picturesofwar:

This day in history:

In the hours following the assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, mass killings of Tutsis and moderate Hutus begin within the country led by members of the Rwandan military and extremist Hutu militias, marking the first day of the Rwandan Genocide.

Over the next 100 days an estimated 800,000 people would be killed.

April 7, 1994 - 18 years ago today.

How about we add that the original ethnic conflicts between the Hutu and Tutsi stems from the Belgians’ need to divide and conquer during the time of colonization? 

(via xtremecaffeine)

2:09 pm  •  8 April 2012  •  547 notes

picturesofwar:

This day in history:

Martin Luther King, Jr., aged 39, is assassinated by James Earl Ray while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

April 4, 1968 - 44 years ago today.

(via paxamericana)

12:50 pm  •  4 April 2012  •  9,464 notes

longreads:

In the 1940s, U.S. doctors led experiments that intentionally infected thousands of Guatemalans with venereal diseases. A closer look at how it happened, and who knew:

John Cutler, the young investigator who led the Guatemalan experiments, had the full backing of US health officials, including the surgeon general. “Cutler thought that what he was doing was really important, and he wasn’t some lone gunman,” says Susan Reverby, a historian at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, whose discovery of Cutler’s unpublished reports on the experiments led to the public disclosure of the research.

“Human Experiments: First, Do Harm.” — Matthew Walter, Nature

See also: “A Deadly Misdiagnosis: Is it Possible to Save the Millions of People who Die from TB?” — Michael Specter, The New Yorker, Nov. 8. 2010

(via antesdachuva)

1:52 pm  •  22 March 2012  •  618 notes

“If I have a cup of coffee that is too strong for me because it is too black, I weaken it by pouring cream into it. I integrate it with cream. If I keep pouring enough cream in the coffee, pretty soon the entire flavor of the coffee is changed; the very nature of the coffee is changed. If enough cream is poured in, eventually you don’t even know that I had coffee in this cup. This is what happened with the March on Washington. The whites didn’t integrate it; they infiltrated it. Whites joined it; they engulfed it; they became so much a part of it, it lost its original flavor. It ceased to be a black march; it ceased to be militant; it ceased to be angry; it ceased to be impatient. In fact, it ceased to be a march.”

—

Malcolm X

This is my feelings regarding the Help and every other Civil Rights related movie Hollywood has ever produced. The White Savior theme is disingenuous, in addition to being incredibly inaccurate. 

7:14 pm  •  21 February 2012  •  1,168 notes

racismschool:

This picture gave me chills

and

…look which side is so filled with cowardice that every single one of their faces are covered.

(Source: scumbagcrew, via kemetically-ankhtified)

11:45 pm  •  17 February 2012  •  2,689 notes

fyeaheasterneurope:

Abram Petrovich Gannibal (1696-1781)

Born in Eritrea, the boy who would eventually become known as Abram Petrovich Gannibal sold into slavery in Constantinople at the age of 7. A year later, he was bought by Russian traders as a gift for Emperor Peter the Great. (It was super trendy to have black children in royal courts at the time.) Peter adopted him and raised him as his own child, having him educated at all the best schools. He went to Paris and hung out with Voltaire and other Enlightenment figures.

Following the death of Peter the Great, Gannibal was exiled to Siberia, but was brought back when his skills at military engineering were recognized. He rose through the military ranks, eventually becoming superintendent of what is now Tallinn, Estonia.

Also: Gannibal was the great-grandfather of Alexander Pushkin.

(via eritreasmostblunted)

1:53 pm  •  15 February 2012  •  86 notes

kemetically-ankhtified:

Black History Month Fact #5

Kemet (Ancient Egypt) was the most advanced civilization of the world. Who nurtured it? Ethiopians were indeed the predecessors to the Ancient Egyptians. Diodorus Siculus affirmed,

“They say also that the Egyptians are colonists sent out by the Ethiopians, Osiris having been the leader of the colony… And the larger part of the customs of the Egyptians are, they hold, Ethiopian, the colonists still preserving their ancient manners. For instance, the belief that their kings are gods, the very special attention which they pay to their burials, and many other matters of a similar nature are Ethiopian practices, while the shapes of their statues and the forms of their letters are Ethiopian.”

In other words, every aspect of Ancient Egyptian life originated in the Nubian Valley of Kush, to the south of Kemet, cultivated by Ethiopians. Osiris was probably an Ethiopian set out to migrate to the North where he decided to stay and extend the great Ethiopian civilization in the Nile River Valley, where he was deified as one of the most famous manifestations of God in Kemetic spirituality and mythology.

Ethiopian were world renowned at the time and their empire/civilization/skills/customs extended beyond the Nubian and Nile Valleys and into the Mediterranean.

for more info, read The Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire (free online)

10:15 am  •  5 February 2012  •  138 notes

kemetically-ankhtified:

Black History Month fact #1: 

Contrary to distorted belief, the people who built the pyramids in Egypt were Black Africans. They were not slaves. They actually enjoyed building the pyramids because it was for a greater spiritual purpose. The first person to scientifically prove that the Egyptians were Black was Cheikh Anata Diop, by testing the amount of melanin of Egyptian mummies.

(pic: King Tutankhamun)

4:49 pm  •  1 February 2012  •  1,354 notes

They desecrated Egyptian history by skewing it to make it look like all the accomplishments were that of white people

… and now since they can’t really prove white people ever inhabited Ethiopia, they got the fucking audacity to talk about “well, it’s physically impossible since .. (insert bullshit here)”. Even though there’s never been discredit for Rome doing the exact same thing centuries before.

THIS is why there isn’t a need for any fucking white history month, because even when it belongs to us, you asswipes still take it or try to delegitimize it.

2:36 pm  •  29 January 2012  •  6 notes

dank-potion:

Unless you are able to do all of the following:

• retrieve the lost cultures, actual names and familial ties of the descendants of slaves.
• pay for tickets and all accommodations to the specific regions in Africa of which slave descendants belong after finding out said cultures, names and familial ties.
• destroy the disproportionate flow of money caused by slavery and create an equilibrium of wealth across different ethnicities in America.
• employ accuracy in History classes everywhere that have distorted the truth about the cruelty against African Americans in the Americas.
• cure the poverty in Haiti caused by backlash because they were the first country to rebel against slavery.

You are NOT allowed or granted the right to tell anyone to get over slavery. Fuck you.

10:35 pm  •  19 January 2012  •  237 notes

Unless you are able to do all of the following:

• retrieve the lost cultures, actual names and familial ties of the descendants of slaves.
• pay for tickets and all accommodations to the specific regions in Africa of which slave descendants belong after finding out said cultures, names and familial ties.
• destroy the disproportionate flow of money caused by slavery and create an equilibrium of wealth across different ethnicities in America.
• employ accuracy in History classes everywhere that have distorted the truth about the cruelty against African Americans in the Americas.
• cure the poverty in Haiti caused by backlash because they were the first country to rebel against slavery.

You are NOT allowed or granted the right to tell anyone to get over slavery. Fuck you.

7:50 pm  •  16 January 2012  •  237 notes

As if dealing with the derailment of MLK Jr. day by white people isn’t enough …

I just realized Black History Month is right around the corner. If I can make it through and last until March without an aneursym, I’ll consider it a good month.

3:23 pm  •  16 January 2012  •  31 notes

Imagine having a cold. It’s attacking your cells. It’s depleting your body of its livelihood. It makes a home in your body and thrives off of your suffering. When this happens, the doctor, your mom and every commercial suggests you fight it, right? You aren’t supposed to be nice to the virus. It has never been nice to you. Historically, cold viruses have never been nice to humans. 

Would you refer to taking medication to kill the virus as being a .. reverse-virus? Or reverse-sickness? Sounds incredibly STUPID, right?!

White people, when you scream “reverse-racism” to PoC all while denying where the aggression comes from, this is what you sound like. 

3:15 pm  •  10 January 2012  •  65 notes