were only trying to help their families, such as Donnell Herrington.

After discussing Steve Prince’s “Katrina’s Veil: Stand at the Gretna Bridge” and Francisco Goya’s “Third of May 1808” in class, the boundary between light and dark, black and white, again, stood out to me.

Continue reading “The Boundary Between Light and Darkness”

Upon reading Nyong’o’s “Black Survival in the Uchromatic Dark”, I find myself returning to a notion that was introduced to me in Dr. Cooper’s American Literature course at the start of this semester–a notion that George Mason University Professor Alison Landsberg calls “prosthetic memory”. Continue reading “The Danger in Prosthetic Memory”

In Solnit and Snedeker’s Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas, “Snakes and Ladders” is a New Orleans map which geographically locates and symbolically categorizes acts by civilians and law enforcement into ladders – “acts of rescue and solidarity” – and snakes – acts of “sabotage of survival” – in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (128-129). Discussing this map, Solnit points to the gross abuse of power by law enforcement, and their attempts to maintain control of a dismantled city through horrifying and unethical acts of harm ranging from police shootings of unarmed citizens to the abandonment of prisoners in a flooded prison.  Continue reading “Snakes and Ladders – The Place of Water”

Hello again everyone. Before I continue with part two of, “Autonomy. Is it achievable?”, here is a link to part one. https://morrison.sunygeneseoenglish.org/2018/01/27/autonomy-is-it-achievable/.

Before we begin with the second part of this post, I would like to acknowledge that I may be going into unnecessary depths as to the topic discussed in class. I acknowledged that I have not sufficiently linked this to the course aside from what we discussed during that one class time. The reason that I am writing this post regardless is that it is a topic that greatly intrigues me. I find that I am not only able to write about this topic in quantity, but in depth as well. Therefore, despite this post not being sufficiently linked to the course texts, I am posting my thoughts with the knowledge that my upcoming posts will make up for this deficiency.

Getting back to the post at hand, I would like to re-discuss and add onto the hypothetical of a a person kicking a chair. I like to expand upon this with a new hypothetical in which the blame is not as close in time with the end result. Imagine a situation in which a company releases a dangerous product, knowing that it can cause potential harm. To further explain, if a product has a faulty piece that could lead to a person being harmed, do we blame the user for buying the product, or do we blame the company for their negligence? Continue reading “Autonomy. Is it achievable? Part two.”

Dictionary.com defines autonomy as, “independence or freedom, as of the will or one’s actions”, “the condition of being autonomous; self-government or the right of self-government”, and, “a self governing community.” The definition that I would like to focus on is the first of these three. However, before even discussing this definition, I want to illustrate just how complex the words, “independence” and “freedom” are. Dictionary.com defines independence as, “freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others”, and defines freedom as, “exemption from the external control, interference, regulation, etc.” Therefore, autonomy is alternatively defined as being in a state devoid of influence regardless of whether that influence takes a positive, negative, or neutral form. However, is this level of self-control even possible? Continue reading “Autonomy. Is it achievable?”

Since I’m familiar with the blog assignment, because I’ve taken a few classes with Beth before, I thought maybe I’d start off the conversation specifically related to ENGL 432. I know we haven’t delved too far into the course readings, but I thought that I could provide some useful thoughts on some of the introductory discussions we’ve had and an interesting piece of news I came across today. Continue reading “What Gets Churned Up?”