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    Cardi B's Other ShoeBreanna Edwards
    3/14/17 9:00am

    Okay...now what? It’s kind of annoying that white folks waste all this time conducting studies on shit we been told them.

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      OnyxBlackmanCardi B's Other Shoe
      3/14/17 9:50am

      Now when they ask for proof, we can link them to the study. Then we’ll wait a bit while they find a reason to disagree with it, we’ll scream internally and the eternal dance will continue as always.

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      Sassinak11Cardi B's Other Shoe
      3/14/17 9:52am

      Every little bit of proof adds some credence to the fact that as blacks in the US, we are “handicapped” (we have to play on a daily basis mental (and sometimes physical) gymnastics to be perceived as a”non-threatening” over someone else mental bias).

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    Hoyo AfrikaBreanna Edwards
    3/14/17 12:25pm

    In Natural History, Pliny described the inhabitants of black Africa as such (keep in mind that Europeans derive much of their modern culture from Greco-Roman sources and many of them didn’t even know there was land south of the Sahara until well into the 16th century):

    Included among the inhabitants of the inner Africa, according to Pliny the Elder, were the Trogodytae, who had no voices but made squeaking noises; the Blemmyae, who had no heads and their mouths and eyes attached to their chests; the Himantopodes (Strapfoots) with feet resembling leather thongs, who crawled instead of walking; and noseless and mouthless tribes, who through a single orifice breathed, ate, and drank by means of oat straws.

    Natural History, Book VI, Pliny

    What many white folks will not admit to is that their cultures (from Canada to Argentina to Lebanon to Australia) is that they honestly believed black people to be monsters. I once was told by a professor that Medusa was actually based on African medicine women who had dreadlocks and would often use snakes in their rituals.

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      Psychopomps: Sleep and DeathHoyo Afrika
      3/15/17 7:38am

      The Naturalis Historia is one of my favorite Latin works! It’s boring stylistically but the subject matter is absolutely fascinating, both by itself and in the insight it gives into the how the Romans (or at least, a small subset of society at a single period in time) saw their world.

      I remember there was a book chapter in my university library about the portrayals of Africa and black Africans in Roman art, usually as symbols of exoticism and unbridled male sexuality. It’s interesting (and unfortunate) how far back that tradition goes.

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