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I thought I'd create a thread to recognize Black History Month (February). Whatever material or information people want to contribute to it can be posted here.
Contrary to the caricature offered by this commercial, Dr. King was a democratic socialist who was keenly aware of the harm done to society and individuals by greed and consumerism. In fact, the quote used during Sunday's Super Bowl commercial was taken from the very same sermon in which King warned the audience about the way advertisers manipulate feelings of groupthink, loneliness, and a need for conformity masquerading as individuality:
J. Marion Sims was a pioneering gynecologist in the nineteenth century who performed medical experiments on enslaved black women in the South without anesthesia
Just eight percent of American high school seniors can identify the cause of the Civil War; less than a third (32 percent) know which amendment abolished slavery in the U.S.; and fewer than half (46 percent) know that the "Middle Passage" refers to the harrowing voyage across the Atlantic undertaken by Africans kidnapped for the slave trade. These are only a few of the more unnerving findings from the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance project, which concludes that in classrooms across the country, the subject of slavery is as mistaught as it is misunderstood.
I just recently learned about this shameful aspect of our history, from an article in The Root.One of the people I've been reading lately has been William Jelani Cobb, a professor of journalism at Columbia, who writes a regular column for the New Yorker magazine as Jelani Cobb.
He has a column about New York City's review of its statuary after the violence in many Southern cities prompted them to remove the statues of various Confederate leaders. A commission appointed by the Mayor found four statues to be objectionable or problematic.
One of these was a statue of the gynecologist J. Marion Sims.
During the 19th century a number of Southern doctors would perform surgeries on black women that could not be performed on white women because they were deemed too dangerous. Black women in effect served as lab rats or guinea pigs for white people.
New York City’s Controversial Monuments Will Remain, but Their Meaning Will Be More Complicated
See also:
An Antebellum Hero, but to Whom?
Just gotta say... I am honored to share a birthday with Rosa Parks.
Thanks, Joe!February 4th, correct?
A belated Happy Birthday to you. Best wishes for happiness throughout the coming year.
Southern bus drivers carried guns and routinely dealt out extreme violence. (During WWII, one black soldier who would not comply with Jim Crow seating was bludgeoned with a rifle butt and had his eyes gouged out.) Rosa Parks was literally risking her life for the community.