Do we really need to keep bringing up gender and race? Yes, yes we do actually. Now usually when a topic is brought up enough people get tired of it and don't care to talk about it anymore. Well that CAN'T be the case when it comes to gender and race!!!! We need to continue talking about gender and race because there are evident issues from the past and current that deal with them. It is important to keep talking about them and having difficult conversations with people in order to fight this issue. That being said let's talk about Evolution. Oh wait how are we even supposed to properly understand evolution without getting diverse perspectives on the matter. Or maybe we should we just leave it up to the racist old white men? I think NOT!!! Which brings me to my favorite quote from this weeks readings by Jason Organ, "Evolution is all wrapped up in white supremacy and a generally- destined patriarchy. This is not evolution. And this is not my evolution. I know you're nodding your head along with me". Im tired of everything including our evolution being centered around white men and so should you. Thats why the Black Feminist theory is so important! It gives a unique new perspective to our understanding of evolution which should be valued highly. We have to continue to strive towards diversifying science so that we can get perspectives from minorities and not like the white men continue to skew our understanding of the world.
Organ, J. (2020, May 18). It is unethical to teach evolution without confronting racism and sexism. Retrieved May 29, 2020, from https://blogs.plos.org/scicomm/2018/11/29/it-is-unethical-to-teach-evolution-without-confronting-racism-and-sexism/
If humans came from chimps, why are there still chimps? This is a question that has been asked forever. It probably started occurring a...
ack! my first comment didn't post.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, i was just thinking about how we can move paleo forward. You note the importance of black feminist theory so it would be interesting to think how this could help paleoanthro move forward. One thought is to think about who even gets to do the research and publish on the results. It is changing, but up till recently it was mostly Western scientists doing archaeology and paleoanthro in Africa. And one of the readings talks about accepting other was of doing science and creating knowledge. I'm curious how the field will change in 20 years
Also, just to note that the quote comes from Holly Dunsworth, not jason. but jason posted her message on his blog so i is very confusing!
Hey! You are 100% correct. We still need to talk about gender and race. By doing so, we are changing different minds or even making people question themselves also if they don't know themselves. The exchange of ideas is how we evolved into smarter and capable species. Letting one group of people have all the fun (i.e., like you said old white men) don't leave anything for us. We are fighting back to show a different perspective of anthropology by indigenous, feminists, and pretty much everyone who is not in the category of "old white men." This will help decolonize ideas as we can already see like the black feminist archaeologist giving a different perspective, for example, to interpret a site by including the oppression of women and indigenous people. Everyone has something to add to the table; we need to give them a platform to say what they have to say, and it may even inspire others who talk and follow their passions.
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