Well, it looks like soon for the fourth time in my life I am going to watch all or part of a major American city burn to the ground.

Hope I’m wrong, and good luck, St. Louis. Glad I’m not there, though.

I only dimly remember my parents talking about the 1980 Miami riots.

I don’t remember of course the 1977 NYC blackout riots at all so I didn’t count those.

The problem is that when people write about cultural appropriation, they almost always know nothing about history, or culture.

Let’s look at the symbol of the raised fist.

Oh, wait.

The human hand has been used in art from the very beginnings, starting with stunning examples in Neolithic cave paintings. Early examples of the fist in graphic art can be found at least as far back as 1917 [1], with another example from Mexico in 1948 [2]. Fist images, in some form, were used in numerous political graphic genres, including the French and Soviet revolutions, the United States Communist Party, and the Black Panther Party for Self-defense.

1917. Pretty sure there were no Black Panthers in 1917.

To me, the raised fist means “socialism” because that’s where I’ve seen it used most in my readings and meanderings through history. The Black Panther party adopted it –wait, I mean appropriated it – from this source.

It was actually popularized during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and was used very widely after that all over the world. There is also some evidence that the “raised fist” might have been used in something similar to its current context as early as Assyria.

The feminist version of the raised first salute was first used in the 1969 protest of the Miss America pageant.

What’s weird about all the crying about cultural appropriation is that how little so many people who jump up on their soapbox and jabber about it know about culture or history.

I’m of the opinion that if you think you are in the position of telling other people what to do, you should know something about it first.

But hey, that’s just me.

Ah, you youngsters.

People who have been on the internet for 4+ years and haven’t had their humor devolve into Dadaist, surreal garbage impress me.

Some hipster cred for real here. I first used the internet in 1986, but I didn’t use it regularly until 1995. I used it in 1986 as part of some project to allow so-called “gifted” kids to connect with others around the world.

It was also the first time I’d used what we’d now call a chat room. Back then they didn’t have a name, I don’t think.

However, I was using BBSes of one sort or another from ~1984 on, especially when my comparatively-rich grandparents would allow me to log on when I visited.

Most of what people think is “new” on the internet I’d seen or done on BBSes by 1986. Many of the things that “brilliant” entrepreneurs are “inventing” had been done by 1988 on said BBSes.

It’s funny to watch it all cycle back.

I don’t yearn for a return to those times. The internet is far better, and vaster. But it is odd to see some arrogant 25-year-old “create” something that I used 30 years ago in a nearly-identical form. It’s just on a lot larger scale now, of course.

And computers are so much faster.

FidoNet was pretty awesome back in its day, though. Getting an email then felt like an event. Now it feels like a chore, most of the time.