Ciudade de Bamba

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Letter to Audre Lorde 

Stars are giant, luminous spheres of plasma. There are billions of them — including our own sun — in the Milky Way Galaxy. And there are billions of galaxies in the universe. So far, we have learned that hundreds also have planets orbiting them.

1. Stars are made of the same stuff

All stars begin from clouds of cold molecular hydrogen that gravitationally collapse. As they cloud collapses, it fragments into many pieces that will go on to form individual stars. The material collects into a ball that continues to collapse under its own gravity until it can ignite nuclear fusion at its core. This initial gas was formed during the Big Bang, and is always about 74% hydrogen and 25% helium. Over time, stars convert some of their hydrogen into helium. That’s why our Sun’s ratio is more like 70% hydrogen and 29% helium. But all stars start out with ¾ hydrogen and ¼ helium, with other trace elements.

2. Most stars are red dwarfs

If you could collect all the stars together and put them in piles, the biggest pile, by far, would be the red dwarfs. These are stars with less than 50% the mass of the Sun. Red dwarfs can even be as small as 7.5% the mass of the Sun. Below that point, the star doesn’t have the gravitational pressure to raise the temperature inside its core to begin nuclear fusion. Those are called brown dwarfs, or failed stars. Red dwarfs burn with less than 1/10,000th the energy of the Sun, and can sip away at their fuel for 10 trillion years before running out of hydrogen.

3. Mass = temperature = color

The color of stars can range from red to white to blue. Red is the coolest color; that’s a star with less than 3,500 Kelvin. Stars like our Sun are yellowish white and average around 6,000 Kelvin. The hottest stars are blue, which corresponds to surface temperatures above 12,000 Kelvin. So the temperature and color of a star are connected. Mass defines the temperature of a star. The more mass you have, the larger the star’s core is going to be, and the more nuclear fusion can be done at its core. This means that more energy reaches the surface of the star and increases its temperature. There’s a tricky exception to this: red giants. A typical red giant star can have the mass of our Sun, and would have been a white star all of its life. But as it nears the end of its life it increases in luminosity by a factor of 1000, and so it seems abnormally bright. But a blue giant star is just big, massive and hot.

4. Most stars come in multiples

It might look like all the stars are out there, all by themselves, but many come in pairs. These are binary stars, where two stars orbit a common center of gravity. And there are other systems out there with 3, 4 and even more stars. Just think of the beautiful sunrises you’d experience waking up on a world with 4 stars around it.

5. The biggest stars would engulf Saturn

Speaking of red giants, or in this case, red supergiants, there are some monster stars out there that really make our Sun look small. A familiar red supergiant is the star Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion. It has about 20 times the mass of the Sun, but it’s 1,000 times larger. But that’s nothing. The largest known star is the monster UY Scuti.  It is a current and leading candidate for being the largest known star by radius and is also one of the most luminous of its kind. It has an estimated radius of 1,708 solar radii (1.188×109 kilometres; 7.94 astronomical units); thus a volume nearly 5 billion times that of the Sun.

6. There are many, many stars

Quick, how many stars are there in the Milky Way. You might be surprised to know that there are 200-400 billion stars in our galaxy. Each one is a separate island in space, perhaps with planets, and some may even have life.

7. The Sun is the closest star

Okay, this one you should know, but it’s pretty amazing to think that our own Sun, located a mere 150 million km away is average example of all the stars in the Universe. Our own Sun is classified as a G2 yellow dwarf star in the main sequence phase of its life. The Sun has been happily converting hydrogen into helium at its core for 4.5 billion years, and will likely continue doing so for another 7+ billion years. When the Sun runs out of fuel, it will become a red giant, bloating up many times its current size. As it expands, the Sun will consume Mercury, Venus and probably even Earth. 

8. The biggest stars die early

Small stars like red dwarfs can live for trillions of years. But hypergiant stars, die early, because they burn their fuel quickly and become supernovae. On average, they live only a few tens of millions of years or less.

9. Failed stars

Brown dwarfs are substellar objects that occupy the mass range between the heaviest gas giant planets and the lightest stars, of approximately 13 to 75–80 Jupiter masses (MJ). Below this range are the sub-brown dwarfs, and above it are the lightest red dwarfs (M9 V). Unlike the stars in the main-sequence, brown dwarfs are not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion of ordinary hydrogen (1H) to helium in their cores.

10. Sirius: The Brightest Star in the Night Sky

Sirius is a star system and the brightest star in the Earth’s night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, it is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The system has the Bayer designation Alpha Canis Majoris (α CMa). What the naked eye perceives as a single star is a binary star system, consisting of a white main-sequence star of spectral type A0 or A1, termed Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion of spectral type DA2, called Sirius B. 

To know more click the links: white dwarf, supernova, +stars, pulsars

sources: wikipedia and universetoday.com

Europe’s Forgotten Untouchables — The Cagots

It’s a terrible fact that throughout history prejudice, descriminiation, and ostracism has been a common facet of the human condition. Even in ancient times, peoples tended to think of their own societies as being the most civilized  on Earth while all other peoples were mere barbarians. Prejudice and discrimination based on skin color, religion, and ethnicity is something that is common in almost every society and culture, and is a problem that plagues humanity to this day. However, discrimination against people in a society who share the same race, ethnicity  religion, and culture has occurred a number times. Such people  are ostracized, denigrated, and forced into a minority underclass for nebulous reasons even though they are no different from everyone else in that society.  Often, these people are regarded as so low in society that they are considered filth, and the mere act of touching one of them could make a person unclean, requiring the person to undergo ritual purification. Perhaps the most well known of this phenomena are the Dalit, people on the very bottom of the ancient Indian caste system who are known as “untouchables”. For centuries the Dalit were forced by religious and secular law to only work in certain undesirable vocations, forced to live in segregated communities, forced to endure terrible poverty, and were absolutely forbidden from rising above their caste. Even though the caste system in India has long been abolished, the Dalit still face terrible discrimination, and the Dalit of modern India are among the most impoverished and downtrodden peoples of the world. In Japan a similar caste exists called the Burakumin, a class of people who to this day live in the poorest communities of Japan. Recently, the Youtube channel “Rare Earth” did an excellent video on the Burakumin. I highly suggest you watch it before reading further. It can be found here.  In Yemen there exists a group left over from a long abolished caste system called the Al-Akdham, a stigmatized people who share much in common with the Dalit and Burakumin. The Western world is no different. Even though in European based cultures caste systems are not nearly as ingrained as in other societies, there was one a oppressed group of untouchables known as the Cagots.

The Cagots primarily resided in Northern Spain, Southern France, and Northwestern France, and are first documented in the historical record around 1000 AD. Like the other groups mentioned in the previous paragraph, the Cagots were a group of people that were considered so low in society that they were literally untouchable, as it was believed that they spread disease and filth. This was all in spite of the fact that they shared the same ethnicity, race, religion, language, and culture as the society they lived in. As a result, the Cagots were separated from the rest of society and forced to live in special ghettos called “Cagoteries”. Because of their “uncleanliness”, they were forbidden from touching non-Cagots. They were also forbidden from touching food in markets, from preparing or serving food for public consumption, eating with non-Cagots, from bathing in public baths and using public lavatories. Markets would be reserved on certain days so that Cagots could shop without being in contact with other people. Churches had special entrances for Cagots, and basins of holy water were set up for Cagot use only. 

 A special roped off section of the church was reserved for the Cagots separate from the rest of the congregation. During Holy Communion the Eucharist and sacramental wine were served to the Cagots using large, long wooden spoons. They were even forbidden from burying their dead in public graveyards and cemeteries. The Cadots were often forced to announce their arrival when entering town, either by shaking a loud bell or rattle. They were also forced to wear certain conspicuous dress and often times wear a goose foot around their necks; based on the myth that they had webbed feet. As a result they were also forbidden for being barefoot which was how most peasants of the time walked.

  The Cagots were forced to work in only a few specific career fields such as ropemaking, making wine barrels, and coffins. Economically it was impossible for a Cagot to rise above his or her class, as was it impossible socially as Cagots were forbidden from marrying non-Cagots. If you were a Cagot living between the 11th and late 19th century, you were inescapably bound to live a life of discrimination, ostracism, revilement, and poverty. It’s important to keep in mind that all of these rules and restrictions were not merely social norms, but in most localities had the force of law. Breaking the law could result in brutal punishment. In the early 18th century a Cagot in Landes was seen collecting water from a public fountain. He was punished by having his hand cut off and nailed to the local church door. In 1741 a Cagot from Moumour was discovered farming a plot of land and as a result had his feet pierced with red hot iron spikes. Cagots were so hated that when Pope Leo X issued a Papal Bull ordering that Cagots should be treated like normal human beings, the Bull was completely ignored, even by loyal church officials.

Change came for the Cagots with the French Revolution. Many Cagots were ardent supporters of the French Revolution because they were the most oppressed by the French society and government, and of course they had nothing left to lose. During the Revolution the Cagots often stormed government buildings and records offices to destroy family records and birth certificates which identified them as Cagots. Finally, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte officially abolished all legal and social discrimination against the Cagots. Of course, just because the government said it was illegal, didn’t mean that the discrimination stopped entirely. In many parts of France and Spain, de facto discrimination continued up to the late 19th century. However, the 19th century signaled the end of the Cagot class as public attitudes changed and eventually they integrated into society. By the early 20th century, Cagot prejudice was rare and focused in a few backwards localities. Today, the Cagot no longer exist as a defined people and their history is mostly forgotten..

So now it’s time to ask the most important question of all; What did the Cagots do to deserve such treatment? Why were they hated so much? Incredibly, no one really has a definitive answer.  There are many theories proposed by historians; they were once religious heretics, they were descendants of Moors, they were descendants of Goth slaves, they were descendants of lepers, people believed they had certain physical features which made them inferior (none of which was true), that they once belonged to a fallen Medieval carpenters guild. The truth of the matter is that the reasons for the Cagots’ status in society is completely unknown and forgotten. Yes, the society that condemned and oppressed the Cagots for almost 1,000 years had long ago forgotten why they were condemning and oppressing them. For centuries, the only reason why the Cagots were so reviled was… because they were Cagots  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ No other explanation was necessary or desired.

Antiblackness that actually involves the input of black south asians & black people in general

Ignoring the fact that South Asia is comprised of 8 countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, India, Maldives, and Sri Lanka.

Lack or complete ignorance of north east indian culture and peoples.

Cultural hegemony India tends to have over representing South Asia

Discussion of caste which doesn’t reduce it down to an old practice that doesn’t actively shape an individual’s life in a variety of ways that are not exclusive to socioeconomic struggles.

How the discussion of the South Asian diaspora focuses mainly on those living in the West.

Hindutva

Steve McCurry making a name for himself off of the exploitation and exotification of South Asian faces and bodies (see: Sharbat Gula: known globally merely as “The Afghan Girl”

Ignorance of the issues Adivasi peoples face across South Asia.

Exploitation of the bodies of South Asian women for surrogacy by Westerners.

Savarna appropriation of Avarna arts redeeming it anew with culture now that it’s been mutilated by forward castes. (ie: Appropriation of Sadir into modern day Bharatnatyam)

The creation of good and bad brown/south asian dichotomy in the West Post 9/11 (ie: Indian peoples are characterized/seen as intelligent spiritual peaceful people while Pakistani and Afghani peoples are characterized/seen as violent terrorists or oppressed women who are labeled under islamophobic terms such as “radical muslim”

The lack of discussion about the South Asian diaspora in the Caribbean and South America.

Discrimination against Black African students living in South Asia.

Portrayal of Hinduism & Buddhism as peaceful religions while Islam is portrayed as violent and backwards.

Complete ignorance or writing off of Southern & Northeast Indian cultures by North Indians and Northern South Asians alike as not being authentically Indian or only discussing it when talking about the different regions of India.

Shadeism

How Bollywood has stolen, appropriated, and made racist caricatures of Indians and Non-Indians who are not Savarna North Indians. (See: Chennai Express, blackface meant to represent native Hawaiian peoples seen in the Hawa Hawai song in Mr. India, Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen, etc)

Misogyny and sexual violence against Dalit women.

Erasure of brown skin in South Asian media, replacing brown skinned South Asian women with extremely light skinned South Asian or white women calling them the ideal faces of South Asian womanhood and beauty.

Oualata, Mauritania

Oualata (also known as “Walata”), located in Southeast Mauritania, is one town out of a string of 4 in total, coined by UNESCO as the Ksour (ksar - singular, ksour - plural; a Maghrebi Arabic term meaning “fortified village”) of Ouadane, Chinguetti, Tichitt and Oualata. The city of Oualata became a popular caravan city, a trading hub, between the 12th and 16th centuries CE. [1] Today it is renowned for its decorative vernacular houses.

The medieval Moroccan traveler and scholar, Ibn Battuta, wrote of his stay in Oualata in his Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354, saying:

“Thus we reached the town of Iwalatan [Walata] after a journey from Sijilmasa of two months to a day. Iwalatan is the northernmost province of the Negroes, and the sultan’s representative there was one Farba Husayn, ‘farba’ meaning deputy [in their Ianguage]. When we arrived there, the merchants deposited their goods in an open square, where the blacks undertook to guard them, and went to the farba. He was sitting on a carpet under an archway, with his guards before him carrying lances and bows in their hands, and the headmen of the Massufa behind him. The merchants remained standing in front of him while he spoke to them through an interpreter, although they were close to him, to show his contempt for them. It was then that I repented of having come to their country, because of their lack of manners and their contempt for the whites.

…Later on the mushrif [inspector] of Iwalatan, whose name was Mansha Ju, invited all those who had come with the caravan to partake of his hospitality. At first I refused to attend, but my companions urged me very strongly, so I went with the rest. The repast was served–some pounded millet mixed with a little honey and milk, put in a half calabash shaped like a large bowl. The guests drank and retired. I said to them, ‘Was it for this that the black invited us?’ They answered, ‘Yes; and it is in their opinion the highest form of hospitality.’ This convinced me that there was no good to be hoped for from these people, and I made up my mind to travel [back to Morocco at once] with the pilgrim caravan from Iwalatan. Afterwards, however, I thought it best to go to see the capital of their king [of the kingdom of Mali, at the city of Mali].”

He seems to have met an hateful sentiment against “white” North Africans from someone within the city. Nonetheless, he did not hate the blacks. Also by his own account (and as seen in the next excerpt), this city was inhabited by the Masufa Berbers, a tribe not known much about. The demographics of Oualata, being mostly black, could mean the Masufa are one of the few heavily black Berber tribes (the main most notably being Tuareg people), or they simply could have been the typical “white” Berbers.

University of Georgia historian Timothy Cleaveland notes in his book Becoming Walata: A History of Saharan Social Formation and Transformation (2002), on page 176, that the city was inhabited by a mix of the original Mande-speaking peoples (also inhabited by Soninke people as well), and later migrations of Zenaga-speaking Berbers, followed even further down the line by Arab or “Arabized” nomads. Although, he notes that the composition of the population didn’t change very much. [2]

The famous Israeli historian and expert of African Islamic history Nehemia Levtzion says in his book Ancient Ghana and Mali (1973) on page 147 that “Walata” had a mixed population of [”white”] Berbers and “Sudanese”; blacks. On pages 80 and 158, we read that it fell from its trading popularity to the city of Timbuktu in the second half of the 14th century. [3]

This is what Ibn Battuta had to say of his stay in the city of Oualata, its men and the quality of their women:

“My stay at Iwalatan lasted about fifty days; and I was shown honor and entertained by its inhabitants. It is an excessively hot place, and boasts a few small date-palms, in the shade of which they sow watermelons. Its water comes from underground waterbeds at that point, and there is plenty of mutton to be had. The garments of its inhabitants, most of whom belong to the Massufa tribe, are of fine Egyptian fabrics.

Their women are of surpassing beauty, and are shown more respect than the men. The state of affairs amongst these people is indeed extraordinary. Their men show no signs of jealousy whatever; no one claims descent from his father, but on the contrary from his mother’s brother. A person’s heirs are his sister’s sons, not his own sons. This is a thing which I have seen nowhere in the world except among the Indians of Malabar. But those are heathens; these people are Muslims, punctilious in observing the hours of prayer, studying books of law, and memorizing the Koran. Yet their women show no bashfulness before men and do not veil themselves, though they are assiduous in attending the prayers. Any man who wishes to marry one of them may do so, but they do not travel with their husbands, and even if one desired to do so her family would not allow her to go.

The women there have ‘friends’ and ‘companions’ amongst the men outside their own families, and the men in the same way have ‘companions’ amongst the women of other families. A man may go into his house and find his wife entertaining her ‘companion’ but he takes no objection to it. One day at Iwalatan I went into the qadi’s house, after asking his permission to enter, and found with him a young woman of remarkable beauty. When I saw her I was shocked and turned to go out, but she laughed at me, instead of being overcome by shame, and the qadi said to me ‘Why are you going out? She is my companion.’ I was amazed at their conduct, for he was a theologian and a pilgrim [to Mecca] to boot. I was told that he had asked the sultan’s permission to make the pilgrimage that year with his ‘companion’–whether this one or not I cannot say–but the sultan would not grant it.”

In a quite hilarious situation, Battuta is surprised by this beautiful woman and attempts to flee like a nervous boy. And he does end up leaving the city of Oualata, in frustration, for Mali to see the king, and notes that it takes 24 days to reach if the caravan pushes on rapidly. [4]

Citation 4 is the text provided by Fordham University’s IHSP.

The renowned 15th-16th century Moroccan Berber-Andalusi writer, Leo Africanus, notes in his Descrittione dell’Africa that:

“The fourth part of Africa which is called the land of Negros, beginneth eastward at the kingdome of Gaoga, from whence it extendeth west as far as Gualata.” (pg 124)

“I* my selfe saw fifteene kingdoms of the Negros: howbeit there are many more, which although I saw not with mine owne eies, yet are they by the Negros sufficiently knowen and frequented. Their names there fore (beginning from the west, and so proceeding Eastward and Southward) are these following: Gualata, Ghinea, Melli, Tombuto, Gago, Guber, Agadez, Cano, Cafena, Zegzeg, Zanfara, Guangara, Borno, Gaogo, Nube.” (pg 128) [5]

The last two citations are unrelated pieces written to explain what exactly this “Gaoga” kingdom was, seeing that it isn’t written of otherwise, for anyone interested.

The beautiful ancient city of Oualata, Mauritania remains a notable tourist attraction today. An hour-long documentary was made about the muralist women of Oualata who decorate these houses, titled “En attandant les hommes”, in 2007 by director Katy Ndiaye.

See www.walata.org if you plan to visit. Below are some extra pictures of the city (one of them shows muralists at work). Enjoy.

Citations:

1. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/750/

2. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25653366

3. http://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/file%20uploads%20/nehemia_levtzion_ancient_ghana_and_malibook4you.pdf

4. http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1354-ibnbattuta.asp

5. Leo Africanus, The History and Description of Africa and of the Notable Things Therein Contained: Volume 1, pgs 124 and 128, published by B. Franklin, 1896

6. https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article-abstract/XXIX/CXV/280/121509/THE-KINGDOM-OF-GAOGA-OF-LEO-AFRICANUS