Dr. Shannon Lee Doughty

There was a historian of African American history called Orlando Patterson, and he came up with this fascinating, powerful idea called social death. And he argued that slaves and certain other kinds of people, inmates of concentration camps, they experience social death where their body is alive.

but they're so cut off violently from meaningful social connections and relationships and meaningful groups that they experience social death. What's really interesting to me about this example is that they're trying to overcome the social death and maybe they're succeeding by saying, no, I belong to a group.

but they're so cut off violently from meaningful social connections and relationships and meaningful groups that they experience social death. What's really interesting to me about this example is that they're trying to overcome the social death and maybe they're succeeding by saying, no, I belong to a group.

but they're so cut off violently from meaningful social connections and relationships and meaningful groups that they experience social death. What's really interesting to me about this example is that they're trying to overcome the social death and maybe they're succeeding by saying, no, I belong to a group.

And they take that moment right before they're executed to reassert themselves as socially alive. And I think that's fascinating. It's empowering to them to do that.

And they take that moment right before they're executed to reassert themselves as socially alive. And I think that's fascinating. It's empowering to them to do that.

And they take that moment right before they're executed to reassert themselves as socially alive. And I think that's fascinating. It's empowering to them to do that.