A Thread: Some of you know I also co-host a #paranormal & true crime podcast called #NightMerica. Last week we did an ep about ghost stories involving slaves. I grew up in the South & always loved ghost tours but I've had a realization how wrong they are...
I've been working on how to be antiracist, and out of that journey I began to see that ghost tours often co-opt the stories of slaves for entertainment (often for largely white audiences). That doesn't sit well. Especially considering many tours in the South involve
involve stories of Plantation owners with slave mistresses. Those mistresses were sometimes said to become jealous of the wives. And there is often a tragic end. On tours, you might even see quarters of these mistresses. I heard these stories countless times before it clicked...
To call these slaves "mistresses" is to apply some level of consent to a relationship that most certainly was not consensual. To show their quarters is to show the room where women and girls were assaulted. They may also say the Plantation owner was madly in love but...
To call the Plantation owner/slave owner madly in love with his slave mistress is to romanticize that relationship which lacked choice or agency on the slave's part. Yes, we are talking about ghost stories, but racism pervades folklore ...
To continue to tell these ghost stories, regardless of your belief in ghosts, is to continue to enslave these people. Tragically, it enslaves their immortal soul to say they still roam the Plantation halls after their death. So do we stop telling these stories? Yes and no.
I think it's important to tell the ghost stories of slaves. Even if you don't believe, they keep history alive. I've been involved in the paranormal for a long time now as a researcher and journalist & people can recite tales of prisoner abuse at Eastern State Penitentiary...
In particular, many paranormal investigators are stewards of a location's history (aside from those who repeat unfounded legends). Even within the mainstream, people know certain historic landmarks (Pennhurst, Waverly) precisely because of the traumas that occurred there...
And I think THAT is how we tell these ghost stories involved slaves. We present them as tragedies, as the site of great brutality. Rather than the quarters of a slave mistress, call it a prison, a chamber of horror, a place where assault occurred. Don't romanticize it...
By re-framing these ghost stories of slaves in this way, we keep the history alive, and then give the stories back to the people who lived them. And the #paranormal community can embrace more people. The way to heal & move beyond systemic racism ALSO involves updating stories
AND push back on locations that refuse to do so. With that in mind, I will no longer promote venues that tell these kinds of stories in a romanticized fashion.
If you're curious about my thought process, I further ramble pontificate about it on the #NightMerica podcast...
If you're curious about my thought process, I further ramble pontificate about it on the #NightMerica podcast...
FURTHER, I must credit @TiyaMilesTAM & her book "Tales from the Haunted South" as instrumental in helping me along this journey within the paranormal, and ghost stories about slavery. tiyamiles.com/tales-from-the…
OH, and another note: Because I'm still learning: It was brought to my attention it's better to say enslaved people rather than "slaves." And I legitimately appreciate this being pointed out.
And because I appear on @paranormaloncam I'd like the supporters of that show to see this, so here are those hashtags: #myparanormal #paracamfam #whatisit
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