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The specific passage I chose from the book is, ‘I had seen people beaten on television and in the movies. I had seen the too-red blood substitute streaked across their backs and heard their well-rehearsed screams. But I hadn’t lain nearby and smelled their sweat or heard them pleading and praying, shamed before their families and themselves. I was probably less prepared for the reality than the child crying not far from me.’
This passage is describing the scene where the main character, Dana, is on the way to Alice’s house to get help and ask for a shelter. On the way there, she hides in fear, from a group of white people passing by her on horses. As she arrives at Alice’s house, she realizes that the people have also arrived at the same location as her. They drag everyone out of the house- Alice and Alice’s parents. They soon demand to see Alice’s father’s free pass (since slaves needed passes to visit their homes), however when he says he has lost it, they cruelly beat him up after tying him on a tree. Dana, who is watching this from a distant is reminded of ‘Ku Klux Klan’ and mentions it during the story.
Reading this passage, I thought that I would’ve felt the same as Dana or worse, if I were in the same situation. The story described that her stomach heaved and she had an urge to vomit. As she had stated in the passage, ‘I was probably less prepared for the reality than the child crying not far from me’, although many people are familiar with violence over the television or by movies, we probably cannot understand it as serious as it actually is from the perspective of those who have traumatically experienced them in their lives. As I was reading this passage, I thought that the book was reminding the readers from our perspectives, that the issues and violence that often comes up in movies are actually real, and as serious as they are, or more than they seem. The book goes over these life-threatening events from the perspective of a person who has never really imagined that they would ever face them, like most people, and like what I’ve been thinking. If we ever faced these issues like Dana has, how serious would we have been about them, compared to how much we care now? The passage made me question many things, like how serious I am about current issues. Although I haven’t read the whole book yet, reading this passage, I thought the purpose of time travel was to give readers a view from our perspectives, what if we were in those situations back then, how serious these issues would’ve been, and how similar issues are currently going around in the world. However, although we do care about these issues, most people certainly care less than if we were to have been the victims of these issues. I think this passage could relate to not only racial discrimination and violence but also other issues like bullying.
One of the current issues I found is in the US, was related to racism. There were many incidents where many young black men were killed by police officers, and that studies showed that young black men had a rate 9 times higher than other Americans to be killed by police officers. In 2015, black people were killed twice the rate of white people, although 25 percent of the African Americans were unarmed, when 17 percent of white people were.
During 1815 (the time period I chose the passage from), Native and black Americans had the least privileges. Black slaves weren’t considered as human beings, but more as property. Even free black people were greatly limited to rights and freedoms. (just like how Alice’s family was beaten in the book, although they were free). The Native Americans lost their traditional lands and lifestyles. In the book, all black people, even if you were free, had to call white people ‘masters’.
I also wanted to research more about ‘Ku Klux Klan’, when it was mentioned in the story, because I wasn’t quite sure of what it was. Although Ku Klux Klan was mentioned once in the story, I thought it was important because Dana thought that the situation was similar to ‘Ku Klux Klan’, and I wanted to find out more about it, and how serious slavery was back then.
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan was extremism in America. It was first founded by six confederate veterans on December 24th, 1865 and August 1866 in the town of Pulaski, Tennessee. It was formed as a secret social group, however soon turned to intimidating newly freed African Americans. They terrorized and sometimes murdered former slaves while riding at night. They supported white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-immigration, and expressed them through terrorism and extreme violence many times in the past. The three main movements of the group in history that were founded were in the Southern United States in 1865, in 1915, and after 1950. Their targets were mainly people who opposed, mostly black and white republicans, calling this process as the ‘purification’ of the American society. The first two words of the group name means ‘circle’ as the Greek word, ‘Kuklos’, and the last word means ‘clan’. Other names for the group have been ‘White Brotherhood, Heroes of America, Constitutional Union Guards, and Invisible Empire’.
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