ENGL 2016: What is the Black Gothic?

  Joshua Owusu  Ms.Harris  Engl-2016  December 2nd ,2021  Black Gothic/ Forceful Violation  What is black gothic? On my first day in African American literature, I constantly asked myself this question. If I am being one hundred percent honest, black gothic has so many meanings to me. However, I define black gothic as the capitalization of African American fears in America, and the traumatization of it. The main focus of today's blog is that I will be going over the figurations of forcible violations in beloved between women and men, even between Paul D and Beloved, and how that can relate to black gothic. Also how it connects to real-world situations and actions.  You could say that Beloved is haunted by the history and memory of forcible violation. The depictions and allusion of forcible violation, that in some way even explains Sethe’s story. In the book, Paul D had to endure being forced onto by beloved, and that can be a late trauma that was going...

  Richard Grant II Ms. Harris Engl 2016-44378 2 December 2021 Black Gothic Symbolism Black gothic literature provides supernatural reasonings that highlight contemporary issues and concerns that can be beyond our understanding. The settings of a novel can provide a sense of clarity but it leaves a missing aspect that symbolism provides. Symbolism plays a role in how something is narrated based on its deeper concepts. The complexity of symbolism is essential to black gothic elements but are often overshadowed by traumatic events within novels. Sing, Unburied, Sing: Animals and humans were present for Jojo specifically because of his attraction to nature. Jojo was given a gris-gris bag which provided him a sense of comfort and protection from the world. The symbolism within the three characters: Jojo, Pops, and Richie are displayed by being dead or alive. Parchman is the prison that many of the characters were imprisoned at throughout the story. Parchman is a working farm structured ...

  Ms.Harris ENGL 2016-44378 12-3-21 Reid Guirlando Love is dangerous I believed there is a potential correlation between the way that slaves lived in a relationship stand point with the way African American's lives in a relationship today in modern day. Slaves went through some of the worst of history, They were used and mistreated for years and was subject to horrible activities. They were taken and traded away from their home country and brought to a new land. The passage alone just to get to the United states was hell but that was just the start of what was yet to come. While here, they were overworked, beaten, slaughtered, malnourished and completely mistreated physically in every way imaginable. Not only were they abused physically, but emotionally and psychologically. Being a slave has so many challenges, and there are multiple of those challenges that has affected modern day life's of African Americans. Back in the slaves time, a dangerous challenge was simply love, gett...

KenDarrius Williams ENGL2016-44378 Ms. Harris 12/3/21 Blog Post             Supernatural is a fundamental part of making black gothic feel authentic as it captivates its readers with horror and thriller elements. The supernatural in black gothic can be used to enhance storytelling in certain qualities that might not be easily understood if said without these elements. However, even though having these elements are important in black gothic, supernatural is often overlooked because of religious backgrounds, or because of people’s fear of the unknown.             Creating an ambiance of fear, mysteriousness, and having volumes of darkness are baseline presets in making black gothic feel authentic. Manifestations of the supernatural in black gothic are events that are beyond scientific understanding such as ghosts, superpowers, black and dark magic, hauntings, demonic p...

Misogynoir Dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against black women. “Misogynoir shows how sexism and racism manifest in black women’s lives to create intersecting forms of oppression” Moya Bailey first coined the term “misogynoir,” she defined it as the ways anti-Black and misogynistic representation shape broader ideas about Black women, particularly in visual culture and digital spaces. While trying to understand “What Is the Black Gothic” it was triggering and almost unbearable reading about the mistreatment and oppression of black women. Not only are black woman oppressed by slavery, the afterlife of slavery, racial capitalism, and other systemic oppressors. We are also oppressed by our black male counterparts. Stories like Native Son , Beloved , and Sing Unburied Sing are fictional stories but mirror the existence of everyday black women.  Today’s black women are oppressed in an almost futuristic way with technology, especially in media and digital spaces. The ...

  India Williams 1 December 2021 J. Harris ENG 2016 Blog Post How Capitalism plays a major role in The Black Gothic? In this blog post, there will be plenty of bashing of white people, I want it to be clear it is not from a personal vendetta, my facts will be solely based on proven historical events and communal experiences black people share in this country. It is logical for capitalism to be the longest-standing assault on people of color in America, it contributes to The Black Gothic as a, if not the reason most black people live the nightmare of the uncertainty of their financial future today. Capitalism started in America as slavery, it can be considered twenty-first-century slavery even. Slavery is nothing new, it is a tale as old as time, when power-seeking people feel they are better than others they oppress their “lesser” peers, henceforth the ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, and in America’s case slavery. Capitalism is a key focus in the black gothic because it inst...