Wikipedia’s insult of the black race

[Poetlister]

Go to Google. Search for, ‘Lazarus and the rich man’’. The search takes you to Wikipedia.

At Wikipedia, the most prominent feature that arrests attention is a cartoon illustration of the bible story told by Jesus about a rich man who wined and dined while a poor man, Lazarus, sat at the door begging for crumbs and getting none. Lazarus died and went to heaven, the rich man died and went to hell.

Nice drawing, except that it is one of the most dehumanising renditions in the history of racism, an assault on the African mind. To the Wikipedia cartoonist, Satan and his demons are black (African) while God and his praying angels are Caucasian (white).

myjoyonline

The Wikipedia article is Rich man and Lazarus (T-H-L). The cartoon is shown below. Of course, it was not drawn by any Wikipedia cartoonist; it is taken from a thousand-year-old manuscript. Still, it could certainly be regarded as offensive.

[Beeblebrox]

Oh no, a poorly researched article from a Christian-oriented media company in Ghana has exposed that European people were super racist 1000 year ago.

[Ada Sinn]

"Wikipedia cartoonist" made my day

[Beeblebrox]

"Wikipedia cartoonist" made my day

Yeah, that is pretty special.

[Randy from Boise]

Oh no, a poorly researched article from a Christian-oriented media company in Ghana has exposed that European people were super racist 1000 year ago.

+1

Why is this a thread?

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[Parabola]

do you really just have a google search alert for wikipedia so you can make new threads

[Zoloft]

do you really just have a google search alert for wikipedia so you can make new threads

Ever looked at the front page of our site?

On the right side: Wikipedia in the News

[watis]

Why is this a thread?

Did a sock get caught lately?

[Giraffe Stapler]

Oh no, a poorly researched article from a Christian-oriented media company in Ghana has exposed that European people were super racist 1000 year ago.

And in 2021, Wikipedia editors chose that particular image to be featured in the infobox...

[AndyTheGrump]

I'd think it fairly unlikely that the person responsible for the illustration, from the Codex Aureus of Echternach (T-H-L) intended to portray 'black people'. Or human beings at all. They are demons - supernatural creatures associate in Christianity with evil. They have forked tongues, and claws.

Whether, given more recent ideas about 'race', Wikipedia should be using the illustration is of course open to question, all the same.

[Bezdomni]

I’d be surprised if Wikipedia doesn’t know about these new revelations.

But Africans have our own chroniclers too. Lawyer Kobina Sekyi (T-H-L)’s play, ‘The Blinkards’, tells the carry-forward effect inside colonial Africa. Films like ‘Black Girl’ and ‘Emitai’, among others by Senegalese Ousmane Sembène (T-H-L), ‘Love Brewed in the African pot’ and ‘Heritage Africa’ by Ghanaian Kwaw Ansah (T-H-L)’s set out to reverse the narrative.

Of the works and authors cited here only ‘The Blinkards’ lacks a page anywhere in the WMF universe. It doesn't didn't even have a wikidata entry. Ousmane Sembène, by contrast, has bios written in 36 languages on *.wp.

That "trinity audio" app Enimil uses is really surprising: it seems to be border blasting American English globally with remarkably authentic suprasegmentals.

It is a 21st century lap in the imperialism relay.

ed: I added The Blinkards to WD. Also, in this paragraph

‘Mr English at Home’ (1940) and ‘An African in London’ were films that taught British etiquette to Africans. Others like ‘Lusaka Calling’ (1951) were used to introduce Africans to western goods such as transistor radio. ‘Leprosy’ (1952) set out to demonstrate the superiority of western medicine while ‘Men of Two Worlds’ ridiculed the African witchdoctor and discredited African traditional healing processes.

only the movie mentioned last has a WMF page that I found.

[Poetlister]

The trouble is that what is harmless and no more than a historical curiosity to some is offensive to others, possibly through a misunderstanding. Should the picture be removed because some people have been offended? I can imagine that if the question were raised, there would be shouts of WP:NOTCENSORED. There is a second illustration from a mediaeval manuscript which I think also shows a black devil.

[Beeblebrox]

It's a valid conversation to have, if we aren't coming from the absurdly, laughably incorrect premise that any of these images is a "Wikipedia cartoon." I think we're all used to seeing articles abut WP where they get little things wrong, not grasping the details of the more inside stuff, that's understandable, but this is not. This is just someone who made up their mind about what they were seeing and looked no further. That's not how journalism works, or at least not how it is supposed to work.

[thekohser]

Speaking of Wikipedia cartoonists, remember this one?