Historical Revisionists

[Teddy]

Oh Lord. This is gonna get cringe-worthy.

I knew one that claimed George Washington was black. What the hell? Seriously, there's so much proof against that crap.

 

[Dudeofteenage]

The Olmecs thing has always pissed me off.

I feel slightly charitable towards the whole "The vikings were black" thing because, while it plays merry havoc with history, it does come from an understandable perspective - a perception, basically accurate, that popular history is Eurocentric, and a desire to correct that. It's a stupid attempt, but it is at least going in the right direction.

But when you're claiming that the Olmecs or the Hindu Kush civilisations were actually black, it doesn't even have that defense. Is popular history unjustificably Olmec-centric? Do we hear too much about the superiority of the Hindu Kush over primitive Africans?

 

[autisticdragonkin]

Indus Kush Civilization

On March 3, 2000, historian Runoko Rashidi gave a lecture in Honolulu, Hawaii, about the presence of Black people in ancient and modern India. He stated that the face of India changed around 2000 B.C. when nomadic people Indo-Europeans or Aryans traveled to the Innis Valley and other fertile locations in southern India.

Prior to the invasion, Blacks in India built rich and advanced civilizations. Author Wayne Chandler recanted his amazing discoveries about Blacks in ancient India in his book “African Presence in Early Asia.” The remarkable cities of Harrappa and Mohenjo-daro are only two of the many cities built by Black people. These cities cover large regions of northern India and modern-day Pakistan.

Do they realize that humans have a variety of skin tones independent of ethnicity. Also they seem somewhat racist in their claim that only dark skin makes someone african (as opposed to shared culture)

 

[Dudeofteenage]

Do they realize that humans have a variety of skin tones independent of ethnicity. Also they seem somewhat racist in their claim that only dark skin makes someone african (as opposed to shared culture)

It's kind of amusing to imagine these people going to contemporary India and then coming back and claiming they found a lost tribe of Africans.

 

[autisticdragonkin]

It's kind of amusing to imagine these people going to contemporary India and then coming back and claiming they found a lost tribe of Africans.

My favourite member of a lost tribe of africans

I in my russian descent am also from a lost tribe of africans

 

[Vitriol]

If Persephone was black, either Zeus or Demeter would have to be black. Has to be Demeter, though, because black people are always perfect and so Zeus couldn't be a black racist. /sneed

@vitriol I am curious as to your assessment of medievalpoc, a Tumblr that has been the source of a lot of controversy for their views on race as it applies to history. I'm not a historian, but I've seen a lot of arguing over the accuracy of the blog, with a lot of critics claiming the blog runner clearly has an agenda and a very America-centric view on race. A lot of content on the blog comes off as extremely fishy.

EDIT: sniped by @AveraDiane dang.

I have only glanced through this tumblr very briefly but my immediate reaction was 1. that they mostly share period artwork with poc in it and as you mentioned the very 21st century american attitude to race.

When i was 5 my mother took me to see the national gallery in edinburgh to show me her favourite art pieces (at that point she was a very bored housewife!) I don't remeber much of the visit but i remeber being fascinated by a few period pieces that had small monkeys in the corners or backgrounds. I remember either myself or my sister asking our mother why the monkeys were there and a nearby curator explaining that it was because monkey's were unusual at the time and it was the painter adding some exotic details. To get back on topic i think medievalpoc has a tendency not to appreciate that while there were some sub saharan Africans in Europe as part of the connected trade routes they, as 'exotic' are likely to be over represented in period art much like samurai swords in modern media or monkeys in the national gallery of scotland!

similarly it ignores the fact that moor was often used interchangeably with Muslim in much the same way Saracen had been in earlier periods and Turk was later and all three words were used as euphemisms for exotic (hence why american fowl are referred to as turkeys!)

The americentric view goes a little further in that then, as now, Europe was much more divided along ethnic and religious rather than colour of skin. So while certain christians in the levant were poc by modern standards they would likely be treated better by an italian than a 'white' muslim Spaniard. Because it doesn't account for this medieval poc presents a more tolerant view of medieval europe than written period sources seem to describe (frankish attitudes to italian bankers or greeks for example and indeed the attitude of the greeks to the bulgarians, germans and franks).

Similarly there is a noticeable difference between the high profile exchange of rich merchants and diplomats and the movement of ordinary people.Medieval POC is great at picking up on things like the silk road linked mongol china and france and that the khans and frankish kings exchanged diplomats but very poor at pointing out that convoys of mongol horsemen were not making routine trips to France. similarly with trade between large cities where various ethnicities would mix and the odds of encountering a moorish merchant on the road in the cottswalds.

what i'm driving at is their analysis is oversimple and therefore inaccurate but not outrageous.

The artwork they share is interesting and i like it but if i set up a blog medival monkeys i could give the impression medival europe was full of the wee buggers!

 

[Dudeofteenage]

I know this thread was started with the intent to talk about SJW historical revionism but sadly that's not something SJWs have a copyright on. I give you these guys:

http://www.celticnz.co.nz/

This may look like harmless Hibernophilia but it's actually got a very real political goal - to discredit the status of Maori as NZ's indigenous people by claiming they were simply an older settler wave, and that its original inhabitants were Europeans.

There are parallels in other white settler societies, for example in what's now Zimbabwe the European-dominated government used to claim that the ruins of Great Zimbabwe were actually an old Portuguese fort, because of course Africans could never have built a city like that.

 

[Bassomatic]

It's something that's really taken off but as of late been more noticable and rather comical. It's always been around and an intrest of mine but spikes my power level super fast so I'll probably lurk this one a lot.

What scares me and angers me most about this idea is it's spread to other fields and influences people with good intentions incorrectly as well as reduces real education. If you flip your text book open and it says Abe Lincon is a proud Japanese woman who was the US president and that's what you were told by "experts" you may not know any better and pass that info along.

 

[An Ounce of Vagina]

It's something that's really taken off but as of late been more noticable and rather comical. It's always been around and an intrest of mine but spikes my power level super fast so I'll probably lurk this one a lot.

What scares me and angers me most about this idea is it's spread to other fields and influences people with good intentions incorrectly as well as reduces real education. If you flip your text book open and it says Abe Lincon is a proud Japanese woman who was the US president and that's what you were told by "experts" you may not know any better and pass that info along.

This is why it's so important to counter this bullshit. Same with "alternative science/medicine". It represents a real danger to human civilization. You have to know history as it really was if you want to have even a chance of not repeating it.

 

[AnOminous]

It's kind of amusing to imagine these people going to contemporary India and then coming back and claiming they found a lost tribe of Africans.

Almost like a certain Spaniard. . .

ETA: Italian dammit. (I did know that.)

 

[Dudeofteenage]

Almost like a certain Spaniard. . .

He was Italian.

This is why it's so important to counter this bullshit. Same with "alternative science/medicine". It represents a real danger to human civilization.

Ah, no, it really doesn't. This kind of thing has absolutely zero purchase inside academic history. The only danger is that it will infect pop history, but pop history is already full of shit, it's just a different kind of shit. So, if you're worried that one day your children may have to live in a world where pop history is rubbish, bad news, they already do.

 

[sugoi-chan]

Revisionism makes it into lower-level education too. It's definitely not just weirdo SJW stuff. Can't count the amount of times I've come across people that argue, sometimes with a disturbing amount of passion, that the American Civil War was fought because of anything other than slavery. "States rights" and economic concerns (usually about tariffs) is usually the biggest reason offered and almost always it's because it's what they learned in elementary/middle/high school as a result of Lost Causism making its way into the curriculum.

 

[Meowthkip]

The artwork they share is interesting and i like it but if i set up a blog medival monkeys i could give the impression medival europe was full of the wee buggers!

Please do this.

 

[MarineTrainedTard]

I know this thread was started with the intent to talk about SJW historical revionism but sadly that's not something SJWs have a copyright on. I give you these guys:

http://www.celticnz.co.nz/

This may look like harmless Hibernophilia but it's actually got a very real political goal - to discredit the status of Maori as NZ's indigenous people by claiming they were simply an older settler wave, and that its original inhabitants were Europeans.

There are parallels in other white settler societies, for example in what's now Zimbabwe the European-dominated government used to claim that the ruins of Great Zimbabwe were actually an old Portuguese fort, because of course Africans could never have built a city like that.

This reminds me, I used to lurk on a Black Metal forum (the Black Metal fandom is notoriously full of white supremacists) and there was a member there who wanted to get his PhD in Archaeology and his "hypothesis" was that the pyramids of Egypt were built by ancient "Aryans" because he believed that non-white people could not have possibly built them. I don't know where he was in his education (presumably still a high school student), but I would've loved to see the look on the department chair's face when he read this guy's application to graduate school.

 

[Dalish]

I have only glanced through this tumblr very briefly but my immediate reaction was 1. that they mostly share period artwork with poc in it and as you mentioned the very 21st century american attitude to race.

When i was 5 my mother took me to see the national gallery in edinburgh to show me her favourite art pieces (at that point she was a very bored housewife!) I don't remeber much of the visit but i remeber being fascinated by a few period pieces that had small monkeys in the corners or backgrounds. I remember either myself or my sister asking our mother why the monkey was their and a nearby curator explaining that it was because monkey's were unusual at the time and it was the painter adding some exotic details. To get back on topic i think medievalpoc has a tendency not to appreciate that while there were some sub saharan Africans in Europe as part of the connected trade routes they, as 'exotic' are likely to be over represented in period art much like samurai swords in modern media or monkeys in the national gallery of scotland!

similarly it ignores the fact that moor was often used interchangeably with Muslim in much the same way Saracen had been in earlier periods and Turk was later and all three words were used as euphemisms for exotic (hence why american fowl are referred to as turkeys!)

The americentric view goes a little further in that then, as now, Europe was much more divided along ethnic and religious rather than colour of skin. So while certain christians in the levant were poc by modern standards they would likely be treated better by an italian than a 'white' muslim Spaniard. Because it doesn't account for this medieval poc presents a more tolerant view of medieval europe than written period sources seem to describe (frankish attitudes to italian bankers or greeks for example and indeed the attitude of the greeks to the bulgarians, germans and franks).

Similarly there is a noticeable difference between the high profile exchange of rich merchants and diplomats and the movement of ordinary people.Medieval POC is great at picking up on things like the silk road linked mongol china and france and that the khans and frankish kings exchanged diplomats but very poor at pointing out that convoys of mongol horsemen were not making routine trips to France. similarly with trade between large cities where various ethnicities would mix and the odds of encountering a moorish merchant on the road in the cottswalds.

what i'm driving at is their analysis is oversimple and therefore inaccurate but not outrageous.

The artwork they share is interesting and i like it but if i set up a blog medival monkeys i could give the impression medival europe was full of the wee buggers!

medievalpoc is a bullshit, antisemitic, lying about her race kinda gal. she claims to be two-spirit native american but has lied about their heritage before. none of their personal stories about growing up as a 'lakota' native in 'arizona' (there are no lakota tribes registered there, she claims to have lived on a rez), and her history is always fucking wrong.

the whole mozart & beethoven are 'black' were heavily promoted by her.

the main issue with a lot of the 'history' blogs on tumblr is that they use current terminology to trick people into caring. 'queer', 'trans' gets thrown around all the time in the context of history to make it seem exciting when we have no frame of reference for how historical figures actually identified. woman wears man's clothing to be in the military in highly oppressive and gender-divided societies? SHE'S TRANS!!! (or, she had to cross-dress to make money)

 

[Bassomatic]

This is why it's so important to counter this bullshit. Same with "alternative science/medicine". It represents a real danger to human civilization. You have to know history as it really was if you want to have even a chance of not repeating it.

I think a lot of things are really nasty to say, and people are just not willing to say them.

For example, The German Revolt and attempted coup by communists was almost all jewish.
Who did the new party round up? In no way shape or form does it justify anything but when you say this, people read it as anti sematic. It's not.

Sadly people I think are just far too gone to seperate fact from feeling and now we need to sheild people's wants over what really happened. No matter how many books I read or how much I huff and puff could I bring back the Roman empire for example, so why can't we admit it fell?

 

[sugoi-chan]

the whole mozart & beethoven are 'black' were heavily promoted by her.

Wasn't medievalpoc the one who posted a picture of black Mozart as some conclusive proof that he was black...only for nearly everyone on the internet to reblog with the full ad that was for a radio station that intentionally recolored an old portrait?

EDIT - Found one such post. Wasn't medievalpoc, but it wouldn't surprise me if she was reblogging this in another interminable blog string:

http://archive.is/BROOR

 

[Meowthkip]

medievalpoc is a bullshit, antisemitic, lying about her race kinda gal. she claims to be two-spirit native american but has lied about their heritage before. none of their personal stories about growing up as a 'lakota' native in 'arizona' (there are no lakota tribes registered there, she claims to have lived on a rez), and her history is always fucking wrong.

the whole mozart & beethoven are 'black' were heavily promoted by her.

the main issue with a lot of the 'history' blogs on tumblr is that they use current terminology to trick people into caring. 'queer', 'trans' gets thrown around all the time in the context of history to make it seem exciting when we have no frame of reference for how historical figures actually identified. woman wears man's clothing to be in the military in highly oppressive and gender-divided societies? SHE'S TRANS!!! (or, she had to cross-dress to make money)

I remember the Mozart and Beethoven were black posts. It was something of a craze on Tumblr a couple years ago. Like, there was literally a portrait of Mozart edited to have black skin, and people gobbled that shit up.

EDIT: @sugoi-chan beat me to it.

 

[An Ounce of Vagina]

Ah, no, it really doesn't. This kind of thing has absolutely zero purchase inside academic history. The only danger is that it will infect pop history, but pop history is already full of shit, it's just a different kind of shit. So, if you're worried that one day your children may have to live in a world where pop history is rubbish, bad news, they already do.

I'm more concerned with it becoming the official truth if SJWs get into power. How long until kindergarteners are taught that people whose skin is lighter then yours are inherently inferior parasites and it is okay to hate them?

Say it can't happen? The nazis and communists were once just fringe cranks nobody took seriously. Once a group with an ideological axe to grind gets into power they always alter history to suit themselves.

 

[Dalish]

I remember the Mozart and Beethoven were black posts. It was something of a craze on Tumblr a couple years ago. Like, there was literally a portrait of Mozart edited to have black skin, and people gobbled that shit up.

it's not even that part of it that bothers me. niggers are still arguing over what color jesus is.

the issue is that people like mpoc and other blogs that tout themselves as 'professional' come across as suspect and disingenuous when they can't admit to posting a mistake as fact (assuming it wasn't a calculated PR/patreon grab, bc she's trying to fund an art book), they present historians to the public as asshole idiots who can't stand being proven wrong. not to mention, y'know, lying about your race to get asspats literally never works out for anyone in the end.