whenever right wing people talk about “parental rights” they are talking about property rights. they are arguing for further political and legal enshrinement of their children as their literal actual property

“Before the American Revolution, New Englanders viewed the family as a strict hierarchy, an arrangement in which power flowed from top to bottom: The father was ruler of all, the mother was underneath him, and the (theoretically) obedient children were at the bottom. After 1800, however, that ideal changed. Book and magazine writers began picturing families in which men controlled the public realm of politics and business, but women took responsibility for the private sphere of the home. A marriage was viewed more as a partnership; true, the woman was still the junior partner, but the older model of the man as an absolute ruler was no longer fashionable among middle-class Northeasterners. 

…Because the man felt he was putting so much on the line by proposing, a ‘proper’ woman was expected to return a well-reasoned reply within a short period of time. A woman knew, however, that her response was perhaps her last chance to have control over her life. Once she said ‘yes,’ the legal cards would be stacked against her, regardless of the declarations of love by her suitor. Because the expectations of middle-class marriage had been raised so high, women found reports of marital disasters very disconcerting. One married woman wrote to a single friend that marriage was a ‘sad, sober beverage’ that brought ‘some joys, but many crosses’. 

…Once married, the suitors often cooled the fiery protestations of love found in their letters. Although many couples developed strong, deep bonds of affection, the idea of separate spheres--that women should stay at home, and men go out in the world--kept them apart for many hours of their lives. Advice books and religious sermons emphasized that wives were to make the home a haven of restfulness for their husbands. 

This separation of duties provided women with other companionship, however. The split between home and work strengthened friendships between women as they came to understand what they shared with each other and how their lives differed from men’s. Unlike a wife’s relationship with her husband, a friendship with another woman was based on equality. Although women developed networks of friends and relatives, intense relationships between two women were not uncommon. 

…Although divorces were growing faster among the urban northern middle class than any other group, such separations were still rare. Within the United States, only one in a thousand marriages ended in divorce before the Civil War. If a woman successfully sued for divorce, she would soon be wondering what price she had paid for her freedom. Alimony, or money paid regularly by a husband to his former wife, was rarely awarded, although judges occasionally ordered one-time cash settlements to women who had been abused by their husbands. If a woman had brought property into the marriage, she was not likely to take it back out. Once she and her husband said their ‘I do’s,’ her husband legally controlled all she owned. Her chances for finding work were few, especially if she was approaching or beyond middle age. 

…The nature of farming meant that women and men worked the same land, that women helped produce food and earn cash. Women thus saw the farm as a mutual effort. Frontier women were also less concerned than their eastern contemporaries with raising perfect families. On the frontier, children were valued as workers and companions. These conditions made for a more pragmatic approach to child rearing. Children were an important part of the work force on a prairie farm. While the size of northeastern middle-class families was shrinking dramatically during this period, frontier families were holding steady, averaging around seven children each. Compared to northeastern women, frontier women married earlier, had children earlier, and continued to give birth for more years--often past the age of 45. 

…Marriage relations between enslaved African Americans in the South changed little during the early 19th century. Legally, a master owned a slave and could compel that person to do whatever he wished. However, most slaveholders wanted their slaves to pair off and often sanctioned slave unions with their blessing, but marriages between slaves were not recognized legally. Nonetheless, most slave owners had at least one eye on their finances in supporting a slave’s choice in marriage. A typical plantation manual advised slaveholders that a slave marriage based on love would add ‘to the comfort, happiness, and health of those entering upon it, besides ensuring greater increase.’ Such marriages produced both stability and more slaves, two requirements of a successful plantation operation.

…Although many black couples exhibited as much restraint as middle-class couples up North, it was not uncommon for children to be born out of wedlock because slave culture did not make outcasts of unwed mothers. Instead, the slave community expected the new father and mother to wed, whereupon the newborn was immediately accepted into the community. Black couples made an extra effort to respect personal boundaries in an effort to replace some measure of the self-respect their owners tried to strip from them. Indeed, a number of white observers noted that while slave couples often adhered to Christian notions of sexual restraint, their aggressive masters frequently did not. 

…Southern plantation women married earlier than northern women, usually around the age of 20. By their mid-20s, when middle-class Northerners were marrying, single plantation women were being labeled ‘old maids.’ The southern ‘belle’ was spared nothing by her doting parents--she could purchase the latest fashions, then quickly discard them for a new ensemble. She lived in a sheltered world, punctuated by frequent balls and daily rounds of social calls to other fashionable women in the neighborhood. 

…Marriage relations among the southern planter class were in many ways an exaggerated version of those among the northeastern middle class. While virginity before marriage was expected for northeastern women, southern planter society placed an absolute premium on the bride’s ‘purity’. Northeastern women were placed on a platform and praised for their selflessness and moral rectitude. Plantation women were put upon a gilded pedestal, and southern writers extolled the refinement, piety, and grace by which these women surpassed all others. The result was a tightly constrained life that offered southern women few opportunities to move beyond the boundaries their society had established for them.”

Michael Goldberg, “Reasons of the Heart: Marriage and Courtship.” in Breaking New Ground: American Women, 1800-1848

Friday, March 12, 2021

Rich, developing nations wrangle over COVID vaccine patents (Reuters) Richer members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) blocked a push by over 80 developing countries on Wednesday to waive patent rights in an effort to boost production of COVID-19 vaccines for poor nations. South Africa and India renewed their bid to waive rules of the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) agreement, a move that could allow generic or other manufacturers to make more vaccines. South Africa argued the current TRIPS system does not work, pointing to the failure to secure life-saving medicines during the HIV/AIDS pandemic that had cost at least 11 million African lives. Medecins Sans Frontieres in October put together a letter signed by over 375 civil society organisations supporting the waiver. The South Africa and India proposal was backed by dozens of largely developing countries at the WTO, but opposed by Western countries, including Britain, Switzerland, EU nations and the United States, which have large domestic pharmaceutical industries.

US reports surge of kids at SW border, a challenge for Biden (AP) The number of migrant children and families seeking to cross the U.S. southwest border has surged to levels not seen since before the pandemic, a challenge for President Joe Biden. Statistics released Wednesday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection showed the number of children and families increased by more than 100% between January and February. Kids crossing by themselves rose 60% to more than 9,400, forcing the government to look for new places to hold them temporarily. The surge has been seized on by Republicans and former President Donald Trump as a line of attack on Biden, though his administration is turning back nearly all single adults, who make up the majority of border-crossers, under a public health order imposed at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The Biden administration is temporarily holding children and families, mostly from Central America, for several days. They are generally then allowed to enter the U.S. while authorities evaluate their claims to asylum or see if they have any other legal right to stay in the country. It is a challenge for an administration that has been working to restore an asylum system largely dismantled under Trump and likely to face increasing pressure. Factors driving the increase include widespread hunger in Central America due to recent hurricanes, the economic upheaval of the pandemic and more fundamental social problems dating back years.

Brazil hospitals buckle (AP) Brazil’s hospitals are faltering as a highly contagious coronavirus variant tears through the country, the president insists on unproven treatments and the only attempt to create a national plan to contain COVID-19 has just fallen short. Piaui state’s Gov. Wellington Dias told The Associated Press that, unless pressure on hospitals is eased, growing numbers of patients will have to endure the disease without a hospital bed or any hope of treatment in an intensive care unit. “We have reached the limit across Brazil; rare are the exceptions,” Dias, who leads the governors’ forum, said. “The chance of dying without assistance is real.” Those deaths have already started. In Brazil’s wealthiest state, Sao Paulo, at least 30 patients died this month while waiting for ICU beds, according to a tally published Wednesday by the news site G1. In southern Santa Catarina state, 419 people are waiting for transfer to ICU beds. In neighboring Rio Grande do Sul, ICU capacity is at 106%.

Athens tackles heat and pollution with pocket-sized parks (Reuters) Tucked between rows of apartment blocks on an Athens street, a strip of green with a few trees, some plants and a bench offers a breathing space in the surrounding crush of concrete. The Greek capital has started creating “pocket parks”, transforming small plots once ridden with garbage and weeds, in a bid to tackle its chronic pollution. “It’s about creating green spaces, lowering the temperatures, giving quality of life and creating new reference points inside the city,” Athens Mayor Kostas Bakoyannis said. “It lets us breathe a bit, because the way we are here ... we are suffocating,” said 65-year-old Dimitra from the densely populated neighbourhood of Kypseli.

Myanmar’s searing smartphone images flood a watching world (AP) The images ricochet across the planet, as so many do in this dizzying era of film it, upload it, tell it to the world: scenes from a protest-turned-government crackdown, captured at ground level by smartphone users on the streets of Myanmar. Images shot across barricades and furtively through windows. From behind bushes and through smudged car windshields. Horizontal video. Vertical video. Video captured by people running toward chaos and away from it. People shouting. People helping. People demanding. People dying. It is a dynamic completely unlike the uprising that spread through the Southeast Asian nation in the pre-internet, pre-smartphone summer of 1988. Then, when student-led demonstrations were violently put down by the government, cementing Myanmar’s global notoriety as an isolated, repressive state, it took months, even years, for the outside world to understand the full story of what had happened. This time around, the imagery is plentiful and unsettling. Filmed by participants on the ground and uploaded, sometimes immediately, the protests and crackdowns are reaching millions of handheld devices around the planet, also almost immediately. It’s a vivid example of a technological truism in an age when capturing images has become utterly democratized: If you can glimpse it up close, you’re more likely to pay attention.

Most Americans support tough stance toward China on human rights, economic issues (Pew Research Center) Roughly nine-in-ten U.S. adults (89%) consider China a competitor or enemy, rather than a partner, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Many also support taking a firmer approach to the bilateral relationship, whether by promoting human rights in China, getting tougher on China economically or limiting Chinese students studying abroad in the United States. Americans rarely brought up the Chinese people or the country’s long history and culture in their responses. Instead, they focused primarily on the Chinese government—including its policies or how it behaves internationally—as well as its economy.

Ten years on, Japan mourns victims of earthquake, Fukushima nuclear disaster (Reuters) Japan on Thursday mourned nearly 20,000 victims of a massive earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan 10 years ago, destroying towns and triggering nuclear meltdowns in Fukushima, the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. Huge waves triggered by the 9.0-magnitude quake—one of the strongest on record—crashed into the northeastern coast, crippling the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant and forcing more than 160,000 residents to flee as radiation spewed into the air. The government has spent about $300 billion (32.1 trillion yen) to rebuild the tsunami-devastated region, but areas around the Fukushima plant remain off-limits, worries about radiation levels linger and many who left have settled elsewhere. Decommissioning of the crippled plant will take decades and billions of dollars. The disaster has also left survivors in Tohoku struggling to overcome the grief of losing families and whole communities to the waves in a few frightening hours on the afternoon of March 11, 2011.

Lebanon’s politicians show no sign of saving their country, France says (Reuters) France’s foreign minister said on Thursday time was running out to prevent Lebanon collapsing and that he could see no sign that the country’s politicians were doing what they could to save it. France has spearheaded international efforts to rescue the former French protectorate from its deepest crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war by trying to use Paris’ historical influence to persuade squabbling politicians to adopt a reform roadmap and form a new government to unlock international aid. “I would be tempted to qualify Lebanese politicians as guilty of not helping a country in danger,” Jean-Yves le Drian told a news conference in Paris. “They all committed to act to create an inclusive government and committed to implementing indispensable reforms. That was seven months ago and nothing is moving. I think it’s not too late, but the delays are very small before collapse.”

UN food aid chief visits Yemen, fears famine (AP) The head of the U.N. food agency warned after a visit to Yemen that his underfunded organization may be forced to seek hundreds of millions of dollars in private donations in a desperate bid to stave off widespread famine in coming months, describing conditions in the war-stricken nation as “hell.” The World Food Program needs at least $815 million in Yemen aid over the next six months, but has only $300 million, the agency’s executive director, David Beasley, told The Associated Press in an interview. He said the agency would need another $1.9 billion to meet targets for the year. Beasley visited Yemen earlier this week, including the capital of Sanaa which is under the control of Iran-backed Houthi rebels. He said that at a child malnutrition ward in a Sanaa hospital he saw children wasting away from lack of food. Many, he said, were on the brink of death from entirely preventable and treatable causes, and they were the lucky ones who were receiving medical care. He said the world needs to wake up to how bad things have gotten in Yemen, particularly for the country’s youngest.

Shock and uncertainty after death of Ivory Coast PM Bakayoko (Reuters) Ivory Coast faced shock and uncertainty on Thursday following the death of Prime Minister Hamed Bakayoko, the West African nation’s second premier to die in office in less than eight months. A close ally of President Alassane Ouattara, Bakayoko, who died of cancer a few days after his 56th birthday, was appointed prime minister in July 2020 after the death of his predecessor Amadou Gon Coulibaly, Ouattara’s handpicked successor. A central figure in Ivorian politics over the past two decades as the country was plunged into a prolonged conflict and a partition, Bakayoko, a jovial character with roots in media and showbiz, emerged as a conciliatory figure, able to talk to all sides of the conflict. His capacity to gain the trust of all sides including former rebel soldiers who staged a series of mutinies in 2017, threatening a fragile peace in the world’s top cocoa producing nation, saw him appointed as defence minister in 2017, and kept the portfolio when he became prime minister.

Nuclear power (Scientific American) Nuclear power is waning, but not for the typical fears. Rather, other ways of generating electricity have just become cheaper and more available. Nuclear power in 2020 accounted for about 19 percent of U.S. electricity needs, a figure that by 2050 is projected to slip to 11 percent according to the Energy Information Administration. Nuclear power is over half of low-carbon electricity generation in the U.S., and is about 30 percent of the world’s low-carbon electricity. The coming years will determine how much nuclear power will play a role in the energy future, as new demos of small modular reactors begin to roll out in the United States.

Tiny internal cameras (Times of London) Thousands of NHS patients will be given tiny cameras to swallow to check for cancer in a new national trial. The technology, in a pill-sized capsule, takes images as it passes through the bowel and beams them to a recording device worn on a belt and shoulder bag. It can then be flushed away. Sir Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England, said that the “ingenious” capsule cameras would allow more people to undergo cancer investigations quickly and safely.

A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace

Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge. Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.

In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.

We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.

Davos, Switzerland February 8, 1996

Prayers for This Threshold

This homily was given to the UU Church of Silver Spring on June 7, 2020. A video version is available at https://youtu.be/_KXZ0SGpaGk 

John O’Donohue (in “To Bless the Space Between Us”) writes that a phase of life that is passing away “intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up.” I hope that is true. I hope it is true that the intensity we are now feeling -- the anger at police violence and other forms of white supremacy, the deep grief over lives lost, the disgust at blatant appeals toward fascism -- I hope that intensity means we are heading into a mass awakening of the mind, heart, and soul that will settle for nothing less that collective liberation.

We are, indeed, surrounded by and filled with complex and overwhelming emotion. I don’t know about you, but I can barely contain my rage and sadness. I have a hard time concentrating. And I can only imagine what my beloveds who are Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color are feeling, how being both used to the persistence of white supremacy and yet being traumatized anew by recent events weigh on these friends and family. I am praying with and for you, for your safety, for your families, for you to be held in love. As I said in my pastoral letter last Sunday, A white supremacist system is working through humans to rob our beloveds of the breath of life. It is our moral and spiritual responsibility to respond to the deadly evil of racism.

In the midst of this violence, in the midst of racist rhetoric, in the midst of peaceful medics and clergy being driven away from a church so that the occupant of the White House can pose for a photo that makes a mockery of faith, in the midst of militarized response to people exercising their right to protest, in the midst of our own Governor sending National Guard troops to DC to attack their fellow citizens, we keep moving across other thresholds.

This year’s graduates from high schools, colleges, and other institutions find themselves marking the occasion like no other class in history, and they face challenges that echo but are not quite like any other class in history. I wish those of us who graduated some time ago could have prepared a more hospitable world by now, but I am glad this year’s class is here, ready for the world as it is and will be, already involved in the struggle for a just and sustainable society.

So many among us and around us keep adapting to changes in our calling, our vocation, our ways of paying the bills and getting by. I am thinking of hospital workers - nurses, doctors, techs, custodians, everyone who creates an environment for healing - and how they have patched together personal protective equipment from wherever they can find it, workers who know that they won’t get a raise or a bonus for their heroic work and may even be laid off thanks to our for-profit healthcare system. And then we look at the tax money being fired out of tear gas canisters and rubber bullet launchers, a seemingly endless supply of resources when the purpose is repression rather than health and well-being. The way medical staff go to work has changed. They are on the brink of something new, too. The way we do our jobs has changed for so many people, and has not changed enough for some of the most vulnerable workers. And who has a job has changed a lot in the last five months. These passages deserve noticing. Major thresholds should involve some ritual.

People keep moving, some people many miles away. Veronika spoke about her upcoming move to Florida, and how she will need to find new ways of saying goodbye, new ways of staying connected, new ways of creating a life for herself. She reminds us to keep an eye out for people who might need a friend, to ask “when can I drop off these groceries” instead of “let me know if there’s anything I can do.” Worship services may be online for some time; it is important to consider as a community what it means to welcome the stranger, what it would mean to harbor someone, how to be a place of hope and healing when a new person enters in a new way during this time of doing everything differently. As you prepare to welcome Rev. Kristin in August, the beginning of that relationship is another one that will require new rituals, new ways of marking thresholds.

Through all of this, loved ones are dying. Tanya spoke about the loss of her uncle, a revered elder in her family and in her community. According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, we have lost over 110,000 Americans to the virus. That is 110,000 uncles, aunts, parents, children, spouses, people who were loved and valued, people who probably did not get a chance to say goodbye to their loved ones in person before they crossed the threshold. Families are finding ways to mark the passage, finding ways to connect with loved ones around the globe in their grief and to honor the life that has passed. We need these rituals, and we also need national rituals of mourning. We need to commit to each other’s well-being in solidarity with the families who grieve, and to prevent as many future deaths as possible.

Many of us are not covering a lot of distance these days in terms of miles (some of us are), but all of us are travelers. Some of us have rougher terrain than others, especially in this time of blatantly violent white supremacy, this time of undisguised ableism, this time when property gets more respect than people. Our journeys are not equal, yet they have in common the need for our attention.

We are gathered on a threshold. The voice that calls to us will ask something different of each person. We may not have chosen to be at a turning point. We do have some choices about how to understand and act on our response. The voice that is calling us forward asks us to live by our values. Let us engage and awaken our passionate hearts. The time has come to cross.

So be it. Blessed be. Amen.

Oscar Micheaux

Oscar Devereaux Micheaux (US: (listen); January 2, 1884 – March 25, 1951) was an African-American author, film director and independent producer of more than 44 films. Although the short-lived Lincoln Motion Picture Company was the first movie company owned and controlled by black filmmakers, Micheaux is regarded as the first major African-American feature filmmaker, a prominent producer of race film, and has been described as "the most successful African-American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century". He produced both silent films and sound films when the industry changed to incorporate speaking actors.

Early life and education

Micheaux was born on a farm in Metropolis, Illinois, on January 2, 1884. He was the fifth child born to Calvin S. and Belle Michaux, who had a total of 13 children. In his later years, Micheaux added an "e" to his last name. His father was born a slave in Kentucky. Because of his surname, his father's family appears to have been owned by French-descended settlers. French Huguenot refugees had settled in Virginia in 1700; their descendants took slaves west when they migrated into Kentucky after the American Revolutionary War.

In his later years, Micheaux wrote about the social oppression he experienced as a young boy. His parents moved to the city so that the children could receive a better education. Micheaux attended a well-established school for several years before the family eventually ran into money troubles and were forced to return to the farm. The discontented Micheaux became rebellious and his struggles caused problems within his family. His father was not happy with him and sent him away to do marketing in the city. Micheaux found pleasure in this job because he was able to speak to many new people and learned social skills that he would later reflect in his films.

When Micheaux was 17 years old, he moved to Chicago to live with his older brother, then working as a waiter. Micheaux became dissatisfied with what he viewed as his brother's way of living "the good life". He rented his own place and found work in the stockyards, which he found difficult. He moved from the stockyards to the steel mills, holding down many different jobs.

After being "swindled out of two dollars" by an employment agency, Micheaux decided to become his own boss. His first business was a shoeshine stand, which he set up at a wealthy African American barbershop, away from Chicago competition. He learned the basic strategies of business and started to save money. He became a Pullman porter on the major railroads, at that time considered prestigious employment for African Americans because it was relatively stable, well paid, and secure, and it enabled travel and interaction with new people. This job was an informal education for Micheaux. He profited financially, and also gained contacts and knowledge about the world through traveling as well as a greater understanding for business. When he left the position, he had seen much of the United States, had a couple of thousand dollars saved in his bank account, and had made a number of connections with wealthy white people who helped his future endeavors.

Micheaux moved to Gregory County, South Dakota, where he bought land and worked as a homesteader. This experience inspired his first novels and films. His neighbors on the frontier were predominately blue collar whites. "Some recall that [Micheaux] rarely sat at a table with his blue collar white neighbors." Micheaux's years as a homesteader allowed him to learn more about human relations and farming. While farming, Micheaux wrote articles and submitted them to the press. The Chicago Defender published one of his earliest articles.

Marriage and family

In South Dakota, Micheaux married Orlean McCracken. Her family proved to be complex and burdensome for Micheaux. Unhappy with their living arrangements, Orlean felt that Micheaux did not pay enough attention to her. She gave birth while he was away on business, and was reported to have emptied their bank accounts and fled. Orlean's father sold Micheaux's property and took the money from the sale. After his return, Micheaux tried unsuccessfully to get Orlean and his property back.

Writing and film career

Micheaux decided to concentrate on writing and, eventually, filmmaking, a new industry. He wrote seven novels. In 1913, 1,000 copies of his first book, The Conquest: The Story of a Negro Pioneer, were printed. He published the book anonymously, for unknown reasons. Based on his experiences as a homesteader and the failure of his first marriage, it was largely autobiographical. Although character names have been changed, the protagonist is named Oscar Devereaux. His theme was about African Americans realizing their potential and succeeding in areas where they had not felt they could. The book outlines the difference between city lifestyles of Negroes and the life he decided to lead as a lone Negro out on the far West as a pioneer. He discusses the culture of doers who want to accomplish and those who see themselves as victims of injustice and hopelessness and who do not want to try to succeed, but instead like to pretend to be successful while living the city lifestyle in poverty. He had become frustrated with getting some members of his race to populate the frontier and make something of themselves, with real work and property investment. He wrote over 100 letters to fellow Negroes in the East beckoning them to come West, but only his older brother eventually took his advice. One of Micheaux's fundamental beliefs was that hard work and enterprise would make any person rise to respect and prominence no matter his or her race.

In 1918, his novel The Homesteader, dedicated to Booker T. Washington, attracted the attention of George Johnson, the manager of the Lincoln Motion Picture Company in Los Angeles. After Johnson offered to make The Homesteader into a new feature film, negotiations and paperwork became inharmonious. Micheaux wanted to be directly involved in the adaptation of his book as a movie, but Johnson resisted and never produced the film.

Instead, Micheaux founded the Micheaux Film & Book Company of Sioux City in Chicago; its first project was the production of The Homesteader as a feature film. Micheaux had a major career as a film producer and director: He produced over 40 films, which drew audiences throughout the U.S. as well as internationally. Micheaux contacted wealthy academic connections from his earlier career as a porter, and sold stock for his company at $75 to $100 a share. Micheaux hired actors and actresses and decided to have the premiere in Chicago. The film and Micheaux received high praise from film critics. One article credited Micheaux with "a historic breakthrough, a creditable, dignified achievement". Some members of the Chicago clergy criticized the film as libelous. The Homesteader became known as Micheaux's breakout film; it helped him become widely known as a writer and a filmmaker.

In addition to writing and directing his own films, Micheaux also adapted the works of different writers for his silent pictures. Many of his films were open, blunt and thought-provoking regarding certain racial issues of that time. He once commented: "It is only by presenting those portions of the race portrayed in my pictures, in the light and background of their true state, that we can raise our people to greater heights." Financial hardships during the Great Depression eventually made it impossible for Micheaux to keep producing films, and he returned to writing.

Films

Micheaux's first novel The Conquest was adapted to film and re-titled The Homesteader. This film, which met with critical and commercial success, was released in 1919. It revolves around a man named Jean Baptiste, called the Homesteader, who falls in love with many white women but resists marrying one out of his loyalty to his race. Baptiste sacrifices love to be a key symbol for his fellow African Americans. He looks for love among his own people and marries an African-American woman. Relations between them deteriorate. Eventually, Baptiste is not allowed to see his wife. She kills her father for keeping them apart and commits suicide. Baptiste is accused of the crime, but is ultimately cleared. An old love helps him through his troubles. After he learns that she is a mulatto and thus part African, they marry. This film deals extensively with race relationships.

Micheaux's second silent film was Within Our Gates, produced in 1920. Although sometimes considered his response to the film Birth of a Nation, Micheaux said that he created it independently as a response to the widespread social instability following World War I. Within Our Gates revolved around the main character, Sylvia Landry, a mixed-race school teacher. In a flashback, Sylvia is shown growing up as the adopted daughter of a sharecropper. When her father confronts their white landlord over money, a fight ensues. The landlord is shot by another white man, but Sylvia's adoptive father is accused and lynched with her adoptive mother.

Sylvia is almost raped by the landowner's brother but discovers that he is her biological father. Micheaux always depicts African Americans as being serious and reaching for higher education. Before the flashback scene, we see that Sylvia travels to Boston, seeking funding for her school, which serves black children. They are underserved by the segregated society. On her journey, she is hit by the car of a rich white woman. Learning about Landry's cause, the woman decides to give her school $50,000.

In the film, Micheaux depicts educated and professional people in black society as light-skinned, representing the elite status of some of the mixed-race people who comprised the majority of African Americans free before the Civil War. Poor people are represented as dark-skinned and with more undiluted African ancestry. Mixed-race people also feature as some of the villains. The film is set within the Jim Crow era. It contrasted the experiences for African Americans who stayed in rural areas and others who had migrated to cities and become urbanized. Micheaux explored the suffering of African Americans in the present day, without explaining how the situation arose in history. Some feared that this film would cause even more unrest within society, and others believed it would open the public's eyes to the unjust treatment of blacks by whites. Protests against the film continued until the day it was released. Because of its controversial status, the film was banned from some theaters.

Micheaux adapted two works by Charles W. Chesnutt, which he released under their original titles: The Conjure Woman (1926) and The House Behind the Cedars (1927). The latter, which dealt with issues of mixed race and passing, created so much controversy when reviewed by the Film Board of Virginia that he was forced to make cuts to have it shown. He remade this story as a sound film in 1932, releasing it with the title Veiled Aristocrats. The silent version of the film is believed to have been lost.

Themes

Micheaux's films were made during a time of great change in the African-American community. His films featured contemporary black life. He dealt with racial relationships between blacks and whites, and the challenges for blacks when trying to achieve success in the larger society. His films were used to oppose and discuss the racial injustice that African Americans received. Topics such as lynching, job discrimination, rape, mob violence, and economic exploitation were depicted in his films. These films also reflect his ideologies and autobiographical experiences.

Micheaux sought to create films that would counter white portrayals of African Americans, which tended to emphasize inferior stereotypes. He created complex characters of different classes. His films questioned the value system of both African-American and white communities as well as caused problems with the press and state censors.

Style

Critic Barbara Lupack described Micheaux as pursuing moderation with his films and creating a "middle-class cinema". His works were designed to appeal to both middle- and lower-class audiences.

Micheaux said,

My results ... might have been narrow at times, due perhaps to certain limited situations, which I endeavored to portray, but in those limited situations, the truth was the predominate characteristic. It is only by presenting those portions of the race portrayed in my pictures, in the light and background of their true state, that we can raise our people to greater heights. I am too imbued with the spirit of Booker T. Washington to engraft false virtues upon ourselves, to make ourselves that which we are not.

Death

Micheaux died on March 25, 1951, in Charlotte, North Carolina, of heart failure. He is buried in Great Bend Cemetery in Great Bend, Kansas, the home of his youth. His gravestone reads: "A man ahead of his time".

Legacy and honors

The Oscar Micheaux Society at Duke University continues to honor his work and educate about his legacy.

1987, Micheaux was recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1989 the Directors Guild of America honored Micheaux with a Golden Jubilee Special Award.

The Producers Guild of America created an annual award in his name.

In 1989, the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame gave him a posthumous award.

Gregory, South Dakota holds an annual Oscar Micheaux Film Festival.

In 2001 Oscar Micheaux Golden Anniversary Festival (March 24–25) Great Bend, Kansas

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Oscar Micheaux on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

On June 22, 2010, the US Postal Service issued a 44-cent, Oscar Micheaux commemorative stamp.

In 2011, the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia created a category for donors, the Micheaux Society, in honor of Micheaux.

Midnight Ramble: Oscar Micheaux and the Story of Race Movies (1994) is a documentary whose title refers to the early 20th-century practice of some segregated cinemas of screening films for African-American audiences only at matinees and midnight. The documentary was produced by Pamela Thomas, directed by Pearl Bowser and Bestor Cram, and written by Clyde Taylor. It was first aired on the PBS show The American Experience in 1994, and released in 2004.

In 2019, Micheaux's film Body and Soul was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The Oscar Micheaux Award for excellence was established.

The Czar of Black Hollywood

In 2014, Block Starz Music Television released The Czar of Black Hollywood, a documentary film chronicling the early life and career of Oscar Micheaux using Library of Congress archived footage, photos, illustrations and vintage music. The film was announced by American radio host Tom Joyner on his nationally syndicated program, The Tom Joyner Morning Show, as part of a "Little Known Black History Fact" on Micheaux. In an interview with The Washington Times, filmmaker Bayer Mack said he read the 2007 biography Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only by Patrick McGilligan and was inspired to produce The Czar of Black Hollywood because Micheaux's life mirrored his own. Mack told The Huffington Post he was shocked that, in spite of Micheaux's historical significance, there was "virtually nothing out there about [his] life". The film's executive producer, Frances Presley Rice, told the Sun Sentinel that Micheaux was the first "indie movie producer." In 2018, Mack was interviewed by the news site Mic for its "Black Monuments Project", which named Oscar Micheaux as one of its 50 African-Americans deserving of a statue. He said Micheaux embodied "the best of what we all are as Americans" and that the filmmaker was "an inspiration."

Can we love multiple people?

What’s the difference between polygamy and polyamory? Why is the West so quick to condemn the first yet is more open to accept and practice the latter? Should we be given the space to love multiple people simutaneously in or outside Marriage without being judged?

Over the last past years, we‘ve heard more and more people questioning the frontiers of monogamy through the concepts of « open relationships », « open marriages » claiming that it is possible to live successful polyamorous relationships since it is possible to be in love with multiple people at the same time.

Polyamorous people think that humans are naturally polyamorous but at some point Society or some religions train us to refrain some of our feelings and sexual desires in order to focus on one person only, the one we are in a monogamous relationship with whether we are married, in a commited relationship or just dating.

For some polyamorous people, since we can have multiple friends that fulfill and complete different parts of our personalities, we should as well be able to have several partners who will be most likely to fulfill our needs to be loved, accepted, understood, sexually satisfied instead of laying such a burden on ONE person only.

Polygamy, to me, obeys the same principle of maintaining several relationships with the exact same « benefits » as Polyamory, yet in a more institutionalized setting, that of marriage. For example, traditional african societies used to practice Polygamy to the favor of men who would be allowed to have several spouses. Thus, traditionally, african men were tolerated to live with all their wives and children from all unions in the same households, harmoniously or not, that isn’t the question, but they would.

Furthermore, Islam allows men to marry multiple women, until four or five only if they can provide for all the wives equally and it seems to me that they can’t do it if the first wife disagrees.

What bothers me in Polygamy as it was institutionalized in african traditional societies and still is actually in current Islamic countries is that it’s considered as men’s priviledge. Polyandry was and is absolutely not an option for women because of a certain image of the woman they want to preserve. Without getting into the whole socio-cultural usefulness of Polygamy, back in the day, at a time when women were meant to stay at home, look after the kids, not work, it seems to me that maintaining such conceptions today is a way of denying the fact that women are also sexual beings. Why can’t a woman who is independant be able to marry multiple men?

In western societies, indeed we can see more and more financially independent women choose to live a sexually successful life openly. For men, sexual liberation has never truly been such an issue because in general men have always been able to live a liberated sexual life without being publically ostracized. However, we can sense that the vision Society very influenced by Male patriarchy has of polyamorous women is very negative. This double-standard really bothers me to be honest.

I think that of course it possible to be attracted to several people while being in a relationship. Stating the contrary would sound very hypocrit to me.

In the past, I have obviously been attracted to multiple people while being in relationships with someone and it was challenging to neglect all those strong feelings. A part of me wanted to pursue the excitement I was feeling, the fire inside me while another part of me was mindful of how I would hurt my partner’s feelings if I did so. Moreover, I can’t really tell if what I felt would fall under the designation of Love or Lust but being a sapiosexual and a subconscious demi-sexual, I like to think that those feelings I struggled to deny were located way beyond physical attraction or sexual tensions.

Since for me it’s possible to be attracted to multiple persons, I have to say that I have no problem with people pursing their desires to the point of living a polyamorous lifestyle as long as all the partners are aware of the existence of each and every one of them and so long as they all agree with the terms of the multiple relationships. At the end of the day, who are we to judge grown-up people personal choices?

On the other hand, not revealing the existence of such desires while being in a relationship, committed or not, is lacking of honesty to me. We don’t allow the other partner to choose to accept it and stay or choose to leave. That’s why, I reckon that choosing to be polyamorous without being transparent with one’s partner is nothing but cheating and I like to think that such a practice is not right in terms of honesty and respect for the other person’s feelings.

As regards, Jealousy, well, even though I get that we as individuals are nobody else’s property, although I get that our body is our own and we choose to give it to whoever we want, I feel like Jealousy is a natural human feeling and when you really love someone it’s normal to feel jealousy when you imagine him or her having a sexual intercourse with anybody than you.

Personnally, I feel like the more you spend time with someone you are manifestly attracted to physically and mentally, it’s inevitable that you will develop feelings that will eventually equal to Love.

As far as I am concerned, as the time goes by, I tend to accept more and more the fact that there is no such thing as THE ONE. We cannot sensibly put on one person the overwhelming pressure to satisfy all of our needs. Of course there is such a large array of people we can connect with on a romantic level but I still feel like when I love someone very deeply I don’t feel like seeking something else in people other than the person I love. In that sense, Monogamy is so hard because it means accepting a person for all his or her imperfections, loving him or her all the same and constantly trying to find ways to grow together, have fun together, spice things up in bed, while trying to build and be happy together.

As a conclusion, when I see all the energy it takes to love one person properly, I don’t think that it’s possible to love multiple persons correctly meaning in the way each one of them want to be loved. To me, it’s impossible to love multiple people equally. If a relationship with someone doesn’t satisfy you completely, why try to cumulate? Maybe it’s time to look for another partner while being single. There is nothing wrong with being alone... Obsiously. Is there?

Minecraft Story Mode July AU Countdown

Minecraft Story Mode has multiple AUs, and this is a month-long countdown dedicated to celebrating it! Some AUs are fandom specific, some are just fun general concepts for AUs, and each one will be a blast to see explored. Art, writing, cosplay, other creative measures- anything goes!

July 1: Modern AU

AU wherein Mcsm characters exist in a more modern world and/or with more modern/advanced technology and means of living than shown in the series.

July 2: Actor AU

Mcsm characters are actually just actors who are filming a choose-your-own-adventure style movie where there are different scenes depending on the audience’s choices. The actors have their own lives and may get along well / have their own bonds regardless of character relationships. Many shenanigans ensue both on and off set.

July 3: Hogwarts AU

The characters are wizards in a magical world, potentially learning at Hogwarts or enjoying the broader world beyond it.

July 4: Order Swap AU

Ivor, Ellegaard, and Magnus are all excited for the upcoming Endercon competition, where they could win a chance to see Petra the Warrior in person. However, it doesn’t take long for things to go wrong due the surprise appearance of someone named Jesse, who’s got a bit of a grudge and a command block... (The two Orders are reversed in roles and stories. Other characters may likewise be moved or swapped.)

July 5: Hybrids AU

In a world where full humans see themselves as “more normal” and superior to the animalistic hybrids around them, it’s up to a bunch of scrappy hybrids to save the day. (AU created by @warning-heckmouth. Jesse and the rest of the new Order are all hybrids, part human and part animal, with Lukas hiding his traits and Soren having wiped the old Order of theirs in an effort to seem normal.)

July 6: Sky AU

While uniting the floating islands, Isa comes across an abandoned baby. This baby is Jesse, and Isa takes Jesse in as her own. Many years later, while Jesse lives as the Founder’s child, the Blaze Rods and Order of the Stone arrive at Sky City, and neither Jesse or Isa’s life will ever be quite the same. (Created by @jesseoftheorder. Lukas is part of the Order at this point, Axel and Olivia arrive at Sky City with Ivor, Petra, and Lukas, and the Order stopped the Witherstorm without Jesse.)

July 7 (Saturday): Off Day

July 8: Order Villains AU

What if the Order was more like how Aiden described them to Isa? What if they were just as vile and dangerous and wasteful as warned? (The new Order of the Stone are villains intent on misusing the Eversource while the Blaze Rods are genuinely trying to help Sky City from suffering the same fate as their own world.)

July 9: Demigods AU

The new Order of the Stone (and/or potentially other characters) are partly the children of powerful gods, each having powers based on the abilities of their godly parent.

July 10: Witherstorm Connection AU

Everyone was more than happy to believe any traces of the Witherstorm died with it. However, it turns out an unexpected side effect of nearly being used up as energy is a never before experienced sharing of emotions and more through a benevolent but confusing hive mind. (Those captured/influenced by the Witherstorm have the ability to hear the thoughts of others who were also affected.)

July 11: Benders AU

Mcsm characters exist in a world akin to Avatar the Last Airbender and/or are able to bend and use certain elements at will.

July 12: Withersickness AU

Despite the fact that Jesse, and possibly others, had more exposure to the Witherstorm’s beams, Petra/Gabriel seems to be the only one who suffers from the withersickness. At least at first... (Jesse [and/or another member of the group] ends up with withersickness.)

July 13: Supernatural AU

It might be hard to think the world of Minecraft could get much more magical, but nothing is as it seems. (Various characters are supernatural entities and/or exist in a world filled with such entities and properties.)

July 14 (Saturday): Off Day

July 15: Fairy Tale AU

Mcsm characters exist in a fairy tale world and/or are living out the roles of characters in fairy tales.

July 16: Role Swap AU

The Order members may all be the same, but in this AU, the Order members don’t quite fill the same roles. Axel happens to be a redstone engineer while Olivia’s a griefer bent on causing some form of mayhem, for example. (AU where the roles of various characters are switched.)

July 17: Super Hero AU

For various reasons, some people in the mcsm universe are born with and/or later gain incredible abilities that they use to protect and help people.

July 18: Hadrian’s Deal AU

Jesse, in yet another moment of misguided heroism, decides not to tell the other about their deal with Hadrian and throws the games so they can go free. Surprisingly Hadrian keeps end of the bargain leaving Jesse in the mines and the rest of the new order in the portals with no way of getting home.

July 19: Western AU

The good, the bad, the ugly, all of it from mcsm but adapted to a much more western frontier style setting.

July 20: Reuben Lives AU

The title says it all. AU where everything is pretty much the same except Reuben is alive after episode 4.

July 21 (Saturday): Off Day

July 22: Admin AU

One or more mcsm characters find themselves with admin powers, or have always been admins, for any number of possible reasons. How they use their powers and what for can be just as varied and uncertain.

July 23: Mythical Creatures AU

Various characters are mythical animals or creatures.

July 24: Command Block Pocket Dimension AU

Ivor’s too big of a risk for Soren to just let him go. Soren’s already got experience with removing obstacles using the Command Block, and since there happens to be a nice little pocket dimension inside where everything it removes is kept, it can be like Ivor never left them. Not that Soren will tell the others where Ivor really went, of course. (Created by @gateaugrimoire. Ivor and the Enderdragon fuse to create an odd hybrid creature determined to save the other members from Soren.)

July 25: Apocalypse AU

Jesse’s world was already interesting before it all decided to end, and now it’s a battle to survive what seems like brutal Armageddon with the people met along the way.

July 26:  Children AU

The New Order gang are children rather than adults in the witherstorm timeline trying to navigate what might be the literal apocalypse in the from and the Old Order are adults who are all, including Ivor, very conflicted about having a group so young tag along on the quest to stop the end of the world as they know it. (Created by @nyanshadowforce and @jesseoftheorder.)

July 27: Gem/Fusion AU

Various (if not all) characters are gems in the style of Steven Universe or are otherwise able to fuse.

July 28 (Saturday): Off Day

July 29: Ghost Hunters AU

Mcsm characters are a part of a team of paranormal investigators exploring haunted places, similar to Ghost Adventures or Unsolved: Supernatural and other similar shows.

July 30: Youtuber AU

Instead of saving worlds from terrifying monsters and eccentric criminals, the new Order and other Mcsm characters are helping people through a variety of diverse but fun videos and youtube shenanigans.

July 31: Free Day

Have an AU not on this list? Or maybe one that you just want to do again? Go for it! Whatever AU you want! 

“The Big See”

Before I start this next project, here are some addenda to my last post:

1. I made an error in my section on units of measurement. The time it takes for light to travel a meter is actually approximately 1/300,000ths of a second. However, what I said about using light as a standard for measurement still stands, and it’s pretty reasonable to at least think of it that way. That’s because light is sort of hierarchical in the sense that we obey it (at least we did, initially), and we don’t run the risk of falling into infinite regress, which according to professional philosophers is a problem (I might say that with a little sarcasm...). We didn’t build light like we do its human counterparts in terms of ‘boss-dom’; we only perform something like an irrigation.

2. An important intermediary in the psychology of a grocery shopper is an assumption that the supermarket will have what they need. The very fact that people even make these kinds of assumptions is indicative of how advanced our economy has become. So again, please stay mindful about the processes, that you don’t see plainly, that ensure you can have what you want. In one episode of “The Crown”, set some time in the 1960s, the Prime Minister of Great Britain (who happens to be the leader of the Labour Party - go figure) remarks that the opening of a new supermarket signals the “democratization” of food and other essentials, and he is quite right. Our essentials (and certainly non-essentials too!) have been consolidated into single, publicly accessible buildings--anyone can walk in and out. Many different products sit on the shelves, inertly, side by side--neighbours--as the inconspicuous faces of a wildly complex yet hidden ecosystem.

P.S. The link between human psychology and economics will resurface later in this post.

When developing characters, writers of fiction often comment on the momentum that launches the characters into writing themselves, almost independently of the author’s own mind. Hmm, I wonder why that is? Maybe it has something to do with that little thing that starts with the letter “A” and ends with “rchetypes”... I feel the same way about my own writing, which I view like a fiddlehead unfurling into a frond.

Ok, so, I was brought into this world at the intersection of a lot of different forces at work--I was a bridge between two completely different socio-economic classes, and I suppose that inevitably set me on a trajectory by which I would find myself in many, many diverse and often peculiar social situations. You know, if you’ve lived a quiet life that doesn’t involve zig-zagging from one insane scenario to the next, you’d assume that all people are a certain way. I will never say that I was always comfortable in such situations, but as a result of introspection and for my own sanity I needed to excavate some gratitude for those experiences. The reason for that is, the more difference, the more heterogeneity in the set of things you come into contact with, the more clearly you can see things for what they are. Here’s an analogy: It’s akin to the meaning of something, carved by a sentence. In the spirit of boundedness, sentences are then coated with another layer of meaning as they sit within paragraphs. Paragraphs within stories, and stories within ‘bodies of canonical literature’.

I admit it: I am a spy. When I was younger and less self-assured I’d often find myself the onlooker in social situations, and if I was a participant, it would often be to my detriment. Sometimes that was ‘cause something about me attracted negative attention, and sometimes because I found myself in a state of social paralysis, not having a clue what magic word would open the sky and send the ladder of social climbing down and within my reach. But in all of my glorious sponginess I picked up little observations here and there and so this, below, is the culmination of all that.

This is a commentary on human relationships, and particularly what people think they should offer to those relationships. I must make it clear that I am not pretending the problem is an easy one to solve because we are dealing with instinct, and deeply ingrained attitudes, but I do have principles and I do have an orientation that I prefer. Ultimately the way one chooses to act is their own prerogative (given a certain amount of knowledge that they possess), but there are always sacrifices to be made and consequences to think about. And for those who are capable of it, guilt is a beast.

I was once in a conversation with a mental health professional--a psychiatrist, to be exact. Meaning he had a legal licence to practise mental healthcare, to conduct psychotherapy, and to prescribe medication. He had what we think of as ‘credentials’. He said to me, “relationships don’t define you”.

WHAT?!

This is the kind of person that is entrusted with the emotional mending and security of a damaged individual, and these approaches to life are thought to be okay? Imagine someone impressionable, lost, misunderstood, and unable to understand people in return, taking this idiot’s word as law, and then applying that attitude toward their life’s activities from thereon out. It’s like, why the fuck are you feeling shitty in the first place? It’s because people can be cruel, and if you’re telling me that that’s not at all involved in forming your character, then...well, I just don’t know what to say to that. And the converse is true, too: as a human agent, you do have a responsibility to other people. This psychiatrist was basically saying that you are free from obligations to others, and I think that’s definitely reflected in the attitudes of the immature. If you don’t want that kind of responsibility then go be a hermit, completely alone, in the middle of nowhere, and let’s see how well you do. At least if you’re on your own you won’t have to be accountable to others.

You see, for the people who find themselves on the more radical side of the spectrum of reductionism, nothing and nobody is special, and nothing is sacred. In fact, I think reductionism breeds nihilism. (FYI, if you’re new to the idea of ‘reductionism’, it simply means that anything and everything can be explained in scientific terms. So for example, an emotion you may be feeling is only due to the presence of a hormone, or neurotransmitter, and along with that, its molecular structure and how that interacts with your neural structure.) Every damn thing can be explained to oblivion...

Fools.

Imagine physically entering a room with furnishings arranged a certain way, art of a particular kind on the wall, different colours interacting with one another, and the feeling you get when you take it all in. Do you feel good? It must mean the different elements giving the space definition are interacting harmoniously according to your innate sensibilities. Do you feel bad energy? Then there is something amiss. Maybe you can figure out what needs changing, maybe you can’t. Maybe it’s so overwhelmingly bad that you have to leave the space. I see human interaction the same way, and I challenge the reductionists to piece together every little detail about the nice room that they can, and then give me a scientific explanation for why those details produce a certain feeling. I want it to be revelatory enough to make me go, “So THAT’s why!!!”

I hope you trust your grammar.

I don’t know much about feng shui, but I’d imagine what I described above is similar. And because it’s obvious different people have different aesthetic preferences, it follows that the ‘energetic configurations’ they prefer are different too. By now you probably realize that when I use the term “energy” I’m not using it like E = mc2, I’m using it in the New Age way.

Sometimes quasi-reductionists allow for things called “emergent properties”. That basically means that there are little elements that can easily be described in an atomistic fashion, but that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. If you think that way, then maybe the idea of a soul has some credibility. I think this is what Rene Descartes (also the inventor of the Cartesian plane I used in my last post) grappled with in his investigation into where the mind “sat”. He decided it was the pineal gland, but he was saying that there needs to be a location, a physical location. The mind-body dichotomy is a difficult thing to resolve, if it’s even a dichotomy at all... But I think in general people have a hard time with the concept of a soul because the soul is intangible, and science is now so integral to the way we live our lives that without scientific explanation we are left dumbfounded. But we can’t just leave it at that; oh no, it’s yet another frontier that must be conquered... If there’s something we think we can know, we must know it.

It’s sort of been decided that reason in decision-making is best practice. That was to ensure the people who make decisions are trustworthy; that their personal biases and wacky emotions wouldn’t get in the way of valuable, objective contributions to the development of civilization. If you consider the lay of the land today and you think it’s a good thing, then that shift in thinking paid off nicely. But emotion of ANY kind is now thought to be an interference; it is unprofessional, it is inappropriate, it is not reasonable.

In fact, for many people, relationships are just an afterthought. Like parents who don’t think twice about the way they say things to their young children when admonishing them.  And emotional labour isn’t thought to require as much mindfulness, or to be as rewarding as market-related labour and therefore the young ones you’re responsible for teaching about how to behave as honourable people in the world suffer greatly. Wake up! Those little ones will, in no time, be carrying the anchors of the future within them. Child psychologists have identified the age period between 2 and 4 years to be absolutely crucial in forming a child’s sociability. Of course the relative progression of time for an adult compared to a child is fast. Two years can go by in what seems like an instant (and parents do often say that is the case), but for a child of that age, two years is a hell of a long time. Additionally, we need to take seriously the fact that investment of that type is not something you can just go back and change in case it doesn’t suit you in the future. It’s either now, or never.

And as those kids grow up, they’re going to find something to invest in, too.

Say you, the now-grown kid, decide to one day admit to a friend that, God forbid, you want to fall in love and you are searching for your partner. The usual response is: “Focus on your education. Focus on your career; get that established before you do anything like that.” And the best one of all: “Have some ‘fun’ before you settle down.” Okay, there’s a lot to unpack here.

Right off the bat you know this friend doesn’t give equal importance to both “The Career” and to romantic relationships. You know what that’s a product of? Propaganda. I mean, how could you possibly be a productive member of a capitalist society if you devote a good chunk of your energy to another person? There’s no bankable return on that kind of labour! The perpetrators of that propaganda hate real love because it’s so compelling and because it compels people like that it’s considered a “distraction” - it interferes with the profiteer’s ability to squeeze out of you everything that they possibly can. So what they’ve decided to do is market individualism and radical independence as ‘the right way’. And not only that, but what real love can show you is a need to switch up your priorities, that there is less you need in the way of materialism because the love from this person sends you to outer SPACE!

We’re told it’s a dangerous thing for a person to be dependent on another in that way. But that is yet another example of things we just assume to be the truth because that’s the structure of the current zeitgeist.

And what’s more, you shouldn’t put all your eggs in one basket because people are fickle. Your education is something no one can take away from you, but your partner could leave in a heartbeat, if they decide there are better “opportunities” around. But then I say to the partner who took off: if you think of love and romance as opportunities, maybe you shouldn’t allow other folks to waste their time on you. And even if you are like that and you think you’ve found someone you could legally bind yourself to, you’re certainly not spiritually bound, and I would hate to be that other person, knowing that you’re not throwing your entire might into it; that you’re not loving at full capacity. 

Of course, that conception of “romancing” can be learned too, and this is where that notion of “fun” comes into play. To be shallow and promiscuous, to make sure that you can lose your virginity as fast as possible, the free love, the cool detachment from relationships - it’s all bullshit. The sixties were obviously a pivotal moment for the shift in perception of sex and for some reason people thought the revolution to be completely justifiable. Now, people are convinced that giving it all away is a sign of liberation, of self-confidence, of self-determination - even if there’s something tugging at them that may be hinting otherwise. And even if that’s genuinely what you want to do with yourself, I can’t help but think of that attitude as being inherently nihilistic.

Many years ago I was reading an issue of Cosmopolitan where I came across an interview with Scarlett Johansson. Never mind what her personal decisions looked like, she said something profound. She said that sex (of the kind that involves both a penis and a vagina) is fundamentally different between men and women: for women, sex literally is invasive. People with penises share; people with vaginas invite. And for a young woman to try to convince herself that she should feel empowered by these invitations, it can be seriously damaging. I’d say the same is true for a lot of men, who really do believe that sex should be shared in the context of committed love, but conventional wisdom dictates that men find it easier to be promiscuous, to separate emotion from sex, and that women really need to “catch up” as part of their commitment to feminism. This obviously applies to non-binary individuals too. Like I said earlier, what one decides to do is their prerogative, but look critically at your reasons for making certain choices. Don’t, for one second, force yourself to believe that being promiscuous is the only way you can take ownership of your sexuality. Coercion doesn’t just happen on a one-to-one level.  

The point is that people aren’t fucking disposable, but of course disposability is capitalism’s modus operandi and that doesn’t just apply to that smartphone of yours that’s gonna break in a couple of years (or that will be superseded by a better model, whichever comes first).

People do still look for love; it’s in our nature. But these days, they make lists of qualities their ideal partners must possess. And it’s always generic shit like, “must have a sense of humour, must be kind, must be good-looking”...o rly? But the things that cause you to love a person can’t be captured with such dull language. When I think of these lists, I think of that song by Beyonce, “Irreplaceable”. She’s telling the dude not to get too comfortable because the spot he is currently occupying can easily be filled by someone else! That is not love, that is opportunism. Why would you even bother? When you really love a person, you think, “This is the truth. Things cannot be any other way.”

I also happen to think that once people sort of reach the age when marriage becomes a serious consideration, they often don’t marry because of love and a willingness to merge their lives. It’s more like, “Well you seem convenient and this is yet another thing I have to check off my to-do list.” I really want to give some folks a good shake and say to them, you do realize that the wedding you are planning is ONE day where you get to be the star, where you’re gathering the people that mean something to you so you can make a public declaration of your love and commitment to care for the person’s heart (because that is your responsibility), and that a wedding day is absolutely nothing like the rest of your life?!

And then there’s that trope in modern Hollywood, where partnered, career women gather around wine and complain about their significant others. Guys do it too, but they’re obviously shown drinking beer instead of wine and it’s more like, “Oh, you know the old ball-and-chain said I did X wrong today...” And similarly, in “The Crown”, where Tony, Princess Margaret’s photographer lover distinctly says, “Marriage is the opposite of happiness” - but they get married anyway!!! It’s like there’s a brick wall that’s being thrown up, cutting you off from your partner. That doesn’t look like a real partnership to me. And I think, the moment you decide that’s what you’re gonna do, that’s how you’re gonna live your life in response to this other person, then you should seriously reconsider your choices. I used to look at people who behaved like that and think, God, is that what marriage is actually like? Then I want no part of it! Those sorts of arrangements inevitably lead to misery. And divorce can send a person packing with their tail between their legs because it is perceived as a failure. And rightly so. It is a failure of mindfulness, it is a reflection of the “afterthought” I spoke of earlier. It is an indication of your decision to work harder at other shit than at your most important relationship. It is a situation where gratitude is replaced by taking things for granted.

People tend to think that if you’re not a relative of someone’s, that when the “only” stakes at hand are romantic/intimate ones, that such a person is untrustworthy. That’s because those bonds are no longer thought to be strong enough to withstand tests. Let me provide you with a reality check: sometimes even your blood relatives cannot be trusted because they don’t always have your best interests at heart. And if you assume that their goodwill toward you is a given because you are a “natural” family, you would be wrong. Again, you must always pay attention to a person’s motives, what spurs them into action, and we would all do well to treat opinions formed out of resentment with a grain of salt.

You may think that psychopaths are only out to end conscious lives, but those are only the obvious ones, and often they don’t get very far because they are so obvious. The people who put their own evil to good use are disguised in much better ways - so well that you can’t even tell, and they’re the ones that deliberately manipulate your thinking for their own benefit, but definitely not for yours. You may have encountered someone like this in your personal life and sensed that something was “off”. But you’re in denial because there’s no way someone close to you could have evil in them, and you really want to believe that he or she is a good person, but you certainly won’t say anything for fear of blowing the roof off the house. How awkward would THAT be?

I want to offer a new definition of capitalism, which is “the method of creating problems where there are none, and offering a solution that can only be purchased.” Problems are identified in advertising and marketing. Solutions are in the shops. Take make-up for example. I’ve worn it, and at some point I’ll probably wear it again. It can be fun; it can be a way to express yourself as part of a sartorial performance, where people gather to see what you have to (non-verbally) say. But I do not approve of the thinking that a person needs to distort their features, every damn day, because they think their natural faces aren’t good enough. Over the last decade or so, make-up development and marketing has basically exploded and been supported by seemingly innocuous vehicles such as Instagram. And why is it that women suffer disproportionately in this arena compared to men? Don’t get me wrong - men have their problems too, which I will talk about in a bit. But THIS is just so lopsided: what capitalists are telling you is that there is a gap between who you really are and how you should be, and you need to fork out the money, and you need to engage in more labour, to close that gap. No doubt though, what they demand of you must be reasonable enough that it will captivate a large enough audience to make development worth it.

“Aspect perception” is key here, and I’m not talking about ‘contouring of the face’. I’m talking about the entrenched attitude that your plain skin, in all its blemish-y loveliness, needs fixing. I do believe it takes courage to go out in public and leave behind the foundation and the concealer and the other like, SEVEN products some women use daily, because in a way you are baring yourself and you are making yourself vulnerable. Flamboyant women have it easier than flamboyant men, that’s for sure. But male faces are fine just as they are; why can’t that hold true for women?

So now we’re entering the territory of that wild beast we like to call feminism. I just want to make a disclaimer before I piss a lot of people off, in case I haven’t already done so: there is absolutely no way an umbrella term like feminism can equalize all women in terms of the problems we experience, and we must be very careful to sift through those problems that women happen to experience, and those problems that women have because they are women. After all, feminism is at its core a meditation on causes and effects, problems and ways to mitigate them. I mean, I don’t blame people for the messiness of this topic - it’s really bloody hard to put one’s finger on a single, fundamental fact from which all problems emanate. What I absolutely cannot condone is the idea that the solution is to HATE MEN. Sure, there are disgraceful men around, but there are also disgraceful women who believe that they possess a sort of “moral immunity” just because they are women. I’ve had conversations with (at least partially straight) women who may or may not be in relationships with men, who BASH men for the sole reason that they are men! It’s shocking. Would you want to be in a relationship with a person who felt that you were a problem because of something you couldn’t change?

I understand that patriarchy can hit women hard. Some more so than others. But men suffer because of “patriarchy” too, and they don’t always enjoy the privilege that leftists assume men have. Let me explain it this way: when you see a man with power, you see a man. The problem on “the woman’s side” is that she feels there is no one to represent her. That’s one kind of problem. On the other hand, what men see when they look at a man with power is someone pretending to represent them, but what’s actually going on is that the man-spectator identifies all the qualities he has that don’t match up to the ‘ideal’ ones being marketed, and sees that gap I spoke of earlier and really struggles with what he needs to do to fill it. So here we go, here is a problem for which a solution must be found. Feminism shouldn’t be about antagonism between men and women, but unfortunately that’s how things have evolved and certain subsets of women are playing dodgeball with certain subsets of men. Men aren’t just thrown into the world as babies with a hunger for domination - those are learned behaviours, just as women with questionable morals are taught too. But of course a lot of men feel they need to keep quiet because this privilege is their birthright and because they’re men they’ve forfeited any shot at an opinion! At least that’s how it appears to me.

I’ve encountered all manner of people in my life, and let me reiterate something that I think we’ve heard lots. No matter what political orientation a person has, no matter how “cool” they are, to decide if they’re worth having around you must look at the way they treat people, because that’ll illuminate what they really think life should be made of. I’ve met people who consider themselves “radical social justice warriors” and “progressive”, but they’re rude, unkind, and worst of all, they lack humility. Many of them are filled with hate too. And while it is obvious that we need to recalibrate ourselves socially (hence this post), oppression comes in forms that many progressives are totally oblivious to, often because they are “worldly” individuals who come from middle-class backgrounds. 

Oppression is not just about the colour of someone’s skin or sexuality. For crying out loud, a person who is too tall or too short can technically be oppressed too, if they find themselves in a situation that wasn’t constructed with their literal point of view in mind!  I would define oppression as “a relationship between a person and their environment, whereby the environment is constructed in such a way that does not allow for the free and comfortable movement and expression of that individual.” So oppression isn’t static, and if we were to continue thinking of it as static, we’d still be running into problems trying to figure out what the hell to do about it.

Now, you may be asking why I’m talking about radical politics in a post that is focused on relationships. I’ve been around people who were socially disenfranchised. Not since I got ‘woke’, but when I was a child. There’s nothing less motivating or less empowering than the feeling that no one listens to your voice and you haven’t got anyone to translate for you, or to amplify your voice through a friggin’ megaphone. The people in those positions are usually poor, but they’re still trying to live their lives with the goal to at least sometimes feel happy. If that means shopping at big bad Walmart, then so be it. There is no “organizational”, or mobilizing potential there. It is by virtue of that fact that they continue to be in the positions they are in! They have few friends. They are avoided. They are forgotten. You don’t act like a good person because if you don’t you’re going to Hell. You act like a good person because you can’t stand the thought of someone else’s loneliness, pain, and the thought that real love might be completely absent from their lives. And to think that you have caused another’s pain, that is hell in itself. Sometimes I think about those people and I get sad, but what comforts me is the beatitude, “The meek will inherit the Earth.” That one always stuck with me.

Another thing. I’ve come into contact with people who have anarchistic sentiments, and frankly I sympathize with them. They do see how messed up this world has become and some feel desperate enough that they think we’d all be in a better position if we didn’t have capitalism’s puppets signing on the dotted lines. However, I don’t think it’s practical to raze the organizational components of society to the ground. Not only because the sheer amount of infrastructure we’ve built, but because things are so convoluted that people would enter a state of psychological shock! And while some shock is good, too much is debilitating. So with that understanding in mind, any criticisms I have, I offer from a dialectical perspective.

Karl Marx kind of used dialectics in his theories, and what the word basically means is that you’ve got something called a ‘thesis’ and something called an ‘antithesis’, with the antithesis usually being a response to the thesis, and they are always in opposition in some way. If you get lucky, you can meld the two together to generate a ‘synthesis’. This process can go on indefinitely, but the premise is that you can use the tools you’ve already got (and we have MANY, both technological and conceptual) to create something new... and possibly something better. People are angry all over the place (obviously - look how long this post is) and for good reason, but we really need to rethink how we channel that anger. I believe we all agree in one way though: just cut the shit.

Evil is a supernatural thing that preys on you and intentionally toys with the way you see yourself, and the way you see other people. It performs a rape of the soul. It creeps so slyly it can literally be staring you in the face and you don’t even notice it. It’s not like the ‘bad guys’ you see in Hollywood, where it’s blatant about its evilness. What’s so shockingly messed up about it is that it can totally disorient you. It sends you spiralling, shoves you into insanity, makes you distrustful, suspicious. It isolates you. It can cause you to value things you shouldn’t, and it devalues what’s already good. 

I know, because it’s happened to me.

Black Seminoles Native Americans

Black Seminoles, Maroons and Freedom Seekers in Florida, Part 1: Early Freedom Seekers in Florida Long before Florida was a U. S. state, it was home to diverse freedom seekers who found refuge from slavery, established thriving communities and prospered on Florida's frontier. Part 1 of this series looks at Florida's earliest African Ancestored inhabitants and how they lived their lives. Florida's Native Inhabitants Florida' original inhabitants were southeastern Native Americans who had occupied the land for many generations. These were the native populations that European explorers such as Panfilo de Narvaez and Hernando De Soto encountered when they made landfall on the Florida peninsula and set out to explore the interior of North America. As Europeans sought to colonize the New World, southeastern North America became a contested area for Spain, England and France. After 1776, the United States also joined the colonial struggle for control of the southeast. The Florida peninsula in particular was much sought after by imperials who hoped to control the rich and strategic shipping routes in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico (Milanich 1995). Image: Black Seminole Subchief Gopher John With Kind Permission of the Florida State Archives Online

The arrival of European explorers and conquistadors in the mid sixteenth century marked the beginning of a drastic population decline that characterized European contact and colonialism in North America. During the First Spanish Period (before 1763) the Spanish Crown had a tenuous hold on her La Florida colony, and could never invest the money or military resources needed to defend the colony. Instead, the Crown relied upon a system of mission settlements designed to Christianize the native inhabitants and create a population buffer along the borders of the Spanish frontier (Mahon and Weisman 1996). Florida’s native populations, who came into extensive contact with early explorers and Spanish colonials, were severely impacted by the Spanish presence and were nearly extinct by the year 1700. The Spanish sought to repopulate the La Florida colony by welcoming Native Americans and African Ancestored people from other parts of southeastern North America who would pledge their allegiance to Spain (Mahon and Weisman 1996). Early Freedom Seekers in Florida As early as 1687, the Spanish government had unofficially offered asylum to British slaves, in an attempt to break Britain’s economic stronghold in the borderlands around Spanish Florida. In 1693 that asylum was made official when the Spanish crown offered limited freedom to any slave escaping to Spanish Florida who would accept Catholicism. When the English established the border colony of Georgia in 1733, the Spanish Crown made it known once again that runaways would find freedom in Spanish Florida, in return for Catholic conversion and a term of four years in service to the crown (Riordan 1996:25). Fort Mose: Fortress of Freedom Incoming freedom seekers were recognized as free, mustered into the Spanish militia and placed into service at the Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose military fort north of St. Augustine, which was established in 1783. Their leader, who had fled from slavery in the English Carolina colony, was known to the Spaniards as Francisco Menendez. In 1740, English forces led by James Oglethorpe attacked and destroyed the fort, sending its inhabitants to the refuge of St. Augustine, where they lived until Fort Mose was rebuilt near its old location in 1752. Florida was ceded to the English in 1763 and most of the inhabitants, including many black militia troops, migrated to Cuba with the evacuating Spanish. Other black militia members chose to stay and make their lives in English Florida (Landers 1999; Landers and MacMahon 1995). Africans and Native Americans The incoming English government soon learned that Florida was a magnet to Africans and African Americans in North America who sought freedom from slavery. Once in Florida, freedom seekers encountered the Creek and Seminole Native Americans who had established settlements there at the invitation of the Spanish government. Those who chose to make their lives among the Creeks and Seminoles were welcomed into Native American society. Governor John Moultrie wrote to the English Board of Trade in 1771 that “It has been a practice for a good while past, for negroes to run away from their Masters, and get into the Indian towns, from whence it proved very difficult to get them back.” When British government officials pressured the Seminoles to return runaway slaves, they replied that they had merely given hungry people food, and invited the slaveholders to catch the runaways themselves (Schafer 2001:96). Creek and Seminole “Slaves” Porter (1996) states that during British rule, government officials had presented Creek and Seminole leaders with “King’s gifts” of slaves in return for service to the crown. Some Seminole chiefs also began to buy enslaved Africans at this time; noting the prestige that both the Spanish and English attached to slave ownership. They frequently paid in cattle for such purchases (Simmons 1822:75). By the 1790s, wealth was increasingly determined by slave ownership. By 1793, Alachua leader King Payne, nephew of the Alachua immigrant Cowkeeper, was reported to have owned twenty slaves (Weisman 2000:141). The Seminoles’ concept of slavery was very different than that of the whites. While it is true that the Creeks and Seminoles had taken slaves before blacks came among them in appreciable numbers, these were frequently war captives, who were expected to fill the labor demands of warriors lost in battles. Some were eventually adopted into the tribe, especially if they intermarried with their new captors, which was often encouraged (Covington 1993). Even though early Seminole settlers in Florida are said to have owned “a considerable number of Yamassee slaves” (Covington 1993:13), these were generally well treated, and children born to Seminole Indians and Yamassee captives were not considered slaves (Covington 1993:14). Thus, Seminole society had no cultural antecedent of chattel slavery to govern their relations with their new “possessions.” When the new wave of runaway slaves began to pour into Florida, The Seminoles provided them with tools for building houses and planting crops. Black Seminoles lived apart from their masters in a sort of vassalage, enjoyed great personal freedom, owned property and livestock, and were indebted to their “masters” only for a share of their yearly productions, and for military allegiance. Inhabitants of each town were formally linked by tribute and allegiance obligations to the Seminole village of their master. These Africans, an Indian agent reported, also had “horses, cows and hogs, with which the Indian owner never presumed to meddle” (Klos 1989:59). They were of course required to provide the Seminoles with a portion of the slaughter, but retained for themselves all of their surplus productions from animal husbandry (Porter 1996:5). According to Porter, “It was a mutually beneficial relationship. The ‘owner’ provided protection, and the ‘slave’ paid a modest amount in return. This arrangement was, obviously, quite different from traditional plantation bondage” (Porter 1996:5). Early Black Seminole and Maroon Communities By the time of the Revolutionary War, Florida had been a haven for runaway slaves for more than seventy years. The outbreak of hostilities of the Revolution afforded enslaved persons yet another opportunity to give their masters the slip, and they did so in great numbers. Many of these freedom seekers found shelter among the Seminoles. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, there were already established Black Seminole villages near major Seminole towns with an estimated 430 inhabitants. By the end of the Revolution, hundreds of East Florida plantation slaves were unaccounted for. Some fled to the Seminoles, while others established maroon communities, encountered little colonial government oversight and enjoyed peaceful relations with Seminoles and Black Seminoles (Riordan 1996). By 1800, Black Seminoles and maroons had established several more villages in the area between the Apalachicola River and Tampa Bay (Weisman 2000). Black Seminole Society Mulroy provides us with a comparison of the daily lives of the Seminoles and Black Seminoles: “These maroons lived in much the same way as the Seminoles. They resided in cabins of palmetto planks lashed to upright posts and thatched with leaves. They also dressed like southeastern Indians” (Mulroy 1993:20). Many other aspects of Seminole and Black Seminole existence were the same: “The economic arrangements of the black and Indian towns were similar, being based upon communal agriculture and hunting, the only significant difference being that the Africans apparently were the more successful farmers and owned more property than the Seminoles” (Mulroy 1993:20). While many aspects of the two groups’ daily lives were similar, others were quite distinct. According to Mulroy, “The differences formed the bases of the maroons’ ethnicity and defined them as a people” (Mulroy 1993:22). Although the Black Seminoles quickly mastered the language of their allies, their primary language was a Creole tongue related to Gullah. Religious beliefs and traditions also differed from those of the Seminole and frequently incorporated African, Creole, Spanish, and Indian elements, reflecting the diverse origins and experiences of Black Seminole society members (Mulroy 1993:22). As was Seminole society, Black Seminole society was stratified. Some community members were field hands; others warriors; and still others occupied the high status of “chief negro” or “sense bearer.” The latter were interpreters and even advisors to their Seminole “masters;” chosen because of their knowledge of the language and customs of the whites (Porter 1996:6; Weisman 2000:142). Some of their names survive. Abraham stood in this relationship to Micanopy, Harry to Eneha Micco or Emathloche, John Caesar to King Philip and Whan to King Payne (Brown 1991:39; Simmons 1822:76). The first Black Seminoles were a culturally diverse group of individuals who drew together for a common purpose: to pursue the relative freedom of life among Native Americans over enslavement to the Europeans or Americans. Some had been born in Africa and were first generation former slaves, while others were born into plantation slavery. Some were skilled craftpersons; having been sailors, carpenters, cooks, bakers, shoemakers and other technicians in servitude (Landers 1995). As time passed, others were born among the Seminole or other Indian nations, and followed their customs from birth. Wright describes their manner of dress: “They dressed like natives—in stroud cloth flaps, moccasins, leggings, linen or cotton shirts, knee-length coats, and cloth turbans often adorned with ostrich feathers” (Mulroy 1993; Wright 1986:74). Thus diverse life experiences and cultural traditions contributed to the amalgam that was Black Seminole society. The earliest Black Seminole settlements were near Seminole towns in the north and central peninsula in present-day Alachua, Hernando, Leon and Levy counties (Weisman 1999). Documentary accounts of the earliest Seminole settlements are sparse and rarely mention the names of associated Black Seminole villages or their occupants. It is only after 1812 that Florida’s many Black Seminoles come into historical focus through documentary accounts. Please read the next article in our three part series: Black Seminoles, Maroons and Freedom Seekers in Florida, Part 2: The Beginning of Troubled Times. Part 3 of our three part series: Black Seminoles, Maroons and Freedom Seekers in Florida, Part 3: The Destruction of Angola, chronicles the Coweta raid upon Florida, the destruction of the Angola community, and the aftermath, when many freedom seekers fled to the Bahamas.

Image: Comparison of Seminole/Black Seminole Dress, Adapted from Images Online at the Florida State Archives References Cited Brown, Canter Jr. 1990 The "Sarrazota, or Runaway Negro Plantations": Tampa Bay's First Black Community, 1812-1821. Tampa Bay History 12(2):5-19. 1991 Florida's Peace River Frontier. Orlando: University of Central Florida Press. Covington, James W.1993 The Seminoles of Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Klos, George 1989 Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate. Florida Historical Quarterly 68(1):56-79. Landers, Jane 1995 Slave Resistance on the Southeastern Frontier: Fugitives, Maroons, and Banditti in the Age of Revolutions. El Escribiano 32:12-49. 1999 Black Society in Spanish Florida. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Landers, Jane and Darcie MacMahon 1995 Fort Mose: Colonial America's Black Fortress of Freedom. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Mahon, John K. 1985 History of the Second Seminole War. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Mahon, John K., and Brent R. Weisman 1996 Florida's Seminole and Miccosukee Peoples. In The New History of Florida. M. Gannon, ed. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Milanich, Jerald T. 1995 Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Mulroy, Kevin 1993 Freedom on the Border: The Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas. Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University Press. Porter, Kenneth Wiggins 1996 The Black Seminoles: History of a Freedom-Seeking People. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida. Riordan, Patrick 1996 Finding Freedom in Florida: Native Peoples, African Americans, and Colonists, 1670-1816. Florida Historical Quarterly 75(1):25-44. Schafer, Daniel L. 2001 St. Augustine's British Years. El Escribiano (The Journal of the St. Augustine Historical Society)38. Simmons, William H. 1822 Notices of East Florida, With an Account of the Seminole Nation of Indians. Charleston. Weisman, Brent R. 1999 Unconquered People: Florida's Seminole and Miccosukee Indians. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. 2000 The Plantation System of the Florida Seminole Indians and Black Seminoles During the Colonial Era. In Colonial Plantations and Economy in Florida. J. Landers, ed. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Wright, J. Leitch, Jr. 1986 Creeks & Seminoles: The Destruction and Regeneration of the Muscogulge People. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. This article may be printed and freely shared for nonprofit purposes, as long as this notice and citation appear with the article: This article was prepared for The USF Africana Heritage Project (www.africanaheritage.com) by Toni Carrier. Citation: Carrier, Toni 2005 "Black Seminoles, Maroons and Freedom Seekers in Florida, Part 1: Early Freedom Seekers in Florida." The USF Africana Heritage Project, http://www.africanaheritage.com

Mistress Anna Chapter 15

Rating: M

Summary: It wasn’t uncommon for the women to be eventually cast aside, Anna was just naive enough to believe it would never happen to her.

Relationships: Anna/Kristoff 

Words: 4365

Canadian Frontier Au

Masterlist 

AO3

Bulda insists that Anna, Eliza and Elsa join her family for dinner the night they return to Ahothallan. Despite the journey home took three days, and the fatigue everyone felt, the older woman and her eldest daughter practically burst with excitement when the Arneson sisters arrive at the cabin.

The women stand outside around a makeshift table, cutting vegetables for dinner while the children around them chased one another. The men and Elsa went to sit by the river, lazily fishing and drinking whiskey together, away from the noise.

Anna has Eliza perched on her hip while carefully peeling the potatoes with a small knife. Her feet begin to hurt as she stands, shifting on her legs to ease the tension building in them.

"Anna," Bulda calls, looking up at the woman across from her. "You look, tired dear, why don't you take a rest."

Grateful at the older woman's offer, Anna places the potato on the table, stepping away from the surface with a smile. Anna carries Eliza out to the field next to Bulda and Cliff's cottage, desperately wanting to find solace amongst the chaos. She settles in the prairie grass and foxtails, plucking the latter from the ground.

Her daughter sits on her lap, cooing as Anna brushes a foxtail against her cheeks. The young woman giggles as Eliza clumsily grabs the plant.

"Do you like that?" Anna asks, quickly stopping Eliza from putting the foxtail in her mouth. "Trust me, darling, you do not want to do that."

The little girl whines as Anna pulls it away from her mouth, being quickly sated when her mother hands the plant back to her. With a smile, Anna brushes an auburn curl away from Eliza's forehead, watching her little girl play with the plant's bristles.

"Do you mind if I join you?" The voice behind her causes the young woman to jump in surprise. Looking over her shoulder, Anna sees her sister standing behind her. Elsa's hands are tucked into her trousers, and the sleeves of her shirt are rolled up as she stares down at her younger sister.

"Of course," Anna responds, cursing to herself as she confuses herself with her wording. "I-I mean you can join me if you want to."

Elsa politely smiles as she kneels across from her. While the brunette settles, Eliza drops the foxtail, reaching out for her auntie instead. Without any hesitation, Anna hands Elsa the toddler. The older sister accepts the toddler with a grin, holding Eliza to make her stand on her legs.

"Taanishi shakihew." Elsa says, pressing a kiss to Eliza's chubby cheek. Anna feels a twinge in her chest as Elsa speaks to her daughter in Michif, realizing she can't understand most of the words her sister speaks.

The language she had once spoken fluently slowly faded from her memory as English took its place in Ahtohallan as more English traders came through. Hans had always discouraged her from speaking what little Michif she knew to Eliza. He'd always scold her, stating that if she were to speak another language, it should be French. Her time in Arendelle had caused further declined her ability to speak it, now only left with fragments the language her mother once spoke.

Anna's gaze remains focused on Eliza, who giggles as Elsa settles the little girl on her lap. She opens her mouth briefly, trying to speak to her sister, but no words come out, glancing back down at the ground to avoid eye contact with the woman seated across from her.

"I'm surprised Bulda has this much energy after such a long journey." Anna finally comments, unable to fathom the silence between them any longer.

Elsa hums in agreement, biting her lip nervously as she stares at her sister. "and what is that amazing smell?"

Both women inhale deeply, taking in the scent that carries through the field before both of them smile at one another.

"Bannock!" They exclaim, giggling at their synchronized response. Bulda's fried bread had always been their favorite as children. Her face hurts as she grins widely, unable to contain her excitement that they were speaking as they once had.

Elsa peers at her sister, her smile dropping as she regards her. She sighs, adjusting Eliza in her lap as Honeymaren's words echo in her head. Elsa had to make things right between them.

"Anna, the other night at Kai and Gerda's home…" She trails off, unsure what to say to her sister.

The auburn-haired woman stares at Elsa, her eyes searching her sister’s expression, knowing she struggles with what to say. "It's okay, you were right. I was reckless, and I should've stayed at home, as you said."

"What I said to you wasn't right." Elsa looks down at her hands, feeling ashamed of her behavior towards her little sister, the very person she should be looking out for, not ostracising her. "It was cruel and unwarranted and…I am sorry for how I've treated you and everything I have said to you."

On reflex, Anna reaches out, placing her hand on Elsa's. "Believe it or not, you've treated me better than most did in Arendelle."

"That doesn't matter." Elsa shakes her head, removing her hand from Anna’s grasp. "Mama would have been appalled with me and the way I've treated you."

A small smile comes to Anna's face as she thinks back to their mother. "She would've done that thing where she spoke too fast in Michif; you couldn't understand her."

"Then swats at you with whatever she was holding." Elsa's mouth curves up slightly; her gaze still focused on the small girl on her lap. "It used to terrify me when she did that."

"Me too." Anna agrees, still staring at her sister, whose smile has fallen once again, clearly thinking about their mother.

"She would have dealt with all of this much better than I have." The older sister states, knowing that Iduna would have welcomed Anna back into their home with open arms and would helped her readjust to their society.

Anna shrugs, "You've been doing the best you can manage. I know it's a lot with both Eliza and me. I've always have been a handful."

Elsa wills herself to look her younger sister, her sky blues eyes brimming with unshed tears. "That doesn't change anything. You and Eliza belong here in Ahtohallan; mother would have wanted you here with us."

"And you?" Anna inquires, her brows knitting together as she averts her sister's gaze. Elsa sighs, bringing concern to Anna. Elsa may have said that she belongs, but it didn't mean that her older sister wanted her there.

"Of course, I do." Elsa nods, finally reaching out to her sister to place her hand over Anna's. "Do you want to stay with me?"

"You're my sister." She replies, a small smile coming to her face as she squeezes Elsa’s hand slightly. "I love you."

The tears that brim Elsa's eyes finally fall down her cheek; she quickly wipes them away with the palm of her hand. She clears her throat, staring up at the sky to stop the tears. At the sight of her sister crying, Anna finds tears forming in her eyes.

"Don't cry." Elsa croaks. "If you cry, then I'll cry harder, and Bulda will know then we’ll have to talk about it."

"I don't understand how that woman knows these things." Anna giggles, wiping her eyes with the corner of her sleeve.

"Me either." Elsa chuckles, her tears finally stopping. Both of the women sigh, calming down from the various emotions they are going through. "We should be getting back."

Anna nods, blinking away the rest of her tears as she stands from the ground. She takes Eliza from her sister so the brunette can rise from the field with ease. As Elsa stands from the ground, she takes her niece back into her arms, wanting to hold her namesake as much as possible. She had missed so much in Eliza's life; she isn't going to miss anymore.

As the two women walk back towards the cabin, Anna suppresses the urge to take her sister's arm in her own; not wanting to overstep her boundaries. Bulda looks on as the two women walk back onto the property, grinning as she stares at the sisters.

"You two made it back in time.” Bulda greets the sisters with a smile, turning to the older one.  “Elsa, would you go get the men and tell them supper is ready? That is if they are sober enough to walk back here."

"Of course." Elsa politely smiles, handing Eliza to Marguerite before withdrawing from the women, making her way to the riverbank to collect the men.

"Anna, would you be a dear and grab Kristoff's knife from his bag? It seems like Cliff took mine to the river to gut the fish."

"Of course, where is his bag?"

"It's in the house; it'll be on the old bed," Bulda states, placing down the last plate in her hand. Anna nods in response, walking into the house without another word. As she passes the threshold of the cabin, a familiar smell overtakes Anna's senses.

The small cabin smells like cedarwood, overwhelmingly so causing her eyes to tear up at the scent. Looking around the small room, Anna sees the only bed tucked away in the corner of the room beside a small writing desk where a ratted bag lies.

The young woman makes her way to the writing desk, assuming the bag is Kristoff's. She feels self-conscious as she opens the bag, feeling uncomfortable with going through Kristoff's things without his permission.

Anna doesn't look in the bag, instead of letting her fingers brush against the various items, trying to locate the knife. She stops as her fingers brush something soft, woollen in texture. Furrowing her brows, Anna grabs the soft item, bringing it to the surface to get a better look at the object.

Her heart pounds as she sees an arrowed sash; the blue, black, red and white yarn interwoven; small yellow flowers beaded close to the fringe. She immediately recognizes it, though some of the colours have faded, and a few small beads have fallen off. Anna's hands tremble as she holds the garment.

A sash for my Kristoff.

That's what she had told Hans in what seemed like an eternity ago. Brushing her thumb over the beads, a small smile comes to her face. Nostalgia hitting her as she thinks back to that time when everything had been more uncomplicated in her life.  

Anna looks over her shoulder as she hears footsteps in the cabin. Kristoff stands behind her, hands tucked into his pockets, his eyes focused on the sash in her hands. She turns to face him, her fingers still brushing over the garment.

"You kept it." She states, her voice hoarse as her gaze remains fixated on him.

He clears his throat, rubbing the back of his neck. "Y-yeah, I did."

"Why?" Anna remains unblinking as she waits for his answer. Kristoff looks down at his shoes, then finally looks up to meet her gaze.

"Why wouldn't I?" He sighs. Anna stares back down at the sash, the corner of her mouth quirking up as she recalls the painstaking effort she put into making this gift.

"I'm just surprised." She clears her throat. "You typically lose every sash given to you."

"Yeah…well, this one is different."

"How so?" Anna knows she is pressing buttons, but she doesn't care. The need to understand why Kristoff kept the sash she made him, bothering her to no end.

"Because…" He trails off with a huff. Anna stares at him, still unblinking as he thinks about his next words. Her heart races as she waits for his answer. He doesn't talk, instead  peering down at her as if she already knew the answer.

Anna nods, placing the sash behind her on the writing desk. "Yo-your mother needs a knife. I was searching for it, but now you're here, so…you can bring it to her."

She slips past Kristoff, her shoulder brushing his bicep as she walks towards the cottage's door.

Everyone is crowded around the table as she steps out of the cottage, Eliza settled upon Marguerite's lap as Sven tickles her feet. Bulda carries around her youngest grandchild, while Louise trails after Angelique. Cliff and Gabriel sit at the end of the table, arguing over politics while the Olaf and Guillaume chase one another, weaving through the maze of adults.

Elsa looks up to her sister from beside Marguerite, a reassuring smile coming to her face. Anna descends from the porch, coming to stand beside Bulda.

"I couldn't find Kristoff's knife," Anna states, placing a hand on the older woman's shoulder. "He's looking for it now."

"Thank you for looking, dear." Bulda looks up from the table, scanning the area. "Why don't you go sit beside Sven, that way you are closer to Eliza."

Anna nods, withdrawing from the woman to sit next to the Newfoundlander. He turns to her with a smile.

"You're not getting your child back." He jokes, nudging Anna's shoulder as she sits down. She giggles at his words, watching as Eliza buries her head into the crook of Marguerite's arm as if she was trying to hide from Sven.

She watches as Kristoff emerges from the house, the knife in his hands as he approaches his mother. He hands the knife to Bulda with a smile, the older woman places her hand on his neck, causing him to bend slightly so she can press a kiss to his cheek.

Anna feels self-conscious as Bulda points at her, unable but to feel as if she has done something wrong. Kristoff nods before stalking away from his mother, coming to sit in the empty seat next to her.

She looks down at her lap to avoid eye-contact with him, her chest constricting at how close they were seated as their shoulders nearly touch one another. Eliza's squeals tears Anna's gaze away from the purple of her skirt, instead of looking towards her daughter.

The little girl reaches forward towards her, leaning forward on Marguerite's lap. The adults laugh at the toddler's reaction.

"Looks like you were wrong." Marguerite teases Sven, handing Eliza over to Sven, who then hands her to Anna. Eliza stands on Anna's lap, being held up by her armpits.

"Hello, my darling." Anna coos, pressing a kiss to her daughter's chubby cheek. Her brows knit together as Eliza tries to turn away from her. Eliza's arms are still outstretched to her side, reaching to the man seated next to her.

Kristoff watches the little girl with a smile, pinching her nose between his thumb and forefinger lightly, emitting a loud shriek from Eliza. Anna smiles as she watches her childhood friend interact with her daughter, her gaze fixated on the way Kristoff grins while he plays with Eliza.

"Here, Anna, I'll take her." He offers, glancing up at Anna briefly before focusing his attention back on the toddler.

"Are you certain? She's not the easiest to handle at mealtime."

"Of course, I'm certain," Kristoff reassures her. "Come here, moon face." He picks Eliza up from her mothers' lap to settle her on his own. Anna can't help but smile at the nickname Kristoff had called her daughter.

"Moonface?" She questions, raising her brows in response. Kristoff chuckles as Eliza buries her hands into his beard.

"Yeah…well…because she has really round cheeks, her face looks like a moon." He replies. Anna stares at him, noticing the blush that spreads up his neck. Bringing her gaze forward, she sees Bulda staring at the three of them, a smile spreading across her face as she watches them interact with one another.

Anna stares back down at her lap, avoiding eye contact with the other woman who continues to stare at the couple knowingly. In the corner of her eye, she catches the smile Kristoff flashes her before turning his attention back to Eliza. A small smile crossing her features as her daughter giggles loudly.

Anna had been putting this off for months now. When she first arrived in Ahtohallan, she couldn't bear the thought of visiting without the support of Elsa, but now everything is changing between them, ever since their conversation nearly a week ago.

She dresses in the green dress Iduna had made for her two years ago, the last time her father would visit them as a family. As she finishes buttoning the back of her dress, Anna makes her way to the armoire. She stands in front of the open doors, grabbing a lilac dress for Eliza, who sits happily on the bed.

"Alright, sweetheart." Anna coos as she approaches her daughter, pushing away Eliza's chubby arms as she attempts to undress her from the nightgown. The woman throws her daughter's nightgown towards the pillows before slipping the dress over Eliza's head, careful not to be too rough when putting her arms through the sleeves.  

"There we are!" She exclaims, picking the toddler up from the bed. As they walk towards the cabin door, Anna straightens out the skirt of Eliza's dress; covering her daughter’s bottom before leaving the house.

She squints as they step through the threshold of the cottage; the sun already high and hot in the sky. Anna steps off the porch, searching the property for any evidence to see if Elsa is still on the lot. The tracks of her sister’s boots in the dirt, which lead away from the house, give the young woman an indication that Elsa has already left for the day. With a sigh, Anna makes her way towards the road, disappointed that her sister isn't with her.

It isn't going to be easy.

Her heartbeat hammers in her ears as she approaches closer to the place; she shakes with anxiety with every step. Anna holds Eliza close to her, the presence of her daughter bringing some comfort to the young mother.

Anna stops as she approaches the church, the high wooden steeple looming over her as she stares at it. Stepping onto the wooden pathway, Anna lets out a shaky breath trying to steady her shaking hands, so she doesn't drop Eliza.

She steps off of the pathway onto the grass halfway to the church building. The high and unkempt grass tickles her legs as she walks through the bush as they approach the gated off section. Anna shifts Eliza on her hip as she slowly pushes the iron gate open, leaving it unlatched as she walks through the rows of crosses.

Her eyes scan each name inscribed on the white wooden crosses as she passes each one, stopping as she finally comes across the name. Anna kneels in front of the cross, placing Eliza on her lap as she numbly stares at it:

Iduna Josette Baptiste 1811-1852

Anna doesn't say anything; the only noises are the birds chirping, and Eliza's babbles as she plays with the foxtails growing near her Noohkoom's grave. A smile crosses her features as Eliza wobbly stands up, putting her hands against the wood.

She moves closer to the cross, placing a hand on her daughter’s back. "Yeah, honey, that's your Noohkoom." She pulls Eliza back onto her lap, resting her cheek against her daughter's head.

Her eyes begin to flutter as tears start to form, thinking about how her daughter would never meet her grandmother. Tears spill over as she begins to reflect that she'll never hear or speak to her own mother ever again. Anna had always assumed as a child and young woman, that Iduna would be there helping her with motherhood, but she isn't.

She hadn't even been able to mourn her properly; Hans had disallowed her to attend the funeral to mourn with her sister and her community. He had forbidden her from cutting her hair after the burial, stating it would take away from her femininity.

Staring at the grave, Anna notices how the white paint of the cross is already chipping away from the wood. Anna collects Eliza into her arms as she stands from the grass, unbothered by the burrs that stick to the fabric.

Reluctantly she turns away from the cross, stepping through the brush to make her way back to the road. Anna looks back to her mother's cross as she closes the iron gate. Her hand drags against the cold metal as she pulls away from the cemetery, tears still pooling in her eyes as she walks down the road back to their home.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, Anna stares into the darkroom of the cabin. She looks over her shoulder to ensure Eliza still slept soundly beside her, nestled between two pillows. Carefully Anna rises from the bed cautious not to disturb her sleeping daughter.

She shivers as she walks towards the table, the cold floor sending chills into her body with every step. Anna sits at the surface, frustration bubbling up inside of her due to her inability to sleep. She knows she has been blessed with a child who, for the most part, sleeps soundly throughout the night; yet it evades her.

As Anna taps her fingers against the pinewood, her forefinger brushes against a cold metal object, pulling the young woman out of her thoughts. On instinct, Anna pulls her hand away before she hesitantly reaches out to the object. It’s Elsa’s knife, the curve and point of the steel and carved handle unmistakable in her hands. Anna traces her fingers against the indentations of the handle, staring down at the item.

Standing from the table, Anna looks over her shoulder to confirm that Eliza is still sleeping. She quietly pads across the room, knife still in hand as she makes her way towards the front door. As she opens the door, Anna winces as it creaks loudly on its hinge. She quickly slips through the doorway, gently shutting it, trying not to make any more noise.

Anna settles herself on the porch, her feet dangling off the side as she ignores the shiver that pulses through her body. Much to her relief, the moon provides enough light for her to complete the task ahead of her; she had forgotten a lamp inside and knows she won’t carry through with this if she returns inside.

The ribbon that secures her loose braid falls away as Anna tugs on it. She brushes her fingers through her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders.

She hadn’t cut it since she was a child when her Noohkoom passed, she was nine-years-old. Now her hair nearly touches her waist, something which always irritated her as a teen. She hated the way it tangled and collected various bits of nature; leaves were commonly found in her curls at bedtime.

Recalling Iduna patiently brushing sap out of her daughter’s hair, telling her and Elsa that their hair is a connection to their culture and heritage, only to be cut when someone in the community passes or when they have experienced significant loss.

It wasn’t until Arendelle did Anna learn to love her hair; Hans had always called it her greatest beauty. She always savoured the way Hans would run his fingers through it when he made love to her, how he used to tell her that it made her seem more ladylike; despite her unladylike disposition.

Her face drops as she thinks about all of the compliments he used to give her, knowing he most likely has used them with her; that he whispers the same sweet words he once whispered to Anna, how he places his lips against the shell of her ear to whisper them as his forefinger brushes against her shoulder before lowering her onto their bed to take her.

She had experienced loss since leaving for Arendelle. Anna had lost her mother to disease before the birth of her daughter. She had lost her language, her identity and her culture; everything her hair is supposed to symbolize. She had lost the man she loved.

Without any thought, she grabs the ends of her hair, striking at it with the knife. A few pieces fall to the porch, pooling on her thighs as she cuts away at it. Her focus intensifying, wanting it gone so desperately she doesn’t hear the door open.

“Anna?” Elsa’s voice rings throughout the darkness. Looking at her younger sister, the ends of her hair jagged and strewn about the porch. Elsa takes a step closer to Anna, offering her a small smile. “Would you help with that?”

The auburn-haired woman nods, feeling like a child as Elsa kneels behind her. Elsa’s hand is outstretched, requesting the knife still in Anna’s hand. Anna relinquishes the blade over to her sister, placing her hands on her thighs, jumping slightly as Elsa brushes the hair back to collect it.

Anna draws her knees up to her chest, sitting still as possible while Elsa cuts away at the past. Neither of them speak, the older sister focusing on the hair falling away while the younger stares out into the night.

“Here.” Elsa finally says, holding out the auburn tresses over Anna’s shoulder. With her opposite hand, Anna takes the hair, bundling the strands with the ribbon. Reaching behind her back, Anna feels her hair has been cut to the middle of her shoulder blades.

“Thank you.” She says, tears pooling in her eyes as she stares at the cut hair. On instinct, Anna leans back, resting against her sister. Elsa’s hand hovers over Anna, surprised at the affectionate gesture. With a smile Elsa crosses her arm over Anna’s chest, resting her chin on her sister’s shoulder.

“Do you think she’s really up there?” Anna asks, breaking the silence between the two of them. Elsa sighs, a tear slipping down her cheek as she ponders about their mother’s spirit.

“I do.” She croaks, trying to hide her tears. Anna places her hand over her sister’s, relaxing in her embrace as they sit together looking up at the sky, tears pooling in both of their eyes as they reflect on the past. Both of them vowing to move forward to heal and to help one another, no matter what happened now.

Notes: 

So yeah, in many Indigenous cultures hair is seen as sacred due to varying different reasons depending on the tribe/band and traditionally is only cut when someone close has died or they experienced loss.

I'll be completely honest, I tried to find anything on Metis haircutting traditions and didn't really come up with a lot. So I based most of this chapter on Cree views of cutting hair (mostly because the girls have Cree ancestry). One article I found was on the cutting of hair at Residential schools for Metis children, so that gave me the impression that they hold it in the same regard. But I apologize if that's not actually the case.

THANKS TO LIV!!! FOR BEING SO WONDERFUL AND SMART. Helping me with wording for this chapter and teaching me English rules, it's very appreciated and ilysm!

The Declaration Of The Independence Of Cyberspace

- John Perry Barlow, Feb 8th 1996

“Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear.

Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders. Do not think that you can build it, as though it were a public construction project. You cannot. It is an act of nature and it grows itself through our collective actions.

You have not engaged in our great and gathering conversation, nor did you create the wealth of our marketplaces. You do not know our culture, our ethics, or the unwritten codes that already provide our society more order than could be obtained by any of your impositions.

You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve. You use this claim as an excuse to invade our precincts. Many of these problems don't exist. Where there are real conflicts, where there are wrongs, we will identify them and address them by our means. We are forming our own Social Contract. This governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live.

We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge. Our identities may be distributed across many of your jurisdictions. The only law that all our constituent cultures would generally recognize is the Golden Rule. We hope we will be able to build our particular solutions on that basis. But we cannot accept the solutions you are attempting to impose.

In the United States, you have today created a law, the Telecommunications Reform Act, which repudiates your own Constitution and insults the dreams of Jefferson, Washington, Mill, Madison, DeToqueville, and Brandeis. These dreams must now be born anew in us.

You are terrified of your own children, since they are natives in a world where you will always be immigrants. Because you fear them, you entrust your bureaucracies with the parental responsibilities you are too cowardly to confront yourselves. In our world, all the sentiments and expressions of humanity, from the debasing to the angelic, are parts of a seamless whole, the global conversation of bits. We cannot separate the air that chokes from the air upon which wings beat.

In China, Germany, France, Russia, Singapore, Italy and the United States, you are trying to ward off the virus of liberty by erecting guard posts at the frontiers of Cyberspace. These may keep out the contagion for a small time, but they will not work in a world that will soon be blanketed in bit-bearing media.

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.

We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.”

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A Gentle Introduction to Computer Vision

Computer Vision, often abbreviated as CV, is defined as a field of study that seeks to develop techniques to help computers “see” and understand the content of digital images such as photographs and videos.

The problem of computer vision appears simple because it is trivially solved by people, even very young children. Nevertheless, it largely remains an unsolved problem based both on the limited understanding of biological vision and because of the complexity of vision perception in a dynamic and nearly infinitely varying physical world.

In this post, you will discover a gentle introduction to the field of computer vision.

After reading this post, you will know:

The goal of the field of computer vision and its distinctness from image processing.

What makes the problem of computer vision challenging.

Typical problems or tasks pursued in computer vision.

Let’s get started.

A Gentle Introduction to Computer Vision Photo by Axel Kristinsson, some rights reserved.

Overview

This tutorial is divided into four parts; they are:

Desire for Computers to See

What Is Computer Vision

Challenge of Computer Vision

Tasks in Computer Vision

Desire for Computers to See

We are awash in images.

Smartphones have cameras, and taking a photo or video and sharing it has never been easier, resulting in the incredible growth of modern social networks like Instagram.

YouTube might be the second largest search engine and hundreds of hours of video are uploaded every minute and billions of videos are watched every day.

The internet is comprised of text and images. It is relatively straightforward to index and search text, but in order to index and search images, algorithms need to know what the images contain. For the longest time, the content of images and video has remained opaque, best described using the meta descriptions provided by the person that uploaded them.

To get the most out of image data, we need computers to “see” an image and understand the content.

This is a trivial problem for a human, even young children.

A person can describe the content of a photograph they have seen once.

A person can summarize a video that they have only seen once.

A person can recognize a face that they have only seen once before.

We require at least the same capabilities from computers in order to unlock our images and videos.

What Is Computer Vision?

Computer vision is a field of study focused on the problem of helping computers to see.

At an abstract level, the goal of computer vision problems is to use the observed image data to infer something about the world.

— Page 83, Computer Vision: Models, Learning, and Inference, 2012.

It is a multidisciplinary field that could broadly be called a subfield of artificial intelligence and machine learning, which may involve the use of specialized methods and make use of general learning algorithms.

Overview of the Relationship of Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision

As a multidisciplinary area of study, it can look messy, with techniques borrowed and reused from a range of disparate engineering and computer science fields.

One particular problem in vision may be easily addressed with a hand-crafted statistical method, whereas another may require a large and complex ensemble of generalized machine learning algorithms.

Computer vision as a field is an intellectual frontier. Like any frontier, it is exciting and disorganized, and there is often no reliable authority to appeal to. Many useful ideas have no theoretical grounding, and some theories are useless in practice; developed areas are widely scattered, and often one looks completely inaccessible from the other.

— Page xvii, Computer Vision: A Modern Approach, 2002.

The goal of computer vision is to understand the content of digital images. Typically, this involves developing methods that attempt to reproduce the capability of human vision.

Understanding the content of digital images may involve extracting a description from the image, which may be an object, a text description, a three-dimensional model, and so on.

Computer vision is the automated extraction of information from images. Information can mean anything from 3D models, camera position, object detection and recognition to grouping and searching image content.

— Page ix, Programming Computer Vision with Python, 2012.

Computer Vision and Image Processing

Computer vision is distinct from image processing.

Image processing is the process of creating a new image from an existing image, typically simplifying or enhancing the content in some way. It is a type of digital signal processing and is not concerned with understanding the content of an image.

A given computer vision system may require image processing to be applied to raw input, e.g. pre-processing images.

Examples of image processing include:

Normalizing photometric properties of the image, such as brightness or color.

Cropping the bounds of the image, such as centering an object in a photograph.

Removing digital noise from an image, such as digital artifacts from low light levels.

Challenge of Computer Vision

Helping computers to see turns out to be very hard.

The goal of computer vision is to extract useful information from images. This has proved a surprisingly challenging task; it has occupied thousands of intelligent and creative minds over the last four decades, and despite this we are still far from being able to build a general-purpose “seeing machine.”

— Page 16, Computer Vision: Models, Learning, and Inference, 2012.

Computer vision seems easy, perhaps because it is so effortless for humans.

Initially, it was believed to be a trivially simple problem that could be solved by a student connecting a camera to a computer. After decades of research, “computer vision” remains unsolved, at least in terms of meeting the capabilities of human vision.

Making a computer see was something that leading experts in the field of Artificial Intelligence thought to be at the level of difficulty of a summer student’s project back in the sixties. Forty years later the task is still unsolved and seems formidable.

— Page xi, Multiple View Geometry in Computer Vision, 2004.

One reason is that we don’t have a strong grasp of how human vision works.

Studying biological vision requires an understanding of the perception organs like the eyes, as well as the interpretation of the perception within the brain. Much progress has been made, both in charting the process and in terms of discovering the tricks and shortcuts used by the system, although like any study that involves the brain, there is a long way to go.

Perceptual psychologists have spent decades trying to understand how the visual system works and, even though they can devise optical illusions to tease apart some of its principles, a complete solution to this puzzle remains elusive

— Page 3, Computer Vision: Algorithms and Applications, 2010.

Another reason why it is such a challenging problem is because of the complexity inherent in the visual world.

A given object may be seen from any orientation, in any lighting conditions, with any type of occlusion from other objects, and so on. A true vision system must be able to “see” in any of an infinite number of scenes and still extract something meaningful.

Computers work well for tightly constrained problems, not open unbounded problems like visual perception.

Tasks in Computer Vision

Nevertheless, there has been progress in the field, especially in recent years with commodity systems for optical character recognition and face detection in cameras and smartphones.

Computer vision is at an extraordinary point in its development. The subject itself has been around since the 1960s, but only recently has it been possible to build useful computer systems using ideas from computer vision.

— Page xviii, Computer Vision: A Modern Approach, 2002.

The 2010 textbook on computer vision titled “Computer Vision: Algorithms and Applications” provides a list of some high-level problems where we have seen success with computer vision.

Optical character recognition (OCR)

Machine inspection

Retail (e.g. automated checkouts)

3D model building (photogrammetry)

Medical imaging

Automotive safety

Match move (e.g. merging CGI with live actors in movies)

Motion capture (mocap)

Surveillance

Fingerprint recognition and biometrics

It is a broad area of study with many specialized tasks and techniques, as well as specializations to target application domains.

Computer vision has a wide variety of applications, both old (e.g., mobile robot navigation, industrial inspection, and military intelligence) and new (e.g., human computer interaction, image retrieval in digital libraries, medical image analysis, and the realistic rendering of synthetic scenes in computer graphics).

— Page xvii, Computer Vision: A Modern Approach, 2002.

It may be helpful to zoom in on some of the more simpler computer vision tasks that you are likely to encounter or be interested in solving given the vast number of publicly available digital photographs and videos available.

Many popular computer vision applications involve trying to recognize things in photographs; for example:

Object Classification: What broad category of object is in this photograph?

Object Identification: Which type of a given object is in this photograph?

Object Verification: Is the object in the photograph?

Object Detection: Where are the objects in the photograph?

Object Landmark Detection: What are the key points for the object in the photograph?

Object Segmentation: What pixels belong to the object in the image?

Object Recognition: What objects are in this photograph and where are they?

Other common examples are related to information retrieval; for example: finding images like an image or images that contain an object.

Further Reading

This section provides more resources on the topic if you are looking to go deeper.

Books

Computer Vision: Models, Learning, and Inference, 2012.

Programming Computer Vision with Python, 2012.

Multiple View Geometry in Computer Vision, 2004.

Computer Vision: Algorithms and Applications, 2010.

Computer Vision: A Modern Approach, 2002.

Articles

Computer vision, Wikipedia.

Machine vision, Wikipedia.

Digital image processing, Wikipedia.

Summary

In this post, you discovered a gentle introduction to the field of computer vision.

Specifically, you learned:

The goal of the field of computer vision and its distinctness from image processing.

What makes the problem of computer vision challenging.

Typical problems or tasks pursued in computer vision.

Do you have any questions? Ask your questions in the comments below and I will do my best to answer.

The post A Gentle Introduction to Computer Vision appeared first on Machine Learning Mastery.

Machine Learning Mastery published first on Machine Learning Mastery

The secret sauce that’s made Montreal a global hot spot for making video games

Budge Studios Inc. has spent the better part of a decade making video game apps for kids, banking on its in-house abilities and relationships with the owners of popular children’s content such as Thomas & Friends, Barbie and My Little Pony to compete in a hotly contested industry.

But its recent launch of Transformers: Bumblebee Overdrive, a game that is tied to Hollywood hit Bumblebee and available on the Apple App Store, shows the studio is proving its tricks are more than just for kids by ramping up operations and broadening its focus with a game designed to appeal to players of all ages.

A key to both its past and future growth and success, the company’s founders say, is its location: Montreal, a global hot spot for making video games because of provincial tax incentives for the industry and an education system that churns out ready-to-play talent.

Aside from Budge, the city is home to giants such as Ubisoft Entertainment SA, Warner Brothers Interactive and Eidos, the studio behind the Tomb Raiser games. Teams from Montreal have even won the Entertainment Software Association of Canada’s annual Student Video Game Competition in each of the past two years.

Read our entire Innovation Nation series

Intellectual property may be a state of mind, but Canada’s mind is not on the game

Canada’s deeper dive into the oceans aims to tap industry’s uncharted frontier

Sitting nicely between those two extremes, Budge has steadily grown from an initial collaboration in 2010 between its three founders to a current staff of 115. Over the years, the studio has built up a library of nearly 50 apps for kids that have amassed close to half-a-billion downloads globally.

As the studio evolved, it chose to focus on and embrace mobile. For one thing, the company started up when Apple Inc.’s original iPad launched, so its hallmark innovations revolve around developing natural and intuitive ways for young children to use touch screens and motion-based controls. Phones and tablets also provide more flexible publishing and simpler technical transitions compared to other platforms.

Budge co-founder Michael Elman in 2012.

The company also chose to partner with companies such as Mattel Inc. and Hasbro Inc. that own internationally recognized children’s brands, which makes it easier for its products to find audiences in the highly competitive world of mobile apps. Furthermore, it can rely on those deep-pocketed companies’ legal teams to guard against piracy.

Another critical decision was to become its own publisher, which has allowed Budge to develop its brand in such a way that millions of people now recognize and trust it.

Perhaps most importantly, however, it committed to do everything — from art and programming to marketing and analytics — in-house, which the founders knew would be best served by setting up and staying in Montreal.

“We always knew we wanted to be in Montreal,” said David Lipes, one of the studio’s co-founders. “We’ve seen a lot of momentum in our space here over the last 20 years. Being in Montreal meant we would have the expertise we needed at our fingertips.”

Quebec — particularly Montreal — is the beating heart of the Canadian gaming industry, which is the world’s third largest, behind only the U.S. and Japan.

Canada has about 600 active studios that collectively employ nearly 22,000 full-time workers, adding $3.7 billion to GDP each year, according to the Entertainment Software Association of Canada (ESAC). Nearly half of those employees work in Quebec.

A big reason for that concentration is the Quebec government’s decision to grow the video-game industry as part of its economic development strategy.

“The momentum from the 1997 decision to introduce a tax incentive for the video-game industry continues more than 20 years later, spinning off talent into other sectors like AI, VFX and simulation firms,” said Jayson Hilchie, ESAC’s chief executive. “The mix of government support, world-class talent and a culture of creativity make Quebec, and Montreal specifically, the perfect environment for a video-game industry to thrive.”

Lipes said the tax incentives — including a credit for a percentage of eligible employee salaries — that lure game companies from around the world to set up shop locally are working, and the province’s “current status and recognition on the world stage is proof positive of that.”

Adds Budge co-founder Michael Elman, “I look around the world at other cities and companies that aren’t in our position, and I imagine they need to lobby their governments to create the sort of ecosystem we have.”

Part of that ecosystem is education: schools in both Montreal and the province have technical programs that churn out more skilled workers for the industry every year.

“If you don’t have the talent, it doesn’t matter how many tax credits you get,” Elman said. “You need to have people who are passionate and skilled in games and technology. There’s a tremendous amount of young people coming out of the school systems that we hire. They’re hungry, and skilled and knowledgeable in the latest technologies.”

But even with an annual wave of new expert workers and a community of studios famously cooperative and supportive of each other, the competition for talent can be fierce.

For instance, the annual Montreal Game Summit is a conference where game designers and innovators gather to share their ideas and innovations as well as their stories of success and failure with one another. But landing the very best talent can turn otherwise friendly companies into rivals in an industry where the average salary is more than $77,000.

Indeed, Lipes said, human resources has been the company’s biggest challenge as it grows.

“There’s a lot of competition. Finding talent and putting the right people in place is always a challenge,” he said. “We have a great HR team that draws locally, but we’ve also brought in employees from across Canada to join us.”

Another big key behind Budge’s growth was partnering with the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), which has backed its vision since the very start and helped it plan for — and succeed in achieving — profitability almost since day one.

“BDC was an early supporter of what we were trying to do here,” Lipes said. “They take a very entrepreneurial approach to supporting businesses. They really want to see innovative Canadian businesses grow and become strong.”

The next phase of Budge’s growth focuses on its action games division, Budge Games. Over the past couple of years it has hired 25 new people to fill technically specialized roles in the development of Transformers: Bumblebee Overdrive, the division’s first game.

Despite being based on a kids’ toy, the game is geared for players of all ages. It contains a strong dose of action — including frenetic racing and intense battles — that sets it apart from Budge’s games designed with younger kids in mind.

Both Lipes and Elman believe this is the perfect time to broaden their company’s demographic to include older players. Kids who have been playing Budge games from an early age are now ready for more sophisticated games, and their parents — many of whom also play games on their mobile devices — have come to trust the brand through the apps their kids have played.

“We want to grow our company with our audience,” Elman said. “A lot of these kids are older now, and we want to widen our demographic to include them. We want to make games the whole family can play together.”

Also acting in their favour is that long-time partner Hasbro came to them a couple of years ago with the idea of making an action-oriented game based on the movie Bumblebee, which hit theatres just before Christmas. It was the perfect IP for Budge to leverage while making its transition.

“Transformers fans are young and old,” Elman said. “It’s for everyone. It’s perfect for us to line up with. It meant we could create a game for the whole family. It meant we could grow our company. We’re all gamers, and it’s exciting now to take home games not just for our families, but also that we want to play.”

And it all began with the founders’ initial and, it turns out, essential decision to set up shop in a city with all the resources necessary to get started and keep growing.

“Montreal is just a great place to start a company making games,” Elman said.

Financial Post

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