It is striking to me that when I said I wanted to move away from using AS in my thesis and replace it with Early English or early medieval England I was informed by a particular person in the field that it was more than defensible.
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But that same person went on to insult a MOC for suggesting we all move away from this racism term and said she was on a witch hunt.
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I have a latent fear of reprisal from older white men (and some white women) in my field but I know that I have incredible privilege and this interaction highlighted it for me.
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Anyway I don’t want to be in my feelings about this so I want to say to my fellow white scholars: we have a responsibility to our MOC colleagues to support them, listen to them, and stand with them.
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And it’s natural and good that our field evolves. Changing terminology isn’t a bad thing nor is it giving into fascists. We need to fight the white supremacists twisting medieval history for their own purposes
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Replying to @AdmiralHip
Thank you! I'm amazed by presumably smart people going "but the term was used in 6th-century Latin sources" as if that decides the conversation. Are we writing 6th-century Latin? I can only conclude they either have a momentary lapse of judgement, or ulterior motives.
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Replying to @SLevelt
The issue is, which I think I had said earlier in another tweet, is that we invented a word in English to translate it, but that the word itself was borne from a time of serious racist shit in the beginnings of the field so why do we need to keep it?
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Replying to @AdmiralHip @SLevelt
The study of the period won’t be worse because we use a BETTER and MORE HISTORICAL phrase that doesn’t have the same amount of hang ups. Not to mention that the idea of periodization assumes a level of ahistoricity anyways. We construct artificial boundaries and terms as is.
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And even if the word we use is ahistorical, it’s better than clinging to a racist legacy.
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