Wednesday, July 27, 2022 — 7
Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
A
s the top-selling fiction book of
2019 — selling over 12 million
copies by January 2022 —
“Where the Crawdads Sing” has seen
a degree of popularity that few books
achieve. In addition to topping the
New York Times fiction bestseller list
for an astounding 153 weeks, Delia
Owens’ first work of fiction was also
selected for Reese Witherspoon’s book
club in September 2018 and adapted
into a feature film that was released
last Friday. Catapulting this novel to
an almost hyperbolic level of attention,
Taylor Swift even penned an original
song for the movie adaption of what
she describes as a “mesmerizing story.”
Clearly, in the context of book sales
and public attention, “Crawdads”
is a major success story that has left
millions of readers, including the
likes of Swift and Witherspoon, with
nothing but rave reviews. However, it
only takes one quick Google search to
see the thorny backstory behind this
rose of the literary world.
For context, Owens and her former
spouse, Mark Owens, spent 22 years
in Africa — traveling first to Botswana
and then elsewhere — working as
conservationists, a period of time that
Jeffrey Goldberg describes in detail in
the New Yorker. The couple seemed
to leave a trail wherever they went,
earning “a reputation in the valley for
their intolerance of local people.” They
were expelled from Botswana in 1986
after attempts to rally international
support against the conservation
policies of the country’s government
which is how the locally unpopular
pair ended up in Zambia.
In 1995, almost a decade after the
couple arrived in Zambia, ABC did a
segment on their conservation work.
In the segment, which aired in 1996
on national television, an unidentified
alleged poacher was shot and killed.
The details of this shooting have
remained incredibly vague: The body
was never found, the shooter was
never officially identified and, as a
result, nobody has been charged with
the crime.
The discourse I’ve seen around
this controversy has largely been
sparked by cavalier questions about
this murder. These questions are often
subsequently met with claims that
Delia Owens wasn’t involved or even
less comprehensive responses arguing
that it was her husband who was
involved and that they’re now divorced.
Regardless of these claims, Lillian
Shawa-Siyuni, Zambia’s director of
public prosecutions, has confirmed
that Owens — along with her former
husband and stepson — are still wanted
for questioning for the alleged televised
killing of the individual.
While some readers seem to take
solace in the fact that Owens has
not been legally implicated in this
unresolved murder — she has denied
her involvement numerous times —
there are clear connections between
Owens’ time in Africa and her famous
novel — some that Owens herself
seems to draw. In fact, the author even
said in an interview with Amazon that
“almost every part of the book has
some deeper meaning” and “there’s
a lot of symbolism in this book.”
Considering the parallels between Kya
Clark, the protagonist of “Crawdads,”
and Owens, it is hard to separate the
art from the artist in this novel.
It doesn’t require too many liberties
to read “Crawdads” — a story about
a girl who’s accused of murder and
actually did commit the murder out of
self-defense — as a confessional tale for
Owens and the allegations surrounding
her time in Africa. Clark and Owens,
both raised in the South, prefer nature
to humanity and demonstrate reclusive
personalities. When asked about her
involvement in the shooting in an
interview with the New York Times,
Owens even validated her struggles
with these kinds of questions by saying,
“It’s painful to have that come up, but
it’s what Kya had to deal with, name
calling.”
There
are
also
connections
between this book and Owens’ time
in Africa beyond the similarities
between Owens and her protagonist.
For example, the jailhouse cat in the
novel, Sunday Justice, has the same
name as a man who cooked for the
Owenses while they were in Zambia.
In “The Eye of the Elephant,” a memoir
written by Mark Owens, he recounts
a conversation Delia had with this
cook. According to her, the real Sunday
Justice had “always wanted to talk to
someone who has flown up in the sky
with a plane.” She describes him asking
if you get close to the stars when you fly
on a plane and how she so graciously
explained how far stars really are from
Earth.
However, Owens’ retelling of this
exchange doesn’t match up with
Sunday Justice’s: When asked about
this alleged conversation, Sunday
Justice responded with a laugh. He
had flown often, both as a child and as
an adult, and went on to work for the
Zambian Air Force after working for
the Owenses. This discrepancy reflects
the kinds of biases about Africans that
are littered throughout the Owens’
other memoirs, as well.
Given the numerous occasions like
this where Owens has unapologetically
shown her discriminatory and racist
colors, it’s peculiar — but unsurprising
— that this story was picked up by G.P.
Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin
Random House. What’s even more
telling than this book being picked up
by a Big Five publisher is the success it
was met with after being turned into a
film. Raking in $17 million during its
opening weekend, this movie clearly
has not been sullied by the plethora of
articles published by well-established
news sources on the controversies
surrounding Owens.
There
is
plausible
deniability
that people who have read the book
don’t know about its suspected
backstory. However, I am doubtful
that the publishers, Taylor Swift,
Reese Witherspoon and the directors
of the movie were unaware of the
murky events during Owens’ time in
Africa. And yet, when asked about
“Crawdads’” connection to the murder
in Zambia, the film’s screenwriter,
Lucy Alibar, told TIME that she was
unfamiliar with it.
Let’s talk about Delia Owens and “Where the Crawdads Sing”
Read more at michigandaily.com
A
global
pandemic
has
proved that understanding
global health is paramount
if we would like to preserve the
existence of humanity. To many, the
pandemic seems like it is over, with
mandatory
mask
requirements
dropped in public places and
children as young as six months old
now able to get vaccinated. But in
reality, the two-and-a-half-year-
old virus is still making its rounds,
and people are still getting sick
and being hospitalized. COVID-19
isn’t over, but instead has joined
the dozens of other public health
crises we have faced for years,
some with solutions, others almost
unavoidable.
Public health is an umbrella
term that covers a plethora of
health-related issues, primarily
those
connected
to
disease
prevention and everyday health.
We often cite this term when
discussing issues such as the global
spread of infectious disease, the
clean water crisis and healthcare
disparities, both in the United
States and abroad. Typically, the
conversation surrounding public
health only covers the issues that
directly relate to our bodies and
physical health. More recently,
though, its definition has come to
encompass matters of health that
are less biological and focus more
on modern social issues. Public
health isn’t all about vaccines and
sickness anymore — it’s about
everything.
The American Public Health
Association,
the
APHA,
acknowledges the range of public
health issues that we are currently
battling,
including
substance
abuse, public planning and overall
mental health. Each of these fields
is not commonly associated with
issues related to bodily well-being,
but they are nonetheless important
and still fit alongside the subject
of public health. The foundation of
this term is that it is “public” — it
has to do with communities and
the matters that impact them the
most. The public health crises of
this day and age are much more
urgent, divisive and impactful en
masse than we’ve ever seen before,
and they fit a seemingly new
definition of the term we’ve heard
in previous conversations.
The three largest and “new-age”
public health crises that we face
today, specifically in the United
States, are gun violence, racism
and climate change. Though not
what we consider to be issues
traditionally related to health, they
tend to act just like infections: they
spread where they are not welcome,
and they are hard to eliminate.
We are constantly surrounded by
disease, but not ones that can be
cured with medical diagnoses and
immunizations.
These
diseases
impact all of us and can only truly
be solved with a concoction of
collective action and policies.
In 2020, the leading cause of
death for children was no longer
car-related incidents; it was gun-
related injuries. Gun violence is
not only a political issue but a
public health crisis. Guns are the
cause behind thousands of deaths
each year, and, just like infections,
they deny once healthy individuals
of their livelihoods. From incidents
of domestic violence to homicide by
firearm, gun violence threatens the
health and well-being of each of us
— it is not only a crisis of violence
but of various external factors.
It
is
multi-faceted,
impacting
and impacted by socioeconomic
status, race, health and politics.
In approaching the epidemic of
gun violence as a public health
crisis, we may be better equipped
to examine all of its related
causes and effects, and in turn,
we can provide both physical and
emotional safety for all.
Another
multi-faceted
issue
that
has
plagued
the
nation
throughout history is that of
racism. Multiple cities and states,
including Michigan, have declared
racism a public health crisis,
specifically within the realms
of the criminal justice system,
health justice and socioeconomic
justice. Naming racism as a public
health
crisis,
or
“emergency,”
acknowledges it as a problem
that
debilitates
the
livelihood
of people of Color, depriving
certain individuals of care and
citizenship because of their race.
Institutionalized racism is present
in multiple social, political and
economic circumstances. Public
health is not just connected to
our general physical health but
also to our education status and
socioeconomic background — it
is a crisis that requires action,
especially when it comes to racial
injustice.
A crisis that has no known
limitations,
climate
change
is
undeniably the most formidable
challenge facing humanity today.
Addressing global warming and
the various impacts of climate
change on the planet as a public
health crisis is crucial — the health
effects of its continued existence
are a threat to all of us, whether
we notice them or not. From our
physical health to our mental
health, rising temperatures and
increased rates of natural disasters
pose a threat to both social
structures and our bodies. Due to
lack of political action in recent
years, climate change’s wrath is
likely irreversible, and declaring
it a public health crisis is a last
attempt by climate scientists to get
politicians and the general public
to take the problem seriously.
The eternal public health crisis
Read more at michigandaily.com
OLIVIA MOURADIAN
Opinion Senior Editor
LINDSEY SPENCER
Opinion Columnist