Report this comment

Report this comment

Report this comment

Report this comment

iuhbfhxwga gwxvoie xcnipimf xzouzcxy pjihspzgbi…

Report this comment

Report this comment

Report this comment

Report this comment

But the modern worldview has tended towards assimilation and universalism; it is in the postmodern mode that indigenous cultures have asserted themselves as forces to be reckoned with, that they (perhaps “we”) have been able to ground an insistence on cultural “granulity”. This is not, however, directly opposed to the sense in which Kerim uses “modern” — that is to say, the modern world is postmodern, too. Which is why an Americanized Jew of secular upbringing can synthesise Jewish liturgical melodies and singing style with dub reggae, itself a synthesis of Western techno beats and “indigenous” Jamaican reggae, itself a synthesis of Garveyite Zionism, Western pop/rock forms, and “indigenous” African singing styles and rhythms, themselves a product of centuries of interaction between “indigenous” African cultures. “Indigenous” in quotes not because they’re not truly indigenous, but because what it means to be indigenous changes from place to place, moment to moment, as culture travels from person to person, people to people, land to land.

Report this comment

The twenty-first History Carnival is up at CLEWS: The Historic True Crime Blog. This edition features several bloggers I haven’t seen before, including: Greg tells us about two saints named Gregory. >> Brett Holman notes…

Report this comment

If we choose to pull our heads out of the racist, eurocentric denial of our collective histories. You will awake to the realisation that we are not all modern people as you say.

There is the circular logic ( otherwise know as the indegenouse worldview, which looks at things not as block-or-white, either/or .. but more as circle of interconectedness of spirit, thought and respect for diversity ) and the intrinsic beleif in our interconectedness that has been part of most of the worlds indigenouse peoples.

There has been a deleberate cultural genocide against our peoples. Some of us are fighting to preserve and continue the interupted growth of our cultural and sociatial vallues that inately make us who we are.

To the person who refered to tribes as an invention of the Colonial states. Maybe you need to actual start looking at resources outside of eurocentric academia. We as aboriginal ( peoples, tribes,kingdoms empires ) existed since time imemorial, long before the so-called civilised europe.

Barbara Clowers made an inreference to skin pigmentation. I got news for you . Our mothert in Africa have a long history of given birth to children with all kinds of skin pigmentation, including those who would be mistaken as european (Albino kids). This was long before anyone from europe stepped on our lands. Also modern day science has also concluded that Africa as the craddle of humanity and civilisation.

I think the problems with the definitions of indigenoouse, is the failure to even ask us who were are. We self inderify and we know who we are. Our elders remind us of our connections to each other, teach us our traditions and leave us with teh sacred duty to pass it on to the next generation. We have not gone away, and we are not just cultureal relics.

Many of the things that the west claims as new-age, are actualy eurocentirc-representations of some of our ancient traditional ways.

Just as the united states dept of Indian affairs continues to attempt to define who is indian and how they should be governed. It is the same colonial way that some of our societies in the global-south were and are corrupted to serve european needs.

Checkout Dr Emagwali writtings on civilisation and globalisation and our stolen history at http://www.emeagwali.com

peace be with you,

Ifo Ikede
A strong proud aboriginal from the west coast of Africa

Report this comment

Report this comment

Report this comment

You can also read many more piece by him at his website:
http://personal.uncc.edu/jmarks/pubs/main.html

Report this comment

I live in the US and have taken a recent interest in Mexico in regards to their “indian, native american, first nation, aborigines”. That got me into the definition of race, genetics of skin color and global migrations.

The Mexican race policy is “we are all mestizos”. Sort of ‘we came without our own women, we screwed and now we’re all brown’. Of course, lighter colored skin is preferable and there is a high correlation between light skin color and status/opportunities. The people with the darkest complections live in the southern and eastern parts of the country where the poverty is the worst. Lots of these people do not speak spanish. So, if you’re indian in Mexico, you get no reservations, no status as a sovereign nation, no bureau of indian affairs. (Please correct me if I am wrong about any of this). In 1921, Mexico collected an unusual census–unusual in that it included information about race. Apparently, the norm is to collect data about language and not race. If you speak spanish, you are assimilated! Now, birth certificates are a different matter. On your birth certificate, you are listed as mestizo, pure indigenous, or white. Apparently, there a couple of small communities of “black, negroid, african, afro” villages or communities but they and the country at large, don’t have a sense of being separate from the population–unlike the USA–even though they imported slaves from Africa sooner than we did. Also, mestizo means a mixture of white and indian and they don’t seem to acknowledge mulatos, the mixture of white and black which has been of paramount importance to the USA.

I found some interesting theories about skin coloration, genetics and migrations. I like the one that says, as pre-humans we probably had white skin and were covered with hair. Dark pigmentation developed to compensate for loss of hair. That means we all started out white and our colors came with evolution. I found a reasonable explanation for why white skin originated within 600 miles of the North and Baltic Seas but thought the explantions about why people on the American continent near the equator where not black like the people living at the same latitudes in Africa were not convincing.

I discovered groups that think the white race makes up only 8% of the world population and the whites are re-classifying brown/Negroid/North Africans/Indian/Pakistan as caucasian so as to avoid extinction. The paranoid group was non-white and angry that the whites were trying to maintain their dominance by swelling their numbers with brown people. I thought that was both funny and sad. Power is about dominance, money, access to resources and lack of social consequences for your actions. Also, I think caucasion is determined by linguistics not color.

So, any of you anthro-centrics care to comment (or enlighten me) on race, skin color, assimilation vs racial/ethnic identity, some gross oversight about Mexico? If that doesn’t elicit a response, how about this: I just hate the use of black and white to distinguish brown from beige. There are some folks who really are pretty much black and some real pale folk and a few albinos but most of us are some shade of brown. Why can’t we all just be colored?

Re: indigenous people. The remnants of an culture that shared some arbitrarily defined geographical area prior colonialization.

Re: ancient peoples. Any culture no longer in existence that was absorbed or displaced by at least one culture prior to the current dominant culture.

Report this comment