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Monday, December 28, 2020

Cirque Berserk by Jessica Guess

Cirque Berserk by Jessica Guess. Recommended. Read if you like 80's slashers, creepy carnivals.


Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Unnerving Magazine

Genre: Killer/Slasher, Myth and Folklore, Occult, Demons

Audience: Y/A

Diversity: Black main character and author, Native Oglala Lakota main character, character with syndactyly

Takes Place in: Florida, USA

Content Warnings: Abelism, Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Child Abuse, Death, Forced Captivity, Gore, Kidnapping, Physical Abuse, Racism, Sexual Abuse (Voyeurism), Slurs, Slut-Shaming, Torture, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:
The summer of 1989 brought terror to the town of Shadows Creek, Florida in the form of a massacre at the local carnival, Cirque Berserk. One fateful night, a group of teens killed a dozen people then disappeared into thin air. No one knows why they did it, where they went, or even how many of them there were, but legend has it they still roam the abandoned carnival, looking for blood to spill.

Thirty years later, best friends, Sam and Rochelle, are in the midst of a boring senior trip when they learn about the infamous Cirque Berserk. Seeking one last adventure, they and their friends journey to the nearby Shadows Creek to see if the urban legends about Cirque Berserk are true. But waiting for them beyond the carnival gates is a night of brutality, bloodshed, and betrayal.

Will they make they it out alive, or will the carnival’s past demons extinguish their futures?

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

I received this product at a discount in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Put on your sequins and neon spandex, grab a New Coke, and turn up that Whitney Houston cassette because it's time to take a look at Jessica Guess's tribute to eighties' slashers, Cirque Berserk! Guess's new horror novella is the perfect ode to trashy, B-horror movies of the yuppie decade à la The Funhouse, Evilspeak, and Prom Night. Praised by one of my favorite horror authors, Stephen Graham Jones, Cirque Berserk hits most of the squares on the "teen scream" Bingo card, but still feels fresh and original. Guess has fun playing with the classic slasher clichés while subverting more problematic tropes like the "black best friend" and the "nice guy" being rewarded with a hot girl. She fills her story with plenty of self-aware humor and the kind of affectionate mocking that can only come from a true horror fan, which balances well with the more serious scenes of racism, sexism, and abuse. The result is a fun, nostalgic, carnival ride with a deeply emotional narrative hidden just beneath all the glitter, gore, and a bad-ass Black protagonist.


A black and red bingo card that says "Teen Scream Bingo." The squares include various slasher cliche's like "corny puns," "abandoned location," "Black best friend," and "masked murderer."

The eighties have made a come back in horror recently with popular TV shows (Stranger Things, American Horror Story: 1984), movies (the It reboot, The Final Girls), and novels (Grady Hendrix's My Best Friend's Exorcism) all drawing inspiration from the decade that gave rise to the slasher film, and it's no wonder why. Not only do they have the nostalgia factor going for them as Gen Xers have their midlife crises, but they've got a ton of amazing source material to work from. Eighties audiences were blessed with a plethora of classic horror movies: grotesque monsters (The Thing, Aliens, Scanners, American Werewolf in London), final girls who fought back, (Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Hell Raiser, Aliens), self-aware humor (Elvira, Monster Squad, Fright Night) cool, sexy vampires (Lost Boys, Near Dark, The Hunger) and horror franchises (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, The Evil Dead) graced the silver screen. Hell, even the remakes were good. Both The Fly and The Thing arguably surpassed their originals.


But what was it about the decade of greed that inspired so many amazing films? To understand eighties horror, you need to understand that the 1980's were an age of excess, greed, rapid technological advancement, and reactionary conservatism. As late writer/director Stuart Gordan explained in the Shudder documentary In Search of Darkness: A Journey Into Iconic 80's Horror, "horror thrives when there's a repressive government" and the Reagan years certainly qualified. Additionally, public uncertainty and fear lead to the genre's rise in popularity, just as it did during the Great Depression resulting in Universal's famous Golden Age monsters. Meanwhile, advancements in technology and the increased affordability of personal computers led to some groundbreaking special effects and makeup (The Thing, Scanners, The Fly, American Werewolf in London). This decade was the perfect balance of repression and paranoia for horror films to flourish.


The rise of the "New Right" in the late seventies and eighties brought with it a push to return to "traditional American values" (i.e. being sexist, racist, homophobic, and slut-shaming with impunity). Everywhere you looked, the crack cocaine epidemic was sweeping the nation, AIDS was desolating the population, hardcore porn was easily accessible on video, the rich were getting greedier and richer, and divorce rates had peaked. With more women entering the workforce and an increasing number of newly-single kids were suddenly being left at home unsupervised. The public might have been content with leaving their kids at home, but a generation of 'suddenly being left unsupervised for long periods of time' were exposed to a plethora of violence and sex in media. Concern for the latchkey generation was only made worse by the abduction and murder of six-year-old Adam Walsh. The tragic case "created a nation of petrified kids and paranoid parents" who saw danger in every stranger they encountered. The media-fueled mass hysteria eventually led to a rash of Satanic panic.


It was enough to make any God-fearing White conservative clutch their pearls! Rather than blame Reagan for taking away childcare funding and completely botching the response to drugs and AIDS, or recognize that the risk strangers pose to children is minimal at best a vocal group of conservatives decided it was the loss of a nuclear family, declining morals, and demonic media that had left everything such a mess. Even if you didn't buy into the whole "little Timmy will get murdered by Satanists because his mommy had to rejoin the workforce" school of thought, it was hard to deny the world was pretty scary, what with global warming, Jeffrey Dahmer, the cold war, and deadly invisible illnesses. Why couldn't we go back to the way they were in the fifties when bad things only happened to minorities and women weren't constantly going on about equal rights? Back before all teens were watching heavy metal videos on MTV, popping third generation birth control pills, and playing Super Mario Bros on their NES (or whatever they were into back then. Doing whippets maybe? I dunno, I was like 4 at the time). Cue a wave of 1950's nostalgia and horror films that capitalized on the public's fear for the safety of unsupervised kids.


A flow chart with images that shows the various events in the 80's that led to the rise in slasher horror as described in the review.
Most slashers followed a basic formula. A group of unsupervised teenagers with poor decision making skills all did "Bad Things TM" until an evil man would show up and kill everyone but the clever, resourceful, virginal hero because they were too pure to be defeated by evil. The story was simple, yet effective — at least in its ability to terrify audiences. I doubt anyone waited for their wedding night because they were afraid Jason would show up for a murderous version of coïtus interruptus. Ironically the conservative adults whose fear and values inspired the horror Renaissance were also its main detractors. Probably because filmmakers were interested in making money, not PSAs about morality, and tits and blood sell. The so-called golden age of slashers began in 1978 with Halloween and ended in 1984 with A Nightmare on Elm Street. Unfortunately sequelitis and low budget direct-to-video horror flicks marked the end of the era, but thankfully schlock could be just as entertaining in all it's goofy, cheesy glory. When 80's horror is good, it's really good, but when it's bad it's amazing. And it's these B-movie slashers that make Cirque Berserk such a fun read. Guess understands that while The Shining may be the Michelin star-winning gourmet meal of eighties horror and the franchise slasher films are the family restaurants with mass appeal, movies like Basket Case and Slumber Party Massacre 2 are greasy fast-food burgers you cram in your maw at 3 A.M. in the CVS parking lot. Yes, they're terrible for you, and yes you regret it the next day when you wake up with a hangover and smell like dumpster fries, but god damn if those weren't some delicious fucking burgers. Cirque Berserk is what happens when you have a talented chef prepare those greasy, salty, fast-food burgers. It's fast, fun, and you won't be able to put it down until you've devoured the whole thing.

Guess cleverly subverts the standard slasher story line while still paying homage to many of its elements. There's a cast of stereotypical teens whose bad judgement lands them in an abandoned amusement park with a masked killer despite the warnings from the wise old woman at the gas station. There's stupid teen drama, bad puns, and buckets of blood. Guess even adds a Satanic subplot where a group of disenfranchised teens summon the demon Lilith to grant them wishes, poking fun at Yuppie parents' unfounded fear that their kids were listening to Stairway to Heaven backwards and using D&D to summon demons. The story is full of self-aware humor, my favorite example of which involves one of the characters pointing out how weird it is that no one is carrying a gun in Florida. Curses and murderous Satan worshipers are well within the realm of possibility, but no one packing heat in a Southern "stand your ground" state is way too weird. Guess manages to give us all this and still make her story genuinely scary. And for what felt like a pretty standard slasher set-up, I was actually caught off guard by a plot twist.


When it comes to her villains, however, Guess dispenses with the usual "irredeemably evil for the heck of it" masked murderers typical in slashers. Instead, she gives us a group of tragic figures who sell their humanity for a chance at freedom. It's appropriate that the teen killers summoned Lilith to grant them freedom, a figure who chose to become a demon rather than submit to the will of a man. As another famous Abrahamic rebel declares in Paradise Lost "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." The Alphabet of Ben Sira describes Lilith as Adam's first wife, created as his equal. After getting fed up with her husband's misogyny and bad sex, Liltith decides dick really isn't worth all this bullshit and flies off into the night, choosing to become a demon rather than submit to male authority. Modern Jewish feminists, such as Judith Plaskow, interpret her as "a female symbol for autonomy, sexual choice, and control of one’s own destiny." In her midrash, The Coming of Lilith, Plaskow writes "Lilith not only embodies people’s fears of how attraction to others can ruin their marriages, or of how risky childbearing and raising children are, but also represents a woman whom society cannot control—a woman who determines her own sexual partners, who is wild and unkempt, and who does not have the natural consequences of sexual activity, children." Demon or no, Lilith sounds like my kind of woman.


But my absolute favorite part of Cirque Berserk is Guess' tough-as-nails and whip-smart protagonist, Rochelle, who is anything but your typical final girl. Guess got the name from Rachel True's character in The Craft, whose frequent erasure from horror conventions and panel discussions Guess even wrote about here. She explains that this was her way of honoring True. "I love The Craft and I got the idea for Cirque Berserk a little after watching Horror Noir and hearing what Rachel said about being typecast as the best friend and always having to say "are you okay" a million different ways. My Rochelle is a response to that." And I say she's the perfect response! But what else would you expect from Guess, creator of the Black Girl's Guide to Horror blog? Cirque Berserk is a novella for Black and Indigenous horror fans who are sick of getting cast as victims, and hero helpers. As Guess states on her website:

"Horror is for everyone, but it doesn’t always feel that way with the lack of representation in the genre. Final Girls? White. Heroes? White. Villains? White. Masters of Horror? Mostly all white. Even those who talk about horror are all for the most part White. [My site] is the answer to the too white, too male, too cis, too straight genre that so many of us love but don’t see much of ourselves in."


A teenage Black girl with natural hair. She's wearing roller skates, blowing green bubble gum, and has a bat slung over her shoulders. She surrounded by images of roller skates, a bloody knife, symbols for the demon Lilith, and a murder mix tape. The art is colored in pinks, teals, greens, blues, and purples. All colors that were popular in the eighties.

The novella has very few problems. I felt like some of the descriptions were a bit lacking  and Guess has a tendency to "tell" rather than "show." The word choices could also get repetitive (for example using "said" repeatedly), but these are both fairly minor nitpicks for what's otherwise a very strong story. I also wish we'd been given a little more time with the victims before they started getting picked off one by one, but I otherwise can't complain about the novella's pacing. Building suspense is a great way to make your story scary, but sometimes you want a horror book that gets straight to the killing spree instead of dicking you around for ten gore-free chapters. And Guess knows how to give the reader that instant blood-soaked satisfaction we crave. Her book was the perfect length: long enough to get its point across without letting the story drag. It may not be as fancy or polished as some award-winning, gourmet novel, but who gives a fuck? You know which one you're going to be craving at 3 AM.

Sunday, May 31, 2020

The House of Erzulie by Kirsten Imani Kasai

The House of Erzulie by Kirsten Imani Kasai. Highly Recommended. Read if you like SOuthern Gothic, Vodou, antebellum history.


Formats: Print, audio, digital


Genre: Gothic, Historic Horror, Myth and Folklore

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black/biracial main characters and author, mentally ill main characters

Takes Place in: Philadelphia and New Orleans, USA

Content Warnings: Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Body Shaming, Child Abuse, Child Death, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Forced Captivity, Gaslighting, Illness, Kidnapping, Medical Torture/Abuse, Medical Procedures, Miscarriage, Mental Illness, Oppression, Pedophilia, Physical Abuse, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Sexism, Sexual Abuse, Slurs, Slut-Shaming, Torture, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence, Xenophobia  (Highlight to view)

Blurb:
The House of Erzulie tells the eerily intertwined stories of an ill-fated young couple in the 1850s and the troubled historian who discovers their writings in the present day. Emilie St. Ange, the daughter of a Creole slaveowning family in Louisiana, rebels against her parents' values by embracing spiritualism, women's rights, and the abolition of slavery. Isidore, her biracial, French-born husband, is an educated man who is horrified by the brutalities of plantation life and becomes unhinged by an obsessive affair with a notorious New Orleans voodou practitioner. Emilie's and Isidore’s letters and journals are interspersed with sections narrated by Lydia Mueller, an architectural historian whose fragile mental health further deteriorates as she reads. Imbued with a sense of the uncanny and the surreal, The House of Erzulie also alludes to the very real horrors of slavery, and makes a significant contribution to the literature of the U.S. South, particularly the tradition of the African-American Gothic novel.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

The House of Erzulie is an exquisitely written, thought-provoking work of Southern Gothic fiction that explores themes of identity, love, obsession, and oppression while blurring the line between reality and the supernatural. Kasai's book also forced me to acknowledge and confront my own complicated feelings and insecurities about my identity as a light-skinned, biracial Black person and reflect on the colorism within the Black community.

Lydia is a professor of history trapped in a bad marriage with her former advisor Lance, a selfish, serial philanderer who prefers his women young, docile, and naive. Their teenage son is emotionally distant and rarely home. Struggling with depression and a desire to self-harm, Lydia tries to cope with her emotional pain and feelings of isolation by throwing herself into her job, the one area of her life that isn't falling apart. Ironically, it's her work, the last vestige of stability in Lydia's life, that finally destroys her fragile mental health.

At first Lydia thinks nothing of the journals she receives in a packet of historical documents belonging to the once grand Bilodeau plantation in New Orleans. After all, she's been hired to aid in the restoration of the dilapidated building, even if she finds the monument to slavery distasteful. It's only on a whim that she chooses to peruse the diaries of Emilie Bilodeau, the progressive daughter of a slave-owning family, and her husband Isidore Saint-Ange, a free-born biracial Frenchman. But as she learns more about the tragic couple's lives Lydia finds herself strongly empathizing with Emilie's loneliness and crumbling marriage. But it is Isidore's journal that finally pushes her over the edge. Once logical and purely scientific in his approach to the world, Isidore becomes increasingly paranoid as a series of poor decisions and bad luck destroy his life. Eventually succumbing to madness, Isidore is imprisoned in an insane asylum convinced he is the victim of supernatural forces. As her own life turns to chaos, Lydia finds herself mirroring Isidore's destructive actions.

The House of Erzulie has all the elements of a first-rate Gothic story; a distressed heroine kept trapped and powerless. A passionate but ultimately doomed romance. Hints of the supernatural in the form of spirits, curses, and prophetic nightmares that may or may not be products of the antihero's imagination. A once great home falling into ruin as disease, death, and madness ravage its inhabitants, all set against the backdrop of one of America's greatest atrocities. Kasai is careful to emphasize how appalling and inhumane the practice of chattel slavery is without using a historical tragedy for cheap scares or trauma porn. Instead Isidore's rapidly declining mental state reflected in the plantation's decay and the multiple misfortunes befalling the Bilodeaus is what makes the novel so frightening. I must admit I found it incredibly satisfying to watch such unsympathetic characters suffer karmic retribution (Emilie being the exception) the more gruesome and agonizing the better though I'm sure not all readers will share my taste for schadenfreude. Kasai's writing is superb, her carefully crafted prose flows like poetry and evoked strong emotions in me. I'll share one of my favorite passages here:

They say "love is not a cup of sugar that gets used up" but it is. Spoonful by spoonful, grain by grain, the greedy, the needy, and the hungry consume it and demand more until the bowl is empty. Then they run away, jonesing for a fix from another source. Each betrayal, every insult or injury depletes the loving cup and leaves the holder bitter. It’s a bitterness I can taste, and it sits on my tongue like the foulest medicine.
Kasai also did extensive research for her novel, as is obvious from the story's numerous references to historical events and the accuracy with which mid-19th century healthcare is depicted. The Spiritualist movement (which Kasai notes provided one of the few public platforms for women at the time), the yellow fever epidemic of 1853, and the anti-Spanish riots of 1851 all make appearances in The House of Erzulie. But it's the lives of her gens de couleur libres, or "free people of color" characters that deserve special attention. While I was initially disappointed by how little attention the narrative paid to the stories and voices of the slaves, it was a nice change of pace to read a novel that focused on the lives of free Black characters. Despite the significant role they played in US history, wealthy, free Blacks in the antebellum South rarely make an appearance in historical fiction.

The majority of the novel is set in Louisiana, once home to the largest population of gens de couleur libres in the US. Forming an intermediate class below White colonizers but above slaves, free Blacks achieved more rights, wealth, and education in the French settlement than in any of the British colonies. Professor Amy R. Sumpter notes in her article Segregation of the Free People of Color and the Construction of Race in Antebellum New Orleans that before the state currently called Louisiana was stolen "acquired" by the US in 1803 "the cultural blending of French, Spanish, and African traditions... created an atmosphere of racial openness in Louisiana and particularly New Orleans that stood apart from much of the rest of the South. Aspects of the unique racial atmosphere included a tripartite racial structure and racial fluidity." Much of this was due to the Code Noir, an edict originally issued by King Louis XIV in 1724 that defined the legal status of both slaves and free blacks and imposed regulations on slave ownership. While no less cruel and inhumane than any of the other laws governing the enslavement of human beings, the code did make allowances not found in the rest of country.

The US followed a strict "one drop" rule that classified anyone with Black ancestry as Black. Mixed raced individuals were given offensive labels depending on their percentage of "Black blood". "Mulattos" were biracial with one Black parent and one White. "Quadroons" were a quarter Black, "octoroons"(also called "mustees") one-eighth, and "quintroons" (or "mustefinos") one-sixteenth. In her acclaimed essay Whiteness as Property civil rights professor Cheryl Harris explains that this complicated system was "designed to accomplish what mere observation could not: That even Blacks who did not look Black were kept in their place." English colonies also practiced partus sequitur ventrem (Latin for "the offspring follows the womb") a law that gave a child the same legal status as their mother. So a mixed-race child born to an enslaved mother would be born into slavery, while the child of a free woman would also be free.


An old daguerreotype photo depicting a light-skinned boy with European features. A large American flag is draped off to the left of the image, covering the floor and the stool the boy is sitting on. Under the photo the following has been typed: Freedom's Banner, CHARLEY, A Slave Boy from New Orleans.
Charley Taylor was the "quadroon" son of  White slave-owner Alexander Scott Withers and a biracial slave named Lucy Taylor. Because his mother was a slave Charley was also born into slavery and sold by his father to a New Orleans plantation. Abolitionists often used images of White-passing slaves to elicit sympathy as White audiences were more likely to be identify with the suffering of people who looked like them.

Most of the main characters in The House of Eruzile are upper class gens de couleur libres all of whom approach their Blackness and privilege differently. Emilie's father, Monsieur Bilodeau, is a willing and enthusiastic participant in the slave economy and chooses to idolize Whiteness, despite having a Black grandmother. It's a sad fact that some free Blacks became slave owners themselves, and many of them lived in Louisiana. While I can't pretend to know the motivations of long-dead men, Kasai makes it clear that M. Bilodeau does it because he's greedy, racist scum, a twisted amalgamation of Uncle Tom and Simon Legree. Isidore is shocked and disgusted by the treatment of the slaves on his in-laws plantation (slavery would've just been abolished in France), but is unwilling to risk his own privilege and wealth by objecting or leaving. Well-educated and used to a comfortable existence Isidore married into the Bilodeau family so he could continue enjoying a life of leisure rather than be forced to get a job. He does his best to ignore the suffering of the plantation's slaves, as if this will somehow absolve him of his participation in a racist and inhumane system. Emilie, on the other hand, uses what little power she has to advocate for her family's slaves, including her great-great-aunt Clothilde (yup, her dad wouldn't even free his own family-members) and becomes involved in the abolitionist movement. She does her best to try to convince her husband to move North and free the Bilodeau slaves once they inherit the plantation but is always shot down. Finally, there's P'tite Marie, the light-skinned daughter of Marie Laveau, a free-woman with significant influence.

While Kasai is undoubtedly a talented writer, I was troubled by the way she portrayed P'tite Marie as a one-dimensional Jezebel who uses voodoo to literally enchant her lovers. Her characterization is in sharp contrast to Emilie's role as the virtuous mother, bringing to mind the deeply problematic Madonna/whore dichotomy. P'tite Marie would certainly have been exploited by men who fetishized free Black women, as is evident from the stories of Quadroon Ballsplaçages and "fancy maids," so implying that she is sort of succubus who takes advantage of men didn't sit right with me. Admittedly, we only get to view P'tite Marie through the lens of an unreliable, misogynist narrator who is seemingly incapable of accepting responsibility for his own actions and who is quick to blame her for his philandering. Still, it would've been nice to learn more about P'tite Marie as a person rather than a sexual fantasy. Personally, I would have much preferred if P'tite Marie and Emilie had realized that all the men in their lives were awful and decide to run away together.


The house in the background is based on the Oak Alley Plantation in New Orleans. Now a museum, Oak Alley boasts tours of the facility, a beautiful venue for weddings and reunions, a well-reviewed restaurant, and overnight cottages. What could be more relaxing than sipping mint juleps at the site of significant human right's abuses and suffering? Maybe Auschwitz should start doing weddings.

Emilie was another character I took issue with. I found her naivety grating rather than endearing, and it concerned me that the Whitest character in the book was written to be the most sympathetic. To Kasai's credit she does a wonderful job creating a mixed-race Gothic heroine without making her a tragic mulatta. Emilie is still a tragic character, but none of that is related to her identity. She is not ashamed of being mixed and is astutely aware of her good fortune. She uses her privilege to help others and would gladly give up her wealth if it meant freedom for the Bilodeau's slaves. Instead of lamenting the "single drop of midnight in her veins" Emilie's greatest source of ignominy is her family's arrogance and lack of empathy. As she matures, she begins pushing back more aggressively against the injustices she perceives. And yet, I still deeply disliked her. But more on that in a moment.

Emilie was not the only character that inspired a strong reaction from me. Lydia, like many mixed race folks, has a complicated relationship with the White grandparents who raised her, and her family problems resonated deeply with me. I don't even know most of my White family, nor do I want to, as they're racists who disowned my mother for marrying my Black father. My mother is amazing and dedicated to anti-racism work, but I feel nothing but contempt for the biological family that labeled me a "jigaboo baby." Meanwhile Isidore and M. Bilodeau reminded me of the worse aspects of the mixed community; those who choose inaction, thereby becoming complicit in the system of White supremacy, and the self-hating Blacks who reject their race and actively promote racism and colorism to get ahead. I could easily imagine the reprehensible M. Bilodeau in a blue vein society wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat while defending voter suppression and laughing at racist jokes. Emilie's father is clearly an irredeemable villain who has no qualms about abusing his slaves, while Isidore is given more complexity and a conscience. Unfortunately, his guilt has no effect on his actions, and I was hard-pressed to dredge up even a shred of sympathy for Isidore and his hypocrisy. This is a perfect example of why intent doesn't matter. While Isidore may not be an unrepentant racist like his father-in-law both men selfishly used their privilege for their own benefit at the expense of other Black people. It's hard to say if his inaction makes him more or less morally reprehensible that his monstrous father-in-law.

I suspect that the reason I felt so much animosity towards Emilie, even though Isidore and M. Bilodeau are much more reprehensible, may stem from my own experience and insecurities as a White-passing Black person. I struggle daily with the guilt and resentment I feel knowing that while I'm undoubtedly oppressed by a White supremacist system, it also gives me an unearned advantage over others. I, and others like me, enjoy higher wages and are perceived as more intelligent while those with darker skin are given longer prison sentences, are three times more likely to be suspended from school and struggle to find partners. My grandfather could join Black fraternities that implemented paper bag tests, and probably used his light complexion to secure jobs as a physician. His grandparents were house slaves (and the children of their owner) like the ones described by James Stirling in The Life of Plantation Field Hands and Malcom X in his Message to Grassroots speech. Not only am I treated better by Whites (who were responsible for this racist caste system in the first place) but even the black community puts a high-value on my pale skin. Colorism is so deeply ingrained in society that skin-whitening creams are a $20 billion industry. My Black grandmother used to keep my father and his sister out of the sun so they wouldn't be "too dark." There's a #Teamlightskin hashtag on Twitter. A color-struck, light-skinned manager at Applebee's called his darker skinned employee racist slurs and suggested he bleach his skin. My passing privilege (most people assume I'm Jewish, Italian or Latinx until I correct them) and proximity to Whiteness means I can easily avoid the racist aggression the rest of my family experiences on a daily basis.


This a fake graph, but it's based on actual data.

Because Emilie is so White, I instinctively questioned whether she could even be considered Black, just as my own melanin-deficient skin often makes others question my identity. While I can easily dismiss comments of "you're not really Black" from Whites who are pissed I told them not to say the n-word (I could be Whiter than Conan O'Brien and you still can't fucking say it Karen), it's a lot harder when the remarks come from other Black people who make it clear they don't want me in their spaces. But as much as I'm tempted to self-indulgently sulk, I can't ignore the very valid concerns of darker skinned Black folk who are frequently pushed aside in favor of people like me. Yes, I, and other light-skinned BIPOC may deal with frequent microaggressions and sometimes even outright hostility, but we’re still much more welcomed by a racist society then we would be if our skin were darker. Given all this it's no wonder my intrusion on BIPOC spaces is often called into question. Yes, I have racial trauma, but is it right for me to complain to those who are clearly dealing with so much more? It would be like crying about having my purse stolen to someone whose had their home burnt down and lost everything. Denying that I have privilege is incredibly harmful to the Black community as are comments like "we're all Black, why are we dividing ourselves even more?"  Tonya Pennington does an excellent job encapsulating my feelings on the matter in their article for The Black Youth Project:

 

...despite my empathy for [Ayesha Curry], I disagree with her conclusion for why she isn’t accepted by the Black community. Both of us are light-skinned, and we know light-skinned Black people are often considered more desirable than dark skin Black women because of colorism. As much as she may have been picked on for being “different,” like me, it’s inevitable that she also experienced a host of privileges both within and outside the Black community for the same thing.

To be clear, in my personal experience most other Black people have been extremely welcoming to me and are sympathetic to the unique challenges of being mixed race. I am eternally grateful to everyone who has shown me such support and compassion, even when dealing with their own problems. They didn't need to, and it was incredibly kind. I try my best to avoid demanding pity, taking over conversations, or otherwise making things about me when I'm in Black spaces. To do otherwise would be reprehensible. I know I have it a lot easier that others, and it's my responsibility to use my light-skinned privilege to combat systemic racism when I can.

As Afropunk writer Erin White explains "Light skin people have a responsibility to call out colorism and be honest about the privileges they benefit from." Blogger Amanda Bonam, founder of The Black & Project even gives examples on how she confronts her own light-skinned privilege. Unfortunately, the best ways to oppose colorism isn't always obvious, and even good intentions can be harmful if one isn't cautious. Like all allies we walk a fine line, confronting colorism without speaking over those without light-skinned privilege. For instance, as a person with light-skinned privilege, I constantly worry that I'm either not doing enough, or else I'm so vocal that I'm silencing other Black voices. Like my "white-passing" guilt, I push these worries down because, again, it's not about me and those emotions are unhelpful. But they still exist no matter how much I try to deny them, because that's how feelings work. Which brings me back to Emilie, because in her I saw my own insecurities.

Mentally I condemned Emilie for what I saw as meager attempts to help the Bilodeau's slaves, despite benefiting so much from colorism. When Emilie bemoaned the fact she couldn't do more, I bristled at how she seemed to be selfishly focused on her own suffering. I cast her in the role of White savior whose negligible struggles and accomplishments were lauded above those of the Black characters. Except Emile isn't White, at least she wouldn't have been in 1850. Hypodescent rules would have meant she'd be labelled Black by society, and there was certainly no benefit to having a Black great-grandparent in antebellum Louisiana. And how much could she have possibly done to help the slaves? Emilie was a woman, with no power and her resources were completely controlled by the men in her life. When she spoke out she was ignored. She couldn't purchase anyone's freedom as Isidore had complete control of her finances. The laws were not on her side. Much of the novel's focus is on Emilie's feelings, but it's also written as a diary, where she would have recorded her personal thoughts, struggles, and misgivings. There's no indication she was putting her feelings over those of the slaves; to the contrary Emilie seems to hide her guilt and frustration from everyone save her White abolitionist friend.

So did I judge Emilie, Kasai's heroine, unfairly because I projected so much of myself onto her? Or was I right to be critical of a light-skinned character who once again is given the spotlight over dark-skinned Black folk? As of now, that's not an answer I can provide. Instead I encourage the reader to draw their own conclusions about Emilie. All I know is that any book that can provoke so much both emotionally and intellectually is well worth a read.