White people at best incredulous to see Black folk, most offensively racist and a large portion of those met murderously so … on sight. Sundown towns as places in the Midwest to northeast where it literally meant laws on the books to hang a Black person there after sundown … that sort of thing.
Slavery in Massachusetts was effectively ended by a series of court decisions by 1783, and the 1790 census officially listed 0 slaves in the state. But I would think a sorcerer who scoffs at the laws of God and Nature would be equally dismissive of the laws of Man. Braithwaite might well have secretly kept slaves even after it became illegal - it wouldn’t even have been his worst secret.
Sundown towns definitely did exist in the Midwest and Northeast up through the 1960s. Maybe not “lynch on sight”, but threats of violence, hostility, even formal ordinances and posted signs, definitely. A black person caught after sundown would most likely be hassled, assaulted, fined, thrown in jail, run out of town, or literally thrown out of town rather than murdered, but, yes, absolutely a thing, even in Massachusetts.
Not all rural counties or small towns in New England were sundown communities, and not all New Englanders were racists, and not all cops were murderous, of course. Maybe even most weren’t - but they did exist.
Also, keep in mind, this is Lovecraft Country. The book and the series are reacting to H.P. Lovecraft’s visionary cosmic horror, but also to his racism, which was fairly extreme even for his time and place. Even if the level and extent of the racism portrayed exaggerates the racism found in the region in the real world, and I’m not sure that it does, it almost certainly does not exaggerate the level of racism H.P. Lovecraft personally would have wanted to exist.
I’ve never read any H.P. Lovecraft, but have been reading about him and, wow, he really was a racist asshole.
I cannot disagree with that. And as an artistic bit, in a book anyway, having the premise being that these characters are being placed into the hellscape that was contained in Lovecraft’s mind, with his personal racism being an evil more malignant than the monsters he dreamt up, works as a premise.
I can get that, intellectually. But hitting over the head this hard reduces the potential strength of that message.
Fair enough.
It’s also probably worth noting that Lovecraft’s racism was the racism of a genteel New England WASP of the early 20th Century, which means it didn’t match up with what we usually think of in the early 21st Century. He was absolutely a white supremacist, but “white” to him meant specifically “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.” Most of his racial animus was actually directed against groups that most 21st Century racists would probably consider to be fellow whites - Eastern and Southern European Catholics.
I really like Scary Magic White Girl. She has this passive air of you do NOT want to fuck with me that I think fits the role very well.
As a black guy I’m really used to watching stuff (tv, movies, video games, etc.) where everyone darker than a paper bag is portrayed as a “bad guy” regardless of how unrealistic the premise. After decades of this I have become quite desensitized to this type of depiction and I don’t typically let it effect me too badly. I find Lovecraft Country to be somewhat unique in that this dynamic has been flipped such that damn near all of the white people with speaking parts are portrayed as (at best) loathsome individuals.
If I was a white person watching this type of thing for the first time I imagine I would feel some kinda way if I couldn’t find at least one person on the side of right, who looked like me that I could possibly relate to. I figure it would feel like the show is trying to send a message in a heavy handed manner that would have me all up in my feelings.
That being said, as a black guy I am loving this shit! The simple fact that white folks aren’t automatically considered good, moral, or correct is refreshing. Usually period pieces like this that involve black folk go way overboard in depicting various white saviors to the point where the good white people feel anachronistic.
I understand what you are saying. But your interpretation of my critique is why I was, honestly, reluctant to share it. It isn’t up in my feelings. I don’t even feel it is trying to send a message. It really is the same sense as my discomfort with Hunters (in which the good guys looked like me): mixing up real horrific historical realities with comic book villain stylings of it, to some degree exploiting it, ends up, I fear, doing a disservice to keeping the real history alive and believed and important.
I think my sense of Hunters was a minority view and likely I am a minority view here too …
My sincere apologies but I was not trying to interpret your feelings.I was just trying to put myself in your shoes and figure out how I would feel based off of my past experiences.
You get to think, feel and believe whatever makes sense to you and I apologize if my reply didn’t convey that effectively.
And just so I am clear, I do think the creators are trying to send a message by inverting the typical hero/villain dynamic then leaning on it so heavily. And I can totally understand how and why some folks can feel some kinda way about that and they’re not necessarily wrong for feeling that way.
I like the way the show subverts expectations. There was one white guy dancing at the housewarming party, and I thought, “Oh, we’re definitely going see that guy again!” Nope!
Hi Ike - please, more than anything, I want you to feel welcome to my Dope.
MiM
Uh, whut?
I haven’t seen Hunters, but I do agree with your comments about Lovecraft Country–specifically what I bolded in the quote.
I’m watching LC with interest and enjoying a lot of it. But I’d see it as wish fulfillment disguised as social commentary: the characters of the “right” race are uniformly smart and decent and brave and good, and the characters of the “wrong” race are consistently either evil or creepy-weird.
It’s easy to see why the show’s reversal of the bad old bigoted entertainment tropes would feel like water in the desert for people who’ve endured decades of unflattering depictions, alternating with invisibility. It’s easy to sympathize with people’s enjoyment of that, and I don’t criticize those who welcome it.*
But the racial stereotyping is ultimately fake. It panders. It doesn’t challenge or engage.
Maybe I’m more disturbed by this because of the particular era of history we’re now dealing with. A ginning-up of separatist hate seems less-than-useful in the present climate.
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*I’m certainly not calling for people to avoid the show, much less complaining about HBO’s choice to present it. But on the other hand, I’m not sure I’d recommend the show.
I don’t think this is correct. I think the show is much, much closer (minus the magic and demons and ghosts) to reality than most depictions of the era. Decent white people probably really were quite rare, in the experiences of many or most black people, at the time. Is it really surprising to you if, in the 50s, a black family’s interactions with white people are mostly negative, and often even very dangerous? It’s not too me. Maybe not every black family at the time had such experiences, but many almost certainly did.
“Quite rare”—very possibly. But ‘entirely non-existent’?
As an example of what I see as pandering: the scenes of white neighbors looking disapprovingly at the multitude of vehicles arriving for Letitia’s housewarming party. In reality, wouldn’t most neighbors look askance at a noisy party----no matter the races of the people involved?
But the show, pandering away, depicts the whites as vicious bigots who ‘naturally’ react with breaking-and-entering, to be followed, one assumes, by violence against the virtuous.
This, again, may seem like ‘turnabout is fair play’ to a lot of viewers, and I can understand that kind of reaction. I can empathize with it.
I’m just refraining from applauding the divisiveness. We’re seeing so much 'the races are distinct and can NEVER get along’ propaganda from the Kremlin and its allies, now, that I can’t welcome more of it from HBO.
I don’t see it ginning up separatist hate at all.
I only watched the first three so far and the third’s portrayal of segregated Chicago neighborhoods with complicit police and the nature of the villain of the ep all were fine given a horror show.
It was really the second ep with the comic book version of sundown towns and the diner that pinged me, I think.
Mod Note: Let’s leave the Kremlin out of the Café discussions please.
Excellent topic for a different thread in a different forum.
Thank you.
Given the highly segregated nature of most of the country then? To interact with maybe. Of course they were there but they weren’t much of the experienced reality. The explicit racists OTOH were hard to not see.
Right. Where would the Freeman family have come across “nice” White people, in the non supernatural situations they’ve come across so far? Driving cross country? Stopping at new towns they (and the Black folks they know) have never been to? Being pulled over by small town cops? Moving into an all white neighborhood?
Maybe it’s possible that sometimes they’d happen to run into a decent White person. Like Lydia’s diner, before the racists burned out down. But the vast majority of the time those interactions would be negative, ISTM.
A look at the Forum Rules for this sub-forum raises more questions than it answers. I’ve posted discussion in the About This Message Board sub-forum. I’ll edit in a link.
ETA: Is there a way to include a link to the About This thread WITHOUT it actually showing part of the thread?
I don’t want to violate the rule about not discussing moderation in the thread itself—that was the entire point of putting the reply in About This Message Board!