Ubique sunt ignori stulti

[selenak]

In the last three days, British historian Mary Beard has been relentlessly attacked on and off twitter for pointing out that the Roman Empire wasn't populated exclusively by white people; this particular round of racism, misogyny and general vileness was started by, of all things, a five minutes BBC cartoon for children featuring some poc Romans. It would be ridiculous if it weren't so outrageous and depressingly a symptom for our present, especially considering current Trump Administration employee and long time racist nutter Alex Jones has also commented. Detailed articles on the subject here and here.

(Incidentally, if I weren't there already, such events would completely sway me to the "representation matters" side when it comes to tv and movie casting.)

Comments

[lilysea]

In the last three days, British historian Mary Beard has been relentlessly attacked on and off twitter for pointing out that the Roman Empire wasn't populated exclusively by white people

Okay, I misread that as

"In the last three days, British politician Theresa May has been relentlessly attacked on and off twitter for pointing out that the Roman Empire wasn't populated exclusively by white people"

and went, wait, what?

I think my brain has just gotten used to seeing the letters M, a, y close together and going argh! quick, run away!

[chelseagirl]

Want to comment. Too depressing to come up with something pithy to say.

[selenak]

I know how you feel!

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Mary Beard's own response in TLS is well-worth reading: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/roman-britain-black-white/

Among other things, I love her point that the borders of the Roman Empire were extremely porous and the zone of Romanization more extensive than traditional maps of the Empire (which project our own misleading and anachronistic notions of nation-states onto the past) show.

[selenak]

re: Romans, I think the most surprising-to-me aspect about this vile interlude is how many British and American white supremacists seem to project into them, because our own lot of nationalist fanatics have always given the Romans and the Roman Empire a bad press. This started during the Reformation when Luther suddenly discovered good old Arminius the Cheruscan and christened him Hermann the German, and drew Romans/Catholics equations, was picked up again during the Napoleonic wars when it was French = Romans/ Germans = Suebes and Cheruski all the way in drama, novels and poetry, went on and on and on during the 19th century and reached its climax inevitably with the Nazis raving about pure blooded Aryan freedom fighters of yore versus decadent Roman mongrels.

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Re the Anglo-American white supremacist fondness for the Roman Empire, at least the American part likely comes directly from the fact that US slave-owners heavily identified with the Romans because of their economic dependence on large-scale agricultural labor, and consciously created parallels. See most famously the prevalence of US slave names drawn from Roman history (Caesar, Vergil, et cetera ad naseum--these names were often an especially nasty form of dehumanizing the enslaved people) and the use of classical motifs in US plantation architecture.

Now historians often make a distinction between "slave societies" (in which the entire economy was built on slavey) and "societies with slaves" (where slavery existed but wasn't economically vital). Very few societies meet the criteria for the first category, with most historians arguing there are only 5: ancient Greece, ancient Rome, the antebellum US South, and the Caribbean and Brazil during the same era. (The second category is basically everyone else.) So the connection wasn't without some historical basis, but probably got a big boost because European colonialism also used the Romans as models and it was a way for pro-slavery people to add historical respectability to their defense mechanism.

That said, Rome did wind up creating an incredibly diverse empire and ultimately expanding citizens' rights to virtually everyone within their borders. The Romans were ruthlessly pragmatic that way, and notoriously open to assimilating other cultures. So the comparison looks ever more absurd.

[vilakins]

Mary Beard rocks, and people are depressingly stupid.

A cartoon started it? I saw a little on FB and assumed it was the Doctor Who ep about the Ninth Legion which started it.

[selenak]

Nope, it was this.