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Bridgerton

Mon Feb 27th 2023 by abagond

Bridgerton is a period drama television series that premiered on Netflix in December 2020. Set in Regency-era London during the early 1800s, the series revolves around the Bridgerton family, a wealthy and influential family consisting of eight siblings and their widowed mother.

The show primarily follows the eldest Bridgerton daughter, Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor), as she makes her debut in society and seeks to find a suitable husband. However, her quest for love is complicated by the machinations of Lady Whistledown, a mysterious gossip columnist who is determined to expose the scandalous secrets of the ton, the elite members of London society.

As the season progresses, Daphne falls in love with the Duke of Hastings, Simon Basset (Regé-Jean Page), a handsome and eligible bachelor who is determined to avoid marriage and the responsibilities that come with it. The two strike up a deal to pretend to court in order to boost Daphne’s chances of attracting other suitors, but their fake romance soon turns into a real one.

The show also follows the other members of the Bridgerton family as they navigate their own romantic challenges and struggles. The second eldest son, Anthony (Jonathan Bailey), must balance his responsibilities as the head of the family with his desire for independence and a fulfilling romantic life. The third eldest daughter, Eloise (Claudia Jessie), dreams of pursuing a career instead of getting married, but must contend with the expectations placed on women of the ton.

In addition to exploring the intricacies of Regency-era society and the quest for love and marriage, Bridgerton also delves into issues of class, race, and gender. The show introduces a number of diverse characters and storylines, including the experiences of Simon, a black man, in a predominantly white society. The show also features a prominent LGBTQ+ storyline with the character of Lord Berbrooke (Jamie Beamish), who is revealed to be gay.

The series has received widespread critical acclaim for its lush production values, including its beautiful sets and costumes, as well as its engaging storylines and talented cast. In particular, Phoebe Dynevor and Regé-Jean Page have been praised for their chemistry and performances as Daphne and Simon, respectively.

Bridgerton has been a huge hit with viewers, and has been renewed for a second season, which is set to focus on Anthony Bridgerton’s romantic pursuits. Overall, the series offers a delightful mix of romance, intrigue, and drama, all set against the backdrop of a beautifully realized historical setting.

– ChatGPT, 2023. 

Note: I asked ChatGPT: “tell me about bridgerton in 500 words without spoilers” to compare it to my own post written in January 2021. ChatGPT’s knowledge of the world goes up to September 2021. 

See also:

  • Bridgerton – my own post written in 2021, based on season one.
  • ChatGPT

Posted in stuff | 4 Comments »

Rick Ross: Devil in a New Dress

Sun Feb 26th 2023 by abagond

Remarks:

This is my favourite Rick Ross song. I like it better than the Kanye West version – what it lacks in lyrics it makes up for in the guitar solo. It came out in 2011 but did not chart. The video was shot in Toronto.

See also:

Lyrics:

Looking at my bitch, I bet she give your ass a bone
Looking at my wrist and it’ll turn your ass to stone
Stretched limousines, sipping Rose all alone
Double headed monster with a mind of his own
Cherry red chariot excess is just my character
All black tux, nigga shoes lavender
I never needed acceptance from all you outsiders
Had cyphers with Yeezy before his mouth wired

Before his jaw shatter climbing up the Lord’s ladder
We still speeding, running science like they don’t matter
Haters talking never made me mad, never then
Not when I’m in my favorite paper tag
Bell 4, G4’s at the clear port, when they came twos
Fool imma pet boy, when it came to dope
I was quick to export, never tied a ball and so it’s on to the next sport
New Mercedes Sedan, the next sport, so many cars
DMV thought it was mail fraud, different tracks I was getting mail from
Pope county, Jacksonville, Dayton, Millborn
Whole clique, appetite, had tapeworms
Spinnin’ Teddy Pendergrass vinyl as my jay burns
I shed a tear before the night’s over
God bless the man I put this ice over, Game 2Pac money twice over
Still a real nigga red Coogi sweater dice roller
I’m making love to the angel of death, catch your feelings
Never stumble, retracing my steps
Catch your feelings, never stumble, retracing my steps

Source: AZ Lyrics.

Posted in stuff | 13 Comments »

Diary of Merer

Sat Feb 25th 2023 by abagond

The Diary of Merer (c. 2566 BC) is the oldest known papyrus manuscript. There is an older roll of papyrus but it is blank. And there is older Egyptian writing on stone and ivory. It is more a logbook or timesheet than what we think of as a diary. Government officials like Merer were expected to account for the time they spent working for the king.

It was written in Old Egyptian in hieratic, a simplified, cursive form of hieroglyphics. It was probably written by Merer himself: very few people knew how to read and write, but as a government official he would be one of them.

Excerpt:

[Day 25]: [Inspector Merer spends the day with his phyle [h]au[ling]? st[ones in Tura South]; spends the night at Tura South

[Day 26]: Inspector Merer casts off with his phyle from Tura [South], loaded with stone, for Akhet-Khufu [at Giza]; spends the night at She-Khufu.

Day 27: sets sail from She-Khufu, sails towards Akhet-Khufu, loaded with stone, spends the night at Akhet-Khufu.

Day 28: casts off from Akhet-Khufu in the morning; sails upriver <towards> Tura South.

Day 29: Inspector Merer spends the day with his phyle hauling stones in Tura South; spends the night at Tura South.

Day 30: Inspector Merer spends the day with his phyle hauling stones in Tura South; spends the night at Tura South.

It goes on and on like that for about two and a half months, probably August to October -2566. Not terribly exciting stuff – except that this is not only the oldest known papyrus manuscript, but it is also the only surviving account we have of the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza that was written at the time.

It was written when the Nile was flooded and it was easiest to move stone from the quarry at Tura to Akhet-Khufu, the Horizon of Khufu, presumably the Great Pyramid of Giza, which was built by King Khufu (Cheops). Both the quarry and the pyramid would be near the water’s edge at that time. Tura was 13 to 17 km from Giza. The stone in this case would have been the white limestone that covered the pyramid for over 3,000 years. Later it would be stripped off to build the city of Cairo nearby.

The pyramid would have looked something like this shortly after the diary was written:

Merer led a team (phyle) of 200 men who transported stone from Tura and later copper from Sinai.

According to his records, his men were well-fed, being well supplied with beef, poultry, fish and beer. That is probably accurate: the cattle-to-pig ratio at a worker village near Giza was high. People raised pigs for themselves, cattle for the king, who used beef to feed his workers.

The diary says nothing about transporting copper. That comes from where it was found: at a boat storage facility from the -2500s at Wadi al-Jarf on the Red Sea coast near Sinai. Egypt got copper and turquoise from Sinai. It was part of the pyramid-building operation: copper was needed to cut pyramid stones. Copper mixed with arsenic was the hardest metal at the time. Bronze (copper + tin) was not yet common in Egypt.

– Abagond, +2023. 

See also:

524

 

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Tucker Carlson and Trump’s Big Lie

Thu Feb 23rd 2023 by abagond

Pictured: Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson.

Tucker Carlson, whose cable news show on Fox News is the most watched in the US, has been pushing Trump’s Big Lie for over two years. As late as the other day (February 17th 2023) he was still at it.

Trump’s Big Lie: This is the idea that the 2020 election for US president was stolen from Donald Trump. It is what the Capitol Riot on January 6th 2021, Trump’s coup attempt, was based on. As of September 2022, nearly two years after the election, 61% of Republicans and 29% of grown people in the US still believed the Big Lie.

But Tucker Carlson was never one of them!

Dominion v Fox News (2023): This is a lawsuit that was announced on February 17th 2023. It is for defamation – because Dominion is one of the of companies whose voting machines Fox News maligned in their defence of Trump’s Big Lie. Thanks to this lawsuit some of Carlson’s behind-the-scenes text messages and emails are being made public. Fox News says they were cherry-picked and taken out of context. If they were, that should become clear in time – because Fox News will have to demonstrate it in court.

Some of what Carlson said behind the scenes in the weeks after the election on November 3rd 2020:

November 5th, after Fox News’ decision desk had (correctly) called elections in key states against Trump:

“We worked really hard to build what we have. Those fuckers are destroying our credibility. It enrages me.”

“What [Trump]’s good at is destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”

November 7th, as Fox News declared Biden the winner:

“Do the executives understand how much credibility and trust we’ve lost with our audience? We’re playing with fire, for real … an alternative like newsmax could be devastating to us.”

He turned out to be right about that: Fox News started to lose viewers to Newsmax, which, further to the right, was not declaring Trump the loser.

November 12th: When Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich fact-checked lies Trump was telling, Carlson told Sean Hannity:

“Please get her fired. Seriously…. What the fuck? I’m actually shocked… It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”

The next morning Heinrich removed the inconvenient facts.

November 13th: Behind the scenes, Carlson wants Trump to concede, because “there wasn’t enough fraud to change the outcome.”

November 21st: Carlson texts that it was “shockingly reckless” to accuse Dominion of rigging the election without some proof – “there isn’t any”. He said that Sidney Powell, Trump’s lawyer who was badmouthing Dominion, was a “nutcase”. To his credit he never had her on his show, though Fox News featured her elsewhere.

Just two months before, in September 2020, a judge said of Carlson in a slander case against Fox News:

“Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statement he makes.”

As they should! But apparently something like 29% of the US prefers feel-good lies to the truth.

– Abagond, 2023.

See also:

573

 

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Egypt in 2500 BC

Tue Feb 21st 2023 by abagond

Built in the -2500s.

Note: This is so far back in time that dates can be off by up to 100 years or so. I follow the dates in “The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt” (2008) by Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson. 

  • Location: north-eastern Africa, the last 1,000 km of the Nile where ships can freely sail north of the rocky Cataracts.
  • Population: about 1 million.
  • Major cities: Memphis (capital)
  • Language: Old Egyptian – in hieroglyphic writing, now in classic form and representing the spoken language.
  • Religion: idol worship in temples of Horus, Ra, Osiris, Seth, etc. Rise of the sun god Ra, solar religion, and pyramids. Djedefra becomes the first pharaoh with Ra as part of his name. Ra will become the top god in the next dynasty.
  • Government: Shepseskaf, last god-king of the 4th Dynasty.
  • Economy: Command economy. Wheat, barley, cattle, sheep, goats, pyramids. Gold from Nubia, copper from Sinai, wine and oil from Palestine, cedar wood from Byblos. Some were slaves, most were serfs working for the god-king or one of his minions.
  • Currency: none.
  • Transport: Nile River, sail boats, barges, donkeys. Roads and wheel transport are rare, camels unknown.
  • Technology: irrigation, mud bricks, copper (stiffened with arsenic, bronze not yet in common use), paper. Newish: stone buildings, pyramids, clear glass.

Left to right: the pyramids (the now-empty tombs) of Khufu, his son Khafra, and his grandson Menkaure. All built in the -2500s. Behind is the city of Cairo in +2008.

The last 100 years: the -2500s:

  • Kings:
    • 4th Dynasty: Sneferu, Khufu (Cheops), Djedefra (Radjedef), Khafra (Chephren), Menkaura (Mycerinus), Shepseskaf – all of the  4th Dynasty except for the first 13 years and the last 2.
  • Best known for:
    • The Great Pyramid of Giza – built by Khufu as his tomb. The tallest building in the world for the next 3,800 years. It stood 146.6 metres tall when first built, about half as tall as the Eiffel Tower (300 m). The top is gone so now it is only 137.5 m, just about as high as the torch of the Statue of Liberty (139 m). The Great Pyramid was smooth and white till medieval times when the outer limestone covering was stripped off to build the city of Cairo. Despite his huge pyramid, we know little about Khufu. Egyptians in later times said he and his son Khafra were cruel, that his grandson Menkaure, who built a much smaller pyramid, was kind.
    • The Great Sphinx (pictured at top) was built by Khafra, Khufu’s son. A sphinx is a lion with a human head. It represents the king and his power. The Great Sphinx probably has the head of Khafra himself. The nose was destroyed in +1378 by religious fanatics.
  • Slavery – there were slaves in Egypt at this time, mainly Asian prisoners of war, but nowhere near enough to build pyramids. Unlike the US in the +1800s, Egypt in the -2500s was not built on slavery, nor were slaves a separate caste. Most people were what we would call serfs – tied to the land (by tradition and circumstance) but not bought or sold separately. Many were forced to work on pyramids in the off-season in place of taxes. The off-season was when the Nile was flooded, making farmwork impossible – and moving huge stone blocks to the edge of the desert (where the pyramids stood) much easier.

Meanwhile in Britain, brown-skinned people like the Whitehawk Woman are working on the third version of Stonehenge, replacing wood with stone!

– Abagond, +2023. 

See also:

620

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Oh very young

Sun Feb 19th 2023 by abagond

Oh very young, what will you leave us this time? You’re only dancing on this earth for a short while. And though your dreams may toss and turn you now, they will vanish away like your daddy’s best jeans – denim blue fading up to the sky. And though you want them to last forever, you know they never will. You know they never will And the patches make the goodbye harder still.

Oh very young, what will you leave us this time? There’ll never be a better chance to change your mind. And if you want this world to see a better day, will you carry the words of love with you? Will you ride the great white bird into heaven? And though you want to last forever, you know you never will. You know you never will. And the goodbye makes the journey harder still

Will you carry the words of love with you? Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

Oh very young, what will you leave us this time? You’re only dancing on this earth for a short while.

Oh very young, what will you leave us this time?

– Cat Stevens, 1974. 

See also:

 

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The 1619 Project: Fear

Fri Feb 17th 2023 by abagond

Note: This is my summary of chapter 4 of “The 1619 Project” (2021) – the book, not the television show. As in the book, “America” means US America and the 13 British colonies that it grew out of. Quoted text, except for the Jefferson quote (which is only referred to), is straight from the book. 

This chapter was written by Leslie Alexander and Michelle Alexander, she who wrote the book “The New Jim Crow” (2010) about the mass incarceration of Black men.

“Fear” means the fear that White people in the America have of Black people. It is the dark thread that runs right through the middle of American history.

Executive summary:

“The impulse to resist efforts by Black people to gain freedom and equality and to respond with punishment or violence, no matter whether demands are made through peaceful protest, lobbying, or outright rebellion, has been the definilng feature of Black-white race relations since the first slave ships arrived on American shores. This  habitual impulse has been driven by chronic fear, not just of Black people … but, more deeply, of what true justice might require.”

America is caught in a vicious “cycle of racial oppression, rebellion and punitive control”. Attempts to break the cycle through reform (Reconstruction, the CIvil Rights Movement) only lead to a repressive, draconian White backlash.

It started as a fear of slave uprisings in the 1700s, made even worse by the nightmare-for-White-people-come-true of the Haitian Revolution (1791-1803).

Thomas Jefferson in 1820:

“But, as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.”

But even after the enslaved were freed in the US in 1865, the fear did not go away. It only got worse, leading to Jim Crow laws, the Klan, lynchings, ghettoes, etc. Whites were too afraid to let go of the wolf’s ear.

President Lyndon Johnson in 1967:

“When you put your foot on a man’s neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what’s he going to do? He’s going to knock your block off.”

White Liberals like Johnson understood all about “root causes” and mouthed the right words, but in practice they:

“capitulated to a narrative that segregrationists had been selling decades earlier – and that enslavers had embraced before them: namely, that Black people were lazy, had to be forced to work, were inherently or culturally criminal, and thus must be subject to perpetual control.”

And thus stop-and-frisk, mass incarceration, militarization of the police, and Donald Trump. Blacks and Whites are just as unequal now as they were in the late 1960s, it is just that now there are five times more Black people in prison. Repression not reform.

It is why no matter how heavily armed the police (or vigilantes) are, they still have a huge, irrational fear of unarmed Black people. And why that fear seems so strangely rational to the courts and the press and most White people.

The Alexander sisters cover the whole violent litany of American race relations, from the first slave patrols to Tulsa to Kyle Rittenhouse. Despite all of that they see a glimmer of hope in the George Floyd Protests of 2020: even in the midst of a pandemic and a Trump presidency, they had cut across race, age, class and even nation.

– Abagond, 2023.

See also:

593

 

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Imhotep

Thu Feb 16th 2023 by abagond

Imhotep (-2600s), known as Imouthes in Greek, Imuthes in Latin, and ỉỉ-m-ḥtp in Egyptian, was the inventor of the Egyptian pyramid, father of Egyptian medicine, vizier (top civil administrator of Egypt), and sage, his sayings still current over a thousand years later. He later became demi-god, then god, of medicine, worshipped by Egyptians, Greeks and Nubians.

He was a real person, not just a figure of legend. We know that because a statue of King Djoser from the -2600s says that he was:

“The seal-bearer of the king of Lower Egypt, first under the king, administrator of the great estate/mansion, iry pat, great seer, Imhotep, controller of sculptors, maker of stone vessels (?).”

That statue stood near the Step Pyramid, implying that he directed the building of it.

In addition we have the remains of his massive cult: nearly 400 bronze statues (pictured), shrines, temples, thousands of mummified ibises, and clay models of diseased limbs and organs. They mainly date to Greek and Roman times (-500 to +500). The Greeks saw him as Asclepius, their god of medicine.

The Step Pyramid was the first pyramid. At 60 metres it was then the tallest stone structure in the world. It started out as a mastaba – a rectangular building with sloped sides that stood over underground burial chambers. None of that was new – kings, nobles, and high officials had been buried that way for hundreds of years. What was new was that it was built all of stone instead of mud brick. That allowed it to be added to bit by bit over time until it was so tall you could see it standing out in the desert from Memphis, the capital. Now every king wanted one. They became all the rage. Building pyramids out of huge stone blocks came later. So did giving them straight sides.

His book of sayings is lost, though it still seemed to be well known a thousand years after his death. “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we shall die” might come from him.

The Edwin Smith Papyrus is a medical book from Ancient Egypt. Our copy was written about -1600, a thousand years after Imhotep. But it seems to be copied from a book from the -2500s, which in turn was compiled from yet older sources. One of them may have been Imhotep himself. In fact, one section of it stands out: in place of the usual magic spells and talk of demons, it deals with cases in a matter-of-fact way. Not unlike Hippocrates, who himself is said to have learned medicine from a temple of Imhotep.

His cult: He was a demi-god of medicine within about a hundred years or so of his death, a god outright 2,000 years later (by -500), worshipped for a thousand years. It was rare, though not unheard-of, for a commoner like him to become an Egyptian god. His temples taught medicine. And attracted pilgrims who slept in the courtyard hoping to be cured – or at least to receive a dream that would lead to a cure after being interpreted by the temple priests.

His tomb has not yet been found.

– Abagond, +2023. 

See also:

517

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Egypt in 2600 BC

Mon Feb 13th 2023 by abagond

Note: This is so far back in time that dates can be off by up to 100 years or so. I follow the dates in “The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt” (2008) by Ian Shaw and Paul Nicholson. 

  • Location: north-eastern Africa, the last 1,000 km of the Nile where ships can freely sail north of the rocky Cataracts. The north-eastern Delta, though, is not completely under government control.
  • Population: about 1 million.
  • Major cities: Memphis (capital)
  • Language: Old Egyptian – in hieroglyphic writing, now in classic form and representing the spoken language. It is not just for government records anymore.
  • Religion: idol worship in temples of Horus, Osiris, Seth, etc. Rise of the sun god Ra, solar religion, and pyramids.
  • Government: Sneferu, first god-king of the 4th Dynasty.
  • Economy: wheat, barley, cattle, sheep, goats. Gold from Nubia, copper from Sinai, wine and oil from Palestine, cedar wood from Byblos. Egypt has few trees.
  • Currency: none.
  • Transport: Nile River, sail boats, donkeys. Roads and wheel transport are rare, camels unknown.
  • Technology: irrigation, mud bricks, copper (bronze not yet in common use), paper. New: stone buildings, pyramids.

The last 100 years: the -2600s:

  • Kings:
    • 2nd Dynasty: Peribsen, Khasekhemwy.
    • 3rd Dynasty: Sanakht, Djoser, Sekhemkhet, Khaba, Huni.
    • 4th Dynasty: Sneferu.
  • Djoser builds the first pyramid, the Step Pyramid (pictured at top). It is the first building built all in stone. At 60 metres, it is also the tallest building in the world – for the next 30 years or so. And this in a country that uses mud brick to build even the king’s palace.
  • Imhotep was the genius behind the Step Pyramid. He was also renowned for his medical knowledge and book of wisdom. In 2,000 years he will be worshipped as a god, unusual for someone who was never king or queen. His tomb has yet to be found.

  • Third time’s a charm: the Meidum, Bent and Red Pyramids

  • Sneferu tried to build the first pyramid with straight sides. It took him three tries: the Meidum Pyramid (height: 92 m), Bent Pyramid (105 m), and the Red Pyramid (105 m). His son Khufu will go on to build the Great Pyramid of Giza, the tallest of all (147 m).
  • Writing: We do not have Imhotep’s book of wisdom, so we are not sure whether he actually wrote one – but he could have: hieroglypic writing is now at the stage where you can write books in it, not just government records.
  • Religion: In the early -2600s there was an uprising of the north. Khasekemwy defeated it and married a princess from the north. And, unlike any other king of Egypt, puts both the falcon of Horus and the animal of Seth above his name, a name that means “the two lords/gods are at peace in him.”. Maybe there was some sort of religious struggle between the followers of Horus and Seth. In any case both gods were soon overshadowed by the sun god Ra of Heliopolis near Memphis. And kings are now no longer buried at Abydos, the holy city of Osiris, Horus’s father, but in the desert near Memphis/Heliopolis. Pyramids, stairways to heaven, are part of the new solar religion.

Meanwhile in Britain, brown-skinned people like the Whitehawk Woman are working on the third version of Stonehenge, replacing wood with stone!

– Abagond, 2023. 

See also:

577

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Dionne Warwick: Walk On By

Sun Feb 12th 2023 by abagond

Remarks:

Like peanut butter and jelly, Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn, so Burt Bacharach goes with Dionne Warwick. Each helped the other become more famous. This is my favourite Bacharach song, though I like the Isaac Hayes cover better. The Warwick original came out in 1964, going to #6 on the US pop chart, #9 in the UK.

Burt Bacharach died at 94 this past week.

Requiescat in pace. 

See also:

Lyrics:

If you see me walking down the street
And I start to cry each time we meet
Walk on by, walk on by

Make believe
That you don’t see the tears
Just let me grieve
In private ’cause each time I see you
I break down and cry

Walk on by (don’t stop)
Walk on by (don’t stop)
Walk on by

I just can’t get over losing you
And so if I seem broken and blue
Walk on by, walk on by

Foolish pride
That’s all that I have left
So let me hide
The tears and the sadness you gave me
When you said goodbye

Walk on by (don’t stop)
Walk on by (don’t stop)
Walk on by (don’t stop)
Walk on

Walk on by, walk on by
Foolish pride
Is all that I have left
So let me hide
The tears and the sadness you gave me
When you said goodbye

Walk on by (don’t stop)
Walk on by (don’t stop)
Now you really gotta walk on by (don’t stop)
Baby never even see the tears I cry (don’t stop)
Now you really gotta walk on by (don’t stop)

Source: AZLyrics.

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The 1619 Project: Sugar

Tue Feb 7th 2023 by abagond

Note: This is my summary of chapter 3 of “The 1619 Project” (2021) – the book, not the television show. As in the book, “America” means US America and the 13 British colonies that it grew out of. Quoted text is straight from the book. 

Queen Sugar: Before the 1800s in the days of King Cotton there was Queen Sugar. Sugar, not tobacco or cotton, is what drove the transatlantic slave trade.

Triangular trade: Sugar was the side of the triangle that drove all the madness. The three sides of the triangle:

  1. European goods were used to buy slaves in Africa. Goods included rum, guns, iron bars, fetters, clothes, copper pots, and glass beads.
  2. African captives were sold into slavery in the Americas to buy sugar. Africans did in fact sell fellow Africans, though “captives tended to be ‘culturally and ethnically alien'”. About half were prisoners of war (aka enemy soldiers), a third were “criminals, undesirables, or outcasts”. The remaining 20% were kidnapped. Sugar planters “particularly favored men from Guinea, who were perceived to be ‘docile and agreeable.'” According to the Louisiana Slave Database, the most common ethnicities that arrived in Louisiana were Congo, Mandinga, Mina, Bambara, and Wolof.
  3. American sugar was then sold to Europe for yet more European goods, and so on. Sugar was mainly grown in the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil and, later, Louisiana. It required huge amounts of gang labour – which enslaved Africans provided (at gunpoint).

The Royal African Company, founded in 1672, took over the most the transatlantic slave trade within ten years. Its triangle ran from England (especially Bristol, Liverpool, and London) to Africa (especially Ghana) to the Caribbean (especially Jamaica and Barbados). As late as 1932 Martins Bank in Liverpool “memorialized the role of banks in financing the trade with a relief sculpture of two African boys fettered about the neck and ankles and holding bags of money”.

The Thirteen Colonies were too far north to grow sugar, but they did their bit, taking part in the transatlantic slave trade from 1709 onwards, and turning sugar into molasses and rum. Rhode Island dealt in over 100,000 African captives and revolted against the Sugar Act of 1764, which cut into their trade in molasses. Founding Father John Adams would later observe:

“Molasses was an essential ingredient of American Independence.”

Rum, made from fermented and distilled molasses, “was the lubricant that helped make the international slave trade run like a well-oiled machine.”

Columbus began all this in 1493, on his second voyage, when he brought sugarcane across the Atlantic. In his day sugar was a luxury good. Arab enslavers had brought sugarcane to the Mediterranean in the 700s, spreading it to Cyprus, Malta, Sicily, Morocco – and Spain.

Louisiana got a late start in sugar. “In New Orleans in 1751, French Jesuit priests planted the first cane stalks in the area, near Baronne Street.” But by the 1850s Louisiana was producing a fourth of the world’s sugar cane. Louisiana became the second richest US state in per-capita wealth and “New Orleans became the Walmart of people-selling.”

Today the US consumes more sugar per capita (including high fructose corn syrup) than anyone, nearly twice the USDA recommended limit. Thanks to food deserts created by redlining, Black Americans consume yet even more sugar.

– Abagond, 2023. 

See also:

587

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Jimmy Eat World: The Middle

Sun Feb 5th 2023 by abagond

Remarks:

In 2002 in Canada this was the most played song on the radio. It does have a video that appeared on MTV, but from what I can tell it does not have much to do with the song. I put up a lyric video instead. It is way less distracting. The words are the best part of the song.

See also:

Lyrics:

[Verse 1]
Hey, don’t write yourself off yet
It’s only in your head, you feel left out
Or looked down on
Just try your best, try everything you can
And don’t you worry what they tell themselves
When you’re away

[Chorus]
It just takes some time
Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride
Everything, everything will be just fine
Everything, everything will be alright, alright

[Verse 2]
Hey, you know they’re all the same
You know you’re doing better on your own (On your own)
So don’t buy in
Live right now, yeah, just be yourself
It doesn’t matter if it’s good enough (Good enough)
For someone else

[Chorus]
It just takes some time
Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride
Everything, everything will be just fine
Everything, everything will be alright, alright
It just takes some time
Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride
Everything, everything will be just fine
Everything, everything will be alright, alright
Woo!

[Guitar Solo]

[Verse 3]
Hey, don’t write yourself off yet
It’s only in your head, you feel left out (Feel left out)
Or looked down on
Just do your best (Just do your best)
Do everything you can (Do everything you can)
And don’t you worry what their bitter hearts (Bitter hearts)
Are gonna say

[Chorus]
It just takes some time
Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride
Everything, everything will be just fine
Everything, everything will be alright, alright
It just takes some time
Little girl, you’re in the middle of the ride
Everything, everything will be just fine
Everything, everything will be alright

Source: Genius Lyrics.

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Egypt in 2700 BC

Sat Feb 4th 2023 by abagond

Image from xoomer.virgilio.it.

Note: This is so far back in time that dates can be off by up to 100 years or so. I follow the dates in “The Princeton Dictionary of Ancient Egypt” (2008). 

  • Location: north-eastern Africa, the last 1,000 km of the Nile where ships can freely sail north of the rocky Cataracts.
  • Population: about 1 million.
  • Major cities: Buto, Memphis (capital), Abydos, Hierakonpolis, Elephantine.
  • Language: Old Egyptian – in hieroglyphic writing that does not yet represent spoken speech.
  • Religion: idol worship in temples of Horus, Osiris, Seth, etc. Apis bull. No more human sacrifice. The rivalry between Seth and Horus of myth seems to take political form as a religious struggle in Egypt. See below.
  • Government: Peribsen, second-to-last god-king of the 2nd Dynasty.
  • Economy: wheat, barley, cattle, sheep, goats. From Asia: copper, wine, oil, wood,
  • Transport: Nile River, sail boats, donkeys. Roads and wheel transport (and trees) are rare, camels unknown.
  • Technology: irrigation, mud bricks (not yet stone blocks), copper (not yet bronze), paper, 365-day calendar.

The last 100 years:

  • Kings:
    • 2nd Dynasty: …, Weneg?, …, Sened?, …, Peribsen.
  • This is a shadowy period, like the previous 100 years. The only king’s tomb we have is Peribsen’s. The rest are lost or destroyed. We are not even sure what their names were. There is no known stone block building in Egypt from before this year. And yet in 14 years the Old Kingdom, aka the Pyramid Age, will begin. But some of the groundwork has already been laid:
  • Hieroglyphic inscriptions have no grammar, they do not yet record speech. But they do provide the record keeping needed for the taxes and supply chains upon which the government, and later the pyramids, are built.
  • Art and hieroglyphics come out of this period in the classic form they will have for the next 2,670 years, till the time of Cleopatra. It sets Egypt apart from Nubia. Till now there was no sharp cultural difference between the two.
  • Lower Nubia, the part of Nubia nearest Egypt, seems to have become depopulated. Unclear why, though it comes after Egypt has already begun its long-term policy of keeping Nubia in a stir.
  • Peribsen is the only king from this period we know much about. He used to call himself Sekhemib and, like all the kings before him, put the falcon of Horus above his name. But then he changes his name to Peribsen and puts a Seth animal above his name instead! The Seth animal looks like a dog or a jackal with an anteater’s head. Seth, at least in later tellings of the myth, was the god of chaos, Horus’s evil uncle (very much Scar to Horus’s Simba). There may have been some sort of religious struggle (or a political one dressed up as religion). The next king will put both Seth and Horus above his name and call himself Khasekhemwy – “the two lords/gods are at peace in him.” But later kings will return to the old practice of just putting Horus above their name.

Meanwhile in Britain, brown-skinned people like the Whitehawk Woman are working on a wood  version of Stonehenge.

– Abagond, 2023. 

See also:

542

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Welcome to Black History Month 2023

Thu Feb 2nd 2023 by abagond

February is Black History Month in the US and on this blog. Below are some posts I am thinking of doing or have done this month on the history of Africa and the Diaspora, especially in the US. Suggestions are welcomed!

Posts I have done so far:

  • (none so far)

Posts I might do this month:

Promised posts:

Proposed posts:

  • 1619
  • Black genocide
  • Nilo-Saharans
  • Black Britain
  • Rand rebellion
  • Ghana Empire
  • neocolonialism
  • decolonization
  • Pan-Africanism
  • Afropolitanism
  • Afrofuturism
  • noirisme
  • Black Lives Matter
  • woke
  • Brixton
  • Windrush migration
  • Whitehawk Woman
  • Beachy Head Lady
  • Ivory Bangle Lady
  • blackamoors
  • Black Panthers
  • Haile Selassie
  • The New Negro
  • Black Wall Street
  • Black Literature (series): Egyptian, Ethiopian, Hausa, Swahili, Black Arab, Black American
  • Bostwana Gold Rush
  • Zanzibar Slave Trade
  • Nat Turner
  • Liberia
  • Republic of Maryland
  • Haitian Revolution
  • Toussaint Louverture
  • Maroons
  • Queen Nanny
  • Axum
  • African Burial Ground (New York)
  • Africa Free School (New York)
  • Sojourner Truth
  • Stokely Carmichael
  • Thurgood Marshall
  • US racism in the 1800s
  • US racism in the 1900s

Suggestions are welcomed!

– Abagond, 2023.

See also:

530

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Tyre Nichols

Tue Jan 31st 2023 by abagond

Tyre Nichols (1993-2023) was an unarmed Black man killed by police in the US on January 7th 2023. This time the Routine Traffic Stop was beyond the pale even for White people. Instead of putting the killer cops on paid leave and demonizing the victim, as is customary in the US, the officers were fired and arrested for murder. Presumably because all five of the officers were Black.

The Memphis police pulled over Nichols supposedly for drunk driving. They pull him out of his car and throw him to the ground. They act like he is resisting arrest and yet he is not. He is trying his best to follow their contradictory orders – the New York Times counted 71 orders in 13 minutes. Then somehow he runs off. Later when they catch up with him they beat him to within an inch of his life with fists, kicks, and nightsticks. His last words were cries for his mother – just 80 feet (24 m) from home. Not only do the officers not offer him any medical attention, neither do the medics for 15 minutes after they show up! The two medics have been suspended pending investigation.

For three days Nichols, hospitalized, wavered between life and death. Then his heart and kidneys gave out and he died, on January 10th. He was 29. His son is 4.

Protests followed.

Scorpion unit: The officers were part of the Scorpion unit. It was Memphis’ street crime unit which violently overpoliced Black neighbourhoods. If you can call their reign of terror policing. SCORPION is short for “Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighbourhoods.” According to Amber Sherman of Black Lives Matter in Memphis, their behaviour in the Nichols case was “not abnormal”. It is just what got caught on video and made public after street protests.

Memphis Police Chief C.J. Davis is a Black woman. Memphis is 65% Black, its police force 60%. She called the video “heinous, reckless and inhumane”. But Scorpion was her idea. In Atlanta she led Red Dog, a similar unit which was disbanded for police brutality and illegal searches. New York City’s own street crimes unit was disbanded in the wake of the police killing in 1999 of Amadou Diallo, who, armed only with a wallet, was shot at 41 times. Scorpion itself was disbanded on Saturday (January 28th), the day after the Nichols video was made public.

President Biden:

“Like so many, I was outraged and deeply pained to see the horrific video of the beating that resulted in Tyre Nichols’ death. It is yet another painful reminder of the profound fear and trauma, the pain, and the exhaustion that Black and Brown Americans experience every single day.”

He wants Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which Republican senators are blocking.

Was it racist? Benjamin Crump, the lawyer for the Nichols family who specializes in these sort of cases, says police brutality is determined not by the race of the officer but by the race of the citizen. After all, it is not like unarmed White motorists are beaten to death for drunk driving.

– Abagond, 2023.

See also:

517

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