I got banned awhile ago by the main history sub because I was constantly pushing back against what seemed to be another right-wing aristocratic agenda – which is to claim the middle ages was a wonderful time for all filled with happy, content peasants, beneficent nobles and clergymen with a society open to technological and scientific innovation.
All these things not only 100% untrue but the OPPOSITE of the truth.
I thought of this when I was listening to a show on NPR tonight where someone was talking about a school district banning books intended to raise awareness about racial prejudice (including HIDDEN FIGURES).
A stated reason parents gave for pushing to ban these books was ” I don’t want my children growing up feeling guilty for oppressing a race of people they were not guilty of oppressing.”
Hearing this, I thought of the attempt from the right to whitewash feudalism because really – modern ideas of race are really just a facet of class prejudice and class prejudice was (and in some case may still be) the beating heart of the engine that drives feudalism, namely that the ‘less worthy’ are happiest and most content being told what to do by a more “worthy”, educated elite.
And what is the truth of the lives of the less worthy? Ignorance, hunger, rape, resignation, hopelessness. The main source of joy for the ‘unworthy’ is expected to be making their masters (yes, medieval serfs and peasants called their owners ‘master’ too – just like black slaves in the US) happy and 2nd hand internalizing their triumphs, to be nothing oneself but an agent of joy for one’s superiors.
I bring this up because the right is not only trying to make white people feel ‘resentful’ of being held culpable for racism, the right is trying to ERASE the memory of CLASS OPPRESSION of OUR OWN ancestors (assuming most of us white Americans are not legitimate children of European royalty or nobility).
Feudalism is what they are after, and feudalism is a TRAP (for them too but this post is already too long).
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