19 skulls come home to New Orleans
Donald Trump and his MAGA-Republican cult are attempting a half-assed Jedi mind trick to erase diversity, equity and inclusion from America. Not just the DEI acronym or the human resources practices, but the very ideas. Trump has compliant Republican caucus members prostrating themselves in an effort consonant with Trump’s stolen-election new Lost Cause. They have not yet attempted to have “The New Colossus” plaque torn off the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. But give them time.
Making it harder for them are stories like this from the New York Times that remind us of American history that the MAGA mind trick cannot erase:
Sometime before Jan. 10, 1872, a young Black laborer named William Roberts checked himself into Charity Hospital in New Orleans. Just 23 years old, he was from Georgia and had a strong build, according to hospital records. His only recorded sickness was diarrhea.
He was one of 19 Black patients who died at the hospital in December 1871 and January 1872, and whose skulls were sent to Germany to be studied by a doctor researching a now wholly discredited science that purported a correlation between the shape and size of a skull and a person’s intellect and character.
The skulls languished in Germany for about 150 years until Leipzig University contacted the city of New Orleans two years ago to repatriate them.
The remains will receive a jazz funeral and are “believed to be the first major international restitution of the remains of Black Americans from Europe.”
The skulls are among others shipped in the late 19th century to Emil Ludwig Schmidt, a German doctor, for his studies in phrenology:
Phrenologists at the time studied the skulls of nonwhite people in an attempt to prove that there was a correlation between the physical characteristics of their skull shape and their intelligence. The theory has been discredited.
Schmidt had a collection of about 1,300 skulls from more than 40 countries, primarily from people of African descent, that he later donated to Leipzig University. At the time, skull collections were not uncommon.
“Primarily from people of African descent.” In case you missed it on first reading.
Are you a race horse? MAGA will brush you and shovel out your stall. If not, in their discredited science, it’s the glue factory for you.
* * * * *
Have you fought dictatorship today?
No Kings Day, June 14th
The Resistance Lab
Choose Democracy
Indivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
You Have Power
Chop Wood, Carry Water
Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense