#system of knowledge

[tibonanj]

Navigating in Sisters, Brothers, and Kouzin Thoughts

I’ve too often witnessed people of color, especially young free spirits, lose themselves in the romanticism of Western intellectualism, without ever pausing for real critical self-examination.

Experiencing Knowledge Consciousness and a Life of Freedom

Being a Black woman in the world of knowledge, art, research...is not just an intellectual journey. It is an act of life.

When we enter the realms of knowledge, we must remember these structures were shaped by centuries of colonialism, Eurocentrism, and appropriation.

Too many ignore or downplay it: Western systems of knowledge and the hybrid systems in other regions of the world affected by colonialism and imperialism were constructed on the objectification, devaluation, and intellectual and symbolic plundering of colonized peoples. This applies to humanities, social sciences, sciences, arts, etc.

So, we, the impacted peoples, face two choices:  Embrace the imposed rules and try to "succeed" in a system that was never meant for us...Or: deconstruct, rethink, and re-inscribe our voices, heritages, and worldviews. For ourselves, and for those to come.

Not to blindly adhere to the supposed neutrality of these systems, but to enter a posture of critical lucidity, reappropriation, and reconstruction. this isn't a rejection of knowledge, it's its elevation.

Believing in Solitude... But Creating Alliances

Yes, it’s a lonely road. Because free thinking is marginalized. And even more so when it comes from brilliant, unruly women who refuse to re-center the world on Europe.

But reading those who thought before us, from their bodies, their stories, their languages, their lands, is a strategy for survival, and more importantly, a strategy for transgenerational alliances.

I think of Black, Caribbean, African, Afro-descendant, Indigenous women… and our brothers and “kouzin”: Those who thought from their geo-philosophies. Those who paved intellectual paths so we could inscribe our own.

Bell Hooks. Erna Brodber. Zora Neale Hurston. Rex Nettleford. Sylvia Wynter. Ochy Curiel. Gina Athena Ulysse. Stuart Hall. Françoise Vergès. Juliette Sméralda. And so many so many others.

Participating in the Deconstruction of Cultural Seduction

I denounce, without hesitation, the romanticization of the cultures that have dominated people inside or outside circles of reflections.

Too many people of color end up adopting the codes of the white poet, the white intellectual, without questioning the political and historical foundations of those codes.

And eventually, they dissolve into a world that will never fully recognize them.

“It’s like stepping out of yourself and wanting to forget who you are.”

Knowledge must be a tool: a tool to reinforce the agency of those who’ve been too long pushed to the margins.

To speak of education, autonomy, transmission… is to make knowledge a tool for concrete liberation.

[makingsenseofwhathappened]

What To Do When It Happens

Write it down. The date. The time. What they said. What you said. What you couldn’t. This isn’t overreacting. It’s documenting.

Tell someone you trust. Not the one who explains it away. The one who believes you.

Save everything. Emails, DMs, texts. Rename the folder something boring.

Find the policy. It’s probably buried under “Respect in the Workplace.” Highlight it like your job depends on it—because it might.

Pay attention to what happens next. The silence. The cold shoulder. The missed invites. That counts too.

If it gets worse, you're not imagining it. Retaliation is common. It’s also illegal.

Don’t quit just to make it stop. Not before you talk to someone. A lawyer. A hotline. A friend who’s been there.

Crying in the bathroom is not unprofessional. Neither is dissociating. Nor surviving.

It’s okay to stay. It’s okay to leave. Either way, you’re strong.

What happened to you matters. Even if you stayed quiet. Even if you laughed. Even if you stayed quiet for a long, long, time.

NOTE: I wrote this on paper first (pic above) but realised my handwriting is mostly indecipherable trash. Didn't want to put you through that. Also, can people born after 2000 even read cursive nowadays? I truly have no idea.

😇😌🫨

[blueberry-blast]

Getting a feel for my designs for smilk & all of his era's, plus some headcanons & extras.

[reality-detective]

I'll leave this 👆 here... You Decide 🤔

[disgracefulthings]

At Qian Cao Peak

Mu Qingfang: Shixiong has been stressed lately. What is weighing on your mind?

Shang Qinghua: I can't really say- wait! You're a doctor, that means you took the Hippocratic Oath! Which means that whatever I tell you, you can't repeat it to the other peak lords...

Mu Qingfang: What is-

Shang Qinghua, not listening: Well it all started in a previous life...

Later

Shang Qinghua: ...and now Cucumber-Bro and I need to make sure the world doesn't end. Wow, it feels nice to get that off my chest. Thank you for listening, Mu-shidi! I'll be back in a week for our next session

Mu Qingfang: ...

Yue Qingyuan, walking up to him: What's wrong, shidi? You look spooked

Mu Qingfang: I can't say. Apparently I took a hypocrite oath

Yue Qingyuan: ?

[johnny-depp-is-loved]

reblog if you believe people who graduated from high schools or colleges should still have free access to the schools’ / colleges’ libraries for the rest of their lives

[happypeachsludgeflower]

A related idea to my last post, but if Shang Qinghua was there when the ritual happened and the ritual latched onto Shang Qinghua and his system as well, I can’t stop imagining a situation where Shang Qinghua actually is a god (he did create the universe after all), but the ritual didn’t latch onto him because he was being suppressed by the system and now the systems trapped and his power is unleashed for the first time in his life and he’s gleefully hacking the system glitch to rewrite the system code.

After the system begins glitching, maybe he pokes it in shock and curiosity and realizes he can touch it now and it’s moldable and he’s able to reshape a bit of it into a keyboard that he can start recoding the system from. And rewriting the universe is literally just rewriting the system code (either recoding it is just rewriting since the world was birthed from pidw—a written novel, or airplane knew coding in his last life).

First thing Qinghua does is disable the system from ever being able to control them again. Second thing he does is make the ritual non existent.

[pencildragons]

spreading my john gaius was māori space jesus before gideon propaganda: the unimaginably old and vast being from which he comes chose him to save all of humanity and in the end he made a sacrifice of the highest order and was made anew in glory. except he didn't actually sacrifice himself, which is a crucial point that leads me to my second theory: john gaius is evil māori space jesus

[torchstelechos]

There's gotta be some fucked up moments post canon Binghe experienced that made him pause and go "how did he know that" about SQQ. Like,,, not to keep bringing it up but do yall ever think about how fucked up it would be for someone to know your trauma so intrinsically that they could avoid triggering you without you saying a word about it? How your lover knows without you saying that you can't eat certain foods because that's what ever you could scrounge up in the Abyss tasted like? That you can't talk about certain creatures because you know how they act when they're trying to kill you?? How you fear certain things that are so normal to do that even a small child can do it, yet he never does it once in your presence?? Do you think about it?? He knows you from the most basic interaction to the deepest dark thought, and yet you don't even know his real name?? I think about this CONSTANTLY. Binghe is living the most eldritch horror romcom plot there ever is post canon, good luck man

[god-of-goldenfish]

No because like I can't remember how much is canon and how much is canon so if like it's blatantly said than oops but.... Shen yuan is one of four siblings. And he's from modern china. And is like a full grown adult.

Aka the one child policy exists and maybe I'm hung up on minor details but I read that one director (because the fine is calculated on income) was like over a million for three kids. And like I swear it's said or implied he comes from a well off family so like how rich do you have to be to like shrug off that kinda fine?????

[reasonsforhope]

"In response to last year’s record-breaking heat due to El Niño and impacts from climate change, Indigenous Zenù farmers in Colombia are trying to revive the cultivation of traditional climate-resilient seeds and agroecology systems.

One traditional farming system combines farming with fishing: locals fish during the rainy season when water levels are high, and farm during the dry season on the fertile soils left by the receding water.

Locals and ecologists say conflicts over land with surrounding plantation owners, cattle ranchers and mines are also worsening the impacts of the climate crisis.

To protect their land, the Zenù reserve, which is today surrounded by monoculture plantations, was in 2005 declared the first Colombian territory free from GMOs.

...

In the Zenù reserve, issues with the weather, climate or soil are spread by word of mouth between farmers, or on La Positiva 103.0, a community agroecology radio station. And what’s been on every farmer’s mind is last year’s record-breaking heat and droughts. Both of these were charged by the twin impacts of climate change and a newly developing El Niño, a naturally occurring warmer period that last occurred here in 2016, say climate scientists.

Experts from Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies say the impacts of El Niño will be felt in Colombia until April 2024, adding to farmers’ concerns. Other scientists forecast June to August may be even hotter than 2023, and the next five years could be the hottest on record. On Jan. 24, President Gustavo Petro said he will declare wildfires a natural disaster, following an increase in forest fires that scientists attribute to the effects of El Niño.

In the face of these changes, Zenù farmers are trying to revive traditional agricultural practices like ancestral seed conservation and a unique agroecology system.

Pictured: Remberto Gil’s house is surrounded by an agroforestry system where turkeys and other animals graze under fruit trees such as maracuyá (Passiflora edulis), papaya (Carica papaya) and banana (Musa acuminata colla). Medicinal herbs like toronjil (Melissa officinalis) and tres bolas (Leonotis nepetifolia), and bushes like ají (Capsicum baccatum), yam and frijol diablito (beans) are part of the undergrowth. Image by Monica Pelliccia for Mongabay.

“Climate change is scary due to the possibility of food scarcity,” says Rodrigo Hernandez, a local authority with the Santa Isabel community. “Our ancestral seeds offer a solution as more resistant to climate change.”

Based on their experience, farmers say their ancestral seed varieties are more resistant to high temperatures compared to the imported varieties and cultivars they currently use. These ancestral varieties have adapted to the region’s ecosystem and require less water, they tell Mongabay. According to a report by local organization Grupo Semillas and development foundation SWISSAID, indigenous corn varieties like blaquito are more resistant to the heat, cariaco tolerates drought easily, and negrito is very resistant to high temperatures.

The Zenù diet still incorporates the traditional diversity of seeds, plant varieties and animals they consume, though they too are threatened by climate change: from fish recipes made from bocachico (Prochilodus magdalenae), and reptiles like the babilla or spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus), to different corn varieties to prepare arepas (cornmeal cakes), liquor, cheeses and soups.

“The most important challenge we have now is to save ancient species and involve new generations in ancestral practice,” says Sonia Rocha Marquez, a professor of social sciences at Sinù University in the city of Montería.

...[Despite] land scarcity, Negrete says communities are developing important projects to protect their traditional food systems. Farmers and seed custodians, like Gil, are working with the Association of Organic Agriculture and Livestock Producers (ASPROAL) and their Communitarian Seed House (Casa Comunitaria de Semillas Criollas y Nativas)...

Pictured: Remberto Gil is a seed guardian and farmer who works at the Communitarian Seed House, where the ASPROL association stores 32 seeds of rare or almost extinct species. Image by Monica Pelliccia for Mongabay.

Located near Gil’s house, the seed bank hosts a rainbow of 12 corn varieties, from glistening black to blue to light pink to purple and even white. There are also jars of seeds for local varieties of beans, eggplants, pumpkins and aromatic herbs, some stored in refrigerators. All are ancient varieties shared between local families.

Outside the seed bank is a terrace where chickens and turkeys graze under an agroforestry system for farmers to emulate: local varieties of passion fruit, papaya and banana trees grow above bushes of ají peppers and beans. Traditional medicinal herbs like toronjil or lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) form part of the undergrowth.

Today, 25 families are involved in sharing, storing and commercializing the seeds of 32 rare or almost-extinct varieties.

“When I was a kid, my father brought me to the farm to participate in recovering the land,” says Nilvadys Arrieta, 56, a farmer member of ASPROAL. “Now, I still act with the same collective thinking that moves what we are doing.”

“Working together helps us to save, share more seeds, and sell at fair price [while] avoiding intermediaries and increasing families’ incomes,” Gil says. “Last year, we sold 8 million seeds to organic restaurants in Bogotà and Medellín.”

So far, the 80% of the farmers families living in the Zenù reserve participate in both the agroecology and seed revival projects, he adds."

-via Mongabay, February 6, 2024

[palatinewolfsblog]

"Ignorance allied with power is the most ferocious enemy justice can have." - James Baldwin, Playwright, Poet and Activist

[baddybaddyadardaddy]

see here's the thing about Adar...

MY MAN JUST KEEPS WINNING!!

Sauron at the beginning of the Second Age? STABBED.

Orodruin? ERUPTED.

Eregion? SIEGED.

The Ring of Power? SECURED.

Like ffs, if the elves had just DONE WHAT HE ASKED, my man would have dealt with Ost-in-Edhil's Sauron infestation by LUNCHTIME.

JUST LET HIM COOK.

[otaku553]

Need to write a 4000 word essay and take a neurobio final before I’m done with the term and both are due Thursday so we’re going back to the procrastination doodles again

[reality-detective]

The powers that be are sweeping this 👆 under the rug. 🤔

[disgracefulthings]

Shang Qinghua: Wait my king! You can't hit me!

Mobei-Jun: Oh? And why is that?

Shang Qinghua, a virgin: I'm pregnant

Mobei-Jun: ...what?

Shang Qinghua: And you're the father

Mobei-Jun, also a virgin: WHAT?!

Shang Qinghua: It's true! I, uhhh, was washing some of your clothes, and I accidentally touched some of your sweat, so now I'm pregnant

Mobei-Jun, who never had sex education: So that's where babies come from