Author: Timothy Beresford

Timothy Beresford

Episode 1 of The 1619 Project centers around the ways in which Black Americans have helped fight for the U.S. and move toward a better democracy. Something in particular the episode focuses on is the importance of voting. The Georgia Coalition of the Peoples’ Agenda is a non partisan organization that has been working for years to defend the right to vote. Most recently in 2020, they had helped mobilize a multiracial group of voters in a dominantly red state and this act has helped shift the power in the government. It is very interesting just how influential and important the right to vote is. As not everybody who is of the age to vote actually goes out to vote. It’s something crazy to think about as it is our given right. Most recently, the Peoples’ Agenda helped in a 2022 poll where a group of elderly and disabled people were told they were unable to vote at the given location. The voting location had messed up their zip codes which made them unable to vote there, rather somewhere 20 minutes away. One of the members of Peoples Agenda brings up that it should not be this hard to vote and she is entirely. It is crazy how complicated it is as this is something everyone has the right to do. 

In our society, we are taught freedom of speech, religion, press, and to protest. All the credit on this is given to the founding fathers. But white freedom had become predicated on black slaves and the documentary brings up a great point that black people have been the ones who have been fighting for freedom for centuries. As slaves were considered to be foundational for economy and the laws, they are rarely shown in historical sites. In many ways,  society has erased their history and their stories in doing so. As said in the documentary, in Williamsburg, slaves made up half of the population. Yet their history has almost been forgotten.

Timothy Beresford

Myriam Gurba is the author of Mean. Mean centers around a coming of age story of a queer mexicana as she feels haunted by the ghost of Sophia Torres. Mean focuses on issues such as racism, homophopia, and rape culture. She writes about these dark topics with humor.  I watched Myriam’s Gurba reading at Suny Cortland for extra credit. Something that really caught my attention and threw me off guard is Gurba’s demeanor. In my head and after reading how vulgar and descriptive the book gets, I think I accepted her to be a lot more gruff and extreme. But she is completely soft spoken and soft in her tone. She reads her memoir and talks about it so comfortably, which she would have to as she wrote it and published it to the public. I found that the delivery of the jokes were different from what I read in my head. Gurba reads her memoir as it is intended and it completely makes you think about it differently. Gurba says that writing Mean was a very fractured process. She started to write it 6 years before it was actually published. She never intended to create one continuous story rather just fragmented ones. The first few writings of Mean were completely different from the published story. I thought it was extremely fascinating when she said she initially intended for one of the sexual assaults to be from the perspective of a butterfly and that just seems very grabbing and unique. There are still elements of that in the book though with the blades of grass during the sexual assault. Gurba says that many sexual assault writers will do this and become a third person perspective of the assault and the environment. Considering how dark the book is, I was surprised to hear that there were many things that she did not include in the book as it was extremely hard to talk about. It makes me only imagine how difficult it was for her to write about the things that actually ended up being in the book. Gurba did not purposefully have any specific reader in mind, but she wanted to focus her approach on the book to other writers. She wanted those writers to be able to write about trauma in a different way, with vulgarity and profanity. She also wanted the book to be intended for sexual assault survivors. It was an invitation for them to look at the experience and situation differently. Overall I really enjoyed watching this event as it gives you a totally different outlook on the book. Most of that is due to the way Gurba talks about the book.

Timmy Beresford

In Mean by Myriam Gurba, there is strong consistency of humor. Gurba’s memoir focuses on the topics of sexual assault, racism, and misogyny. She uses her humor to compensate for the emotional and dark places she brings the audience to. The humor is used to relieve tension and highlight Gurba’s wit, strength, and power within her troubling situations. While she brings the audience to the lowest places, she lifts them right back up with her comedic timing. 

The tone from the first passage “Wisdom” to the rest in the memoir is evident, as it is vastly darker as Gurba does not use any humor whatsoever. The passage centers around the rape and murder of a Sophia Loren. Gurba goes into excessive detail on Loren’s experience, setting up the memoir and her audience in a dark place.  “He pushes her legs apart. He pulls out his corn and kneels. Blood pours from her cheek, nose, and head as he feeds himself into her. He thrusts to the rhythm of her death rattle. Her agony sustains his erection, holding it. He freezes. He moans and shivers. His slack corn slides out of her. Cum oozes from between her legs. It gleams like unspeakable poetry” (Gurba 2). Gurba makes the audience feel as if they had almost been there first hand. She leaves the audience with a feeling of vulgarness, violation, and uncomfortableness. Gurba makes it as if the audience was witnessing and feeling the assault themselves. Ending this chapter, Gurbra essentially leads the audience into believing this is going to be the tone for the rest of the memoir. However this is not the case. 

One of the many ways in which Gurba uses humor is in unnecessary places. In doing this, it makes what can be serious conversations and themes, much more light hearted. In the chapter “The Whites”, Gurbra is staying with the white family next door. The description Gurba gives about each of the family members is quite interesting. She adds unnecessarily funny words that strengthen Gurba’s personality even further. “I followed him around his yard, staring up at his metallic hair, longing for him to show me affection. A smile. Meanwhile, his little sister acted cunty” (Gurba 8).  There is purely no necessary reason for her to use the word “cunty”, other than to let the audience laugh. She then does the same thing with the white mom. “The white mom stabbed the casserole with her spatula. Her vigor made her wings flap” (Gurba 9). Gurba refers to the mothers arm fat as if she’s a swan with wings. She hides these jokes and comedy deep within what is actually a pressing and significant issue. Since Gurba is staying over at the white family’s house, the mother says she is making Mexican food because she is there. The mother makes what she says is a mexican casserole. It has nothing to do with Mexican food or Gurba’s culture. She is essentially generalizing and minimizing everything about Mexican tradition and culture, partially with food. The casserole has no significance to Gurba as it isn’t mexican. “I dropped it on my tongue. There is nothing Mexican about it. Its spices told unfamiliar stories, but I used my milk as a chaser and managed to choke it down without vomiting” (Gurba 9). This food is not her food whatsoever. The mother making that and deciding to call it Mexican food is demeaning and hurtful to Gurbra. For that reason, she hides the pain and frustration within her humor. Bringing light to something that is otherwise a serious topic.

Both chapters “Wisdom” and “Senorita” focus on the topics of sexual assault and rape. While “Wisdom” is extremely more serious and tone and darker, “Senorita” focuses on the time when Gurbra was sexually assaulted in school with a much different tone.Gurba is sexually assaulted by one of her classmates, Macaulay. One of the reasons why they are so different, is that “Senorita” is through the eyes of Gurba and her first hand experience. In doing this, this allows for her personality to consistently come through. Even when she is having something happen to her as tragic and horrendous as being sexually assaulted, she still consists of creating a light hearted and jovial tone when she is scared of what is about to happen to her. “I looked at Mcaulay with caution. This trepidation was new but it felt natural. Instinctual. I knew what was happening under the table shouldn’t have been happening, but my impulses did not command me to fight. I froze. Many animals do this. Deer. Possum. My mother” (Gurba 23). Gurba has to throw that last line in there about her mother to shift the tone back up again. She takes the audience on a rollercoaster of emotions from fear to humor in mere seconds. Gurba manages this all while still talking about rape. Gubra strongly tells her past stories with her humor for the audience. Without this, her memoir would be severely different and the impact of these stories would not be as effective. 

1. What was your favorite joke or piece of humor Gurba used and why do you think it was effective?
2. Do you think there was any point that the humor was not necessary or went too far? If so, what and where?

Citations 

Gurba, M. (2017). Mean. Coffee House Press.