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Posts tagged decolonize
Who says North is up?
Upside Down maps (also known as South-Up or Reversed maps) offer a completely different perspective of the world we live in.
Technically speaking, even referring to the earth with words like “up” or “down” or comparing places with words “above” or “below” is flawed, considering that the earth is a spherical body (it’s actually slightly “fatter” at the equator) and flying through 3 dimensional space with no reference of up or down. However, the issue of “up” and “down” does become an issue when viewing the surface of the earth projected onto a flat piece of paper (a map). And the effect of the orientation of a map is more significant than you might realize.
As all maps require orientation for reference, the issue of how to layout the map orientation is as old as maps themselves. As map orientation is completely arbitrary, it is not surprising that they differed throughout time periods and regions.
The convention of North-up is usually attributed to the Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy (90-168 AD). Justifications for his north-up approach vary. In the middle ages, East was often placed at top. This is the origin of the term “The Orient” to refer to East Asia. During the age of exploration, European cartographers again followed the north-up convention…perhaps because the North Star was their fixed reference point for navigation, or because they wanted (subconsciously or otherwise) to ensure Europe’s claim at the top of the world.
In modern times, reversed maps are made as a learning device or to illustrate Northern Hemisphere bias. Different from simply turning a north-up map upside down, a reversed map has the text oriented to be read with south up.
The famous “Blue Marble” photograph of the Earth taken from on board Apollo 17 was originally oriented with the south pole at the top, with the island of Madagascar visible just left of center, and the continent of Africa at its right. However, the image was turned upside-down to fit the traditional view.
While the orientation of a map might seem harmless, it can have a significant effect on one’s perception of the world, and the relative importance of the different place in it.
In speech, we often refer to places being “above” or “below” others. Think of how you would say you’re about to travel to the state or country to your north or south (to go “down” to Kentucky from Indiana, or “up” to Canada from the US). Without even mentioning geography, ask any grade school student whether Mexico is “above” or “below” the United States. We’re all familiar with the “land down under”. As we often correlate importance to relative height (think how a citizens of a country will fly their flag higher than all other flags), the north-up convention reinforces the idea that northern bodies are more important than their southern neighbors. Suddenly, traveling “down” to the South might have an inference much deeper than geographic location.
After looking at the map more closely, you may realize that the South-Up orientation may change your perception of the relative status of different places. For example, South America suddenly looks to have more prominence, and Africa and the Middle East completely dwarf Europe. Likewise, tucking Northern Europe, Canada, and Russia away at the bottom of the map, subconsciously takes away their status.
To summarize, unconditionally accepting the north-up map convention without at least appreciating the effect stands at odds with viewing all people and places within the world equally. x x
7,209 notes (via kissanambulance & we-are-star-stuff)
Do you know how many of my students can’t even say the word white? You all will talk about African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans all day long but at soon as it comes time to say white peoples’ voices drop. You ain’t have seen that? Come on man, people come up with crazy terms you have never seen before, they would be like: “And that Caucasoid…” You can always tell, you could always tell where the supreme power rests in the society because of the reluctance people have in naming that power.
Part of what privilege requires, guys privilege cannot operate without silence. It cannot operate without silence, and this tremendous silence around whiteness, if you are foolish enough to post a blog on your Facebook that mentions whiteness the amount of attacks that you will get, because privilege defends itself viciously, to maintain the silence that is required for its operation.
So, given this I would argue that the other thing that we need to do is coming off of James Scott’s idea of “anarchist calisthenics,” we need to practice racial anarchist calisthenics. What he, what Scott meant by anarchist calisthenics is that this society has ton of little rules that we all practice without thinking. And he argues that we need to practice breaking little rules consistently because one day this society is going to ask you to prosecute a horrifying rule, that I think we will long live to regret, and the muscles of resistance needs to be exercised, they need to be prepared for the time we need to make that big, big, big, big stand.
And so racial anarchist calisthenics, I would say, begins with all of us getting that tongue muscle back in to place and saying Saurons name. I challenge people; I challenge people every time you say African-American, Asian-American, whatever the group count it and say white just as much. And say white just as much. We don’t do it you guys, we don’t do it, we don’t do it. And yet if we were ever going to confront in a real way white supremacy, which is not only linked to white folks you guys. White supremacy is the racial order in all of us, but if we are not able to discuss whiteness as a category, as a critical way of looking at the world and even simply as just the racial group, we are in some serious trouble. The reality is even if we took every white person on Earth and put them on a space ship and sent them to outer space white supremacy wouldn’t miss a beat.
”Junot Díaz - Facing Race (2012)
I once posted a link on my fb about white privilege, explaining what it is. And I got responses from white people about how natives are the ones who have privilege and take away from them. The link never even mentioned Natives!
(via pipud)
(Source: msleahhbic)
3,404 notes (via lostintrafficlights & msleahhbic)
The way colonial America is referred to as “the new world” even today is an example of the erasure of thousands of years of pre-colonial history and culture that existed here. It is another way they try to make us invisible by starting American History only when Europeans arrived.
861 notes (via analogbrain & karonhiake)
The first immigrants to Europe arrived thousands of years ago from central Asia. Most pre-contact Europeans lived together in small villages. Because the continent was very crowded, their lives were ruled by strict hierarchies within the family and outside it to control resources. Europe was highly multi-ethnic, and most tribes were ruled by hereditary leaders who commanded the majority “commoners.” These groups were engaged in near constant warfare.
Pre-contact Europeans wore clothing made of natural materials such as animal skin and plant and animal-based textiles. Women wore long dresses and covered their hair, and men wore tunics and leggings. Both men and women liked to wear jewelry made from precious stones and metals as a sign of status. Before contact, Europeans had very poor diets. Most people were farmers and grew wheat and vegetables and raised cows and sheep to eat. They rarely washed themselves, and had many diseases because they often let their animals live with them. Religion infused every part of Europeans’ lives.
Europeans believed in one supreme deity, a father figure, who they believed was made of three parts, and they particularly worshiped the deity’s son. They claimed that their god had given humans domination over the earth. They built elaborate temples to him and performed ceremonies in which they ate crackers and drank wine and believed it was the body and blood of their god, who would provide them with entrance into a wondrous afterlife called heaven when they died. Many wars were fought over disagreements about the details of this religion, each group believing their interpretation was the right one that should be spread across the land.
Now imagine that is part of a textbook that has entire chapters on the Mississippian polities of the 1200s and a detailed account of the diplomatic situation of the southeastern provinces in the 1400s and 1500s, an enormous section that goes through the history of the rise of the Triple Alliance in Mexico and goes through the rule of each tlatoani and their policies, the heritage of Teotihuacan and its legacy in later Mesoamerican politics, elaborate descriptions of the trade routes that connected and drove various nations in North America. Long explanations of the rise of various religious movements such as the calumet ceremony and Midewiwin, and how they affected political agendas and artistic trends. Pages and pages and pages going through the past thousand years of American history century by century.
And these three paragraphs are the only mention of European history before the year 1500.
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The First 7-inch Was Better: How I Became an Ex-Punk
by Nia KingI just read this zine by Nia King and it’s really good. It’s a personal account of her history as a mixed race queer woman in the Boston and Baltimore punk and anarchist scenes and talks about alienation and disillusionment with those cultures. It’s very well written and I enjoyed it a lot.
You can download it from the queer zine archive at the link above or buy it from her. She also makes really neat comics and does other cool stuff.
READ THIS IMMEDIATELY.
142 notes (via analogbrain & skullvomit)
Rome had only just discovered urban design, another Eastern import. You would search in vain for the famous landmarks, the Coliseum, “the last word in ampitheatres,” had not yet been built. Nor were the Pantheon or the Baths of Caracalla… Rome remained provincial, but increasingly aware of itself as such. Gulping down his envy with a bracing chaser of contempt, a Roman in Egypt found himself less awed than offended. He wrote off extravagance as detrimental to body and mind. Staring an advanced civilization straight in the face, the Roman reduced it either to barbarism or decadence.”
(Source: brandx)
10 notes
People really don’t believe Ancient Egyptians were ethnically African?
Perri: It’s sad but true, so many people don’t believe it. :(
Yup and if you ask the average American they will automatically say The Middle East…
…
but…
how—
Look at their lips!
This man up there favors my great great granddaddy (I’m of African descent, just so you all know)
EYES, NOSE—LIPS AGAIN.
I MEAN.
OMG. SERIOUSLY.
LIKE.
IT SHOULDN’T BE THIS HARD TO GRASP.
White denial.
Remember, around the time white people became obsessed with Egypt and began romanticizing its history, they still were allowed to openly hate POC. They refuse to believe that so much power, grace, and beauty could come from people they despised(read: were jealous of).
It’s all just a superiority complex to mask their innate insecurity. It’s why they happily lump Egypt in with the Middle East and completely erase Black Egypt from the picture and instead focus on Arab Egypt.
It’s also why they have taken to dividing Africa into North Africa and “Sub-Saharan Africa” as if everything that is not of the “exotic desert” is inferior and savage.
Taxonomy and classism are just a few of white people’s favorite things to do to make themselves feel like they run shit.
The term “middle east” didn’t even exist before the 1960s.
Bless this fucking post you have no idea the shit I had to go through as a child when I told them I was from Egypt. They’d be like “but you’re black” or the most ignorant of them all would say “Egypt is not a part of Africa, because Africa is full of black people.” I literally got into fights with people about this.
(Source: thehereticpharaoh)
22,036 notes (via analogbrain & thehereticpharaoh)
Before they came out the caves, we were already the masters of science, mathematics, writing and culture. #wisdom #timbuktu #mali #ghana #africa #blackexcellence #knowthyself
it would be helpful if there were some links to news reports and perhaps pdfs or translations or something but here:I was taught just last term in my Archaeology class that Africans had no written documents.
Fall 2012, folks.
yep.
4,974 notes (via analogbrain & nuwbiadesignsdynasty25)
Things that ACTUALLY EXISTED FOR REAL IN EUROPEAN HISTORY: Non-white people, mostly those of North African and Middle Eastern heritage who were immigrants, merchants, missionaries, mercenaries advisors, and scholars; female leaders, including the famed Warrior Queen Boudicca; and queer folk, seriously, Shakespeare wrote sonnets for dudes.
Things that did NOT actually exist for real in European History: Magic, faeries, dragons, wizards.
Q.E.D. The “well, there’s no black people/brown people/women leaders/gay people in this European inspired fantasy because that would be inaccurate” rhetoric is bullshit.
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST YESTHIS PLEASE AND THANKS
So much fantasy is set in quasi “dark ages” feudal Europe. Can we just take a sec and realize that Europe is that asshole who gets to be a continent even though he’s not really a continent. He’s the jerk who, when he has a bad day, everyone starts calling it The Dark Ages.
FYI, “The Dark Ages” were a golden age for almost everyone else. Islam was booming, spreading and gathering up classical knowledge that would have been completely lost otherwise. China was going through a golden age of its own unter the Tang empire and Song empires, during which China grew and traded so much and so widely that they ran out of metal for coins and had to invent paper money (they also invented gunpowder). And let’s not forget that, while we have relatively few written records from this region, the evidence suggests that Africa (ALL of Africa, both around the Mediterranean and in Sub-Saharan Africa) was booming as well, creating empires of their own, trading with Islamic travelers and building gorgeous goddamn cities.
During this massively diverse time period, there were gay emperors and female emperors in China, the most traveled man in the world was an Islamic scholar and one of the wealthiest men in the world was an African Muslim king.
Yeah, it was only even the Dark Ages for a small chunk of Europe, because Moorish Spain and the Byzantine Empire were both flourishing during this time as well.
Can we just take a sec and realize that Europe is that asshole who gets to be a continent even though he’s not really a continent.
^forever this.
5,915 notes (via dickensian-werewolf & fandomsandfeminism)
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