Could you please change texts from “slave” to “enslaved person”? I know you don’t agree with slavery while giving context, however it’s heartbreaking to see people denied their humanity. You’re a spectacular historian. Keep up the fantastic work.

medievalpoc:

tehbewilderness:

I respectfully suggest that if you think calling enslaved people slaves denies their humanity it is you who has an ethics problem.

 I DO think that referring to human beings as “slaves”, especially the way it’s done in most history writing, is dehumanizing and should be changed. When I’m writing, I don’t use that kind of language. They way that information is presented has a profound effect on the way it’s received. I agree with the person asking the question-that’s not even the question.

I’m talking about quoted text-changing someone else’s words when I post them here. And I’m not refusing to change it-I’m asking if anyone knows a way to do it without causing confusion and difficulty in finding the original source for the information.

Here’s an example. This painting’s title is “The Captive Slave”:

If I literally just google “The Captive Slave”, here’s what I get:

Look ^^ Now I know the artist, the year, the dimensions and where it was made before I’ve even clicked anything.

Googling “The Enslaved Man” does this:

The best part? This man is not enslaved. He’s Ira Aldridge, posing for an Abolitionist painting that would be shown along with this poem in The Royal Academy of Arts Salon in London in 1827:

medievalpoc:

I assume you mean this post? I noticed a few problems with it and it’s been sitting in my drafts for a while, but I posted it because I think it’s a story that people should be very interested in, but I haven’t had the time to go *really* digging on my own (and I’m posting in hopes someone else will).

The text you’re referring to aren’t my words; they are quoted text (from here: written by Donal Fallon), which I usually will not change except to censor slurs. This is an issue that is sort of constantly ambient in this work, and I try to engage with as responsibly as I can.  I’d definitely like feedback from people affected by this kind of language, as always.

It’s also relevant when it comes to artwork information and titles as they’re organized by museums, because this language is a problem, but at the same time people need to be able to find the artwork and information about it they’re looking for. The same goes for quoting from sources; a lot of the time I’m citing racist works from the 1700s and 1800s, and try my best to deal with curating this information as responsibly as I can-which includes listening and learning.

If anyone has some tips as to a working solution for this problem, I’d love to know about it.

But Ah! what wish can prosper, or what prayer

For merchants rich in cargoes of despair

-Cowper, 1782

This is a collaboration between a famous Victorian actor and a painter that had been sort of dismissed as a hack, to bring attention and sympathy to Abolitionist causes. But that’s not even the most salient point.

This painting moldered in a basement, forgotten, for almost 200 YEARS because it depicted “A Slave”. No one thought it was important.

The way information is presented and the way words are attached to people and/or/versus objects is CRUCIALLY IMPORTANT.

This is my challenge: the find a way to express incredibly complex ideas in as brief and accessible a manner as I can manage, in a format that is quick to share with other people. Additionally, to find a way to do so that is as ethically responsible as I know how, and to reach out to as many people as possible in order to make that happen.