White Vamps, Black Witches: Race Politics and Vampire Pop Culture

Hmm. There is a reference in Season 2 to old “slave quarters”,” on, I believe, the Lockwood Family estate, and a suggestion that the current head of the family does not enjoy referring to them as such. A suggestion that the characters in-story are whitewashing issues just as much as the writers are?

I think the 1864 massacre is supposed to stand in for slavery. WTF, I know. It’s explicitly aligned with Confederate guilt in the third episode–but what’s more important are the revenge plots later. Emily Bennett’s words in 2009 seem to indicate that she had at one point intended to let all the tomb vamps out–why else would she do that–but it’s her “things are different now” “they don’t deserve this” comments that really beg for an alternate interpretation.

Then there’s the *other* vampires of color from the tomb–the two Latino/a vampires from the tomb: Frederick (the guy who wanted revenge) and his girlfriend Lucia (who, seriously, could stand to have a personality?). …The conflict between Frederick (revenge for what they did to us! We’re finally free after 150 years!) and Harper (Patience! Obey Miss Pearl! Baby steps!) is blatantly symbolic and SUPER uncomfortable to watch (especially since we’re supposed to side with Harper).

So, I think the slavery isn’t completely absent from the show, and I also think that the white characters’ not-wanting-to-talk-about-it-and-in-particular-not-wanting-to-say-the-word (per Steve’s comment) is realistic–white Southerners generally either dissasociate themselves from Southern culture or try to shove slavery under the rug–but that doesn’t let the show as a whole off the hook. I am pretty stumped on the Asians-in-1864 thing–it’s possible Pearl used mind control to make people think she was white, in some way that later vervain consumption wouldn’t undo, but if so they should say something about it coz it’s really distracting.

I doubt we’ll get an explanation on the witches-are-black thing beyond Stefan’s “archetype of heroic individualism” comment–in part because in the books (which predate Twilight), Bonnie is white with red hair.

And, actually, you find out in season 2 that Pearl & Anna’s deaths were in no way unnecessary.

Oh, right! I remember him, Tyler, saying something like “this where they kept the slaves”. He was very uncomfortable about it.

To add to what Steve said, they’ve mentioned “slaves” before. That guy Elijah did in the most recent episode. I did bring up this topic about all witches being black and all vampires being white on YouTube. Hell, even most werewolves have been uniformly white . . . non-white ones don’t survive long. I feel like it is a very generalized view of things but I’ve yet to see them really break the mold in bringing in long-term characters that do not uphold this theme. As for the Asian vampires living in the 1800′s . . . it could work. Asians have been on the American continent since the 1500′s, at least from my perspective. I guess I would find it hard to believe that any woman of color would be treated so cordially by a bunch of white men back in those days. No, they were mistreating blacks, natives, essentially anyone who could be otherized. Hell, sometimes you can still get away with this shit to this day. So, it made me think that perhaps they were passing for white? I mean, was their Asianness ever addressed?

Damon, I know he’s supposed to be a bad guy but I literally hate his guts. We might as well just label him a rapist cause the things he’s been doing to women on the show are just downright nasty. I was Bamon shipping b/c I felt like Damon would need someone to keep him in check. He can’t just do whatever the hell he wants. He needs someone who’s willing to kill him should he starting committing even more crimes against humans. Elena just aint it. At least Bonnie tried to kill him . . .

And it’s funny how they’re using Bonnie to keep Elena’s brother relevant in the show. I just have a really hard time believing their relationship. He was just kind of thrust upon her so that he could have something to do. But she really doesn’t need him. I mean, I appreciate how he was allowing the audience to see how overworked and pressured Bonnie is, being the only witch on the side of “good”. But she’s got friends to lean on and support her . . . outside of that, what else is he good for?

“And how can you not say the word ‘slavery’ in a flashback about the Civil War?”

For the love of Pete…THIS! I have asked myself this constantly when watching the show, especially during the flashbacks. And I had the same questions about why all the witches in Mystic Falls are black. Bonnie – and all witches on this show – are basically the help. They show up to enchant or explain something for the white characters and then they’re gone.

I recall that the way they “got around” referring to Bonnie’s ancestor Emily as a slave was to call her Katherine’s handmaiden. *headdesk*

Also, I always found it curious that the writers of The Vampire Diaries chose to move the setting of the story – or at least its origination point – to Virginia (in the books on which the series is based, the main vampires – Stefan & Damon – come from Renaissance-era Italy). Not that Renaissance-Italy would have been free of racial politics, but I thought it was an interesting choice; except that they never mention slavery which always takes me out of the fiction, especially when the flashbacks come up.

Bonnie has literally become the magical negro. She has magical powers and we only see her when Elena or any of the other main characters need her to perform a spell. I find the comparison to Willow from Buffy interesting. Willow would always come in and help with a spell when Buffy needed it but the difference is at the end of the day Willow is a fully written character.

I’m pretty sure Emily Bennett was suppose to be Katherine’s slave but they called her “Katherine’s hand madien.”

I love Damon but he is basically Spike lite. He has even said things that have reminded me of the things Spike use to say.

All the witches have been black. Bonnie(Katerina Graham), her Grandma(Jasmine Guy), her Great Grandmother Emily(Bianca Lawson), her cousin Lucy(Natasha Williams), Damon’s ex(Gina Torres), Luka(Bryton James), and his father Jonas(Randy J. Goodwin).

He’s an extra pair of hands & she trusts him. He’s shown he’s tough enough to deal with this supernatural stuff. His character has had a real turn this season.

You know what I want to see? A show that deals with racial politics through vampires by revealing that a network of vampires designed and controlled the world in order to live in the way to which they were accustomed and now it’s everyone else’s job to try to take down the structure so they don’t end up getting shuffled through partial-drainage blood farms or forced to work in goblet/lace/leatherware/sunshade factories while the vampires give interviews about not hating humans, but the economy just being unsustainable without a certain kind of labor, someone has to be at the bottom of the stack, and anyway, it was some other vampire who set the whole deal up, why blame these guys?

Vampires are so often used as symbols for oppressed groups, but the fact that they have all this unholy power always complicates the metaphor… don’t they make a much better stand-in for the privileged white middle/upper class?

I really wish that they would hurry up and get the House of Night series going…provided that they stay faithful to the source material.

I think a lot of folks are missing some of the not-so-subtleties about race & class that color the show.

Emily Bennett, named a couple times as one of the most powerful witches period, and progenitor of 95% of the show’s witches, might *not* have been Kate’s slave, since they had been traveling the world together for years/maybe decades (I’m pretty sure Emily was much older than she looked…) and regarded each other more like wary partners, at least in private. The current “break the curse” plotline relationships pretty much point to witches as the powerful, but vulnerable willing allies/unwilling tools of vampires from time immemorial (long before the 1600′s).

At a writer’s level it might well be the magical negro archetype, but in-universe it could be that the witch-gene (they’ve clearly stated it’s genes+training) is more likely among African-descended people (we’d need some non-American witches to confirm). I think it’s a good way to keep a stream of black actors in the recurring cast, and raises some interesting issues about mixed-race/culture relationships (Bonnie & Elena have had some major fights over their families’ very different past/current relationships with vampires).

Mystic Falls the 1800s town was essentially founded by not-quite-white vampires – Pearl & Anna are mixed-Chinese (without family names, we can only go by the actresses & British colonial history), the leaders of the vengeful tomb vamps were light-skinned Latino (hadn’t paid attention, but yeah), and Katherine/Katerina herself is really eastern-European (the actress & character are Bulgarian).

The humans in town were essentially brought there as perennial food sources, and to fill out the village ranks, but they were mostly white Virginians & black slaves and presumably were whammied into forgetting whatever racism they might’ve had re: the not-quite-white vamps. There’s a lot of talk from the 1800s vamps about “this is our town, we built a paradise for ourselves”, and some of the non-Mystic Falls vamps alive during the era kind of talk like Kate et al. had it coming (i.e. they rose above their station – like a lot of the Freedmen’s towns…).

Once the 1800s humans overthrew the vamps, they basically rewrote history and claimed that *they* founded the town, and that the folks who burned in the church were like Northern sympathizers or traitors or some BS. Because there’s no monument or anything at the tomb, and this is a town that’s all about their “grand history”, that’s obviously a big whitewashing.

There are actually quite a lot of character-plotlines related to family secrets, and who’s related/allied to whom, and folks looking down on other folks (stones & glass houses galore). The town’s/characters’ entire history (way-old & recent) is literally steeped in lies and violence about race & class that have serious right-now consequences, which is playing it pretty close to our current racial/class discourse (certainly closer than a YA romance-drama might normally be expected to).

Add to all that the fact that from ep1 on, parallel to the supernatural plots, there’s this major current of class politics in town. All the Founding Families are still *really* rich from their seizure of former vampire lands/wealth, and spend time/money on ridiculous ceremonies and pageantry while most townies are just scrubbing by. That tends to supercede, but not completely obliterate the racial politics.

As for the hapless dead person of the week trope (not always used, but more dominant in earlier eps), it actually is well-mixed among races & genders, it’s just that the only ones we get to know and like a little bit tend to be PoC.

I hope it’s made independently because I’m afraid Hollywood will tear it apart.

***Spoiler/Rant Alert****

Oh my god! This show is getting on my fucking nerves! Okay, so both black witches die in the same damn episode. And like nobody actually cares. It’s all about fucking Elena . . .

And then Bonnie, with her out-of-character ass doesn’t even care about the fact that Jonas died when he wasn’t even trying to kill her. He was just managing to give her back her powers so that she has a way of killing Klaus. It was very strange. I mean, I know in FF8 when a witch is going to die he/she passes on their powers to the next vessel, so I could view the scene in that light. But when Jonas grabbed her I was under the impression that she was in immediate danger. But now I know he essentially died for nothing. Or maybe Jonas wanted to die? Agh!

Bonnie didn’t seem all that upset that cutie Luka and his father are dead. And although Luka betrayed her I feel that abducting him and forcing him to give up potentially life-threatening information isn’t a good thing either. And I guess if Luka’s sister ever becomes free she’ll be without a brother and a father. I really don’t think the main group is going to care enough to rescue this woman and respect Luka and Jonas’ desire for her freedom.

But it’s possible that when the group encounters Klaus the sister will be with him.

It’d be nice if we did another post about this show. It keeps pissing me off with Damon and his whole “I will always choose you” and “I will let Bonnie die in order to save you” and then Elena thanking him. SMH. I am almost done with this show. Had they actually killed off Bonnie I would have been boycotting or something.