Media
On this day, 16 October 1968, Black sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their gloved fists in a Black power salute during the playing of the US national anthem as they were awarded gold and bronze medals at the Olympics. Smith would later clarify: “I wore a black glove to represent social power or Black power; I wore socks, not shoes, to represent poverty; I wore a black scarf around my neck to symbolise the lynching, the hangings that Black folks went through while building this country.” Following the protest, they were largely ostracised by the US sporting establishment. While Time magazine now considers their picture of the event as the most iconic photograph of all time, back then they wrote: "'Faster, Higher, Stronger' is the motto of the Olympic Games. 'Angrier, nastier, uglier' better describes the scene in Mexico City last week." Back home, both Smith and Carlos were subject to abuse and they and their families received death threats. The Australian athlete Peter Norman, the other man on the podium, also showed solidarity with the protest wearing an 'Olympic Project for Human Rights' badge in protest of his government's 'White Australia' policy. He too would also be reprimanded by his nation's Olympic authorities and was not picked for the following Olympic games — although it is disputed whether this was as a consequence of his stand in Mexico. After Norman’s sudden death in 2006, Smith and Carlos helped carry his coffin and delivered eulogies at his funeral.This story and hundreds of others are featured in our book, Working Class History: Everyday Acts of Resistance & Rebellion, available with global shipping in our online store: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/working-class-history-everyday-acts-resistance-rebellion-bookTo access this link, click our link in bio # 1 then click this image

The political civilization which has sprung up from the soil of Europe and is overrunning the whole world, like some prolific weed, is based upon exclusiveness. It is always watchful to keep the aliens at bay or to exterminate them. It is carnivorous and cannibalistic in its tendencies, it feeds upon the resources of other peoples and tries to swallow their whole future. It is always afraid of other races achieving eminence, naming it as a peril, and tries to thwart all symptoms of greatness outside its own boundaries, forcing down races of men who are weaker, to be eternally fixed in their weakness. Before this political civilization came to its power and opened its hungry jaws wide enough to gulp down great continents of the earth, we had wars, pillages, changes of monarchy and consequent miseries, but never such a sight of fearful and hopeless voracity, such wholesale feeding of nation upon nation, such huge machines for turning great portions of the earth into mince-meat, never such terrible jealousies with all their ugly teeth and claws ready for tearing open each other's vitals.

Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism (1917)

TIL in the Maori language the name for France is Wiwi (from overhearing the French say "Oui Oui" denoting agreement) [source, comments]

Swiss Song of the Day 🇨🇭😇: https://open.spotify.com/track/6pXKSo89ne9mbPInCWk8dw

Here's the full playlist of my "Song of the Day" project for 2024 so far. Including all the Swiss songs, but with much more international songs. More than 13 hours of music so far. Do enjoy 🎧 :
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/00Zo7zVsAnuoV5IyyDD86M?si=bmbc2CSMSdOi9ZqXgPELpg

Sinwars Tod ist der Anfang vom Ende – oder nur das Ende des Anfangs https://www.watson.ch/!126689635

"Books Are Weapons in the War of Ideas" - Nazis burning books in front of an oversized book emblazoned with "Books cannot be killed by fire" quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt. Washington, D.C., USA., 1942.

https://redd.it/1g6bjxj
@r_propagandaposters

TIL ironically, the novel Fahrenheit 451 has been banned, censored, or redacted in several schools since its publication, including at a school in Montgomery County, Texas, in 2006, where the parents where offended by the burning of the Bible. The book was also burned in Apartheid South Africa. [source, comments]

Song of the Day 🏛🎤: https://open.spotify.com/track/4mf26X0DiA04CvPcNEVLF2