“System Change Not Climate Change” is a slogan we’ve seen at many protests over the past few years... now appearing primarily on instagram and twitter (mostly in the form of hashtags) advocating for immediate climate action. This slogan is usually a way to callout governments from the United States to Sweden to India to Kenya, to do more about climate change and ensure our future.

Over the past two years I have heard more than ever that “immigration to Europe is new.” What people are actually saying is that immigration of non-White Christian Europeans is new. However, neither of those statements are true. Europe, as a continent, as always been multicultural and has always had visitors (or “immigrants”) from non-European countries. Europeans went to Asia, Africa, and the Americas, why should we believe that the reverse did not happen? What is the benefit for Europe ignoring the history of Blacks, and other non-Whites more generally, coming to Europe before the 20th century?

When you’re told what’s Black is White, and that your experiences don’t exist–it’s easy to feel crazy in our society.

Reading these articles, in addition to my own research on Black geographies, made me think about the experiences of Black people in Europe and North America–but also Black people everywhere. It made me think about how often Black people have to wait for articles that are shared on Facebook to learn about the historical geographies of our culture, and cultural production more generally. It made me think about how in Europe and Brazil (and many other places), anti-Black racism is often brushed off as an American construction and non-existent.

I believe there are correlations, chronologically as well as socio-historically, between the abolition of slavery in the Americas (as decided by individual European countries) and the dismantling of city walls/city fortifications in European capital cities during the 1830’s-1860’s. While these two very different processes have not been correlated before, I believe this time period and these historical manifestations are an example of the transformation of morality and ethics domestically and internationally (abroad in the colonies) during the 19th century.