They ain’t lie 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️

Black artists literally engineered the techniques and basic song structure of electronic music, not to mention some of the very hardware/tech. You wouldn’t have dub without reggae, nor electro without Detroit and Chicago House. Artist like Skrillex, Diplo, and Calvin Harris are only popular because of how they mimic and “remix” traditionally Black genres and styles for white audiences. The erasure is ridiculous.

Knowing that trans women of color started the movement in the united states and were literally immediately erased and excluded from what they started is the most deeply jading knowledge.

It is the original sin of the so-called queer community and it damns it from the cradle.

no white gay boy will ever reblog this, watch:

no white gay will reblog this

no white lgb person will reblog this

Without Stonewall, without the efforts of Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, the LGBTQ Community wouldn’t be where it is today. Don’t forget the roots, don’t forget the catalyst.

and then TERFs wanna be like, “hmm well the LGBT community existed before Stonewall!”

but like…Becky, of course LGBTQ+ people existed before Stonewall. We’ve all existed since the beginning of time. But the movement got a shock to its senses, a jump-start, a rocket-into-space when that glass shattered via Marsha P. Johnson, and when Sylvia Rivera was up on-stage protesting guess who was on the sidelines heckling her?

The same fuckers who won’t ever reblog or acknowledge this

My apologies to the original poster as I photo captured this post to add to the thread-I reposted this last year for pride and expect to repost it every year I have left-it’s our history people.

Marsha P. Johnson allegedly died of suicide in 1992, and her death was never investigated. Even I, a mere prole, could catch the “she was murdered” vibes from the circumstances surrounding the discovery of her body.

Without a trans black woman, LGBT+ rights would not exist. Never forget. Never “pay it no mind”.

R E M E M B E R

And whatever you do, don’t watch that awful movie Stonewall.  Go watch a documentary on Marsha P. Johnson instead.

there’s a wonderful documentary on netflix called the death and life of marsha p. johnson! very powerful watch.

every white person ever should reblog this

Official graveyard post. +Bonus

(Via @darkspawntaxcollectors )

Something Good – Negro Kiss is a short film from 1898 of a couple kissing and holding hands. It is believed to depict the earliest on-screen kiss involving African Americans and is known for departing from the prevalent and purely stereotypical presentation of racist caricature in popular culture at the time it was made.

“There seemed to be something a lot more intimate and having more to do with self-presentation. And that’s unlike anything I had seen from that period when all moving picture images of African Americans were through a white lens and are distortions, misrepresentations, or pseudo anthropological. And this is none of that.”

For people who don't know who the Chevalier St George was:

- he was the son of a french aristocrat and an enslaved Senegalese woman called Nanon

- he actually had a relationship with his mother, which was pretty usual for children in his situation. I haven't been able to establish whether she was later freed or not, but I think she was because she left a will, suggesting she owned property

- his father legally wasn't allowed to make him his heir because of racist laws at the time, but he acknoledged him as his son and gave him a rich person's education and opportunities

- he was one of, if not the, greatest violinists of his generation, played first violin for the Paris opera and was violin teacher to the queen before the revolution

- he was in line to be composer and director of the opera but a famous dancer who was pissed off he didn't want a relationship with her started a petition to get his appointment blocked

- he knew Haydn and commissioned the Paris Symphonies from him

- Mozart's father tried to make him go and see St George perform because he thought it would be good for his musical education but Mozart was (it is speculated) jealous of there being another young music prodigy, and refused to go

- he was ridiculously handsome . Look at this, my guy is pulling off a powdered wig, do you know how hard it is to look good in a powdered wig?!

- he was considered one of the greatest duelists and swordsmen in france

- he fought a duel with the Chevalier D'eon, who at the time was living as a woman (we have no idea if D'eon was afab or amab but they made their reputation as a man and then later switched to presenting as a woman)

- he wrote incredible concertos and unbelievably terrible operas. The longest any of his opera's ever ran before being shut down was a couple of weeks. Some one lasted 1 night. He kept writing them.

- he joined the revolutionaries to otherthrow the king because they (falsely) promised to abolish slavery and emancipate all enslaved people

- he was a fantastically successful soldier and lead the first all black regiment in europe, which came to be known as the regiment st George in his honour

He's legitimately one of the most interesting figures in french history, and certainly one of the most romantic, and I'm so glad he might finally be getting the recognition he deserves!

A Message from The Till Family

They actually said in a trailer that there would be no on screen violence.

Listen to the families. The Dahmer victims said don’t watch. The Till family says PLEASE DO.

my first reading in my African history class this year is about why using “tribe” to refer to ethnic groups stems from a racist desire to make African conflicts sound primitive or stemming from a desire to pretend that these are just ancient conflicts that have always existed. great article and I also feel like I’m vicariously experiencing the bullshittery that this author has been subjected to from people they’ve tried to talk to about this. like the article remains extremely professional but you can just hear in the tone that they’re talking through gritted teeth, you can practically see the customer service smile

[ID: a screenshot from a section of the article titled “But why not use ‘tribe’? Answers to common arguments.” Under the bullet point for the argument “Africans talk about themselves in terms of tribes” is written, “Commonly when Africans learn English they are taught that tribe is the term that English-speakers will recognize. But what underlying meaning in their own languages are Africans translating when they say tribe? Take the word isizwe in Zulu. In English, writers often refer to the Zulu tribe, whereas in Zulu the word for the Zulu as a group would be isizwe. Often Zulu-speakers will use the English word tribe because that’s what they think English speakers expect, or what they were taught in school. Yet Zulu linguists say that a better translation of isizwe is nation or people.” /end ID] 

translation: “ ‘Oh ho ho but some Africans themselves say tribe!’ You dipshit. You fucking donkey. When someone has a word that means “nation” or “people” in their own language but then when they learn English YOU TELL THEM IT TRANSLATES TO “TRIBE” then THAT WILL BE THE WORD THEY USE. Maybe if you LISTENED TO THE LINGUISTS OF THAT GROUP you’d have more accurate information. Asshole.”

each point is repeated over and over with like five different examples because you just know there are dipshits out there who will keep arguing.

to the anonymous author of this article for the Africa Policy Information Center I hope you have a good day every day and experience fewer people being assholes about this, your patience is actually legendary

The Burning of Greenwood Oklahoma

Black Wall Street

-May 31 1921

DO YOU KNOW ABOUT BLACK TULSA? IF NOT… WHY NOT?

This horrific incident has been well documented, everywhere: from YouTube videos of survivor interviews to PBS Lesson Plans for school teachers. Please do your Google diligence:

64 years after the first bombing of an American city was committed against the Black residents of Tulsa… the second bombing of an American city took place in Philadelphia when the city bombed the black members of the MOVE organization. (see the blackourstory archive for details). 

Isn’t it a shame that 76 after the bombing of Tulsa, when Timothy McVeigh blew up the Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City, most historically illiterate Americans - including American “journalists” - responded as if it were the first time such a horror had been visited on Oklahoma. If only we knew.

While there are many lessons to be drawn from this, a few questions that stick out to me are these:

There is a reason that Marcus Garvey AND Elijah Muhammad had armies of trained Black men as a huge part of their organizations. Many of us Black folk took those great men as jokes, yet NO BLACK LEADERS SINCE THOSE TWO have reached the same heights of economic and ideological success and unity of Black people. 

Not only do we need to LEARN THIS HISTORY, we need to start taking these events men and movements MORE SERIOUSLY, and doing some CRITICAL HISTORICAL ANALYSIS if we are ever to stop being on the bottom rung of every metric in American life. Not just some casual or accidental reading of history; some CRITICAL. HISTORICAL. ANALYSIS.

We’ve had many examples before us, but were often too undisciplined or brainwashed or lazy to follow them. Shame on us. If even one-fourth of the people who claimed to love Brother Malcolm in his day had at least one-tenth of Malcolm’s discipline, he might not have needed to hire an FBI Agent named Gene Roberts whom he didn’t have time to scrutinize properly beforehand, because all the Black folks who gassed him up to leave the Nation of Islam and who joined Brother Malcolm’s MMI were too damned undisciplined and untrained IN ANYTHING USEFUL TO PROTECTING BLACK PEOPLE to even serve as proper security for him. Read it again, in context of this entire post, and let it marinate.

AMERICA NEEDS TO PAY US WHAT THEY OWE FOR ALL OF THIS TORTURE ROBBERY AND MURDER that they’ve visited on us since they brought our people here as captives and bred us for profit.

TULSA 1921 was real. PHILLY 1985 was real. Will it happen again?