Are We Already the Walking Dead?

In an economic collapse, do we all become the walking dead?

In promotions for the new AMC show The Walking Dead, the iconic shot centers around the protagonist riding horseback into the deserted city of Atlanta.

With abandoned cars littering one side of the highway (the occupants having long fled), the lone man trudges toward the skyscrapers in the distance.

What awaits him in the city? Zombies. The premise of The Walking Dead is simple: a zombie apocalypse has occurred, plunging the civilized world into undead chaos.

In only a matter of days society breaks down, overrun by the unstoppable contagion and subsequent insatiable appetite of zombie hordes.

A question Stuff Black People Don't Like will pose now is simply this: if a breakdown in government authority - whether by a zombie apocalypse, financial meltdown, terrorist attack, etc. - occurred, what would transpire next?

Before answering this question, remember that the United States is the most well-armed country in the world, as private citizens in America have a lot of firearms. Only in states with large amounts of Stuff White People Like (SWPL) white people and Disingenuous White Liberals (DWL) are  lower rates of gun ownership found. Interestingly, these areas equate to the larger cities in America (Seattle, Denver, Washington DC, New York City and Los Angeles ), places that would be the worst locales to be in if the proverbial s--t hit the fan.

It is the cities that have high levels of trust and a sense of community that would survive a sudden collapse. Conversely, those that have high levels of crime would be areas that break down instantaneously (with high levels of police presence before the absence of authority, one can only imagine the swift descent into anarchy that would befall major cities).

All zombie movies (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead) or books (World War Z) fail to consider the one element that must always be measured: race.

In the proverbial end-of-the-world scenario, when all forms of government and authority have dissolved, the one thing people perpetually claim doesn't matter or exist will be accentuated to a degree unimaginable. Race is more than a social construct, much more.

The 30,000 Black people who showed up for a Section 8 housing voucher event in East Point (right outside Atlanta) showcased in a tragic beauty the fragile state of America. How many people in America depend upon the state for their very existence, functioning solely thanks to programs that now have millions of dependents?

What do you call these people in the event of a stoppage of government aide?

On the Internet you can find any number of end-of-the-world scenarios, but few that deal honestly with the situation that confronts America and what would transpire in the event of a currency collapse or a sudden end to the welfare state.

This is why the recent mid-term election was so important, with the continued polarization between SWPL whites and untouchable whites increasing and a distinct map forming of where these competing groups call home.

We have argued that the South must be abandoned, with  a demographic tidal wave washing over that region and ensuring that a cessation of the Federal government would mean high levels of discomfort for citizens there.

Again, all of this is but a hypothetical. There will never be a zombie apocalypse, but a currency collapse like the one in Iceland could trigger a much more horrifying scenario then even George Romero could conceive.

A lot of Web sites that we enjoy reading (financial Web sites) have been claiming that economic Armageddon is approaching and that this cataclysm is unavoidable. In a situation like this, are we all the walking dead?

If this is the scenario that will play out - an economic collapse - we are beginning to think that being in Boise, Cheyenne or Sioux Falls would be a much better location than Birmingham, Dallas, San Diego or Chicago.

One of the lingering questions that plagues the survivors in The Walking Dead is the agonizing wait for help to arrive and, ultimately, if government help will ever arrive.

This is the paramount question of our time: if electoral actions are insufficient to save the United States from dissolution and an economic meltdown (triggered perhaps by a collapse of California) is the lone manner in which to survive, what flag do Americans have to rally around in a period of extreme duress?

The answer should be obvious.

One thing should be obvious in dying stages of Black Run America (BRA): there is no government that will save us and waiting for one to do so will only exacerbate the current situation.

#78. Black Zombies

It has been said that “when hell is full, the dead will walk the earth.” One people and one nation deserve credit for delivering a frightening genre full of suspense, chills and gruesome images of undead carnage: Haitians.

The idea of reanimated corpses – the “living undead” – finds origins in the same land where Houngan’s are reported to have taken an oath back in 1791. Pat Robertson has come under fire for inane remarks connecting this oath to the geological disaster that has befallen Haiti, completely neglecting the nightmarish existence Haitian’s lived in prior to the earthquake.

Regardless, Haiti and the Black people who live there must be shown plenty of gratitude for they bestowed the world with the idea of the zombie:

The origin of the concept of zombiism stems from Haitian Voodoo culture. The word zombie--in Haitian it is "zombi"--means "spirit of the dead." Voodoo folklore contends that Bokors, Voodoo priests that were concerned with the study and application of black magic, posessed the ability to ressurrect the deceased through the administration of coup padre--coup padre is a powder that is issued orally, the primary ingredient of which is tetrodoxin, the deadly substance of the notoriously poisonous fou-fou, or "porcupine fish." According to lengend, "a zombi(e) is someone who has annoyed his or her family and community to the degree that they can no longer stand to live with this person. They respond by hiring a Bokor..to turn them into a zombi(e)." (Keegan, www.flmnh.ufl.edu)

Once they had been issued the coup padre, the subjects being prepared for their descent into zombidom would appear to die insofar as their heart rate would slow to a near stop, their breathing patterns would be greatly subdued and their body temperature would significantly decrease. The public, thinking that the person was dead, would bury him/ her as if they were a corpse. They would then be exhumed, still alive, by the Bokor and, although their physicality remained intact, their memory would be erased and they would be transformed into mindless drones. "Though still living, they remain under the Bokor's power until the Bokor dies." (Keegan, www.flmnh.ufl.edu)"

Black people in Haiti (Haiti is almost 100 percent Black and has been since the people slaughtered European’s in the 1790s) have been to known to be practitioners of voodoo and combine mysticism and magic to restore life to the dead, thus turning them into zombies:

“According to the tenets of Vodou, a dead person can be revived by a bokor, or sorcerer. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will of their own. "Zombi" is also another name of the Vodou snake lwa Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kikongo word nzambi, which means "god". There also exists within the West African Vodun tradition the zombi astral, which is a part of the human soul that is captured by a bokor and used to enhance the bokor's power. The zombi astral is typically kept inside a bottle which the bokor can sell to clients for luck, healing or business success. It is believed that after a time God will take the soul back and so the zombi is a temporary spiritual entity.^[2]

In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered the case of a woman who appeared in a village, and a family claimed she was Felicia Felix-Mentor, a relative who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. Hurston pursued rumors that the affected persons were given powerful psychoactive drug, but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information.”

From a biological standpoint, Haitians who practice voodoo and the art of zombiism, have an ally in Wade Davis as he has done extensive research in Haitian voodoo and penned numerous volumes on the subject. In Passage of Darkness: the Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie and Serpent and the Rainbow, Davis discusses the uses of certain chemical compounds to create hallucinogens and neurotoxins capable of inducing the effects of death only to allow the “zombie” to awake later.

The botanical secrets and the chemical compound formulas that create zombies are known only by the Haitian Voodoo priests, but the mysterious origins behind zombies haven’t dissuaded others from inventing their own.

George Romero of “The Night of the Living Dead” fame is credited with inventing the modern-zombie in the United States, but he owes much to the 1930s film “White Zombie”, which was appropriately set in Haiti.

We have discussed the historical nature of zombies, as the idea originated in Haiti and there, witch-doctors practiced (and still do) a form of Black magic that “can” reanimate corpses.

In the United States however, zombies take on a much different connotation, for we view them as the true undead brought back to life, consuming as much live human flesh in the process, thereby spreading the zombie virus further. Zombies - in America - are a plague that must be eradicated.

Romero, who has made a fine living directing zombie films, cast a Black person as the main protagonist in his first zombie film “Night of the Living Dead” and has since positively shown Black people in that films many sequels, most notably in the late 1970s “Dawn of the Dead.”

It is obvious to all Black people, that Romero knows the true history of zombies, and thus, must do everything in his power to remove the mystical Black magic origins of voodoo/zombies from his films and showcase Black people operating in a highly functional manner.

There is an unwritten rule in Hollywood that Romero deemed necessary when discussing zombies, for no mentioning of Haiti and Black people’s predilection and fascination with the undead can occur in film or video game.

Resident Evil 5 is a video game – it has sold more than five million copies worldwide since its release - that dares to buck the Romero Law of Zombie films, for its storyline focuses on something Black people find abhorring. Remember, that law states black people as zombies aren’t allowed, for the historical connection between the two makes them synonymous.

Remember, Black people don’t want historical accurate portrayals of them entering the general public’s mind and in an interview with N'Gai Croal of Newsweek, on the Resident Evil video game, that fact was made clear:

"It (Resident Evil 5) depicts a white protagonist going into an apparently poverty-stricken village (the location is unspecified) and killing throngs of black zombified men and women (see the trailer yourself).

Croal's first reaction to the trailer was, "Wow, clearly no one black worked on this game." He explained his thoughts on the trailer and how he would have preferred Capcom to treat it:

"It's like when you engage that kind of imagery you have to be careful with it. It would be like saying you were going to do some sort of zombie movie that appeared to be set in Europe in the 1940's with skinny, emaciated, Hasidic-looking people. If you put up that imagery people would be saying, 'Are you crazy?' Well, that's what this stuff looks like. This imagery has a history. It has a history and you can't pretend otherwise. That imagery still has a history that has to be engaged, that has to be understood. ... If you're going to engage imagery that has that potential, the onus is on the creator to be aware of that because there will be repercussions in the marketplace."

There was stuff like even before the point in the trailer where the crowd turned into zombies. There sort of being, in sort of post-modern parlance, they're sort of "othered." They're hidden in shadows, you can barely see their eyes, and the perspective of the trailer is not even someone who's coming to help the people. It's like they're all dangerous; they all need to be killed. It's not even like one cute African -- or Haitian or Caribbean -- child could be saved.

They're all dangerous men, women and children. They all have to be killed. And given the history, given the not so distant post-colonial history, you would say to yourself, why would you uncritically put up those images? It's not as simple as saying, "Oh, they shot Spanish zombies in 'Resident Evil 4,' and now 'black zombies and that's why people are getting upset." The imagery is not the same. It doesn't carry the same history, it doesn't carry the same weight. I don't know how to explain it more clearly than that.”

One thing is true from the statement above: Black people didn't work on that video game, or many others.

One note on the Romero Law of Zombie films: there was a deviation from this rule in “Land of the Dead”, one of the recent zombie pictures that depicts motor-skills and intelligence in zombies. The smartest zombie is of course a Black person.

Remember, Black people can’t be zombies, because the historical link between Haiti, Black people, zombies and human sacrifice is too real to be included in fiction.

Stuff Black People Don’t Like includes Black Zombies, for history shows us that the mere idea of zombies originates from Haiti and Black people and yet depicting Black people as zombies might resonate negatively with people who recall this historic fact.

We have Haiti and Black people to thank for zombies, but Black people don’t like anyone pointing out this fact out.

Haiti, Earthquakes and the Undead

Sadly, news headlines commanding attention to a "Haiti in Crisis" and a "Nightmare in Haiti" after the devastating earthquake ravaged Port-au-Prince don't qualify as a "man-bites-dog" story.

Haiti has long been a nation where a “nightmarish” existence is the perpetually state of life for the residents of that failed state. Indeed, images being broadcast from Port-au-Prince of the rioting over food and relief supplies by the Black people in Haiti are just another macabre day in the piteous life for those brave descendants of the only slave revolt in history.

Who is running the country? No one, eerily similar to the madness that gripped New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina (where is Kanye West when we need him most?).

Black people in the United States identify with Haiti, for it is a land where Black power reigns supreme and white interference is kept to the bare minimum (foreign aid and the helping in the erection of the presidential palace that was destroyed in the earthquake, notwithstanding):

“Built during the U.S. Marine occupation of Haiti in the 1920s, the presidential palace seems almost a mirage in a city of mean, sprawling slums, rickety tin shacks and jury-rigged infrastructure. Its public rooms are pristine, its sprawling grounds immaculate, and beyond its wrought-iron gates are broad boulevards flanked by the national police headquarters and other instruments of government power and prestige.”

Black people control the government and live peacefully with nature, much like the indigenous people of Pandora in Avatar.

Haiti, however, does offer some tremendous exports, for Haitian cadavers have long filled medical colleges throughout the United States, giving aspiring medical doctors the opportunity to learn about human anatomy thanks to Haiti’s abundance of dead criminals.

The nation – prior to the earthquake – largely subsisted off the largesse of the United States taxpayer:

The World Economic Forum ranked Haiti last in its 2003 Global Competitiveness Report. Thus, Haiti’s role in the global economy often has been confined to receiving foreign aid. The United States has been the leading donor to development in Haiti and plays a vital role in Haiti’s economy…

“In 2005 Haiti's total external debt reached an estimated US$1.3 billion, which corresponds to debt per capita of US$169, in contrast to the debt per capita of the United States which is US$40,000.^[4] Following the democratic election of Aristide in December 1990, many international creditors responded by cancelling significant amounts of Haiti’s debt, bringing the total down to US$777 million in 1991. However, new borrowing during the 1990s swelled the debt to more than US$1 billion.

At peak, Haiti's total external debt was estimated at 1.4 billion dollars, including half a billion dollars to the Inter-American Development Bank, Haiti's largest creditor. In September 2009, Haiti met the conditions set out by the IMF and World Bank's Heavily Indebted Poor Countries program, qualifying it for cancellation of its external debt.”

However, Stuff Black People Don’t Like will explore Haiti’s No. 1 export in a post that is forthcoming, for George Romero would be without an income if it weren’t zombies. And the Black people of Haiti happened to be the inspiration behind tales of the living dead walking the earth again.

In literature, film, video games and popular culture, zombies captivate the imagination of humanity like few other horrific stories can and we owe the Haitians a debt of gratitude for this creation. Indeed, royalties should be paid to Haiti for every DVD starring Zombies sold; books detailing world-wide undead apocalypses; and this would undoubtedly cover foreign aid henceforth.

Bodies line the streets of Port-au-Prince and the putrid stench of the recently deceased permeates the air with the fetid odor of a nation in peril and a city beset in chaos (whoops, that’s Detroit).

The crisis in Haiti has resorted to bodies being burned in massive pyres, the only saving grace from the disorder in Port-au-Prince being compounded by thousands of zombies parading around the city, threatening to engulf the nation into a state of rampant zombidom:

“Like a thick fog, the stench of death curdles the air in the streets of this shattered city. It comes from trundling trucks, where corpses are piled up and covered by bloodstained sheets, while young men with scarves on their faces warn onlookers to stand aside. It is expelled from pyres of burning tires that incinerate cadavers that have remained unattended too long in the dust and heat, lit by residents afraid that the carrion will attract prowling dogs and endanger children."

The idea of zombies both captivates and horrifies Black people, for – as we will see – ancient beliefs in voo-doo and witchery raising the dead conjures up images of backward Haitians rattling bones and casting spells.

Black people can’t be associated with zombies, for this aligns them once again with unsavory origins of zombies- Haiti.