Black History Month fact #22
Meet Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman, the world’s first official video vixen.
In 1810, when Saartjie Baartman was in her early twenties, she was persuaded by an English ship’s doctor, William Dunlop, to travel to England to make her fortune. However, as a Khoikhoi woman she was considered an anthropological freak in England, and she found herself put on exhibition, displayed as a sexual curiosity. Dubbed “The Hottentot Venus,” her image swept through British popular culture.
In 1814 she was taken to France, and became the object of scientific and medical research that formed the bedrock of European ideas about black female sexuality.
When she died in 1816, the Musee de l’Homme in Paris took a deathcast of her body, removed her skeleton and pickled her brain and genitals in jars. These were displayed in the museum until as late as 1985.
After five years of negotiating with the French authorities for the return of Saartjie Baartman’s remains, the South African government, together with the Griqua National Council which represents the country’s 200 000 Griqua people, part of the Koi-San group, brought Saartjie Baartman back to South Africa. On Friday 3 May 2002, in a moving ceremony attended by many representatives of the Khoikhoi people, Saartjie Baartman was welcomed back to Cape Town. Her final resting place is in the Eastern Cape, where she was born.
With regard to Saartjie Baartman’s name, we are aware that according to her baptism certificate (Saartjie was baptized in England), her name is written Sara Bartmann. In most writings, she is referred to as Sarah or Saartjie Baartman, where Saartjie is the Afrikaans diminutive of Sarah.
Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman was forced to reveal her buttocks and labia to curious Europeans in a human circus, the bodies of Black women have been scrutinized and uniformly judged as lacking and/or sub-human. While our bodies may no longer be on display, the fixation with the buttocks of Black women reveals that the “The Hottentot Venus” stereotype is still very much a part of social discourse.
(see Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography by Clifton Crais)
Black History month fact #28: Rome had an African emperor
fact #27: Haiti was the first free Black nation of the “New World”
fact #26: The Pan African flag and its colors.
fact #25: Judaism originates in Africa.
fact #24: Buddhism originates in Africa.
fact #23: Africa is bigger than you think.
fact #22: Sara Baartman: The origin of black female sexual exploitation.
fact #21: Catholic Virgin Mary was Black.
fact #20: Africans founded Chinese dynasties.
Fact #19: Africans invented the calendar.
Fact #18: Africans came before the Mayans.
Fact #17 Africans discovered America
Fact #16: Africans saw planets with the naked eye.
Fact #13: Chess originates in Ethiopia
Fact #12: The Great Pyramid of Giza and Pi (3.14)
Fact #9: Ancient Egyptians wore locs.
Fact #8: Africans had walled cities.
Fact #7: Africans had the first sewers, toilets, and perfumes.
Fact #6: The first modern humans were born in Africa
Fact #5: Ancient Egyptians were Ethiopian-descendent.
Fact #4: Origin of Greek language
Fact #3: West African empires were wealthy
Very. Informative.
And people wonder why we are sometimes treated almost like circus animals out here in Asia. It’s because this is the type of treatment that the West normalized and exported for hundreds of years across the globe. Black people were objects to be gawked, wondered at and exploited, and they taught the rest of the world to view and treat us similarly to exacerbate anti-blackness and prop up white supremacy globally. This continues to this day in slightly more subtle forms in the West (e.g. black people’s hair being everyone else’s “right” to accost), but in east Asia the destruction this discourse has wrought is very apparent. You honestly feel like an animal out here at times. #BlackinAsia
black and red
Angela Y. Davis
Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: The Politics of Black Women’s Health
(via dark-floss)
(Source: deeee-light)
in “do androids dream of electric sheep” humans have the technology to dial their moods into a machine that regulates neurochemicals.
they reason about what they should/want to feel, then they dial happiness, dial motivation, dial resolve, dial whatever.
one character dials despair.
that is me right now.
i look at all the internet, all i see is pretty girls and pretty cats, they serve the same purpose. both are reduced to the inhuman if you stare long enough, and both are meant to be looked at, both are enigmatic because we don’t know what they’re thinking (not that anyone would care). ugh.
pretty girls looking at/constantly reposting other pretty girls is not the opposite of oppression. it doesn’t make me stop being very uncomfortable that the place women have kept themselves in is one of being dehumanized, dissociated and looked at. yes, we keep ourselves there. we raise each other with the same flawed values we came up with, or with more insidious versions. women today rebel against feminism. we’re too strong for it. too hip for it. we’re one of the boys, but better, we have boobs to play with.
i can’t stop being uncomfortable that the generation of queer boys who were able to be proudly open in the age of the internet were never warned about how they might also just get exploited like any woman would, that instead of women being liberated from the demand to perform their sexuality publicly, men are being consigned to the same fate, and yet without dissolving male privilege; merely redistributing it so that more bodies can be exploited for sex/sexy imagery/pictures of pretty boys and bois to ogle everywhere.
ah but hetero men, even those whose identity is violently constrained by gender roles, at least they don’t have the double bind of being compelled to perform their sexuality in public, and being condemned for having sexuality at all. they have other issues. but they still have their privilege. ugh.
like, i want to be human. i want to experience beauty without feeling like my identity, my womanliness or my fundamental existential worth is thrown into question every time.
the only way not to feel bad about the male gaze that bears down on girls and twinks alike…is for me to dial happiness and just try to forget about it, briefly. i’m going to go get distracted now. and hey, at least in the internet age we don’t have to get surgery cuz we can just shoop all our “unflattering” photos. ugghh.
vahc:
(Source: submarineous)
![❝And then, you ask me whether I approve of violence. I mean, that just doesn’t make any sense at all… whether I approve of guns.
I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama!
Some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs! Bombs that were planted by racists. I remember from the time - I was very small - I remember the sound of bombs exploding across the street, our house shaking! I remember my father having to have guns at his disposal at all times because of that fact that any moment - someone - we might expect to be attacked.
The man who was in that time, in complete control of the city government, his name was Bull Connor. He would often get on the radio and make statements like - “Niggers have moved into an all white neighborhood, we better expect some bloodshed tonight,” and sure enough there would be blood shed.
After the four girls - one of them lived next door to me - I was very good friends of a sister of another one… My sister was very good friends with all three of them. My mother taught one of them in her class.
In fact, when the bombing occurred, one of the mothers of the young girl called my mother and said - “Can you take me down to the church and pick up Carol? We heard about the bombing and I don’t have my car.”
And they went down and what did they find? They found limbs and heads strewn all over the place.
And then after that, in my neighborhood, all the men organized themselves into an armed patrol. They had to take their guns and patrol our community every night because they did not want that to happen again. ❞ Angela Davis on Violence [x]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m94anxyCGN1ql2tteo1_250.gif)
![❝And then, you ask me whether I approve of violence. I mean, that just doesn’t make any sense at all… whether I approve of guns.
I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama!
Some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs! Bombs that were planted by racists. I remember from the time - I was very small - I remember the sound of bombs exploding across the street, our house shaking! I remember my father having to have guns at his disposal at all times because of that fact that any moment - someone - we might expect to be attacked.
The man who was in that time, in complete control of the city government, his name was Bull Connor. He would often get on the radio and make statements like - “Niggers have moved into an all white neighborhood, we better expect some bloodshed tonight,” and sure enough there would be blood shed.
After the four girls - one of them lived next door to me - I was very good friends of a sister of another one… My sister was very good friends with all three of them. My mother taught one of them in her class.
In fact, when the bombing occurred, one of the mothers of the young girl called my mother and said - “Can you take me down to the church and pick up Carol? We heard about the bombing and I don’t have my car.”
And they went down and what did they find? They found limbs and heads strewn all over the place.
And then after that, in my neighborhood, all the men organized themselves into an armed patrol. They had to take their guns and patrol our community every night because they did not want that to happen again. ❞ Angela Davis on Violence [x]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m94anxyCGN1ql2tteo2_250.gif)
![❝And then, you ask me whether I approve of violence. I mean, that just doesn’t make any sense at all… whether I approve of guns.
I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama!
Some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs! Bombs that were planted by racists. I remember from the time - I was very small - I remember the sound of bombs exploding across the street, our house shaking! I remember my father having to have guns at his disposal at all times because of that fact that any moment - someone - we might expect to be attacked.
The man who was in that time, in complete control of the city government, his name was Bull Connor. He would often get on the radio and make statements like - “Niggers have moved into an all white neighborhood, we better expect some bloodshed tonight,” and sure enough there would be blood shed.
After the four girls - one of them lived next door to me - I was very good friends of a sister of another one… My sister was very good friends with all three of them. My mother taught one of them in her class.
In fact, when the bombing occurred, one of the mothers of the young girl called my mother and said - “Can you take me down to the church and pick up Carol? We heard about the bombing and I don’t have my car.”
And they went down and what did they find? They found limbs and heads strewn all over the place.
And then after that, in my neighborhood, all the men organized themselves into an armed patrol. They had to take their guns and patrol our community every night because they did not want that to happen again. ❞ Angela Davis on Violence [x]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m94anxyCGN1ql2tteo3_250.gif)
![❝And then, you ask me whether I approve of violence. I mean, that just doesn’t make any sense at all… whether I approve of guns.
I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama!
Some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs! Bombs that were planted by racists. I remember from the time - I was very small - I remember the sound of bombs exploding across the street, our house shaking! I remember my father having to have guns at his disposal at all times because of that fact that any moment - someone - we might expect to be attacked.
The man who was in that time, in complete control of the city government, his name was Bull Connor. He would often get on the radio and make statements like - “Niggers have moved into an all white neighborhood, we better expect some bloodshed tonight,” and sure enough there would be blood shed.
After the four girls - one of them lived next door to me - I was very good friends of a sister of another one… My sister was very good friends with all three of them. My mother taught one of them in her class.
In fact, when the bombing occurred, one of the mothers of the young girl called my mother and said - “Can you take me down to the church and pick up Carol? We heard about the bombing and I don’t have my car.”
And they went down and what did they find? They found limbs and heads strewn all over the place.
And then after that, in my neighborhood, all the men organized themselves into an armed patrol. They had to take their guns and patrol our community every night because they did not want that to happen again. ❞ Angela Davis on Violence [x]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m94anxyCGN1ql2tteo4_250.gif)
![❝And then, you ask me whether I approve of violence. I mean, that just doesn’t make any sense at all… whether I approve of guns.
I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama!
Some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs! Bombs that were planted by racists. I remember from the time - I was very small - I remember the sound of bombs exploding across the street, our house shaking! I remember my father having to have guns at his disposal at all times because of that fact that any moment - someone - we might expect to be attacked.
The man who was in that time, in complete control of the city government, his name was Bull Connor. He would often get on the radio and make statements like - “Niggers have moved into an all white neighborhood, we better expect some bloodshed tonight,” and sure enough there would be blood shed.
After the four girls - one of them lived next door to me - I was very good friends of a sister of another one… My sister was very good friends with all three of them. My mother taught one of them in her class.
In fact, when the bombing occurred, one of the mothers of the young girl called my mother and said - “Can you take me down to the church and pick up Carol? We heard about the bombing and I don’t have my car.”
And they went down and what did they find? They found limbs and heads strewn all over the place.
And then after that, in my neighborhood, all the men organized themselves into an armed patrol. They had to take their guns and patrol our community every night because they did not want that to happen again. ❞ Angela Davis on Violence [x]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m94anxyCGN1ql2tteo5_250.gif)
![❝And then, you ask me whether I approve of violence. I mean, that just doesn’t make any sense at all… whether I approve of guns.
I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama!
Some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs! Bombs that were planted by racists. I remember from the time - I was very small - I remember the sound of bombs exploding across the street, our house shaking! I remember my father having to have guns at his disposal at all times because of that fact that any moment - someone - we might expect to be attacked.
The man who was in that time, in complete control of the city government, his name was Bull Connor. He would often get on the radio and make statements like - “Niggers have moved into an all white neighborhood, we better expect some bloodshed tonight,” and sure enough there would be blood shed.
After the four girls - one of them lived next door to me - I was very good friends of a sister of another one… My sister was very good friends with all three of them. My mother taught one of them in her class.
In fact, when the bombing occurred, one of the mothers of the young girl called my mother and said - “Can you take me down to the church and pick up Carol? We heard about the bombing and I don’t have my car.”
And they went down and what did they find? They found limbs and heads strewn all over the place.
And then after that, in my neighborhood, all the men organized themselves into an armed patrol. They had to take their guns and patrol our community every night because they did not want that to happen again. ❞ Angela Davis on Violence [x]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m94anxyCGN1ql2tteo6_250.gif)
❝And then, you ask me whether I approve of violence. I mean, that just doesn’t make any sense at all… whether I approve of guns.I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama!
Some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs! Bombs that were planted by racists. I remember from the time - I was very small - I remember the sound of bombs exploding across the street, our house shaking! I remember my father having to have guns at his disposal at all times because of that fact that any moment - someone - we might expect to be attacked.
The man who was in that time, in complete control of the city government, his name was Bull Connor. He would often get on the radio and make statements like - “Niggers have moved into an all white neighborhood, we better expect some bloodshed tonight,” and sure enough there would be blood shed.
After the four girls - one of them lived next door to me - I was very good friends of a sister of another one… My sister was very good friends with all three of them. My mother taught one of them in her class.
In fact, when the bombing occurred, one of the mothers of the young girl called my mother and said - “Can you take me down to the church and pick up Carol? We heard about the bombing and I don’t have my car.”
And they went down and what did they find? They found limbs and heads strewn all over the place.
And then after that, in my neighborhood, all the men organized themselves into an armed patrol. They had to take their guns and patrol our community every night because they did not want that to happen again. ❞ Angela Davis on Violence [x]
(Source: classicalallure)
Just Me: How to find textbooks online for free: a post.
Textbooks are fucking expensive, and if your professor doesn’t require a physical copy (most don’t - they just want you to have the book at hand. Or maybe even not. Some professors literally give no fucks about whether you have the book or not) and you don’t…
free textbooks! for students tired of getting scammed.
also good for uncollege. educate yourself.
fox news is evil. being aware of this themselves, they made this thing that is somehow actually funny.
they made sure to get plenty of people of color, as though a random assortment of white people would somehow be less likely to lie in front of cameras about some purely formal political exercise they might not even plan on watching…in a country where patriotism is kinda coerced.
O, an inauguration concert accidentally featured an artist who makes political statements
funny, Lupe didn’t even seem like the type, right?
Lupe’s statement of peace becomes an “anti-obama rant” so fast, it’s a wonder these people who are so quick to simplify his argument don’t notice that they themselves are still opposing “Obama” to “peace”, and Lupe Fiasco’s only wrong is choosing “peace”.
Ha! ♥ ♥ ♥ to Lupe Fiasco this morning. they told him to stop singing a song that made a political statement. When he refused to be censored so easily they turned off the lights and called security.
what’s better than coffee in the morning? cornel west saying anything.
there are 100 trillion connections in the brain. as of march 2012 there were 644 million active websites on the Internet. the internet has not yet caught up to the human mind.
“We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday.” - Andrea Gibson, Birthday.
this is stunning
(Source: coffeecartgirl)
