Issues
Issue 7 – Southern Haunts: a Black Perspective by Joshua Dairen
$10.00
28 pages. Full color. Glossy. By Joshua Dairen
First Printing
It’s Not Just the Ghosts that Matter, but the Way We Share their Stories
Goatman Bridge in Denton, Texas; LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans; Old Slave Mart Museum in Charleston, South Carolina; Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee; Fort Morgan in Alabama; Lincoln Cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama; The Witch of Yazoo City in Mississippi; the Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana; and other unspeakable acts of horror that still haunt us today.
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Ana R. (verified owner) –
Excellent read! This issue was beautifully written and deeply thought provoking. It definitely asks the question: how do we STOP echoing and amplifying a haunt that minimizes the haunted? So much of history isn’t taught that it remains for independent learning, historians and folklorists to pass down the history that doesn’t get written about.
Michelle Frogge (verified owner) –
Wonderful story telling and a powerful message.
Shant (verified owner) –
This issue is now my favorite, so far! Joshua Dairen is not just a gifted storyteller and folklorist, he is a truly gifted wordsmith! He makes the case that we as a society use ghost stories as a way of communicating the history of marginalized people. Rather than owning up to the wrongs of the past, we dismiss them as phantoms of the past. As he suggests, “They are about a country that refuses to use the past as a mirror.” Rather than acknowledging suffering and oppression, unnamed black folks become ghosts and witches and inhuman monsters, effectively taking away their humanity.
This issue of Shadowzine asks us to examine how history is taught through the lense of erasure and sanitation. As with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he’s become “…a quote machine…” Rather than acknowledging what he fought for and what he tried to teach us.
I suppose what a gleaned from this issue was, will we learn from the lessons the past and acknowledge them, or will we mythologize them to make them more palatable?
Superb issue, Mr. Dairen! An educational and thought-provoking read! Thank you!