Pictured above is the Higdon family. This photograph was taken in the year 1898 in Britain. That is all we know about them.
Who were the Black Victorians? Mainstream history has virtually erased them from our minds and history books. We have been filled with images of slavery in America and across the world, but why is it that this chapter in black history was skipped? Why isn’t it equally common knowledge that in the midst of all of that darkness there was light, also.
Never before seen photos were uncovered, giving us over 200 images of glances into our past. Many of the photos did not include names or any details whatsoever, cloaking these people in mystery for all of time.
At one point in history, people of color were included in high society and walked the cobbled streets of Britain. The women wore intricate, voluminous gowns and wore their hair in curls and chignons. The men in suits and fair business. This may not have been the case for all black people in Britain, but for some it was.
The Victorian Era was ruled under Queen Victoria, an era that is described as an opulent culture, although there were underlying bouts of poverty and child labor. History would like you to believe that black people didn’t arrive in Britain until 1948 during “The Empire Windrush”, when many Jamaican descendants entered the country, but that is not so. There has been proof to suggest otherwise. There is documentation that proves that it wasn’t uncommon to see black faces at a Shakespeare show. We’ve been there all along, humming softly in the background.
These images prove that you can’t take mainstream history at face value. Take the time to look behind the curtain and uncover OUR history. It’s as if our ancestors are just waiting for us to seek them out.
Who were the Black Victorians?
To see more of these images check out this video reel.
Tldr: there were high class black people in British society as early as at least 1898. History has erased them and we have no written record of their names.
And then things went a bit wrong as it ran out of memory (it used to have 64ish meg, now I think it’s got 12 thanks to death-of-battery), but it made it to the desktop.
And then I discovered that like many modern LCD monitors, the one I’m borrowing to test things has little to no knowledge of ancient ‘puters. I think I may need a VGA to HDMI converter that’ll handle any input, because I suspect it’s switching to something like 50Hz 640×480, or some other hideous mode, and the monitor just cheerfully says “Mode not supported”.
After a few abortive attempts to play games I thought “ah, but what about Xenon 2! That might work”.
*Splutch*
Oh well.
Still, the 115v mode on the power supply seems to work, there were no hot or burny smells, I think that one counts as a win.
Sadness – I can’t (quickly) find any sources, and whilst not being one to hugely trust reddit, lurking in the comments was:
“I googled it in Chinese and it appears to originate from Chinese sources, not Taiwanese ones, and certainly not reputable ones. I’m going to take a wild guess and say it was made up on Chinese message boards by users who looked down not only on her progressive lifestyle (and I did see comments like that – “she should be starting a family” and whatever) but also on her politics, with her being the first Taiwanese president to support Taiwanese independence, or at least, to not be of the “One-China Policy” KMT party.”
It *is* interesting that something that’s made up to make someone look bad in one bit of the world, can make them look empowered in another bit, though. :)
Casual reminder that working off the clock is illegal. Unless you’re salaried or authorized for overtime there is no reason for you to stay late. None. Your employers know this, too.
Coming over here from Europeland one of the things that’s most bizarre is this concept people seem to have that they need to be working all the damn time. For nothing. If I’m working I’m damn well being paid. I don’t mind the odd 10 minutes here or there, but if you want me to be doing work, you are damn well paying me.
I am super interested in my job, but [company] is being reimbursed for my effort by [customer], and I am having some of that money for myself, thanks*.
* When I want to feel like I’m purely giving back to society, that’s what volunteering is for.
the US minimum wage that we all agree is too low to live on ($15,080/yr) is far more than many legally disabled people receive in benefits
the maximum SSI for a single person is $8,796/yr if a disabled person marries another, each drops to a max of $6,600/yr
while you’re fighting for 15 maybe look at that too
Not to mention we aren’t allowed to have more than $2,000 saved at a time. EVER. Like EVER or we lose all benefits completely. In the bank, in cash, it doesn’t matter. The government literally keeps us poor, while also making us pay immense amounts of money for health care that we require to even survive or function (let alone work enough to be able to get off of benefits, not to mention that there are a ton of people who will never be able to do that anyways). It’s a very, very broken system and not one that was ever meant to actually help anyone.
Plus, “marriage equality” is still a huge problem for disabled people (as you can see), which is something almost everyone is ignorant to/doesn’t care about.
DO NOT LEAVE DISABLED PEOPLE OUT OF YOUR ACTIVISM.
Limits on savings and what you can earn as supplemental income without benefits disappearing are also a factor in why some non-profits can get away with paying disabled people pennies, too. The first limit needs to DISAPPEAR, the second needs to be raised, or pro-rated, or something.
France’s politicians and community leaders have criticised the “intolerable” violence against Paris’ Jewish community, after a pro-Palestinian rally led to the vandalizing and looting of Jewish businesses and the burning of cars.
please please please spread this around, please speak up about this, please let everyone know that this is not okay, please please please protect my people from a second kristallnacht, please
Listen. I love my followers and my mutuals dearly. You know how occasionally I post something like ‘every Jew on this site has a list in their head of who reblogs what and who ignores posts about Jews’? I’m talking about this shit. I have been seeing things on my dash about the situation of Jews in France for over a year, but it’s coming from other Jews 99% of the time. Please stop ignoring this. This is literally history repeating itself and we can’t be the only ones calling it out again.
fucking kristallnacht shit again? ugh. please, leave them alone
It sounds, depressingly, like this awful stuff is still going on.
South Dakota has voted to pass a bill, HB 1008, that deliberately targets Transgender students for humiliation and potential abuse. It prevents them from access to the bathrooms and locker rooms befitting their identities.
This is straight-up fearmongering, and it’s going to cause more pain for a group that is already the target of way, way too much horseshit already. If the governor passes it into law, it will be legally mandated discrimination and the deliberate inflicting of emotional and physical harm.
Please take a moment and read this link. And thank you to the wonderful Sophia Banks for spreading awareness and always being on the frontline of decent human behavior.
My buddy Seanan McGuire has been texting me for bird IDs lately, which
culminated today when an owl flew into her window, screamed, and
attacked her when she went outside to check on it. (Twitter was a
delight today as a result!) She called me at the coffee shop, and I
stood outside alarming passersby by saying things like…well, like
this.
Good times! (Owl was fine. Seanan’s got a background in
wildlife rehab, if not in birds. Her house may belong to the owl now,
though.)
