There was an article about an African script that some of my FB friends highlighted. It was supposed to be a great intervention against Eurocentrism, or the supposition that only Europeans are literate. But then, in the middle of the article, the revelation that the real mistake is to see literacy itself as a great cultural achievement... So the logic... Africans have developed writing systems too (not a great surprise, since Carthage was a Phoenecian city), but writing systems are not a big deal in the first place?? The intellectual incoherence is striking.
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This always happens. They let women and minorities into a profession, then they abolish tenure and don't ever give raises. Etc. Yes, they wrote, but it wasn't as important as it would have been had a European, a man, etc., done it.
Or you could live where I do, where people have low literacy levels and lots of intrigue, but are white and U.S., so you develop a whole discipline to fetishize and honor that, say it is an oral culture with a rich oral tradition.
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