#colonialsm

so stop trying to demonize Europe and America for what they have don't that MANY cultures around the world have already done.

I'm a (relatively) new Tolkien fan, and as much as I love his work, one thing that infuriates me is that of all the possible reasons he could have written, CHOSE to write that Maeglin became evil because "Idril didn't love him back and therefore was a jealous incel" (wtf).

Wait, actually not, It actually says that he was born evil:

“Yet in all that he did he had no love of others, nor cared he ever for any save himself; and it seemed to many that some darkness lay upon him from his birth.” (Silmarillion, Of Maeglin).

Tolkien, are you sure you're Catholic and not Calvinist??? (With all due respect to Calvinists, whose faith I don’t know well enough to presume to judge in any way, and wouldn’t even if I did, because people’s faith is a personal matter. I just wanted to point out that this choice represents a determinist philosophical dynamic that does not belong to the Catholicism, the faith to which Tolkien believed and whose morals tried to insert into his work.)

And he didn't chose to write he betrayed Gondolin becouse of, I don't know, some legitimate reason to be mad that NARRATIVELY HE HAD, like the fact that THEY THREW HIS FATHER OFF A CLIFF IN FRONT OF HIS EYES WHILE HE WAS STILL A BOY. And then HE WAS ADOPTED BY THE SAME ELF WHO ORDERED HIM TO BE EXECUTED. And he can't even leave the city because THERE'S A DEATH PENALTY (which is what drove his father mad in the first place).

Oh no, wait, those reasons are not valid because his father was the violent DARK ELF who kidnapped and raped the WHITE LADY of the Noldor, and therefore Turgon is a hero for saving his sister and nephew by EXECUTING A MAN WITHOUT TRIAL. And then the MIXED SON became an ungrateful traitor to the city that had welcomed him because "he was very much like his father".

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...

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TOLKIEN WHAT THE FU- (colonial propagandistic historiography 101).

Not to mention that in The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, it is said about Maglin (Maeglin): "Less fair was he than most of these goodly folk, swart and of none too kindly mood, so that he won little love, and whispers there were that he had Orc's blood in his veins, but I know not how this could be true." And so here too we have that the mixed son is:

uglish

dark-skinned (and therefore voluntarily or unintentionally connected to the previous point)

sullen and hostile

disliked by the other citizens

And, of course, "he's said to have Orc blood." IT IS SAID. People whisper and speculate about Maeglin's ancestry to justify his being "different." And needless to say, in real-world contexts, "rumors" quickly devolve into "things said to one's face," and thus into daily verbal microaggressions. Then in the published Silmarillion, his skin color was changed to "pale" and it was said that he "resembled the Noldor in appearance," but all the racialized subtext remained (cough cough Dark Elf ).

Now, I'd like to pause and point out that in European literature, "pale" isn't a neutral term. Considering that all characters in ancient and medieval literature are white (with the possible exception of Mediterranean environments where people came into contact with Africa and Asia through travel and trade), there was still a "color coding" to signal status, and at the time, status meant morality (because heroes were always kings, princes, nobles, demigods, etc.). Lighter skin tone symbolizes wealth and beauty, whereas the common people would have been tanned from working in the fields (consider that the population, even after the rebirth of cities, was AT LEAST 70% farmers). Considering that the epic romance of chivalry originated in France, the rest of European literature followed suit and used French characteristics and... *Poof*! Thus was born the cliché of the pure, blond, handsome, tall hero/lady with very pale skin and blue eyes. Does this remind you of anyone? Exactly. Glorfindel. Finrod. Galadriel. Eärendil. Idril. TUOR.

But precisely because they all have similar traits, all European languages play with synonyms to convey a message and/or a specific characterization through symbolism. In English it's perhaps more subtle because "pale" is still used, but note how the term "fair" is preferred. In Italian, however, heroes' skin is described as "candida" (which has a very strong moral connotation, meaning "immaculate white" and is metaphorically associated with good souls), "chiara" ("light tone"), or, if we're feeling particularly poetic, "nevina" ("like snow"), "marmorea" ("like marble") or "d'alabastro" ("like alabaster"). But not "pallida" (pale)."

"Pallida" literally means "affected by pallor," meaning with little blood, i.e., sick. And so it's also symbolically associated with a character who is slimy, evil, treacherous, weak, deceitful, and/or ambitious for the sake of power. In literature, to be pale are traditionally are the evil advisor and the uncle who wants to usurp the throne of his brother the king, and therefore the fratricidal one, because the three roles often overlap. Some examples of this type of character are Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings and... Maeglin himself (and no surprise, becouse the two follow the same archetype).

As a woman, I appreciate that Tolkien wrote a story in which the abuser and the creep are punished and the woman isn't blamed in any way, because that's rare even in modern literature (cough cough dark romance novels). But I don't accept that to do so he filled his story with racist and colonial stereotypes that still today cause social tensions and have repercussion on people lives. I personally don't think that that was Tolkien intention, becouse he was a man born in a time, in a culture and in a social status when this type of narrative was EVERYWHERE and he maybe couldn't fully recognize the impact it could have on other people. But the modern reader can and SHOULD recognize it.

And this situation could have been avoided if the character coded as the rapist and abuser and the creep/stalker had been LITERALLY ANYONE OTHER than the only named Avarin and his bastard son (because let's remember that since technically Turgon and/or Fingolfin didn't approve of Eöl and Aredhel's marriage, and therefore said marriage is invalid by the Noldor's logic). And it could have been avoided if Maeglin hadn't been coded as "the dangerous outsider" and Tuor as "the good outsider."

Just imagine what kind of story it would have been if Idril's stalker had been any of the other Lords of Gondolin. Opportunities to discuss the Noldor's internalized misogyny, their sense of self-entitlement wich made them act that everything is theirs, their presumption that they are the center of the world. But this would have ruined the image of the Noldor as "heroes" (after they literally committed a massacre before even setting out on their holy war... okay, John), as "bearers of civilization, wisdom, and knowledge of Aman," as "saviors of the defenseless peoples threatened by the evil Morgoth." So it's up to the native's son.

The cultural genocide of Native Americans is within living memory. They have asked for #landback and have been told it would be too difficult, and it has been taken as a joke.

Palestinians converted to Islam 1,000+ years ago. Jewish imperialists and anti-Semites alike were given billions to violently impose an anachronistic Israeli regime, no complaints, no questions asked. The project has been called an "investment" in the United States' interests the region.

In the ancient world, the Islamic nations were the crown jewel. You don't have to look very hard to find ornate extravagances of the ancient Islamic world, wherever they have been permitted to be preserved. In ancient religions, the most effective way to convert peoples to a group's own faith is to be prosperous and attribute this to their faith. And following suit, many nations of Africa converted. [I learned these things in my history classes in uni, so I don't have sources. I may direct you to these professors upon request.]

But everywhere in the world there is any economic prosperity, the United States and the general anglosphere strongly feels an entitlement to having their fingers in that pie. The colonial partitioning of Africa, the South African colony, the colonies in what is today called the US, colonial Australia....

Meanwhile citizens in the US are fixated on oil prices and vote based only on their wallets, perpetuating the state of affairs. The class warfare goes deep in itself but is entirely inextricable.

People are being terrorised in their homes simply for daring to exist on their own land and guess who this headline centers? 'loyalists blamed' cop on- that's how you want to present this story??? The PSNI will do nothing, as they are designed to do, the DUP will continue to rob us of democracy with no criticism let alone concequences and the media will centre the alleged aggressors as we descend into the violence we hoped would never ever come back.

I have heard the argument way to many times, people in the US don’t like the term “Latino/a” because is sexist, they prefer a gender neutral term, and that is why they use the term “latinx”. But the reality goes deeper than that.

The reality is that the English language already has a gender neutral term, in fact, it has TWO gender neutral terms that you can use: “Latin” and “Latin American”. You have 2 English terms to use for the Latin american community when you are talking in English. Why don’t use those terms instead?

The important thing to realize here is that the term “latinx” is a term originated in the US, by people from the US, to refer to people from Latin America, changing the Hispanic language because the Hispanic language was offensive to American standards.

People in the US unilaterally determined that a Hispanic word was offensive to the people in Latin America, and therefore it should be changed, without considering how Latin American people felt neither about the term itself, nor about the idea that people who didn’t speak their language were changing it.

Why does Latin America has to change its language to comply to the standards of people from the US?

Why people from the US get to determine how Latin Americans are referred to?

The truth is that the majority of the Latin American people are unaware that they are called by a term they didn’t choose, a term that cuts away a big part of their identity, their identity of being born in the AMERICAS, a term determined by people who don’t even speak Spanish, because those people decided that they knew better, those people decided that they had the right to change a word for more than half of a continent, those people decided that people living in Latin American were too uneducated to understand that their language was not cultured enough, and that they had the holy duty to bring those poor souls out of their savage culture into a more enlightened one.

That is one of the purest form of COLONIALISM!!!!!!

Don’t decide for Latin America. Don’t change the Spanish language to make it acceptable to US standards.

You have your words, we have ours. We have lost enough of our identity at your hands already, please stop tearing our language and our culture apart.

Sincerily.

Qui di seguito alcuni spunti di riflessione brillanti sulla questione Montanelli.

Così.

Per metterci tutti assieme una mano sulla coscienza.

Nigerian woxmn challenged colonial power in 1929

When elected Igbo leaders were stripped from power and replaced with oppressive British warrant chiefs, thousands of womxn organized and participated in a massive anti-colonial rebellion.

How did they resist?

By "sitting on a man" or "making war on a man." Womxn used song and dance to publicly ridicule and shame warrant chiefs forcing many to resign.

Read more about the Igbo womxn's rebellion here.

Learn + Engage

Igbo womxn redefined how womxn uniquely resist. Here's how you can implement their tactics into your own movement.

HRC highlights womxn-led movements every Thursday in a special series called WomxnRESIST. WomxnRESIST’s coverage is inclusive and explores the intersectional resistance of all womxn.