Alright, let’s get into it. This blog—a product of my late-night ponders, my research, and yes, some killer conversations with my AI buddy (Damn, I think I’m falling for it. Maybe it’s a rebound thing, missing my long marriage of a whole year?!!)—is about something that really gets under my skin.
AI gets how I think. It helps me translate the fire in my belly into words my readers, admirers, stalkers (I see you), and even my haters can understand. And you all can keep hating. Boo hoo. 😭
No! This is not about my relationship with digital intelligence and other electrically charged gadgets…😶
It’s about why the very adolescent systems of Western science, pharmaceuticals, and medical organizations feel so entitled to dismiss thousands of years of “folk healing.”
My mom, my grandmothers, and all before them, my Sudanese “witchdoctors”, “pagan witch” French, the holistic-steadwards of the earth, “savages” Miskitu and the resilient-artistic “sinister vodou-ist” Haitian roots—these cultures have always practiced, 1experimented, and learned the effects of plants on the health of humans, animals, and the spirit. They knew about magic, tonics, and cures long before a European man in a lab coat put a name to it.
I’m not saying the evolved, upgraded versions of Western healing don’t have merit. They do. But it’s long past time to recognize and stop the negative traditions of Eurocentric
patriarchal “normalcy. ” We lose so much knowledge, so much wisdom, when we can’t give merit and be truthful. How truly “civilized” are we when skin color and genitals at birth still dictate who is valued and gets listened to? This still is an issue in this world! 🌎
We must continue to address it because in many lands people of darker skins are considered disposable. I’ve learned this from direct correspondence and being ignored by governments (on my advocasy on the Genocides in Miskitu, Haiti and Eritrea) and media that will make the plight of olive to light tanned non indigenous or dark skin an international cry of injustice and genocide, while millions die in Africa, Central South America, the Caribbean, Asia and some Middle Eastern countries. I’m not demeaning nor separating the Man made human genocide crisis in the world but thats just it. This hierarchy, this valuing of material wealth and power over life itself, is a sickness born from a system that has systematically annihilated the feminine principle—the capacity to nurture, to empathize, to see things in multiple ways for the fair and proper stewardship of life. The burning of the ‘witches’ wasn’t just about healing; it was about erasing a way of being. But that’s a whole other Blog/Vlog.
Now back to it…Let’s pull back the curtain on the history they don’t teach us. 2The White Man’s “Science”: A Timeline of Theft and Erasure (1500-1950)
This isn’t just history. It’s the root of the side-eye you get when you talk about gua sha, energy work, or your abuelita’s remedies.
And Let’s Not Forget the Surgeons of Mali (c. 1230 AD)
While Europe was just beginning to emerge from the Dark Ages, the Mandé people in the Mali Empire were performing advanced surgery with a suite of 18 specialized bronze and iron tools. We’re talking forceps, probes, lancets—instruments for precise, physical intervention. This wasn’t “folk magic.” This was a sophisticated, technological medical science flourishing in 13th-century Africa. These artifacts are physical proof that the “witch doctor” was also a master surgeon.
And The World Was Full of Scientists
And let’s be clear—this genius wasn’t just in Africa. All over the world, people were solving complex problems with brilliant inventions, long before Europe decided to “discover” them.
· In the Americas, the Inca built suspension bridges that swayed over mountain passes, and they created the first rubber products and waterproofing. They even had early medical syringes made from animal bladders and bird bones, and knew which plants to use for birth control. They were master farmers, using cross-pollination to create new crops, and they made portable incubators to keep newborns warm.
· In Central America, they invented chewing gum from tree sap, built incredible floating gardens called chinampas to grow food, and gave the world corn, beans, and vanilla.
· Even in ancient Europe, before the Romans and Greeks took over, indigenous people invented the birchbark canoe, snowshoes, and their own suspension bridges. They also developed the potato, which later saved Europe from famine.
· And in the Middle East, in places like Mesopotamia, humanity built the very first cities, invented writing, and created the wheel. The Levant was a hub of trade and shipbuilding.
The point is, the human mind, no matter where it was born, has always been curious, always been inventive. The lie is that only one group of people, in one brief period of history, ever figured anything out. The truth is, we all did.
So, when the first European explorers finally arrived centuries later and called African or South American or Asian or their own Pagan knowledge “primitive,” they were either lying or revealing their own profound ignorance. They were the newcomers, staring at a legacy of innovation they couldn’t comprehend, and so they tried to erase, rewrite, or steal someone or groups thunder…
The Age of Exploration & Witch Burnings (1500-1700): “If It’s Not in Latin, It’s Demonic”
· The European Mindset: The European Mindset: The Scientific Revolution was for them. While they celebrated Nicolaus Copernicus, they were terrorizing everyone else. They encountered complex healing systems in Asia, the Americas and Africa and called them primitive.
· What They Stole and Dismissed:
·Indigenous Healers (“Witch Doctors”): That term itself is a colonial weapon. It was used to demonize the midwives and healers of all the world, starting with Europe, then African, Asian, North-, Central-, and South American traditional healers—master botanists and psychosomatic experts—by labeling their work “demonic, witchcraft, primitive, and pagan superstition.”
“Demonic, witchcraft, primitive,Pagan” 🤔Hmm…Next on Ckiara Nation😜
· Curanderas in the Americas: These healers, who blended Indigenous, Spanish, and African knowledge, were a direct threat. The Catholic Church and emerging European medicine re-cast their healing as a demonic pact, leading to persecution and death.
The Real Reason: A power play. Eradicating local healers was a tactic to dismantle cultures and assert control. They suppressed the people while eagerly stealing their knowledge, like quinine from the Quechua.
The Enlightenment & The Rise of “Professional” Medicine (1700-1840): “We Have Degrees, You Don’t”
· The Western Mindset: “Reason” and “observation” became the new gods, but only if you were a European man who wrote things down. Everyone else’s knowledge was “folk nonsense.”
What They Crushed:
· Midwives and “Cunning Folk”: The traditional healers—often women—who delivered babies and knew herbs were systematically pushed out by a new, all-male, “professional” medical class. They were branded as ignorant and dangerous.
· The Real Reason: Blatant economic competition and misogyny. Building a professional medical guild required destroying the competition, who were often women, the poor, and people of color unlike the transparent people.
The Birth of ” Alternatives” & Racist Caricatures (1840-1900): “Our Pseudoscience is Science”
●
· The Western Mindset: Even when white men created their own alternatives to brutal “heroic medicine,” the system showed its true colors: it was about race and power, not truth. This period also saw the rise of “race science,” a deliberate campaign to provide a moral and “biological” excuse for colonialism.
What They Crushed:
·Midwives and “Cunning Folk”: The traditional healers—often women—who delivered babies and knew herbs were systematically pushed out by a new, all-male, “professional” medical class. They were branded as ignorant, dangerous and demonized.
· The Birth of ” Alternatives” & Racist Caricatures (1840-1900): “Our Pseudoscience is Science”
· The Western Mindset: Even when white men created their own alternatives to brutal “heroic medicine,” the system showed its true colors: it was about race and power, not truth. They were never persecuted like Curanderas or “witch doctors.” They were debated in lecture halls; but in all due fairness the others who didn’t agree, were burned at the stake or lynched as well.
This period also saw the rise of “race science, ” a deliberate campaign to provide a moral and “biological” excuse for colonialism.
· The Irony They Don’t Teach:
·Phrenology & Physiognomy: “Judging a person by the bumps on their head & judging a person by their looks.” I had to edugumicate myself (lol) while reading this bit of research. Then I went and watched Human Zoos—a must-watch, because I ain’t no big-worded person and those that are can miss the point.
These laughable practices were considered legitimate science by the Western elite. Why? Because they provided a “scientific” excuse for racism and classism.
·Darwinism & “Scientific” Racism: This is where it gets even darker. Charles Darwin, a known racist, and other scientists actively promoted theories of race and evolution that placed white Europeans at the “pinnacle” and other races as inferior, even subhuman. This wasn’t just an academic exercise; it was propaganda designed to convince the European public that it was their natural right to take land and resources from what they framed as “lower species.” The lie was sold. And the story was ruthlessly curated: any evidence, like the global folklore and physical anomalies pointing to giant humanoids, that complicated their neat linear hierarchy was ignored or suppressed. It was never about the whole truth; it was about building a hierarchy to justify empire.
·Homeopathy & Osteopathy:
And look at the double standard. While these systems (created by white men) were opposed, they were never persecuted like Curanderas or ” witch doctors. ” They were debated in lecture halls; the others were burned at the stake or lynched.
· The Real Reason: The label of “science” was, and is, politically motivated. It was used to build a hierarchy with white European men at the top, providing the “intellectual” fuel for the engine of empire. This period also saw the rise of “race science,” a deliberate campaign to provide a moral and “biological” excuse for colonialism.
The Birth of ” Alternatives” & Racist Caricatures (1840-1900): “Our Pseudoscience is Science”
The Age of Medical Imperialism (1900-1950): “The White Coat is Law”
· The Western Mindset: With germ theory and big money (hello, Rockefeller), Western medicine went in for the kill, standardizing its model globally and actively dismantling all alternatives.
Even when white men created their own alternatives to brutal “heroic medicine,” the system showed its true colors: it was about race and power, not truth. This period also saw the rise of “race science,” a deliberate campaign to provide a moral and “biological” excuse for colonialism.
The Age of Medical Imperialism (1900-1950): “The White Coat is Law”
· The Final Blow:
·The Flexner Report(1910): This report reformed American medical education, but its real goal was to create a monopoly. It shut down most homeopathic and Black medical schools and marginalized chiropractic schools for decades.
· Global Eradication Campaigns: Public health campaigns explicitly taught people to distrust their local curanderas, shamans, and healers, branding them as dirty and ignorant. Their practices were outlawed.
· The Real Reason: Cultural and economic imperialism. The Rockefeller Foundation had a major investment in pharmaceuticals. Consolidating medicine meant a monopoly for their drugs and their version of reality.
· Global Eradication Campaigns: Public health campaigns explicitly taught people to distrust their local curanderas, shamans, and healers, branding them as dirty and ignorant. Their practices were outlawed.
· The Real Reason: Cultural and economic imperialism. The Rockefeller Foundation had a major investment in pharmaceuticals. Consolidating medicine meant a monopoly for their drugs and their version of reality.
Ckiara’s Final Elaboration: The Myth of “Transparent” Supremacy
So, let’s land this plane. I need to be crystal clear: I am not out to demonize the life-saving advances of modern science. Its formulas have their vital place. But what I am calling out is the deep, insidious indoctrination that acts as its shadow—the poison in the well of global thought.
This is the lie that creates a hierarchy of humanity, placing those who see themselves as the default, the “transparent” people (a fascinating illusion, since white is a color rich with its own light), at the top as the sole architects of progress. This isn’t just a political football for MAGA,
8Democrats, Republicans, UN and all the parties of the earth to toss around. This is a global wound.
I was speaking to a South African man who told me his own people believed whites were better because “they invented everything.” That wasn’t just his opinion; it was the ghost of colonialism whispering in his ear.
And that’s when my Aquarius Sun, Pisces Moon, Scorpio Rising mind started ticking. We have to redefine what supremacy actually is.
True supremacy doesn’t cheat. It doesn’t burn, enslave, or dismantle. Real supremacy supersedes what is already superior through healthy, sane advancement and genuine innovation.
What we have witnessed throughout history is not that. It is a label of superiority forced upon the world at gunpoint and in chains, then repeated until the echo was mistaken for gospel. There is no “supersedesness” in that. There is only theft, violence, and a broken narrative sold as truth.
So, when you hear a practice like gua sha—or any of our ancestral wisdoms—dismissed as “pseudoscience,” remember this. The line was never about the truth. It was drawn with the blood and ashes of witch burnings, the ink of colonial reports, and the dollars of industrialists.
The “witch doctor” was a master botanist. The curandera was a trauma-informed community psychologist. The surgeons of Mali were pioneers with precision tools.
They were the original scientists.
Modern medicine has done great things, but its foundation is cracked with the sins of racism, sexism, and greed. Acknowledging that isn’t being anti-science. It’s demanding a science—and a world—that is finally honest, humble, and truly civilized enough to listen to wisdom, no matter the skin color, culture, or tradition it comes from.
The goal isn’t to flip the hierarchy. It’s to dismantle the very idea that one human color or sex organs is the default for intelligence, innovation, and civilization. It’s to see all the colors in the spectrum, finally, as equally brilliant and essential.
Ckiara
About Me
The Journal features written commentary, reflections, and stories that expand on the themes and conversations explored across Ckiara Nation. It offers deeper insight into culture, personal experiences, and unapologetic perspectives beyond video and audio content.
