#but recently more historians seem to lean towards this interpretation

[icarusbetide]

Reminder that apparently Alexander Hamilton was invited to Thomas Jefferson's for a dinner in a room with portraits of "the three greatest men the world had ever produced": Bacon, Newton, and Locke.

And this little shit heard Jefferson say this, and replied "the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar" probably KNOWING that it would absolutely make Democratic-Common Folk Woodland Nymph Farmer Thomas Jefferson have a stroke.

Happy Ides of March!

he paused for some time: ‘the greatest man, said he, that ever lived was Julius Caesar.'

Jefferson's Letter to Benjamin Rush

[qqueenofhades]

Okay kidlets, come gather round and let your grandmother tell you why this is a textbook example of why "enforced neutrality" and "both sides should be treated equally" is a categorically Bad journalistic and historical practice. Because really, it doesn't get much clearer than this.

This is a quote from the BBC, a respected Western news source and one that I myself consult quite often for information. It was the end of one of their recent live blog updates on the war. You see how it's structured? State a fact. State a quote from one side. State a response to that quote from the other. Job done! The end.

There's no acknowledgement of the fact that Russian state media exists in a fully fledged alternate universe of denial and deceit, and has been lying about everything to do with this invasion from the start, thus it is extremely unlikely that their interpretation in this situation should be treated as presumptively valid. Even if we might be able to find that caveat elsewhere, it kind of seems like important context.

Also, by setting it up as they have -- Ukraine is quoted first, followed by Russia's rebuttal after a "but" -- it creates the impression that Ukraine was the one who said the false thing, but Russia corrected it. They give the misinformation and patently untrustworthy source the last word, and by leaving it there as the end of the text, unavoidably create the impression that they agree with the latter interpretation. Even if they don't consciously mean to, it's the obviously implied conclusion just from the structure of the statement.

This is why meaningful critical analysis involves more than describing an event and uncritically reciting what the parties involved had to say about it. You actually have to do work to drill down among competing narratives and decide what weight you're putting on them. Historians have worked with unreliable sources since, well, always, since history is written by subjective people telling subjective stories. In this case, you have to assess the weight of the overall trend -- the Russian state is lying out its ass about this entire thing -- rather than try to find the objective truth of every tiny detail. (With, say, premodern sources, this is almost never possible, but we work on premodern history anyway, and this is why you can usually never take a single source at actual, literal face value, but have to read it in conversation with all the other evidence.)

Doing the history of certain groups of people, where there's not enough evidence to identify them individually but it is possible to say something about them and their experiences collectively, is a practice known as prosopography. In this case, applying that principle, we would lean toward what the aggregate of information is telling us -- Russia lied about this, as they demonstrably can be proven to have done elsewhere -- and state that as our conclusion accordingly.

Too bad, I suppose, nobody told the BBC this. But hey, guys. I need a damn job. You can call me up whenever.

[lailoken]

“The Embodied Lives of Elves

Our pre-modern ancestors seem to have had room in their collective imaginal life for humans walking among them who were deemed ontologically different in some way-enough to considered faeries or nightmares (mara or mora). This is not to say of course, that such people were physically inhuman, (though it's debatable whether Witches or werewolves were considered human by persecutors of the Craft in the past) but that they were believed to carry a mysterious taint of otherness.

Modern writers on faeries, even gifted ones like the Frouds tend to position faeries as existing in the imaginative, or perhaps "imaginal" dimension of the human psyche. To our forebears the Otherworld was a far more embodied place and testimonials given by people who saw and interacted with faerie beings in the past stress that they possessed a kind of substance, though less substantial than our own forms. How else could folk beliefs about faerie marriages have begun?

In pre-modern Europe humans possessed a shadow in which they’d walk at night, sometimes it appeared as an animal, sometimes as a human double or a partly human form. There was no such thing as something that was no “body,” which is one of the reasons the mainstream insistence on a strong body-spirit dichotomy sits awkwardly with the spirit of some Old Craft traditions.

Consequently, if we are to understand Faerie from the perspective of the folk genius then we will need to soften the edges of this body-spirit binary and try to imaginatively descend into an older way of seeing. If we can achieve this we will find ourselves immersed in an way exuberantly sensuous way of being, and rediscover our senses anew as portals to the Otherworld. What begins as a historical curiosity becomes a stretching of our own imaginative faculties and eventually yields to mystical ecstasies.

Anthropologists and historians often take a patronizing view of the idea of spirits leading embodied lives much like our own. The general explanation being that people in the past were literally unable to imagine anything much different to their own way of life. Or, that being unable to visualise something made of nothing they dressed their airy imaginings in a kind of subtle form or body.

The other option presented to us as practitioners is to simply have the humility to take the folk at their word and accept that these observations of the lives of faeries, made over countless generations, might reflect real experiences of another world. We do not need to intellectually commit to that perspective if it is too uncomfortable, but let us explore it with openness. Let us allow for a moment that the conglomerated wisdom of generations, the collective imaginal experience of an entire people or peoples, may in fact know better than we do.

Yorkshire biographer Durant Hotham described the faerie body in the following way. He said they were "lodged in Vehicles of a thinner-spun thread than is (otherwise than by condensation) visible to our dim sight.”

So whilst they are made of something thinner spun they are certainly made of something other than just the substance of our imagiation. This notion of bodies made of a lighter stuff was agreed on by Robert Kirk earlier who said faeries possessed: "light changeable bodies like those called astral somewhat of the nature of condes'd cloud."

So far we find images of finely-spun thread and clouds or mist being used to describe the faerie form. Both of these images are taken from the widespread faerie mythos we have traced across Europe, as faeries are intimately associated with spinning and appearing out of mists or as condensed clouds. The suggestion here is that they are able to condense or expand their form, weaving it in tightly or loosely invisible to humans. What their bodies are woven from is only so as to be perceived or otherwise ever hinted at, but vapor and mist seem to be strong candidates, which would suggest there is some degree of air-born moisture in their form.

Somerset surgeon John Beaumont touched a fairy's hand in a chillingly tactile encounter, he describes how it: "yielded to my touch, that I could not find any sensible resistancy in it.” Though it did not resist him this does not sound like something that felt like simple air, the words “yielded to his touch" suggests something fragile but nonetheless of substance. Another testimony confirms this description:

"I have often seen that way while in my bed. Many women are among them. I once touched a boy of their's, and he was just like feathers in my hand; there was no substance in him, and I knew he wasn't a living being."

In his poem ‘The Witch of Fife,’ written in the early Romantic era, Thomas Hogg describes the elf man's form as "having no blood in him and pale like cauliflower." He also describes faeries and Witches both travelling some distance to attend Sabbats in other lands. This is significant because Hogg's father is rumored to have been the last man in his area to possess the faerie sight. So any knowledge about the faeries that found its way into Hogg's work would likely have been influenced by the input of a genuine Scottish faerie seer of the eighteenth century.

One of the best ways to pursue a deeper understanding of how the faerie body works is to study occurrences where faeries have appeared as corpse candles or faerie lights, only to condense before the viewers' eyes into a humanoid form. Here are some examples of such sightings. Let us use them to compare faeries manifesting out of pure light with the so-called corpse candle observed to leave the body of humans when in sleep or near death.

"At first it seemed no more than a light in some house; but as we came nearer to it and it was passing out of our direct line of vision we saw that it was moving up and down, to and fro, diminishing to a spark, then expanding into a yellow luminous flame. Before we came to Listowel we noticed two lights, about one hundred yards to our right... Suddenly each of these lights expanded into the same sort of yellow luminous flame, about six feet high by four feet broad. In the midst of each flame we saw a radiant being having human form. Presently the lights moved towards one another and made contact whereupon the two beings in them were seen to be walking side by side. The beings' bodies were formed of a pure dazzling radiance, white like the radiance of the sun, and much brighter than the yellow that surrounded them."

Now of course humans have a corpse candle that can leave the body a as Elias Owen describes in his ‘Welsh Folklore: A Collection of the Folk-tales and Legends of North Wales’:

“It was believed that it was possible for the spirit to leave the body. and then, after an absence of some time, to return again and re-enter it. The form the spirit assumed when it quitted the body was a bluish light like that of a candle, but somewhat longer. This light left the body through the mouth, and re-entered the same way. The writer was informed by a certain female friend at Llandegla that she had seen a bluish light leave the mouth of a person who was sick, light which she thought was the life, or spirit of that person, but the person did not immediately die."

How do faerie lights differ from the corpse candles that emerge from human beings? Well it seems like the phenomenon is the same but in reverse. Faeries can body forth a human-looking form by condensing a very fine mist-like body until it becomes a bright spark of light, whereas humans belong in a dense body that nonetheless conceals a body of light.

Romani lore compiled by Patrick Jasper Lee suggests that the faerie body is ethereal but very real and that it can become denser through the consumption of life force. The ghostly dead and ethereal fay both shared one great trick, they could become tsochano, or vampires, and drink the blood of the living and in this way gain an "ectoplasmic body." Over time they might be mistaken for a living person.

The status of the body may often be an ontological difference, rather than one of solidity. A study of faerie lore overturns numerous insistences of abduction, which would look like simple death to one outside the Faerie Faith. But for those with the eyes to see the corpse was interpreted as a stock, a fake, a of wood glamoured into taking the appearance of the dead while the fae made off with their real body.

So whilst we may have trouble believing in a faerie creature becoming more tangible through consuming life force, or of humans be-ing bodily taken away, the lore is so copious that we should retain an open mind around the topic of exactly what "body" and "real" meant when our ancestors used them. What is clear is that faeries were firmly believed and experienced by many people as existing in some tangible way that was not merely within the world of shared imagination but was sensual and actual.

Here we press up, almost uncomfortably close, to the knowledge of our foreparents' quite literal belief in the physical existence of faeries. Because this journey into the folk imaginal realm of the past is about leaning into discomfort rather than fleeing from it, let us look closely at a faerie narrative that falls somewhere in the uneasy middle place between mythic story and recent folk legend.”

—

Sounds of Infinity

by Lee Morgan

[rachelfaasfibers]

Reading as Resistance: Gendered Messages in Literature and Media

By: Laraine Wallowitz (2004)

 

“I wanted them to understand that reading a text from a feminist perspective changes their understanding of its meaning, that literature and media both reflect and create images of femininity and masculinity, and that readers project their own assumptions about gender onto a text.” (page 26)

Wallowitz is speaking on the topic of how teaching Women’s Studies to high school students give them ideas of how to view gender stereotypes and how to become aware of them through life. With having his students read in a “feminist” perspective, the students are able to become more aware of subtle and strong signs of gender stereotyping throughout a day to day basis. This could be from what they read in school, on the internet, social media, television and many other contributing factors. With this, they can determine perhaps what they have experienced in life. I find that when I was growing up, often times I would lean towards the color pink for example, was that my decision or was their underlying factors that caused me to gravitate toward that color specifically.

“Empowering students by teaching them how to read the “word and the world” (Freire and Macedo) necessitates a new way of thinking about English instruction.” (page 26)

This goes in line with reading in a feminist perspective. I find that just because I read something from class, does not necessarily mean that I have to have the same assumptions that that specific text has. With this in mind, one is able to refer to past learnings and experiences with reading the “words” of the text through their own lens of the world. With reading the world, this goes align with how Wallowitz strives to get his students to understand how the world has labeled genders. It is important that we not only learn about the past, with understanding where stereotypes stemmed from, but also how we have challenged those ideas, embracing that times are changing and women and men are starting to be seen more as equals rather.

“Without a broadened sense of the variety of texts that create and reflect notions of gender, students, like Laurie, make false assumptions both about the texts they interact with and about themselves.” (page 27)

This emphasizes how we cannot simply rely on traditional or academic text, but to the world around us in the media, advertisements, clothing, film, art and anything that is relevant and popular to this day and age. Much, if not all of what I have learned in studio art and art history classes, relates with what is going on in the world. Either this is from reading articles from a variety of art historians, to creating my own art in the studio. With being mindful of the world around me and connecting what I have learned in and out of school in terms of art has allowed me to focus more on own experiences and how I am an individual in the world.  Art work, just like scholarly articles, stands in place as a source that people can rely on in the future to understand the past. It is important for people to grasp the importance of not only traditional learnings of text, but as well as the media and the arts.

 

‘’One of my objectives for the unit was to teach them how our notions of femininity and masculinity are socially and culturally constructed by the music we listen to, the books we read, the television we watch, and the stories we heard growing up.” (page 27)

Growing up, I remember going into Target and seeing all the toys, naturally being gravitated to the “girls” aisle that was pink and purple. At that time, I played with dolls, wore the color pink often, and took ballet classes. I did not see this as a gender stereotyped way of life until understanding roots of gender and how women and men were seen in the past and how they are today. The boys aisle at Target had cars, things to build, and toys guns and weaponry. As a kid, the differences were no big deal to me, for some toys were for girls and some were for boys. I learned this growing up with advertisements on TV with young girls playing with dolls and boys playing with cars and building with Legos. Now, I understand that this was all caused by the construction of our culture and how people expected genders to act.  

“Students quickly learned that characters who do not fit stereotypic images of men and women are read as abnormal.” (page 27)

I think that the fact that the students recognized this, is a large step for they are understanding a point of view that does not align with how they feel perhaps. Times have changes immensely, even within the past twenty years of my life. People are starting to see these stereotypes for what they are and beginning to challenge it. It is okay if a person who is labeled as a girl wants to visit the blue Target aisle if that is what they prefer. Same goes for any person, and today that is not seen as terribly abnormal but still is an issue that people will face for years to come, for it is different than the normal that has been shown in the past.

“Personal narrative provides another opportunity for students to explore the connection between gender bias and environment.” (page 27)

Understanding the background of a person, specifically yourself, helps understand how the environment around you impacted your personal growth. With this, one can pick a part instances in their life could have been impacted by gender bias. Did I take interest in dance because it seemed “girly” and fitting to me? Was my favorite color pink because someone told me it was, or did I make that decision on my own? It is interesting to think about, for your childhood impacts your growth heavily, and these gender ideals surrounded us one hundred percent of the time.

‘’Once students have a better understanding of the ways in which environmental factors, such as childhood and family culture, influence concepts of gender, they are ready to recognize subtle (and not-so-subtle) messages in literature and media.’’ (page 28)

I find that now that I am more aware of gender stereotypes, I can interpret and understand certain movies from the past in a different way. As a kid, it was normal for the girl in the story, normally a princess, would need help from the prince in some form to fulfill their life. Most plots went along with this, and that did not seem bad. But now understanding how needy and gentle these women were, and how they were seen as characters girls looked up to, is extremely concerning. Today many people see that it is important to raise their children, no matter the gender, strong and independent. This staggers away from the traditional way a young girl should act or behave, but it is challenging the past ideas. This is why I believe this quote is important for it explains the importance that students understand the influences around them.

“Folktales serve several important functions in a society that include projecting values and expressing a culture’s taboos and anxieties.” (page 28)

I find this important for it speaks on the topic of girls, princesses, and fairytales and how they impact the values that children embrace at young ages. Wallowitz speaks about discussing Cinderella, and how she is seen as a house maid, staying indoors and does not have much say in her life. Yet, young girls are inspired by her, for in the end she is happy with her prince and that is all she needs. These stories have been passed down from generation to generation, so this is often seen as a normal way of life. Due to this, it is hard for people to escape the past and look into the future for a more understanding way of life. Recently, women have made more leaps in regard to education, accomplishments and success, leading us to making the genders more equal. There have been more movies and music artists for instance in recent times that highlight women in a powerful way, meaning that this is how many want to view women today and recognize them for.

“Casey, who read “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, discovered how women are objectified in literature and noted the narrator’s unfair comparison of his wife to a flawless statue, an ideal impossible for her to achieve.” (page 29)

This quote shows that students understand how certain ideals that were pressed onto women, were impossible to do and how that was disturbing to them. No one wants to be told what to do, how to dress, who to like, and so on. Yet people are gravitated to the normal and often times do not see that. There have always been standards of women and how they are meant to look and act, but these change over time. This impacts many by social media (who is popular, where they shop, what they eat, and so on). People nowadays have the capability to alter their images of their bodies they post on social media for instance, because they want to be seen like the famous people who look a certain way. They feel their body is not good enough for the standards that are held for women today. Clearly this is an ongoing problem that does not seem to be going away anytime soon, we just need to learn how to understand and grow.

[captainchrisfics]

The Book

About: A first person pov narrator released a book about S.H.I.E.L.D. and let’s just say she didn’t give it a stellar review after Natasha released all of the records. It struck a chord with Steve so he tries to confront the author, but ultimately she ends up comforting him instead.

Word Count: 2,901

“One of the best contemporary attempts at grappling with the unfortunate truth that even our heroes are human. This book is a triumph for unraveling and understanding the honest history of America.” -The New York Times

I leaned back in my office chair for support, absolutely astonished that my work had received such a positive review. My book about S.H.I.E.L.D.’s, for lack of a better word, shit-stained history was just recently released into the world. It was my first and I’d been working on it forever, although when Black Widow released all of their classified files it made my job a hell of a lot easier. Still, it felt like baring my soul to the whole world and allowing them to judge me, giving everyone with an opinion the opportunity to pick me apart. Much to my relief, most of the feedback was praise.

Publishing this book was more nerve-wracking and all-consuming than I could ever even start to explain- it’s taken years, but thankfully the countless late nights I spent typing away at my laptop paid off. After receiving my post as a history professor at NYU, I felt like I’ve been playing catch up constantly. It’s not that I’m under-qualified. Just that most of my colleagues were much older and more established than myself, which has been entirely daunting. But the success of my book has given me the leg up I needed to stop second-guessing if I belong at this desk.

I was pulled from my thoughts by an angry voice calling my name from down the hall and asking where my office was. I sat straighter, craning my neck to try to get a better look as I listened. “Where is she?” whoever it was repeated again, this time with more urgency and anger. Through the crack of my office door which hung ajar, I saw the silhouette of a man with a frame that made me feel dwarfed just looking at him.

The secretary surrendered once he slammed a hand on her desk, probably scaring the hell out of her. He took a step back from her and apologized profusely for his outburst in a guilt-ridden tone. Then, he stepped toward my door, slowly at first then all at once. I braced myself, trying to swallow every ounce of anxiety trying to burst from my stomach. He knocked on my door, pushing it open with an arm swollen with intimidating muscles, without waiting for my welcome.

He took a seat opposite me at the other side of my desk so quickly I didn’t have time to protest. I noticed he carried a copy of my book, one that was already so worn and filled with post-its popping out from all of its edges, even though it had to be a recent purchase. I thought, maybe he was a curious student at best? A crazed fan at worst? As I tried to rationalize what gave this man any right to storm into my office, all of my questions were answered when he took off his disguise (if you could even call it that, I don’t know how I didn’t recognize him sooner).

Without the raised hood and tinted sunglasses, it was apparent that the person sitting about two feet away from me was none other than Captain America himself. I cleared my throat, trying to sit straighter if it was even possible. Stunned, I closed my mouth and opened it again a few times before stuttering, “Steve Rogers, sir, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

I reached across my desk as I extended my hand to him. I watched as it hovered in the air, shaking with my nerves while he stared for too long before finally meeting me in the middle for a handshake. “I wish it was under better circumstances ma’am,” he said in a tone that toed the line between measured and seething.

My eyebrows stitched together in confusion as I gulped down my nerves again. I certainly didn’t want to be on this super hero’s shit list. “I imagine it has something to do with my book,” I said, eyeing the copy in his hand.

“It is a gross assassination of an organization that has done more to protect you and millions of other Americans than you will ever know,” Steve asserted, cracking the spine as he opened the book too harshly. He read a number of my lines to me, followed by the well-worded critiques I assumed he’d scribbled on his notes.

“And this thing you wrote here about when my team and I rescued Bucky from Hydra- that isn’t even how it happened!” Steve went on, tossing a hand up in the air as if it gave his point any more power. He told me the story in a way I’d never heard it in any other account, but it wasn’t fair.

“Can I stop you there?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest with a little huff. Steve paused as he turned the page, the breath he’d sucked in to fuel his next rant sitting idle in his puffed chest. I pushed up my glasses, trying to appear more authoritative in the face of the super soldier. “I’ve dedicated the past few years of my life to following others’ research and doing my own extensively. I understand that you know the truth since you were there, but the rest of us weren’t so you can’t hold historians to your standard as a breathing primary source when we’ve been picking through false narratives and speculation since you crash landed in Antarctica.” I raised my eyebrows at him, inviting him to challenge me.

“With all due respect,” Steve said, though his tone would suggest otherwise. He was all but seething, the muscle tightening with the clench of his jaw gave him away despite his attempt to appear unbothered. “I’ve dedicated the past few years to ensuring you have that freedom and before that it was Peggy. We’re a part of that history and if you’re going to tell our stories then you should be telling the truth. I’m not saying you should know everything, but if you aren’t at least trying then why are you writing this book at all?”

I let Steve’s question hang in the air, familiar with the sharp look on his face. I’ve been teaching long enough to know when someone would always insist they were right. Especially in a field like history, where so much is left to interpretation, there’s so many disagreements and so many people who refuse to accept that they might be wrong. The sureness in his hard, blue eyes and tightness of his jaw told me he wouldn’t accept anything short of being right about this.

In an attempt to remain open to criticism. I sighed, leaning back in my chair as I waved a hand to signify he had the floor. “Go on,” I muttered. I had to give it to Steve, he made some great points. From his perspective, I could see how I hadn’t countered my bias as much as I could have and I was open to considering that I may not have every fact straight.

Some points however, like how he said I criticized Peggy Carter for failing to ensure there weren’t any double agents when that was often impossible especially in an organization as large as S.H.I.E.L.D., were unfounded. Steve went on and on as he vented more than anything, tearing each post it out after he said his piece and tossed them into my recycling bin. The pile was so high I worried they would start an avalanche. He reached a point where he was projecting his frustrations onto my work and misinterpreting what I meant, which was coincidentally when his voice started to raise and the veins on his forehead became more pronounced. Once Steve stopped to take a breath, I seized my opportunity to interject.

“Mr. Rogers, firstly allow me to thank you for your service. I should have earlier, but I was pretty caught off guard by all of this,” I laughed nervously, gesturing between the two of us. He nodded and muttered a quiet thank you, leaning back in the chair he barely fit in between the arms of. “Now,” I continued, not pegging Steve Rogers as the interrupting type. “You of all people should know the destruction S.H.I.E.L.D. caused, all of the damage they were capable of doing. I mean, for decades there were Nazis embedded in the structure of an organization meant to protect us and we were none the wiser,” I said, trying to refrain from using my lecture voice on a guy who could be my grandpa.

Steve cracked a smile, though I didn't get the joke. He was probably thinking about how I didn’t know the half of it- which was partly true. Nothing I could read could compare to his life experience. I had to stop my internal nerd from entirely reveling in the fact that such an important piece of living history was just an arm’s reach away from me. I had to stay on task, especially since I was defending myself and my work.

“I’m a historian first and an American citizen second, in my opinion. I want to pursue the truth, understand it and help others make sense of it, even if it paints my country in a poor light and especially when it is difficult to do so,” I said, gaining confidence with each moment he continued to listen to me. Steve nodded, seeming to find common ground with me on this sentiment at least. After all, he has the reputation of prioritizing his moral compass over the law and order even as a soldier.

“I apologize for any hurt or frustration my book has caused you and I assure you that some of your criticisms were just misunderstandings, maybe due to my presentation.” I bit my lip, always one to have trouble with actually admitting when I was wrong. Even so, Steve had a right to how my book made him feel and I felt an obligation to apologize for it.

I could see the hurt rise in his perfectly blue eyes again once I brought it up. Steve shrunk even more into the chair, looking like a dud firecracker that’d finally fizzled out. “It’s just that-” Steve’s voice caught in his throat, seemingly unsure of how to find its way out. He swallowed and started again. “I’m sorry if this is overstepping any bounds, ma’am. Your book just struck a chord with me. Since Peggy’s death,” his voice cracked, stopping him for a second as he composed himself. “I just miss her so much and…” Steve didn’t finish his thought. As the tears started to escape his eyes, he dropped his gaze to the floor.

It was strange watching a superhero break down. Sure, we always see their victories on every news station and even hear about their shortcomings on occasion. But watching Captain America cry, his shoulders shaking and his lungs gasping as he wept, somehow made me feel weak. Seeing the symbol of America’s strength, someone so intrinsically connected to this country, grieving the loss of Peggy Carter was almost appropriate. It didn’t stop my heart from trying to leap out of my chest or the yearning I had to wrap this stranger up in a hug until he could breathe again. Before I could process what I was feeling, let alone make an attempt to comfort him, Steve sat up straight again. He had a stoic expression and seemed to be begging me to ignore what had just happened with his puffy eyes. I couldn’t.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” I said softly, reaching across the desk to place a comforting hand on his shoulder. I tried not to notice how his muscle bulged, tightening uncomfortably at my touch. “I can understand how you could take my criticism of her creation as an attack on her character. Honestly, I love Peggy Carter so much,” I gushed, letting a little bit of that nerd loose.

“As a kid with a passion for U.S. history, you can imagine there aren’t many women to look up to. Fewer compare to her strength and courage. She’s such an inspiration to me and so many others, I never meant to speak badly of her.” I tried to maintain a steady tone as I held such intense eye contact with Steve, his eyes welling up with tears again.

Steve chuckled a little, though it was still so sad. “She was a badass huh?” he smiled as he remembered her fondly. Peggy had just died recently. It still must have been so raw for Steve, someone who knew her so well. I always thought their story was so interesting; the way they loved each other to each of their ends was the kind of fascinating story that made history so interesting to me.

That changed when Steve Rogers of all people stormed into my office. They weren’t just characters in my textbook. He was a real person whose strong jaw tightened when he was angry, who defended those he cared about, who cried until he couldn’t catch his breath. She was someone he loved so deeply, and so much more than that.

“Language,” I chastised jokingly. Steve grew tense and apologized, taken aback by my scolding. Watching him squirm only made me laugh harder. Once I reassured him I was only kidding, Steve seemed to think it was pretty funny.

“She definitely was,” I resigned as we grew serious again before launching into a story about how she fought fiercely on behalf of the first woman who was elected to Congress, defending her in the face of every press-concocted scandal. Steve’s eyes lit up as he laughed, saying that the Peggy he knew was no different. He told me about the time she punched some pig-headed soldier so hard he passed out after he’d called her Queen Victoria.

By the end of our meeting, which lasted nearly two hours even though it felt like minutes, we’d swapped so many stories it felt like I knew her. Steve caught his breath from laughing after I told him a particularly funny thing about a time she told off Howard Stark. He cleared his throat before saying, “Thank you for this.” I tried to brush it off and tell him not to worry about it, but Steve cut in. “Really, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt like someone gets it.” He reached across my desk and held my hand as if I was anchoring him. It sent sparks up like watching that firecracker reignite with my touch.

I just smiled at him, not quite sure where to go from here. Steve stood and I followed suit. We just looked at each other for what seemed like too long of a moment. I smiled awkwardly, ready to excuse us from this uncomfortable situation with the justification that I had a class soon, which wasn’t a lie. Instead, Steve pulled me close to his chest from across my desk as he wrapped his arms around me. I was immediately enveloped in a comforting safety. Steve seemed to radiate protection, even more so when you’re pressed so tightly against his chest you could almost feel his heartbeat. “Thank you again,” he whispered in my ear, causing my skin to erupt with goosebumps.

I nodded, feeling so small and feeble in comparison. I felt like that wasn’t good enough though. I mean, I know there’s no instruction manual for handling a superhero who stormed into your office before bursting into tears. Still, it didn’t feel like this was the way we were supposed to end. Steve pulled away, smiling at me so sweetly with a tenderness in those beautiful baby blues I couldn’t ignore.

Before I could think twice, my lips moved almost in muscle memory despite being so out of my depth. “I have to go teach a class soon,” I said too quickly as the words tumbled out of my mouth. I had to ask before I could get in my own way. Steve sighed and nodded slightly, stepping to the side to make room for me to leave. I couldn’t say if it was true, but I thought he looked disappointed with his eyes to the ground and the corners of his mouth drooping ever so slightly. Throughout our conversation, I noticed Steve seemed to be too stoic to read half the time.

Instead of grabbing my briefcase and making my way to the education building a few blocks over, I kept talking. “Would you maybe want to get coffee later? We could keep doing… whatever this is,” I concluded, nervously rocking from my heels to my tiptoes subconsciously. Steve perked up immediately, lifting his head to look at me with this adorable twinkle in his eye. He hid it behind his sunglasses before pulling up his hoodie again, looking nothing like any random guy walking down the street now that I knew he was Captain America. The next thing I’d have to expose S.H.I.E.L.D. for would be their pathetic disguises. Steve’s smile was crooked as he said, “I’d really like that.”

[cornishbirdblog]

I have been in love with the Isles of Scilly since spending time there as a teenager. I was lucky to have a friend who worked for a while at the Tresco Abbey Gardens and I was able to stay with her for free. A few years ago I went back and spent a blissful week just camping and walking. It was during that last holiday that I happened to pay a visit to the Old Man of Gugh. And now sitting in the comfort of my home on the mainland for some reason he has popped into my mind. I imagine him now, out there alone, on the edge of the world, facing the elements head on. And of course, I can’t help but wonder what his story is.

The Island of Gugh

The Isles of Silly lie about 28 miles southwest of the coast of mainland Cornwall. There are six inhabited islands, including Gugh, and around 140 smaller off-islands that are mostly home to birds.

Gugh is tiny. Just 600m long by 310m wide. It has only two houses designed and built in the 1920s by Charles Hamlet Cooper. The two buildings have unusual curved roofs, common in some Scandinavian countries, that make them better able to stand up to the wild weather.

At low tide Gugh is joined to the island of St Agnes by a curving, white bar of sand. The narrow channel between the two islands is known for its dangerous currents.

Looking across to Gugh from St Agnes

Gugh feels a long way from anywhere. And I think it would be fair to say that the Scillies are isolated, especially in the winter. In his book The Fortunate Islands E.L. Bowley argues that it is this isolation that would have made them attractive to our ancient ancestors.

“It is probable that lonely islands were invested with a peculiar sanctity for reasons of safety; in historic times there could have been little security on large tracts of land which were liable to raids, whereas islands, owing to their inaccessibility provided the obvious depository for sentimental and material treasures and also presented an opportunity for the steady progress of culture and the Arts.”

The earliest known evidence for human activity found anywhere on the Isles of Scilly was discovered on Gugh. A barrow on the island, known as Obadiah’s Grave, was excavated in 1901.

House on Gugh, Islands Apart, John Hunt, 1989

Obadiah’s Grave on Gugh

Obadiah’s Grave is thought to have been named in more recent times after a farmer from St Agnes called Obadiah Hicks. This barrow is just one of roughly eighty burial chambers all across the Scillies. It was opened in 1901 by George Bonsor, a French-born historian and archaeologist.

The excavation was unusually well-recorded for the time. The surviving plans provide one of the most detailed records of an entrance grave’s chamber deposits and their funerary and artefactual contents. Obadiah’s Grave also contained the rare surviving deposits of an unburnt human burial.

George Bonsor

Bonsor also dug around the base of the standing stone known as the Old Man of Gugh. He found nothing of interest, just five large packing stones.

What’s in a name?

The whole of Kittern Hill which makes up a large part of Gugh Island is a designated Scheduled Monument. Historic England identified it as a place of particular interest in the 1970s because of the concentration of ancient remains found there. These include a number of prehistoric cairns, five entrance graves, an ancient field system and settlements as well as post-mediaeval kelp pits.

Looking across to St Agnes

Kittern Hill is thought to get its name from the old Cornish for kite’s nest, cyta aern. And as for Gugh itself, Craig Weatherhill suggests that the name was originally Agnes Gue meaning ‘enclosure of St Agnes island’. Lake’s Parochial History of the County of Cornwall records the name of the island as Guew and it is possible this may come from keow meaning hedge or banks.

And while we are discussing names, it just so happens that the Old Man of Gugh has another title too.

The UK’s Most Southerly Standing Stone

It is estimated that there are around 250 standing stones dotted all across the UK. The most southerly of which stands quite alone and windswept on the small island of Gugh. The Old Man of Gugh, as he has become known, is roughly 2.7m (9ft) tall and can be found close to the base of Kittern Hill.

The stone leans dramatically, possibly due in part to the excavations around its base, but not entirely. This monument has been inclining for a very long time. Head towards the sea, face into the elements. Covered in lichen and heavily weathered it seems to almost bend into the prevailing winds.

When Murray visited the islands in the 1850s he recorded the stone’s name as the Old Man Cutting Turf. In 1872 Lake’s also uses this name for the menhir. Strange perhaps but of course both of these given names quite naturally refer to the stone’s age. And perhaps from a distance the bent-double angle of the stone does look like a man at work or a man crooked with age.

There are ancient remains all over the islands. Cairns can be found on St Agnes, St Mary’s, Tresco, Samson, Bryher, Tean, Great Arthur and St Martin’s. There are huts circles and other standing stones, and of course I haven’t seen them all, but there’s an old man on Gugh that has a piece of my heart.

Further Reading:

Men Gurta – Cornwall’s Largest Standing Stone

The Treburrick Standing Stone & interpreting menhirs.

Chapel Carn Brea – Cornwall’s First and Last Hill

The Old Man of Gugh – The UK’s most southerly standing stone I have been in love with the Isles of Scilly since spending time there as a teenager.

[freeworldimmigration]

White supremacists have expressed fear that Europeans and those of European descent in the U.S. and other English speaking countries will become minorities in their countries due to immigration. This has been termed “The Great Replacement” and apparently inspired the Unite the Right marchers at the University of Virginia in 2017 to chant “You will not replace us.” (See here, here, here and here.) The suspect in the murders at mosques in New Zealand titled his manifesto “The Great Replacement.”   

White supremacists also have conjured up conspiracy theories that liberal elites are orchestrating this “replacement.” While I have never encouraged immigrants to come to the U.S. (they have their own motivations to migrate), I am a liberal who welcomes high levels of immigration as a means to reduce the proportion of the population which self-identifies as white. This reduction could help diminish the influence of white supremacists and their fellow travellers by shrinking the proportion of the population from which they can draw recruits and influence the country’s direction.

Unfortunately, white supremacy has always been part of America’s fabric. While the Declaration of Independence supports universal rights, former white nationalist Derek Black notes that the first naturalization laws in the 1790s restricted citizenship to white people and states that

“the United States was founded as a white nationalist country, and that legacy remains today. Things have improved from the radical promotion of white people at the expense of all others, which has persisted for most of our history, yet most of us have not accepted the extent to which white identity guides so much of what we still do. Sometimes it seems that the white nationalists are most honest about the very real foundation of white supremacy upon which our nation was built.”

A 2017 article in The New Yorker echoes Black’s analysis: “… the Founding Fathers organized their country along the bloody basis of what we now tend to understand as white supremacy.” And Adam Serwer notes in the Atlantic that

“America has always grappled with, in the words of the immigration historian John Higham, two ‘rival principles of national unity.’ According to one, the U.S. is the champion of the poor and the dispossessed, a nation that draws its strength from its pluralism. According to the other, America’s greatness is the result of its white and Christian origins, the erosion of which spells doom for the national experiment.”

The “radical promotion of white people” has had devastating consequences for millions. Native Americans were massacred and forced off the land they inhabited. African Americans endured centuries of slavery, followed by the oppression of segregation, disenfranchisement, the Ku Klux Klan, lynchings, “slavery by another name,” red-lining, police brutality, mass incarceration, and other forms of discrimination. Asian immigrants suffered violence and discrimination, particularly in the 19th century. Hundreds of thousands of Latino Americans were forcibly pushed out of the U.S., while others experienced mob violence and endured segregation.  Racist ideology directed against eastern and southern Europeans also led to the restrictive immigration legislation of the early 1920s, which ultimately blocked many Jews from fleeing the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s. (See also here and here.)

In recent decades, overt white supremacy in the U.S. has weakened.  Research based on 2016 data suggests that less than 6% of non-Hispanic whites support the promotion of white interests over those of other groups. In addition, a 2017 poll, which apparently included respondents from a variety of racial and ethnic groups, found that strong majorities agreed that all races are equal and that all races should be treated equally. Moreover, the American public appears to be increasingly comfortable with diversity.  

However, the 2017 poll revealed that “while only 8 percent of respondents said they supported white nationalism as a group or movement, a far larger percentage said they supported viewpoints widely held by white supremacist groups.” The 2016 study also suggests that millions of European Americans think like the alt-right. (See also here. )

One implication of the resilience of white supremacist beliefs among many Americans has been hate crimes. Examples include the 2018 massacre of Jews in Pittsburgh, the violence in 2017 in Charlottesville, the 2015 massacre of African Americans at a South Carolina church, and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Hundreds of people have been killed in recent years by white supremacists and members of the far right. Assaults, intimidation, and vandalism are other manifestations of this hate. 

Another implication of the continued existence of white supremacy in the U.S. has been the elevation of a demagogue, Donald Trump, to the presidency. Vox notes that “study after study has shown that Trump’s primary and general election victories were driven by the racial resentment and demographic panic he activated among white voters.” Adam Serwer also writes that “the specific dissonance of Trumpism—advocacy for discriminatory, even cruel, policies combined with vehement denials that such policies are racially motivated—provides the emotional core of its appeal… As the president continues to pursue a program that places the social and political hegemony of white Christians at its core, his supporters have shown few signs of abandoning him.” The columnist Charles Blow has similarly stated that “Trump’s central promise as a politician has been the elevation, protection and promotion of whiteness, particularly white men who fear demographic changes and loss of status and privilege.” (See also here.)

Trump threatens our liberal democracy and encourages violence against his political opponents. Some his prominent supporters such as Steve Bannon, who has described himself as a “Leninist,” also apparently have little respect for liberal democracy. Moreover, his administration has exacerbated the suffering of immigrants through its draconian policies. And his resistance to tackling climate change threatens the future of all of humanity.

Accelerating the rate of immigration into the U.S. could help prevent the emergence of future politicians who use racist demagoguery to persuade a substantial share of the white population to vote for them. With more immigration, the portion of the electorate made up of those voters will diminish faster.

Unfortunately, this approach to squelch white nationalism has its risks and uncertainties. To begin with, increasing immigration levels to transform the country’s demographics faces headwinds. Some assume that the demographic status quo, even with no change to current immigration levels, will eventually produce an America with a diminished white population, given Census Bureau predictions that non-Hispanic whites will become a minority of the population in the next two decades. However, the sociologist Herbert Gans posits that “… the ‘minority-majority’ forecast, as it is commonly interpreted, is likely to be proven wrong. Not only could whites remain a majority well past midcentury, but they will retain political, economic and cultural control of the country long after that.” He describes a “whitening” process whereby the offspring of intermarriage between individuals of different races often self-identify and are identified by others as “white.” He also notes “the long history of the whitening of populations previously labeled nonwhite,” such as immigrants from Ireland and southern and eastern Europe. Consider Stephen Miller, Trump’s ferociously restrictionist advisor, who also happens to be Jewish. 

Furthermore, elevated levels of immigration might push more white Americans towards nativism and white nationalism. While Americans are increasingly supportive of immigration to the U.S., with a large percentage believing immigrants are beneficial for the country and growing percentages supporting increased levels of immigration, more whites might feel threatened by greater numbers of immigrants from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. Indeed, most Americans either want to keep immigration at current levels (38%) or reduce the levels (24%). In fact, the political commentator Andrew Sullivan has argued that the Democratic Party must become more restrictionist to prevent Trump from winning re-election. 

Despite these uncertainties, accelerating the rate of immigration to combat white nationalism is a risk worth taking. With regard to the “whitening” process, the children and grandchildren of interracial intermarriage will likely be less receptive to white nationalism, given that they have familial connections to people who are racial minorities and that families with a history of intermarriage presumably hold more tolerant attitudes. This tolerance should coexist with a white identity. For example, as The Washington Post reports, some demographers “note that many Hispanics already identify as white and yet still vote like a minority group.”

As to the risk of driving more whites into the supremacist camp by increasing immigration, one should begin with the assumption that the Republican Party is a party of white nationalists and others who are comfortable making common cause with the nationalists, even though there is a minority of Republicans and Republican leaning leaning independents who support increased immigration levels. Therefore, the focus should be on whether some Democrats and Democratic leaning independents might defect to the Republicans if immigration levels are increased. A third of Americans apparently support an increase in legal immigration into the U.S., with 40% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents supporting the increase. Will increased immigration make many of the 60% of Democratic supporters who don’t endorse the increases receptive to white nationalism and/or greater immigration restrictions?  

Probably not. A political scientist has observed that “the Democratic Party is increasingly a coalition of professional-class whites and members of ethnic and racial minority groups.” Given the general cosmopolitanism of the Democratic Party, most of its supporters who don’t support increasing immigration levels likely would never support white nationalism and the Republican Party associated with it. In addition, most voters probably do not make electoral decisions based on a single issue. It therefore seems likely that most Democrats would swallow increased immigration levels while continuing to oppose the Republicans. A Washington Post columnist recently posited that “there’s virtually no evidence that support for more immigration is a political liability… At worst, an immigration supporter will lose the 30 percent of voters he or she would have lost anyway.”   

In fact, increasing numbers of Democrats may be persuaded to accept more immigration if that means preventing future demagogues from becoming president. It should be emphasized to Democrats that Trump is the catastrophic consequence of having an electorate with a large proportion of racist whites. Changing that electorate through accelerated immigration flows could be promoted as a way to vaccinate society against future demagoguery.

The vitality of jurisdictions with diverse populations should also be highlighted, including those with “majority minority” populations.   An article in Axios points out that “non-white Americans are now the majority of the population in four states, as well as in the most prosperous and powerful U.S. cities.”

One of these cities is San Antonio. Referring to white fears about America becoming a majority minority country, a journalist and San Antonio resident writes that

“… I’m here to calm those fears. Hear me out. I have seen the future and it is … San Antonio.  When I came to San Antonio to attend college in 1964, non-Hispanic whites, aka Anglos, were in the majority. It was about the time I left, in 1968, that this status changed. The 1970 census put us at 48 percent.

Anglos have been in the minority fully 50 years. Now we’re at just over 25 percent. Latinos are 63 percent and blacks 7 percent.

So how are things going for us Anglos now that we make up only one-quarter of the nation’s seventh-largest city? Has the city stagnated in a sea of corruption? Have our fellow Anglos fled after being subjected to discrimination and abuse?

The reality is that San Antonio cannot be compared with the stagnant, overgrown town it was is in the late 1960s when we Anglos were in the majority…

San Antonio showed little ambition and a well-earned inferiority complex. Its national image was such that outsiders were often surprised to learn that the city had an airport…

Fast forward 50 years to today. San Antonio is thriving as one of the U.S.’ fastest-growing cities – 1.5 million and counting. Its economy is humming and diversifying, with cybersecurity as a key growth industry. Downtown, previously almost abandoned to tourists, is booming both as a business center and residential magnet.

I’m not suggesting Latinos alone lead to the city’s economic growth. Anglos still dominate the business sector. But Latinos certainly contributed to that growth, both politicians – led early by Henry Cisneros – and business leaders.

Our 11-member City Council has been made up of at least five Latinos and one black member since 1977, with only a few years excepted. Cisneros was elected the first Hispanic mayor of modern times in 1981, but there have been only two Hispanic mayors since. Ivy Taylor served as the city’s first black mayor from 2014-2017.

That is partly because the Hispanic population doesn’t vote as vigorously as Anglos and blacks. It is also because Latino voters are discriminating – in the best sense of the word – but don’t discriminate, in the word’s worst sense.

Today’s seven-member “minority” majority on City Council is hardly lacking in qualifications. Every one has a graduate degree, even though most come from modest backgrounds. Councilwoman Ana Sandoval (D7) has a degree in chemical engineering from MIT, a masters in civil and environmental engineering from Stanford, and a masters in public health from Harvard.

Like all American cities, San Antonio has serious problems: severe economic and racial segregation, many underperforming schools, environmental challenges, a severe lack of adequate mass transit, and more. But we’re working on it together.

White folks who are frightened at becoming a minority need to understand the U.S.’ amazing power of assimilation. San Antonio has thrived under a City government that for 40 years has been governed by racial and ethnic minority councils, mostly the children and grandchildren of Mexican immigrants…

White Americans should not be afraid of such successes. They should be proud of them.”

Houston, another Texas city with a majority minority population, has been deemed the most diverse U.S. city. Like San Antonio, it has challenges, but a Rice University sociologist argues that ethnic tensions in the city have eased over the years and states that “’No city has benefited from immigration more than Houston, Texas.’” 

In addition, immigration supporters can point to small American towns that have succeeded while ethnically diversifying. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes about Willmar, Minnesota, population 21,000. It “is now nearly half Latino, Somali and a Noah’s ark of other East African and Asian immigrants. The languages spoken in the high school include English, Arabic, Somali, Spanish and Karen (spoken by an ethnic group from Myanmar).”  According to Friedman, the town has welcomed its immigrant workers, who fill jobs in a local economy with almost no unemployment and without enough “white Lutheran Scandinavians” to fill them. The town’s mayor, who favors helping immigrants integrate into the community, was elected convincingly when he ran against an anti-immigrant candidate.

Thriving Canadian cities also demonstrate the success of diverse societies in North America. Philippe Legrain, author of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them highlights Toronto, Canada as successfully integrating its ethnically diverse population. At the same time, the city has been highly ranked for its quality of life. About half of its population consists of “visible minorities.” (See also here, here, and  here.)

As a political matter, pushing for increasing immigration levels is probably a better approach to diminishing the influence of white racism than pushing for open borders. While open borders is the best policy choice from a moral standpoint, most Americans would be very uncomfortable with open borders, and calling for just an increase in immigration levels would be more palatable for voters than the radical approach. 

How much of an increase should be championed? In 2013, the U.S. Senate approved legislation which would have raised legal immigration levels by 50 to 70 percent within five years, which suggests a politically realistic goal. A more ambitious campaign would promote an annual immigration flow of between 6-7 million people and would cite the Israeli experience of successfully absorbing a comparable flow in the 1990s.

It is acknowledged that there is no easy solution to individual acts of violence and other harassment based on hatred toward a particular ethnic or racial group. But preventing future nationalist demagogues from attaining power means that there would not be people in power provoking individuals to act out their worst instincts.

While pushing to transform the nation’s population for political ends may seem brazen, the nationalists are not timid about realizing their own version of social engineering. While Trump’s recent proposal to overhaul legal immigration apparently would not change immigration levels, just last year he proposed changes which, according to The Washington Post, “could cut off entry for more than 20 million legal immigrants over the next four decades.” Michael Clemens noted that “’By greatly slashing the number of Hispanic and black African immigrants entering America, this proposal would reshape the future United States. Decades ahead, many fewer of us would be nonwhite or have nonwhite people in our families… Selectively blocking immigrant groups changes who America is. This is the biggest attempt in a century to do that.’” Dana Milbank of The Washington Post similarly summarized the intent of the legislation: “… the Trump-backed immigration proposal, combined with other recent moves by the administration and its allies — support for voter suppression, gerrymandering and various other schemes to disenfranchise minority voters — could extend the white hegemony that brought Trump to power and sustains Republicans.” Trump also  revealed his preferences for whom should immigrate when he infamously asked last year “… why we want people from Haiti and more Africans in the US and added that the US should get more people from countries like Norway.”

White supremacy has been a blight on America, from its origins up to the present, and its marginalization is long overdue. Allowing higher levels of immigration into the U.S. could be an effective way to erode its influence, and increasing immigration levels should be promoted by those who hope for a more tolerant and better governed America.

  from Open Borders: The Case http://bit.ly/2JR1igc