I’ll begin with how much I enjoyed this course even though we could have read more. I enjoyed the readings, films, music playlists, and discussions. I enjoyed learning more about the Black Panthers, Black Power movement and Black Arts era. This is the first time I’ve heard about the Black Panthers in a light other than militaristic. The closest we got to Black Panthers was watching Forrest Gump in high school. I’m interested in learning more about blaxploitation films, women’s role in literature, and culture of the Black Power movement.

Also, if anyone is interested in the rest of the case studies I’ll post them here. I went over Emmett Till (Clay), Aileen Wuornos (Lula), and part of Louis Farrakhan (the Conductor) in class so here’s the rest of Louis Farrakhan, Kitty Genovese/Apathy Case, and The Son of Man (young Negro).

The Conductor became a prisoner of oppression under Lula’s gaze as she set her sights on the only “old man” in Dutchman. He tips his hat at her signifying an ongoing chain and immortality the subway represents. LeRoi Jones compares three generations of black men on the subway: The new passenger awaiting a similar fate due to whiteness, Clay-whose body has just been dumped, and the conductor who played it safe and is left working as a cog of perpetual evil. He avoided conflict of explicit race-mixing while Clay being succumbed to it had been trapped in it and was murdered as a result when he started resisting it. The conductor was similar to Louis Farrakhan in “prohibiting” race-mixing (he believed the evil god Yakub created white people to be inherently deceitful and murderous which is why white people were banned from the NOI.

The next case featured the train passengers reacting similar to the witnesses in the Kitty Genovese/Apathy Case. There were similar patterns that emerged in a cycle of killing that included mob mentalities, the apathy factor, and the risk of helping in favor of doing nothing. The train passengers in Dutchman did nothing when witnessing Clay’s outburst and Lula stabbing him but helped to dispose of the body. They didn’t react until the murder had already happened similar to the murder of Kitty Genovese.

Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was 28 years old when she was brutally murdered outside of her Queens apartment in NYC on March 13, 1964. She was attacked for 30 minutes, stabbed 14 times by Winston Moseley with many witnesses around that heard it and saw it but didn’t react until she was already dead. The result of this case, after the police arrived, were the Bystander Effect (coined by psychologists Bibblatanè and John Darley)- when the greater number of people witness a person in an emergency situation, the less likely an observer will take action, Good Samaritan Laws, and the 911 Emergency System. Before 1968, the only way to reach the police was by dialing “0” t reach an operator if they weren’t too busy to transfer the call.

Moseley was sentenced to life in prison and died in prison in 2016. A.M. Rosenthal wrote “Thirty-Eight Witnesses” which transformed tragedy from unreported incident to front page headline around the world. The case also brought awareness to victim services, rape prevention, community self-help groups, Guardian Angels, anti-stalking programs and new research in behavioral sciences.

Lula’s (implied) next victim, the Young Negro, draws attention to the futility of Clay’s outburst as an intellectual being trapped by Lula. He’s being compared to the Son of Man, a surrealist 1964 painting by René Magritte representing the “stereotypical faceless businessman.” The Son of Man shows us about humanity-everything we see hides something else. We’ll always have an interest in what’s hidden and what visible doesn’t show us, i.e. part of the man’s right eye showing behind the apple.

The last slide before the sources were symbols of Dutchman that included an apple- temptation; Adam and Eve origin, Subway-Dutchman slave ship, the suit and tie-assimilation and integration within contemporary Civil Rights Movement, Lula-White America, and  Clay-malleability of black identity and black manhood. The mixed race riders of the subway train represent the wider public, initially ignoring the principle characters but reveal anxiety over racial relations and disposing of Clay’s body, and leave on Lula’s command shows willful ignorance of racial violence.

I’ll begin with how much I enjoyed this course even though we could have read more. I enjoyed the readings, films, music playlists, and discussions. I enjoyed learning more about the Black Panthers, Black Power movement and Black Arts era. This is the first time I’ve heard about the Black Panthers in a light other than militaristic. The closest we got to Black Panthers was watching Forrest Gump in high school. I’m interested in learning more about blaxploitation films, women’s role in literature, and culture of the Black Power movement.

Also, if anyone is interested in the rest of the case studies I’ll post them here. I went over Emmett Till (Clay), Aileen Wuornos (Lula), and part of Louis Farrakhan (the Conductor) in class so here’s the rest of Louis Farrakhan, Kitty Genovese/Apathy Case, and The Son of Man (young Negro).

The Conductor became a prisoner of oppression under Lula’s gaze as she set her sights on the only “old man” in Dutchman. He tips his hat at her signifying an ongoing chain and immortality the subway represents. LeRoi Jones compares three generations of black men on the subway: The new passenger awaiting a similar fate due to whiteness, Clay-whose body has just been dumped, and the conductor who played it safe and is left working as a cog of perpetual evil. He avoided conflict of explicit race-mixing while Clay being succumbed to it had been trapped in it and was murdered as a result when he started resisting it. The conductor was similar to Louis Farrakhan in “prohibiting” race-mixing (he believed the evil god Yakub created white people to be inherently deceitful and murderous which is why white people were banned from the NOI.

The next case featured the train passengers reacting similar to the witnesses in the Kitty Genovese/Apathy Case. There were similar patterns that emerged in a cycle of killing that included mob mentalities, the apathy factor, and the risk of helping in favor of doing nothing. The train passengers in Dutchman did nothing when witnessing Clay’s outburst and Lula stabbing him but helped to dispose of the body. They didn’t react until the murder had already happened similar to the murder of Kitty Genovese.

Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was 28 years old when she was brutally murdered outside of her Queens apartment in NYC on March 13, 1964. She was attacked for 30 minutes, stabbed 14 times by Winston Moseley with many witnesses around that heard it and saw it but didn’t react until she was already dead. The result of this case, after the police arrived, were the Bystander Effect (coined by psychologists Bibblatanè and John Darley)- when the greater number of people witness a person in an emergency situation, the less likely an observer will take action, Good Samaritan Laws, and the 911 Emergency System. Before 1968, the only way to reach the police was by dialing “0” t reach an operator if they weren’t too busy to transfer the call.

Moseley was sentenced to life in prison and died in prison in 2016. A.M. Rosenthal wrote “Thirty-Eight Witnesses” which transformed tragedy from unreported incident to front page headline around the world. The case also brought awareness to victim services, rape prevention, community self-help groups, Guardian Angels, anti-stalking programs and new research in behavioral sciences.

Lula’s (implied) next victim, the Young Negro, draws attention to the futility of Clay’s outburst as an intellectual being trapped by Lula. He’s being compared to the Son of Man, a surrealist 1964 painting by René Magritte representing the “stereotypical faceless businessman.” The Son of Man shows us about humanity-everything we see hides something else. We’ll always have an interest in what’s hidden and what visible doesn’t show us, i.e. part of the man’s right eye showing behind the apple.

The last slide before the sources were symbols of Dutchman that included an apple- temptation; Adam and Eve origin, Subway-Dutchman slave ship, the suit and tie-assimilation and integration within contemporary Civil Rights Movement, Lula-White America, and  Clay-malleability of black identity and black manhood. The mixed race riders of the subway train represent the wider public, initially ignoring the principle characters but reveal anxiety over racial relations and disposing of Clay’s body, and leave on Lula’s command shows willful ignorance of racial violence.

Thank you for reading.

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Published by taylorlowe20

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