How Easily History Can Be Erased
At the end of the Novel, Kevin and Dana return to what once was the plantation they spent so much time on, to find nothing there. “As nearly as we could tell, its site was now covered by a broad field of corn. The house was dust, like Rufus” (Butler 262). That really struck me because it is really easy for this history to either be completely erased or to become romanticized. The problematic “plantation weddings” come to mind, where people get married on these gorgeous southern properties that used to be the site of the horrors that Dana and Kevin witnessed during their time spent in 1815.
This moment where Dana and Kevin arrive to find a field where the plantation once was strongly reminded me of my experience on the Habitat trip in Mississippi. On our first day in Mississippi, Mr. Sutton drove us around Clarksdale to talk about the local history of the area. He talked about class distinctions to help us understand the socioeconomic structure of the area to explain the importance of the work that we were doing. But he also went into the history and told stories about racial incidents that had happened there. One of the stories he told was about how a black man was elected sheriff during the Reconstruction era, and was later driven out of town by the white folks. I remember looking around at what were essentially empty fields and tried to process the fact that all of these honestly horrifying events and racial crimes had happened in these places that look so unassuming now. It’s amazing how easily history like this can be erased and forgotten. Mr. Sutton also mentioned that he had to do extensive research to find these stories because they weren’t well documented and thus essentially erased from history.
In class, we touched on how this book was written around the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and could definitely be making a statement about the part of American history that far too often gets swept under the rug. This is certainly still true today, 40 years after the novel was written. While slavery and this early history of America are taught and being recognized, there are still many (particularly those in the South) who wish to pretend that it didn’t happen. You can see it in those who still fly confederate flags and argue that the Civil War was about states’ rights, not slavery. Yet the impact of this history, though maybe disguised, is still visible in the ancestors and people who are still living in these communities. Dana and Kevin also note that if they tried to share their experiences nobody would believe them and that all of that history essentially died with the people there. I would imagine, without people like Mr. Sutton who really dig to find these stories, there are many other stories like Dana’s experience, that died with those who lived it.
In general, Kindred showed me how we don't like to recognize our problematic past as a country. The ending scene where Dana sees the plantation is gone without a trace strikes that point even further home. Kindred was published in 1979, only about ten years after the Civil Rights movement. After "solving" racism, I'm sure white people were ready to brush it all under the rug and pretend none of it ever happened now that they had the Civil Rights Act in place. And to some extent, we did. Our horrific history has been romanticized to the point where yes, plantation weddings are a thing. Talk about romanticizing! People who have their weddings at a plantation usually say they respect and love the "history" of the place, which just makes me so uncomfortable. "History" just isn't the right word to use here -- it implies some interesting cute period in time, but slavery was anything but that. It just goes to show how easily real history is erased in favor of a history that's easier to stomach. It's a created history that white people enjoy: they like visiting plantations and reading the history. At the end of the day their understanding of slavery stops them from fully comprehending the horror of plantations (and especially of the massive beautiful plantations they all like so much, as those definitely had even more slaves behind them). We've erased parts of history which is why we end up with people who just enjoy plantations' "history." So yes, it certainly is easy to erase history. Easier than we'd like, probably.
ReplyDeleteClaiming that the Confederate battle flag is one of "heritage" or that the Civil War was about "state's rights" is a joke through and through, and the people who fly it know that, especially the ones who love to fly it in the North. I feel like that one's not even about pretending that nothing happened, it's about signaling which side you actually preferred. On the other hand, on some level, it's about pretending to pretend that nothing happened, about referring in history books to the "War of Northern Aggression". Certainly the disappearance of the plantation from the 1970s US is a very calculated move by Butler, as the effects of their time on the plantation haunt Dana and Kevin.
ReplyDeleteThere's a stark contrast between the "erasure" of any trace of the Weylin plantation and the loss of Dana's arm: the one suggests how "invisible" this painful history can be, how easy to literally overlook or ignore, while Dana's disfigurement reflects a permanent and lasting *personal* scarring. She carries the wound (figuratively speaking) even as the landscape seems to tuck that history safely away in the past.
ReplyDeleteI think Butler was very intentional in placing that scene where Dana and Kevin return to the plantation at the end of the novel. Just like the plantation, in the present, seems completely normal, it was anything but normal during the slavery era. This is analogous to the US, and specifically of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, as you mentioned. It's so easy for people to overlook the horrifying past and to only remember the "good parts" of history.
ReplyDeleteThat final scene definitely brought back memories of the Habitat trip tour with Mr. Sutton. There was so much history in that area that we would've had no idea about if we had just driven past those fields. It makes me wonder about Champaign-Urbana too, and if there's hidden history in our cornfields too.
ReplyDeleteYour post reminded me of a family vacation I took to Louisiana two years ago, where we went to tour an old plantation. I remember learning that the plantation we went to was a novelty in the area, because it was focused exclusively on the history of slavery in the area, rather than a romanticized view of the Old South and the beautiful plantation. At the time, I thought it was strange that a plantation museum wouldn't discuss slavery - honestly, I didn't even understand how that could be the case - but since then it's become clearer to me. Like the end of Kindred, I think the majority of that area was actively choosing to minimize the influence of slavery in their history, in favor of beautiful grounds and "plantation weddings" and all that nonsense.
ReplyDeleteThe convoluted thing is that I feel like the Confederate flag has legitimately taken on a guise of representing states' rights, or at least individual rights. Like, there should be no reason that I know multiple people who have them on the back windows of their trucks and stuff. I know we as Uni students are incapable of dissociating the flag from slavery, but it is insane that there are people living so close to us who can do that pretty easily. But are these people racist just by association? I honestly don't think so, or at least not what we would consider "Southern racist." It just doesn't feel right to remove the part of the flag associated with slavery, because that's all of the history and fighting just getting completely ignored. But still, it's bizarre how we've gotten to this point.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your point about hidden history in the fields of Mississippi. It made me think about the Elaine, Arkansas massacre in 1919, where hundreds of black sharecroppers were brutally murdered and displaced from their homes. This event was hidden from the South's mainstream historical narrative for nearly a century, and only recently have historians and politicians acknowledged its significance. Despite the intergenerational trauma and hardship left in the wake of the Elaine masscre, it was so easy to pretend like nothing had ever happened. (Meanwhile, white tourists enjoy vacations in refurbished sharecroppers' shacks to "get a feel for the past", ew)
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of good points you've made here and I agree - history can very easily be forgotten, and the kind of history that gets remembered and questions about that are very much an element of postmodernism as well. I'm writing this after having read a few of people's final projects, and I'm just honestly really struck by how many different stories people choose to tell, from different angles, at different times, in different ways. We're all the carriers of history - it can be forgotten, but each of us telling stories can collectively add to sharing new perspectives and not letting the past be forgotten.
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