In conversations about representation when someone says "There aren't that many Black people in the US so why should they be in everything?" is how much of American history includes mass murders of Black people. And how much the imagery of Black death is normalized in media.

We're so used to representation of Black life being about suffering & death in pop culture that people struggle with images of Black people living. It comes up for every time period. Whether it is medieval or modern, the same "Well there wouldn't have been Black people then."

And of course they were there. Because we're here now. Last night I was talking about genealogy with @raevenx & I might have found my great grandmother's grandparents. And it's wild to see those approximate birth dates that start with 17 & not 18. But of course they do.

Because Black people have been in America since before there was an America. We tend to forget that Black History isn't just the these leaps to the Civil War & then Civil Rights.