Black History Month 2014

[garbon]

I found this blog earlier today. I find the website fascinating.... and horribly sad that it doesn't occur to people that there were people of color throughout Western European history.

http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/

I really like his post about black women in the 16th century.

One problem with that site is that the author seems to get very heated about comments he receives. Leaves everyone looking a little distasteful.

[Duque de Bragança]

That should have been thought of prior to slavery and colonialism then

That's one of the reason the European powers justified colonising and effectively occupying Africa: ending slavery. As a matter of  fact, it greatly decreased except in some predominantly muslim areas e.g Mauritania.

[The Brain]

That should have been thought of prior to slavery and colonialism then

That's one of the reason the European powers justified colonising and effectively occupying Africa: ending slavery. As a matter of  fact, it greatly decreased except in some predominantly muslim areas e.g Mauritania.

Honey, you're being racist again.

[derspiess]

I found this blog earlier today. I find the website fascinating.... and horribly sad that it doesn't occur to people that there were people of color throughout Western European history.

http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/

I really like his post about black women in the 16th century.

Horribly sad?

[Grinning_Colossus]

I found this blog earlier today. I find the website fascinating.... and horribly sad that it doesn't occur to people that there were people of color throughout Western European history.

http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/

I really like his post about black women in the 16th century.

Honestly, this website is full of shit.

Portugal (c. 1650s)
Italy/China (1736)
France/Netherlands (1733)
Dutch (1634)
etc.

When do they think the Middle Ages occurred? Of course Europeans knew what Asians and Africans looked like during the age of colonialism.

[garbon]

I found this blog earlier today. I find the website fascinating.... and horribly sad that it doesn't occur to people that there were people of color throughout Western European history.

http://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/

I really like his post about black women in the 16th century.

Honestly, this website is full of shit.

Portugal (c. 1650s)
Italy/China (1736)
France/Netherlands (1733)
Dutch (1634)
etc.

When do they think the Middle Ages occurred? Of course Europeans knew what Asians and Africans looked like during the age of colonialism.

MISSION STATEMENT

The focus of this blog is to showcase works of art from European history that feature People of Color. All too often, these works go unseen in museums, Art History classes, online galleries, and other venues because of retroactive whitewashing of Medieval Europe, Scandinavia, and Asia.

Although the focus is toward art dating from the fall of the Roman Empire until about 1650, it will also include Baroque and Early Modern pieces, as well as works from places other than Europe, Scandinavia and Asia. Ancient Greek, Egyptian and Celtic works featuring People of Color are also fair game.

My purpose in creating this blog is to address common misconceptions that People of Color did not exist in Europe before the Enlightenment, and to emphasize the cognitive dissonance in the way this is reflected in media produced today.

The ubiquity in modern media to display a fictitiously all-white Europe is often thoughtlessly and inaccurately justified by claims of "historical accuracy"; this blog is here to emphasize the modern racism that retroactively erases gigantic swaths of truth and beauty.

This blog addresses situations regarding North American and often United States-specific misconceptions and miseducation about history, race, and racism. European history is already misrepresented in American classrooms. This blog is dedicated to providing a counternarrative to dominant social, cultural, and political narratives about European history in relation to both white identity and white supremacy as an institutionalized form of oppression. Those who control our knowledge of history also control our present, and putting resources and knowledge back into the hands of those most affected by the misinformation and misrepresentation codified into the U.S. education system is a large part of the purpose in curating this blog.

A tertiary effect of showcasing these works is to provide a vehicle for correcting assumptions that works of fantasy based in "re-imagined" worlds of Medieval or Renaissance Europe that omit the contributions and presence of People of Color are made with  "historical accuracy" in mind. In fact, the opposite is often the case.

Modern media does not exist in a vacuum.

[Duque de Bragança]

That should have been thought of prior to slavery and colonialism then

That's one of the reason the European powers justified colonising and effectively occupying Africa: ending slavery. As a matter of  fact, it greatly decreased except in some predominantly muslim areas e.g Mauritania.

Honey, you're being racist again.

Nein, Frau Taubira.

[Grinning_Colossus]

The focus of this blog is to showcase works of art from European history that feature People of Color. All too often, these works go unseen in museums, Art History classes, online galleries, and other venues because of retroactive whitewashing of Medieval Europe, Scandinavia, and Asia.

Although the focus is toward art dating from the fall of the Roman Empire until about 1650, it will also include Baroque and Early Modern pieces, as well as works from places other than Europe, Scandinavia and Asia. Ancient Greek, Egyptian and Celtic works featuring People of Color are also fair game.

My purpose in creating this blog is to address common misconceptions that People of Color did not exist in Europe before the Enlightenment, and to emphasize the cognitive dissonance in the way this is reflected in media produced today.

The ubiquity in modern media to display a fictitiously all-white Europe is often thoughtlessly and inaccurately justified by claims of “historical accuracy”; this blog is here to emphasize the modern racism that retroactively erases gigantic swaths of truth and beauty.

This blog addresses situations regarding North American and often United States-specific misconceptions and miseducation about history, race, and racism. European history is already misrepresented in American classrooms. This blog is dedicated to providing a counternarrative to dominant social, cultural, and political narratives about European history in relation to both white identity and white supremacy as an institutionalized form of oppression. Those who control our knowledge of history also control our present, and putting resources and knowledge back into the hands of those most affected by the misinformation and misrepresentation codified into the U.S. education system is a large part of the purpose in curating this blog.

A tertiary effect of showcasing these works is to provide a vehicle for correcting assumptions that works of fantasy based in “re-imagined” worlds of Medieval or Renaissance Europe that omit the contributions and presence of People of Color are made with  “historical accuracy” in mind. In fact, the opposite is often the case.

Modern media does not exist in a vacuum.

3/4 of the most recent examples are post-1650, and they're all Enlightenment-era, probably because they can't find many unambiguous PoCs in actual Medieval art.

It's also trying to disprove an assumption that's essentially correct. Aside from the aforementioned Arabs (who were hardly an integrated group in contemporary Christian societies) there really weren't very many people of color in Medieval Western Europe at all. Coptic or Maronite traders might have set in shop at big ports and the occasional Nubian/Ethiopian Christian might have made it through once in a while, but arguing that minorities were a visible part of those societies is nuts.

[Malthus]

Heh, I am all for the "retroactive whitewashing" of medieval Scandinavia. 

Joking aside, there certainly were Arab travellers trading in those parts - the very first written account of a Viking funeral was Arab - but they were rarities.

[Viking]

http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/12/blacks_in_western_art_why_one_of_the_wise_men_is_black_in_this_painting.html

of course europeans knew of other skin colours, they even fetished it in their art



traditionally the adoration of the magi scenes had one white maegus for europe, one black one for africa and one yellow one for asia. Even in the far north of scandinavia there was a native understanding that people had different skin. The old word for negro in norse which literally translates to "blue man", meaning they felt the need to come up with a word for it on their own.

Racism doesn't really get institutionalized until the enlightenment when europeans had to try and square their new ideas of human dignity with slavery. The transatlantic slave trade started because indians were of no use in force labour (probably due to new diseases rather than cultural or genetic reasons). Blacks were already the subjects of the arab slave trade and they were tropical, meaning they didn't die like flies on the plantations.

Why does group X succeed better than group Y. It's been the question of our age beginning with the original scientific racists, through anti-semitism to Jared Diamond's Solomon islander who asked why the white man had all the cargo (introduction to guns, germs and steel) and Bernard Lewis' book "What went wrong?" about the arab world's failure in development publish september 9th 2001. This is the driving question behind Group X Studies and multi culturalism.

I know what I think the answer is, Bertrand Russel's observation that people love their bad ideas and often die for them does give the best explanation.

[garbon]

This is the driving question behind Group X Studies and multi culturalism.

No, not really. Not at all.

[Malthus]

Why does group X succeed better than group Y. It's been the question of our age beginning with the original scientific racists, through anti-semitism to Jared Diamond's Solomon islander who asked why the white man had all the cargo (introduction to guns, germs and steel) and Bernard Lewis' book "What went wrong?" about the arab world's failure in development publish september 9th 2001. This is the driving question behind Group X Studies and multi culturalism.

I know what I think the answer is, Bertrand Russel's observation that people love their bad ideas and often die for them does give the best explanation.

Disagree. Europe has "done better" only over the last few centuries, as a result of contingent historical factors - the Europeans of the early 17th century certainly did not think they were "doing better" than the Turks or Chinese (and the Turks and north africans were happily slave-trading in Europeans just as the Europeans were slave-trading in Africans!).

Multi-culturalism has nothing to do with worrying about such issues, but is simply an aknowledgement that societies (or at least, some societies) these days have many cultual roots and not just one.

[Sheilbh]

Multi-culturalism has nothing to do with worrying about such issues, but is simply an aknowledgement that societies (or at least, some societies) these days have many cultual roots and not just one.

Exactly.

[Viking]

Why does group X succeed better than group Y. It's been the question of our age beginning with the original scientific racists, through anti-semitism to Jared Diamond's Solomon islander who asked why the white man had all the cargo (introduction to guns, germs and steel) and Bernard Lewis' book "What went wrong?" about the arab world's failure in development publish september 9th 2001. This is the driving question behind Group X Studies and multi culturalism.

I know what I think the answer is, Bertrand Russel's observation that people love their bad ideas and often die for them does give the best explanation.

Disagree. Europe has "done better" only over the last few centuries, as a result of contingent historical factors - the Europeans of the early 17th century certainly did not think they were "doing better" than the Turks or Chinese (and the Turks and north africans were happily slave-trading in Europeans just as the Europeans were slave-trading in Africans!).

Multi-culturalism has nothing to do with worrying about such issues, but is simply an aknowledgement that societies (or at least, some societies) these days have many cultual roots and not just one.

1 - the enlightenment didn't start up til the late 17th century
2 - they were comparing themselves to primarily indians and black africans, though when they did compare themselves to oriental powers they certainly did think they, as individuals, were doing much better
3 - if it were merely an acknowledgement of facts it would require no policies other than education, facts are stubborn things, they don't really require designated months


Multi-Culturalism is precisely about such issues. Race isn't the answer, genetics and biology prove that, location isn't the answer, krea,  germany and israel prove that. The answer lies in the culture, habits and institutions of the west. Pretending that non-western habits and institutions are equal or equivalent means you need to go back to race or conspiracy or racism to explain the differences. 

I'm sure some of you are thinking, omg raciss!!!!!1111oneoneone right now. An accident of history landed us with the values which built our societies. The Romans conquered the Greeks who invented western philosophy and the jews who invented the idea the idea of the individual with intrinsic value; they in turn were conquered by men who considered themselves first of all free men (the literal meaning of the word Frank). As I said, accident of history. Western societies, even those who didn't colonize nor participate in slavery, have superior outcomes to all non-western societies which don't explicitly mimic western institutions and habits. It's either correlation or causation; in either case adopting the tribal and religious habits and institutions of failed societies is bad and stupid, adopting their music, food and fashion isn't.

By identifying individuals with the culture of their parents and grandparents rather than with the society in which they live you are creating parallel societies which are not cohesive and homogeneous. Black history month is all about us and them, how "we" were mean to "them" and "they" have good reason to feel aggrieved at "us". It's hard for me to conceive of many things which are stupider if you want to create an integrated society where people are actually judged by the content of their character.

[Ideologue]

Location doesn't matter?  That's a dubious assertion.