This week in class we read Tales form the Haunted South by Tiya Miles. It is a great look at the ties between dark tourism in the South and how it relates to slavery and African American heritage. #phstmu/1

The book comes to the conclusion that there is an exploitative link between the ghost tourism industry that is thriving and the uncomfortable history of slavery in the South. Ghost tours turn the horrors of slavery into a commodity to be packaged and sold. #phstmu/2

These tours talk about the horrors of slavery but then turn it into a story that is told and distributed to tourists. These atrocities are not the focal point, but work as a means to create a ghost or haunting to attract tourists. #phstmu/3

In this way slaves are being used to create goods and services that they have no way of benefiting from, over a century after their deaths. While these tours do make sure that the atrocities are told, they are not the focal point and the harms outweigh any benefits. #phstmu/4

Humans have always been fascinated with death and the macabre. It is a repeating theme through history and the one thing we will all face it. In the Renaissance there was the Momento Mori movement that emphasized the inevitability of death #phstmu/5 https://www.cnn.com/style/article/memento-mori-ivory-mirror/index.html

Today ghost tours are one way that society uses to encounter its own curiosity of death. With that said we must ask ourselves how can we ensure that these tours do not trivialize issues that have yet to be resolved, such as the painful memory of slavery #phstmu/6

It would be easy to say we should just get rid of them, but there is too much of a fascination with ghost and death to do that and it would be trivializing the issue. I wish I had suggestions on how to do this but I am at a loss. #phstmu/7

We need to honor the dead and these paranormal tours need to as well. If they wish to tell these stories they should look into what happened to the family of their stories, to makes sure they are more than just characters in the story but people and actors in their own right.