Note: I generally try to make my posts independent of any pictures I add, but this one will not make much sense without them.
I am not going anywhere this summer, but one can dream! Here are the photographs from my dream trip: from Cape Town to the North Pole.
1. The Google Maps version:
Here is how my trip will look if I use the Panoramio and Street View pictures from Google Maps, taking a picture every 1,100 km (700 miles) or so:
33.945242 South, 18.521019 East: Harlem Avenue, Langa, a Black part of Cape Town, South Africa. This is near where Solange filmed “Losing You”. We are in the southern temperate zone. This picture looks north, not far from the southern tip of Africa:
30 South, 18.5 East: On Route 7 south of Springbok, Northern Cape, South Africa:
20 South, 18.5 East: Now in the tropics. Namibia:
10 South, 18.5 East: Saurimo, Angola:
0 South, 18.5 East: The equator, near the Congo River. Avenue Royale in Mbandaka, D.R. Congo:
10 North, 18.5 East: Lake Iro, Chad:
20 North, 18.5 East: Bardai oasis, Chad, in the middle of the Sahara:
30 North, 18.5 East: The northern temperate zone. Ras Lanuf, Libya, the north coast of Africa, on the Mediterranean Sea:
40 North, 18.5 East: Castro, Italy, the south coast of Europe, the “heel” of Italy, on the Mediterranean Sea:
50 North, 18.5 East: a field of rapeseed an hour west of Auschwitz, Poland:
60 North, 18.5 East: a farm north of Stockholm, Sweden along Route 76:
70 North, 18.5 East: The Arctic: no trees! Sandoy island in northern Norway, off the north coast of Europe:
80 North, 18.5 East: Svalbard in the Arctic Ocean:
90 North, 18.5 East: the submarine USS Boise breaking through the ice at the North Pole:
2. The New York Times version:
Here is how my trip will look if I use the top photograph from the New York Times for each country or place (according to Google Images):
Langa, Cape Town:
Namibia:
Angola:
D.R. Congo:
Chad:
Libya:
Italy:
Poland:
Sweden:
Svalbard:
North Pole:
Mark Twain:
“Travel is fatal to prejudice.”
By that measure Google Maps is something like travel – it broadened my ideas about the world. The New York Times is the opposite: it challenged not a single idea I have about the world.
The New York Times is supposed to be one of the top newspapers in the US. Yet despite having top journalists and photographers that it sends all over the world, it still dishes up stereotypes: the polar bear, the pole at the North Pole, Broken Africa, even a hookah!
Like it was produced by bright 12-year-olds who did not know any better.
Or like it was produced by White Americans suffering from Fragile White Ego Syndrome, who feel the need to show Europe in the best possible light and Africa in the worst possible light.
The New York Times apparently does not have a picture of Langa, Cape Town so the Google Image search on their website gave me a picture of Gugulethu instead, a township near Cape Town with suitably stereotypical levels of violence and poverty.
The New York Times does that thing that White liberals do, like in “The Wire” and “Dances With Wolves”: stereotyped realism. They go to great pains to be “realistic” – yet still present a stereotype.
See also:
I was surprised by the NYT picture of Poland. I expected a picture of a poor village with an old woman.
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Any reason why the Mercator Projection was chosen over the Peters projection or the Robinson’s projection?
Maybe it might be better to pick a map where the lines of latitude would appear evenly spaced.
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OMG!! I’m not the only that visit places via google earth. Though I think this is just the powers that be way of keeping us islands.
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They go with the stereotypes that they think people want to see… or maybe that many people really do want to see.
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Racism works both ways.
The movie industry makes a movie to entertain the majority of people. The majority of producers in Hollywood and audience is white and has been as long as I have lived. I expect they will continue to provide a movie that attracts the most dollars.
There is no desire on the part of the general industry to create a positive image of any group of individuals. Italian and Irish have also in the past been shown in a bad light.
Many movies are made from books which have been written prior to the decision to make the movie. No thought was given when writing the book of including individuals just to have positive images.
How many good Gypsies have you read about or seen in movies. Very rarely have you seen a movie about any positive Polish, Russians or other nation whose names end in “Slovak” “Slavia” or “Stan”. With the exception of a few movies about the warriors of China and Japan what positive movies have you seen about Orientals.
We have several famous Black movie producers. Perhaps they might try to get the funds that are required to produce movies that reflect the positive images of Blacks that you desire and have and audience large enough to pay for the production. I would like to remind you that a large number of successful Blacks have moved out of the intercity and are mixed into the “White” community.
As I become aware of the desires of some of the new Black Leaders, it appears as though they want to punish individuals today for the wrongs of yesterday and in addition require all new movies to show positive images only of Blacks of today.
Personally, I am extremely proud of my race and in studying other people who have been separated from their place of original. I believe our race has advanced more rapidly than any other. It is not how we assimilate with other races that I see it is the ability of many of our Black citizens to raise to such high levels of endeavor. I am most comfortable among working class Blacks, those individuals who worked in the shops and factories and did the everyday labor. I have never seen a person who worked for a living as a failure! It has not been necessary for me to see movies to bolster my ego. I and those around me have always known that we are someone!
Please review you approach about the methods used to uplift those of our race who don’t seem to be making it. Review the education system to assure yourself that those individuals who may not have high academic abilities are given an opportunity to learn skills that they may have been given naturally. Stop honoring those with high academic skills above those who may have manual skills which are equally meaningful and perhaps more in line with the skills which our ancestors brought with them from their past.
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Neo-Orientalists, perhaps?
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Funny how the lines in this map show that countries that used to be called Eastern Europe did NOT include Sweden or Finland although Sweden and Finland are just as “Eastern” as Poland…
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That is because eastern vs. western europe was geopolitical/economic concept not purely geographical one, IIRC it started with how serfdom progressed and the border was (in the centre) where Elbe river is.
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When it comes to Africa the L.A. Times is about neck and neck with the N.Y. Times. L.A. Times stereotypes Africa to the fullest. Their articles on Africa (especially south of the Sahara) pertain to nothing but violence, poverty, tribal wars, famines, child neglect, and desperate emigration. These stereotypes on Africa is definitely another form of racism – refined racism.
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No disrespect, but to most white people the only joy that they get out of Africa is sight-seeing in the Safari. Whites love Africa’s “exotic” animals. Outside of the Safari, Africa is a hell hole. Of course, I’m excluding Africa’s rich mineral resource.
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Learner’s Dictionary
“oriental adjective
or Oriental /ˌoriˈɛntl̟/
Learner’s definition of ORIENTAL
old-fashioned
: of, relating to, or from Asia and especially eastern Asia
◾I like oriental food.
◾oriental art
◊ The adjective Oriental is now often considered offensive when it is used to describe a person. The adjective Asian should be used instead.”
OOP’s Sorry about that. Some of us have a lot of changing to do. Just missed this. Glad this was the only thing anyone found wrong with my presentation.
I am trying to add something to the conversation.
Drawing a straight line from the south of Africa to the North Pole could present any number of positive and negative pictures.
Some of our Black writers and artist should visit Africa and provide us with the millions of positive things and site’s of Africa.
Let us not wait for others to do what we can do better. I see no reason to expect other individual to present anything that they do not want to present.
We are no longer a bunch of poor, helpless individuals with no ability to think and do for ourselves.
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@Allen Shaw,
Take a look at this list
It is especially uncomfortable when whites use those terms, but they pretty much apply to everyone.
If there is any term on that list that you don’t understand why they are cringeworthy or make people uncomfortable or the history of why any of them may be perceived as being offensive, please ask.
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@ tomekkulesza0
“That is because eastern vs. western europe was geopolitical/economic concept not purely geographical one, IIRC it started with how serfdom progressed and the border was (in the centre) where Elbe river is.”
You are right about the differences in serfdorm and the Elbe being the border, but that’s not why Poland is considered Eastern European. Poland, Czechia, Hungary and Slovakia have only been considered Eastern Europe since the beginning of the Cold War, before that the term was “Eastern Central Europe”, though that distinction was less pronounced in the english-speaking world than in France and Germany. The broder between Eastern Europe and Central Europe then was the border between Cholicism and Orthodox Christianity
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Allen Shaw @ jefe “nuff said” I am not going to attempt to learn all of the words that someone is finding sensitive. I will continue to try to get my message across. I am not getting graded on this you know!
Read my message not a few failed words and you might actually find something interesting!
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“Outside of the Safari, Africa is a hell hole. Of course, I’m excluding Africa’s rich mineral resource.”
Mr. Cooper, you are also excluding this-
http://www.africaresource.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=540:white-women-relishes-young-african-men&Itemid=336
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yeah right get up and get out there, i love takin pictures from whatever mechanical conveyance i’m in, i got most of my good stuff on fb
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lol have to use your real name with that id and shit well you dont take no political position either, call the shot
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@ tomekkulesza0
I remarked that it was “Funny how the lines in this map show that countries that used to be called Eastern Europe did NOT include Sweden or Finland although Sweden and Finland are just as “Eastern” as Poland…”
And you replied:
I see what both you and Kartoffeln mean.
That vertical red line does show how arbitrarily divisions can be drawn, and where and why, they in fact, exist. Is Slovenia is west of Wroclaw? Is it “Balkan”? Where does Northern Europe begin? Are the Balts in North or East?
Austria, Switzerland, Germany are more Central, than Western, Europe.
And so on.
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@ Kiwi
Unfortunately you are right.
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I think to be properly “enlightened” you really need to grow up and be educated in the West. Other places don’t generally believe in “equalism.” Traveling, and especially living, in other countries can be dangerous, because it can challenge your faith in equalism, but it can also help you understand that we still have a lot of work to do in terms of “enlightening” other places to help them understand that race is nothing more than skin color and sex is nothing more than sex organs, fighting literally thousands of years of completely unfounded prejudices.
For me, I’ve lived in (not just visited) 4 countries outside of the U.S./Europe? What about you guys, abagond and Kiwi?
As for the virtual travel line, I’m sure there are massive wars in Italy, Poland, Sweden and Norway too. It’s just they don’t get reported, right? Hmmm… Maybe the news agencies should just not cover wars so they won’t be racist? Or maybe you could have moved your line to the East a bit, so you’d pick up the fighting in Ukraine? Just a suggestion.
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LMAO 😛
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biff
I live in Africa and in this continent there are many livable places.
The problem with the information one gets in most western media is not that they lie about the continent when they speak about poverty, wars or diseases. They are not lying in reporting those things like if somebody begins to report about mass killing in American schools that happen sometimes in the last couple of decades. These are not lies. But you would certainly feel annoyed if somebody ONLY reported serial killings each time this somebody opens his/her mouth to speak about America. You would certainly think that there is more, much more, to America than such specific events.
Is not too much to require the mass media to try to be more balanced in their reporting about places, people or events happening worldwide.
Think about South Africa today… Maybe one can think only about criminal activity in Johannesburg and other large cities there. But is this everything one can say about this beautiful country? Many people travel there (I know by direct contact with some of those people) daily as tourists and by word of mouth they convince friends to go there too. Most of them were not disappointed. Also many people went there in the year 2010 to watch the World Cup (soccer) and came to their home countries marveled with this “new Africa” they found there, with a level of organisation and development they would not anticipate back home. Why? Because those marvels were silenced or ignored in the common media coverage of the country. Is this fair?
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Hi munu:
I respect your opinion as someone actually living in Africa. However, for better or worse, most news reporting, particularly international stories designed for American consumption, focuses on various kinds of crises. That sells news, I guess. There are wonderful things to see in Greece, but photos of anarchists blowing stuff up seem more exciting.
By the way, I’m sure there are many “livable” places in Africa, as you say, but these things are relative. To be perceived as a safe place to travel by non-Africans, African countries would need to demonstrate commensurate low crime rates (and yes, I’m aware that many U.S. inner cities have terrible crime rates too, which is why most whites try to avoid them). Westerners also feel like they would be more likely to be targeted for crimes against them in Africa than in other parts of the world.
I don’t know if your friends who visited South Africa and felt impressed by the “new Africa” were mostly white Europeans/Americans, but it sounded like they might be Africans from elsewhere in Africa, who would certainly have a different perspective. However, I can vouch for the fact that most new media on the new South Africa is not very positive. Whether it really misstates the situation on the ground, I don’t know, but I’m not sure how the mass murder of white farmers (largely ignored by Western media, since it doesn’t fit in with the idea of post apartheid progress) could be compatible with a safe, modern country.
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I see, Kiwi. Great analysis. So the white women and children mass murdered deserved it because of what other white people did in the past.
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@ biff
I don’t often agree with you, but I didn’t like that comment either. Kiwi is trying to wind you up, and he’s succeeding.
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@ Biff
I am not saying they are making stuff up, nor would I want them to. As a newspaper they are supposed to give us a true picture of the world. But instead they give us one that falls in line with a common stereotype of Blacks as violent and poor.
That picture of D.R. Congo, which the New York Times has at the top of its list of RECENT stories about the country, is TWO YEARS old. Those rebels, the M23, have laid down their arms.
The pictures for Angola and Chad are both from stories about how the country’s wealth is bypassing the poor. That happens in every country on earth. Even in Poland, whose picture is a posh hotel.
The picture of Cape Town is from a crime story. Crime is also common to every country, so common that it is generally just a local story. It seems odd that the Times would report crime in a country as far away as South Africa. Well, not truly odd because I know what the stereotype is.
Like Poland, Africa has posh hotels.
Like Italy, it has historic buildings.
Like Sweden, it has social trends (that picture of Sweden is about fathering).
And Poland, Sweden and Italy all have crime and poverty. But they do not become the image of those countries.
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@ Biff @ Allen Shaw
You are both making excuses for a narrow, bigoted view of the world.
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@ Jefe
That is the Google Maps map. It does not space latitudes equally, but neither does the Peters Projection. Robinson’s longitudes, meanwhile, are mostly curved, which would make it less clear that I was going due north.
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@ biff
On nytimes.com, 37.5% of the pages that mention Angola also mention poverty. The country has a poverty rate of 40.5%. Fair enough.
For Italy, 9.9% of its pages that mention Italy also mention poverty. Yet its poverty rate is 29.9%!
Relative to the poverty rate in each country, Angolan poverty is 2.8 times more likely to be reported than Italian poverty. Why is that?
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@ Kiwi
LOL. You’re winding him up and it isfunny unfortunately.
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The New York Times pictures:
Africa: poverty, desert, poverty, war, poverty, war.
Europe: historic building, posh hotel, good father.
Arctic: snow, snow.
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Kiwi:
I deleted your last comment. It is getting too personal.
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P.S. I don’t buy the NY Times and only review article by Thomas Friedman or some other writer who is known for their excellent reporting
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abagond:
How about we consider it this way. The U.S. and the West still provide a fair amount of aid to Africa. A lot of do-gooder liberal reporter types want to make seem Africa as sympathetic as possible to inspire further aid. If they showed nice hotels in Africa, the aid might dry up, along with their plans to force Africa to accept U.S. foreign policy (no anti-gay laws allowed!). If they did stories about parenthood in Africa, people would become more aware that Africa’s population is poised to quadruple by the end of the century, meaning many more mouths to feed. I actually wish this was discussed more, since it will be huge in shaping the world of the future.
As for Angola/Italy (are you serious?), since Angola’s per capita GDP is $6,500 (actually much higher than most of SSA), and Italy’s is more than 5 times as high, obviously poverty would mean very different things in those countries. There are plenty of “impoverished” folks in the States who get welfare, food stamps and government subsidized housing and medical care. I imagine there are similar protections available in Italy, but I have my doubts about Angola. In Angola, approximately 85% of the population relies on subsistence agriculture, so the benefits of the country’s mineral resources are not really spread around much. Italy has a life expectancy of 82, vs. Angola at 55, one of the world’s lowest (under Zimbabwe and the Congo).
Sometimes Kiwi just acts like a 5 year old. Glad that he is able to provide some entertainment for WNG, because it’s getting old for me.
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@biff
“I don’t know if your friends who visited South Africa and felt impressed by the “new Africa” were mostly white Europeans/Americans, but it sounded like they might be Africans from elsewhere in Africa, who would certainly have a different perspective.”
No. These friends are Europeans. A few weeks ago a couple, I knew in the Netherlands last year, came to Africa beginning in Cape Town and driving up North to Maputo through the Kruger and Limpopo Parks. The husband has been already more than once in Mozambique (Mozambique and South Africa are neighbor countries). The couple came with their young daughter.
I reside in Maputo (capital of Mozambique) and we had a very good time speaking about their days in the various South African cities, in the “wild” (the aforementioned Parks) and inside Mozambique.
I’m not aware that they went through any relevant problem during their stay in Africa.
Actually if you take the flight from Oliver Tambo (airport, Johannesburg) to Schiphol (Amsterdam) you’ll notice that it is full almost everyday. Families going back to the Netherlands or other European countries after their vacation in Africa.Trust me, people who know Africa directly, and Southern Africa particularly, came back, oft with more of their acquaintances. This a fact.
“I’m not sure how the mass murder of white farmers (largely ignored by Western media, since it doesn’t fit in with the idea of post apartheid progress) could be compatible with a safe, modern country.”
South Africa is a modern country, trust me. Have no doubt about this. As modern as is USA or other Western countries. With problems surely, but modern.
There is no MASS murder of white farmers. It’s a pity that, in fact, some white farmers got killed in recent years, victims of the criminal activity that targeted other people as well (Black or White) but there is no MASS murder of them. The idea that some kind of MASS murder was/is occurring, is an attempt to defame elected (Black) governments that went to power after the end of Apartheid.
I would not like to dwell more on this because this would derail the essence of our conversation but there are many facts not well known outside our region, and you should try to factor them in your understanding of realities on the ground:
* Did you know that in ALL South African governments after Apartheid they had at least one White cabinet member (oft more than one); and at least one Indian (South African of Indian descent) cabinet member?
* Did you know that the overwhelming majority of the White population remained in South Africa after the end of Apartheid? (If their situation was so dire now, they wouldn’t stay, don’t you think?)
* Did you know that even in a neighbor country like Mozambique, in the height of the struggle against Apartheid we had many (yes many!) White cabinet members in our governments (in Mozambique)?
* (a very interesting NOT WELL-KNOWN thing) Today Michelle Bachelet (yes, the president of Chile) came to pay a visit to Maputo, and… Did you know that in the 80’s many Chilean citizens came to our shores fleeing the Augusto Pinochet’s regime? Yes, they crossed the Atlantic Ocean to came and live a significant part of their lives in Maputo – a capital of a supposed damned country form a supposed a damned continent? Apparently some people can reach the facts beyond the myths!
Try to learn with facts. Do not presume much without confronting the facts. Sometimes there is a large dissonance between them and preconceived ideas in our mind.
Africans in Southern Africa are not trying to wipe out Whites or people descended from communities in places from outside the continent. To presume that they are, is to accept a narrative that fits a racist Weltanschauung and a projection of what some people think we should do, because maybe they think, this what they would do in our place! We are far better than that!
I’ll repeat: most people who came to our shores went back later.
Finally, I would suggest anybody here to come to one of the countries of Southern Africa and see the reality by themselves. It’s not the paradise, for sure, but also far from a hell on Earth!
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munu:
I’m sure there is a lot of truth to what you say and I don’t doubt your sincerity and pride. I don’t accuse most South Africans of mass murder. However, it is happening. Approximately 20%of white South Africans left since the end of apartheid. It’s true that the majority stayed, but, in most cases, Africa was their people’s homeland for hundreds of years. The numbers for murder of whites in South Africa may be somewhere between 50,000-100,000 over the last 20 years. For a population of under 5,000,000 1 or 2% killed. Yes, many more not killed, but still pretty horific.
Kiwi:
Total non-sequitur there with no relation to this post. You do the “I knew this white guy who…” thing, and you don’t realize how juvenile you sound. Seriously.
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ugg.. left with the option of letting Kiwi’s ridiculous ramblings go unanswered or taking the trouble to try to smack them down.
Yes of course a white guy “doing weird things” in an Asian restaurant would be the same as if white guys traveled and lived in Asia. How could I miss that?
Not sure what I exactly said re: citizenship that you take to be 5 year-old reasoning, but Korea was formally annexed by Japan in 1910. Koreans competed in the Olympics as Japanese. During colonial times, elementary schools were known as “Citizen Schools” as in Japan, as a means of forming proper “Imperial Citizens” from early childhood. Certainly, it wasn’t full equal status with ethnic Japanese in practice, but during the colonial era, Koreans were considered to be citizens of the Empire of Japan.
Finally, if you think somehow blacks would be so much better off without colonialism you are deluding yourself.
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“Biff,
Finally, if you think somehow blacks would be so much better off without colonialism you are deluding yourself.”
LInda says,
Biff, this sentence right here exemplifies why no one here, who is non-white, can take you seriously… you want us to listen to you as some voice of reason, then you turn around and Insult black people.
Yes, black/African people would have been doing just fine without colonialism because they were ALREADY doing just fine before white Europeans landed their cruel, savage a’ss into Africa… you need to go study history instead of spreading your racist, white-washed, patronizing BS
the nations in Africa had Monarchies, rich educated upper class, middle class merchants, and a poor uneducated working and slave class. They had a military and farming cultures — just like Europe. The biggest difference, Europeans had better weapons and a greater capacity to kill without remorse.
Africans had already been trading with Asia for centuries
that’s the reason that Europeans killed themselves to set up trade with Africa once they realized that Africa had gold, diamonds, metals, spices and other elements (ie slaves) that would make a white man rich in Europe.
“Trade among European and African precolonial nations developed relatively recently in the economic history of the African continent. Prior to the European voyages of exploration in the fifteenth century, African rulers and merchants had established trade links with the Mediterranean world, western Asia, and the Indian Ocean region. Within the continent itself, local exchanges among adjacent peoples fit into a greater framework of long-range trade.
The merchants from Britain, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands who began trading along the Atlantic coast of Africa therefore encountered a well-established trading population regulated by savvy and experienced local rulers.
Contrary to popular views about precolonial Africa, local manufacturers were at this time creating items of comparable, if not superior, quality to those from pre-industrial Europe.
Due to advances in native forge technology, smiths in some regions of sub-Saharan Africa were producing steels of a better grade than those of their counterparts in Europe, and the highly developed West African textile workshops had produced fine cloths for export long before the arrival of European traders.”
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aftr/hd_aftr.htm
Nations in Africa would have continued to grow and change with the times and without interference– just like European nations that were free of foreign occupiers– because they would have kept up with global changes because of Trade.
we all know what happened to Africa and Asia –invasion and occupation by foreign forces have a way of stymieing an economy and reducing the freedom of it’s people. India was doing just fine before the British invasion. I’m sure the north American Natives were not complaining either.
This is why I said “I don’t like race realist” because
You all only see the world through your own white lenses and expect everyone else to be just as blind…you need to stop trying to represent yourself as someone who is “fair and unbiased” Biff, because you are not.
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Kiwi said, “biff, dear, I was using the same argumentation you used that time I asked about whites killing Native Americans and taking their land. Whites stealing land from blacks makes whites no less deserving of murder by blacks than does Natives fighting each other make Natives deserving of murder by whites, which was your point. I’m sorry you’re too stupid to get it.”
@ Kiwi
You are my new hero go get em’
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munu aka Bantu said,
@ munu aka Bantu
Take me with you I wanna go!
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“Biff,
Finally, if you think somehow blacks would be so much better off without colonialism you are deluding yourself.”
@ Biff,
Uh oh, just what I wanted here; thank you Biff for proving my point. Looks like Kiwi got you again Bam!
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Welcome everybody to the Brave New World of blogs, vlogs, and other media to disseminate information!
With such a richness of media you don’t have a justification anymore of not knowing what is going on or how other places on Earth look like, do you?
So, please, try to travel virtually to Maputo in Mozambique… with a Canadian lady and a Nigerian lady on board close to your seat:
https://abagond.wordpress.com/open-thread/#comment-403494
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