i felt the work it took to connect those dots, javaun..and now that i’ve sat with this piece a second time, i can name what reading you actually feels like. it’s a walking history-and-culture tour led by someone who knows where the real bodies are buried // books open, rum poured, real ground under our feet. i’m waiting on the next tour. 🤎
the rum thread is what got me, javaun. you found the part of a dense book that still breathes “tafia” talked about with contempt because of who was drinking it and what those gatherings threatened, while the same logic gets called something respectable when the people at the top hold it. value assigned by who can afford the thing. that logic outlived the period by centuries. and the “rogue colonialism” frame…brutality as local self-interest by militias, slaveowners, administrators…reorganizes how most people are taught all of this. 🤎
Took me a while (many, many books later) to connect those dots. Never a surprise when you combine 1) who controls the microphone, and the fact that 2) humanity is rarely (if ever) fairly extended across the board. Almost makes things too clear at that point.
Yea, that “rogue colonialism” framework was really insightful!
i felt the work it took to connect those dots, javaun..and now that i’ve sat with this piece a second time, i can name what reading you actually feels like. it’s a walking history-and-culture tour led by someone who knows where the real bodies are buried // books open, rum poured, real ground under our feet. i’m waiting on the next tour. 🤎
🙌🏾 🙌🏾 🙌🏾
the rum thread is what got me, javaun. you found the part of a dense book that still breathes “tafia” talked about with contempt because of who was drinking it and what those gatherings threatened, while the same logic gets called something respectable when the people at the top hold it. value assigned by who can afford the thing. that logic outlived the period by centuries. and the “rogue colonialism” frame…brutality as local self-interest by militias, slaveowners, administrators…reorganizes how most people are taught all of this. 🤎
Took me a while (many, many books later) to connect those dots. Never a surprise when you combine 1) who controls the microphone, and the fact that 2) humanity is rarely (if ever) fairly extended across the board. Almost makes things too clear at that point.
Yea, that “rogue colonialism” framework was really insightful!
Thanks for reading 🙌🏾