It needs a bit of shading or crosshatch after 1865.
4 Likes
The timeline is missing the gap where racism was gone until Obama brought it back!
/s
6 Likes
The last secttion could have a title like, “Systemic Racism and Targeted Violence Outside (Yeah, but Still Very Often Inside) of Federally Mandated Spaces”.
3 Likes
And where’s the Starbucks line?
5 Likes
Ended? It never ended.
Even a right-wing source agrees:
17 Likes
Reminds me: I was angry with my father for a long time, for (not horrific, but still unpleasant) stuff. When I finally (in my 30s) expressed this to him, he went straight from sullen resentment to telling me I had to get over it. In order, you know, to get on with my life.
It’s not that he was wrong, exactly, it was that it wasn’t his to say.
Now I’m older and have a nuanced view of his and my life. Also, he’s been dead for ten years, which gives me room to have perspective and find pity and forgiveness.
[I admit this parallel is limited…]
3 Likes
Yes, it does seem limited. Are you saying black people should finally find it in their hearts to forgive white people? If so, that’s very much beside the point (at best).
2 Likes
Good point. There’s another related topic to this that adds a (horrendous) color. In a recent “Revisionist History” podcast by Malcolm Gladwell, he goes over how, before school desegregation, black schools had black teachers. After, when the staff should have been blended, all the black teachers were let go for, often, obviously trumped-up reasons. The white administrators would not tolerate a black teacher disciplining or “ordering around” a white child.
This created a foundation in the desegregated schools for constant and systemic bias against the black children, which led to lower performance.
Horrible.
6 Likes
It’s notable that the third segment of the timeline is unlabelled. I propose:
“slavery” | “segregation” | “discrimination”
One day we might be able to add a fourth segment, labelled “Black Lives Matter”.
5 Likes
I never bought the “post racial” claim. I think we can claim post-X when someone is elected and we don’t give a damn about X.
Except for our presidents not wearing powdered wigs or top hats, I can’t think of much we have put behind us. It’s interesting to think about how we are more likely to elect a black woman than ever elect a powdered wig wearing dude again.
https://demographics.coopercenter.org/racial-dot-map/
See any major city (Chicago is particularly striking) for proof segregation lives on. The same can be seen for wealth:
1 Like
I don’t think Orangemen particularly object to being called orangemen… I thought it was Scottish though? They have orangemen too of course.
But the Scots hate him too.
4 Likes
bell hooks has written about this, probably in Teaching to transgress but my old sponge brain can’t be sure.
2 Likes
I wish I lived in a world where I just reply to this kind of statement with that study showing that even in Sweden, which has a lot less racial and ethnic diversity and a lot more redistribution of income than the US, the effects of inherited wealth and privilege are clearly visible after more than three centuries.
http://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/The%20Son%20Also%20Rises/Sweden%202014.pdf
1 Like
Which is why all of those libertarian fever dreams are simply that: dreams. Wealth inequality is like a fungus–the bits you can see are just the protrusions above the surface which obscure the massive organism underneath. The “roots” are deep and wide, and guarantee that the world will continue to be rigged against those not born fortunate enough to be wealthy for the foreseeable future.
The world has been structured to benefit the few at the expense of the many, and inherited wealth has been a major driving force. The US has a history of brutal oppression of minorities, slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, the several times that the country has just decided that all the Mexican people have to go “home,” including that one time they invited a bunch of Mexican laborers up to help fuel the American war effort in WWII, only to later round them up and kick them out under probably the most racist-named initiative of the last 100 years.
The list of ways the US has directly and intentionally interfered with the lives of non-whites, but especially African Americans and Native Americans is so long and so horrible that it’s difficult to really take in. For a place that calls itself the “good guys” and thumps the podium about freedom and equality, there sure seems to be an awful lot of slavery and genocide in their still-quite-recent history.
I’m not that old, mid-30s, and I can remember klan rallies happening in my very northern state when I was a kid. Racism isn’t over, at best, we’re currently in the passing lane trying with very limited success to get around it.
14 Likes
*blinks*
Yeah, I’m not seeing the parallel at all. I grew up with abusive parents that I’d estranged myself from for about a decade, and with whom I’ve only recently resumed somewhat normal ties to. That uneasy truce is mainly enabled by the fact that there’s literally nothing they can do to hurt me at this point. If they start backsliding into their own ways, I can (and do) simply excuse myself and leave. (Remarkably effective, it deprives them of the opportunity to engage in those knock-down drag-out screaming matches which they so dearly love.)
I was going to make some absurd, forced comparison to highlight the absurdity of the pbasch’s comment, but I guess I just don’t feel like trying to be funny to make a point when I can simply point to the fact that white police officers unduly harass, arrest, and murder African American people on a regular basis and face zero consequences. There’s no similarity. There’s no “letting go.” The only way to fix the problem permanently is to rectify the GARGANTUAN inequality and unfairness that African Americans in particular, but minorities in general face in the US.
4 Likes
There’s a lot of back-and-forth right now about the specifics of the timeline. I actually spoke with the creators and they mentioned that if you follow the link and scroll past the pictures there’s more explanation about the dates chosen, and the reasoning behind it. The idea isn’t so much to be a microscopically accurate representation of African American history in the US, but meant to give the bare essential information to show, in a simple graph, that no slavery was not “so long ago”. The accompanying text answers a lot of the questions going on here right now.
Transcript:
"But Slavery Was So Long Ago…
Where did the idea come from?
We were commissioned to create a piece of art that gives an account of America’s history of slavery, originally as a tattoo to go around someone’s wrist. This graphic tattoo is a timeline that highlights key points in Slavery of the African Diaspora in America. A timeline that is too very often dismissed and disregarded.
What does “But Slavery was So Long Ago” mean?
We’ve heard this quote over and over throughout the course of modern American history. In an attempt to urge Black people to “move on” and to recognize just how good they have it in America, this dismissive and tone-deaf statement attempts to transform relatively recent history into ancient history or myth.
However, when looking at this graphic, it is very clear that American slavery and segregation was not so long ago. In fact, it is still possible to have conversations with many African Americans who have vivid memories of Jim Crow South and the racist and subversive practices in the North.
America cannot escape its past. This country’s history is stained with the blood of thousands and its foundation built on the backs of enslaved men, women and children. America’s complete history cannot be told without including the horrors of slavery and its long-lasting effects.
The enslavement of African peoples by Europeans began in 1441 with Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal. However, because this tattoo is specific to the enslavement of the African Diaspora in America and because it includes American segregation, we felt that it did not make sense to include a full timeline of the entire diaspora.
For this graphic tattoo, here’s what we included:
1619: Arrival of “20 and odd” Africans in late August, on an English warship the “White Lion.”
1865: Slavery abolished in the United States of America.
1954: Supreme Court Declares School Segregation Unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education.
Why those dates?
The dates were chosen as landmarks for when the law changed. It’s to serve as a reminder that slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation were all perfectly legal. Just because something is the law does not make it right.
Why did you make this?
We believe that history is important and that all Americans, Black and white, have the responsibility to make sure that history is not forgotten. It’s only by recognizing our past and doing the work to make reparations that we can truly move forward.
Why were these colours chosen?
The colours; Red, Black, Yellow, and Green, are colours used in PanAfrican symbolism and design. As the client is an African American, we wanted to represent that history and culture in the colours themselves as they wrap around the wrist.
There are DOZENS of things that could be added. Because it’s a simple design, there is only so much we can add. But that is exactly why the green area is untitled. Green doesn’t necessarily mean good. The untitled green area recognizes that full equality for African American people still has yet to be fully realized. When it comes down to it, people are STILL fighting for equality; whether it’s for city services, fair treatment by police, education, or wages. Institutional racism is a major problem still and the green portion encompasses that.
To suggest that an entire community of people forget the stain of slavery and its adverse effects is a selfish attempt to absolve this country of its sins. That is why we are happy to create pieces like this graphic tattoo because these pieces help to keep this country accountable for its legacy of slavery. Without looking backward and acknowledging the horrific past, we cannot fully move forward.
It is up to us to determine how the last segment will be remembered."
(Copied without direct permission, I urge the creators to email or PM me if they’d prefer I take it down and replace it with a link. I figured this way people could see the explanation directly from the creators without having to go to another site)
14 Likes
More than you’d think.
12 Likes
I very much appreciate a bright light shone on coerced labor, especially when it is integrated into our institutionally racist law enforcement and carceral systems.
But coerced prison labor and chattel slavery are very different beasts: you cannot rape prisoners and sell the offspring resulting from that violence for profit, for example.
2 Likes
But slavery was so long , ago.
FTFY.
