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igottoomuchtime · 6 months ago

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Famous Inventor’s Icks.

Henry Ford

Apparently, he hated Jews. He even made an entire newspaper section dedicated to telling the public just how much they're trying to achieve world domination continuously for a good number of years, on the front page, called “The International Jew: The World's Problem,” even Hitler was hyper aware of his works and praised them, soon even awarding Ford the Grand Cross of the German Eagle on his 75th birthday, 30 July 1938. Which he accepted since you know, they were far away buddies.

Thomas Edison

He hated tons like an elephant weight number of tons. 1 – Any form of criticism, got extremely annoyed when Henry Morton, the President of the Stevens Institute of Technology, called his light bulb a "conspicuous failure" in a public letter. 2 – Most (if not all) black inventors getting any kind of credit for things he majored in like, Edison sued Granville T. Woods, a prolific Black inventor, twice in the 1880s, claiming that he invented the telegraph for trains first. 3 – Tesla. Tesla eventually resigned from Edison's company after becoming convinced that Edison hadn't lived up to a promise of bonuses.

Madame Curie

Xenophobia, Curie faced xenophobia as part of the right-wing press campaign against her. Sexism was also an obvious and huge problem for her as well, some of her coworkers didn’t enjoy her much because they felt she was spending too much time in the lab rather than with her own children. In 1911, Curie was denied a seat in the French Academy of Sciences, likely due to sexism and religion. The right-wing press spread false rumors about her, including that she was Jewish and not truly French.

Nikola Tesla

He absolutely despised germs, this man was the definition of a germaphobe to the point where he declined to shake hands, even wore gloves to avoid germs and hair, just simply hated the feeling of touching hair, some speculate that his hate of feeling hair is stemming from a childhood illness, made him particularly sensitive to the idea of hair carrying bacteria.

Benjamin Franklin

Hated Germans, even saying that they weren’t “as smart as the people already living in the colonies.” As of 1750s, disparaging "low women," Catholics, and Jews; decrying "alien" German immigrants who would "swarm into our settlements;" and labeling Native Americans as "drunken "savages who delight in war. take pride in murder," and should be pursued with "large, strong, and fierce dogs." Yet, in the 1760s, when white Americans attacked an Indian settlement, he labeled the attack "white savagery." African Americans, he described as "sullen, malicious, revengeful" and "by nature [thieves.]" Yet, ever the inquiring scientist, he visited a school for black children, emerging from the visit with a "higher opinion of the black race than I had ever before entertained."

Hedy Lamarr

Lamarr was not a supporter of her husband's political views and hated fascism. She was concerned about the war and didn't feel comfortable making money in Hollywood while the world was in such a state, Lamarr was unhappy in her marriage to Mandl, a wealthy armaments producer for the Nazis. She described him as controlling and said he prevented her from pursuing her acting career. Lamarr escaped to Paris in 1937 and divorced Mandl.

Steve Jobs

Jobs famously disliked styluses, saying, "You have to get 'em, put 'em away, you lose 'em. Yuck! Nobody wants a stylus. So, let's not use a stylus". He also killed the Newton, a tablet-like device that used a stylus, also didn’t like Bill Gates very much, Jobs called Gates "unimaginative" and said that Gates was more comfortable in philanthropy than technology.

All information from google, I tried not to use Wikis, but if it’s incorrect then blame the internet, not me.

#steve jobs #inventory #hedy lamarr #benjamin franklin #nikola tesla #madame curie #thomas edison #henry ford #icks

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smokeybrandcompositions · 14 days ago

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From the River to the Sea

I’m no fan of the Zionist Israel. As a Black dude, I know nationalist imperialism when I see it. I exists a US citizen because of that sh*t. History proves the worst thing to ever happen to the world, is European Imperialism. White folks have been ruining the good times we Coloreds have had since f*cking antiquity. It’s one thing for the British museum to straight up steal sh*t from another European country in Greece, but to refuse to give it back because they claim Greece wouldn’t take care of it correctly, is next level bullsh*t. And Britain did that to another White nation. It’s no wonder they are so terrible to the darkies they’ve colonized. Why the f*ck are you talking about Greece in a rant about Israel, Ryan? Because Israel learned their cruelty from Britain. Their Zionist, Zealous, Nationalist brand of Manifest Destiny is tied directly to the British style of Imperialism because that’s the sh*t which granted them the land to even found a country. Britain “gifted” Israel to the Jews after WWII, I think. Could have been WWI. After the Ottoman Empire fell, the Euros divided up the land which once belonged to them and, voila, Israel’s third coming. Even though Brown people have been there for centuries. Millennia, if I’m not mistaken. They just took their sh*t because White Jesus and/or YHWH bequeathed it so, thousands of years ago. It’s f*cking nonsense. Israel is a nonsense country and I refuse to accept their occupation of a sovereign nation because of post-WW gentrification and I’m no anti-Semite for saying that.

Look, I get it. Everyone wants a place to call home. I understand that better than most. I’m Black in America. My roots start at some Alabama dock in the 1600s maybe. My last name is the name of the slave owner who literally bought my father’s ancestor. I have no idea where in Africa my family came from and I’m several generations removed from even being able to figure that out. Wanting a place to claim as your own is a thing I understand wholeheartedly. Most Black people descended from slaves can probably say the same. That said, you don’t have to tread on someone else to make a home for yourself. Free Black slaves integrated with Natives and built a life together with them. We founded our own towns in places the Whites wouldn’t touch. We built our own businesses and commerce and lived a life of prosperity, until White people burned it down. That’s my history. That’s most Black folks history. Seeing it happen in real time to Palestine is f*cking scathing. The barbarism on display in full view of the world is insane and we, as US citizens, are supposed to side with the aggressor because… Jesus? Oil? Strategic location for war over oil? Well, I’m not Christian, I don’t believe in organized religion, fossil fuels should be phased out as a primary power source, and I don’t believe in this country enough to fight a war over a resource I don’t believe in. More than anything, I kind of don’t want to see a bunch of Brown kids get carpet bombed while playing in their schoolyard during recess and yet…

That’s the issue I have with this entire unshakable allegiance with Israel the US seems to have. I’m not one of these assholes who hates Jews because of ridiculous stereotypes, even though they absolutely do run the music and film industries, but I’ll scream at the top of my lungs about how much I despise a Zionist. And that’s what this war is about, straight up Zionism. Israeli Supremacy. No different than White Supremacy here in the States and I think that’s why Trump is so bullish about “punishing” those who speak out against the Jews. Like, these assholes are committing war crimes, so much so that the ICJ charged Ben Netty with crimes against humanity. The only reason they didn’t stick is because the US pressured them to throw out the charges. The only countries to back the US’s resolution were Britain and Australia, both lily-White and debilitatingly Christian. The killer thing? This sh*t, this straight up violence, isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s historic, going all the way back to when the Israelis came out of the desert to siege then pillage Jericho. F*ck, man, these people survived a Holocaust and then immediately initiated one on the Palestinian people. The Jews endured atrocities, had a whole ass Kristallnacht, and then turned around and did the exact same thing to Gaza and the West Bank. It’s called al Naqba or Nakba after you translate it in to English. It means Catastrophe. That’s what it is when you displace an entire people in an aggressive ethnic cleansing. A f*cking catastrophe, just like a night of broken glass, not so long beforehand.

How do you support this level of atrocity with your full chest? How can you see the desolation of Palestine at the hands of what is effectively an occupying force, do nothing about it, and then attack those who vocalize their disgust with that inaction? It’s insane to me that Trump is attacking colleges and punishing though exercising their right to free speech, under the guise of cracking down on Antisemitism. F*cking how? If an asshole sh*ts in your yard, you should have every right to call him a filthy mongrel. If a child is acting up and the parents are turning a blind eye to its tantrum, you should be able to call that sh*tting parenting out without concern for reprisal. I mean, this orange asshole is using this bullsh*t to defund Harvard and deport post-grad residents and his thralls of ignorant imperialist who abhor academia, are eating this sh*t up. Well, f*ck Israel and the Zionist who run the joint. Where are you going to deport me? Back to Africa? Nah, bud, I am full blooded American, born right here in the god ol’ US of A. Not a naturalized citizen. Not a resident alien. A mildly neurodivergent Black due with a empathy disorder, with a fundamental understanding of what right and wrong is supposed to mean. Because the first two hundred years of my ancestry in this ridiculous sh*thole country, is a whole ass Nakba full of cotton, lynchings, and chains. But I’m supposed to support a new type of Massa persecuting another type of Brown person, because the Whites in my country say so? Because they see themselves in the Netanyahu regime? Under threat of persecution, defunding, and alienation? Get the f*ck outta here.

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smokeybrand · 14 days ago

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From the River to the Sea

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socialjusticefail · 10 months ago

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Ok but listen, the "Jews aren't indigenous to the levant/the area of Isreal!" Is based on the same dogshit sentiment as "White people aren't indigenous/native to anywhere, not even Europe." But for some reason every other ethnicity gets to be native or indigenous to "their" parts of the world. Yes I've seen that argument.

Like, when you mention that white people are indigenous to Europe, there are so many people who not only take massive offence to the idea that the term is "indigenous" by any stretch of the word is used, or even just the term native about white people. But there are people who will then try to use the argument "Haha, but white people aren't native/indigenous to Europe because the earliest people in Europe were brown! Check mate." Completely ignoring that these brown people are the literal direct ancestors to European white people.

Like, it doesn't matter what skin colour these people had, they'd still be the ancestors to white people. If these ancestors were purple, they'd still be the ancestors to white people. Just like, if the ancestors to black people were lilly white, they'd still be the ancestors to black people. Ancestry doesn't mean "The ancestors always looked like people do now." it just means there's a genetic line leading back in some form.

This has even come to the point that Saami, which are the only officially recognised indigenous group in Europe, is argued to be "Not white." when they can't deny that label, despite being literally Nordic white people. People even claiming they can't be white and doing some weird mental gymnastics to put them in the same branch as Inuit people. Which has nothing to do with the Saami. (Seriously, look up a pic of the average saami and tell me "Nah, they aren't white, at all")

Back to the Jewish people. This is the same argument that is forced onto them, because they're an acceptable target. It doesn't matter that they're indigenous. It doesn't matter that there are literal scientific studies on the lineage of the Jewish people leading all the way back to the first people in the Levant. All these obviously Jewish artifacts. People who can literally trace their genaology back to the first people of the levant. It all doesn't matter. And the reasons are the same, or based on a similar shoddy construct as people use to tell white people they're not native to anywhere.

"You don't look like the ancestors from thousands of years ago." "You stole it." "Your people can't be indigenous to anywhere." Blah blah fucking blah.

Facts don't matter, because this is a narrative that has been working for years, and honestly, probably started with Jews, then went to European white people, and now went back even more toxic towards the Jewish people. But it's definitely been a fact rejecting circle jerk for decades, centuries, if not millennia, all because people have found the right target which makes it acceptable to deny any heritage or lineage to their home lands, and ancestry.

You point out a very good point.

#anonymous #answers

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agentoffangirling · 11 months ago

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To address your last paragraph first: there are around 16 million Jews in the world. Over half of them live in Israel. The Jews living outside of Israel are known as diaspora Jews because they live outside of the state of Israel which is the Jewish homeland. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is NOT a Jewish organization and has been denounced by the Jewish community. Most Jews support Israel as an idea and disagree with the Israeli government.

There has never been an independent Palestinian state. It was part of the Ottoman empire, and before that, the sultanates, and before that, the Romans. Israel was created by the UN. It is a legitimate state, and the fact that neighboring countries refuse to accept internationally recognized borders is on them, not Israel. Attacks on Israeli civilians is not justified because of that. Israel occupied the regions for safety issues and to protect their people (which, as a nation, they have a responsibility to do). I can’t defend everything they’ve done just as what Arab countries have done is equally inexcusable.

Colonized by whom? You can’t colonize a place that you—you meaning Jews—are indigenous to. And as I mentioned before, there are plenty of Arab Muslims living within Israel. Yes, the fact that Palestinians were displaced from their historical homes is wrong. I’m not denying that.

But can you blame Israel for not wanting to accept Hamas’ terms and conditions? Because their terms call for terrorism to rule the Gaza strip. And frankly, Israel wouldn’t care about the Gaza strip (they left it in 2005 and the people elected Hamas) if it wasn’t directly next to and threatening Israel.

Israelis want the attacks to stop. Jews don’t want more Palestinians dead. But Hamas was capable of committing the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust in a single day. It’s not like the Jewish population is insanely large or anything (less than 0.1 percent of the world population). Left unchecked, they are entirely capable of destroyed Israel.

The people in Jewish Voice for Peace ARE Jewish. Do they need to be considered a Jewish organization in order for the members to be seen as Jewish? Do they need to be supported by the whole community at large in order to be seen as a Jewish organization? Plus there are many Jewish peoples outside of the group who do not support Israel and denounce Zionism, many traditional groups see it just as it is, a political movement and consider it against Jewish beliefs

Then where did Palestinians come from? There are coins, banners, living people prior to 1947 that do prove the existence of Palestine. It doesn't matter whether or not Israel was created by the UN because as it is very obvious, they took Palestinian land. They don't get the right to occupy other countries' land as well, that just seems rather hypocritical to their claim of being "the only democracy in the Middle East"

Palestinians are native to the land. The reason many also live in Israel is one, because it's their land, two, they have more opportunities there than if they stayed in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip (though they still face many injustices and are considered lower class citizens) because...

Israel has kept a constant blockade on those areas. Everything is monitored, so many random materials and goods are straight up banned from entering so the population is reliant on Israeli goods, which they can mark up as high as they want. They haven't left it alone, just because they withdrew their tanks doesn't mean they were all on their lonesome; Israel even helped fund Hamas so they could put down actual democratic Palestinian groups. They don't want them to have a formal government

And the fact of the matter is that Hamas would not left be unchecked. There is no scenario in which this would happen and they are not capable of taking down the whole state. They are not capable of killing every single Jewish person in the world. Israel doesn't care about their hostages, they don't care about eliminating Hamas, and the recent attacks repeatedly prove that

#free palestine #all eyes on rafah #isnotreal #free gaza #palestine

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butwhypants · 1 year ago

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The question about converts isn't unrelated or irrelevant; It's the fundamental element of the relationship between Jews and Eretz Israel.

Ruth 1:17 says "For wherever you go, I will go; wherever you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God." Ruth is an immigrant to the land and tribe of Israel; She is from another culture, another religion, another land. But once she converts, once she is accepted within the Tribe of Israel, this land becomes her land. She has successfully immigrated, and is now a full citizen of Israel.

This is how just about every modern country works. Someone born in India who has lived their entire life there, can immigrate to the US and become a full citizen with no legal differences between them and someone who was born in the US. Similarly, a US citizen could go and become a citizen of India. Denying the existence of immigrants or insinuating that orthodox Jews are no longer "true Jews" is deeply racist and offensive, in both directions.

I also object to the idea that to be indigenous requires a moral judgement. Indigenous is not a badge of honor to be given to "Good natives" and taken away from bad ones. It is a noun that is used to describe the people and cultures who have lived in a place for thousands of years. Either all Jews are indigenous, or none of us are.

But, you are right. We as a people have not lived freely in Israel for almost 2,000 years. If we have somehow lost our right to Eretz Israel and the land that shall receive me dying, then where ARE we native to? What do you believe is the true homeland of our people that we should be allowed to move to and live freely in?

Zionism is not evil, it is not responsible for any sins in this world, and it is certainly not a modern invention. It is the fucking foundational premise of my religion, and it has existed before your shitty country, before my shitty country, and it will continue to exist long after every one of us are dead and gone.

#to be Jewish is to be a member of the tribe of Israel #that is how our language works

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jewishconvertthings · 2 years ago

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Hey I hope this is ok to ask! My partner is Native American (Mvskoke) and considering conversion. They are considering conversion but worry that joining the Jewish people would mean turning their back on the Mvskoke people and would override their peoplehood in the Mvskoke. I know you probably can't speak for the Mvskoke aspect, but would you happen to know of any Native American + Jewish bloggers or people who talk about this topic or any books? (esp those who have converted?) I asked my rabbi but he didn't have any ideas unfortunately.

Hi anon,

You are correct that I cannot personally speak from the Mvskoke side of things, or even from the POV of needing to integrate an existing culture into my Judaism - my journey as a white ex-Xtian has very much been about moving as far away from my origins and assimilating into Jewish life and culture as thoroughly as possible. There were very few things of my background that I found worth retaining, and those that I intentionally brought with me have direct correlates within Judaism anyway.

Prospective gerim who do have strong and positive connections to their heritage and/or faith of origin are going to have different challenges and opportunities than me. Judaism does not syncretize with other faiths well by design, and so integrating these identities - while likely possible - will almost certainly be a balancing act. Your partner is going to have to decide what trade-offs are acceptable in cases where things don't mesh well. I don't know much about the traditional Mvskoke religion or the extent to which your partner follows it (if at all); however, if it involves any form of polytheism or an incompatible form of monotheism they are probably going to have to make a choice. That's an excellent rabbi question if/when they reach that point of exploration. The other big potential areas of clash I see are if there are traditional foods that cannot be made in a kosher way or if there are important events that consistently happen on Shabbat. These latter issues are going to be more acute the more traditionally observant they are wishing to be as a Jew, and become less acute if they take a more flexible approach to halacha, such as through the Reform movement.

All that said, I have seen plenty of Jews by choice and/or Jews with multiple cultural backgrounds live out their other culture(s) in combination with their Judaism in ways that are beautiful, authentic, and personally meaningful. There may be challenges, but also opportunities to bring unique perspectives and Torah to the Jewish people.

Regarding resources, I'm going to put this out to jumblr, to see if there are folks who can speak to this experience or who have recommendations for specific books or other sources. I unfortunately do not have good recommendations off-hand, and would love to connect them to the right people and reading if possible.

#jumblr

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flagellant · 2 years ago

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HeyHowAreYa HeyHowAreYa HeyHowAreYa!

Hi redskin. Maybe you should shut the fuck up about telling people who is an isnt a "good" acceptable jew to your goy ass whether you agree with them or not. You have zero idea what judaism entails or what being a jew means.

Maybe drink some firewater and think about how that kinda judgement is not good polite smokum the peacepipe behavior?

POV you are a TERF being accused of racism by a Native American and you're absolutely convinced that this is the correct magical chanting of slurs which will melt me into a corn cob

#modern day cassandra

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writingwithcolor · 4 years ago

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I'm writing an AU of a movie that takes place in the 1880s USA, where a travelling white character and a Jewish character are waylaid by Native Americans, who they befriend. Probably because it was written by and about PoC (Jews) the scene actually avoids the stuff on your Native American Masterpost, but I'd still like to do better than a movie made in the 1980's, and I feel weird cutting them from the plot entirely. I have a Jewish woman reading it for that, but are there any things you (1/1)

2/2 1880s western movie ask--are there things you'd LIKE to see in a movie where a white man and a Jewish man run into Native Americans in the 1880s? I do plan to base them on a real tribe (Ute, probably) and have proper housing/clothes and so forth, but right now I'm just trying to avoid or subvert awful cowboy movie tropes. Any ideas?

White and Jewish Men, Native American interactions in 1880s

I am vaguely concerned with how you only cite one of our posts about Native Americans, that was not written by a Native person, and do not cite any of the posts relating to this time period, or any posts relating to representation in media.

Sidenote: if you want us to give accurate reflections of the media you’re discussing, please tell us the NAME. I cannot go look up this movie based off this description to give you an idea of what my issues are with this scene, and must instead trust that the representation is good based off your judgement. I cannot make my own judgement. This is a problem. Especially since your whole question boils down to “this scene is good but not great and I want it to be great. How can I do that?”

Your baseline for “good” could very well be my baseline for “terrible hack job”. I can’t give you the proper education required for you to be able to accurately evaluate the media you’re watching for racist stereotypes if you don’t tell me what you’re even working with.

When you’re writing fanfic where the media is directly relevant to the question, please tell us the name of the media. We will not judge your tastes. We need this information in order to properly help you.

Moving on.

I bring up my concern for you citing that one—exceptionally old—post because it is lacking in many of the tropes that don’t exist in the media critique field but exist in the real world. This is an issue I have run into countless times on WWC (hence further concern you did not cite any other posts) and have spoken about at length.

People look at the media critique world exclusively, assume it is a complete evaluation of how Native Americans are seen in society, and as a result end up ignoring some really toxic stereotypes and then come to the inbox with “these characters aren’t abc trope, so they’re fine, but I want to rubber stamp them anyway. Anything wrong here?”. The answer is pretty much always yes.

Issue one: “Waylaid” by Native Americans

This wording is extremely loaded for one reason: Native American people are seen as tricksters, liars, and predators. This is the #1 trope that shows up in the real world that does not show up in media critique. It’s also the trope I have talked about the most when it comes to media representation, so you not knowing the trope is a sign you haven’t read the entirety of the Native tag—which is in the FAQ as something we would really prefer you did before coming at us to answer questions. It avoids us having to re-explain ourselves.

Now, hostility is honestly to be expected for the time period the movie is set in. This is in the beginnings (or ramping up) of residential schools in America* and Canada, we have generations upon generations of stolen or killed children, reserves being allocated perhaps hundreds of miles from sacred sites, and various wars with Plains and Southwest peoples are in full force (Wounded Knee would have happened in 1890, in December, and the Dakoa’s mass execution would have been in 1862. Those are just the big-name wars. There absolutely were others).

*America covers up its residential schools abuse extremely thoroughly, so if you try to research them in the American context you will come up empty. Please research Canada’s schools and apply the same abuse to America, as Canada has had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission about residential schools and therefore is more (but not completely) transparent about the abuse that happened. Please note that America’s history with residential schools is longer than Canada’s history. There is an extremely large trigger warning for mass child death when you do this research.

But just because the hostility is expected does not mean that this hostility would be treated well in the movie. Especially when you consider the sheer amount of tension between any Native actors and white actors, for how Sacheen Littlefeather had just been nearly beaten up by white actors at the 1973 Academy Awards for mentioning Wounded Knee, and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act had only been passed two years prior in 1978.

These Native actors would not have had the ability to truly consent to how they were shown, and this power dynamic has to be in your mind when you watch this scene over. I don’t care that the writers were from a discriminated-against background. This does not always result in being respectful, and I’ve also spoken about this power imbalance at length (primarily in the cowboy tag).

Documentaries and history specials made in the 2010s (with some degree of academic muster) will still fall into wording that harkens Indigenous people to wolves and settlers as frightened prey animals getting picked off by the mean animalistic Natives. This is not neutral, or good. This is perpetuating the myth that the settlers were helpless, just doing their own thing completely unobtrusively, and then the evil territorial Native Americans didn’t want to share.

To paraphrase Batman: if I had a week I couldn’t explain all the reasons that’s wrong.

How were these characters waylaid by the Native population? Because that answer—which I cannot get because you did not name the media—will determine how good the framing is. But based on the time period this movie was made alone, I do not trust it was done respectfully.

Issue 2: “Befriending”

I mentioned this was in an intense period of residential schools and land wars all in that area. The Ute themselves had just been massacred by Mormons in the Grass Valley Massacre in 1865, with ten men and an unknown number of women and children killed thanks to a case of assumed association with a war chief (Antonga Black Hawk) currently at war with Utah. The Paiute had been massacred in 1866. Over 100 Timpanogo men had been killed, with an unknown number of women and children enslaved by Brigham Young in Salt Lake City in 1850, with many of the enslaved people dying in captivity (those numbers were not tracked, but I would assume at least two hundred were enslaved— that’s simply assuming one woman/wife and one child for every man, and the numbers could have very well been higher if any war-widows and their children were in the group, not to mention families with multiple children). This is after an unknown group of Indigenous people had been killed by Governor Brigham Young the year prior, to “permanently stop cattle theft” from settlers.

The number of Native Americans killed in Utah in the 1800s—just the number of dead counted (since women and children weren’t counted)—in massacres not tied to war (because there was at least one war) is over 130. The actual number of random murders is much higher; between the uncounted deaths and how the Governor had issued orders to “deal with” the problem of cattle theft permanently. I doubt you would have been tried or convicted if you murdered Indigenous peoples on “your” land. This is why it’s called state sanctioned genocide.

This is not counting the Black Hawk War in Utah (1865-1872), which the Ute were absolutely a part of (the wiki articles I read were contradictory if Antonga Black Hawk was Ute or Timpanogo, but the Ute were part of it). The first official massacre tied to the war—the Bear River Massacre, ordered by the US Military—places the death count of just that singular massacre at over five hundred Shoshone, including elders, women, and children. It would not be unreasonable to assume that the number of Indigenous people killed in Utah from 1850, onward, is over a thousand, perhaps two or three.

Pardon me for not reading beyond that point to list more massacres and simply ballparking a number; the source will be linked for you to get an accurate number of dead.

So how did they befriend the Native population? Let alone see them as fully human considering the racism of the time period? Natives were absolutely not seen as fully human so long as they were tied to their culture, and assimilation equalling some sliver of respect was already a stick being waved around as a threat. This lack of humanity continues to the present day.

I’m not saying friendship is impossible. I am saying the sheer levels of mistrust that would exist between random wandering groups of white/pale men and Indigenous communities wouldn’t exactly make that friendship easy. Having the scene end be a genuine friendship feels ignorant and hollow and flattening of ongoing genocide, because settlers lied about their intentions and then lined you up for slauther (that’s how the Timpanogo were killed and enslaved).

Utah had already done most of its mass killing by this point. The era of trusting them was over. There was an active open hunting season, and the acceptable targets were the Indigenous populations of Utah.

(sources for the numbers:

List of Indian Massacres in North America Black Hawk War (1865-1872))

Issue 3: “Proper housing/clothes and so forth”

Do you mean Western style settlements and jeans? If yes, congratulations you have written a reservation which means the land-ripped-away wounds are going to be fresh, painful, and sore.

You do not codify what you mean by “proper”, and proper is another one of those deeply loaded colonial words that can mean “like a white man” or “appropriate for their tribe.” For the time period, it would be the former. Without specifying which direction you’re going for, I have no idea what you’re imagining. And without the name of the media, I don’t know what the basis of this is.

The reservation history of this time period seems to maybe have some wiggle room; there were two reservations allocated for the Ute at this time, one made in 1861 and another made in 1882 (they were combined into the Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation in 1886). This is all at the surface level of a google and wikipedia search, so I have no idea how many lived in the bush and how many lived on the reserve.

There were certainly land defenders trying to tell Utah the land did not belong to them, so holdouts that avoided getting rounded up were certainly possible. But these holdouts would be far, far more hostile to anyone non-Native.

The Ute seemed to be some degree of lucky in that the reserve is on some of their ancestral territory, but any loss of land that large is going to leave huge scars.

It should be noted that reserves would mean the traditional clothing and housing would likely be forbidden, because assimilation logic was in full force and absolutely vicious at this time.

It’s a large reserve, so the possibility exists they could have accidentally ended up within the borders of it. I’m not sure how hostile the state government was for rounding up all the Ute, so I don’t know if there would have been pockets of them hiding out. In present day, half of the Ute tribe lives on the reserve, but this wasn’t necessarily true historically—it could have been a much higher percentage in either direction.

It’s up to you if you want to make them be reservation-bound or not. Regardless, the above mentioned genocide would have been pretty fresh, the land theft in negotiations or already having happened, and generally, the Ute would be well on their way to every assimilation attempt made from either residential schools, missionaries, and/or the forced settlement and pre-fab homes.

To Answer Your Question

I don’t want another flattened, sanitized portrayal of genocide.

Look at the number of dead above, the amount of land lost above, the amount of executive orders above. And try to tell me that these people would be anything less than completely and totally devastated. Beyond traumatized. Beyond broken hearted. Absolutely grief stricken with almost no soul left.

Their religion would have been illegal. Their children would have been stolen. Their land was taken away. A saying about post-apocalyptic fiction is how settler-based it is, because Indigenous people have already lived through their own apocalypse.

It would have all just happened at the time period this story is set in. All of the grief you feel now at the environment changing so drastically that you aren’t sure how you’ll survive? Take that, magnify it by an exponential amount because it happened, and you have the mindset of these Native characters.

This is not a topic to tread lightly. This is not a topic to read one masterpost and treat it as a golden rule when there is too much history buried in unmarked, overfull graves of school grounds and cities and battlefields. I doubt the movie you’re using is good representation if it doesn’t even hint at the amount of trauma these Native characters would have been through in thirty years.

A single generation, and the life that they had spent millennia living was gone. Despite massive losses of life trying to fight to preserve their culture and land.

Learn some history. That’s all I can tell you. Learn it, process it, and look outside of checklists. Look outside of media.

And let us have our grief.

~ Mod Lesya

On Question Framing

Please allow me the opportunity to comment on “are there things you'd LIKE to see in a movie where a white man and a Jewish man run into Native Americans in the 1880s?” That strikes me as the same type of question as asking what color food I’d like for lunch. I don’t see how the cultural backgrounds of characters I have literally no other information about is supposed to make me want anything in particular about them. I don’t know anything about their personalities or if they have anything in common.

Compare the following questions:

“Are there things you’d like to see in a movie where two American women, one from a Nordic background and one Jewish, are interacting?” I struggle to see how our backgrounds are going to yield any further inspiration. It certainly doesn’t tell you that we’re both queer and cling to each other’s support in a scary world; it doesn’t tell you that we uplift each other through mental illness; it doesn’t go into our 30 years of endless bizarre inside jokes related to everything from mustelids to bad subtitles.

Because: “white”, “Jewish”, and “Native American” aren’t personality words. You can ask me what kind of interaction I’d like to see from a high-strung overachieving woman and a happy-go-lucky Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and I’ll tell you I’d want fluffy f/f romance. Someone else might want conflict ultimately resolving in friendship. A third person might want them slowly getting on each other’s nerves more and more until one becomes a supervillain and the other must thwart her. But the same question about a cultural demographic? That told me nothing about the people involved.

Also, the first time I meet a new person from a very different culture, it might take weeks before discussion of our specific cultural differences comes up. As a consequence, my first deep conversations with a Costa Rican American gentile friend were not about Costa Rica or my Jewishness but about things we had in common: classical music and coping with breakups--which are obviously conversations I could have had if we were both Jewish, both Costa Rican gentiles, or both something else. So in other words, I’m having trouble seeing how knowing so little about these characters is supposed to give me something to want to see on the page.

Thank you for understanding.

(And yes, I agree with Lesya, what’s with this trend of people trying to explain their fandom in a roundabout way instead of mentioning it by name? It makes it harder to give meaningful help….)

--Shira

#platypan #genocide #native american #North America #america #history #american history #media #representation #asks

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thatweirdtranny · 4 months ago

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also? a 2ss isn’t at odds with zionism at all? i believe all of historic israel is the native homeland of the jews but there are good reasons why i don’t believe in the idea of israel controlling all of that region

most of those reasons revolve around the fact that palestinians need a homeland too because the state they were promised in the 40s when the partition happened didn’t work out because so many people refused to work together or compromise or even just fucking accept the wave of refugees that resulted

and that pisses me off because everyone could’ve had a state with zero conflict if so many people didn’t fucking hate the idea of living alongside jews, so now we’re here where palestinians still need a state

hence: 2 state solution!

if you think a 2ss solution is incompatible with zionism you’re operating on an antisemitic definition of zionism

people still boycotting starbucks is wild to me as a person who works there because do you know how well known this company is amongst the workers for being a shit place to work? and y’all boycott starbucks for shit that isn’t even true?? truly bonkers

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nevermindirah · 5 years ago

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I've been drafting and redrafting this meta post for weeks now. It's about to be 5781 and my country that was founded on settler colonial genocide and slavery and a deeply flawed but fierce attachment to democracy might go full dictatorship in about 6 weeks and it's time for me to post this thing.

All our immortals are warriors, all have been traumatized by war. But only three of them died their first deaths as soldiers in imperial armies. This fandom has already produced gallons of meta on Nicky dealing with his shit, because Joe would not fuck with an unapologetic Crusader. But there's very rich stuff in Booker and Nile's experiences and the parallels and distinctions between them.

Nile was 11 when her dad was killed in action - that was 2005, meaning she and her dad both died in the same war that George W Bush started in very tenuous response to 9/11. Sure, Nile's dad could have died in either Iraq or Afghanistan, or in a training accident or in an off-the-books mission we won't know about for a hundred more years, but he died in the War on Terror all the same. I had to look it up to be sure because Obama "drew down" the Afghanistan war in his second term, but nope, we're still in this fucking thing that never should've happened in the first place. The US war in Afghanistan just turned 19 years old. A lot of real-life Americans have experiences like the Freemans, parents and children both dying in the same war we shouldn't be in.

I know a lot of people like Nile who join the US military not just because it's the only realistic way for them to pay for college or afford decent healthcare, but also because they have a family history of military service that's a genuine source of pride. Military service has been a way for Americans of color to be accepted by white Americans as "true Americans" - from today's Dreamers who Obama promised would earn protection from deportation by enlisting, to Filipino veterans of WW2 earning US citizenship that Congress then denied them for several decades, to slaves "earning" their freedom through service in the Union Army and in the Continental Army before it. As if freedom is a thing one should have to earn. Lots of Black Americans have the last name Freeman for lots of different escaping-slavery reasons, but it's possible that this specific reason is how Nile got her last name.

Dying in a war you know your country chose to instigate unnecessarily and that maybe you believe it shouldn't be waging is a very particular kind of trauma. It is a much deeper trauma when your military service, and your father's, and maybe generations of your ancestors', is a source of pride and access to resources for you but your sacrifice is nearly meaningless to the white supremacist system that deploys you. That kind of cognitive dissonance encourages a person to ignore their own feelings just so they can function. How do you wake up in the morning, how do you risk your life every day, how do you *kill other people* in a war that shouldn't be happening and that you shouldn't have to serve in just so that your country sees you as human?

We see Nile do her best to be a kind and well-mannered invader. Depending on your experience with US imperialism, Nile giving candy to kids and reminding her squad to be respectful is either heartwarming or very disturbing propaganda. We also see Nile clutching her cross necklace and praying. From the second Christianity arrived on this land it's been a tool of white supremacist assimilation and control, but like military service, it's a fucked-up but genuine source of pride and access to resources for many Americans whose pre-Columbian ancestors were not Christian, and it's a powerful source of comfort and resilience. This Jew who's had a lot of Spanish Inquisition nightmares would like to say for the record that it's not Jesus's fault that his big name fans are such shitty people.

Nile is a good person trying to do her best in a fucked-up world. "Her best" just radically changed. Her access to information on just how fucked up the world is has also just radically changed, because everything's so fucked up a person needs a lot of time to learn about it all and not only does she have centuries but she won't have to spend that time worrying about rent and healthcare and taxes, and because she now has Joe and Nicky and Andy's stories, and because she now has Copley's inside scoop on just what the fuck the CIA has been up to. Like, I want a fic where Copley tells Nile what was really behind the brass's decisions that led to her experiences on the ground in Afghanistan, that led to her father's death, but also I Do Not Want That.

Nile was 19 when Alicia Garza posted on Facebook that Black Lives Matter. She grew up in Chicago well before white people on Twitter were saying maybe police violence against Black people is a problem. She knows this is a deeply fucked up country, and she put on her Marine uniform and deployed with her team of mostly fellow women of color, and maybe she and Dizzy and Jay marched in the streets between deployments, maybe they texted each other when a white manarchist at a protest sneered at one of them for being a Marine. Nile's been busy surviving, and she knows some shit and she's seen some shit but she hasn't had much time to think about what it all means. Now she's got time. And Joe, Nicky, and Andy are willing to listen. (Is Copley willing to listen? I could see that going either way.)

Booker might also be willing to listen. The brilliant idea of cleaning up the rat Frenchman so that Nile can have millennia of emotional support and orgasms sent me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, and holy shit do Booker and Nile have a lot of shared life experience as pawns of imperial wars. Obviously Booker is white and a man and that makes a very big difference. (Though G-d help me, Booker could be Jewish and France was knocking its Jews around like ping-pong balls in the 18th-19th centuries. Jewish Booker wouldn't make him any less white but it does add a shit ton of depth of common experience: military service as a way for your country to see you as a full member of society who matters, because who you are means that's not guaranteed.)

Booker was hanged for desertion from the army Napoleon sent to invade Russia as part of his quest to control all of Europe. We learn in the comics / this YouTube video that Booker was on his way to prison for forgery when he was offered military service instead of jail time. While we don't know how he felt about the choice beyond that he did choose soldier over inmate, it's unlikely he thought invading Russia was a great idea, given he tried to desert because Napoleon like a true imperialist dumbass didn't plan for how he was going to feed his army or keep them from freezing to death in fucking Russian winter.

I find it very interesting that the French Empire was at its largest right before invading Russia and fell apart completely within a few years. My country has been falling the fuck apart for a while now - see aforementioned War on Terror, growing extremes of economic stratification in the richest country in the world, abject refusal to meaningfully deal with climate change that US-based corporations hold the lion's share of blame for - but between Trump's abject refusal to meaningfully deal with the coronavirus and strong likelihood that he'll refuse to leave office even if a certain pathetic moderate I will hold my nose and vote for does manage to earn a majority of votes, ~y~i~k~e~s.

Our only immortals who have never known a world before modernity and nationalism happen to have been born of wars that were the beginning of the end for the imperialist democracies that raised them, and I think in the centuries to come that's going to give them some very interesting shit to talk about.

Nile's a Young Millennial, a digital native born in the United States after the collapse of the USSR left her country as the world's only superpower. She's used to a pace of technological change that human brains are not evolved to handle.

Napoleon trying to make all of Europe into the French Empire was a leading cause of the growth of European nationalism and the establishment of liberal democracies both in Europe and in many places that Europeans had colonized. Booker's first war produced the only geopolitical world order Nile has ever known and I just have so many feelings ok. Nile the art history nerd is probably not aware of this, and why would she be? This humble meta author is, like Nile, a product of US public schools, and all they taught me about world history was Ancient Greece/Rome/Egypt/Mesopotamia and then World War 2. Being raised in The World's Only Superpower is WEIRD.

Nile the Young Millennial is used to the devastating volume of bad news the internet makes possible. But she has absolutely no concept of a world where the United States of America is not The World's Only Superpower. In order to get up in the morning and put on her gear and point guns at civilians in Afghanistan, she can only let herself think so much about whether that American exceptionalism thing is a good idea.

She's about to spend many, many years where the only people who she can truly trust are people who are older than not only her country but the IDEA of countries.

She's got time, and she's got a lot of new information at her disposal. But there comes a point where my obsession with her friendship and eventual very hot sex life with Booker just isn't about sex at all. Nile needs someone to talk to about the United States who Gets It. Booker the rat Frenchman coerced into Napoleon's army, and Copley the Black dual citizen of the US and UK who's retired from a CIA career that he half understands as deeply problematic but half still believes in hence his mind-bogglingly stupid partnership with Merrick, are the only people on the planet Nile can talk to honestly about, and really be understood in, all the thoughts and feelings and fears and hopes of her experience as a US Marine.

And one more thing before I go get ready for Rosh Hashanah: Orientalism was a defining element of the Crusades and that legacy is painfully clear in current US-led Western military activity in Afghanistan, Syria, Israel/Palestine, you name it. Turns out memoirs by French veterans of the Napoleonic Wars are full of Orientalist language about Russia as well. I am maybe/definitely writing a fic where Booker spends his exile reading critical race theory and decolonial feminism and trauma studies monographs because he can't be honest with a therapist but maybe he can heal this way and become the team therapist his own damn self. I just really need him to read Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldúa and then go down on Nile, ok?

#nile freeman #tog meta #book of nile #sebastien le livre #the old guard #mine #us imperialism #european imperialism #jewish things #antiblackness #police violence #orientalism

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vergess · 3 years ago

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"Saying goodbye" = youre a culturally christian atheist, tainted, evil, hopeless

"Defending violent colonizers and seeing others as inferior because they dont adhere to your belief systems" = normal, acceptable theist behavior

You're literally just making random shit up at this point, mate.

Like, first of all, you understand that I am an atheist, right? You got that? I'm not an ex-Christian atheist, I an in fact a currently-Jewish atheist. But I an not a theist and pretending I am undercuts both your point and your character.

Secondly, I am not ~defending~ violent colonialism. In fact, when I was shown the incident in question rather than expected to simply take anonymous asks on scout's honor that actually this specific Jew is a racist, not like all those other times Jews are slandered as racists because people hate them, you'll find that I immediately spoke out against that behaviour and am continuing to do so.

But, the fact that prismatic-bell is a racist asshole who played chicken with anti-native assholes and all but taught them how to doxx someone in a vulnerable position (which, again, is bad) because traumatic past experiences made that violent behaviour seem like a good idea at the time.

Does not somehow negate the blatant antisemitism and christian centrism being inflicted by the ex-Christians whose past trauma makes this violent behaviour seem like a good idea at this time.

Two people can be bigotted shitheads in two different ways simultaneously. The world is complex enough that three people could even be bigotted shitheads in three different ways!

#ex christian dipshit hours

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wisdomrays · 4 years ago

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TAFAKKUR: Part 433

THE MAIN FACTORS IN THE SPREAD OF ISLAM: Part 2

A. J. Arberry has also pointed out that the reason for the spread of Islam is Islam itself and its religious values. (Aspects of Islamic Civilization, p.12)

He writes:

��The rapidity of the spread of Islam, noticeably through extensive provinces which had long been Christian, is a crucial fact of history. The sublime rhetoric of the Qur’an, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy…and the urgency of the simple message carried, holds the key to the mystery of one of the greatest catalysms in the history of religion. When all military, political and economic factors have been exhausted, the religious impulse must still be recognized as the most vital and enduring.’

Brockelman, who is usually very unsympathetic and partial, also recognizes the religious values of Islam as the main factor for the spread of Islam (History of the Islamic Peoples, p.37). Rosenthal makes his point as follows: ‘The more important factor for the spread of Islam is the religious Law of Islam (Shari‘a, which is an inclusive, all-embracing, all-comprehensive way of thinking and living) which was designed to cover all manifestations of life.’ (Political Thought in Medieval Islam, p.21).

Besides many other reasons which are responsible for the spread of Islam, it is the exemplary life-style and unceasing efforts of individual Muslims to transmit the message of Islam throughout the world which lie at the root of the conquest of hearts by Islam. Islamic universalism is closely associated with the principle of ‘amr bi’l-ma’ruf (enjoining the good) for Islam is to be spread by Muslims by means of ‘amr bi’l-ma’ruf. This principle seeks to convey the message of Islam to all human beings in the world and to establish a model Islamic community on a worldwide basis. The Islamic community is introduced by the Qur’an as a model community: We have made of you an Ummah justly balanced, that you might be witnesses (models) for the peoples, and the Messenger has been a witness for you (2.143). A Muslim or the Muslim community as a whole thus has a goal to achieve. This is the spread of Islam, conveying the truth to the remotest corner of the world, the eradication of oppression and tyranny and the establishment of justice all over the world. This requires the Muslim to live an exemplary life, and thus the moral and the ethical values of Islam have usually played an important part in the spread of Islam. Here follow the impressions of the influence of Islamic ethics on black Africans of a Western writer of the nineteenth century:

‘As to the effects of Islam when first embraced by a Negro tribe, can there, when viewed as a whole, be any reasonable doubt? Polytheism disappears almost instantaneously; sorcery, with its attendant evils, gradually dies away; human sacrifice becomes a thing of the past. The general moral elevation is most marked; the natives begin for the first time in their history to dress, and that neatly. Squalid filth is replaced by some approach to personal cleanliness; hospitality becomes a religious duty; drunkenness, instead of the rule becomes a comparatively rare exception chastity is looked upon as one of the highest, and becomes, in fact, one of the commoner virtues. It is idleness that henceforward degrades, and industry that elevates, instead of the reverse. Offences are henceforward measured by a written code instead of the arbitrary caprice of a chieftain–a step, as everyone will admit, of vast importance in the progress of a tribe. The Mosque gives an idea of architecture at all events higher than any the Negro has yet had. A thirst for literature is created and that for works of science and philosophy as well as for the commentaries on the Qur’an.’ (Quoted from Waitz by B. Smith, Muhammad and Muhammadanism, pp.42-43)

The tolerance of Islam is another factor in the spread of Islam. Toynbee praises this tolerance towards the People of the Book after comparing it with the attitude of the Christians towards Muslims and Jews in their lands. (A Historian’s Approach to Religion, p.246). T. Link attributes the spread of Islam to the credibility of its principles together with its tolerance, persuasion and other kinds of attractions (A History of Religion). Makarios, Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch in the seventeenth century, compared the harsh treatment received by the Russians of the Orthodox Church at the hands of the Roman Catholic Poles with the tolerant attitude towards Orthodox Christians shown by the Ottoman Government and prayed for the Sultans (T. Link, A History of Religion).

This is not the only example of preference by the followers of the religions for Muslim rule over that of their own co-religionist. The Orthodox Christians of Byzantium openly expressed their preference for the Ottoman turban in Istanbul to the hats of the Catholic cardinals. Elisee Reclus, the French traveller of the nineteenth century, wrote that the Muslim Turk allowed all the followers of different religions to perform their religious duties and rituals, and that the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Sultan were more free to live their own lives than the Christians who lived in the lands under the rule of any rival Christian sect (Nouvelle Geographie Universelle, vol. 9). Popescu Ciocanel pays tribute to the Muslim Turks by stating that it was luck for the Romanian people that they lived under the government of the Turks rather than the domination of the Russians and Austrians. Otherwise, he points out, ‘no trace of the Romanian nation would have remained,’ (La Crise de l’Orient).

The Muslims’ attitude towards the people they conquered is quite clear in the instructions given by the rightly-guided Caliphs: ‘Always keep fear of God in your mind; remember that you cannot afford to do anything without His grace. Do not forget that Islam is a mission of peace and love. Keep the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) before you as a model of bravery and piety. Do not destroy fruit-trees nor fertile fields in your paths. Be just, and spare the feelings of the vanquished. Respect all religious persons who live in hermitages or convents and spare their edifices. Do not kill civilians. Do not outrage the chastity of women and the honour of the conquered. Do not harm old people and children. Do not accept any gifts from the civil population of any place. Do not billet your soldiers or officers in the houses of civilians. Do not forget to perform your daily prayers. Fear God. Remember that death will inevitably come to every one of you some time or other, even if you are thousands of miles away from a battlefield; therefore be always ready to face death.’ (Andrew Miller, Church History; Ali lbn Abi Talib, Nahj al-Balagha)

A historical episode which Balazouri, a famous Muslim historian, relates, tells about how pleased the native peoples were with their Muslim conquerors is of great significance

When Heraclius massed his troops against the Muslims, and the Muslims heard that they were coming to meet them, they refunded the inhabitants of Hims the tribute they had taken from them, saying: ‘We are too busy to support and protect you. Take care of yourselves.’ But the people of Hims replied: ‘We like your rule and justice far better than the state of oppression and tyranny in which we were. The army of Heraclius we shall indeed, with your help, repulse from the city.’ The Jews rose and said: ‘We swear by the Torah, no governor of Heraclius shall enter the city of Hims unless we are first vanquished and exhausted.’ Saying this, they closed the gates of the city and guarded them. The inhabitants of other cities–Christians and Jews–that had capitulated did the same. When by God’s help the unbelievers were defeated and Muslims won, they opened the gates of their cities, went out with singers and players of music, and paid the tribute (Futuh al-Buldan).

To sum up, although most Western writers, under the instigation of biased Orientalists of the Church, have alleged that Islam spread by the force of the sword, the spread of Islam was because of its religious content and values, and ‘its power of appeal and ability to meet the spiritual and material needs of people adhering to cultures totally alien to their Muslim conquerors’, together with some other factors. Some of these factors are the tolerance which Islam showed to people of other religions, the absence of ecclesiastic orders and hierarchy in Islam, mental freedom and absolute justice which Islam envisages and has exercised throughout the centuries, the ethical values it propagates, and Islamic humanitarianism, universalism and brotherhood, and its inclusiveness. Sufi activities, the moral superiority of Muslim tradesmen, the principle of ‘enjoining the good’, and Islamic dynamism and the magnificence of the Islamic civilization contributed of their own to the spread of Islam.

The main religious qualities which attracted people to Islam were:

(i) the simplicity of the theological doctrines of Islam based on the Divine Unity;

(ii) rationalism of the Islamic teachings;

(iii) the complete harmony of the Islamic ideals and values with human conscience;

(iv) the inclusiveness and comprehensives of Islam, covering all aspects of physical, mental, and spiritual life of individuals and societies, hence the harmony of religion and life which it established;

(v) the lack of formalism and mediation;

(vi) the vividness, dynamism and resilience of the Islamic theology, and its creativity and universalism, and its compatibility with established scientific facts;

(vii) the cohesion and harmony of the Islamic principles, and

(viii) the shortcomings of other theological systems.

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vavuska · 5 years ago

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“Cancel culture” is nothing new, so why are we acting like it is? Those in power have written their own version of history as they’d like it to be remembered for ages. That “winners write history” is simply another way of saying that selective erasure (or canceling) of inconvenient truths is built into the fabric of documenting history.

What’s new is that now we’re looking backward to “uncancel” some of the important stories not widely shared about groups of people who have more power today than they’ve had in the past to record their truths for a broader audience.

An exemple is how has been washed, cleaned and packed up, the figure of Christopher Columbus in history books and mainstream european culture.

Some facts that you must know about Christopher Columbus:

- Christopher Columbus didn't discover America as a continent, and wasn't aslo the first European to visit American coasts: half a millennium before Columbus “discovered” America, Viking's feet may have been the first European ones to ever have touched North American soil. The expedition’s leader was Leif Eriksson (variations of his last name include Erickson, Ericson, Erikson, Ericsson and Eiriksson), son of Erik the Red, who founded the first European settlement of Greenland after being expelled from Iceland around A.D. 985 for killing a neighbor. (Erik the Red’s father, himself, had been banished from Norway for committing manslaughter.)

But Christopher Columbus was remarkably the first who came with the intention of a great military conquer.

- He didn't discover that the Earth is spherical: this knowledge was still accepted in the Middle Age and by the Christian doctrine.

Knowledge of the sphericity of the Earth survived into the medieval corpus of knowledge by direct transmission of the texts of Greek antiquity (Aristotle), and via authors such as Isidore of Seville and Beda Venerabilis.

Though the earliest written mention of a spherical Earth comes from ancient Greek sources, there is no account of how the sphericity of the Earth was discovered.

A recent study of medieval concepts of the sphericity of the Earth noted that since the eighth century, no cosmographer worthy of note has called into question the sphericity of the Earth.

Some examples are the papers of Pope Silvester II, who was awer of the knowledge of ancient greek philosophers and also of the researches of Muslim mathematicians. Also Saint Hildegard portrayed the Earth as a sphere in her Liber Divinorum Operum; Giovanni Sarabosco, an Italian astronomist wrote a paper (Tractatus de Spahaera) based on the knowledge of Ptolemy about the sphericity of the Earth; Honorius of Autun, a theologist very popular also in lay community,in his Elucidarium, a survey of Christian beliefs wrote about the sphericity of the Earth. His works was translated frequently into other languages.

Another proof that this knowledge was diffused also in the low folk and not only among the intellectuals of the Church, can be found in some of Berthold von Regensburg homelies in which he explained that the earth is spherical.

A practical demonstration of Earth's sphericity was achieved by Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano's expedition's circumnavigation (1519-1522).

- Christopher Columbus was the first European to have the idea to enslave native Americans and force them to work in colonizer's encomiendas. According to Cuneo, Columbus ordered 1,500 men and women seized, letting 400 go and condemning 500 to be sent to Spain, and another 600 to be enslaved by Spanish men remaining on the island. About 200 of the 500 sent to Spain died on the voyage, and were thrown by the Spanish into the Atlantic. (Bergreen, 196-197)

Those left behind were forced to search for gold in mines and work on plantations. Within 60 years after Columbus landed, only a few hundred of what may have been 250,000 Taino were left on their island.

- If you think that Christopher Columbus was loved and admired by people of his age, you are wrong: he gave land to the settlers and permitted the enslavement of the Taino people to work it. Complaints for his violence against Caribs and Taino Indians, but mostly for his cruelty against Spanish settler, trickled back to Spain, and eventually the monarchs sent a commissioner to investigate. Shocked by conditions at the colony, the commissioner arrested Columbus and his brothers and sent them back to Spain for trial. The brothers were released by the king and queen, but Columbus was removed from his position as governor of Hispaniola.

- Christopher Columbus was the fist European to commit a genocide: 56 years after Columbus's first voyage, only 500 out of 300,000 Indians remained on Hispaniola.

Population figures from 500 years ago are necessarily imprecise, but Bergreen estimates that there were about 300,000 inhabitants of Hispaniola in 1492. Between 1494 and 1496, 100,000 died, half due to mass suicide. In 1508, the population was down to 60,000. By 1548, it was estimated to be only 500.

Some important facts about slavery, Catholic Church and the famous Monarchs of Spain, Isabel of Castile and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon:

In 1492, Kingdom of Castile and Aragon had a disperate need of money: King Ferdinand and his wife Qeen Isabel used a lot of money in their wars against Portogual and their Conquer of the Emirate of Granada, that was an indipendente Muslim state at the age. They were deeply in debt, also with jews pawloaner, who at the age, were the only allowed to borrow money (Christian doctrine, by the way, didn't allow it), so they wrote the infamous Alhambra Decree with witch all jews were forced to left Spain and their properties passed in the Monarchs' hands.

I red some people associated the Dum Diversas with Columbus, but it has nothing to concern with "discovery" of the "new world": Dum Diversas is a papal bull issued on 18 June 1452 by Pope Nicholas V. It authorized Afonso V of Portugal to conquer Saracens and pagans and consign them to "perpetual servitude". It was referred to the muslim population of North Africa and also to the Turkish territories in Europe.

By the way, the Catholic Chruch condamed slavery in various occasion: in 1537 pope Paul III condemned "unjust" enslavement of non-Christians in Sublimus Dei. In 1686 the Holy Office limited the bull by decreeing that Africans enslaved by unjust wars should be freed. Eugene IV and Paul III did not hesitate to condemn the forced servitude of Blacks and Indians, in Sicut Dudum (1435) and in Sublimis Deus (1537). Their teaching was continued by Gregory XIV in 1591 and by Urban VIII in 1639. Except those formal condemn of slavery, the Church keep an ambiguous sentiment: the condamn was absolute, but most of the government of their age were built on slavery and keep allow their people to profit on slavery, for the reason that "indigenous" people were not Christians, they didn't have a soul, so they were like animals. The Holy See was unable to stop the trade, despite their good intentions.

The pontifical teaching was continued by the response of the Holy Office on March 20, 1686, under Innocent XI, and by the encyclical of Benedict XIV, Immensa Pastorum, on December 20, 1741. This work was followed by the efforts of Pius VII at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to have the victors over Napoleon outlaw slavery. The 1839 Constitution In Supremo by Gregory XVI continued the antislavery teaching of his predecessors, and was in the same manner not accepted by many of those bishops, priests and laity for whom it was written.

#us history #american history #history #christopher columbus #columbus day #indigenous peoples day #indigenous peoples of the americas #indigenous people's day: bay area led the change #indigenous people&039;s day #kingdom of spain #colonial history #colonialism #vavuskapakage #cancel culture #slavery #genocide #crimes against humanity #leif erickson day #leif erikson

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