User talk:Jon Rosebank

March 2024

Hello, I'm ThaddeusSholto. I noticed that you recently removed content from Robert Peary without adequately explaining why. In the future, it would be helpful to others if you described your changes to Wikipedia with an accurate edit summary. If this was a mistake, don't worry; the removed content has been restored. If you would like to experiment, please use your sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Thanks. ThaddeusSholto (talk) 21:58, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry Thaddeus but you are completely out of order. I explained very fully why this has been removed, giving the reference to the article in which the sexual exploitation of Inuit women was revealed in an academic journal. This photograph is unnecessary to the article and extremely offensive, both to the Inuit and to women in general. Jon Rosebank (talk) 22:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Use the article talk page if you want to argue for its removal but telling people to read an academic paper in an edit summary isn't an explanation. ThaddeusSholto (talk) 22:05, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

You do not need an explanation to argue for the removal of a naked image of an Inuit woman. It is clear and offensive exploitation. Sorry, you'll need a better defence than that. Jon Rosebank (talk) 22:26, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Please do not remove information from articles, as you did to Robert Peary. Wikipedia is not censored, and content is not removed on the sole grounds of perceived offensiveness. Please discuss this issue on the article's talk page to reach consensus rather than continuing to remove the disputed material. If the content in question involves images, you also have the option to configure Wikipedia to hide the images that you may find offensive. Thank you. ThaddeusSholto (talk) 12:30, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

The nude photograph of Aleqasina on this page must be removed as a matter of urgency. Posting it brings the Wikipedia community into very considerable disrepute.

The known historical facts are these. Robert Peary took Aleqasina, supposedly as his Inughuit ‘wife’, when she was 14 and she had a son by him. Peary however abandoned Aleqasina when he returned to the States. She became an Inughuit man’s wife. But each time Peary returned to the Arctic he took Aleqasina as his mistress and eventually she had a second child by him.

Research in the Peary archives reveals that the members of his expeditions were in the habit of taking openly pornographic photographs of Inughuit women, who had been taken from their community in NW Greenland and housed for many months on the expedition ship. Some particularly shocking photographs show a naked woman tied to the mast of the ship. We know that their treatment by Peary and his crew caused psychological damage to the women, almost all of whom were married. Many took refuge in shacks constructed of packing cases on the shore – the traces of which have recently been rediscovered by archeologists.

This exploitation of Inughuit women belongs to the eugenicist nineteenth-century discourse of treating first peoples as ‘savages’, who could be exploited at will by white American men. (Let us note that Matthew Henson, the sole American person of colour on the team, was an exception, speaking Inuktun fluently and forming loving relationships with two Inughuit women.)

This photograph is therefore an example of overtly exploitative pornography. Indeed, it was understood as such at the time it was taken. It further betrays the racist attitudes of Peary and his white male team.

I note that Penelope Middelboe asked for its removal some days ago but her request was ignored. I have removed it several times, adding a brief explanation, but each time ThaddeusSholto has reinstated it.

Let us be clear: to reinstate this image is a statement that Wikipedia endorses exploitative and racist pornography, targeted particularly at the first peoples of the northern Americas. This contribution is intended to remove any doubt about what such an action signifies.

Dr Jon Rosebank MA (Oxon), Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

Renée Hulan (2023) Alnayah’s People: Archival Photographs from West

Greenland, 1908–1909, Interventions, 25 (8), pp. 1088-1109.

Dick, Lyle (1995). "'"Pibloktoq"(Arctic Hysteria): A Construction of European-Inuit Relations?'", Arctic Anthropology 32 (2), pp. 1–42.

Susan A Kaplan and Genevieve M Le Moine, Peary’s Arctic Quest. Untold Stories from Robert E. Peary’s North Pole Expeditions (Camden, Maine 2019), pp. 60, 111-13. Jon Rosebank (talk) 10:15, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

You may be blocked from editing without further warning the next time you remove or blank page content or templates from Wikipedia without giving a valid reason for the removal in the edit summary, as you did at Robert Peary. ThaddeusSholto (talk) 16:59, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

You can see that I have given a complete reason for the removal. This is exploitative and racist pornography. 83.151.203.12 (talk) 19:15, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Since you insist on including exploitative pornography without citing any editorial justification - but only procedural points - I take it that you will either remove this image yourself, or provide justification for its inclusion. I am, indeed, profoundly shocked to discover that wikipedia may be at the mercy of racist pornographers uninterested in academic research. Jon Rosebank (talk) 19:39, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Calling other Wikipedia editors names isn't a good method for editing. See WP:NPA. Also logging in and out to avoid scrutiny is sockpuppetry. You need a policy reason for removal of information and note that Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED. What you deem "pornography" is historical. Removing information is hardly assisting in academic research. You have no consensus for removal nor have you shown any policy reason for doing so. "I don't like it" isn't valid. ThaddeusSholto (talk) 22:24, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

The same IP address has replied here as "Jon Rosebank" but also has claimed to be "Penelope Middelboe". Are you two separate people using the same computer or one person using multiple names? ThaddeusSholto (talk) 22:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately your response 'calling Wikipedia editors names' betrays the flaw in your argument. You are unable to cite any reason why pornography, exploiting children, women and first peoples, is assisting research or necessary to this argument. Continuing to draw on procedural objections underlines the emptiness of your position. Wikipedia should be a safe place for children, for women and for first peoples such as the Inughuit. This photograph contravenes every one of those principles. It should also be a safe place for academics to bring to bear the fruit of their research and have it considered without procedural obstruction.

Caricaturing a reasoned and referenced argument as 'I don't like it' suggests you are unfamiliar with the discourses of the academic process. The point here is that you have yet to suggest any reason why this item of pornography should be reposted, except that it was, at some point, put there.

Separate individuals using the same IP address remain separate individuals - unless you have discovered a procedural objection to prevent that also? My point was that your objection that this topic needed to be first raised in the talk was otiose: it had already been raised.

Suggesting that I am logging in and out to avoid scrutiny is a piece of illogic. You have no idea why I may have quit my computer - especially if it is being used by more than one individual. You will kindly refrain from unfounded allegations.

As I have explained at considerable length, reposting this image is an act that implies assent to explicitly racist pornography. I might also add that it is to consent to paedophilia, since the woman in question was under the age of consent. If that's what you choose to do, then you have no alternative but to accept that you have freely chosen to bear that label. So be it.

I believe it is time to extend this discussion to a wider community. Jon Rosebank (talk) 23:42, 20 March 2024 (UTC)