Articles

White Nationalists call ancient Greek homosexuality a “myth”

posted July 13, 2018

Eurocanadian.ca is the website of “The Council of European Canadians,” an organization led by white nationalist Ricardo Duchesne that is, according to their “metapolitical strategy,” “against an establishment that is determined to destroy European Canada through fanatical immigration, imposition of a diversity curriculum, affirmative action in favor of non-Europeans, and promotion of white guilt.” A homophobic article on the site reviews a book by the far-right Greek politician Adonis Georgiadis arguing that “homosexuality was universally thought unacceptable” in ancient Greece. This claim flies in the face of overwhelming evidence of the prevalence and social significance of same-sex love in antiquity, but is attractive to white nationalists who want to claim cultural continuity with ancient Greece without compromising their rampant homophobia.

White supremacist site claims Nordic invaders gave rise to Classical Greece

posted July 6, 2018

“National Vanguard” is a white supremacist organization that is an offshoot of the “National Alliance,” whom the SPLC once called “the most dangerous and best organized” Neo-Nazi group in America. An article on NationalVanguard.org claims that when “Nordic” invaders arrived in Greece, “an older civilization”—described throughout as “Mediterranean aborigines“—”who had begun to succumb to racial mixing and decadence, was overwhelmed by a more vigorous and racially healthier one.” The article then turns to the “lethal” and “catastrophic mixing of blood” that, it claims, led to the decline of both Sparta and Athens, arguing that “the passing of the Hellenes must be regarded as one of the greatest tragedies of our race.” The article is part of a series celebrating the “heritage” of the “white race” and warning white people about the need to preserve racial purity in order to assure “the survival of the white race.”

Site Blames “Decline” of Greece on Loss of Racial Purity

posted June 29, 2018

American Renaissance is a site edited by Jared Taylor, whom the SPLC calls “a courtly presenter of ideas that most would describe as crudely white supremacist, a kind of modern-day version of the refined but racist colonialist of old.” Alongside promotions for an all-white dating service and a racist book by a former Classics professor that is favorably reviewed by a neo-eugenics site is a post asking “What Race were the Greeks and Romans?” This article claims that the ancient Greeks of the Classical period were descended from “Nordic” northern Europeans and that the later “decline” of Greece resulted from the thinning of that “Nordic” blood. The post aims to provide a historical example of a threat that American Renaissance warns its readers about on its “Our Issues” page: “If whites permit themselves to become a minority population, they will lose their civilization, their heritage, and even their existence as a distinct people.”

Xenophobic Op-Ed in Local Paper Reflects Hate Site’s Arguments

posted June 22, 2018

“Migrants Sank the Roman Empire. Now They’re Sinking Us” is the title of a recent op-ed in the Shreveport Times. The article claims that the Roman emperor’s decision to allow Goths seeking protection from the Huns to enter Roman territory in the 4th century CE caused the collapse of the Roman empire, and argues that immigration to the United States and Europe will similarly hasten “the suicide of the West.” Appearing as it does in the primary newspaper of a metropolitan area of half a million residents, this op-ed may seem to represent a mainstream view, but in fact parrots the views of a notorious hate site.

SPQR and White Nationalism

posted June 15, 2018

Director’s Note, Dec. 2020: this post became Pharos’ most-viewed article as a result of media coverage of the (ultimately successful) North Carolina congressional campaign of Madison Cawthorn, whose real estate investment company is named “SPQR Holdings.” Cawthorn had also signaled his white supremacist leanings in an instagram post showing him visiting Hitler’s vacation home, something he said had been on his “bucket list for awhile.”

Original Post:
Senatus Populusque Romanus, “The Senate and People of Rome,” was a phrase used to describe the Roman state in Republican and Imperial times. It was and is often abbreviated as S.P.Q.R. Both the phrase itself and the abbreviation have remained in frequent use as a symbol of the city of Rome. It is also a favorite abbreviation of white nationalists, as the following examples demonstrate.

[Update: Scholars Respond to appropriations of SPQR by hate groups]
[Update: Prof. Sarah Bond has written an excellent article on SPQR that expands on many of the points we make in our follow-up to this documentation]

Study of ancient Greek and Latin promoted by Racists and Homophobes

posted June 8, 2018

Intellectual Takeout is a site that offers “to serve as a refuge for those who want to pursue truth, rediscover the wisdom and traditions of the past, discuss ideas calmly, and apply what’s been learned to their own lives.” A recent post advocates for an educational curriculum based on “those great works of the past which were produced by the classical culture” and suggests that learning Latin and Greek will both “make up for our mediocre educations” and will “be a key to the renewal of Western Civilization.” What’s not to like for those who value the study of Latin and Greek? A lot, in fact, when you look at some of the other material on the site.

Fall of Rome cited as parallel to contemporary “Barbarism”

posted June 1, 2018

EveryJoe.com is a site that describes itself as “the ultimate boy’s club.” Its content is eclectic but includes a xenophobic series on “Civic Nationalism” and an article praising alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos as “a true free speech warrior.” The site has published a series of articles by John C. Wright, whose personal blog includes defenses of racist activist Tommy Robinson and complaints about the “disastrous effect” on society of “strong female characters in fiction.” One article in this series, entitled “Defining Civilization: Women and Children First”, makes a racist, misogynist, and homophobic argument that our world is sliding from “civilized life” into “the chaotic bloodshed, cruelty, and misery of barbarism.” The post cites the decline of the Roman empire as a historical example of a similar collapse to the one it claims is underway in the contemporary world.

Scholars Respond to Racist Backlash against Black Achilles, Part 3: What Makes a Homeric Hero a Hero?

posted May 25, 2018

This is Pharos’ third post responding to racist criticism of the BBC/Netflix miniseries Troy: Fall of a City, in which a black actor plays Achilles. Our first post discussed Greek attitudes toward Africans in order to show that ancient audiences would have had no problem with a black Achilles, and our second post addressed the Iliad’s description of Achilles’ hair in order to show that the text does not definitively exclude a black Achilles. This post argues that the BBC’s decision to cast a black man to play Achilles should be understood as a modern extension of ancient epic’s flexibility in the representation of heroes.

Scholars Respond to Racist Backlash against Black Achilles, Part 2: What did Achilles look like?

posted May 18, 2018

This is Pharos’ second post responding to the racist criticism of David Gyasi being cast to play Achilles in the BBC/Netflix miniseries Troy: Fall of a City. Pharos documented that criticism here and here, and the first part of our response addressed ancient Greek attitudes toward Africans.

Racist commentators accuse the miniseries of erasing the white racial identity of Achilles by casting a black man to play him. As evidence for this racial identity, they claim that the Homeric epics describe Achilles as having blonde hair. We set aside the obvious point that one should not invest too much in the supposedly “true” hair color of a mythical person. In what follows we assess evidence for how ancient audiences would have understood these descriptions of Achilles’ hair to show that it is not possible to base a racial theory on the color terms used in the Homeric epics to describe Achilles’ hair. The term in question had a range of meanings, some of which bear no relation to our concept of “blonde,” and in any case, color terms in Homer should not be understood literally, but symbolically. Although we can probably assume that most ancient audiences imagined that Achilles looked like them, these two descriptions of Achilles’ hair do not definitively exclude the possibility of a black person playing the role of Achilles.

Scholars Respond to Racist Backlash against Black Achilles, Part 1: Ancient Greek Attitudes toward Africans

posted May 11, 2018

In February of 2018, the BBC broadcast an eight-part miniseries, Troy: Fall of a City, that told the story of the Trojan War. Netflix later released the miniseries in the United States. The casting of David Gyasi, a British-born actor of Ghanaian descent, to play Achilles provoked a storm of racist criticism on social media and racist sites. There has been less controversy around other characters played by black actors, such as Zeus, Athena, Aeneas, Patroclus, and Nestor. Soon after the show started airing in the UK, Pharos contributor Tim Whitmarsh wrote a refutation of many of the racists arguments being made, which he followed up recently with a more detailed critique. Pharos, too, documented the racist backlash against the show and over the coming days will report on the responses we received from specialists working on Greek epic. The volume and complexity of the response was such that we have decided to split our response into several posts.

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