i am that which i am

if this year keeps going the way it is i might end up with a fursona

this doesn’t really go here (“here” being my king gizzard fanblog, “this” being some ill-formed thoughts on botany and colonialism which certainly aren’t what you came here for) but i’ve been thinking a lot recently about how in my undergraduate education i was never taught about how incredibly deeply intertwined botany and horticulture were and still are with colonialism. and like, this is still something i am not particularly educated about, but at least i know enough now to have retroactively noticed the absolute lack. no mention of the theft and/or erasure of indigenous knowledge, plant names, place names, understanding of relationships with the environment. of the poaching of the tropical plants that would become houseplants and grow in the “rare and exotic” sections of botanical gardens (which promise to conserve and protect these rare plants but never address the causes that led us to grow these plants thousands of miles away from their homes). botanical excursions and herbarium specimens as a means to understand and therefore conquer land. just read Braiding Sweetgrass and smile and nod and pat ourselves on the back for doing enough