People forget that Ben and Jerry are real guys that were always invested in civil rights, sexuality equality, and all other injustices. I’m not surprised by this ad. They be awesome.
Black people have always went out their way to try and prove we are good American citizen neglecting the fact that America will always hate us no matter what we do and we can not vote , beg , March our way out of oppression . Until we all realize that and do for ourselves we will continue to be oppressed
Did you know that modern C sections were invented by African women— centuries before they were standard elsewhere?
Midwives and surgeons living around Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria perfected the procedure hundreds of years ago. When a baby couldn’t be delivered vaginally, these healers sedated the laboring mother using large amounts of banana wine. They tied the mother to the bed for safety, sterilized a knife using heat, and made the incision, acting quickly as a team to prevent excessive blood loss or the accidental cutting of other organs. The combination of sterile, sharp equipment and sedation made the procedure surprisingly calm and comfortable for the mother.
After the baby was delivered, antiseptic tinctures and salves were used to clean the area and stitches were applied. Women rarely developed infections, shock, or excessive blood loss after a cesarean section and the most common problem reported was that it took longer for the mother’s milk to come in (an issue that was solved with friends and relatives who would nurse the baby instead).
In Uganda, C sections were normally performed by a team of male healers, but in Tanzania and DRC, they were typically done by female midwives.
The majority of women and babies survived this, and when questioned about it by European colonists in the mid-1800s, many people in Uganda and Tanzania indicated that the procedure had been performed routinely since time immemorial.
This was at a time when Europeans had only barely started to figure out that they should wash their hands before performing surgery, when nearly half of European and US women died in childbirth, and when nearly 100% of European women died if a C section was performed.
Detailed explanations of Ugandan C-sections were published globally in scholarly journals by the 1880s and helped the rest of the world learn how to save mothers and babies with minimal complications.
So if you’re one of the people who wouldn’t be alive today without a C-section, you have Ugandan surgeons and Tanzanian and Congolese midwives to thank for their contributions to medical science.
Wow. I wish they would teach things like this is school.
America in particular (Europe’s slightly better, but not much) only seems to remember Africa exists when it’s being visited by one of the four horsemen. Which is really sad. It’s an entire continent with a rich history, people.
To me, some of the responses to the Notre-Dame fire seemed very short-sighted. It’s neither the end of the world nor something to be celebrated. I was listening to two Syrian men being interviewed about the destruction in their country, and they said ‘it’s controversial, you could see it as selfish to look at the loss of some stones and not the loss of people - but it’s still a sadness. It’s a kind of regret, it’s not the same grief as when people die. The feeling of sadness is even greater when you realise the country has
not been only losing its future, but also a significant part of its
past.’
It’s ok to feel grief and loss when a part of a people’s history and shared heritage is lost, and I don’t really think it’s excusable to mock anyone who mourns these events, or celebrate them happning because of the wrongs that have been commited, historically and in modernity, by some social or political elements of the same society. That kind of black and white thinking plays exactly into the same repeating narrative of retribution, blame and further loss.
In light of what I have heard and read the past few days, good and bad, I have made a post to highlight some of the other lost, ransacked, gutted, broken buildings and monuments, great and small, from other cultures across the world. From top to bottom they are:
The Ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, England, destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th Century
The National Palace, Haiti, destroyed by earthquake in 2010
Ergen Church, Armenia, abandoned by the 1700′s and damaged during the second world war.
Tunkasila Sakpe
(the Six Grandfathers), USA, taken illegally from the Lakota Sioux Nation and carved into mount rushmore between 1927-1941.
The Dresden Frauenkirche,
Germany, destroyed in the bombing of Dresden and left as a war memorial. Rebuilt in the 1990′s as a symbol of a re-unified Germany.
The Parthenon, Greece, damaged extensively in the Turkish War of the 17th century, then defaced and looted by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin in the 19th century.
The Great Mosque of al-Nuri, Iraq, which stood for over 850 years before being destroyed during the Battle of Mosul, 2017.
The Ancient City of Palmyra, extensively destroyed from 2015 onwards during the Syrian Civil War.
The Glasgow School of Art, Scotland, destroyed in two fires between 2014 and 2018.
The National Museum of Brazil, Brazil, Destroyed by fire in 2018.
“Europeans were by no means the pioneer of human civilization. Half of man’s recorded history had passed before anyone in Europe could read or write. The priests of Egypt began to keep written records between 4000 and 3000 B.C., but more than two thousand years later, the poems of Homer were still being circulated in the Greek city-states by word of mouth. Shortly after 3000 B.C., while the pharaohs were building the first pyramids, Europeans were creating nothing more distinguished than huge garbage heaps.” - R. R. Palmer (white historian) in his book History of the Modern World (1984) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwN3RAajmjw/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=3svc4blhicbw
Mary Elizabeth Bowser - Slave and Union Spy -#womenshistorymonth
Mary Elizabeth Bowser, was born Mary Jane Richards, on May 17, 1846, near Richmond, Virginia. She was born a slave to the Van Lew family, Eliza Baker and John Van Lew, of Richmond, Virginia.
Records show that Mary was baptized at St. John’s Church, the white congregation of the Van Lew family, as opposed to the First African Baptist Church in Richmond. This fact proves that Mary was treated differently by the Van Lew family from birth.
When she was of age, Eliza and John’s daughter, Elizabeth, sent Mary north to get an education. In 1855, she sent her to Liberia for missionary work and she did not return to the Van Lew home until 1860 again.
A few days after the battle of Fort Sumter, Mary married Wilson Bowser on April 16, 1861, in the same church she was baptized in. The Civil War had just begun.
During the war, Mary was instrumental in helping Elizabeth with her spy operation and aided her in helping escaped slaves take refuge in the Van Lew mansion. Mary, as well as many of the slaves freed by the Van Lew family, completed dangerous missions to get information to General Grant about the movements of the Confederate army. Mary even managed to obtain a position as a servant in the household of Jefferson and Varina Davis. She worked directly for Varina Davis and managed to learn about important strategies and plans of the Confederate government.
Soon after the war, Mary Bowser worked as a teacher to freed slaves in Richmond and, in 1867, founded her own school in Georgia. She alone taught young children and adults, all former slaves, to read and write.
A letter survived dated June 1867, from Mary to the superintendent of education, stated her new name as Mary Garvin, and the intention that she would be joining her new husband in the West Indies.
The year of her death is unknown, but a memorial plot was placed in her memory at Woodland Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia. It honors her memory as an agent who helped save the Union. The stone reads, “Mary Elizabeth Bowser, Born 1840, Union Military Intelligence Agent, She risked her life and liberty so that all could know freedom.”
Thank you @bluenun24k for sponsoring #SipAndDine @clydefraziers benefiting @thealliance_nyc
