#North African Historical Figure
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Hesy-Ra: The Earliest Named African Dentist in Ancient Egypt
Hesy-Ra (also read Hesy-Re and Hesire holds the distinction of being the earliest named dentist in ancient Egypt, a remarkable figure whose legacy has endured for over 4,600 years. Living during the Third Dynasty of Egypt, Hesy-Ra served as a high-ranking official, filling the prestigious roles of scribe, dentist, and physician to the pharaoh Djoser. His multifaceted expertise and esteemed…
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#African Dentist#African History#ancient Egypt#ancient egyptians history#Chief of Dentists#Hesy-Ra#North African Historical Figure#North African History#Pharaoh Djoser#Third Dynasty of Egypt
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Le Général Bernard Montgomery devant son char de commandement Grant le premier jour de l'attaque de Tripoli – Campagne d'Afrique du Nord – Libye – 27 janvier 1943
Photographe : Capitaine Poston - No. 1 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit
©Imperial War Museums - E 21701
©Colorisé par Paul Reynolds
#WWII#campagne d'afrique du nord#north african campaign#armée britannique#british army#officiers généraux#generals#personnages historiques#historical figures#Bernard Montgomery#char#tanks#char moyen#medium tank#M3 Grant#Tripoli#libye#libya#27/01/1943#01/1943#1943
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cleopatra.......was macedonian.......i thought we all knew this by now lol. remember alexander the great? yeah. she may have had some north african ancestry, im not a cleopatra expert, but she was also inbred as hell so there weren’t a ton of chances for non-macedonian dna to get in there
#there are plenty of north african women you could base a period drama on#why not encourage the film industry to broaden their horizons instead of telling stories about the same women over and over#e.g. anne boleyn as much as i hate to admit it. i think we have enough anne boleyn media#i feel like a lot of tv/shows try to get cheap diversity points by casting actors of color as white historical figures#it feels like taking the easy way out#like have you considered: you can make period pieces that don't take place in western europe? shocking i know#not that there weren't people of color there but you know what i mean
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Public Domain Black History Books
For the day Frederick Douglass celebrated as his birthday (February 14, Douglass Day, and the reason February is Black History Month), here's a selection of historical books by Black authors covering various aspects of Black history (mostly in the US) that you can download For Free, Legally And Easily!
Slave Narratives
This comprised a hugely influential genre of Black writing throughout the 1800s - memoirs of people born (or kidnapped) into slavery, their experiences, and their escapes. These were often published to fuel the abolitionist movement against slavery in the 1820s-1860s and are graphic and uncompromising about the horrors of slavery, the redemptive power of literacy, and the importance of abolitionist support.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - 1845 - one of the most iconic autobiographies of the 1800s, covering his early life when he was enslaved in Maryland, and his escape to Massachusetts where he became a leading figure in the abolition movement.
Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom by William and Ellen Craft - 1860 - the memoir of a married couple's escape from slavery in Georgia, to Philadelphia and eventually to England. Ellen Craft was half-white, the child of her enslaver, but she could pass as white, and she posed as her husband William's owner to get them both out of the slave states. Harrowing, tense, and eminently readable - I honestly think Part 1 should be assigned reading in every American high school in the antebellum unit.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs writing under the name Linda Brent - 1861 - writing specifically to reach white women and arguing for the need for sisterhood and solidarity between white and Black women, Jacobs writes of her childhood in slavery and how terrible it was for women and mothers even under supposedly "nice" masters including supposedly "nice" white women.
Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup - 1853 - Born a free Black man in New York, Northup was kidnapped into slavery as an adult and sold south to Louisiana. This memoir of the brutality he endured was the basis of the 2013 Oscar-winning movie.
Early 1900s Black Life and Philosophy
Slavery is of course not the only aspect of Black history, and writers in the late 1800s and early 1900s had their own concerns, experiences, and perspectives on what it meant to be Black.
Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington - 1901 - an autobiography of one of the most prominent African-American leaders and educators in the late 1800s/early 1900s, about his experiences both learning and teaching, and the power and importance of equal education. Race relations in the Reconstruction era Southern US are a major concern, and his hope that education and equal dignity could lead to mutual respect has... a long way to go still.
The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois - 1903 - an iconic work of sociology and advocacy about the African-American experience as a people, class, and community. We read selections from this in Anthropology Theory but I think it should be more widely read than just assigned in college classes.
Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil by W.E.B. Du Bois - 1920 - collected essays and poems on race, religion, gender, politics, and society.
A Negro Explorer at the North Pole by Matthew Henson - 1908 - Black history doesn't have to be about racism. Matthew Henson was a sailor and explorer and was the longtime companion and expedition partner of Robert Peary. This is his adventure-memoir of the expedition that reached the North Pole. (Though his descriptions of the Indigenous Greenlandic Inuit people are... really paternalistic in uncomfortable ways even when he's trying to be supportive.)
Poetry
Standard Ebooks also compiles poetry collections, and here are some by Black authors.
Langston Hughes - 1920s - probably the most famous poet of the Harlem Renaissance.
James Weldon Johnson - early 1900s through 1920s - tends to be in a more traditionalist style than Hughes, and he preferred the term for the 1920s proliferation of African-American art "the flowering of Negro literature."
Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis - 1830s - a Black abolitionist poet, this is more of a chapbook of her work that was published in newspapers than a full book collection. There are very common early-1800s poetry themes of love, family, religion, and nostalgia, but overwhelmingly her topic was abolition and anti-slavery, appealing to a shared womanhood.
Science Fiction
This is Black history to me - Samuel Delany's first published novel, The Jewels of Aptor, a sci-fi adventure from the early 60s that encapsulates a lot of early 60s thoughts and anxieties. New agey religion, forgotten technology mistaken for magic, psychic powers, nuclear war, post-nuclear society that feels more like a fantasy kingdom than a sci-fi world until they sail for the island that still has all the high tech that no one really knows how to use... it's a quick and entertaining read.
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Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton
The story of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives—ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence.
Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable. In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible.
Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience. Reconstructing these theoretical and historical trajectories furthers our imaginative capacities to conceive more livable black and trans worlds.
#black on both sides#black on both sides: a racial history of trans identity#c. riley snorton#transfem#transmasc#trans book of the day#trans books#queer books#bookblr#booklr
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Denzel Washington being cast in Antoine Fuqua’s upcoming Netflix movie as ancient Carthaginian general Hannibal is sparking some controversy in Tunisia, the home country of the great military commander.
According to French newspaper Courrier International, there are complaints about depicting the Carthaginian general as a Black African being made in the media and the Tunisian parliament. Member of Parliament Yassine Mami has pointed out that Hannibal, who was born in 247 BC in Carthage — now known as Tunis, the Tunisian capital — was of West Asian Semitic origin. “There is a risk of falsifying history: we need to take position on this subject,” the Tunisian politician reportedly stated.
Concurrently, French-language Tunisian newspaper La Presse has published an editorial in which it similarly objects that depicting Hannibal as a Black African is “according to Tunisians and many observers, a historical error.”
However, Tunisian culture minister Hayet Ketat-Guermazi had a different, more pragmatic take on the matter.
“It’s fiction. It is their [Netflix‘s] right to do what they want,” she responded, according to French newspaper Le Monde. “Hannibal is a historical figure and we are all proud that he was Tunisian. But what can we do?” She went on to note that she is trying to negotiate with Netflix to shoot at least a portion of the film in Tunisia. “I hope they decide to shoot at least a sequence of the film here and that that this is publicized. We want Tunisia to go back to being a location where foreign films are shot,” Ketat-Guermazi said, as reported by Le Monde.
Representatives for Netflix, Washington and Fuqua did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The controversy in Tunisia over Washington playing Hannibal is reminiscent of the uproar sparked in Egypt in April over Britain’s Adele James, who is of mixed heritage, playing Cleopatra in Netflix’s docudrama “Queen Cleopatra.” The first-century Egyptian queen was born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 69 BC and belonged to a Greek-speaking dynasty. Egyptian academics went on a rampage over the fact that Cleopatra was of European descent and not Black.
The still-untitled film about the Carthaginian general will be written by John Logan, the three-time Academy Award winner who scribed Martin Scorsese’s “The Aviator” and Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator.”
According to the official logline, the movie is “based on real-life warrior Hannibal, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest military commanders in history. The film covers the pivotal battles he led against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War.”
Hannibal invaded Italy while riding a Northern African war elephant. Under his lead, the Carthaginians won key victories against the Romans, allowing Hannibal to occupy the majority of southern Italy for 15 years. Eventually, Hannibal was defeated by the Romans at the Battle of Zama after they counter-invaded North Africa.
Fuqua most recently directed Washington in the action-thriller “The Equalizer 3,” in which Washington reprised his role as ex-Marine Robert McCall.
Washington is currently involved in another war epic, the upcoming sequel to Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator,” which has resumed shooting in Malta after production was halted due to the SAG-AFTRA strike.
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Netflix is at it again i see.
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I got reminded BBCs Merlin exists and that spiraled into remembering a bunch of other really, really shitty adaptations of Arthurian canon and now I'm mad so I'm going to list some true facts about it that should hopefully demonstrate why adding "gritty realism" to it pisses me off so much
-Morgan le Fay serves as a Rita Repulsa-esque figure who throws problems at Arthur. She is also a wholly separate person to Morgause, the mother of Mordred. Morgan le Fay is a badass sorceress who's only motivation for being a Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain(tm) is that Guinevere snubbed her in some way.
-It's full of Welsh folklore, especially regarding faeries, and initially started as a recounting of a bit of Welsh military history before people started adding their OCs to it. It then broke containment and spread across europe, especially during the renaissance.
-Loads of the knights have superpowers. Straight up superpowers. Gawain gets stronger (and in some sources, bigger) the higher the sun is in the sky. Kay has some sort of fire shit going on... It's great. People would add their own guys to the round table and give them Cool Powers because they could. Though mostly it was just super-strength. This fell out of favor as it was Christianized because people are COWARDS.
-Lancelot is a French guy's OC, and despite the whole thing being full of those, Lancelot is the most OC of them all (affectionate). The second most OC of the bunch is a dude known for his edgy coat that he always wore that belonged to his dead dad (I am not joking)
-Half of the dudes are described as 'the fairest' or 'the most handsome'. Some have the caveat of 'second only to Arthur'. I legit read a description of how handsome a random knight was that filled a full page once. This is hilarious.
-There's a knight called Bedivere (he whose name has no set spelling) and he's my favorite. He has a prosthetic hand, is head butler, and is the only bitch to survive the big last battle in retellings that I respect. He's also one half of a comedy duo with Kay, also in retellings that I respect. I am admittedly biased because I played him in a middle school production of a really bad adaptation of a knockoff spamalot
-People just fucking murder each other on accident all of the time to show off how STRONK they are. After jousting got added they started having the horses die when lance met shield which DOESN'T MAKE SENSE but is there to, once again, show how STRONK the knights are.
-More on the note of casting, but there are dark skinned people in the canon. Specifically Moors (which is old europe for muslim north-african people with dark skin, a term not really used anymore because it wasn't actually one ethnic group but several). MORE SPECIFICALLY there is one explicitly biracial knight who's the son of one of the other knights and a (and I quote) "Moorish Princess". His name is Morien because people have never been subtle and was one of the knights for whom the tales waxed poetic about how stronk and handsome he was.
-Saved the best for last but this all gave way to the an early historical examples of larping and possibly kinning. King Edward the Third loved a knight named 'Sir Lionel' so much to the point where he'd hold big round table tourneys where everyone would larp as different characters from Arthurian legend (himself always being Lionel) and even named his son after him. The kicker? Lionel doesn't actually have that much in the way of story. He has like one story to himself and is functionally a sidekick in every other appearance I can find. King Eddy 3 had a Blorbo.
All of this to say that Arthurian canon is lovely and goofy and if I see someone make Morgan le Fay into Mordred's mom again I will spew fire and rain hot, bloody terror from the skies. I also think we should start adding OCs to it again and nobody can stop us.
#long post#i just love this shit so much#i didn't even get into the goofiness that is merlin#text post#queue#king arthur#arthurian legend#arthurian mythology
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Who is the greatest historical figure never to have been depicted in film or on stage?
The highest ranking African-American to ever receive the Medal of Honor.On Nov. 2, 1968, The North Vietnamese Army attacked Lt. Col. Charles Calvin Rogers’ base camp with heavy mortars, rocket propelled grenade fire.Battle hardened NVA soldiers breached the defensive barriers. As the NVA charged, Lt. Col. Rogers grabbed his helmet & rifle and raced up to the frontline positions. He organized his battalion to return fire despite being severely injured.He led a mid-night assault to regain the units positions. The NVA retreated. A 2nd wave of attacks began..
Rogers led a counter-attack to defended the base and his men. A 3rd assault began. Despite heavy bleeding, Rogers re-stocked his men for final battle.A mortar explosion left him unable to stand, but, he kept going. The line held.This moment of heroism doesn’t reflect the racism he faced as he rose thru the ranks.But, it does depict one brave & selfless soldier. The highest ranking African American to ever receive the Medal of Honor.Nary a film, a play or a book was undertaken to honor our American hero.
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https://twitter.com/Nervana_1/status/1646262493482811392?t=O3lpnJa8SR06sP2HiW3svg&s=19
*big sigh* again they decided to make a Cleopatra documentary by casting a black actress instead of a Greek or at least Mediterranean.
No hate on the actress she just did her job!, it's the producers fault for deciding that they prefer skin colour diversity or ethnicity.
I am sorry...... are Mediterranean skintones something like a canvas or a "default" color to the USAmerican producers of the movie and the platform itself?? Are we a coloring book or something to them?? We are not a people but an idea or something? The mindset behind this change is disgusting! As a Macedonian Greek I feel so repulsed by how they erase us every fucking time because they refuse to do a one-minute Google search.
Did they COMPLETELY ignore how North Mediterranean people look (Cleopatra's family was North Greek) in order to give some hollow Black "representation?" Cleopatra wasn't even Black! (And we don't consider her Brown either!) If we are at a point where racebending historical figures who were most famously Not Black is widely accepted, we really need to examine how this "historical revision" is spiraling.
Next time you hear USian media "respects culture" and it's "inclusionary" please know that this is a load of bullshit. They are ignorant and entitled still, but with a performative goodness as a cover.
On what grounds do the producers and the actors feel comfortable taking representation away from Mediterraneans? A representation we need, mind you, because as it's APPARENT, people don't know how we look!
Especially USAmericans who produce worldwide media and are responsible for the image of the Greek culture and people around the world. They have no freaking idea. They don't know how to spot us or recognize us! And they still insist on racist stereotypes from the 1920s-1940s because of almost nonexistent Greek representation (and North Greek representation)!
The Tweet is made by an Egyptian btw! And Egyptians do well to speak for the USAmericanization of their culture because they are at the same boat as us Greeks when it comes to how we are perceived worldwide due to USAmerican media.
Also since there's an overlap on how Greeks and Egyptians look, it would be fine if an Egyptian or any other Mediterranean would play her honestly. But for Cleopatra, the first person you consider is a Greek woman! (North Greek woman specifically, if you want to accurately capture the mixes of that area)
The trailer is even worse because there's a Caucasian (for a lack of a better term!) Egyptian guy saying "I imagine her like me, with curly hair" while he doesn't have Black hair. Yet the documentary pretends they somehow fulfilled his wish by casting an actress who has Black hair.
Also I think we have depictions of Cleopatra so the way you imagine her, even if you are Greek or Egyptian, you need to take this into account as a guideline. "I imagine" is not how you respectfully depict historical figures!
The point is they relied on that comment to decide she must have curly = aka Black hair. Which..... is not the case. If you go around in Curly Hair circles there are different types. And Black people also know that protective styles for their hair won't protect the curly hair of Caucasian people. I knew a few North Greeks who have this type of hair - as this guy - and they are definitely not Black.
Oh, and the actress doesn't have a skin color like this guy, he is much lighter and, according to USians, he is Brown, not Black. (I hate using the terms but whatever) The actress who plays Cleopatra, Adele James, isn't even partly Egyptian or Greek from what I know?
And the fact that the documentary depicts the Ptolemys (North Greeks) and North Egyptians as Black USians (African Americans)?? The people in these lands.... don't look like this! Just GO to these places and see the people living there, SEE their ancient depictions that give us images of people in these lands thousands of years back! The fucking audacity and the outright racism to assume things about how people look just from stereotypes, and then sell that for money!
Then we have this random woman from the US... They use a quote from her "No matter what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was Black". Sure... Sure fam
How tf is it acceptable to take a shit on the effort of the Greek and Egyptian huge archaeological teams and expertise by saying "ACTUALLY, you guys don't know your own history! You are primitive and you cannot POSSIBLY have the tools or the knowledge to examine how Cleopatra looked!"
Anyways, take some faithful reconstructions of Cleopatra, based on her depictions, where she looks Mediterranean and Greek!
#Again sorry for the use of “Caucasian”! But I'd rather use it than use the USian terms which in my culture are overly racist#like.. i am not comfortable with them and i just use them so people can understand internationally what i mean#Please suggest a better term if you have it!#Cleopatra netflix#answered#xenoi doing bs#representation#history#academia#archaeology
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i want to make this a separate post instead of tacking it onto the last post i reblogged, because a) i feel like its getting way too far away from the point of the OP and as someone who has been in that position several times on my main blog its annoying as shit, and b) i dont want it to feel like anybody is ganging up on OP or "dragging" them or whatever, i dont think what they said was mean spirited or came from a place of bad faith etc etc etc. (if i did i would have been a whole fucking lot meaner in replying lmfao) and i also dont think anything it said was Wrong tbh.
okay all that being said!
i will put my tags of my last reblog in the main text here, because this is something i want to expand on:
not to get too Deep about it but. the colonizing countries literally have more wealth and resources and opportunity *because* th#*they stole so much from the global south. they have the $ and the stability to develop ‘frivolous’ things like gym#at the direct expense of the colonies who are left penniless and in perpetual chaos and upheaval
(for context this is re: children of immigrants in diaspora and their connections to their parents'/grandparents' homelands and culture, and maintaining those ties when the reason they came to the global north are for increased opportunity for success and upward mobility etc.)
i wont turn this into a treatise on economic exploitation and its consequences like i alluded to in the tags (i would if i had like 3 glasses of wine tho lol) but the following is something i really do want to underscore:
i love nemour for a lot of reasons. the gymnastics itself, yes of course. i know i snark and make jokes all the time about her shitting on the FFG every time she does anything great under the 🇩🇿 flag. but sincerely, what she is doing for gymnastics in algeria, in north africa in general (hell even in africa overall given the attention that african champs got because of her), is truly something special. i will admit that i dont stay on top of algerian sports media lol but i do speak french and what ive seen, just what has come across my radar, in the francophone algerian press (both in france and in algeria) is drumming up major excitement about her. this is the kind of attention that gets people who otherwise wouldnt give a shit emotionally invested in the sport. the social and historical baggage of the treatment of algeria and algerians in france, and the olympics being in paris, is just the icing on the cake.
its not exactly the same dynamic, especially not in terms of the Discourse about resources and access in diaspora, but i cant help but to be reminded of daiane dos santos, who famously started the sport at the age of 12. and only 8 years later she became a world champion on floor. she was the first world champion in WAG from brazil, south america entirely in fact, ever!!!! rebeca andrade mentions her all the time as an inspiration for her as a little girl. rebe went out of her way (i mean that figuratively as well as very literally, we all know the story about her brothers escorting her through the favela to the gym and back) to do the sport, because she saw dos santos do great things and looked up to her. and now shes REBECA FUCKING ANDRADE. would we have Rebe™ if it hadnt been for daiane? no probably not!
i guess it just..... not "upsets" me, thats not the word im looking for, but maybe gives me pause when i see anybody say (about any of the aforementioned US-born gymnasts representing other countries, not just in this case with nemour) that its opportunistic or undeserved to be competing under the flag of a country your parent(s) came from but you've never properly lived in. because...... isnt that the whole purpose of the multi-generational Narrative Arc? dont they pick up their whole lives and move to "wealthy" countries to pursue better lives for themselves, and more importantly, for their children? and then their children do take advantage of those opportunities they would not have gotten back "home" and reach the highest levels of a (very expensive and, until very recently, highly "inaccessible") sport. and then there's a chorus of "well it isn't like she's FROM from there and came up from the ranks within that country." i mean you're not wrong but thats.... kinda the point!!! she couldnt have done it at "home," shes a clear example of how much talent there is in places that are torn apart and dirt fucking poor and how if you give those people the opportunity, they can be really fucking good at this! world class, even!
she is, in a very REAL sense, "representing" algeria. if she does well in paris (🧿🧿🧿🧿 *furiously knocking on every wooden surface in my apt*) she will become an emblematic iconic sports star for algeria. she will be the reason a ton of little girls in algeria (and even franco-algériennes in france) will want to sign up for gymnastics! she will have (and has already had, by the looks of it) a tangible impact on the popularity and the future of the sport in algeria. it cannot be overstated how fucking much that means.
#i love that there are like 30 of us still here so we can have conversations like this by the way lmfaooooo#this turned into a whole ass essay i was really foolish enough to think i (ME) could keep this under 3 paragraphs 💀
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Menmaatre Seti I, Pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty: A Legacy of Military Triumphs and Monumental Temples
Menmaatre Seti I, also known as Seti Merenptah, was a pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt who ruled from around 1294 to 1279 BC. His reign left an indelible mark on ancient Egypt, characterized by military conquests, impressive building projects, and a legacy that continues to fascinate historians and enthusiasts today.
Seti I ascended to the throne following the reign of his father,…
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#African History#ancient Egyptian pharaoh#Ancient Egyptians#ancient egyptians history#Egyptian empire#Menmaatre Seti I#North African Historical Figure#North African History
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Le pilote de chasse Joachim Müncheberg et le Général Erwin Rommel devant un bombardier Heinkel He 111 - 1941-1942
Photographe : Opper
©Bundesarchiv - Bild 101I-432-0760-10
#WWII#Campagne d'Afrique du Nord#North African campaign#Luftwaffe#Pilote d'avion#Pilotes#Pilots#Joachim Müncheberg#Personnages historiques#Figures historiques#Historical figures#Officiers généraux#General officers#Erwin Rommel#Afrique du Nord#North Africa#1941#1942
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Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton
goodreads
The story of Christine Jorgensen, America’s first prominent transsexual, famously narrated trans embodiment in the postwar era. Her celebrity, however, has obscured other mid-century trans narratives—ones lived by African Americans such as Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris. Their erasure from trans history masks the profound ways race has figured prominently in the construction and representation of transgender subjects. In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence.
Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable. In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible.
Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience. Reconstructing these theoretical and historical trajectories furthers our imaginative capacities to conceive more livable black and trans worlds.
Mod opinion: I haven't read this book yet, but it sounds very interesting and is on my tbr.
#black on both sides#black on both sides a racial history of trans identity#c. riley snorton#polls#trans lit#trans literature#trans books#lgbt lit#lgbt literature#lgbt books#nonfiction#history#trans studies#to read
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Hi, weird question maybe, I'm just some guy who stumbled on your quora answers and figured you're pretty knowledgeable. I'm Italian and I'm wondering if you knew of any forms of magic that could be compared to what in Italy is referred to as 'low ceremonial magic', usually practiced by farmers / poor people. I'm looking for similar traditions in other parts of the world because I'm trying to figure out what kind of magic is most practiced by low income people historically. Thanks a lot
Great question! I'm still in the process of learning about "low magic" or "folk magic." I usually call it folk magic, to distinguish it from ceremonial magic, although the lines between the two are pretty thin and there's significant overlap. (The difference seems to be mainly a class distinction.) If you want to research it, I recommend using "folk magic" as your keyword.
My own country, the United States, has several robust traditions of folk magic that tend to go unnoticed by people who aren't in contact with them. Appalachian Magic is one of the big ones, and Southern Conjure is another one of the big ones. New England has its own variant of English "cunning." Hoodoo and Rootwork are both African diasporic traditions, based in Vodou and practiced mainly in the South. There's also "Pow-Wow," which is mainly Pensylvannia Dutch, Curanderismo and Brujeria (Hispanic), various magical traditions that stem from indigenous religions, and the extremely popular New Age variant of folk magic (which is apparently called "manifesting"). I'm not intimately familiar with all of these systems, but I highly recommend reading New World Witchery by Cory Thomas Hutcheson for a primer on North American folk magic.
The one I know the most about is English "cunning." I just did a project for which I translated part of Bald's Leechbook, a medieval book of herbal remedies written in Old English that was intermixed with some folk spells. I've observed that folk magic tends to be very Catholic, or Catholic-syncretic, because Catholicism has a lot of folk-magic stuff built right into it (like saints' medallions and votive offerings) that were intentionally rooted out of Protestantism. But hey, new folk traditions are always popping up all the time. Tarot cards are only about two hundred years old, but they're a valid and effective divination method, and you can find them in any mainstream bookstore these days.
Finally, I feel the need to say that folk magic is very dark. There's a common idea, mainly in New Age and neopagan circles, that your spells will rebound on you if they're unethical. This has no historical grounding. Curses, forceful love spells, bindings, and other baneful spells are really common. Frequently, magic was the only source of power or agency for people with no other options. Sanitizing folk magic does it a disservice. That doesn't mean that you have to practice baneful magic, only that you should understand why it exists and respect it.
#folk magic#folk witchcraft#witchblr#witchcraft#history of magic#occultism#occult#folklore#folk spellcraft
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HZD Terraforming Base-001 Text Communications Network
Chapter 32 | Prev chapter | Next chapter
Chapter Index
FlameHairSavior: Varl, where are you?
BoyNextDoor: Outside. I've almost got our mounts ready.
FlameHairSavior: Oh, thanks.
Zo: Erend, please clean up your beer before you leave.
HIMBO: DONE!
Zo: I didn't mean chug it.
Zo: Oh, never mind.
DIVINER: Wait, where's Beta??
FlameHairSavior: I'm getting her ready.
β: im fine
FlameHairSavior: She doesn't like going outside.
β: i said im fine
MARSHAL Kotallo: I believe everyone is ready.
FlameHairSavior: All right, we're coming outside.
----
FlameHairSavior: We're ready to start.
FlameHairSavior: Sorry:
Zo: For what?
[FlameHairSavior] has invited [BoyNextDoor], [HIMBO], [β], [MARSHAL Kotallo], [DIVINER], and [Zo] to a holo-chat
DIVINER: Oh no.
FlameHairSavior: We need to be able to actually talk for at least some of this.
MARSHAL Kotallo: Best to get it over with.
----
HIMBO: SO. ZO.
Zo: Is something wrong?
HIMBO: NOT REALLY. JUST SITTING HERE DOING NOTHING.
Zo: You're supposed to be ready for the Zeniths!
MARSHAL Kotallo: You can't remain perfectly alert at all times.
HIMBO: SEE? LISTEN TO THE TENAKTH!
MARSHAL Kotallo: But you should still keep from allowing yourself to be distracted.
HIMBO: DON'T LISTEN TO THE TENAKTH.
DIVINER: I'm more worried about distracting Aloy and the others!!
HIMBO: IT'S FINE, THIS IS A PRIVATE CHAT.
FlameHairSavior: No it's not.
HIMBO: CRAP, SORRY.
FlameHairSavior: It's fine.
β: focus that one almost hit you
FlameHairSavior: How are you talking and texting at the same time?
β: multitasking
BoyNextDoor: While that's impressive, maybe just stick with one?
β: im only doing three things at once
β: im not even watching tv
Zo: ...are you normally watching shows when you talk to us?
β: sometimes
β: usually just listening to music
β: aloy above
FlameHairSavior: Yeah, I see it.
BoyNextDoor: You two are going to give me a heart attack.
----
DIVINER: Should I be concerned that none of us have been ambushed??
Zo: Do you WANT to be attacked?
DIVINER: No, but isn't that the point? We're supposed to be distractions!
MARSHAL Kotallo: Welcome to guard duty.
HIMBO: YEAH, YOU CAN NEVER TELL IF IT'S QUIET BECAUSE NOTHING WENT WRONG, BECAUSE NO ONE IS COMING FOR YOU, OR IF THEY FOUND A WAY AROUND YOU WITHOUT YOU NOTICING.
DIVINER: [Groan.gif]
DIVINER: How do you deal with it?
HIMBO: THE BOOZE HELPS.
Zo: PLEASE don't drink right now. This is important.
HIMBO: I'M NOT DRUNK, JUST NEED TO WET MY THROAT A BIT.
β: alcohol actually dehydrates the body increasing your need for water
HIMBO: WE DON'T NEED YOUR FANCY SCIENCE TALK RIGHT NOW.
MARSHAL Kotallo: That is not advanced knowledge. My tribe certainly knows that you need water more than alcohol.
BoyNextDoor: Same with the Nora.
Zo: I didn't know, but then, I rarely drink.
HIMBO: WHY DOES EVERYONE ALWAYS GANG UP ON ME?
----
FlameHairSavior: That's a big one.
BoyNextDoor: One second, let me tap into your video feed.
BoyNextDoor: ...okay, I can't do this. Beta?
β: oh wow i think hephaestus made that special for you
MARSHAL Kotallo: That means you get to name it.
β: really
HIMBO: IT'S TRADITION! FIRST PERSON TO SURVIVE MEETING A NEW MACHINE GETS TO NAME IT!
FlameHairSavior: According to my Focus, it already has a name. Slaughterspine.
β: oh
HIMBO: WELL THAT'S DISAPPOINTING.
MARSHAL Kotallo: Still, I have heard of slaughterspines. They are dangerous foes. Be on your guard.
DIVINER: I'm looking up pictures, and I can't figure out what Old World animal they're based on!
ADMIN [GAIA]: It appears to be based on the Spinosaurus, a North African spinosaurid that lived during the Late Cretaceous Period, approximately 99 million years ago. However, HEPHAESTUS seems to have used older, inaccurate models of the creature's design.
HIMBO: ...HUMANS WERE AROUND
HIMBO: NINETY-NINE MILLION
HIMBO: YEARS AGO???
ADMIN [GAIA]: No. But fossils from pre-historic times have been unearthed by every human civilization in history. Many of the ancient animals were misinterpreted as various supernatural monsters, but over time entire fields of study were dedicated to reconstructing the lives and appearances of these creatures. My predecessor was quite fond of them, and modeled many of her machines on extinct megafauna. When APOLLO was deleted and it became clear that Stage-2 organisms would not be re-introduced in a reasonable time frame, she began modeling many of her new machines off these more contemporary animals as well.
FlameHairSavior: Yeah, I saw all that in the Zero Dawn labs.
FlameHairSavior: Well, most of it.
FlameHairSavior: Okay, just bits and pieces.
Zo: Wait, aren't you fighting this thing right now?
FlameHairSavior: Multitasking.
BoyNextDoor: STOP TALKING AND JUST FIGHT!
----
FlameHairSavior: Well, that's done.
Zo: Thank the trees.
FlameHairSavior: Took longer than expected.
MARSHAL Kotallo: Only you would complain about taking too long to fight one of the most dangerous machines alone.
BoyNextDoor: She's always like this. At least we're done here.
β: we still have to hack it
FlameHairSavior: Right. Hacking. Computer hacking. Which I am sure I will... be able to do.
β: its easy you just match up the things with the other things and then follow the thing with the thing
FlameHairSavior: ...I'll be right over.
----
BoyNextDoor: That was interesting.
DIVINER: What? What??
BoyNextDoor: Watching Aloy not be instantly perfect at something.
FlameHairSavior: Ha. I practiced for everything I do, you know.
DIVINER: Oh, the hacking.
FlameHairSavior: I'll get good at it eventually.
β: you wont need to because im here
DIVINER: Aw!
MARSHAL Kotallo: So that is a mission success?
FlameHairSavior: I think we're good. We just need to
FlameHairSavior: Ohshitohshit
DIVINER: ????
BoyNextDoor: ZENITH
[BoyNextDoor] has been DISCONNECTED [device not found]
Zo: Varl?
Zo: Varl!
MARSHAL Kotallo: Soldier, respond!
HIMBO: WHAT'S GOING ON OVER THERE?
β: aloy do it
β: dont let them take me
FlameHairSavior: I
β: aloy you promised
FlameHairSavior: I'm sorry.
β: YOU PROMISED
[β] has been DISCONNECTED [device not found]
[FlameHairSavior] has been DISCONNECTED [device not found]
ADMIN [GAIA] has been DISCONNECTED [device not found]
Chapter 32 | Prev chapter | Next chapter
Chapter Index
#horizon#horizon zero dawn#horizon forbidden west#HZDBaseChat#aloy#varl#zo#erend vanguardsman#kotallo#alva#beta horizon
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Wait
The Native Americans are fighting against the wokies?
It not surprising because how problematic they see things as. Fuck the recent Predator movie Prey did more to preserve the Comanche language it’s was also fully dub into it
But seriously I seen it in black media, notice how 95% of black media only focus on blm stuff or how many black historical figures are often erased by white wokies? Like black peopke can’t thrive in capitalism…please ignore that restaurant owner that inspire the Disney Princess Tiana
But back to the natives, yeah they would attack you guys. The left can barely understand Japanese POP CULTURE much as native historical stuff.
Good luck natives…tbh I think I know more about the Iroquois playing via playing a fictional historical game more than what leftist learn about native Americans in college.
But seriously I seen it in black media, notice how 95% of black media only focus on blm stuff or how many black historical figures are often erased by white wokies? Like black peopke can’t thrive in capitalism…please ignore that restaurant owner that inspire the Disney Princess Tiana
Admittedly it got shit on pretty hard in the Tulsa Race Riots, but "black wall street" was a thing and there were many thriving former slaves and children of former slaves at that point. Would have been nice if they'd managed to rebuild I will admit the cards were not just stacked against them, there was bulldozers pushing those cards too, few still managed.
Would have been nice if they could have been more able to defend themselves properly, trying to find NRA activity for southern Black folks post reconstruction/Jim crow era not much popping up other than.
Begin Tangent
This guy who just popped on to my radar.
Born in North Carolina in 1925, Williams’ experience mirrors that of many African-Americans of his generation. He moved to Detroit as part of the Second Great Migration, where he was privy to race rioting over jobs. He served in the then-segregated United States Marine Corps for a year and a half after being drafted in 1944. Upon returning to his North Carolina hometown, Williams found a moribund chapter of the NAACP. With only six members and little opposition, he used his USMC training to commandeer the local branch and turn it in a decidedly more military direction. The local chapter soon had over 200 members under Williams’ leadership. If nothing else, his leadership was effective at building the movement from the ground up.
An early incident is particularly instructive in how effective these new tactics were. The KKK was very active in Monroe, with an estimated 7,500 members in a town of 12,000. After hearing rumors that the Klan intended to attack NAACP chapter Vice President Dr. Albert Perry’s house, Williams and members of the Black Armed Guard surrounded the doctor’s house with sandbags and showed up with rifles. Klansman fired on the house from a moving vehicle and the Guard returned fire. Soon after, the Klan required a special permit from the city’s police chief to meet. One incident of self-defense did more to move the goalposts than all previous legislative pressure had.
Monroe’s Black Armed Guard wasn’t a subsidiary of the Communist Party, nor an independent organization like the Black Panther Party that would use similar tactics of arming their members later. In fact, “Black Armed Guard” was nothing more than a fancy name for an officially chartered National Rifle Association chapter.
He got a bit more militant later on, I will blame a good deal of that on the fbi doing what the fbi did to black people that stood up for other black people.
Not gonna call him a hero just yet because I haven't looked far enough into him to have a full picture, but this stuff is pretty damn heroic.
Remember gun control has frequently been used as a tool to keep minorities in check, and will continue to be used as so until more people put their foot down.
End tangent
__________________
Ya we went over this before with Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben among others, removing minority representation in order to not offend white leftists who will just find something else to be offended about anyhow so just please ignore them and ask the people you're supposedly doing it for, I will say I'm glad that the "latinx" debate is over, only took most of Latin America and the royal Spanish society both saying it's stupid and insulting to get it killed.
Also don't try to turn it around on white people because
_____________________
We eat this shit up, fighting whites one went on sale, sold out really fast and the money went to a scholarship program for indigenous students I think, it's in the link and they should make them again if you ask me.
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