1 Rookie, 1 Normal, and 1 Advanced error when studying African History

[videogamestashbox.com]

I didn't make a black history month post this year so I figured I'd bang one out while my food is cooking.​

ROOKIE ERROR: Assuming Linear uniform cultural "Progress"
Assuming because something occurs in one part of the world it automatically occurs elsewhere. It usually takes the form of something like "Where is Africa's version of [insert foreign cultural nugget here]"
Example: Looking for "knights" in Africa because medieval Europeans had them.
(Yes I'm aware of the mounted soldiers with cotton armor and European armor brought into west Africa post Moorish Spain)



NORMAL ERROR: Semantic & Epistemological Traps

Semantic Trap - This is similar to the notion of a thing being "lost/added in translation".
Easy example:
A slave is someone you pay money for and force to work for you under threat of death.
An adoptee is someone you pay money for and lives with you as your biological child would.

Trap = Both the slave and the adoptee are acquired with money so an adoptee is a slave also.

You can't take one element that is the same in both cases and say they are completely the same because one element is the same. The thing is when you use someone else's language to communicate how your culture brakes down reality semantic traps happen all the time. This happens because the translation is built on what word in the target language is "close enough" to the native concept.



Epistemological Trap - This happens when the only way you know to think of/describe a thing is through a given language/worldview.

Trap = Both the slave and the adoptee are acquired with money so an adoptee is a slave also(because I know of no other concept but "slave" to compare "adoptee" to).

Epistemological Traps are easier to dodge though. All you simply need to know are multiple languages/worldviews.





ADVANCED ERROR: Confusing history for politics and / or Confusing politics for history

Confusing politics for history - There is no such thing as "romanticizing history". Take a person or people with a poor diet in need of correction. If I go through African history and various cultures looking for dishes to form the bases of a balanced diet I would be making a political extraction to meet that particular political need.

To say...

• "why are you cherry picking only the good stuff"?
• "Why don't you discus droughts or people drinking cow blood"?
• "You are romanticizing history"!

That kind of sentiment is confusing what is occurring in such a case. I'm not providing a historical recitation on African food ways or some such. I'm meeting a specific political need by extracting useful "cultural ingredients" which allow me to cook up a suitable solution. Put simply I'm not discussing droughts or people drinking cow blood because neither help balance those hypothetical peoples diet(which was the point of the whole endeavor to begin with).


Confusing history for politics - The mere existence of a thing(historically) is not a point of contention. The question is what is our position on those "truths". Like when cacs try and say Africans should accept homosexuality politically because we found some random occurrence(that typically has nothing to do with actual homosexuality) in the historical record. I'm like ....and?. "Historically" I can find damn near anything. "Historically" I can find somebodies mama getting slapped in da face; the question is what do people value. You can't come to me and say politically we should accept murder because we find it in the historical record ...it's someones personal truth.

Politics is the reaction to the existence of things not the acquiescence to those existences. The (political)question is what was/is our desired representation of the African man, woman, child, our elders, and ancestors.




CONCESSION:
In relation to "Confusing politics for history" when people doing political extraction to deal with a modern day political need don't explicitly state they're doing such, it has the potential to confuses the masses. There is nothing wrong with political extraction just be clear about the fact that's what you are doing(lack of clarity is where folks "get in trouble" with accusations of "romanticizing history").

Ok, that's my last minute black history month post.
(back to coli fukkery)​

 

[The Fade]

exactly

africans may not have had lice killing wigs.. but some of these groups had rights for women way before europe did.

they also didnt have trash just sitting on the street like London did

 

[videogamestashbox.com]

exactly

africans may not have had lice killing wigs.. but some of these groups had rights for women way before europe did.

they also didnt have trash just sitting on the street like London did

The lack of a jailing system is one of the things that really intrigued me.
It reminds me of those Continental / Caribbean judges who still ware European wigs in court ....there are somethings we just assume as normal that came from cacs.
The same way they take for granted the normalcy of those wigs is the way we take as normal jailing people.
Which is likely an expansion of the European dungeon system.


From my reading most people either...

• apologized / admit guilt
• paid a fine
• expelled from the village
• work off debt
• out right killed

...the goal seemed to be to reorient people back into society or get them up out the paint, more so than holding people indefinitely.


SIDENOTE:
The craziest story I read about someone being killed was in Ghana (late 1800's - early 1900's).
This young guy professed his "love" for a girl and she wouldn't reciprocate so he killed himself.
The catch was that if you "caused" someones death you were to be killed also. They had this big trail on if the girl should be killed for "causing" the boy to die.
Eventually she was killed. That story sticks out in my head to this day. Would make an interesting movie.

 

[Dr. Hibbert's Revenge]

Great post. You've given me something to think about when I'm studying African history.

 

[videogamestashbox.com]

Great post. You've given me something to think about when I'm studying African history.

Just doing my part sir.
​

Now that I think about it.
As an analogy you can look at those African historical facts you read as "cooking ingredients".
Then look at the error corrections above as the pots and pans(or maybe as the cooking directions) you cook those historical "cooking ingredients" with.

POINT BEING:
The same way people can have perfectly fresh ingredients and fail at cooking is the same way people can have perfectly factual knowledge and fail at thought(for lack of a better word).