16 FEB - BHM, Econ History, more

Intro:

Happy Black history month y'all! Every day is always a reason to learn about Black history, but this month got historical roots to Dr. Carter G. Woodson and the establishment of negro history week in order for people to learn more about the buried history - LITERALLY - of Black history.

It was designated February to be the month because of the birthdays of Lincoln (11th) and Douglass (14th). Lincoln aint even liked Black people all dat but at least he wasn't a Andrew Jackson. Black history month is also observed in the Republic of Ireland and in several west African countries too.

In the UK they celebrate the month en Octobre!

Even though the history and literature week turned month was a chance for the African American history in North America to survive and be celebrated by other Black people in times of racism, segregation, state sponsored domestic terrorism and other horrible atrocities too - https://web.archive.org/web/20130214045303/http://www.asalh.org/blackhistorymonthorigins.html.

African Americans are a blend of a lot of different cultures heritage from the islands of the former Taino people to the vast different regions of the different African tribes. If not a blend, they are heavily influenced by the cultures from those people. In addition, it is in their DNA, those different areas of the world, as well as the tongue of that people too. African Americans are the products of the transatlantic slave trade that occurred for over 300 years, longer than integration non apartheid rule in the U.S and SA combined. Can't forget the cousins in South and Central America too as TWENTY TIMES the number of Africans that were kidnapped went to down south vs the British possession up north - https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates.

So, to me this month and every day is a celebration of all the people collectively of African descent. As we are stronger together and have more things in common than you think!

Brief moments of going through the "rabbit hole":

I get these moments very frequently of me looking up one thing like looking up Pennsylvania Station in Baltimore, which then leads to Washington D.C Union Station - Union - unus - oinos- oynos. It went from looking up regional urban train stations to the etymology of the word union (from english to proto-indo-european).

Y'all definitely have those moments too but jus thought to share.

Library logs:

I am going to start taking notes on the stuff I learn at the library since the shit be a lot, and to express myself in some way too:

First section-

La biblio - "Columbia Downtown Master Plan Draft - 2006" es muy bien! When I read the first section it had a ton of information and took some getting to adjust too as I was introduced to concepts such as public infrastructure, transportation, urban development. The reason for reading it was to get a gauge for how they planned to make the town center look back in da day (2006). A good amount of rich people w/ cool citizens got control over what are fates are in the city and I want to know what's going on at least. They had roundtables sessions and other meetings too to get everyone's input.

Diving in deeper, what I learned was how to make an area more pedestrian friendly and a less suitable for car congestion on 175, Broken Land, and the town center already be many times of the day. Even if not less suitable for congestion these areas are very car travel dominant and there are not a lot of roads to ride your bike or skate in a safe manner that doesn't get in the way of the vroom vroom - even though that is inevitable, ion think a mirco-mobility rider wants to hold up car traffic, only to pass by fast. Even when trying to travel 3 miles to get to the mall you may need a car. The wood paths work and the sidewalks do too from time to time, but alternatives such as protected bike lanes that are already in the county and what I talk about down below plus numerous other implementations that are hidden from my eye and mind right now could help. But that means niggas gotta change how it is right now and people gotta get adjusted, which I think that's a worthy struggle to make the place more pedestrian friendly. It is possible, and a worthy battle that helps everyone too.

A concept they introduced, and I looked more into was when planning areas for people to live work and play in was to have smaller network of streets (or really interconnected streets) that have frequent blocks of dense living and a combination of public - regional or local transportation (bus, tram, lightrail, train) with personal transportation - micromobility. With the interconnected grid like networks which can be seen in DC or Bmore a major change between suburbia and the city is that the grid like system gives the driver less of an ability to drive at high speeds, gives them more flexibility on how to get to their destination, among other things too I can't think of that's probably better for the pedestrian. These words were less to say let's re design Columbia this way and more of this perspective is a way to approach developing an area for human use.

I do want to hate on cars for a few sentences. Building a society around an automobile that these days you got to pay insurance, maintenance, a car note, and car stuff for that is not communicated to you out right gotta be a crime of itself. I don't know the complete view and why companies and the federal and state governments invest so heavily in a system of transportation that produced death, emissions, and other complications, prolly for money but what is the deeper reason? Niggas dont be that cynical unless there some bigger pictures besides greed. Simple greed kinda does it but not that much.

A good article ima plug - https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2017/03/06/great-idea-street-networks, yea.

Personally, the idea of being able to get out the house and walk down the block and get access to some chicken tenders and fries, and being able to get to near everywhere in the region sounds at an almost free price sounds like the dream to me. I am big supporter for more accessible public transportation has it makes us more human rather than the current: I-got-to-drive-to-buy-food situation we are all almost in.

Econ! -

I always thought of economics as this an interesting discipline fr. The people in it more interesting too. They range from nerds who justify economic disparity and inequality to...lovely people who want to kno more about the world and see through that lens. They align with business, finance math, and political science majors that imo have in common trying to learn how to make the wretched capitalist world work for them among various other ties too. I only took one class - macro - and it was eye opening but still surface level. I only ever knew it as a buzzword when people were describing money and shit, and to describe the exchange of money between the seller and buyer. That was until the first chapter ina book called the "Little History of Economics" by Niall Kishtainy, where I had a review session about economics and how it is about how people manage their resources using a more analytical approach that intersects with math frequently. So, economics is just how - for example - ten niggas ona trip to the mountains and they are in an area where they can't make food runs often (they in the middle of nowhere), so they use the resources they have to get food, water, and other ish for the weekend. If each nigga got $10 to spend, which makes it a total of $100, and they are at a grocery store, they have numerous way they could execute getting the shit they need and going.

However, what I did not like in the first chapter was how he referred an African country as a "poor" country and the States as a "rich country". I don't know if he explains or goes back on how he talked about other countries in their same scenario as rich or poor, but it does lack depth - if he do im wrong, but if not mmm. I'll use this explanation as a why. A town named Columbia, Maryland is one of the safest and richest cities in the country. Now, the people there got money the median income is above 110,000 USD, but there are numerous people that live in the area that do not have access to get/comfortable have or acquire food, transportation, healthcare, and so on. I went to a high school that is similar to one in Columbia where there are cases where people live near the poverty line, or way above it but still barely getting what they need to survive while their soccer or lacrosse teammate doesn't have to worry about the cost of college. Stories of homelessness and other food insecurity that exist in a place they called "The Next America", https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2020/q2-3/economic_history.

As well as the number of students on the FARMS (Free and Reduced Meals) plan in the school. Now you can say it is natural for someone to be in da situation, which ofc capitalism is going to have an effect on EVERYBODY, but in my view if a rich city has a good number of Black children going hungry - which classic United States - idk if you can callit a rich city. Yes, most of the people in the city got money to be cooling so it is an area of people that got money, but that undermines about 20,000 people (ill show da math later) who by federal definition live in poverty, not even accounting for people above who still struggling too. In the city you will have people legit homeless and spend all day at the public library to survive and people who don't even know how much they family pay for their education - crazy. The term rich don't account for their voices and experiences that are in the same city. So, a more accurate term would be unequal city or a city with extreme concentrations of wealth in the former farmland of hoco on former Susquehannock land.

Which that country in Africa mannn what African has experienced and what's going on today...that disparity is as scary as Baltimore city. I don't even remember which country, but it can apply in the continent for a good amount of them.

Other cool stuff I liked about the book tho!

The half island of the Dominican Republic shared with the wonderful Haitians are named after the Dominican order under the Roman Catholics - https://dominicanfriars.org/about/history-dominican-friars/.

Makes sense for an island with people that are Christian and Catholic that was colonized by Spain and probably others for lifetimes. Wild how a people that are mixed with many lives in them are named after something different than their og identity and history...I think, and I THINK a good comparison is the negroes in the United States referring to themselves as African American being it was what they were told and as Dr. Dubois said niggas got dual consciousness - one of the colonized and one of the colonizers. Niggas whose identity was a product of colonization, imperialism, and ultimately forced foreign intervention and assimilation are most of the time going to be told and named after their master's rather than they og peoples...since that of identity has been damn near wiped and forgotten and not passed down.

What I am more saying is I wanna propose Dominicans are not really Dominicans but a mix of Taino, West Afrique, and Spanish blood that was molden into an identity to match more of a descendant of Spanish rather than their ancestors that were in bondage and most likely killed off or became property. Of course, they got Spanish descendants but are they supposed to be there and is that your main identity? Hopefully I am not crazy for this statement.

Aristotle and Plato thought making a profit just to make a profit was evil - INTEREST is a prime example of that. They thought that a person should get want they need and nothing more when exchanging currency - https://www.capitalismmagazine.com/2016/09/aristotle-and-economics/.

It is kinda surprising too that Aristotle and Plato found a flaw in the economic system that is has a currency involved in it. They had really interesting and flawed ideas, which I can't even blame them for their time - but all of western society and bit of the colored world would've better off if we did not center them as much. If they were able to find that flaw idk we all could've saw a little bit of what the outcome of would've been having Moneros involved in getting a banana but, but can't even blame the individual all dat fr, as well we already deep in capitalism but y'all know I be yapping in AAVE and American english like a bilingual descendant of Spanish rule (like how they speak between spanish and english). (Imagine being told the banana cost 5 dolla bc of the market value and demand for the banana but you see that you can get one from a tree...mannn i woulda ****** the scammer right there). This post a lil progress of mixing math and social ish. No math here but soon.

That should be good for the month...again I try to pose questions, give out my view on things, and express my thoughts in a way that is productive, and I think that is healthy. I'll probably be less dip the chip in each everything and stick to one topic and cover how that thing can be seen from many angles and probably not but ima try to cover the wider range and everything about.

I like that view because on my quest to try to learn about mostly everything, shit not possible. It is but that is more of a ideal and optimistic goal rather than a realistic one. As well reading, engaging, understanding, and then writing and communicating it is an art and a process. So, it is better to take time on the craft that really matters than to try to speedrun the game on the first go. At least for me fr.

If i got anything inaccurate or wrong in dis jawn pls lmk.

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