#Racism on Wikipedia

[webfactor]

Wikipedia editors push offensive language to delegitimize some Native American Tribes

Article Text As Follows:

Wikipedia editors push offensive language to delegitimize some Native American Tribes

By Sherry Robinson

Special to The Independent

ALBUQUERQUE — When Lily Gladstone won a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination for her role in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the public recognized a Native American actress. But to Wikipedia readers, she is an American actress whose father was Blackfeet and Nez Perce and whose mother was white.

Three long-time editors at the online encyclopedia argued that even though Gladstone grew up on the Blackfeet reservation, she couldn’t be called Native American unless she was an enrolled member of the tribe. When Gladstone’s uncle weighed in to say she was enrolled, they dismissed his comments. She is still, in Wikipedia’s view, “an American actress.”

In recent years, outside of a national debate in Indian Country over fake tribes, a handful of Wikipedia editors have been deciding who is Native American and who isn’t.

Look behind the curtain of the sprawling site and you will find a network of 265,000 volunteer editors writing and editing within a Wiki universe that has its own rules, language, police and courts but no traditional hierarchy.

Wikipedia’s structure allows likeminded editors to work together, but it also permits editors with a bias to advance their agenda. The site has drawn criticism from media and academics for slanted articles on Blacks and Jews. Wikipedia documents its own systemic bias in an article by that name and attributes the problem to too few minority editors. The typical editor, it says, is a white male.

By Wikipedia's definition, the only real tribes are federally recognized; editors of Native American material denigrate state-recognized and unrecognized tribes and seem preoccupied with revealing fake Indians.

The fakes are out there, and they’re a problem. But there’s a big difference between people who invented a Native ancestry and people who have a long, documented heritage.

For this story, aggrieved tribal members didn’t identify themselves because they fear the site’s size and power – it reaches 1.8 billion devices a month – and some editors’ vindictiveness.

Behind the curtain

Wikipedia is transparent about its process. Click on “talk” at the top of each article and you find the (sometimes endless) debates among editors about an article and see the site’s rules in action.

Editors are anonymous because the Wikipedia Foundation has a strong commitment to privacy, says a spokesperson. However, readers don’t know what expertise editors have or whether they’re Native American.

Editors select their subject matter. With experience they can rise in the pecking order until they gain authority to reverse or eliminate the edits of others. They quote the site’s often arcane rules in Wiki-Speak to anyone who disagrees. While Wikipedia espouses objectivity, neutrality and civility, discussions can take the low road.

On Lily Gladstone’s talk page, a newish editor, user name Tsideh (Apache for bird), asked, “What are your sources supporting the idea that Native Americans are only those who are enrolled in a US recognized tribe?”

A Wiki editor, user name ARoseWolf, answered: “A notable subject can make a claim… but you must have that respective tribal nation’s acceptance as verification through enrollment."

Gladstone’s uncle wrote: “I’m a primary source for Ms. Gladstone’s tribal heritage. Her father is my brother. Through our father, we are both enrolled in the Blackfeet Tribe in the USA,” he wrote. “Our mother is enrolled Nez Perce. So Ms. Gladstone is a direct descendant of both Blackfeet and Nez Perce.”

ARoseWolf shot him down. “We can not use primary sources to verify such information and, you, as a claimed family member have a WP:COI which means we need an independent source.”

WP:COI is the Wikipedia rule on confl ict of interest. Wikipedia forbids primary sources, and yet they’re the gold standard for journalists and academics.

Tsideh challenged the position that only enrollment in a recognized tribe “entitles somebody to claim to be a Native American” as an unfounded, minority point of view that Wiki editors didn’t support with a citation or explanation.

ARoseWolf and others chastised Tsideh for violating Wiki rules on bullying, false accusations and arguing Wiki policy. Tsideh countered that Leonardo DiCaprio didn’t have to prove he was an Italian American, but Lily Gladstone had to prove she was a Native American.

As the back and forth continued, ARoseWolf slammed a new editor who "just happened to find this discussion,” a dig that implies one party enlisted another to join the debate. That too is a Wiki violation.

Bohemian Baltimore, another regular, insisted, “If she’s not enrolled, she may be a descendant, but she’s not a Native American.”

Who is Native American?

Terry Campbell, a Navajo born in Tuba City, Arizona, who lives out of state, has been studying Wikipedia for five months, after friends complained about poor treatment in trying to edit Wiki pages.

One friend wanted to add some facts to an article about a tribe. “These changes were rejected by a handful of editors who cited other Wikipedia pages as sources,” he said, “and I thought that was very, very odd.”

A friend citing sources that prove her tribe survived the Indian wars and received state recognition ran up against Wikipedia guidelines on determining Native American identities that were largely crafted by two editors, user names CorbieVreccan and Yuchitown. Wiki editors used the guidelines to reclassify dozens of state-recognized tribes as “heritage organizations” and removed ��Native American” from biographies of prominent tribal members or, worse, called them a "self-identified Native American.”

The implication, Campbell explained, is that the tribe no longer exists and that its members are suspect or even “Pretendians.” Wikipedia has a page for that too.

The same group has shaped many articles on Native subjects. Campbell said he combed through references and found they were misrepresented, taken out of context, sourced from far-right academics, or unreliable.

“The scope of this issue is huge,” Campbell said. “It permeates all the Native articles I checked.”

Campbell recognized talking points from what he called a far-right movement in Indian Country intent on erasing state-recognized and unrecognized tribes. (New Mexico has no state-recognized tribes and six unrecognized groups or tribes.)

Some Native Americans and Anglos, he said, believe that Indigenous people outside the circle of federal recognition should be considered non-Native. They also want to prevent members of the disenfranchised groups from selling their art, receiving ancestral remains, accessing disaster relief or re-establishing their homeland.

Outside Indian Country, it’s not generally known that U.S. Indigenous groups live within a caste system based on government recognition, with 574 federally recognized tribes on top, dozens of state-recognized tribes second, and several hundred unrecognized tribes last.

In 2021, Yuchitown wrote, “The overwhelming majority of ‘List of unrecognized tribes in the United States’ are completely illegitimate.”

There are many reasons why groups aren’t recognized. Some avoided the reservation. Some lost their recognition during the termination era. Some were broken up and scattered during the Indian Wars. Some went underground, practicing their culture secretly while passing as Hispanic. Many simply stayed put.

When Wikipedia editors claim that “Native American” is a political status conferred by the U.S. government, that an individual can only be called a “descendent” until their tribe is recognized, they push this narrative, Campbell said. It’s a contradiction of federal Indian law and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, “As a general principle, an Indian is a person who is of some degree Indian blood and is recognized as an Indian by a Tribe and/or the United States. No single federal or tribal criterion establishes a person’s identity as an Indian. Government agencies use differing criteria to determine eligibility for programs and services. Tribes also have varying eligibility criteria for membership.”

Extreme points of view

Campbell has contributed to a lengthy report, as yet unpublished, that identifies biased editors. They include Yuchitown, CorbieVreccan, ARoseWolf, Indigenous girl and Bohemian Baltimore.

“It was like a tree with many interconnecting branches that had been created over time by the same small group of people pushing extreme points of view,” Campbell said.

Initially the group made changes slowly, he said, “but they started pursuing their agenda aggressively after November, when state-recognized tribes retained their voting rights in the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). Essentially, after the movement to delegitimize state-recognized tribes failed officially, the key players doubled down on altering and controlling the flow of information about Native Americans through Wikipedia.”

Campbell observed widespread violations of Wikipedia standards: “I found evidence that they blatantly misquoted and misrepresented sources to push extremist political beliefs; teamed up to manipulate the consensus system by voting in blocks; exploited Wikipedia rules, such as conflict of interest, to block outside editors from making changes to Native-related pages; excessively cited opinion pieces from fringe political figures, including those accused of racism and anti-semitism; blocked the use of legitimate primary and secondary sources that contradict their extremists beliefs, which violates Wikipedia’s rule against information suppression; posted originally researched, politically motivated essays instead of well-sourced articles; and harassed and defamed Native American tribes and living Native American people.”

Reacting in February to an early draft of the report posted on Google, the editors were incensed that anybody would voice complaints “off-Wiki.” ARoseWolf wrote that “we have been attacked, threatened with legal action and had misinformation/ false claims spread against us.” She and Yuchitown denied being part of a conspiracy against tribes or organizations and said they were just following Wiki rules. Yuchitown accused critics of being “meat puppets” of a person who objected to some Native content and enlisted others to back them up. In WikiSpeak this is meat puppetry.

“Volunteers on Wikipedia vigilantly defend against information that does not meet the site’s requirements,” the Wikipedia spokeswoman wrote. “These volunteers regularly review a feed of real-time edits to quickly address problematic changes; bots spot and revert many common forms of negative behavior on the site; and volunteer administrators (trusted Wikipedia volunteers with advanced permissions to protect Wikipedia) further investigate and address negative behavior. When a user repeatedly violates Wikipedia policies, Wikipedia administrators can take disciplinary action and block them from further editing.”

Inaccurate and insulting

In 2006, Wikipedia established the WikiProject Indigenous Peoples of North America to improve its Native-related content of 14,000 articles and more than 37,000 pages.

Recently, a hot topic on the project’s talk page was a proposal to change a category name from “unrecognized tribes” to “organizations that self-identify.”

On April 15 Melissa Harding Ferretti, chairwoman of the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe in Massachusetts, wrote, “The proposed renaming of the category on Wikipedia is not only inaccurate… but also insulting.”

Ferretti is one of the few Natives to take on Wiki editors openly.

Herring Pond was originally listed with other Wampanoag tribes. In 2022 Yuchitown stripped “state-recognized” from the page, even though the state Commission of Indian Affairs regularly engages with them. Last year Yuchitown created a separate page for Herring Pond. Wiki editors resisted attempts to make changes or corrections.

After Wikipedia called Herring Pond a “cultural heritage group" and a nonprofi t that "claims" to descend from Wampanoags, Ferretti wrote in a Wiki discussion, “There is no claim, it’s a fact! Might I add, nonprofit status was imposed upon Tribal nations in the ‘90s because we didn’t have our federal recognition yet.”

Her tribe has a well-documented history. “We still have care and custody of our sacred places, burial grounds and our 1838 Meetinghouse, one of three built for the Tribe after the arrival of the colonizers. Our continuous presence and stewardship of these lands are recognized by historical records, deeds and treaties.”

Ferretti wrote that tribes without federal recognition already face significant hurdles to gain recognition, "and being labeled as 'self-identified' can add to these challenges by casting doubt on our legitimacy.” Mislabeling unrecognized tribes “can lead to the spread of hate, misinformation and further marginalization.”

Some Wiki editors agreed. One wrote that “there are strong negative connotations to saying someone who is Native 'self identifies,' because the inference is that they are Native in name only or falsely claiming to be Native. A change like this will impact countless articles…” Bohemian Baltimore, ARoseWolf and Yuchitown insisted there were no negative connotations. They opposed calling an unrecognized group a tribe because it legitimized groups with unverified claims. ARoseWolf said, “If they had proof of their connection to the original people they would have gotten federal recognition.”

This is a frequent refrain among the insiders, who apparently think the application process is a slam dunk instead of the long, difficult, expensive journey it is.

Yuchitown noted that “all of the editors who actively contribute to and improve Native American topics on Wikipedia have voted to support the renaming.” It’s a remarkable declaration that he and his allies act in concert.

The insiders took even stronger action against Lipan Apaches in Texas.

Late in 2022, Yuchitown changed the entry of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas to say that NCAI recognizes the tribe as state-recognized but the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) does not. In fact, NCSL took down its web page listing federal and state-recognized tribes because it couldn’t verify the accuracy.

In boilerplate that appears on all the Texas unrecognized tribes’ websites, Yuchitown said Texas has no legal mechanism to recognize tribes, citing an online article that in turn cites the discredited NCSL web page.

In 2022, a tribal member and Yuchitown fought back and forth, reversing each other’s edits. In WikiSpeak, it was edit warring. The tribal member informed Yuchitown that the NCSL page he quoted no longer existed. CorbieVreccan told the member she was up against “two experienced editors,” and Yuchitown accused her of conflict of interest and edit warring. His fellow travelers demanded to know if she had an official position with the tribe. She didn’t.

ARoseWolf wrote, “As Wikipedia is not a state or government-controlled entity it can make up its own rules for what content is allowed on its platform.”

The Wikimedia spokeswoman says that in some extreme cases the foundation relies on a trust and safety team that will investigate and may also take action.

Campbell wrote in the report that many Native American communities and people “have been targeted by the small group of propagandists in this complaint… And the thousands of people who make these communities have been slandered and assaulted on Wikipedia through the actions of these propagandists.”

Link to the original article:

[altschmerzes]

one day my wife and i are gonna compile our enormous 'this is why this is garbage and everyone who wants to kiss this author's ass should so some serious personal reflection and also read another book im fucking begging you' review of all for the g/ame and then it will be over for all of us

[x-heesy]

MДGД MУ БLФФDУ ДSS

​Tʀᴜᴍᴘɪᴇs ɴᴏᴛ ᴡᴇʟʟ ᴄᴜᴍ ʜᴇʀᴇ

Wʜʏ?

Kɪɴɢ ᴏғ ʟɪᴇs ɪs ᴀʟɪᴠᴇ

Lᴏᴏᴋ ᴀʀᴏᴜɴᴅ, ʟᴏᴏᴋ ɪɴsɪᴅᴇ, ɪɴғɪᴅᴇʟ!

Iɴғɪᴅᴇʟ!

Iɴғɪᴅᴇʟ!

(Iɴғɪᴅᴇʟ!) Iᴛ ʙᴇɢɪɴs ʜᴇʀᴇ, ɪᴛ ᴇɴᴅs ɴᴏᴡ

Tʜᴇ ᴘʀɪɴᴄᴇ ᴍᴜsᴛ ᴘᴀʏ ʜɪs ʜᴇᴀᴅ ᴏʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʀᴏᴡɴ

Rᴏʙ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴏᴏʀ, sʟᴀᴜɢʜᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴇᴀᴋ

Dɪsᴛᴏʀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʟᴀᴡ, ᴘᴇʀғᴇᴄᴛ ᴅᴇᴄᴇɪᴛ

Dᴏ I ɴᴇᴇᴅ ᴀ ɢᴀs ᴍᴀsᴋ?

Sʜᴏᴜʟᴅ I ɢᴇᴛ ɪɴᴏᴄᴜʟᴀᴛᴇᴅ?

Wɪʟʟ ᴛʜɪs ᴡᴀʀ ʟᴀsᴛ?

Wɪʟʟ ᴡᴇ ʙᴇ ɪɴᴄɪɴᴇʀᴀᴛᴇᴅ?

Fᴀʟsᴇ ɢᴏᴅs, ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ sǫᴜᴀᴅs, ʙʟɪɴᴅ!

Tʜɪs ɪs ᴀ ᴄᴀᴛᴀsᴛʀᴏᴘʜᴇ

Wᴇᴀᴘᴏɴ sʏsᴛᴇᴍs ᴀᴄᴛɪᴠᴀᴛᴇᴅ, ᴘᴜʀɪᴛᴀɴs ʜᴀᴠᴇ ɪɴᴠᴀᴅᴇᴅ

Tʜɪs ɪs ᴀ ᴄᴀᴛᴀsᴛʀᴏᴘʜᴇ

Tᴏ ᴘʀᴏᴛᴇᴄᴛ ᴀɢᴀɪɴsᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛʜʀᴇᴀᴛ

Oʀᴅᴇʀ ᴍᴜsᴛ ʙᴇ ᴋᴇᴘᴛ

Oʀᴅᴇʀ ᴍᴜsᴛ ʙᴇ ᴋᴇᴘᴛ

Oʀᴅᴇʀ ᴍᴜsᴛ ʙᴇ ᴋᴇᴘᴛ

Dᴏ I ɴᴇᴇᴅ ᴀ ɢᴀs ᴍᴀsᴋ?

Sʜᴏᴜʟᴅ I ɢᴇᴛ ɪɴᴏᴄᴜʟᴀᴛᴇᴅ?

Wɪʟʟ ᴛʜɪs ᴡᴀʀ ʟᴀsᴛ?

Wɪʟʟ ᴡᴇ ʙᴇ ɪɴᴄɪɴᴇʀᴀᴛᴇᴅ?

Fᴀʟsᴇ ɢᴏᴅs, ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ sǫᴜᴀᴅs, ʙʟɪɴᴅ!

Tʜᴇ ᴇʟᴇᴘʜᴀɴᴛs ᴍᴀʀᴄʜ ᴛᴏ ᴡᴀʀ

Cᴏɴᴄᴇᴅᴇ!

Cᴏɴғᴏʀᴍ!

Cᴏɴᴄᴇᴅᴇ!

Cᴏɴғᴏʀᴍ!

Dᴇɴʏ ᴛʜᴇ ʙɪɢ ʟɪᴇ!

Mʏ ᴛʀɪʙᴇ

Jᴏɪɴ ᴍᴇ

Aʟʟɪᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴏғ ᴅᴇғɪᴀɴᴄᴇ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʀʜᴇᴀᴅ

Aʟʟɪᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴏғ ᴅᴇғɪᴀɴᴄᴇ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʀʜᴇᴀᴅ

Aʟʟɪᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴏғ ᴅᴇғɪᴀɴᴄᴇ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʀʜᴇᴀᴅ

Aʟʟɪᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴏғ ᴅᴇғɪᴀɴᴄᴇ

Aʟʟ ᴀʀᴇ ᴡᴇʟᴄᴏᴍᴇ ʜᴇʀᴇ

Gɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴛɪʀᴇᴅ, ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ sɪᴄᴋ

Gɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ɪɴᴅᴜʟɢᴇɴᴄᴇ, ᴅᴇᴄᴀᴅᴇɴᴄᴇ

Gɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴛɪʀᴇᴅ, ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ sɪᴄᴋ

Gɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ɪɴᴅᴜʟɢᴇɴᴄᴇ, ᴅᴇᴄᴀᴅᴇɴᴄᴇ

Gɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴛɪʀᴇᴅ, ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ sɪᴄᴋ

Gɪᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ɪɴᴅᴜʟɢᴇɴᴄᴇ, ᴅᴇᴄᴀᴅᴇɴᴄᴇ

Hᴇ ʟɪᴇᴅ, ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴅɪᴇᴅ, ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴇᴀsᴀɴᴛs ᴛᴇʀʀɪғɪᴇᴅ!

Hᴇ ʟɪᴇᴅ, ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴅɪᴇᴅ, ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴇᴀsᴀɴᴛs ᴛᴇʀʀɪғɪᴇᴅ!

Tʜɪs ɪs ᴀ ᴄᴀᴛᴀsᴛʀᴏᴘʜᴇ

Yᴏᴜ ᴍᴜsᴛ ʟᴇᴀᴅ ɪғ ᴛʜᴇʏ ɢᴇᴛ ᴍᴇ

Oɴ ᴍʏ ᴄᴏᴍᴍᴀɴᴅ!

Bʀᴇᴀᴋ ғʀᴇᴇ, ʙʀᴇᴀᴋ ғʀᴇᴇ, ʙʀᴇᴀᴋ ғʀᴇᴇ, ʙʀᴇᴀᴋ ғʀᴇᴇ

Warhead by Doctor Otep <3 🎵

[thenearsightedmicroraptor]

AtLA's writing has many, many issues, a lot of them being way more serious offenses (sexism, racism, being painfully centrist, favoritism within the narrative, etc etc etc) that I think smarter people can and will and have put into words. Those are uhhh much more important pieces of critique. I'm gonna touch on something much more mundane, because I haven't seen anyone else talk about it.

I did enjoy certain aspects of AtLA, but the whole thing was still a weirdly frustrating experience.

Now, my wife has been giving me some running commentary on the production behind AtLA, and I've learned that many things were not set in stone while they were producing the show. They were keeping their options open. And I think that's one of the fundamental things that makes this story feel so clumsy to me. They don't know where the hell they're going with all this. They want to be a serialized epic, but they're tossing around ideas and concepts like 14-year-old me trying to write my first fantasy story. Each episode is floating around in its own slurry, sometimes connected to previous events by some kind of tether, but rarely by more than that. At the same time, each episode only very rarely displays the tight focus that a more episodic show requires, which means the whole thing is an inconsistent mess.

Character arcs start and stop and hesitate and stumble. Themes are picked up and dropped again. Character relationships don't get the time they need to feel realistic, because the writers don't know what they want to commit to. Plot points get invented and removed and forgotten, as needed. Character traits and roles are set in place without the viewer ever getting to see how we got here, and it happens with enough confidence that it really feels like the writers think they established it, but it's in some cut draft that they never actually put in the show.

A good story is consistent in its goals. If you have a story about certain themes, and about certain characters, and where life takes them, you need to have some sort of feeling of where you want them to go, and how they get there. They don't have to be set in stone, but whatever changes you decide to make will affect the story you want to tell. Changing things up, steering a story in a different direction, can definitely be done, and be done well, and be better than your original plans, but AtLA does not feel like it has a plan at all. The writers put down new elements like they're unaware that it will change the fabric of the whole. The result is that each episode does not feel like it is part of the same story. The result is when you try to mend a shirt using the wrong kind of patch; the seams will not hold. You're gonna ruin the fabric further. The result is a story that feels ruled by the whims of the authors, rather than any kind of internal logic. The result is a puppet show where you can very clearly see the hands moving the dolls around. A story where things do not feel significant, because you know that half of the threads they add will not being woven into the story proper, no matter how significant they seem in the moment.

And on TOP of all of that, they decide to tackle themes that they are wayyyyyy too dumb for.

In other, plainer words: Shit's badly written, man.

[time-being]

Wikipedia and propaganda

Here is how Wikipedia now documents the use of the weapon for Israel's tent massacre in Rafah.

It claims the bomb is:

known to minimise collateral damage.

From the description here, you'd think it was a humanitarian mission gone wrong, what with all of Israel's help and precise targeting.

Meanwhile, the proponents of using the bomb say:

The cited blast radius is 26 ft (cf 82 ft with 2,000-lb JDAM). Boeing claim the ability to penetrate more than 5 ft of steel reinforced concrete making the SDB I competitive against the BLU-109/B for many targets.

https://www.ausairpower.net/APA-SDB.html

The bomb used contains 36lb (16kg) of high explosives. It would be very dangerous to be within 50m of such a device. There should be no surprise that it was very effective at killing refugees who were crammed into tents.

[thoughtportal]

In 1927, the most destructive river flood in U.S. history inundated seven states, displaced more than half a million people for months, and caused about $1 billion dollars in property damages. And like many national emergencies it exposed a stark question that the country still struggles to answer - what is the political calculus used to decide who bears the ultimate responsibility in a crisis, especially when it comes to the most vulnerable? This week, the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and what came after.

More on NPR here.

NAACP investigations

Rumors regarding discrimination and the inadequate living conditions caused the NAACP to conduct an investigation on the levee camps. Funded by Katharine Drexel, in December of 1932 Roy Wilkins and George Schuyler spent three weeks in the Mississippi levee camps disguised as unskilled workers. Wilkins published an article "Mississippi River Slavery – 1933" in the NAACP Crisis Magazine which described their experiences and concerns for the levee workers.[6] These observations caused the NAACP to stress greater awareness of the exploitation of black laborers in the south, and resulted in a number of US Senate hearings.

[uchidachi]

Seeing the “Controversy” header during a deep dive on music Wikipedia is always alarming because sometimes it’s “Controversy: Many fans dislike this song because it was too pop-influenced” but other times it’s “Controversy: this song contains 37 racist dogwhistles, which the band claims are misunderstandings”

[unsafe-chikku]

Damn I went down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and read an article about this fella Johann Friedrich Blumenbach.

I feel bad for him because he’s like, known as the the father of anthropology and even more well known as the founder for the modern classification of races, yeah? So you’d expect him to suck.

But, according to the Wikipedia article,he was actually extremely anti-racist (for his time) and was pro-abolition of slavery. And he tried to emphasize in his own work that once you got down to it the distinctions between races were extremely minute and a huge variety of peoples existed between these categories.

He also wrote several times scathing statements and essays against his contemporaries who used parts of his ideas (such as observing cranial morphology) to justify the horrific racist ideology against black people and of course, a lot of eugenics bullshit came out of that as well.

It sucks because it seems like this guy genuinely was just trying to figure out human biology and origins as related to our environments at a time where modern science was still finding its legs.

But what his contemporaries of his time and the next generations built upon instead was “How can I twist this cranial morphology idea to prove that Europeans like me are the superior race?”

Fucked up. I’d say Rest in peace man but I know you’ve been turning in your grave for centuries, Jo.



[robotpussy]

"anti white" racism in zimbabwe has a wikipedia page ijbol

[cytser]

so tired of white saviours and historical (not even historical in some cases) revisionism on this website. don't just reblog something because it sounds snappy and crossed your dashboard. actually RESEARCH the political topics you're posting about to make sure you're not supporting, say, genocide and ethnic cleansing.

i'm sick to death of you all making everything about america. can you decenter yourselves for five minutes? just long enough to listen to people who live in the countries impacted by world events?

do you even care about other countries or do you just want to make yourself feel better about doing nothing? you shout and scream for things to change but can't even take the time to educate yourselves from reliable sources outside of tumblr/tiktok/whatever.

[aroceu]

caping for and encouraging a cis person to not only partake but actively stoke the flames of discourse surrounding transphobia against other trans people regardless of whether you agree with them is neither the allyship or the anti-transphobia that you think it is. btw

[rain-after-thunder]

WTF google!

so i was googeling some stuff on aboriginal Australians, and these were the top suggestions. 

racism sure is a thing huh...

[egoschwank]

al things considered — when i post my masterpiece #1195

first posted in facebook may 29, 2023

nina chanel abney -- "class of 2007" (2007)

"in this country american means white. everybody else has to hyphenate" ... toni morrison

"in 2007, abney received recognition for her painting 'class of 2007', done for her MFA thesis show. the painting is a diptych. in one panel, she is depicted as a blonde officer carrying a gun. in the second panel, her MFA classmates, all white, are painted as black inmates in orange uniforms" ... wikipedia

"i was trying to think of some interesting way to talk about race in the painting in a way that hasn't been done. i could easily paint black figures, but i felt that my classmates during previous critiques... i felt like they were sympathetic to certain things, but they couldn't really relate. so i thought why not just make them black? that was my whole thought process behind that. how would they feel if they were portrayed black? i had one classmate, i don't know, i just felt it would be uncomfortable for him, so i made him extremely dark skinned. that's the way i was thinking. i thought maybe they would understand it better if they were just in it" ... nina chanel abney

"hating people because of their color is wrong. and it doesn't matter which color does the hating. it's just plain wrong" ... muhammad ali

"i flipped over the painting and they were pretty surprised in the beginning. they didn't even think i'd painted them and then people started to recognize themselves" ... nina chanel abney

"i wish she would have painted this for our glenbard east class of 1968" ... al janik

[disgruntledexplainer]

[phaedo]

i've seen this post three times in quick succession with no addition so it seems like a good time to remind everyone that part of martha carey thomas's work as an educator was to actively deny education to jewish and black women, which she had a lot of power to do because she was president of bryn mawr college for something like thirty years. and you will find this out in minutes if you click the wikipedia page linked above.

this is from a real diary by a 13-year-old girl in 1870. teenage girls are awesome and they’ve always been that way.

[sillimancer]

random 5am before bed rambling but I genuinely don't get white people who hesitate to create original characters that aren't also white people. it's literally so fun learning about other cultures? getting to practice drawing new hair textures and face shapes? you have an excuse to go consume non-white media as an entry point into worlds previously unknown to you???? idk man maybe you're just racist