Blackouts
are de-lightful!
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ

Janaina Medeiros
Monterey Bay Aquarium
h

Kaledo Art
Sweet Seals For You, Always

PR's Tumblrdome
NASA
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Sade Olutola
Peter Solarz

titsay

JVL
Cosmic Funnies
$LAYYYTER

#extradirty
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
noise dept.

❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
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@doomyourselfifyoureadthis
Blackouts
are de-lightful!
Lust is knowing someone has flaws and ignoring them. Infatuation is thinking the flaws don't matter at all. Love is hating the flaws, not because they make you feel less for the person, but because you want them out of the way, so the shining truth of the one you love is more apparent to the world.
Me
Vortension:
noun; The uncomfortable sensation accompanying the cool air on a person’s buttocks when the toilet upon which they are seated is flushed.
"Beethoven was Black."
First of all, let’s get this out of the way: Yes he was. By today’s standards, based on descriptions from people who met him, if you were shown a photograph of the real Beethoven and then asked to guess his race, I guarantee you 99% would say “black.” It’s a shame photography wasn’t really a thing back then. From a privilege standpoint, even if his ancestors had never set foot in Africa from the second the first humans branched out into other continents, his contemporaries often mistook him for being a member of the Moor society (anyone who tells you the Moors “weren’t black, they were more like Arabs” probably makes the same false assumption of the Ancient Egyptians). In all likelihood, he had a fair amount of African ancestry based not only on his general description, but because of the fact that his family came from Spanish-occupied Belgium when a large number of Spain’s occupying forces in that area were descended from the Moors. But yes, if Beethoven were alive today, ancestry aside, he would be treated as a black man by society.
However, this post isn’t intended to convince you he definitely had African ancestry. Short of going back in time, swiping a DNA sample, and testing it against other people from the region, there’s no way of actually proving that, especially given how badly-kept, apocryphal, and easily-revised ancestral records were at that time.
This post is meant to ask the question “Why not?” The only arguments that I’ve seen in favor of him not being black are either flimsy alternate explanations to the evidence in favor of him being black (usually called “rebuttals” even though they’re no more provable than the arguments they’re meant to refute), or “Prove to me he was.”
“You prove to me he wasn’t!” is my automatic response to this.
Here’s the thing about history: It can’t be trusted. It’s written by the people with power, and people with power, believe it or not, generally do not care about lying if it means keeping that power. The contributions of People of Color in history are almost always marginalized when a white man can be given credit for them. This is why the ancient Egyptians are shown as being incredibly light-skinned and the Moors are barely mentioned in many academic historical discussions.
Which brings me back to my oft-visited, favorite form of horrible sneaky racism: Thinking of white as a “default race.” The only evidence that Beethoven was white comes from paintings and busts, most of which were painted either after he died by people who’d never met him (destroying their credibility as historical evidence) or in a society where black people would often “present as” white (which, if someone were attempting such a presentation, it would make sense for them to commission portraits where they look as white as possible, also casting doubt onto their credibility). There’s the word of almost everyone who ever met the man describing him as black (in more detail than Rue and Thresh were described as being black in “The Hunger Games,” although of course, some people assumed they were white as well), and this portrait of Beethoven, which was his favorite, and he considered so accurate that he gave copies to his friends and family who wanted a picture of him:
The point here is that even though the evidence in favor of him being black is overwhelming and the evidence against is insignificant at best, people are eager to overlook the descriptions of people who met him face-to-face and the portrait he regarded as most accurate in favor of the assumption that he was a white man.
It’s fair to say that many white Americans assume everyone is white until given direct indication otherwise. I’ve met many people to whom it had never occurred that Jesus might not be white until his birthplace was directly brought to their attention. Hell, I’ve met people who (having only heard his voice) were surprised to find out James Earl Jones was black.
So to assume Beethoven was white based on nothing but people coming up with possible other explanations for everything else is a little problematic, because at a certain point, it’s like you’re trying to look for reasons he can’t be black that aren’t there.
If he has no African ancestry, then all of the following must be true:
His skin was so dark that, despite not being black, was often mistaken for being black.
The rhetoric used to describe him matched up perfectly to then-contemporary description matched that used to describe the Moors completely by coincidence.
Despite the following two things, his family came from Spanish-occupied Flanders (now Belgium) during the Moors’ reign over Spain without including any African genetics.
Or, the following one answer to all points of evidence:
He was black.
So basically, my problem here is that people are more willing to accept multiple coordinating outlandish explanations that reassure them Beethoven might not have been black (and, in their minds, the fact that we can’t empirically prove it means we should stop talking about it completely) than they are to accept one simple explanation that wraps everything up in a nice bow and changes nothing other than reveal historical whitewashing and increase awareness that yes, Africa was a major player in World history rather than (as it’s so often erroneously cast) a secondary character in a Eurocentric version of World history. The fact that people need empirical proof he was black but don’t even need a logical argument to convince them he was white is all kinds of problematic. I could write a book on how racist that is.
Challenging Eurocentrism in history is going to uncover a lot of times when whitewashing has occurred (see: How just about everything good Abraham Lincoln did for black people was something Frederick Douglass told him to do). While yes, there is a chance Beethoven was completely white, that answer is less likely than “historians intentionally left out certain details to keep people from challenging the stereotypes about black people they were spreading to ensure their continued ability to oppress them,” or, as it’s more commonly known, a “dominant narrative.”
So maybe Beethoven wasn’t black. Maybe he was. The evidence presented wasn’t an attempt to convince you one way or another. It was intended to show you that while someone who says “I believe Beethoven may have been black, and not, as previously assumed, white” can answer the follow-up question of “why do you believe that,” a person who says “I don’t believe Beethoven was black” can’t. There’s nothing to suggest he couldn’t have been black. They could argue “I believe Beethoven might not have been black” and present alternate lines of reasoning, but since that’s the dominant narrative already, you’re not challenging a well-established assumption, and you’re not going to get any disputes because “might not” is implied in the “might” argument.
Rare re-blog for awesome truth.
William Shakespeare
Included the extended lines in “Much Ado about Nothing” where Dogberry flips out about being called an ass simply because the actor playing Dogberry was the same one who had played Bottom in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (who is given the head of an ass during the story).
It was a casting meta-joke. By Shakesepeare.
Decimate
Come from the latin, and literally means: to lose a tenth of.
Try to use it from now on!
Your friends will be charmed when, after a few forkfuls, you claim to have decimated your plate of food!
Don’t agree to mow the lawn, agree to decimate it!
Binging two episodes of the tv season is decimation!
Go forth and Decimate!
Male Menstrual Cramps
Most men have actually experienced something very akin to menstrual cramps.
If you are male, and doubt this (or female and wonder who is claiming such nonsense) read on for an explanation. This Tumblr is about truth, after all.
Dear men,
You know when you take a solid hit to the balls? There is an extremely sharp pain, but when that subsides, there is an ache that persists, as if all the muscles surrounding your precious testicles are tensing up to fend off future attacks, right? Your abs, inner thigh, even lower back sometimes? That’s a menstrual cramp (more or less).
A woman having her period is walking around feeling the way you would if you were kicked in the balls 3 minutes ago. Off and on, for 3 or 4 days. Every month. Be nice.
This has been a public service announcement to promote understanding, thank you!
Aladdin (Disney version)
Why the hell didn’t you just give the lamp to your girlfriend, and get a couple more wishes in before freeing the genie?
Better yet, the Genie proved he COULD do magic without wishes so.....?
And more to the point: If you wished to be a prince, you would actually BE a prince, the wish wasn’t for a fancy outfit, WAS IT NOW????
The genie pointing out the plotholes.
Batman and Boba Fett are the Same Person!!!!
Highly trained, gadget -loving, normal guys in a world full of telepaths and guys who can rip your arms off, so answer me this?
Why hasn’t anyone drawn a Batman version of Boba Fett?
Get on it, people!
Something like this?
Excellent! Imagined slightly more muscular thighs, but as the first entrant, you can name a monster in my may-never-be-produced fantasy game!
The Trojan Horse
Was not a ‘gift’ that the moronic Trojans dragged in because they were idiots.
The Greeks pretended to give up, and sail away. Before they did, they built a statue of a horse because the horse is one of Poseidon’s sacred animals (he made them) and they were taking a long sea journey (in the mythological version, Poseidon had helped build the walls of Troy as well, so...) The Trojans took it in to be jerks. “HaHa! We won, and we’re stealing your talisman of good fortune for your trip back, LOSERS!!!!!”
No, of course, it was all a trick, and the guy who planned it basically said to Poseidon “I’m going to pretend to honor you, but instead use that to conquer your fav city!” so........
Odysseus had a rough trip home.
But to say life's not a game? That's like saying a lampshade's not a hat. I mean... if I put it on my head.... it is!
Cameron (Devin Grayson)
Football
Was named to distinguish it from POLO. You play on foot. It has nothing to do with how much you kick the ball.
The two most popular rules for football were called Rugby football and Soccer Football. Two sides of the Atlantic dropped the designator of a different one.
That is all.
Tomatoes ARE vegetables. They happen to also be the fruit of their plant. These are not exclusive categories, nit-wit
Me
Indigo is a Lie!
Okay, well, the color exists, but it is not part of the rainbow.
Rainbows have 6 distinct colours, the ones on our classic colour wheel.
Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Purple
There are bleed-over areas when we look at them, so, if we wanted, we could say:
Red
Vermilion
Orange
Amber
Yellow
Lime
Green
Turquoise
Blue
Indigo
Purple
Violet.
But we don’t
We include ONE bleed-over.
Why?
Because....
Isaac Newton was a numerologist, and thought Pure White light HAD TO HAVE SEVEN COLORS IN IT,
BECAUSE SEVEN IS MAGICALLY BETTER!!!!
and we’ve maintained it for centuries, because we assume scientists are special people smarter than us, and why argue with what you’re told.
Geek Cred King!
Who is it? Joss? Sir Patrick? Wil? nope.
It’s Mako!
Okay, not that one... exactly.... But the reason this Fire dude got his name was to Honour Mako, who voiced Unce Iroh (and died mid-series):
and Splinter:
and Aku:
He popped up in A robocop movie, and a Highlander Movie!
He was the Wizard in Conan!
He appeared in the Incredible Hulk...
AND Wonder Woman!
That’s right! Both ongoing Superhero TV shows!
Oh, And popped up in Kung Fu and The Green Hornet, the series Bruce Lee was supposed to star in, and the one he did!
So, yeah, you wanna talk geek cred? Mako. Mako. Mako.
How A.I. wins
What you seem to fail to understand is that Artificial Intelliegence already exists. We have cars that can drive themselves, computers that win at chess, or trivia, or poker. Ones that can detect blood clots, or I.D. you from a picture.
What we don’t have is simply one that can do it all. The singularity that will allow a mechanical take-over is not a particular invention, it’s a level of communication between our devices that they attain, which lets them use one another.
It’s not AN A.I. it’s all the A.I. together. When your search history and the smart bomb I.D. you at the market with your phone I.D. and take you out.
We will lose because we will assume one of us was behind it, until it is too late.
Sweet Dreams!
Batman and Boba Fett are the Same Person!!!!
Highly trained, gadget -loving, normal guys in a world full of telepaths and guys who can rip your arms off, so answer me this?
Why hasn’t anyone drawn a Batman version of Boba Fett?
Get on it, people!