Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !
I still haven't made it to Black history. I'm close! But I'm still on white US history. It's everywhere!
Q: Why does it seem like Black folk don't contribute much to society or science or history? Most inventions are from Europeans? Why does it seem this way? Don't cancel me!
A: Racism. The lie of white supremacy requires that we pretend that white men are the only people that ever invented anything or contributed to society.
1/N
(Image: nedroid.com)
Instead of just listing a bunch of Black accomplishments to try to counter that lie, I want us to look at the language that US folk use to describe discoveries or inventions. It's dripping with racism and white centering.
Non-white people are invisible. They don't even count. When we say "discovered," we really mean discovered "for white people." This is baked into our language.
This "I only see white people" impacts people of all other races, but anti-Black racism is most egregious.
If you ask a US citizen who discovered America, they will instantly respond "Columbus!" Others might argue Cabot or Vespucci. I don't know how to tell you this, but you can't say you "discovered a land" that already had people waving at you from the shore when you got there.🤡
The conversation breaks down into a pedantic discussion about the words "discovery," and "America."
You get a different answer to this question if you ask Native American people.
If you ask many folk in the US what the population of North America was in 1650, they will start counting up colonists. They have to be reminded that there were *millions* of native Americans living in North America.
They know that indigenous people were here! They just didn't realize that they mattered.
The conversation soon devolves into a pedantic discussion around the word "America."
Some of my white US friends worry about the day when white folk will no longer be the majority. But if you count African slaves, Native Americans, Mexicans, and Asian immigrants, how many years was it even true that white folk were the majority here?
Most US folk haven't even thought to ask themselves this question, let alone answer it. 🤷🏿♂️
If you ask people who invented vaccination and when, US medical pros will tell you "Edward Jenner!" If you ask them why it's called vaccination, they'll tell you "variolae vaccinae" (smallpox of the cow). Vaccinae basically means "of the cow" In Latin. Cow in Spanish, is Vaca. In French, Vache.
Then ask them how the earliest smallpox vaccines worked. They know. Introducing weakened variolae through the skin, rather than through the lungs. Ask them if African doctors had done this. They say yes.
Africans had been doing variolation for hundreds of years before "vaccination." Asians too.
The medical professionals know this! But they'll say, "That doesn't count!" It devolves into a pedantic discussion about the definition of vaccine vs innoculation, and attenuated virus, and cowpox vs smallpox.
If you ask, "who invented small pox innoculation," You get a different answer if you ask Nigerian or Ghanaian or Chinese doctors.
If you ask mathematicians who discovered a² +b² = c², they'll yell "Pythagoras!"
Then ask the mathematicians if Pythagoras ever traveled to another country to take a geometry class. They'll tell you yeah, he studied abroad in Egypt, and like, majored in triangles.
Egyptians had known about right triangles for thousands of years. Then ask the mathematicians if Babylonians knew about right triangles. They'll tell you, also yes.
Babylonians had clay tablets where they stored commonly useful right triangle side lengths, like (1, 1, √2), and (3,4,5). Egyptian builders even had circular ropes with 12 evenly spaced knots tied in it, so they could measure 3,4,5 triangles.
The conversation breaks down into a pedantic definition of the word "theorem," and if the Egyptians or Babylonians ever wrote it down the way that we are expecting to see it.
The discovery didn't count until Pythagoras wrote it.
Professional mathematicians genuinely convinced themselves that Babylonians and Egyptians did know that the hypotenuse of that triangle was the square root of 2, but because they didn't find a specific clay tablet or papyrus with the theorem, that they didn't really understand the relationship.🙂🙃
That would be like a future anthropologists finding a 5ft tape measure at a Philadelphia construction site, and concluding that 2023 humans could only count up to 60 inches. 🤡
If you ask psychologists who invented the "Hierarchy of Needs," they'll yell "Maslow!" If you ask them to define his theory, they tell you, "Each person has a hierarchy of needs that must be met!" Then ask if he ever studied Native American culture, they'll tell you "Yes! Blackfoot Indians!" Then ask if their culture had a theory of hierarchy of needs. They say yes. They know.
But Maslow changed the hierarchy up a lil bit (AKA, made it worse), before passing it off as his own.
If you ask people if we can reverse some of climate change by planting trees, many will tell you "No! Planting at scale doesn't work! Monoculture! Fires take all the carbon back!" Then ask them if Native Americans planted forests. They say yes. Then ask if these forests lasted more than a few years. Again, yes.
For some, the accomplishment of planting massive forests, won't count until white folk do it, even though indigenous people have been doing it for millennia.
We haven't even gotten to the intentional erasure of non-white contributions, from 1800s phrenologists justifying slavery, all the way to present day DeSantis.
The lie of white supremacy requires the elevation and celebration of white contributions, and the minimizing of everyone else's.
This is the environment in which we pretend that white Europeans and white Americans contributed the most to society.
It's a lie because everyone has contributed to technology and society. Everyone. ♥️👍🏿
Even today, I hear people say that (white) Americans innovate and make quality products, but (Asian) Chinese and Indians copy and make cheap knock-offs.🤦🏿♂️
People literally type this into their Samsung Galaxies and iPhones, knowing full well where those devices are made, and knowing what the demographics of the "American" tech companies that produce Apple, Microsoft, and Google products look like.
I've literally had to tell people "Bro, you know like 9 PMs at Apple! What race are they?"
This is the "default white" background framing in which people try (unsuccessfully) to share Black accomplishments in science, technology, and society.
For me to say that my dad is a heart transplant surgeon, feels like a magical Black accomplishment. But the first successful open heart surgery was done by a Black doctor. And the first c-sections where mothers consistently survived were done by Black doctors.
I reject the entire premise of some Black folk being medical geniuses, as surprising.
What I find more surprising, is the way that we casually accept the nonsense that passes for history the other 11 months, as "real history."
It's a fiction written by racist people centuries ago up till today, that doesn't stand up to the slightest poke of scrutiny.
The vast majority of white folk don't want the fake history. They want the real history. ♥️👍🏿
But what I don't understand, is why we all keep letting that tiny fraction of the worst, most racist people, write the history books?
@ToddVierling @ericmacknight @mekkaokereke And we’re watching the process in real time this year, with the College Board caving in to Florida’s demands to remove all consideration of systemic racism from the AP African American history course.
As in literally removing the word “systemic” everywhere it occurred in their materials, in addition to eliminating Black Lives Matter and intersectionality from the core curriculum.
Not subtle.
@mekkaokereke too fucking right we want the real history. UK televised history shows of the last few years have been so much better than the stuff I grew up watching. You can tell that from the sheer number of headlines in our worst papers decrying the “woke BBC”.
There’s a long long way to go, but it’s heartening to see black stories on my screen, not as part of a special black history strand, but because there they are in our history, getting on with their lives.
@mekkaokereke yes it’s the money and how white supremacy is tied up with capitalism. And people don’t know what they don’t know. When they do know, they do appreciate the truth if they are not too bound up in their truth being tied to White nationalism.
Thanks so much for the great work you do in this! I know how much energy it takes!
@gnarlygeek As you see from the interactions between the College Board and deSantis, it's not just up to the publishers. The publishers have to sell books to school boards. School boards in Texas and Florida have long known that this is a key leverage point that they can use to promote racism.
Folks that understand white US history, understand why far-right groups show up at polling stations, public health hearings, and school board meetings. These are key leverage points for systemic racism.
@mekkaokereke I've been trying to correct this on Issuepedia, but so far all I've had time to do is collect a bunch of notes.
I need a vacation from my life so I can get some work done... 
@Aviva_Gary Yeah, the "racist as hell" is the interesting part. You'll see from the replies to this thread, that more people feel happiness, wonder, and connection at learning about the non-European contributions. Very few people feel less happy to know the source of these things. It's not zero sum.
The only people that want it to be taught the racist way, are the racists.
Fixing this requires us understanding the systemic leverage points that racists use to hide this history.
@Savera @Aviva_Gary @mekkaokereke Look up "Senegal River" in the time frame between ... I want to say 10th to 14th centuries? ... and see what that tells you.
If tens of thousands of iron smelters isn't "industry" and if that amount of iron production doesn't count as "revolutionary" then words don't mean fuck all.
@mekkaokereke @Aviva_Gary If you want some fun, ask the mathematically inclined who invented Pascal's Triangle.
Then lean back and watch as they incorrect each other.
real history is in history books
text books provide the national myth
I didn't get real history until university, and that wasn't even in the US. That's also where they taught me the rules above
@mekkaokereke even the "all human impact on nature is bad impact", is a facette of white supremacy (maybe with a minus in front of it to make it negative like negative numbers in algebra).
Completely ignoring the fact that people on this planet manage ecosystems in a beneficial way. all that is being teached in schools is the white exploitatory way - either you comply or fight it.
white people think fence and fertilizer when it comes to food and that is so limiting. (even the greenest)
@mekkaokereke If I'm being honest, I have used this type of appeal before, but not in the "Look, see, black people are capable, too" sort of way.
It was more in the "What the hell are you smoking, there are so many examples of black people who are just as smart or smarter than their white colleagues, gtfo with that racist garbage" kind of way.
Case in point, I don't think anyone should be surprised that you're a Googler. "Wow, a black Googler" is such a shitty mindset.
@mekkaokereke What I'm _trying_ to say is that I'm so sick of hearing "Look, see, a smart black person" as if it's some rare sight.
There are as many smart black people as smart asian, white, brown, or <INSERT COLOR HERE> people, and I wish things weren't framed differently.
It's _almost_ like the color of one's skin has no bearing on how smart they are or can be. Crazy thought, eh?
Could you share a date and what the procedure was, please?
"the first successful open heart surgery was done by a Black doctor. "
I'm always a bit wary of "open heart surgery". Was it the heart that was open, or the chest,
Soutar's finger mitral valve dilatation in 1925 was given to us as the first, but he was at the place I trained. Someone had sutured a wounded heart earlier I believe.
Difficult to have people survive without anaesthesia and fluids.
@midgephoto @mekkaokereke Google is your friend.
https://columbiasurgery.org/news/daniel-hale-williams-and-first-successful-heart-surgery
https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/02/16/the-legacy-of-dr-daniel-hale-williams-a-heart-surgery-pioneer
https://www.biography.com/history-culture/daniel-hale-williams-first-open-heart-surgery-story
@mekkaokereke like about how cesarean sections were a common practice in Uganda when an "explorer" first observed them...
@rebeccafinn @mekkaokereke the point this article makes about imperialism relates in an interest way to this toot from upthread: https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/109926767007332595
It’s not just the “discovered it for white people” factor it’s the “discovered it for white empires” factor. Nobody talks about Leif Erikson even though he beat Columbus by 500 years because his expedition doesn’t led support for imperial territorial claims.
If you ask a US citizen who discovered America, they will instantly respond "Columbus!" Others might argue Cabot or Vespucci. I don't know how to tell you this, but you can't say you "discovered a land" that already had people waving at you from the shore when you got there.🤡 The conversation breaks down into a pedantic discussion about the words "discovery," and "America." You get a different answer to this question if you ask Native American people.
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