I am very confident that Misha Green’s Lovecraft Country will introduce an accessible framework to discuss racism, not unlike Peele did with the Sunken Place.

In short, the book treats racism as a paranormal phenomenon where no one really believes those who experience it.

One passage I keep considering.

A black man is calling his grandfather and has to speak with an operator.

Matt Ruff uses this to show how racism can literally and figuratively possess whoever you encounter.

That a black experience is randomly being subjected to an exorcism.

There’s this scene in Devil’s Advocate.

Man is going for a jog and he’s killed...oddly enough.

In Central Park...oddly enough.

But, the important part is that it looks like he was “normally” killed.

But, he knows it was actually something more ghoulish, more demonic.

I think about this when I think of certain forms of racism.

Unseeing eyes that see things that are just not there.

An unthinking zombie mass you couldn’t even pleadingly appeal to that they’re crushing your neck.

No spoilers other than it’s the greatest piece of pulp fiction I’ve ever read.

https://twitter.com/ivynocarter/status/1265658281814560768?s=21 https://twitter.com/ivynocarter/status/1265658281814560768

Like.

“Calling the police” makes sense because that’s literally what happened.

But, that’s not really how it feels.

It feels closer to a rageful witch calling upon a dark spell to curse you.

And you only can see that if you somehow capture her on camera.

Why have you never seen viral footage of a black woman confronting a group of white kids and yelling at them to stop playing?

Why have you never seen viral footage of two black men confronting a white jogger?

This is why the “just a bad day” takes don’t make sense.