This boils down to one thing - you've either seen the movie Rosewood, or you havent. I'm not certain, but I think the movie was based on actual events. What I remember from it was a southern town that was unlike any other. It was a place where black people had respect and freedom. We ran the businesses and we enjoyed the fruits of our work - well, our ancestors anyway... I wonder if there's still anyone alive from when the town went nuts.
There were white people in the town as well, and one day a white woman said she'd been raped by a black man. And from there a lynching spree took place.
My feelings about BtVS and this site are ambivalent. On the one hand, I can't seem to stop watching the show-it's funny (well, used to be anyway) and has (sometimes) good plot lines. The archetypes in this show are part of what make it so damn romantic, and really hit the nail on the head (french expression, nevermind). The problem is, they are also archetypes that keep me sick. The season 2 romance of Buffy and Angelus really romanticized the stalker/victim thing. This fucks with me as a woman and as a person who is trying to learn how to live with men.
The lore of vampires vs. humans could have a few words changed and then pasted into a nazi manifesto. There is alot of anti-woman sentiment in the show,despite the fact that it has a heroine instead of hero, she has had to juxtapose her abilities with costantly looking confused and stupid. Part of what makes her archetypal character so popular is that no woman can live up to it. No woman can be that size and that strong. It's a way of creating an unnattainable goal for chicks. This has faded in the last season or two, but I've grown to dislike Buffy's character anyway - she has become incredibly self centered, a theme I mention in my story EvilXander. And then there is the cliche way Joss Whedon writes people of other races - the cliche I call 'badly'.
All of these things have caused me to name the 'hearth' of my site, Killing Me Softly, Rosewood. I feel that the picture reflects how this site is my own private Idaho, the land where I get to decide what happens, and I make my own rules...bearing in mind those of Geocities, lol.
UPDATE - Jan. 2004 - The show known as Buffy the Vampire Slayer is officially kaput. What will I do now? I don't know. This place is in transition I suppose - but it is generally for all discussions and aspects of non-white and ethnic relations in the world of Science Fiction, particularly the realm of television. At the moment most of everything on this site is BtVS and AtS related, and there are only two non-Buffyverse fics posted (for Oz and Dark Angel). You are most welcome to put forth suggestions and submissions; I hope you find what you are looking for. Welcome!