[Lace Watkins]

From Jakob Zikusooka.

Lest We Forget: On this day in 1884, 13 European nations shamelessly gathered in Berlin to parcel out the African continent like famished school children (on a school trip) haphazardly dividing up a pizza. Great Britain was represented by Sir Edward Malet (Ambassador to the German Empire). The US, the emerging but reluctant superpower, had a delegate – the explorer Henry Morton Stanley.

In utter disregard and with not a single iota of conscience or concern for the culture or the families of the continent, the map was redrawn and lands claimed. What followed was the systematic scramble and undoing of Africa. Resistance was met with the brutal force of gunpowder. The Herero Massacre was the first genocide of the 20th century: tens of thousands of men, women and children were shot, starved, and tortured to death by German troops as they put down “rebellious” tribes in what is now Namibia. Tens of thousands of defenseless women and children were forced into the Kalahari desert, their wells poisoned and food supplies cut.

In Uganda, the first election fraud (in favor of Apollo Milton Obote) was masterminded by London. The British governor then, Sir Fredrick Crawford, an honest man to a fault, resigned because he was unwilling to be party to this gerrymandering. This has since become the template for regime survival. Congo and many other African nations have never recovered from this trauma that was orchestrated at Bismarck’s official residence on that bleak weekend.

With the emergence of another domineering superpower, may this history not be lost to us.

Discussion

[Christina Sonas]

The pillaging of the African continent starts the supply chain that brings me my fuel, my technology, my fabric, my food. I can’t forget my obligations to the international community of darker-skinned people, to lessen and mitigate the harm they endure as the lowest caste in the global hierarchy. To lessen: to modify my consumption to reduce my harm. To mitigate: to send additional compensation for what I do consume. Always, to work for systemic change that does both as well.

[Leah Gallo]

thank you for reminding and clearly delineating that lessening and mitigating are two separate but complimentary tracks.

[Rebecca McClinton]

Thank you for your reminder that the daily things I use are examples of this ongoing pillage. It’s easy to think ‘that was then there’s nothing I can do about it now’, instead of acknowledging how these are still happening daily and so many of the things I daily take for granted are obtained by similar means.

[Leah Gallo]

(cross posted from website)

I didn’t know about this. I knew Africa had been colonised but not how it was a map that Europe divided up like game chips. Reducing Africa to land rather than people. Land they would greedily colonise and destroy with little thought or care to the people whose land it was. And those ramifications reverberate today, just as slavery and the many policies afterwards that were legalised slavery reverberate in America. And in the white supremacy we all ingest. And yet this history isn’t widely taught, it isn’t well known and the harm – both historical and continued certainly isn’t acknowledged. It’s sometimes overwhelming (to me) the history and behaviors I need to learn and unlearn, but I know overwhelm is just another tool in white supremacy’s tool belt so I continue walking here, North Star Centered.

[Vicki van den Eikhof]

I didn’t know about this, either. What does that say about my education? It could say any number of things, but one thing it says is that no one felt obligated to talk about this. It was easier not to, since it didn’t fit into the narrative they were teaching. It’s easier for WP (and others) to sweep things under the rug than to deal with them on their own terms and change our narrative. I’ve seen the same thing happen in my church, just with different topics (not completely unrelated, though).

[Emily Holzknecht]

The Africa peoples were clearly denied personhood status in this decision-making. Like they were just another feature of the land, another resource to plunder. And now white people want to look at them and use any disfunctionality that we find and blame it on Africans instead of owning up to the effects of European and American-created death, destruction, plundering and artificial separations. Or we want to swoop in as the white savior missionary. Or, most of all, we want to continue our contemporary harmful consumer choices that add contemporary trauma to the generational trauma already there.

I realize that I am not aware enough of what I consume that still equates to a plundering of the African continent. I am aware that coffee and chocolate are examples of this. I buy fair trade chocolate (and have learned to make some things from fair trade baking chocolate that can’t be bought premade fair trade) and my partner drinks fair trade coffee (I don’t drink coffee). Outside of that I lack awareness. And going through web page after web page trying to gain awareness I am seeing that this awareness is going to take work, not just a quick google search.

Even if I knew that I had no ancestors in Europe in or after 1884, as a white person, I have still benefited from white people’s plundering of Africa, from the dehumanization of Africans. And I do know that I had ancestors in Europe in and after 1884 as well as white ancestors elsewhere in the world. There is restitution and reparations to be paid to Africa as well as to Black Americans.

[Vicki van den Eikhof]

Cross-posted from FB:

I’ve noticed that if I’m making decisions that affect others without consulting them, I might be dehumanizing them. I know I’ve done it with my kids. Of course, sometimes, a parent has to make a decision that they feel is in the best interest of the child, no matter how much the child doesn’t like it, but as they grow, I have to give up more and more of that if I want to validate their humanity and see them for who they really are. That’s hard. They aren’t always who I thought they were because I’m carrying an outdated concept of them in my mind. If I can do that to those closest to me, whom I love so fiercely, I can certainly do it to those farther from me. I have certainly done that to Black and Brown people in the past-thinking I knew what was best for them without consulting, trying to control how they used their own resources, etc.

[Julie Helwege]

Cross-posted: I had never heard about this day in 1884. How 13 nations shamelessly gathered to tear countries and families apart. To mass murder an entire continent of people.

My stomach roils as I use my fictive imagination to see men, woman and children shot, starved and poisoned to death. And then I think about Hitler. And then I think about immigrant children in American-made cages.

White people taking what they want without a single iota of conscious or concern. And fast forward to our society today. Is it any different?

Our history as WP is dehumanizing, exploiting and violently annihilating Black and Brown people. Trauma that is unrecoverable.

And we revere and lionize our founding fathers, a Constitution and a government that was created on false pretense – all men weren’t created equally, only white men were.

And our own nation’s history plays out from there. We also used our power and privilege to whitesplain it all away. To make our violent actions and behavior palatable and acceptable. To remain unaffected and indifferent.

And here I am shaking as I write this because I didn’t know. It’s no wonder WP have such dysfunctional relationships with each other.

Money, competition, exploitation and getting ahead at all costs is woven into our way of being and doing. WP contributed to so much death and destruction in our history.

It’s hard to sit with the fact that I am in a majority due to mass exploitation and genocide.

In pivoting to race, I don’t see this work as a choice anymore. It’s an obligation. It’s a must. Black and Brown lives continue to depend on it.

I will lessen and mitigate the harm endured by Black and Brown people perpetuated by me.

I will amplify, stand with, financially contribute, engage with rigor, listen, follow and get out of the way.

I’m facing the truth, no more white washing history; no more excuses or carveouts. No more being unaffected or indifferent.

I cannot and will not be reluctant. I cannot and will not be shameless. I can and will have conscience and concern.

[Rebecca McClinton]

Julie, I like how you point out here the inception of the bad relationships between wp and the exploitation, competition, and money at the root of it. There can be no connecting and no eye to eye when always focusing on right-ness and have/haven’t nots. wp have this constant power over and under stance that is self perpetuating in that quest for more, and I have to address it squarely in my relationships with wp so that it doesn’t then get taken out on my relationships and interactions with people of color.

[Rebecca McClinton]

This is a sickening and disturbing piece of history. From it’s inception, whiteness has been defined by thievery, murder, and violent abuse. Stomping in and destroying other people’s precious spaces, community, and personhood with complete disregard and intentional violence.

Where do I still find that mind state in myself? When I default to old expectations that I should be treated with kid gloves, or that ‘I’m right’. When I don’t slow down and carefully consider the implications of a decision I make on not just me or my household. When I don’t hold my thoughts as captive as I do my words.

This post reminds me of the long, long entrenched history of these behaviors, and reinforces the way I must hold myself in constant accountability, but not just of my own accord or through that of other wp. wp like me will always be pulled to default to those old narratives or let each other (or myself) off the hook. I must continually be seeking out feedback from those who have been most negatively impacted by the behaviors and violence of both myself and my ancestry to guide me and hold me accountable.

(cross posted to facebook)

[Deleted User]

Cross posted from FB

Learned nothing of this in school. And when I consider this is a WHOLE continent big enough to swallow up others, even distorted on the map to be less signifigant. This is deceit amd exploitation on such massive scale.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about this of late, how, where and whom is being exploited along the food and goods chains I access. Being much more concious of what I’m ‘buying into’ as I apply my praxis to all aspects of my life.

[Konstanze Weltersbach]

And the thing is, in school in germany the narrative was „Germany kind of didn’t really profit off colonialism/imperialism, because we had almost no colonies to start with and we had to give them away quickly, right after WW 1.

Even though the conference was held in Germany

That’s how desperately we try to wash our hands clean off our crimes. To this day different groups fight for the recognition of Germany’s part of the genocide, looting, and destruction in Namibia and the other former colonies. The genocide in Namibia+the US Jim Crow laws set the basis for the way Germany executed the holocaust.

(Crossposted from fb)

[Elizabeth (she/her) Wheeler]

It is so wrong that this isn’t taught in schools, the history of harm done to BIPOC just ignored so that we (white people) can pretend that it has nothing to do with us. The impacts of it effect supply chains and exploitation now. I will look more into my consumption. I have made changes to same of the food I buy, buying ethically produced clothes and supporting black owned businesses in the last year or two but there is more I need to do. Changes need to be made on a large scale and I must aid this work however I can.

[Vicki van den Eikhof]

I was not taught this in school, and I’m not surprised. I’m beginning to recognize the white supremacist story: “We are good; what we do is good and for the benefit of the world. To question this is to threaten us, therefore, you must be punished.” Hence why some things get swept under the rug.

I have a FB friend that is so concerned that we are changing history-that we don’t appreciate what the Founding Fathers did in creating the USA; that we are now thinking badly of them and disrespecting their ideals; that this will be the downfall of the nation. (I wonder how they would integrate this little piece of history into that narrative. I doubt they know about it.) It’s hard to change our foundational myths to make them truer, sturdier, and more resilient.

The idea of someone or some group being better than another is just flat-out supremacy. It feels like a slippery snake and I can’t find a hand-hold with which to grab it and fight it. Or it’s like playing whack-a-mole. Just when I think I’ve knocked it down it pops up in a new place or with a new look.

The generational trauma inflicted by these ideas of who is better and who is worse are real and must be healed before I can live in the kind of society I really want.

[Vicki van den Eikhof]

To personalize:

I must play a role in the healing process. Lessening and mitigating harm is my job in healing.

[Rhonda Freeman]

Sitting with this with a sigh. No, I did not learn this in school, but did I basically know it? Yes. That’s the truth I have to face. And when I choose an electric car for the environment it includes components – particularly the battery – that are manufactured in a way that harms black and brown people. My heart and gut says that it is not enough to buy from black and brown businesses as much as possible and buy fair trade. My head says, but what are you willing to give up? The car? The phone? the Ipad? the computer? This is one of my biggest clench areas. I know I have white supremacy in this area – still trying to figure out how to address.

[Rhonda Freeman]

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