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1. Yemisi Blake’s Blog » Blog Archive » Links for 16-12-99 through 16-01-08 on 17 Jan 2008 at 7:28 am

   [...] Amusement park allows visitors to be slave for a day – ** Posted using Viigo: Mobile RSS, Sports, Current Events and more ** by Carmen Van Kerckhove An American couple based in Haiti want to open a park called Memory Village to educate people about slavery (thanks Tricia): Visitors to Memory Village w [...]

Comments

1. Paul wrote:

   It trivializes the issue because it does not address the post-freedom issues with which Haiti has dealt. Like many presentations of slavery, this simulation assumes that freedom ends the oppression and inequality. Plus, I can envision “enlightened” white liberals trekking down to Haiti and undergoing this 12 hour experience so that they can say they know what slavery is really like.

   Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 8:16 am ¶

2. Bohemian Writer wrote:

   Are you f***ing kidding me? Oh geez, my head is beginning to hurt. What is f***ing wrong with these people’s heads?

   Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 8:20 am ¶

3. Kyle R wrote:

   This is a very risky venture. For white folks, wearing slave’s clothes and being subjected to a very water down version of real slave experiences doesn’t promote any sort of reflection on privilege or development of a more systematic analysis. I agree with Paul’s comment about white liberals. This idea reminds me of Tyra’s fat suit, in which she KNEW an experienced all of what it meant to live as a fat person in America. Well, identity isn’t something you can just put on and take off at your own convenience. Identity is something we live with, we can never truly know the experiences of others.

   Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 8:51 am ¶

4. Stephanie wrote:

   This reminds me of that classic experiment at Stanford University in which some undergraduate participants are prisoners and others are guards. People took their roles so seriously that some had to be removed early because they were so traumatized.

   Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 9:42 am ¶

5. Neil wrote:

   exactly, paul. i too foresee this as being an excuse for privileged people to victimize themselves, and ‘relate’ to horrors of slavery.

   Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 10:16 am ¶

6. Callisto wrote:

   One of the problems with these simulations of slavery is that the people participating in and watching them know that freedom comes at the end. Even if they feel mentally, emotionally, and physically (they can’t really whip/beat them, right?) strained by the experience, they still have know that they will live to see the end of slavery. As Paul said above, it also can suggest that freedom from slavery ends other forms of racialized oppression, and the visitor can leave the amusement park feeling good about him-/herself that “at least this doesn’t go on today,” thus a abdicating him/her from real time responsibility that comes with privilege.

   It also doesn’t even touch on issues like having one’s children taken away and sold, rape, and other forms of exploitation. Since nothing will ever do justice to that experience, I would rather attempts such as this one be halted. It provides the the uneducated individual the sense of then “knowing” what it’s really like (see Kyle R), and then using that experience off of which to base opinions of slavery, racism, etc, since it’s my understanding that first person experience trumps any other form of knowledge gathering.

   I’m sure that there are other intricacies that make this a particularly interesting move on the park’s behalf based on Haiti’s socio-political history, but I’m not well enough versed in it to even attempt. I’d love to hear from folks who perhaps know more than I do.

   Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 10:35 am ¶

7. Tricia wrote:

   I tend to support efforts to raise people’s consciousness about race, racism and the ongoing legacy of slavery. Speaking as a white person, I can tell you: we are not educated nearly enough.

   But this one really troubles me. Having lived in Haiti for a few years, I have already witnessed enough tour groups of white ‘missionaries’ descending upon the country in evangelistic efforts. Despite the intentions of the organizers to raise awareness about slavery, I think for many, many white visitors, this type of experience would give them a false pretense of ‘understanding’. Not to mention the outrageous photos and stories which would get shown in all those churches once they arrive back in the US.

   Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 11:18 am ¶

8. Mike wrote:

   Lol, My family is from Haiti, I am actually surprised some one has not tried this stunt sooner.

   You cant some up slavery let alone what happened in Haiti, (Which was basically a race war between blacks, mullattoes and whites), in a theme park adventure.

   Hell you cant put it into one movie.

   There is no way to recreate that experience with out recreating slavery.

   Desperate times in Haiti though, I can not fault them for trying to make a buck.

   Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 11:19 am ¶

9. Darren wrote:

   In college (in Ohio), I actually did something similar at a historical underground railroad site. They had someone yelling at us and we were whisked away to an actual home used in the Underground Railroad. We were tucked away in a hidden room and told to remain quiet. We overheard someone knocking on the door above us asking the homeowner about runaway slaves. Some people didn’t want to participate and opted out. It was a part of a school trip. As a result I don’t recall details regarding whether or not the place was being run for profit. Also, this occurred during my freshman year of college (in 1994-1995), so I don’t recall where in Ohio this took place. I found it somewhat enlightening, but at the same time, I realize that it’s not for everybody.

   Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 12:08 pm ¶

10. LeAnne@hairsmystory wrote:

    White people will find a way to make anything fun. Seriously….Shake my motherhumpin’ head. And Haiti, of all places.
    hairsmystory.com

    Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 12:58 pm ¶

11. Ciji wrote:

    Wasn’t this an SNL skit? “Come on down to cottonland” or something? I think Eddie Murphy was in it.

    Anyway, I did something similar with my 3rd graders: when they came into the classroom that morning, they were inexplicably divided into greens and yellows. The greens got to sit at any desk, play games, eat candy, and enjoy other freedoms while the yellows had to sit on the floor, sit quietly, and do very hard worksheets with no help. It was a very powerful exercise, possibly because it was with children who were unsure if this was for real or not.

    Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 2:01 pm ¶

12. Colin wrote:

    Whether it educates or not is irrelevant — it may be simplistic of me to say this, but isn’t there something wrong with Slavery becoming a ride at an amusement park? What would white people and non-white people learn about slavery (if previously uneducated) but that it was “really fun” and “kinda scary”, and something you’d “wanna ride again”? That’s what I feel about roller coasters, not the robbing, raping and destruction of many generations of ACTUAL people.

    It does not trivialize slavery, per se, if by trivialize we mean to make an issue seem trivial, to make slavery into a part of an amusement park attraction. It simply ignores the central and fundamental issues behind slavery and the opposition to slavery. It just seems like a charade made to make whites with the money to pay for a ticket feel good about themselves, like so many have already said.

    Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 6:49 pm ¶

13. Shannon wrote:

    I think this is very thorny. I can see where they are trying to go however, putting it in the same slot as amusement park is the wrong way to go in my view. I think if people really wanted something like this to be effective it would be a solo installation.

    I like the idea but the execution kind of sucks.

    Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 7:05 pm ¶

14. Mickey wrote:

    Hey why don’t we have White people live in a city where they are randomly stopped by the police because they don’t “look like the belong there.” Then we can have the followed around a dept store and being if asked if they need any help if they linger to long at something. Follow that up with a trip to bank so they too can feel the sting of being denied a home loan. Oh and dinner they can be asked for a form of ID when presenting a platinum card.

    Sorry for the rant, but this really is a WTF moment.

    Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 7:19 pm ¶

15. Tricia wrote:

    I think the whole use of the term “amusement park” is actually bad reporting. Not to defend the designers (I still have plenty of issues with the whole concept, as per my comment above), but they call it “Na Sonje” in Creole (literally translated as “We Remember”) and in English it’s called “Memory Village”. I read the project description (available here: http://memoryvillage.blogspot.com/)
    and they never use the term ‘amusement park’.

    Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 8:23 pm ¶

16. G.D. wrote:

    i remember that there was some furor about one of those Colonial Williamsburg theme parks over the fact that they were considering depicting slaves during their re-enactments.

    on one hand, the depiction can’t help but be problematic . but onthe flip side, do you want that heinous episode whitewashed?

    i’m not sure which of those is preferable.

    Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 8:35 pm ¶

17. jen* wrote:

    wow. this made me all kinds of uncomfortable. i don’t get how anyone could connect slavery and amusement parks.

    if this were executed more in the vein of the holocaust museum, i think it would have more impact. the facts have to be placed in front of people in such a way that they know it’s impossible to feel the same. as a museum, with the right focus, i think it could work.

    Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 9:47 pm ¶

18. Michelle wrote:

    Mickey….you got a point….that would really be something to make a difference in how White people think about race, slavery and priveledge….which is the point of the theme park event correct?

    Posted 07 Jan 2008 at 10:24 pm ¶

19. napthia9 wrote:

    Ick, no. Physically experiencing some of the tasks associated with slavery might give one a sense of how difficult the work is, but it won’t teach anything about how difficult slavery is emotionally. And frankly, this sort of experience won’t help people who just don’t get it to begin with. As Callisto pointed out, there’s no risk of permanently losing any freedoms or receiving serious injuries, so how can this experience really get across the trauma of slave life? Unless there was real abuse going on, this wouldn’t really teach anything about what slavery feels like. Jen’s suggestion of something similar to the Holocaust museum is a much better suggestion. With a museum, a lot more emphasis is placed on the words and lives of people who actually lived under slavery, rather than on some privileged person’s interpretation of what slavery must have felt like, based on a brief voluntary period of enslavement.

    Frankly, I think one would learn a lot more from reading a work of fiction- like Octavia Butler’s Kindred- rather than from this sort of simulated experience.

    Posted 08 Jan 2008 at 12:18 am ¶

20. cw wrote:

    People spend their money to be treated that way(sic).

    Posted 08 Jan 2008 at 6:00 pm ¶

21. Kyle R wrote:

    Reenacting a slave’s experience is not in anyway relevant to understanding present privileges because of our identities.

    Posted 08 Jan 2008 at 6:16 pm ¶

22. Curtis P wrote:

    Slavery isn’t the real issue anyway, in my opinion. It’s the ongoing racism after the end of slavery that leads up the the problems we have today. It seems that few people realize that abolition is the beggining of the solution, not the end of it, and this case seems no different.

    Posted 09 Jan 2008 at 12:43 am ¶

23. Kay Olson wrote:

    This reminds me of “Disabled for a Day” programs where participants spend a day using a wheelchair or wearing a blindfold to try and understand the experience of being disabled. It’s a kind of tourism that may have some limited educational value — participants learn that it’s difficult to open a door to a public building while sitting in a manual chair, it’s hard to use an ATM while wearing a blindfold, people stare. Then, the day is over and “Whew! I would hate to be disabled!” The participant goes home, maybe stops off at the ATM on the way. They might not have even had to talk to an actual disabled person for all this. They might be more eager to hold a door in the future, though hopefully the program included the etiquette fact that unsolicited assistance isn’t what disabled folk most want in life.

    It’s a superficial experience. I helped moderate discussions following these experiments 20 years ago in college for training of resident assistants. This was before most disability scholars determined such programs do more harm than good because the inherent limits fool participants into thinking they’ve had an authentic cultural experience, and because a common response is often a greater fear of ending up with a real disability or a sharper sense of Us and Them.

    Participating in these programs as a young disabled student, the chance to offer basic info on ettiquette and a little sex ed, and to start a classroom dialogue is what drew me. And the fact that the program would have occured with or without representation made participating seem necessary, if only to avoid total superficiality disguised as an educational event.

    Posted 09 Jan 2008 at 2:07 am ¶

24. Adrianna wrote:

    Do you know where in Haiti ? Because I ‘m down there. I want to protest that ridiculous park . Do they plan to lash , torture and rape their visitors and work them to death? WTF!

    Posted 09 Jan 2008 at 1:41 pm ¶

25. Dan wrote:

    I’d also like to point out the irony of many of the comments here.

    The broad generalizations about ‘white folks’ here is just as disturbing as the countless generalizations of minorities.

    Who said this is designed to be a ‘whites only’ destination?

    Did you actually click on the links and read more? It’s the original vision of Ari Nicolas, a Haitian of African descent, that enlisted the help of the Americans.

    A simple Google search of Ron and Carla Bluntschli will lead to Beyondborders.net , a respected advocacy/charity non-profit organization that seeks the elimination of child slavery and exploitation in Haiti.

    Turning their good intentions into a knee-jerk reaction against ‘white folks’ is sad to see.

    This comment section just shows WE ALL have a long way to go.

    Posted 09 Jan 2008 at 2:12 pm ¶

26. Colin wrote:

    I appreciate your opinion, Brother Dan, but I heartily disagree with your analysis.

    I do not believe this comment section to be riddled with generalizations against white folks, rather a well-founded concern as to the impact of such good intentions on the people of Haiti, the United States and the rest of the world.

    To me, it’s like bashing Robert Johnson over BET or Bill Cosby for his comments about poor blacks or even Oprah for starting a school in South Africa while bashing kids here in her own country. It’s not that we HATE the people we’re criticizing, as far as I know, but we worry deeply about their impact.

    It’s like this: Do I want child labor to be abolished completely? Hell yes.

    But, do I want to UNCRITICALLY support any program someone starts just because they tell me it’s for the children? Absolutely not.

    Posted 09 Jan 2008 at 2:55 pm ¶

27. regina wrote:

    This may have started as someones good idea, based on good intentions but I don’t really see the purpose. No one can get the real feel of slavery in a 12 hour tour. The effects of slavery are still felt and being lived with today. These guest are not being torn from their families, raped, whipped, sold, traumatized, or spit on.
    It is IMPOSSIBLE to understand in 12 hours the humiliation, degredation, frustration, or hopelessness that African American ancestors felt. so someone’s idea was a horrible one…

    Posted 09 Jan 2008 at 9:14 pm ¶

28. Dan wrote:

    Thanks for the reply Colin.
    I didn’t mean to generalize every comment here.
    There are quite a few well thought out comments (yours included).

    But comments like…
    “White people will find a way to make anything fun.”
    and
    “Hey why don’t we have White people live in a city where they are randomly stopped by the police because they don’t “look like the belong there.”

    These are ignorant comments that I’m surprised others aren’t critically reading. Don’t ALL people try to find a way to make things fun? Maybe LeAnne would find the experience educational by learning Black folk sang field songs in an attempt to make the best of forced labor?

    White folks have also been living in cities with harassment. Mickey must not live in DC. He’d know the DC police have diversity in their harassment. In 2001 Washington Post reported on DC police internal emails of police stating “I feel like going out and punching whitey today” and another black officer stating “Let’s stop that person, because he’s dating a white girl”.

    I’d also echo a comment above, that Carmen and t his blog is influencing people’s thoughts on the project by the inclusion of ‘Amusement park’ in the headline. NOWHERE in any of the articles is this described as an amusement park- which has connotations of trivializing slavery to roller coasters and ferris wheels.

    Posted 10 Jan 2008 at 1:01 pm ¶

29. lena wrote:

    i think this is a GOD AWFUL idea. why would anyone, white, black or indifferent want to participate in this?? i can’t help but think of the pictures of all the smiling guest as they get whipped, and sold. doesn’t anyone see whats wrong here?? i think this is a terrible idea. we might as well make a holocaust park where guests are put into mock ovens, and starved. who thought this was a good idea??? i’m repulsed and offended

    Posted 27 Feb 2008 at 3:34 pm ¶