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https://readcultured.com/how-ignorance-of-the-world-gave-white-people-a-superiority-complex-c913cabe42d3>
'While eating some beignets near Cafe Du Monde, I read a brown and gold plaque
that claimed New Orleans was "first sighted as an Indian portage to Lake
Pontchartrain and Gulf in 1699 by Bienville and Iberville" and that the city
gained its name from the Duke of Orleans, and called the "crescent city because
of" its "location in the bend of the Mississippi." Reading this plaque made me
realize just how inundated our society is with white supremacy — it's become
ubiquitous, like the air we breathe.
Like much of American history, this plaque is written from the European
colonizers' perspective. Long before the French founded New Orleans in 1718,
Indigenous tribes, such as The Jena Band of Choctaw, Tunica-Biloxi, Coushatta,
and Chitimacha used the territory as a trading place, where people gathered to
form alliances, hunt, and fish. When controlled by the Choctaw, they "named the
area Bulbancha, meaning Land of Many Tongues,” a name that reveals how people
of diverse backgrounds met there. However, as I wrote in
Writers and Editors
of Color Magazine, the Chitimacha tribe’s “turbulent relationship with French
settlers resulted in losing the majority of their ancestral lands and their
tribe's freedom." While the impact of European colonists was devastating for
local tribes and some of their descendants, survivors continued living in New
Orleans and southeast Louisiana. So you see, the plaque, which starts with the
seemingly benign words "first sighted," is speaking from the French perspective
of Iberville and Bienville, not a neutral talking point as many travelers may
assume.'
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
