"The article will show that the translation, as well as Belcher’s subsequent publications around Woletta Petros, constitute colonial scholarship, where a foreigner who cannot understand the language is elevated to the status of expert at the expense of the local people" 1/https://twitter.com/DerilloEyob/status/1302513616525176832 …
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"people who can not only read and write the language, but also have decades- long training in the interpretation of these important holy texts." 2/
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So, am I surprised that the woman who got so angry and offended that I was wrong about an Ethiopian MS after which I admitted fault and kept asking for clarity while she insulted my intelligence and tried to get her followers to dogpile me, ends up doing something like this? Nope
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I think her comment about how the BL doesn't know what they're doing with regards to Ethiopian MSS when I asked her for clarity around the MS description on the BL website (which I misread), when the BL has an Ethiopian curator, Eyob Derillo.
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I don't want to make this about me, because reading through
@YirgaGelaw's article it is clear just how much this woman was put on a pedestal by other white western scholars. But clearly her work has erased those who are experts.1 reply 0 retweets 5 likesShow this thread -
Also, as a queer woman, reading about what seems to be a deliberate twisting of the original text into a translation to impart sexuality onto a nun is highly distressing. There are certainly many texts that demonstrate the sexuality of individuals have been ignored by translators
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But to impose this on a text where you have no real knowledge of the language at all, as a white woman writing about an Ethiopian nun, is distressing. The lens here is as
@YirgaGelaw says, a sexualisation of Black women that is informed by racist and colonialist ideas.1 reply 0 retweets 5 likesShow this thread -
"To further apply this to the local experts and scholars, erasing their knowledge with the label of “homophobic”, relies heavily on the racist assumption that black people are barbaric and ignorant enough not to accept the truth about their own history." p. 195.
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I do not know if Belcher is a queer woman, but I will say that it is not uncommon for white queer people to make heavily racist comments towards Black people stating that they are inherently homophobic or transphobic. There was a lot of it in America after Prop 8 in Cali.
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A screenshot of an excellent paragraph here. The white woman gaze on Black women is insidious, harmful, and destructive.pic.twitter.com/iXEh1gXd2Y
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Thank you @YirgaGelaw for this incredibly detailed and insightful review.
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Replying to @AdmiralHip
Thank you
@AdmiralHip for encapsulating some of the most critical and important points in the article. Your response is very thoughtful.1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @YirgaGelaw
I very much appreciate your article, and I hope that it’s widely read and shared as it is important and necessary.
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End of conversation
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