dynamicafrica:

“If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.”

“Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself.”

“We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n’ani ji onwe ya: “He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.”

“When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.”

“When the British came to Igbo land, for instance, at the beginning of the 20th century, and defeated the men in pitched battles in different places, and set up their administrations, the men surrendered. And it was the women who led the first revolt.”

“When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.”

“While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.”

“It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.”

“I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past - with all its imperfections - was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them”

“That we are surrounded by deep mysteries is known to all but the incurably ignorant.”

RIP Chinua Achebe.

(via holaafrica)

thisiswhitehistory:

Day 8 of White History Month: The Construction of Whiteness

White supremacy does not exist or persist because whites foolishly fear people with a different skin color. it survives and thrives because whiteness delivers unfair gains and unjust enrichments to people who participate in and profit from the existence of a racial cartel that skews opportunities and life chances for their own benefit. it externalizes the worst social conditions onto communities of color and provides whites with a floor below which they cannot fall. - George Lipsitz, The Posessive Investment in Whiteness

You are likely aware that race is socially constructed. Whiteness, too, is a social construction. Whiteness is not an accident, nor an innocuous creation. It was initially created and still exists today to justify a racial order in which those considered white are at the top, and people of color are at the bottom. Whiteness is normalized, thus it generally goes unnoticed.

Whiteness is not just about skin color (those considered white are not literally white, just as those considered Black are not literally black), but also about investment, interests, and attitudes - it is a form of social capital rather than a static concept. Investing in whiteness meant the construction of white supremacy and as an extension, privilege simply for being white. The construction of whiteness prevented white Americans from fighting for more and seeking out solidarity with people of color along other lines, such as class. Today, whiteness still obscures many white people’s best interests.

Indentured servants were differentiated from Black slaves through the construction of whiteness. While indentured servants were never treated as poorly as Black slaves, white indentured servants and Black slaves initially worked alongside each other, lived in similar conditions, and had sexual relations with one another. Black slaves were eventually considered to be  lifelong slaves, while white indentured servants were only temporarily servants. Black people were considered natural slaves, bound to slavery by their Blackness, while white indentured servants had whiteness extended to them. 

For centuries, slave holding and land owning white men benefited the most from slavery, theft of land, and the general oppression of Black and Native Americans. Despite this, whiteness gave poor whites a reason to trust and buy into the system of whiteness. Buying into whiteness meant a guarantee that someone else was always below you. Buying into whiteness also meant patriarchal protection for white women.

Whiteness was mandatory for citizenship in the United States. Non-European immigrants went to court to try to have the racial group they belong to considered white. Immigrants quickly learned upon arrival in the United States that whiteness was also necessary for success (which is another post in itself). These immigrants had to work towards being considered white.

There were tangible benefits to be found in whiteness. Jim Crow laws and intimidation largely restricted the rights and movement of people of color. Segregation meant that those considered white had access to all public spaces, and particularly the best spaces available. This meant widespread access to public facilities, better schools, universities, and more. The GI Bill and Social Security Act initially excluded many Black Americans, yet they greatly benefited the white working and middle class. Restrictive covenants excluded people of color, yet they included even later European immigrants and granted them access to the best neighborhoods.

Political Scientist Andrew Hacker asked his students how much money it would take to go from being white to being Black. Most students put a dollar amount of $50 million (or $1 million per year of their life). Whiteness is an enormous enough investment that a cash value can be ascribed to it.

Benefits conferred by whiteness have affected what resources people of color have had access to and have resulted in widespread wealth disaccumulation (and subsequent accumulation of wealth for white Americans). Even today, due to a centuries-old construction, these privileges exist (see: white privilege). 

(via witchsistah)

circusbones:

blacknoonajade:

karkles-the-adorabloodthirsty:

sonofbaldwin:

I got dressed in my traditional Indian regalia, but there was a man, he was the producer of the whole show. He took that speech away from me and he warned me very sternly. “I’ll give you 60 seconds or less. And if you go over that 60 seconds, I’ll have you arrested. I’ll have you put in handcuffs.”

- Sacheen Littlefeather in Reel Injun (2009), dir. Neil Diamond.

They were MAD, CONFUSED AND PRESSED that Marlon Brando would betray White Supremacy in this way.

To this very day, they are TWISTED over this.

And when Littlefeather got up there and READ THEM FOR FILTH, they GAGGED. For eons.

So I imagine there are people like me out there who’ve never even heard of Marlon Brando and are extremely confused over why this is important.

Marlon Brando was the Don in The Godfather, and in 1973, he was nominated for and won an Academy Award for it. However, he was also a huge Natives rights activist, and boycotted the ceremony because he felt that Hollywood’s depictions of Native Americans in the media led to the Wounded Knee Incident (which I was always taught as “the second massacre at Wounded Knee” but apparently that’s not the real name). He sent Sacheen Littlefeather, an Apache Native rights activist, in his stead. Wikipedia’s article on her explains the rest:

Brando had written a 15-page speech for Littlefeather to give at the ceremony, but when the producer met her backstage he threatened to physically remove her or have her arrested if she spoke on stage for more than 60 seconds.^[5] Her on-stage comments were therefore improvised. She then went backstage and read the entire speech to the press. In his autobiography My Word is My Bond, Roger Moore (who presented the award) claims he took the Oscar home with him and kept it in his possession until it was collected by an armed guard sent by the Academy.

That is what this gifset is about.

You have GOT to read up on this. The Wounded Knee Incident, Marlon Brando and Sacheen Littlefeather, Anna Mae Aquash. ALL OF IT. 

Her name was known in my house, I hope it’s known in many, many more in the future.

(Source: feu-follet, via tranzfat)

(Source: tgirlsdaily, via tranzfat)

fantasyofcolor:

Desert Steampunk 1 by ~WhiteWing-Stock-EtAl

Would you be surprised if I told you that, according to the Bechdel Test website, only 5 of IMDB’s Top 250 passed all three Bechdel criteria in 2010? Are we really asking too much of the film industry to include two women, who talk to eachother, about something besides a man? Surely this is the bare minimum of female representation we should expect from films. Women populate more than half of the world and yet we are still so often consigned to being the ‘love interest’ whose lives centre wholly around the male protagonist even to the point where the majority of mainstream films in our cinemas seem to find it impossible, in their entire run-time, to imagine a world in which a woman conducts a conversation that is not about a man.

(via racebending)

apihtawikosisan:

From the Alaska Native Knowledge Network (ANKN), this graphic is an excellent way to clarify for people that culture is much more than food, dress, music and dancing. Something that should be obvious, but is often overlooked, particularly when discussing ‘the other’.

http://ankn.uaf.edu/

(via beyondvictoriana)

mydarkenedeyes:

Aleksandr Kuskov - Time Machine (2012)

(via bookshop)

blackhistoryalbum:

FLY GIRL
African American aviatrix Bessie Coleman (1892 - 1926).

(via shadesoffantasy)

(Source: happinessisreality, via beutifulmagazine)

sosuperawesome:

Life of Pi on DeviantART (click pictures for links)

divineblu:

Bata Children’s first communion

Source: (divineblu.tumblr.com)