WEBVTT - The Last Image 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.480 Heads up, y'all. Today's episode is about death. So if 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:06.280 that's not something you're interested in listening to right now, 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:10.520 just come back to this episode later on. 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:11.280 Theme is a. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:36.919 Production of iHeartRadio and Fairweather Friends Media. In twenty twenty two, 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.280 rapper Markel Moreau, also known by his stage name Gunu, 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:43.800 was killed in Maryland. He was just twenty four years 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.880 old when he died, and his death was all over 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.800 the news, not just because he was a rapper who 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.640 was murdered, but because of what his family did with 0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:58.720 his body after he died. Markel Morrow's loved Ones hosted 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.319 a viewing over the weekend at DC Nightclop and. 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.840 Now videos and pictures they're surfacing all over social media 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.360 of Marrow's body being prominently displayed and then it. 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:12.679 So much about this whole debacle was shitty. The fact 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:15.640 that Guna was killed, the fact that his family had 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.920 to grieve his death while subjected to intense public scrutiny, 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.360 the fact that all the Internet instigators were more concerned 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.400 with his deceased body being staged than his life being 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:28.880 so needlessly taken from him. It was yet another instance 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:32.280 of the circumstances around a young black man's death being 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:34.399 harshly and endlessly picked apart. 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:37.560 Yeah, I remember this. There are people commenting online that 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:41.640 presenting Markel's body that way at a club was too much. 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.360 Now, I know that when you're putting a loved one 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:48.639 to rest, there are often people in your ear trying 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:50.960 to tell you how to do that best. But to 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.080 have people who aren't in your family, don't live in 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.360 your estate, were nowhere in around or near the deceased 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:00.400 person's life, don't know you from Jack's squat, trying to 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.680 tell you what you should and shouldn't have done, that 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:08.120 seems tiring. It's clearly one not anyone's business, and two 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:12.560 what the family wanted. This is Markel's mother, Patrese Parker Moreau, 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:14.720 speaking to Fox five Washington DC. 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:18.799 It's something that I wanted to do. That's how I want. 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.120 Marchel wanted me to do it. That's how he wanted 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:25.239 to go out. He wanted to celebrate his life, turning 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.440 up having a party. He don't want people to be 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.400 sad and crying. He always wants people to be happy, 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:32.120 having fun. 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.000 I'm sure the family would have much rather not had 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.919 a memorial service at all and instead saw Markel get older, 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:42.680 make more music. I'm sure they didn't want to have 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:44.320 to grieve, right. 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:46.919 Who would want to go through this? But as much 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:49.880 as Americans like to be uptight about death and mourning, 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:54.320 post mortem photography has a deep history that began long 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:58.160 before the first negative Nancy logged onto a social media site. 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.120 Death portraiture is an art that's been around for a 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:12.880 long time, and it's still alive today. I'm Katie and 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:18.440 I'm Eves. Today's episode the Last Image, Katie. Had you 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.639 ever seen any funerary portraits before? 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.920 You know what? Not professional ones. But whenever me and 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:28.560 my grandmother were at a funeral, she would try to 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:30.200 make me take a picture of the person in the casket, 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:31.840 and I would always yell at her as they no. 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.080 She would always take pictures and you would be like 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.560 at her house looking through photo albums and then boom, 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.600 somebody casket and I'm like, girl, but maybe. 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.560 She was on some yeah. 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:47.680 Twenty first century American culture on the whole is one 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:49.920 that seems to not want to touch death with a 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:53.400 ten foot stick. There are exceptions, of course, but here 0:03:53.440 --> 0:03:57.200 in the US, funerals are sad occasions and morning is 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:01.240 private and appropriate it's not socially acceptable to wear our 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:03.800 grief on our sleeves for too long, and there are 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:08.320 respectable and unrespectable ways to mourn our loved ones. But 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.640 you know, before all the anti aging creams and supplements, 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:17.160 death was everywhere you turned, high infant mortality rates, war disease. 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.680 I mean, I'm not saying we aren't still surrounded by death. 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:23.480 It's just easier to live longer today in the US 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:27.080 than it was in the mid eighteen hundreds, So death 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:29.680 wasn't as touchy of a subject, and portraits of the 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:30.960 dead were not uncommon. 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.919 You mean images of people after they had already died. 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.200 Yeah, when photography was still a young art form, a 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.280 lot of people never got the chance to have their 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.960 picture taken when they were alive, so their opportunity to 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.600 be photographed came in death. This gave the surviving family 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.080 members and friends a super special memento to hold on to, 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:52.880 a cherished reminder of their life. 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.200 Wow, we can take photos to our hearts content these days, 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:58.599 and those are our treasure to have when people pass away. 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:00.680 So I can only imagine what it was like to 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.039 have this new medium that can capture the image of 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:04.640 a loved one exactly as they were. 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:08.000 Yeah, and back in the nineteenth century, photos of the 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.279 day were put in family albums or displayed in the home. 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:15.760 By the twentieth century, photography was more accessible, death care 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:19.080 was more commercial, and post mortem photos weren't just for 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:22.800 anyone's eyes. But people still took photos of and with 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:26.160 dead people to honor their memory. It was less likely 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.440 that these photos would be taken in a home setting, 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.800 but photographers captured the deceased in their caskets alone or 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:37.400 surrounded by loved ones. And one such photographer was James Vanderz. 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:39.479 Oh yeah, I know, James. 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:40.120 Yeah. 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:42.680 You might have seen some of vander Z's photos before. 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.360 He created some really beautiful studio portraits of black New 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:50.080 Yorkers in the early nineteen hundreds. He also captured photographs 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.360 that documented black life in Harlem at the. 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:54.560 Time, and that time was the Harlem Renaissance. 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:55.200 Yes, ma'am. 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.200 He started his photography business in the early nineteen hundreds 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.320 in Harlem, but he really began to get attention after 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.520 he was featured in the nineteen sixty nine exhibition Harlem 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:07.359 On My Mind. He took portraits of noted artists like 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:10.960 County Cullen and Ruby d He photographed Marcus Garvey and 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:13.160 the Universal Negro Improvement Association. 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:16.599 Seems like his subjects had a little coin or notoriety. 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:17.279 Well. 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:20.200 While post mortem portraits were restricted to the upper class 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:22.440 back when they had to be painted, the emergence of 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.200 photography made them a lot more accessible. The development of 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:28.760 the technology was a boon to post mortem portraiture, and 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.720 people with money, not just money money, could now get portraits. 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.240 Some of those folks were the black folks that vander 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:36.760 z photographed in New York. 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:37.720 A lot of the. 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.600 Families that commissioned him would have been considered middle class 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.479 and weren't famous. And his work wasn't just about black life, 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.880 it was also about black death. Along with artists and 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:52.480 archivist Kamille Billips and poet Owen Dotson, James Vandersey created 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.039 the Harlem Book of the Dead. In it, his funerary 0:06:55.080 --> 0:06:59.120 portraits were accompanied by Dotson's poems written from the dead's perspective, 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:02.919 and tech from interviews with Billips. A lot of the 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:06.440 older post mortem photographs we see are of Europeans and 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:10.000 white Americans, but this art form and mourning ritual is 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:13.040 also part of a black tradition when we get back 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.000 how The Harlem Book of the Dead memorialized James Vandersey's 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:20.720 work as a funerary photographer with a co sign from 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:32.920 Tony Morrison. The Harlem Book of the Dead marked the 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.360 first time the public saw all of James Vandersey's funerary 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:40.280 portraits compiled, but it wasn't published until nineteen seventy eight, 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:45.160 decades after he captured the photos, and millennia after its namesake, 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:48.000 the Egyptian Book of the Dead was used. The book 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.679 is divided into thematic sections, for instance, one about children, 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.600 one about soldiers, and one about women. The deceased pictured 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.600 in the photos are children and adults. Sometimes vanderz has 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.920 them whole props like a teddy bear or newspaper or flowers. 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:05.960 Stories of how some of the people pictured died are 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:08.400 included in the back of the book, And of course 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:10.760 there are the poems that accompany the black and white 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.440 photos in the book. Owen Dotson, a Black writer from Brooklyn, 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:18.240 used his poetry to highlight the inevitability and grim reality 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:21.720 of death, as well as the dignity and significance of 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:25.000 the lives that were lost. He says in one poem, 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:30.280 death always happens to somebody else, not the dead. Somebody friends, 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:36.280 somebody aunts, cousins, nephews, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, not the dead. 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:39.400 As Kamil Billips notes in the introduction to the book, 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:44.000 poetry and portraiture were old bedfellows with death, and vanderz 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:46.760 was well aware of the old tradition that he was 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.320 a part of. When Billips asked him if he knew 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.400 about the history of post mortem photography, he talked about 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.720 people who painted portraits of the dead and about funerary 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:58.520 photos he got from the West Indies that he copied 0:08:58.520 --> 0:08:59.880 and translated to his style. 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:02.240 What do you mean by his style. 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:06.080 Well, there were other artists, including black Ones, who photographed 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.920 it dead, but Vanderzy's images were unique. The staging of 0:09:09.920 --> 0:09:12.559 the bodies and the composition of the photos weren't too 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:16.040 different from other funerary photos. The deceased were pictures lying 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:20.040 in plush caskets, surrounded by flowers, sometimes stage to look 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.560 like they were sleeping, but Vandersy added a little extra 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.359 flavor onto his photos by manipulating them to include images 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:30.240 of angels of the deceased while they were living, of 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:33.960 scriptures and palms and other inserts that, according to Vandersey, 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:36.640 take away the gruesomeness of the picture. 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.760 Yeah, I noticed that looking at his photos, and I 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:43.960 can see his influence on like obituaries. Maybe not the 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.520 most modern obituaries now, but I feel like in the 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:49.800 early two thousands, even the nineties, there was always like 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:52.920 an angel and some flowers going on, and that's what 0:09:53.000 --> 0:09:55.400 he was putting in his photos, or you know, the 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.880 picture of them while they're alive over them, which you know, 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.440 looking at it then, like the technology was a little different, 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.560 so it looks a little you know, cut out with 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:06.680 scissors and pasted. 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:07.240 It does. 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:11.040 But you can definitely see his influence in more modern context. 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:13.200 And I'm sure like all these people probably have no 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.720 idea who this man is, but it's interesting to see 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:16.520 that through line there. 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:20.800 Yeah, but one I will say, girl, obituary art has 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.160 not changed much since the early two thousands. Really, it 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:26.840 has truly not evolve that much. So it still is 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.360 kind of in that vein. But you know, Venderzy did 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.679 have to be skilled to do those photo manipulations, like 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:33.640 not everybody was doing that, and that is something that 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:36.400 set him apart. So not only was it that the 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:38.320 execution need to be on point for what it was 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:40.600 at the time, which the technology was definitely not as 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:42.960 advanced as it is today. But he had to have 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:45.680 a little creativity and originality to think to even do 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.320 these things. But I think part of that came from 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:51.480 his artistry and came from his own spirit of like 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.320 how he felt people should be portrayed in the kind 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.679 of like light that should be brought to these photos, 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:00.760 and the additional context that he wanted to act. And 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:03.640 I think it also shows the way that he used 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:09.080 the inserts. It shows this very black tradition of funerals 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:13.040 and dying not just being about sadness and mourning, but 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.040 also being about the faith, you know, where the angels 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:19.240 and the scripture came into it, about moving on from struggle, 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:22.240 you know, going back home, it being a homegoing and 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.680 that was really impued in his portraits by these inserts 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:28.440 that he used. Another thing I was thinking of, you know, 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.440 you said that you could see the influence of him. 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.480 I was thinking about those old Oln Mills photos. I 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.440 don't know if you remember them, but they were black 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:41.240 in the background and they had like a portrait of 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.560 the family in the front. Probably facing one side, like 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.480 maybe half profile, quarter turned or whatever you call that 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:52.160 set up, and then a large floating head in the background. 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.600 And if people haven't seen these photos, because the Harlem 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:58.160 Book of the Dead is kind of hard to get 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:01.920 hold of. Yeah, but so if people haven't seen these photos, 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:04.839 you know, kind of imagine that floating head and think 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:07.520 about that being angels instead in the background are like 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.040 pictures of soldiers in formation that he took from like 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:15.000 more documentary photography and scriptures. Those are the kind of 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:18.000 things and the kind of setup he had of what 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.120 he was doing for his portraiture. True artists, and though 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:24.360 Vanderzy had his own particular style of post mortum portraiture 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.600 that departed from the standard in many ways, it was 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.640 imbued with all the symbology of its roots and meaning. 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.600 The religious iconography, the church and funeral home settings, the 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.640 emotion and drama in the poetry, the veneration of ancestors, 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:41.960 the delicate treatment of loved one's bodies, the belief in 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:45.680 an afterlife. They all harken back to well worn black 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:50.480 rituals of mourning, perspectives on death, reckoning with grief and 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.600 community care. Vanderzy was already ninety one at the time 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:57.720 of this interview. But if it weren't for Billip's efforts 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:00.560 and putting the project together, we would have never got 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:04.199 the interview at all, let alone a book documenting Vanderzy's 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:08.360 funerary photography. Considering how prolific he was and how long 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.439 he worked, his death portraiture was but a footnote in 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.720 many people's survey of his body of work. Tony Morrison, 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:16.760 though knew what was up. The Harlem Book as a 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.600 Dead inspired her novels Jazz and Beloved. She says in 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.199 the forward to The Harlem Book of the Dead, the 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:27.960 narrative quality, the intimacy, the humanity of his photographs are stunning. 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.080 And the proof, if any is needed, is in this 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:35.280 collection of photographs devoted exclusively to the dead, about which 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.840 one can only say, how living are his portraits of 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:39.320 the dead. 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:41.439 I really liked her forward. 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:44.079 I was like, you tell me why. 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:48.439 It was just so good, Okay, But I did write 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:50.520 down part of what she said, so she was talking. 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.960 She started off the forward talking about how people are 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.319 like back in the day that was real portraits, which 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:57.760 I thought was so funny because I feel like we 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.839 would say that about that period of time. Everybody says 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:02.360 like back in the day, it was better, no matter 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.720 when the day was. So she's like talking about that sentiment, 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:08.800 like things are better back then, So she says, quote 0:14:09.160 --> 0:14:12.960 part of the enthusiasm is not critical evaluation, but simple nostalgia, 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.880 a love affair with the past made more loving because 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.079 the beloved is no longer with us and able to 0:14:18.120 --> 0:14:20.640 assert itself. And I just felt that was so true 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.160 because like when people talk about things that are gone, 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:27.120 whether they're like ideas or people, they're kind of like 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.520 frozen things. The person or the thing can't talk back, 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.960 It can't refute what you're saying about them, really, and 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:35.920 it made me think about just like pictures of the 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.360 dead generally, like you can do all this manipulation and 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:41.800 make them into an angel and have them, you know, 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:45.520 surrounded by flowers and put a newspaper in their hand 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:47.680 or try to fix their face so they're smiling, and 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.040 you can make them what you want them to be, 0:14:51.600 --> 0:14:55.280 kind of like Markel's parents and family members, like putting 0:14:55.320 --> 0:14:58.040 him in the club and like having his last hu rods, 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:02.440 Like you get to to manipulate your loved one for 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.320 the last time and then have like documentation of how 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.880 you wanted them to be presented. So that's what her 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:09.920 ford made me think of. So I feel like she was, 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:12.920 you know, working on multiple levels just about photography in general, 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:16.520 but specifically the subject of this photography. 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.240 And it's often not only just frozen in time, but 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.200 frozen in positive time because you know, so often people 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.200 like don't disrespect the name of the dead, like we 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.080 only want to talk about the good things about them. 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:32.359 So on top of the nostalgia, there's this like positivity 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:36.760 regurgitation that happens all over whatever their legacy was, which 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.720 is obviously very complex for a lot of people. 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:40.680 That shall. 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:44.600 When we get back from the break defending death rituals 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:45.720 in the social media. 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:57.760 Era, So do people still take postportum photographs? 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:02.120 Of course, professional photography, yes, but also plenty of people 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:04.640 who have a smartphone and can get a shot of 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:07.600 their deceased love one. Back in the day, the reach 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.040 was limited to how many people could see your photo 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.560 album or could get a physical print of the photo. 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:16.040 But now people are posting images and videos of the 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:21.119 dead on social media, namely Facebook, for hundreds thousands, potentially 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.640 millions to see. Just google this topic and you'll see 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:28.720 how controversial it is. People posting think pieces demanding others 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:31.560 stop sharing pictures of the dead on social media, people 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:34.120 asking folks on Kora if it's okay to post them, 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.400 and a lot of people are not okay with seeing 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:40.800 a picture of a deceased friend, family member, or even 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.600 stranger when they open up their social media app. 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.680 Yeah, I've seen this happen before, like people getting really 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:51.040 upset when someone posts an open casket of somebody. People 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.400 who don't like it seem to consider it offensive and 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.120 a violation of privacy, which I can see. 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:00.840 Yeah, it's fair, but some people take comfort in having 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:04.040 and sharing photos of deceased loved ones. It's how they 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.760 want to grieve. But that desire to mourn in the 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:10.560 way that feels right to them bumps up against others' judgment, 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:14.240 notions of appropriateness, morality, et cetera, et cetera. 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:18.000 And it can be hard to navigate managing ethics, feelings, opinions, 0:17:18.040 --> 0:17:20.920 and grief when the Internet is involved. We're in time 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:23.159 when photos and videos of black people dying are spread 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:25.040 endlessly and analyzed to death. 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.639 Definitely, And to be honest, I did think the open 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.600 casket photos were kind of strange in the past, but 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:34.280 I've had to check my own bias for sure, because 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:36.760 it's really not a new practice, it's just set in 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.840 a different context. These images of the day can still 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.640 be portraits that tell stories of the living of our ancestors, 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.080 even if the framing is a little off or the 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:49.800 lighting is bad. I appreciate being able to see it 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:53.240 as the preserving of a morning practice that feels celebratory 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.600 and hopeful, like we don't want to release the loved 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:58.719 one's memory just because they transitioned. 0:17:58.760 --> 0:17:59.720 We want to keep it alive. 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.160 Also, I'm thinking about how black folks are so good 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.399 at bringing humor and levity into dark circumstances. Do you 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.560 remember that shock wave of news that went around many 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:12.800 years ago about all the corpses that were being dressed 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:16.800 up and posed like they were alive thanks to extreme embalming. 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:21.480 No, I've never heard of this in my life, girl. 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.600 Yes, it was a whole thing. It was a moment, 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:24.959 you know. 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:27.000 It was a moment that didn't last too long, as 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:29.159 many things in the news cycle don't. But it was 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.040 people dressing their deceased loved ones up, putting them in 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:37.560 different scenes, basically like doing whole set design, being able 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:39.760 to prop them up in different ways. They would work 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:41.800 with the funeral home, I guess, to be able to 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:46.360 embalm them and place them in the way that felt right, Okaya. 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:48.240 I wonder if they were like we are on the 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.560 vanguard of a new way of displaying the dead. 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:54.440 You know, I don't know, but now that I'm thinking 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:56.600 about it, I'm wondering, like if back in the day 0:18:56.720 --> 0:19:01.399 when people were staging their death portraits, they could only 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.399 pose the bodies in certain ways because they were dead, 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.840 so their bodies didn't move the same, so they had 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:10.959 to be sitting up in certain ways, or sometimes they 0:19:10.960 --> 0:19:12.960 could stage them as lying down, as we talked about 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:14.600 in some of Anderzy's. 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:14.800 Work that he did. 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.920 That was an old known way of staging dead portraits. 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:21.280 So I'm wondering now if back then people would have 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:23.600 seen this and be like, wow, I wish we had 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.480 this kind of evolving and this kind of technology, because 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:28.480 they could have staged the portraits differently. They could have 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:30.720 had a little bit more pizazz and razzle dazzle in 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:33.520 their portraits back then, versus the more standard poses they 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:33.879 had to have. 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.399 Awesome I thinking, if you do someone in like a 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:42.000 pose that's like real extra, then how do you get 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:43.480 them in the casket after? 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:45.560 I don't know, that's a good question. 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:48.520 Maybe there's no casket at all, because that's how they 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:51.919 were staged for the funerals, so that was the memorial service, 0:19:52.040 --> 0:19:54.200 so people would come to see the body in that way. 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:56.200 So I don't even know if they were put in 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:59.720 the caskets afterwards that people saw. I'm sure it wouldn't 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:01.879 be hard for the people who are handling the body 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:04.120 to put it in whatever casket they need to put 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.680 it in for burial or for cremation, because they know 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:09.399 how to work with bodies, and don't nobody need to 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:13.960 see it after that point? True, Yeah, it is a lot, 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:15.679 you know. I'm not saying it's not a lot. But 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:18.560 I don't know about you, But I associated this phenomenon 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:21.680 with black people, and I don't actually know if more 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.080 Black folks did it than any other race, but I 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:27.919 can say that many black folks did partake in the trend. 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:28.680 I guess. 0:20:29.200 --> 0:20:32.879 A woman named Miriam Marie Burkebank was embalmed in posed, 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.360 sitting up, wearing shades and grasping the stem of a wineglass. 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:38.320 Okay, now that you say that, I feel like I 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:40.640 have seen that picture. Did she have like long hair? 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:41.040 Uh huh? 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:42.240 I think she did have long hair. 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.280 Yeah, I feel like she had on jeans or something. 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:47.320 I don't remember seeing the bottom of her because she 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:48.200 was sitting at a table. 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:50.879 In my mind, she's sitting with the wine glass and 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.800 she has her leg propped up. That's what I'm seeing. 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.280 Maybe she also had other alcohol around her around her 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.600 and there was an ash tray with like a pack 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:02.680 of cigarettes next to it because she loved a party. 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:04.639 Okay, I feel like I've seen this. Now that you 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:07.399 now that you describe the su try to. 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.639 Block it out right. I'm not gouldn't be mad at that. 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.399