A lot of the white women I know mean well. But they don’t realize they’re mostly mean. That’s what ignorance does – it keeps you small-minded and unable to consider experiences outside of your own. Even if you mean well. A film many wouldn’t consider horror but I certainly do is The Family Stone. In it, Sarah Jessica Parker depicts the perfect example of someone who means well but mostly comes across as mean with her character Meredith. Instead of listening and getting curious about the family she’s never met, she makes wild assumptions about a deaf man’s capabilities, an interracial couple’s experience, the experience of being a queer child, and the expectations set in large families. She didn’t ask. She didn’t listen. She spoke over everyone and looked down on them. It wasn’t until her sister arrived that Meredith had an example of how to conduct herself at a function that wasn’t hers. An example of this in a movie that’s accepted as horror is Kate Hudson’s Caroline in The Skeleton Key. Whether or not you think the film is good, the premise relies on a uniquely American white savior complex. Similarly to Allison Williams’ Rose Armitage in Get Out, Caroline begins her hospice aid job in a rundown plantation home as though she’s protecting her charge from his wife, but doesn’t pay well enough attention to the warnings Ben desperately tries to relay. Instead, she bumbles right into Hoodoo and practices she knows nothing about, assuming she’s in the right, that she knows what she’s doing. Because how hard could it be, right? It’s just a religion created by enslaved people, including those who lived in the home where she works, who practiced as protection against the slave owners who looked like her. It doesn’t matter that her more knowledgeable friend Jill tells her to stay out of it. It wasn’t meant for her, but that’s none of Caroline’s concern. Because of her arrogance, Caroline ends up in the same situation as Ben. I love this metaphor. How many of us white people have scolded older generations for what we see as blatant racism, Zionism, xenophobia, and overall bigotry only to perpetuate it in different-but-the-same ways? Because of our own arrogance, we think we’ve learned all we need to learn from our elders’ mistakes. We think we know all about those who’ve been pushed to the margins of humanity, so we ignore how we keep them there. We conflate knowledge with change and assume that’s enough. I’m learning that the older I get, the less I know. It’s the only assumption that sticks. In a society largely predicated on racism and the prioritization of white comfort, I’ll keep fucking up and learning and doing better. But the biggest lesson I’ve learned in 33 years of being a white person is to shut up and listen to Black and brown people about their own lives. There’s a time and place to ask your friends questions about their experiences, but it’s mostly listening and being supportive. Most of being a friend to anyone is listening and being supportive. That’s what I keep learning.
You should be yelling at the white people in these movies. The Skeleton Key | Dir. Iain Softley | 2005
Is it possible I’ve recommended these books before? Almost definitely. Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred is a timeless and gut-punching consideration of the far reaches of white supremacy’s impact on nearly every facet of modern life. With time travel! The Black Girl Survives in This One: Horror Stories not only kicks off with a foreward from The Good House author Tananarive Due but provides a front-seat look at terror depicted by up-and-coming Black writers that will rattle your perception of the world and how you move through it. Since its release in April this year, The Black Girl Survives in This One has done the rounds among festivals and fans with glowing praise.
I turned the computer off and then back on, but it looks like November is a little dry on the horror front. Pickings might be slim, but they’re enticing. MOVIES He Never Left | Dir. James Morris | November 5 BOOKS Dead Girls Don’t Dream | Nino Cipri | November 12
Reminder: I’m a poet. Here are a few updates.
Last month, EW, HAG reached 100 subscribers! THANK YOU SO MUCH. I’m incredibly grateful and humbled you’d allow me into your spam folder each month. Here’s to many more! This November is a heavy one, with a lot of human rights at stake and tensions higher than it seems they’ve ever been. Please be kind to yourself, as it’s a necessary step to being kind to others. It’s not easy right now, but it feels better than that heavy, syrupy hate that surrounds us. Wishing you softness in all things and strength where you need it.
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