Harvesting out body parts as relics was commonplace for notorious criminals, and is tethered to burial legends associated with Turner’s interrment.
Further proof that no information can truly be hidden from the public; even as Nat Turner and the rebels were wiped from history, their legacy lived on forever.
even hurried his executioner in the performance of his duty!
Perhaps this is because of the idea that those who are dead protect those who still live.
which had grown to over 70 people
All the rebellion needed to start was a leader, which ended up being Nat Turner.
In February 1831, Nat witnessed a solar eclipse, which he interpreted as a sign from God to carry out his plan
Is this why Baker often uses the shadow of the moon to indicate time passing?
Nat’s family and community believed he was a blessed child. He had particular markings on his body that his grandmother identified as divine. Anecdotes say he knew about past events that were never told to him, and he experienced several visions that solidified his belief that he was chosen by God to fight.
This just goes to show how impactful it is to raise a child in a nuanced way. By raising Nat Turner to believe that he was special and destined for more, Turner was able to lead a revolutionary slave rebellion.
This absence provides steep challenges for scholars, who have very little traditional evidence to consult.
This statement circles back to the trend of slaveholders to ban education among their slaves; the absence of traditional evidence allowed works like "The Confessions of Nat Turner" to depict Turner as a madman, thus belittling the movement that he fought for.
Denmark Vesey, a free black man from Charleston, South Carolina, plans a revolution in which enslaved blacks will kill their masters and escape to Haiti. The plan leaks, and as a result, 35 blacks are hanged at the gallows.
This timeline exemplifies the bravery of Nat Turner. Turner knew about the failures of the past, but went through with the rebellion anyway, because there was a chance that maybe his bravery could bring about equality.
in an attempt to blot out their existence
Could this be a repetition of history? Denying the slaves access to education backfires on the slaveholders in the past, but they still try to hold power over others by retaining information from the masses.
Nat was trusted, he was literate, and he was becoming more aware of the hypocritical world he lived in
Irony lies in the fact that they had Nat preach in order to strengthen their justification of slavery, but instead weakened their hold on the slave population by allowing the education of the leader of the rebellion, Nat Turner. This irony parallels the perverse, backwards thinking of slavery.
As Nat preached, his perception sharpened, as the abuse he witnessed further rendered slavery an unnecessary evil, and undoubtedly inspired much reflection
Baker emphasizes this point in Nat Turner by displaying different kinds of abuse that slaves suffered and the reasons for it.
140
"Traditional thinking has long held..." suggests that McCloud values the opposite, of literature and images together (which makes sense, since he's written and illustrated a graphic novel). McCloud argues that images and literature can strengthen each other and bring about a deeper meaning to the work.
Only if we recognize the racism that is slavery’s residue as intrinsic to our society’s structure, can we as a people have any hope of undoing its many troubling effects.
Contrary to Roxane Gay's piece, Lightfoot argues that representation of slavery and its stickiness in today's society is essential to the healing of our culture, while Gay argues that we must move forward instead of constantly looking to the past, in order for the minorities of the US to advance in terms of social justice and equality.
the trouble of anchoring too many of the too rare roles for actors of color in the dehumanizing servitude required for portraying slave experiences
I've always wondered this too... Although the story of slavery and emancipation is an important one that must be told, it also keeps the wounds open for actors of color, limiting them to a select few roles, thus limiting their freedom in the name of freedom itself.
We should not draw a strict boundary between the historical struggles of black people, in particular the horrors of enslavement, and the multilayered forms of injustice still unfolding today.
This statement echoes the argument made in Roxane Gay's "I Don't Want To Watch Slavery Fan Fiction."
we face the imminent danger of all manner of bad history repeating itself while we watch it on TV.
Gay argues that in such troubled times, it's the responsibility of TV show writers to instead write about a hopeful future tat solves problems, instead of reiterating and promoting inflagration of the issues we already know too well.
We do not make art in a vacuum isolated from sociopolitical context.
This circles back to "The Practices of Looking" by Sturken and Cartwright which presents the idea of mimesis, or in other words, imitation between life and the media, and between the media and life.
found a way to reimagine history in speculative fiction without making slavery into an intellectual exercise rather than plainly showing it as the grossly oppressive institution it was
This clarifies the statement that I disagreed with earlier, and now I completely agree with the author. Simply putting forth representations of slavery doesn't do much good... It must challenge the world we live in today.
largely replicates what actually happened, I wonder why people are expending the energy to imagine that slavery continues to thrive when we are still dealing with the vestiges of slavery in very tangible ways.
I disagree with this statement. While I don't deny that "we are still dealing with the vestiges of slavery in very tangible ways," I see the reimagining in media as showing others through a new lens how people today still live and feel. I see it as a help, instead of a hindrance.
quiet, insidious acts of violence, reminders that racial hatred is alive and well.
These nooses have been hanging from trees every since the Klu Klux Klan- a sad reminder that we may never heal from the wounds of the past. Just like the masks of the '60s, the racists today hide behind anonymity because they know that what they're doing is wrong, but don't want to face their own ignorance.
They were not the first nor will they be the last to resist acknowledging that the Confederacy lost the Civil War.
This is an interesting way to think about how hate of this manner still survives today through the expression of Civil War memorabilia. Personally, I think that their racism shouldn't inherently be linked to the Civil War; to me, it gives blame to historical figures long gone and takes blame away from those living today and oppressing others, however, it links white supremacists with the image of stupidity and patheticness, which I kind of like
I suppose it’s an interesting premise, but as is often the case with interesting premises, at what cost?
I'm intrigued by this statement, because it reminds me that different people interpret works different ways. What some might take as a cautionary tale, others might take as inspiration. It's also dangerous for the writer/artist, as the work might subconsciously reveal the prejudices within the artist him/herself.