barbreyryswells:

If you think that Malcolm X was a terrorist

For advocating on behalf of blacks against oppression and wanting to defend himself

You can fuck right off my blog.

People seriously have messed up views on Malcolm X— and some of it is warranted. For a long while he did advocate a more violent approach than the beloved Martin Luther King Jr., and the general population latched on to his violent approach due to the fact that it WAS so extremely opposed to Dr. King’s original message of no violence.

 But those people who automatically connect his name to that of violence obviously know nothing about the man nor the changes he was beginning to make before his death. Firstly, he grew up in Harlem— a dog eat dog sort of world, where survival of the fittest was a real thing. Secondly, the only time he talks about in his Autobiography about being violent toward someone was toward one of his friends prostitutes (in fact, Malcolm X was rather aggressive toward women in general). Secondly, while Malcolm X held rather violent views at the beginning, and had an extreme dislike for white people, no matter their intentions and background, his trip to Mecca and the people he met there completely changed his views.

 He was taken in by a white Muslim and helped along when he was lonely and lost in Mecca, not completely understanding the politics as well as the social world he was in. It was there that he learned we are all human beings, struggling in the world together, and we should always offer a helping hand. No longer did he wish to segregate the white community from the black community, and no longer did he say that all white men were the devil.

 Instead he believed that the black community should work within itself to help right the wrongs done to them, and the white community should do the same. He believed that the white community should start to educate its people about the wrongs of racism and segregation, and that the black community should try and educate its own people about what had happened and what they can do to make it better and to get equality for all.

 ”I tell sincere white people, ‘Work in conjunction with us— each of us working among our own kind.’ Let sincere white individuals find all other white people they can who feel as they do— and let them form their own all-white groups, to work trying to convert other white people who are thinking and acting so racist. Let sincere whites go and teach non-violence to white people! We will completely respect out white co-workers. They will deserve every credit. We will give them every credit. We will meanwhile be working among ou own kind, in our own black communities…”

 Unfortunately, just as he was beginning to change his ways and pull away from the Nation of Islam, he was assassinated, and people continued to connect his message to that of intolerance and violence. That’s all that they see when they see Malcolm X. They don’t see a man made from the time he was in and the situations he was placed in. They don’t see a man who was willing to admit his mistakes and try an right his wrongs— no matter how large those wrongs would be. And he fully realized that his message would always be heavily connected to violence. “I want you to just watch and see if I am not right in what I say: that the white man, in his press, is going to identify me with “hate”. He will make use of me dead, as he has made use of me alive, as a convenient symbol of “hatred”— and that will help him to escape facing the truth that all I have been doing is holding up a mirror to reflect, to show, the history of unspeakable crimes that his race has committed against my race.”

 ”I am speaking against and my fight is against white racists.”

 ”True Islam taught me that it takes all of the religious, political, economic, psychological, and racial ingredients, or characteristics, to make the Human Family and the Human Society complete. Since I learned the truth in Mecca, my dearest friends have come to include all kinds— some Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics and even atheists! I have friends who are called Capitalists, Socialists, and Communists! Some of my friends are moderates, conservatives, extremists— some are even Uncle Toms! My friends today are black, brown, red, yellow, and white!”

 The Kingdom of Jerusalem became an important territory in the Latin kingdoms, due to its Christian religious significance, and also because of the political clout holding such an area had. With the founding of the territory as a Kingdom by Godfrey of Bouillon, rulers after him took on the title of King and carried a large amount of power among other Latin lands in the East. While power seemingly rested in the hands of the men, the Queens and Queen Mothers, their influence on the governing of the Kingdom went beyond simply their hand in marriage. With the succession of Queen Melisende in 1131, the Kingdom of Jerusalem became a location where women vied for control, and harnessed that power despite the limitations placed upon them based on their sex. With such women as Melisende, Agnes of Courtney, Maria Comnenus, Sibylla I and finally Isabella I, the political world that was once dominated by men, became a sphere controlled by women.

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 Although the Iliad starts by glorifying war and displays the honour and skill one can attain through warfare, the poem takes a startling turn in the middle. It shows the horrors of war through the grief and suffering the loss of a loved one can cause. With the fall of Patroclus, sorrow and destruction become the main theme of the epic, in stark contrast to the glory of battle that dominated the tale before. Book XXII, ‘The Death of Hector’, becomes the ultimate expression of what warfare truly is. The mourning of a warrior’s life as seen through Hector and Achilles’ eyes, the powerful moment of a mother and father losing their child, and the comparison between Andromache and Achilles’ loss of their loved one, all serve to direct the reader of the Iliad into a place of mourning and sadness. It shows us that the loss of so many promising young men due to such senseless slaughter is not as glorious as many assumed.
    

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This is an excerpt from a paper I wrote last year about Homer and Hesiod’s influence on Greek society. I figured it was relevant to the discussions I was having beforehand:

In ancient Greece, the ideals of a hero and the heroic personality were incredibly important to their frame of mind. Achieving glory and precedence among peers was a goal that many Greek men aspired to. Homer offered men the archetype of what it means to be a strong warrior and a hero through his character Achilles, while at the same time displayed what it meant to be a coward and vilified through the Trojan prince Paris. In the Iliad, there is no doubt that Achilles was perhaps the most important figure in the entire story; his strife and battles the key points in the storyline itself. Without his struggles, the Iliad would be nothing more than a story of bloodshed and uninspired heroics. Throughout the Iliad, Achilles begins to display what would later become the ‘classic’ hero in Greek mythology, and would inspire and move an entire generation of warriors through his archaic ideals and heroics. Heroes in Greek mythology were at constant odds with themselves; they did not belong in the world of the gods nor the world of the mortals; they were a breed all their own. Achilles shows an internal struggle that soon becomes outward when his lover in arms Patroclus is slain, and becomes separate from his human identity, crossing that thin line heroes always walked on—that line between humanity and animalism. He had “made himself independent of his fellow man. In this cataclysmic battle that [followed] he is both subhuman and superhuman, both bestial and divine.” The heroics that Achilles displayed and the archetypal archaic Greek warrior he represented had a lasting effect on the Greek mindset. When the Olympic Games began in 776 BCE, Achilles became connected to the games—a representation of Zeus prevailing over those who may have been able to grasp power from him,and women would end up honouring him in the city of Elis before the games were to begin. As well, a hero cult grew out of Achilles’ name, with shrines dedicated to him being found in Miletus and the surrounding area near the Black Sea. All over the Greek world this cult veneration grew popular, his status as a hero (and in some instances a god) was worshipped and idealized by the Greeks. He was the perfect warrior—an idol to Greek warriors and every day citizens alike. A testament to Archaic thought. This admiration also had an effect on world politics later during the Hellenistic period of Greece, with the royal dynasty of Epirus laying claim to Achilles as a member. Alexander the Great would come of this royal bloodline, therefore making him a descendant of the great warrior, and subsequently bolstering his claims to power and his reputation in the known world. Although the positive view of Achilles had begun to waver before the rise of Alexander, with the end of the Peloponnesian war sullying the classic archaic Greek ideals on what it meant to be a warrior. Euripides began to take on a bitter tone towards him in plays like Elektra, Hekabe, and Iphigenia in Aulis. But the fact remains that Homer’s version of the ideal Greek hero permeated the mindset of the Greeks—their ideals matching those of the archaic Homer.

 But at the same time, Homer wrote the exact opposite of what it means to be a hero with the creation and introduction of Paris, the Trojan prince who stole Helen away and started the war. Where the Achaean Achilles was strong, Paris was weak; Where Achilles was brave, Paris was cowardly; Where Achilles fought a man head on, Paris preferred to hide behind the distance that a bow would bring. While Achilles and the other great heroes of the Iliad fought with a spear and shield, Paris, the coward, had chosen to fight with the bow and arrow. The fact that Homer chose to make Paris an archer may not simply be coincidence, and is, perhaps, commentary on the views that Homer (and subsequently the Greeks) had on the difference between a warrior who wields the spear, and the warrior who uses the bow and arrow. When Homer introduces Paris, Hector goes to greet him behind the city walls, carrying his lance with the ‘bronze tip’ while Paris stays in his bed chamber, “turning over and over his long curved bow”. Upon seeing his brother staying locked away in the tower with the woman who ‘caused’ the war, Hector berates him for his cowardly behaviour, to which Paris does not disagree. Paris was even hated and vilified even among his own men for refusing to fight, with Hector stating that the Trojans would “heap contempt upon [him]”. The god who protects Paris is also linked to the bow; Apollo. Apollo is known as the archer as well as the god who keeps his distance from humanity and the other gods; he is separate from the Greeks (and this may signify that perhaps Apollo was a foreign god later adopted by the Greeks into their own religion). The warrior Teucer in the Iliad later furthers the theory of the coward being an archer in archaic Greek ideologies. He is supported by Agamemnon and praised for his skill, but would hide behind the shield of Ajax—a stronger and larger sword fighter. When Hector tries to engage Teucer in one on one combat he is unable to defend himself, and once again attempts to use Ajax as a shield; essentially, he was unable to fight against the heroics displayed by Hector and likeminded soldiers. In the Iliad and throughout Greek mythology, it appeared as if the archer was never the hero of the story or of the town but rather the coward, who, despite having amazing skill and influence on the battlefield, lacked the classic archaic heroic attributes that the Greeks admired so much. The men who achieved glory were those who fought with a shield and sword such as Achilles, and the cowards were those who hid behind the walls with their bows like Paris.

 And we know this because of his statues.

 The Romans, while idealizing many things, took the highly-idealized way of portraying the human form from the Classical Greek period, and meshed it with the Hellenistic Greek style, creating a beautiful but still true to form way of portraying their Emperors.

 Emperor Hadrian (who I have gone on at great lengths before), was believed to have had hypertension and coronary atherosclerosis, which resulted in his death from congestive heart failure. How do we know this? Looking at many of his statues, if you inspect his ears, you will see that they have a diagonal crease along the lobe— a very prominent crease. This is indicative of hypertension and atherosclerosis.

 Emperor Trajan: Emperor in 98 CE, Emperor Trajan was known for his military prowess. Pushing the Roman Empire to its furthest limits, he was a stable and well loved ruler, and was eventually on the list of the ‘Five Good Emperors’ complied by Gibbon. “Trajan’s Column” was built in order to commemorate his military victories, and continues to be a symbolic representation of Rome. He was married to Pompeia Plotina, and the two had a friendly relationship, despite Trajan’s numerous relationships with other men. They never had any children, and ended up adopting Hadrian.

Emperor Hadrian: Succeeding after Trajan, Emperor Hadrian grew up a military man due to growing up under the care of Trajan. However, despite being militarily savvy, Hadrian ruled the Roman Empire during one of the longest stretches of peace time. Pulling the boarders of the Empire back due to it being far too large, Hadrian built the now famous ‘Hadrian’s Wall’ in Britain. A lover of the arts and architecture, as well as a lover of all things Greek, Hadrian became known as the Little Greekling, and placed Athens as the center for culture once more. Building his Villa, finishing the Pantheon and building Hadrian’s Mausoleum (later used by the Vatican as the home of the Pope), his buildings are still used and visited today. His marriage with his wife, Vibia Sabina, was strained, and rumour had it that he never consummated his marriage with her. Instead, the love of Hadrian’s life was a young Greek man named Antinous. The two had a love affair that became heavily romanticized due to Antinous’ early death and the reaction Hadrian had to it. Grieving and ‘weeping like a woman’, Hadrian deified Antinous, founded a city for him in Egypt, and commissioned numerous statues of the boy. Antinous is the third most recognized face in antiquity, after Emperor Augustus and Emperor Hadrian. Antinous has been called the ‘Face of Antiquity’, and statues of him are even in the Vatican. Hadrian had no children of his own, and adopted instead.

 William II or William Rufus: Son of William the Conqueror, William Rufus ruled England after his father’s passing. William’s court was well known for its “effeminates”, and Orderic Vitalis wrote of how the entire realm was ruled by these “loathsome Ganymedes… [who] abuse themselves with foul sodomite things.” Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, also became aware of what was going on in William’s court and believed that “—this sin [sodomy] has been so public that hardly anyone has blushed for it, and many, therefore, have plunged into it without realizing its gravity.” He attempted to solve this perceived collapse of morals by appealing to William to bring about strong penalties to those convicted of sodomy. William was less than responsive to this plea, and Anselm went out on his own to prevent more from falling into temptation. However, this campaign failed, and it may be assumed that these “ganymedes” continued to sit comfortably inside William’s court. William himself never married, and although there were no direct accusations against William for acts of sodomy, it may be inferred that he enjoyed his pleasures with other men. The fact that Anselm and Vitalis were so troubled about the openness of William’s same-sex desires and believed that the rest of England was following suit, shows us that society during his reign had very little concern with sodomy as the issues were only brought up by clergymen and no one else.

Richard the Lionheart: The King of England during the Third Crusade, Richard became famous for his continual battle with Saladin. A strong warrior and a competent King, his name has gone down in the history texts as Lionheart, due to his supposed courage and strength. While he married, he never had any children with his wife, although it was rumoured he fathered a bastard at some point in time. His sexuality has been a subject of contention, with scholars divided on his sexuality. It was rumoured that he had a relationship with the then king of France, Philip II. Roger of Hovoden stated that: “Richard, [then] duke of Aquitaine, the son of the king of England, remained with Philip, the King of France, who so honored him for so long that they ate every day at the same table and from the same dish, and at night their beds did not separate them. And the king of France loved him as his own soul; and they loved each other so much that the king of England was absolutely astonished and the passionate love between them and marveled at it.” Such a quote, however, may be interpreted in a variety of different ways, and some state that it was meant to show the strength between France and England at the time. Another text states that when Richard did his public penance, he was doing it for the act of sodomy. “For on that day the Lord scourged him with a severe attack of illness, so that calling before him religious men, he was not ashamed to confess the guiltiness of his life, and after receiving absolution, took back his wife, whom for along time he had not known, and putting away all illicit intercourse…” Richard’s true sexuality will never be known and continues to be debated today.

Edward II: King of England and son of Edward I, Edward II came into power just before the ‘Little Ice Age’ in England. When the Ice-Age struck, Edward’s kingdom was starving, famine and death sweeping the land. Despite this, Edward continued to live in extravagance, and soon began to distance himself from not only his wife and her important family connections, but also from his courtiers. This distance came due to his relations with two men in the course of his life. Rumours spread after his death and during his reign of his close bond with Piers Gaveston (a knight and a favourite of Edward’s) and Hugh Despencer the Younger. Gaveston was called Edward’s ‘socius’ (companion) and they were said to have an “indissoluble love”. Later writers latched on to this and shamed Edward for his personal connection, as opposed to William II who was never slandered in such a fashion, despite his sexual expression being more overt. Later on after Gaveston’s execution, Edward fell along with Despencer, a man who was charged with sodomy and had a great deal of influence over him. Edward was later killed, and rumours spread that a red hot poker to his anus was the cause; once again highlighting the supposed same-sex desires he had. Both men had a great deal of sway of Edward, and he listened to them more than anyone else. Edward II was married to Isabella of France, and had five children with two women. Isabella strongly disliked Gaveston and Despencer, and was instrumental in deposing Edward and eventually having him executed. While Edward’s sexuality is still debated (much like Richard’s), his close relations with Gaveston and Despencer, and the sway they had over him, leads many to believe he was at least bisexual.

 These are just a few of the men throughout history who may or may not have been attracted to the same-sex. While some are more obvious and less hotly debated than others, all of these men prove that sexuality have nothing to do with the strength of a person.

 *I use the term gay in order to make the title a little cleaner. In truth, none of these men were gay, straight or bisexual. Sexuality as we know it, is a modern day construct and should not be used on people in the past. It would be better to state that these men were attracted to the same-sex, but that would have been a messy title.

lemon-sprinkles:

 One of the main bones of contention in the Classics world, as well as the studies of sexuality and gender, is the full nature of Achilles’ and Patroclus’ relationship in the Iliad. Did ‘Homer’ intend to make them lovers? Were they physical with each other, or simply companions? Did they love each other both physically and spiritually, or were they mere friends, never reaching that exalted level of companionship that the Greeks valued? The topic was even widely debated by the ancients themselves, with writings from the 6th and 5th century displaying men attempting to fit their relationship in terms of Pederasty, an institution that may or may not have existed during the Dark Ages.

 Firstly, this is not me attempting to say whether or not Achilles and Patroclus were in an intimate relationship—as in, they were lovers. In the end, we will never know what the poets of the time intended when they sang and subsequently wrote down the Iliad. Perhaps they did intend for them to be a couple, both in an emotional sense as well as physical. Perhaps they never did, and simply wanted to show the nature of a strong friendship. However, finding out what they did and did not intend is not the purpose of this essay, nor the purpose of the debate as a whole. What matters is the impact and the influence that their bond has had over the thousands of years, touching and causing debate through the centuries, from scholars to playwrights, philosophers to military leaders.

 In the Iliad, the argument can be made that the most influential and important aspects of the story itself is the bond between Achilles and Patroclus. The Wrath of Achilles may have started with a seemingly minor event, but really picked up with the death of Patroclus, his demise the turning point in the poem. Where once glory and prestige littered the pages, with the stories of great men fulfilling great deeds taking precedence, the death of Patroclus turned the Iliad into a tale of madness and grief, in which no one was safe from the finality of death. Achilles refused to go back into battle once he had pulled out, stating that no riches could bring him back into the fight, even when Agamemnon offers him more than he deserves for the loss of one of his war prizes. It is only Patroclus’ death that brings him back into the fight, and it is only his death that Achilles is willing to face his own fate of an early demise. If Achilles had not fought and sailed back home to Greece, he’d have lived a long life; he chose that long life in as so long as Patroclus was alive and well. When he died, Achilles cared little for his own life, and went insane with grief, not satisfied until Hector, the man who killed Patroclus, was dead and rotting under the hot sun above Troy. Achilles chose to die as well as Patroclus. The bond that had to exist between two people to cause such madness must have been strong, and this is where the question comes in—how strong was that bond?

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 One of the main bones of contention in the Classics world, as well as the studies of sexuality and gender, is the full nature of Achilles’ and Patroclus’ relationship in the Iliad. Did ‘Homer’ intend to make them lovers? Were they physical with each other, or simply companions? Did they love each other both physically and spiritually, or were they mere friends, never reaching that exalted level of companionship that the Greeks valued? The topic was even widely debated by the ancients themselves, with writings from the 6th and 5th century displaying men attempting to fit their relationship in terms of Pederasty, an institution that may or may not have existed during the Dark Ages.

 Firstly, this is not me attempting to say whether or not Achilles and Patroclus were in an intimate relationship—as in, they were lovers. In the end, we will never know what the poets of the time intended when they sang and subsequently wrote down the Iliad. Perhaps they did intend for them to be a couple, both in an emotional sense as well as physical. Perhaps they never did, and simply wanted to show the nature of a strong friendship. However, finding out what they did and did not intend is not the purpose of this essay, nor the purpose of the debate as a whole. What matters is the impact and the influence that their bond has had over the thousands of years, touching and causing debate through the centuries, from scholars to playwrights, philosophers to military leaders.

 In the Iliad, the argument can be made that the most influential and important aspects of the story itself is the bond between Achilles and Patroclus. The Wrath of Achilles may have started with a seemingly minor event, but really picked up with the death of Patroclus, his demise the turning point in the poem. Where once glory and prestige littered the pages, with the stories of great men fulfilling great deeds taking precedence, the death of Patroclus turned the Iliad into a tale of madness and grief, in which no one was safe from the finality of death. Achilles refused to go back into battle once he had pulled out, stating that no riches could bring him back into the fight, even when Agamemnon offers him more than he deserves for the loss of one of his war prizes. It is only Patroclus’ death that brings him back into the fight, and it is only his death that Achilles is willing to face his own fate of an early demise. If Achilles had not fought and sailed back home to Greece, he’d have lived a long life; he chose that long life in as so long as Patroclus was alive and well. When he died, Achilles cared little for his own life, and went insane with grief, not satisfied until Hector, the man who killed Patroclus, was dead and rotting under the hot sun above Troy. Achilles chose to die as well as Patroclus. The bond that had to exist between two people to cause such madness must have been strong, and this is where the question comes in—how strong was that bond?
 

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