Ring Shout

Ring Shout is also an example of speculative fiction. As a genre, speculative fiction allows writers to explore an alternate reality in which technology, magic, or other forces change some fundamental premise of reality; the writer then uses the narrative to explore the implications of that change. Writers of speculative fiction use their fleshing out of these implications to make critiques of culture, history, or politics. Clark uses conventions of speculative fiction to make a statement about the nature of racism and white supremacy, particularly in his representation of white supremacists, the film Birth of a Nation, and Black American resistance to racism.

The premise of Ring Shout is based on a “what if”—what if racism and white supremacy manifested as powerful magic that could do real harm to Black Americans? What would change about the world? In reality, the 1920s in Georgia and the United States as a whole were years during which the Ku Klux Klan and white mobs inflicted violence on Black Americans intent on exercising their rights and privileges as citizens. In Ring Shout, that historical dynamic still applies, but the Klan’s power is rooted in magic and derived from an alien presence from another world. Rather than the already-terrifying presence of Klanspeople, there is instead the horrifying Ku Kluxes, monsters who attack Black Americans under the direction of Butcher Clyde.

Historically, Birth of a Nation reinforced racism against Black Americans and the representation of white Americans as superior beings in a rigid racial hierarchy. In the novella, the film has more than artistic or cultural power. It is a conduit for magic that can transform each white person who views it into a monster. Portraying the world as a place populated by racist monsters created using a film helps Clark make a statement about how racist ideas circulate. Art and popular culture normalize cruelty and violence for people who might never consider themselves to be monstrous. Furthermore, racism and white supremacy are viruses of the mind that transform white people into unthinking creatures who are easily manipulated by those in power. Clark drives home the latter issue when he has ordinary citizens enter Butcher Clyde’s shop as citizens inclined to hold white supremacist ideas about themselves and racist ideas about Black Americans but emerge as people rapidly transforming into monsters after eating the flesh of the Grand Cyclops.

In Ring Shout, characters resist racism and white supremacy using supernatural and cultural resources of their own. In the novella, that opposing power is itself a form of magic, but it is one rooted in Black folk traditions and myths and connections to one’s ancestors. Although this resistance allows Black Americans to survive, there is always the danger that this magic might also transform Black Americans into warped, mirror images of the white supremacist forces against whom they are fighting.

The leaf-shaped sword is a symbol of this danger. Using the magical sword has the potential to make Maryse one of the monsters of hate that she fights, depending on her motivations. Butcher Clyde’s recruitment of Maryse almost works because she is sometimes driven by revenge rather than a sense of justice. Clark’s ultimate message is that hatred of white people is no firm foundation for a world in which Black people thrive. The world he imagines is one in which love is stronger than hate.