The 4th People of Color Scifi & Fantasy Carnival

The fourth People of Color Scifi & Fantasy Carnival is up at Francie Doesn’t Like Coffee Ice Cream:

I’m starting off this edition of the People of Color Carnival with the question: what is common knowledge and whose knowledge is it?

Grada Kilomba begins the first day of class by asking her students questions about things which are common knowledge for most of the black students in her class, but that her white students have never heard of. This simple exercise highlights the biases behind what is considered “common knowledge.” Kilomba then says

It is not that [Africans] have not been speaking; but rather that our voices – through a system of racism – have been systematically disqualified as valid knowledge; or else represented by whites, who ironically become the ‘experts’ of ourselves.

The 4th People of Color Scifi & Fantasy Carnival

The fourth People of Color Scifi & Fantasy Carnival is up at Francie Doesn’t Like Coffee Ice Cream:

I’m starting off this edition of the People of Color Carnival with the question: what is common knowledge and whose knowledge is it?

Grada Kilomba begins the first day of class by asking her students questions about things which are common knowledge for most of the black students in her class, but that her white students have never heard of. This simple exercise highlights the biases behind what is considered “common knowledge.” Kilomba then says

It is not that [Africans] have not been speaking; but rather that our voices – through a system of racism – have been systematically disqualified as valid knowledge; or else represented by whites, who ironically become the ‘experts’ of ourselves.