What’s really wild is that the native people literally told the Europeans “they walked” when asked how the statues were moved. The Europeans were like “lol these backwards heathens and their fairy tales guess it’s gonna always be a mystery!”
Maori told Europeans that kiore were native rats and no one believed them until DNA tests proved it
Roopkund Lake AKA “Skeleton Lake” in the Himalayas in India is eerie because it was discovered with hundreds of skeletal remains and for the life of them researchers couldn’t figure out what it was that killed them. For decades the “mystery” went unsolved.
Until they finally payed closer attention to local songs and legend that all essentially said “Yah the Goddess Nanda Devi got mad and sent huge heave stones down to kill them”. That was consistent with huge contusions found all on their neck and shoulders and the weather patterns of the area, which are prone to huge & inevitably deadly goddamn hailstones. https://www.facebook.com/atlasobscura/videos/10154065247212728/
Literally these legends were past down for over a thousand years and it still took researched 50 to “figure out” the “mystery”. 🙄
Adding to this, the Inuit communities in Nunavut KNEW where both the wrecks of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror were literally the entire time but Europeans/white people didn’t even bother consulting them about either ship until like…last year.
“Inuit traditional knowledge was critical to the discovery of both ships, she pointed out, offering the Canadian government a powerful demonstration of what can be achieved when Inuit voices are included in the process.
In contrast, the tragic fate of the 129 men on the Franklin expedition hints at the high cost of marginalising those who best know the area and its history.
“If Inuit had been consulted 200 years ago and asked for their traditional knowledge – this is our backyard – those two wrecks would have been found, lives would have been saved. I’m confident of that,” she said. “But they believed their civilization was superior and that was their undoing.”
“Oh yeah, I heard a lot of stories about Terror, the ships, but I guess Parks Canada don’t listen to people,” Kogvik said. “They just ignore Inuit stories about the Terror ship.”
Schimnowski said the crew had also heard stories about people on the land seeing the silhouette of a masted ship at sunset.
“The community knew about this for many, many years. It’s hard for people to stop and actually listen … especially people from the South.”
Indigenous Australians have had stories about giant kangaroos and wombats for thousands of years, and European settlers just kinda assumed they were myths. Cut to more recently when evidence of megafauna was discovered, giant versions of Australian animals that died out 41 000 years ago.
Similarly, scientists have been stumped about how native Palm trees got to a valley in the middle of Australia, and it wasn’t until a few years ago that someone did DNA testing and concluded that seeds had been carried there from the north around 30 000 years ago… aaand someone pointed out that Indigenous people have had stories about gods from the north carrying the seeds to a valley in the central desert.
it’s literally the oldest accurate oral history of the world.
Now consider this: most people consider the start of recorded history to be with the Sumerians and the Early Dynastic period of the Egyptians. So around 3500 BCE, or five and a half thousand years ago
These highly accurate Aboriginal oral histories originate from twenty thousand years ago at least
The aboriginal people of Australia have a history in the country that starts at least 30,000 years ago. Possibly as long as 60,000 years ago. They are believed to have been among the very the first diasporas out of Africa.
Just think about that. We’d been confined to a single continent for all of human history. And this group invented migration and sea-crossing and got to Australia. They probably went via Asia, but on the other hand there’s no genetic evidence for them spending any time in that continent.
It hardly seems plausible they just sailed from the Somali coat heading east across the vast India Ocean with their fingers crossed they’d hit land, hundreds of thousands of years before sea-going was even A Thing. But then the idea of this band going the long way round – across desert, mountain, sea and jungle; through Western Asia, then the entire India sub-continent and then hopping from island to island – hardly seems possible either.
Nevertheless, they made the journey.
No one survives that, and then goes on to thrive in Australia (which is well documented as being a hostile landscape even today) by luck. These were sophisticated people.
Aboriginal people know what they’re about. They saw the world before most people knew there was a word to see. If they say there were giant kangaroos, there were giant kangaroos.
Isn’t something similar to this what caused the Watergate scandal?
Yep. 4.5 minutes of erased tape caught Woodward and Bernstein’s attention.
Kiddos, @sailorzeo is exactly on point. If you haven’t learned about Richard Nixon and the Watergate Hotel in school (or even if you have–God knows my school mentioned it but hardly explained it), here are some things you’ll want to look up.
Movie: All The President’s Men
Bob Woodward
Carl Bernstein
Watergate tapes
Deep Throat (USE CAUTION I strongly suggest using a search term like “deep throat watergate” or “deep throat presidential leak” and if your parents have a web tracker on your computer, tell them you’re researching Watergate BEFORE you look this up)
If your parents or your grandparents were around for Nixon’s presidency, you may wish to talk to them, too.
“Imagine if people had been going ‘don’t fight hate with hate’ back when Hitler was around.”
Fam…let me tell you bout Poland.
Let me tell you about how the entire rest of Europe sat ack and watched the invasion of Poland because they thought it would be “improper” to send military aid. How they were unwilling to enforce the treaties that Germany was breaking, because that would make them “just as bad.” They sat back and wrote strongly worded letters while fascists grew in power because they didn’t want to dirty their hands. They thought reasonable discussion and politics would be enough to stop a fascist dictator from rising to power.
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t enough.
Even earlier: let me tell you about Czechoslovakia. Let me tell you how the rest of Europe thought that if they just let Hitler take the Sudetenland, he would stop, and peace could be preserved. Let me tell you about how, not long after the Sudetenland became legally German, Germany invaded the rest of the Czech half and the remains of Slovakia were descended upon by other nations. Let me tell you how no one did anything to help Czechoslovakia, even though they were being invaded by a fascist foreign power. Let me tell you that Hitler did not stop with Czechoslovakia.
The Panthers used to ride around and follow the police.
So the cops would pull over some sorry black person, and get ready to rough him up, but then there were the Panthers right behind them. Watching, armed to the teeth, and citing legal statutes. It’s inspirational.
Bring it back.
Bring this back.
For real.
That’s why the FBI broke them up, isn’t it ?
That among other community initiatives. They had weapons training, self defense, their free breakfast program and ran a newspaper. They raised money to pay for bail and legal funding for people. And they used to notify the community of their rights and encourage people to know the laws and protest the one which were unjust. That type of shit irked the local police and damned sure struck a nerve with the FBI. They were taking back the streets and providing the protection the police were never interested in bringing to their neighborhoods from the very start. So it’s always fuck the FBI for me.
Also let’s be starkly clear about this: under COINTELPRO the FBI raided the homes of Black Panthers and outright murdered them. They conspired with local police forces to harass, assault, and concoct false evidence against anybody affiliated with the BPP. And they didn’t keep their operations confined to the black community directly. When a white woman working in civil rights was killed by the KKK (they were aiming at her black passenger) the FBI excused the KKK by claiming that she was a communist and slept with black men. They refused to accept the reports of white agents who said that the BPP were no threat and demanded that the agents falsify information to paint the BPP as violent domestic terrorists. The FBI was determined to quash revolutionary black movements that were chiefly devoted to community protection and development and they stopped at nothing in their attempts to reach this goal.
One thing we don’t talk about even in our own retellings and reclaimings of BPP history is that a large part of the reason the government worked to break them up wasn’t because of armed action, but because they provided so many necessary social services and programs: free breakfast for children, walking the elderly to and from banks safely to cash their social security checks, free medical centers, door-to-door sickle cell testing, blood drives, raising money for bail, clothing donations, legal aide, busing people to and from prisons to visit, commissary for prisoners. Not only did they fight back against state violence in their confrontations with police, but also by resisting the forced conditions of poverty, criminality and scarcity created by the state to further destroy their communities. J. Edgar Hoover genuinely wrote in an FBI memo that:
“The Breakfast for Children Program B represents the best and most influential activity going for the BPP and, as such, is potentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities B to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for.”
When I need a good example of the antiblackness that is fundamental to this country’s history and how it persists even now, I remember that the BPP were viewed as a threat to national security, not because they were armed, but because they wouldn’t allow black children to die from starvation and malnutrition.
In May 1939, as the Nazis were tightening their chokehold on Europe, the United States government rejected the SS St. Louis, a German passenger vessel carrying 937 refugees who were trying to dock at the Port of Miami.
Almost all of those refugees were Jews fleeing violence in Germany and Eastern Europe, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The ship was eventually forced to return to Europe, where 254 of its passengers were killed.
On Friday, to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a pair of Jewish scholars — Russel Neiss and Charlie Schwartz — started tweeting the names of the people who were aboard the SS St. Louis, under the handle @Stl_Manifest. Read more
“Knowing that they were losing “valuable product” due to their slaves’ propensity to swim, slave owners began taking drastic steps to protect their property. One of these steps was to instill a fear of the water by dunking disobedient slaves in water until they nearly drowned and by creating fear through stories of creatures living in the water. Thus it didn’t take long to excise or destroy the West African swimming tradition from African- American culture. The Jim Crow laws that were enacted after The Civil War prohibited blacks from the popular seaside resorts in places like Atlantic City, N.J. and Revere Beach, Mass. And by the 20th Century, as the swimming pool began to gain in popularity in the United States, the color line prohibited blacks from enjoying this pleasant recreational skill.
In addition, self-segregation also played a role in limiting those of African ancestry from getting in the water. I remember my Aunt saying to stay away from the pool because, “black folk don’t swim.””
Next time you hear someone ask questions like, “Why don’t black people swim?” Or “Why are so many black people afraid of dogs?” And, “Why are there do so many black people live in poverty?”…..let ‘em know that those aren’t coincidences. These things didn’t just happen naturally, all on their own. There’s a reason for it, and you don’t have to be an historian to know they’re all interconnected through slavery, endemic racism and persistently racist cultural norms.
I know, I know If you could go back you would walk with Jesus You would march with King Maybe assassinate Hitler At least hide Jews in your basement It would all be clear to you But people then, just like you were baffled, had bills to pay and children they didn’t understand and they too were so desperate for normalcy they made anything normal Even turning everything inside out Even killing, and killing, and it’s easy for turning the other cheek to be looking the other way, for walking to be talking, and they hid in their houses and watched it on television, when they had television, and wrung their hands or didn’t, and your hands are just like theirs. Lined, permeable, small, and you would follow Caesar, and quote McCarthy, and Hoover, and you would want to make Germany great again Because you are afraid, and your parents are sick, and your job pays shit and where’s your dignity? Just a little dignity and those kids sitting down in the highway, and chaining themselves to buildings, what’s their fucking problem? And that kid That’s King. And this is Selma. And Berlin. And Jerusalem. And now is when they need you to be brave. Now is when we need you to go back and forget everything you know and give up the things you’re chained to and make it look so easy in your grandkids’ history books (they should still have them, kinehora) Now is when it will all be clear to them.
you probably know antony and cleopatra, but mark antony’s (second?) wife was a woman named fulvia, who (among other things) supposedly taught mark antony to submit to women, raised an army in her husband’s defense, and stuck a silver pin in cicero’s tongue after he died because he talked so much shit about her husband.
speaking of roman women: livia drusilla, wife of octavian augustus, is often painted by historians as an evil scheming matriarch, but actually was her husband’s right hand woman and played a pretty instrumental role as his advisor and propaganda partner.
rock on, ladies.
and speaking of everyone’s favorite roman-egyptian power couple: julia domna, mother of the boy emperor alexander severus, was a direct descendent of antony and cleopatra vii through their daughter, queen cleopatra selene
honestly i could talk about roman women all day, but:
medieval women are pretty great too.
hypatia of alexandria was an egyptian polymath, teacher and inventor, and headed up the neoplatonic school at the beginning of the fifth century.
empress irene of byzantium was basically the definition of a historical hbic. among other things, she defeated a conspiracy against her by making the plotters priests so they couldn’t rule, almost married charlemagne, and reigned as empress while the carolingians in france bawled about a woman being on the roman throne.
eleanor of aquitaine needs a separate post but she is so intense, please read about her
on the subject of lesser known women: i love love love ladies from the margins of history and gemma donati, who married the famous poet dante alighieri, is really not as well known as she should be. she was a member of the house of donati, who are kind of like the borgias, if the borgias were medieval florentines. the head of the family, her cousin corso, was the leader of an authoritarian political party that opposed her husband’s, and when corso marched on florence at the head of a french army in 1301, gemma’s husband and her two sons were forced into exile. she was immensely strong, raised three kids in horrible family-wrecking circumstances, and without her keeping things sane her husband would have been even more of a trainwreck than he was. we don’t talk about her enough.
moving on to the renaissance: all the women of the house of medici (especially catherine) are kickass, but in terms of dynasts i especially love
lucrezia borgia, who was and is one of the coolest ladies ever. she was the daughter of pope alexander vi and a member of one of the most gloriously fucked-up families in history. rumored to have slept with her brother (although they were especially close, the whole family was, that probably wasn’t true) and poisoned anyone she didn’t like, she was basically the libertine of libertines when she was living in rome. later, she married alfonso d’este and became duchess of ferrara, and she was a great and popular governor. lucrezia was extremely intelligent, jawdroppingly beautiful, an excellent politician– generally the renaissance hbic. all kneel before the queen.
caterina sforza, aka the tigress of forli (i mean, how badass do you have to be to get a nickname like that) was a member of the (murderous, slightly insane) ruling dynasty of milan, and famously defended her city against cesare borgia, personally commanding her forces. (she was beaten and taken in chains to the castel sant’angelo, but not without one hell of a fight.)
You cannot challenge racism, on this level, by being nice to and reaching out to white supremacists. Their entire ideology revolves around dehumanizing us. It just does. not. work.
You cannot fight fascism by prioritizing the feelings of fascists and letting them think they’re safe around you. You don’t “get them on your side”. Because treating them kindly and respecting them, gives them your silent approval and access to those of you who are way more vulnerable than you are and who cannot afford to feel safe enough to “debate” with these monsters.
Our humanity is not a question or a debate topic, and by giving these people a platform you legitimize their views and help spread them to a larger audience.
Then… How did it work for this guy?
They shot him in the fucking head.
Say that shit again!
They shot him in the fucking head.
They shot him in the fucking head.
They shot him in the fucking head.
They shot him in the fucking head.
The idea that MLK was ‘nice’ to white supremacists is also just historical revisionism @kuurihaunt.
He was sent death threats. The FBI considered him dangerous. People assaulted and murdered many of his followers. White America thought he was too confrontational and not appeasing enough to the sensibilities of whites. He was considered disruptive and an “outside agitator.” He was not a beloved man. He was hated and despised.
His protests came with the risk of being brutalized or killed by police or vigilantes. He decried the white moderate for caring more about order than justice. He refused to condemn riots, ‘the language of the unheard,’ because of how violent America was to Black people. Despite their differences, Malcolm X offered him protection and self-defense. Even though he was committed to nonviolent resistance, which meant breaking the law, disrupting traffic and yes – willingly opening yourself to being brutalized, he was more complicated than you give him credit.
The United States hated him and for his troubles he was killed.
He was not the caricature of nonviolence you think he was. Read a fucking book.
I’m going to need to bring this back up again in February when during peak “re-write black history” time
Steel Phoenix Studios 