The postcard is from the 1930′s. It dates back to a time when Europe disregarded ethnic and tribal boundaries to divided Africa up into colonies where land and people were exploited.
More adult oriented postcards from the era that were distributed privately among like minded individuals were more risque than the above card. In their depictions of same-sex behavior, typically shown were African males with huge sexual appendages dominating willing European males. In gay mainstream and general mainstream media, there is a phobia of showing men of African descent romantically involved with one another; and, few are willing to challenge the phobia.
The postcard above is evidently different in what it shows. The card is non-erotic. All the subjects in the card are African. In the midst of largely heterosexual couplings, one gay couple is featured prominently holding hands as they lovingly look at one another without so much as a disapproving glance from the straight couples.
Same-sex relationships in Africa is nothing new as anthropological and ethnographic observations predating European colonialism reveal. There once was a time when same-sex behavior was accepted as part of the larger arc of human expression and not frowned upon. Same-sex behavior could be accepted and even valued in Africa’s many ethnic tribes. Under the intellectual and Judo-Christian influences of a Europe claiming to have only the best interest of the people always in mind, much of this acceptance and valuation disappeared. .
After the colonial powers left, much of Africa chose to keep foreign customs or laws morally frowning or criminalizing same-sex desiring folk. Observed and oral histories that were evidence of a tolerance or an outright full embracing of same-sex desiring behavior became largely denied and forgotten to be replaced by the intolerable homophobia that make for today’s headline news around the world in a now “free” Africa.
Scope of Viking influence, exploration, colonization, and raiding and trading from the late 8th century to the mid 11th century in Europe (and North America).
White people dont get to have sexualities imo…like they invented homophobia in the first place so i dont feel bad for white people who have their fcking special snowflake labels. Only POC can be demipan.
Gentrification is the urban version of colonization. The same way Europeans take the land away from Africans is the exact same way White people are taking away the communities from black people. As a result of this many black families are forced to move out of their homes. White people are not only moving into this communities but they’re opening businesses as well. Keep in mind these businesses that they’re opening used to be in areas where these black families used to live. At the end of the day, gentrification like colonization doesn’t benefit black people.
1) The logic isn’t that race doesn’t matter, the logic is that individuals can be racist, and systems can be racist and all they require are complicit operators.
2) Unfortunately, the entirety of American history is a race issue. The concept of race in its modern form was born here. It began with the extermination and subjugation of the indigenous people (celebrated in Cowboy and Indian movies) and the violence against the African populations stolen in the Atlantic Slave Trade and plantation life.
3) Policing did not begin with Civil Rights, slavery existed in the North, and racial discrimination was the law of much our country until 1964-65 when it was forcibly removed by the Federal Government. For example:
And so policing (especially on the local level) existed to maintain the status quo, that status quo was slavery, later that status quo became Jim Crow, and today that status quo is racist and class-based oppression.
In the contemporary American context, police officers can be of many ethnic or cultural backgrounds. The POC police officer need not be racist for their actions and the system to be racist, they need only be complicit with racist orders– and by being complicit they become part of the racist structure.
Direct your eyeballs to the eastern (that’s on the right of the map) oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk. These two oblasts make up the Donets Coal Basin, or Donbas region, of Ukraine. coal coal coal.
Hold them in your mind.
On this map above you can see an outline of the Russian separatist-controlled area of Eastern Ukraine. Please note that the Russian separatist-controlled area is not analogous to the oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk. When on 21 February 2022 Putin declared recognition of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) as independent, we did not know if he meant just those cities and the surrounding Russian separatist-controlled areas OR the entirety of the oblasts.Where these borders are is incredibly important because Putin will use any excuse to declare a Ukrainian provocation. This ambiguity is to his advantage. [This is besides the fact that Putin has no fucking right to declare any of this land independent, or take any of it for Russia in the coming days.]
The Russian separatists, of course, claim the entirety of the oblasts, and Putin recognizes those claims. Russia has come to the “aid” of the separatists to defend against Ukrainian “aggression.”
Tonight (23 February 2022), President Zelenskyy of Ukraine tried to speak to Putin on the phone, but was rebuffed. He gave a brief update to his people in Ukrainian, and then a long speech to the Russian people in Russian. Below is text of a translation of that speech from Max Seddon on twitter [thread starts here, good follow]:
We are divided by a shared border of more than 2,000 kilometers. Almost 200,000 of your troops and thousands of military vehicles are standing alongside it. Your leadership has ordered them to move forward, onto another country’s territory. This step could be the start of a big war on the European continent. The whole world is talking about what could happen any day now. Any provocation. Any flare-up – one that could burn everything.
They’re telling you that this flame will liberate the people of Ukraine, but the Ukrainian people are free. They remember their past and are building their future. Ukraine on your TV news and the real Ukraine are two totally different countries. Ours is real.
There is more, click above link to read.
Russia is going to invade Ukraine, and not just the Russian separatist-controlled regions that were recently declared independent republics by Putin. This is colonization. Ukraine has a rich history and culture separate from Russia (its history and culture is MUCH OLDER than that of Russia, even). Putin denies this and claims that Ukraine is Russian. This is false and ahistorical.
(But why are there so many Russian-speakers in Donetsk and Luhansk? Well perhaps because the Soviets committed genocide in the 1930s and purposely starved millions of Ukrainians so that ethnic Russians could move onto their land. Search “Holodomor” if this is new information to you.)
The UN Security Council has called an emergency meeting for 9:30pm EST (I’m posting this at 7:22 PM EST)
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitaly Klitschko, has declared an emergency.
Airports are closed in Eastern Ukraine.
Been needing an easy way to understand it. Thank you.
#StopAsianHate is meaningless until we acknowledge white men as the architects of anti-Asian racism, and the blueprints they use to divide the Asian community and sabotage progress.
Understanding anti-Asian racism means connecting its history in the U.S. with its history in Asia, instead of treating them separately. U.S. imperialism, war, and colonization abroad directly informs the racism Asian Americans experience because the goal is the same: divide, conquer, and kill.
White men used war to split Korea and Vietnam in two, and divide AsAms the same way. One blueprint of the U.S.’s domestic anti-Asian strategy is the Mixed Marriage Policy of 1942-1943. Implemented during Japanese Internment, it gave certain Asians special exemptions to leave camp.
Internment was meant to harm Japanese Americans, not white men with Japanese families (whiteness is why few German and Italian Americans were interned). So, the Mixed Marriage Policy let Japanese leave camps if they:
1) married a non-Japanese
2) proved a “Caucasian environment.”
The Mixed Marriage Policy had two versions. In 1942, few Asians were eligible—especially monoracial Japanese men. The 1943 version greatly expanded eligibility for monoracial Japanese women and mixed-Japanese adults, but eliminated nearly all eligibility for monoracial Japanese men.
Each eligible case required proving a “Caucasian environment.” So while on paper the MMP offered exemptions to non-white mixed-Japanese couples and their kids, they were rarely granted. The MMP’s real goal was to benefit white men with Japanese wives and mixed-white Japanese children.
Overall, the Mixed Marriage Policy reveals white men’s hierarchy of Asians:
1) mixed-white Asian adults
2) monoracial Asian women married to white men and with white-mixed children
3) monoracial Asian men—preferably deported, divorced, detained in an internment camp, or dead.
By explicitly laying out white men’s hierarchy of Asians, the MMP is an incredibly revealing anti-Asian document. Which is perhaps why it’s so difficult to find—the original documents are at the National Archives and aren’t digitized (must pay to see them).
There’s good reason for white men wanting to hide the MMP. It’s a Rosetta Stone for understanding the motivations of many modern anti-Asian hate crimes like the NYC Hammer killings, Atlanta spa shootings, and Isla Vista massacre. Each can be directly tied to the roadmap MMP provides.
The 2019 NYC hammer killings occurred when a white man saw films vilifying Asian men and wanted to “defend” Asian women. He entered a buffet to hammer random Asian men in the head. They all died slowly: Fufai Pun later that day, Kheong Ng-Thang 3 days later, Tsz Pun a week later.
The 2021 Atlanta spa shootings occurred because a white man blamed Asian women for his “sex addiction.” He shot at multiple Asian massage workers and planned on targeting more. Victims include Xiaojie Tan, Daoyou Feng, Hyun Jung Grant, Soon Chung Park, Suncha Kim, and Yong Ae Yue.
The 2014 Isla Vista massacre occurred because a functionally-white, white-mixed Asian hated white women who rejected him & men of color. He assaulted monoracial Asian men several times and murdered three—Cheng Yuan Hong, Weihan Wang, and George Chen—by stabbing them 15, 25, and 94 times.
Many people believe anti-Asian racism started with COVID, but as these examples show, Asians have always suffered violence. The problem is our stories are purposely erased and twisted to double-victimize us and reinforce the lies of the Model Minority Myth. This happens two ways.
The first erasure comes from white people in government, news, education, and more. White men know coverage can humanize—or destroy. That’s why the racial component of Isla Vista was removed, the hammer killings were downplayed, and “sex addiction” was used to justify Atlanta.
The second erasure sadly comes from complicit Asians. The MMP’s core concept is clear: to be spared fatal anti-Asian racism, you must actively show loyalty to whiteness by proving a “Caucasian environment"—in other words, dodge the bullet by redirecting it to another Asian’s head.
Complicit Asians say criticizing their complicity condemns interracial relationships. It doesn’t. There were Japanese whose white spouses stood by them—like Arthur Ishigo, whose wife Estelle voluntarily joined his camp. He later died of cancer and she lost her legs to gangrene.
These days complicit Asians aren’t restricted by gender or marriage. Anyone can be one (although partnering with white men remains the easiest way to do this). To prove their "Caucasian environment,” they must punch down on Asians with equal or greater hate than white men do.
For ex, complicit Asians write articles telling Asian Americans to not label anti-Asian violence as hate crimes until white officials say so, disrespect Asian male Isla Vista victims by blaming their deaths on Asianness, and so on. They’re not bringing awareness—they’re sabotaging it.
That’s by design. White men know in-fighting wastes AsAm energy. So, they recruit complicit Asians, give them a monopoly on AsAm resources, microphones, and platforms—despite being a minority in AsAm spaces—and watch as they perpetuate the status quo rather than dismantle it.
This all comes back to the same violent, imperialist strategies white men have used against Asian countries for centuries: rape and pillage, divide and conquer, install puppet leaders. Drive Asians out of Asia through violence, dangle the “American dream,” then murder us more.
This means the MMP’s relevance is twofold: 1) white men’s hierarchy of Asians endures to this day, and 2) rising hate crimes show how easy it is to bring internment back. Between 2020 and 2021, overall hate crimes dropped by 7%, but anti-Asian hate crimes spiked 149%.
So to #StopAsianHate, it’s not enough to talk about the "easy” topics. We must also address the “taboos.” This includes the violent ways whiteness recruits Asians so it can Trojan Horse its way into our communities, shut down progress, and endanger us all—exactly as intended.
Thank you to Ashlynn Deu Pree, Paul Spickard, and Adrienne Edgar for their help with points of contact and data.
(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)
When you think of Mormons, you probably think of whiteness—and you’d be correct, since 93% are white. What you don’t think of is Filipinx.
And yet, for two years, I was a Mormon.
Before this, I grew up in a loosely Catholic upbringing and rarely went to church. But after my dad left the U.S. Navy and our family, we moved back to the U.S. and lived with cousins who were Mormons. There, we were regularly visited by missionaries, and eventually converted.
Much like being a Navy brat, converting was less of a choice and more of a package family deal. I just went along with it to make everyone happy. But what I didn’t know was that going from kind-of-Catholic to Mormon was stepping out of the kiddie pool and going in the deep end.
I learned of their living prophet and apostles, the Book of Mormon and its golden plates history, and Jesus coming to America after resurrection. I saw ostentatious temples, and heard about special underwear and polygamy. But I wasn’t taught its racist roots—that was something I felt, not knew.
Meanwhile, my art at the time was inspired by graffiti/tagging and the AZN pride era, a pan-Asian movement that cultivated a positive view of being Asian American. It was the era of tuner culture, souped up Hondas, spiky hair, TRG, Asian Avenue, and AIM screennames like aZnBbyGrL.
AZN spaces weren’t utopias by any stretch. But at its core, it represented community and herd protection in a country that didn't—and still doesn't—want AsAms here. While non-Asian spaces pressured me to assimilate, AZN spaces provided a bubble where I could be myself more.
For Asians, the pressure to assimilate and learn self-hate is universal. But for Filipinx, there’s an added pressure with religion. Everyone who hears I was once Mormon thinks it’s the strangest thing (which I get), but the concept of Filipinx being converted is far from new.
Catholicism was forcibly thrust onto the Philippines upon Magellan’s arrival, and subsequently reinforced through 333 years of violent Spanish colonization. Today, the Philippines is 1 of 2 Southeast Asian countries with a majority Christian population (the other is East Timor).
Even though I’m Fil-Am, I feel connected to my ancestors through my experience of white Mormon missionaries dunking me in their colonizing waters, washing off “sinful” mindsets or behaviors that didn’t fit their specific mold. No matter where Filipinx live, whiteness finds us.
To this day, I feel pressure to “purify” my art and make myself smaller as a Filipino man. I know I’m not alone. Every day, Asians struggle with “baptisms.” We search for an AsAm pride, but it’s something we must create ourselves—not despite anti-Asian racism but because of it.
(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)
For Fil-Ams and other people of color, the “American Dream” often means toiling away just to obtain a small piece of the spoils that were violently ripped away from your community.
Second-gen Asian Americans like me grow up oblivious about our own histories because the U.S. education system purposely withholds information about it, and our parents try to outrun their trauma by never sharing their experiences, instead pushing their children toward an assimilation sleepwalk.
AsAms realize too late we’ve inherited a deal with the devil we never agreed to: we can keep our language, but only if we speak it privately. Our food, if we serve it. Our culture, if it upholds the illusion of America as a benevolent melting pot that saved us from ourselves.
But AsAms aren’t the only ones ignorant of this history. Few Americans know of the Philippine-American War and the atrocities the US committed. Even fewer understand how the U.S.’s ongoing legacy of war, destruction, and colonization in Asia is a major reason the AsAm diaspora exists.
Americans aren’t taught about how centuries of exploitation of the Philippines’ resources by Western powers has led to most of its workforce immigrating and becoming a global servant class called Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). Instead, they’re taught that poverty is inherent to Filipinx culture.
Americans aren’t taught about how the US installs and props up puppet leaders and dictators—like how Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan fully backed Marcos as he ruled under martial law and committed human rights violations. Instead, they’re taught corruption is inherent to Filipinx culture.
Americans aren’t taught that colonization is bipartisan and Trump and Biden agree on their view of the Philippines: a de facto colony whose resources and bodies can be exploited with impunity for the US war machine. Instead, they’re taught servitude is inherent to Filipinx culture.
Americans aren’t taught about one-sided US military agreements used to keep an imperialist foothold: the Mutual Defense Treaty, Mutual Logistics Support Agreement, Visiting Forces Agreement & Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. Instead, they’re told it’s for mutual benefit.
American’s aren’t taught about how many AsAms struggle with poverty, institutional racism, and violence. Instead, they’re taught the Model Minority Myth—created by white people and propagated by all races—that says Asians don’t suffer race-based oppression.
Americans aren’t taught about how Fil-Ams give earnings to family, live in multi-generational households to pool money together, and how the Philippines’ economy would collapse without OFW remittances. Instead, they’re taught Fil-Ams have a high median household income amongst AsAms.
Americans aren’t taught about how AsAm leaders are installed with white backing the same way puppet leaders are, and use their shared race to hurt their own and prevent true progress. Instead, they’re taught that privileged, out-of-touch blue-checks are the voice of our community.
So if Americans aren’t taught any of this, who will teach them? The ugly truth is that AsAms who try to speak up are often crushed into silence by non-Asians who benefit from the status quo, and by Asian puppet leaders who’ve been installed to protect their masters’ interests.
Overall, being Filipinx and Asian means constantly navigating survival between rotating oppressors.
As an ex-Navy brat who grew up overseas, I’ve struggled with my concept of home and at one point believed “home” was a US military base. But maybe that’s as Fil-Am as it gets.
(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)
If you enjoy my comics, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these strips, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agent
Cerro Rico, the biggest silver mine of its time, cradle of the riches of the colonial world. Uncommon wealth ostentation and bloody slave labor ran through its alleys. Plated coins for kings and noblemen where minted in its bowels.
City of The Incas. All times and events in the life of the city occuring simultaneously.
Atahualpa, emperor of the Incas being held captive in a room by the spanish. Francisco Pizarro invading the city while the defenders take a final stand in the fortress of Saqsaywaman, head of the cougar. In the central square, “Plaza de Armas”, Tupac Amaru II leader of an uprising of indians and peasants is executed while the seeds of a future independence are being sown.
