Class Minutes 2-19-10

*Kurt and Layson read their This I Believe essays. Everyone has now read.

*William Wells Brown neighborhood association meeting on Thursday: A couple is having a “Block Party”/ Wedding Party/ Reception that Saturday of Labor Day weekend @ Duncan Park. Transy students are invited to help, the entire community is invited.

*Tonight, Friday Feb. 19 is the 3^rd mandatory community event: It is the opening of Zoe Strecker’s exhibit in the Morlan Gallery—Kurt and Kremena will be arriving around 5 pm.

*Next Wednesday, we will be traveling to Louisville:

-Layson and Austyn will be the drivers: Amanda, Montgomery, and Kathleen will be riding with Layson. KateLynn, Casey, and Paul will be riding with Austyn.

-Meet at Back Lobby at 5:30pm!!!

-Leave for Louisville at 5:45pm!!!

-Meet at UofL art building, near the Speed Art Museum. We may have to park at Speed

-On the drive, we need to decide who will read their This I Believe essay, and other topics to be discussed with the UofL class.

-The class we will be meeting with is similar to ours: They do artwork throughout the community.

-We will be explaining to each other what our respective classes do: Talk about our class and quilt projects. Talk about This I Believe essay project—share an essay and invite them to write their own. Share a story with the class (a way to prep for our Storytelling Projects).

-We will be meeting with this class for an hour, and we will also be seeing Kurts exhibit in Louisville.

*Homework for Next Wednesday and Friday:

-For Weds: Put all T.I.B essays in a word document. Rank them in your preferred order and list 3 criteria for choosing as you did. Send these to K & K.

-For Weds: Please bring a handwritten T.I.B essay (choose any of your own) to be part of the flyers to let the community know about the essay project. Casey will be taking these.

-For Fri: T.I.B. essays, and come to class prepared to discuss our individual tasks, and let everyone know how we’re doing with this.

**Final Discussion of The Known World:

“Slavery pollutes everyone who participates in it

and warps their concepts of justice and humanity”

-An emotionally charged ending: the class expressed a great deal of frustration, a lot of anger particularly about what happened to Augustus.

-Inherent Evil: where does it come from and where does “evil” (however we define it) exist in comparison to established norms? Is evil deviation from those norms or something else?

*We may use the term evil because we are discussing fictional characters (evil as a fictional concept?). We are presented biased and incomplete information about these characters, so it becomes difficult to develop a complete understanding of who they are, their motives, etc. The author sets up this bias and miss context, and in this missing context, bad seems to outweigh good.

*Is evil determined by what others see, how we’re socialized, or the choices we makes? How are these things connected?

*Does this discussion of evil and morality distance us from the actual story being told?—It makes it difficult to imaging living in the world inhabited by these characters.

-Laws suggest you can maim a slave, but if s/he is still able to work, no crime was committed

*Skiffington and his killing of Mildred vs. his position to always side with the law: Is there a contradiction here?

*Law vs. justice: Both favor people in positions of power and both are stacked against slaves and freed blacks. White people in positions of power (and even poor white people in the instance of Harvey and Augustus) can extract law and justice by almost any means they wish, whereas the law discriminates against black people ultimately prohibiting them from pursuing justice for their selves. Example: Skiffington vs. Mildred- Though Mildred pulls a gun on Skiffington, he knows he has the upper hand because she is a slave and a woman and will be greatly punished if she even hurts him. Still, he chooses to kill her—acting potentially out of frustration (not likely an act of fear) and certainly demonstrating his power.

*Doe Jaime, Priscilla, and Alice represent justice? They escape slavery, and ultimately create something beautiful out of their experiences.

-What is the role of God in slavery? How do so many people remain so faithful in the face of everything happening around them (especially in regard to slaves). The role of religion/Christianity: The overall message may appeal to their real lives (hard work/labor will be rewarded later), especially when couples with the loss of original religions/traditions

*But why embrace the white people’s religion, the oppressor’s religions? The message is nice/comforting, but the reality is quite different.

*Christianity is a religion for the oppressed, especially when one considers the context of Biblical stories

*Old Testament vs. New Testament: both written in a context of oppression, stories about slavery and overcoming it. So white would white oppressors celebrate this religion and use it as justification for their actions… The analogy of the story of Job.

-Does anyone in the novel have control—over their own lives, over others? Alice may be the best example of someone in control. She has constructed a façade/act that allows her some semblance of control and “freedom.”

*Is anyone able to truly be physically and psychologically free: Celeste is psychologically free—she embraces kindness and love and strives to live these things—but she is still physically a slave. Alice is able to wonder and eventually achieves her own physical freedom, but this comes at the cost of years of being trapped within her own mind, her own constructed reality—any deviation from that reality may have stifled her physical freedom.