SoylentNews

aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

Chronicle of Higher Education [chronicle.com]

reports:

Sarah E. Bond wanted to explain to students and other readers why the classical statuary of ancient Greece and Rome wasn’t all white.

For those of you who are “Identity Christians”, some of this may trigger you. Warning provided.

The story is not about marble statues, except that it is. It seems that while Isis is blowing up any anthropmorphic image as idolatry, white supremecists are adopting Greek and Roman sculpture as their touchstones of racial identity. Too bad that the whole “white” think is vaguely Teutonic, or German, or for the Romans (and Greeks!), completely barbarian. This article is about barbarians, modern ones.

  Bond said:

"I’m really sick of alt-right groups appropriating classical antiquities for nefarious reasons," she told The Chronicle on Friday. "And I was like, OK, it’s time to just take it back and say classical antiquities belong to everybody, not just Western civilization."

Fair enough. But not fair enough for the Guardians of Right Wing Racial Purity. Bond’s further statements:

So she wrote an essay entitled "Why We Need to Start Seeing the Classical World in Color" [soylentnews.org] on Hyperallergic, an online forum focused on the arts. Many statues used to be painted in full color, Ms. Bond wrote.
It wasn’t until much later, she wrote, that white marble became the norm.
"Where this standard came from and how it continues to influence white-supremacist ideas today are often ignored," she wrote.

Things do not end there!

Shortly after the essay was published, Ms. Bond got an email from a reporter at the website Campus Reform.
"Recently, you had written an article with ‘Hyperallergic,’" wrote Dan Jackson Jr., the reporter, "where you stated, ‘The equation of white marble with beauty is not an inherent truth of the universe; it’s a dangerous construct that continues to influence white-supremacist ideas today.’ Would you like to comment further or clarify this statement?"

Ah, yes, that Campus Reform! [thinkprogress.org] Right up there with The Professor Watchlist” [soylentnews.org], and Horowitz’s “I have wild wolverines in my underwear”, opps, I meant, “Most Dangerous Academics” [soylentnews.org], which you could buy, but why would you? The question raised here is the degree to which online partisan groups can attempt to shout down scholarship they disagree with on ideological grounds.

Bond responded:

"The point is simply that Greeks and Romans actually added color to their art, and thus white marble was often the canvas rather than the finished product," she wrote to Mr. Jackson. "The exalting of white (and unpainted) marble was then an 18th-century construct of beauty rather than representative of the classical view. In any case, let me know if you would like to discuss this issue further. Could I get a bit more info about the piece you are writing?"

    Of course, no response was proffered, but Bond did suddenly show up on right wing nut-job websites, and hate mail and threats followed. None, I believe, were from a sculptor named “Pygmalion”.
  And, of course, the “Campus Reformation” website ran a piece.

The headline was "Prof: ‘White Marble’ in Artwork Contributes to White Supremacy." [soylentnews.org] The article quoted from Ms. Bond’s essay and her email, but she said she felt her thoughts had been "remixed" to say that "white statues are racist."

Which would be obvious to anyone who can read. But we are dealing with white supremacists, and this is exactly why we cannot have white supremacy. Reading comprehension. Teutonics just can’t do it.
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[eds: Yes, another submission driven by despair and desperation. If there is any way you could neutralize the polemic, without losing the very important central point of political interference in higher education, I, for one, would greatly appreciate it. ]

Original Submission