User talk:Psmith85
January 2018[edit]
{{unblock|reason=Your reason here ~~~~}}. — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 01:48, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
Psmith85 (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))
Request reason:
No edits constituted vandalism or were posted for non-NPOV. As is the case with most edits, I do have an interest in the subject and familiarity with what the sources for various subjects do and do not establish. The fact is that in most or close to most cases, the claims for certain African tribal affiliation are baseless or highly tenuous. The slaves were (what is today known as) black, they were generally of some portion African descent (but not uncommonly mixed with Native American, and some cases dark-skinned and entirely Native American, with curly, wavy and yes kinky hair, but no African descent), but when it comes to naming certain tribes/peoples, historians, to use the term liberally, are getting creative. We've seen it at Goree, we've seen it with Alex Haley. When you actually trace the story back to the source, either the source does not claim what the article says it does, or you are reading a children's book or historical fiction novel with no citations, and there is no verifiability to the claim, with phrases like 'legend has it' (with no link to a legend that can be independently verified) 'family traditions say' (without saying which family member, or giving any details that can be independently verified in any way: who when etc.). For example, Harriet Tubman was said to recount a story where someone around her in her youth observed her display perseverance, and reportedly made the offhand comment 'You must be an Ashanti, since Ashantis are known to have perseverance.' That's literally what the Tubman claim of Ashanti heritage is based on. And since Ashantis are mostly from Ghana, Tubman is now 'a person of Ghanaian descent.' Tubman's case is not at all anomalous and is typical, which is why I sought out similar articles (Equiano, da Costa, John Brown, etc.) for corrections. That would be like someone seeing red hair, and saying 'you must be Irish, because Irish have red hair' when dozens of countries have red-haired natives, or seeing an angry person with dark hair and saying 'You must be Latino, because Latinos are known to have dark hair and hot tempers.' In many cases the link is even more tenuous than that; something like 'most Africans who were shipped to this area were from this 3,000 mile stretch of coast in Africa, so ____ is now a member of this people and from this country.' Another instance is Mathieu da Costa. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever linking da Costa to the Edo people, yet it's there at the bottom of the article. Please, Coffee, Drmies, Malik Shabazz, review the sources and tell me which one establishes Edo heritage of Mathieu da Costa. You banned me, you called me unconstructive, you review the sources. As for Equiano, Carretta is the world's leading source on him and has written the most well known works on him. He wrote the Introduction to the Penguin Classics version of Equiano's autobiography. He himself is claiming that Equiano was born in the US (which many scholars agree with, as the article states), yet it is considered 'vandalism' and 'unconstructive' to change Equiano's birthplace to disputed? It IS disputed, not by me, but by the most authoritative scholar on Equiano who 'wrote the book' on him, and many other scholars. And if that is disputed, then all the different African peoples Equiano was said to be a member, the Nigerian birthplace, all of that must also be considered disputed, and should be removed from the article until the dispute is settled. Or at the very least, noted that the authenticity is in dispute, which is exactly what I did, without deleting anything. As for the categorical claims at the bottom, they should be removed since they cannot be qualified like the autobiography-based claims in the article body. This isn't whitewashing. This is about removing unsupported, evidence-free content from what are supposed to be encyclopedia articles. Equiano was obviously black. I did not remove the 'black' or 'African-American' modifier or below-page categories. I did remove 'African' in some cases, because someone born in America is not African, they are American, Native American, African-American, etc. As for Attucks, there is dispute from historians over whether he was of African descent. There is reason to believe he was, but it can't be traced. Though a sound assumption can be made that since Africans were in the area and living with enslaved Native Americans for the hundred years prior to his birth, there is a high chance he would have some African ancestry, which is why I changed the article to reflect that before being banned. It's still not something I was comfortable with, since no source provides specific support for it (beyond saying 'he looks part black'), but there's enough behind it that I think it's OK. Removing a claim from the article isn't whitewashing it, and isn't denying the claim is true; it's just what you do when the claim has no evidence-providing sources behind it. Why are the standards so low for articles on African-Americans, particularly former slaves? Instead of throwing out flimsy claims, why not engage in real history, and look at serious secondary content in order to learn more about real black history, not children's picture books and works of historical fiction? It's insulting to critical-minded black Americans, and Americans in general. You've probably heard about the 'Santa Clausification' of Martin Luther King, and that's exactly the kind of thing you're perpetuating with these articles, where historical figures become mythical caricatures and not real individuals with real lives and pasts. Then Malik Shabazz goes and deletes statements that say Native Americans were chattel-enslaved, when historians like Linford Fisher of Brown estimates 2 to 5 million were enslaved, and through laws like the One Drop rule, many Americans called black have large amounts of Native American ancestry? What is behind this? It seems like a minimization or denial of all things indigenous American relating to slavery, as opposed to a sinister agenda on my part that Drmies has pondered. As for violating 3RR, Drmies 'started it' by reverting my posts (she reached three first) without engaging me on talk page (and initially ignoring my requests to talk), or in any way addressing my points. Just opened up with terse threats (his/her first exchange: "Psmith85, this is not the way you want to go"), and 10 minutes later I was banned. And that is constructive encyclopedia creation? To bully in your reverts and rapid-fire edits and then flag people who try to stop it until they can engage you in a measured discussion that comprehensively addresses the issue? I'm calling for a real response to my specific points, not a parade of acronyms, or more flippant responses like 'Pfff' and 'clearly not here to contribute.'
Decline reason:
You are blocked with the following notice: "Clearly not here to contribute to the encyclopedia/WP:EW/WP:NPOV violations". Your explanation as to edit warring appears to be that others also engaged in edit warring. That's irrelevant. Almost the entire rest of your unblock request appears to be a case of righting great wrongs. Note that an unblock request is not the place to determine the correctness of your information. I'm not qualified to do so, nor would it be appropriate for me to do so. WP:GAB will help you understand what you need to do to be considered for unblocking. Yamla (talk) 12:25, 26 January 2018 (UTC)
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