READ THE OP BEFORE REPLYING
bc some of y'all keep stating to me stuff I already know
this map, the mercator projection, the most well-known map projection and the most used in primary education, is racist.
here's why:
1. so if you're an anglophone, you know there's seven continents, right? africa, antarctica, asia, australia, europe, north america, south america. but wait, why isn't greenland counted? it's as big as africa… right? even bigger than south america!
2. if you were to fold the map, the crease would not be where the marked equator line is.
3. it makes countries look like continents.
4. it makes "white" north american countries, and europe look bigger than they are.
the mercator projection makes "PoC" countries and continents look smaller than the "white" countries and continents. africa looks smaller than greenland or at least about the same size according to the mercator projection, but, it's actually larger by about ~14 times. this leads to people in the "larger" countries to a risk of ignoring struggles in the "smaller" and poorer continents. there is major distortion in the northern hemisphere, and it's even more noticeable when you look at the regions near the equator (india, south america, africa).
the mercator map has a eurocentric bias. it is an artefact of imperial times and is an artefact of white colonialism.
asides from its obvious white colonialist, imperialist, and racist undertones, it's drastically geographically inaccurate. according to this map, alaska is almost as lbig as the continental united states, when, in actuality, the continental united states is ~3 times as larger than alaska. another one is that europe (sans russia) is almost as large as south america, when, again, in actuality, south america is ~2 times as larger than europe.
this map has serious pole distortion.
so, how can we fix this? recommended maps include the gall-peters projection, which shows the size of developing nations more accurately.
another recommended map is the winkel-tripel projection.
I am aware that all maps are distorted one way or another.
so, what do you think? is the mercator map racist? 
