Rev-Ups

Re: my observation that the average undergraduate now seems to have much greater familiarity with Homeric epic and at least some Greek literature (esp. tragedy) than with the Aeneid or any Roman material, I think there’s a myriad of things at work here but at least one is that we’ve reverted to this weird cultural construct where ancient Greek myth and literature is viewed as universal while Roman literature is viewed as particular and this affects what books are taught e.g. in high school and college English classes but also what gets mined for retellings. and I also think Roman material is often imagined as being more deeply implicated in the ideological framework of patriarchal western imperial society and like, in some cases perhaps that’s fair, but I would argue as a literary historian that Roman poetry is precisely where we see the cracks forming in Roman gendered imperialism just like Greek tragedy is where we see the cracks forming in Athenian gendered imperialism. whether we want to commit to any idea of authorial intent is a different question but imo it’s impossible to read e.g. Roman elegy or pastoral or even Lucan and come away with the pop-culture idea of the iconic masculine Roman subject (hell, I think even the Aeneid questions the conventional notion of masculine Roman virtus that Lucan absolutely shatters, but that’s another discussion)

On this day, 18 July 1969, Black Panthers held a conference in Oakland alongside the predominantly white anti-racist Young Patriots Organisation and Puerto Rican street gang-turned-radical group the Young Lords. A KPIX news report described the event as an “unconventional convention” which was nevertheless “well-organised and orderly”, and explained that the Panthers’ motivation in holding it was to emphasise “class struggle” and “revolutionary unity”. The Young Patriots were a group of poor, mostly Appalachian migrants in Chicago. Although they opposed racism, they originally wore Confederate flags, which they believed were a symbol of rebellion. Leading Panther Fred Hampton played a key role in building links with them and other white working-class youth, until he was assassinated by police. In his speech, William "Preacherman" Fesperman of the Young Patriots, argued for armed self-defence against police brutality: "A gun on the side of a pig means two things: it means racism and it means capitalism and the gun on the side of a revolutionary, on the side of the people, means solidarity and socialism." Later, the Young Patriots abandoned the Confederate flag symbol as an irredeemable symbol of white supremacy. As former-Patriot Hy Thurman explained to Redneck Revolt: “As we grew politically and respected the Black Panthers and the Young Lords we determined that there was no place in the movement or the world for the Confederate flag. It symbolises a period of time when our Black brothers and sisters were mere property to be sold or destroyed at the white man's convenience. And that the Confederate flag was created to serve as a symbol of plantation owners to perpetuate slavocracy.” Learn more about the Panthers in these books by former members: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/black-panthers