It's indeed a huge, and hugely wrong, cope. That the Anglo-Saxons were divided into several kingdoms until the Viking invasions forced them to come together under Wessex or die doesn't mean there was no Anglo-Saxon identity (as much as any ethnic identity could exist in a time long before nation-states anyway), any more than Italy being disunified between the Lombard conquest of the peninsula in the late 6th century and the Risorgimento in the 19th meant there was no such thing as an Italian in those 1300 years or that there were no Spanish people between 711 and 1492 because Castile, Leon, Galicia and Aragon all existed as separate kingdoms throughout most of the Middle Ages. And that argument doesn't even work because England had been a singular, unified political entity for about a century & a half before the Normans ran it over.
The English kingdoms didn't speak different Angle and Saxon and Jutish languages, they just spoke different dialects of the same language (Englisc, or Old English). Their adherence to Roman Catholicism set them apart from the pagan Vikings and, to a lesser extent, the distinct Celtic Christianity of the Britons/Welsh. An Englishman from Wessex would most definitely not consider himself interchangeable with a Welshman from across Offa's Dyke, and a Northumbrian would find that West Saxon more familiar than he would a Pict from past the ruins of the Antonine Wall.
Even the political organization of Saxon England was different from those of the continent until the Normans rolled in and imposed what we would recognize as feudalism (the 'Norman Yoke', if you will) on the locals, which included things like eliminating allodial (inherently private) property - now all land in the kingdom belonged to the Norman king and you were only just renting it - unlike the situation under the English and Danish kings. (No shit an Enlightenment era liberal like Jefferson, who liked the ideal of yeomen farmers owning & running small farms, would prefer to identify with the Saxons than the centralizing and more directly oppressive Norman ruling class)
Finally the argument that Anglo-Saxons aren't Anglo-Saxons because they weren't the first people in Britain is stupid enough that I don't even need to address it. Suffice to say that if that's the case, then there are no Europeans outside the Basques and Georgians because everyone else's Indo-European ancestors were native only to the Ukrainian and Southern Russian steppe; no non-Bedouin Arabs from Hejaz and the Najd are actually Arabs; the only true Africans outside of West Africa are pygmies and the Khoisan, and so on. Literally every-fucking-body outside of these very few groups exclusive to a few regions with terrain that ranges from 'highly defensible to 'inhospitable' aren't autochtonous, they've conquered and been conquered by somebody else at some point in history. That obviously has no bearing on whether the non-autochtons are distinct ethnic groups themselves.
Tl;dr this Jonathan Davis-Secord is wrong and the America First caucus' organizers should've had the stones to commit to their plan regardless of how much the media screeches about how evil & racist they are, because the presstitutes are going to do that anyway regardless of what they do or don't do.
That the Anglo-Saxons were divided into several kingdoms until the Viking invasions forced them to come together under Wessex or die doesn't mean there was no Anglo-Saxon identity
Haaa!!! Is that the argument they make!?!? I wonder if they’d be willing to apply that to native Americans
This was indeed one of Davis-Secord's main arguments.
The term “Anglo-Saxon” was rarely used at the time in England. They did not see themselves as a unified race, and actually were a motley collection of different peoples competing with each other. The kingdoms shared a language now known as Old English, but they spoke different dialects, warred with each other and sometimes allied with native forces to get an edge over each other.
The “Anglo-Saxon” label first appeared shortly before 800 CE in continental Latin works as a way to distinguish the English speakers in England from the distant relatives they had left in what are now Germany and Denmark. The label had not yet developed its overtly racist connotations at this point, but it nonetheless distinguished peoples in a way that built into modern racism. The majority of the term’s appearances in early documents within England itself occurred again in Latin texts, where it indicated expanded royal control over the previously separate kingdoms of the Angles, the Saxons and several other segments of the island’s population. Specifically, King Aethelstan (d. 939 CE) was described in charters at the end of his life as “emperor of the Anglo-Saxons and Northumbrians, governor of the pagans and defender of the Britons.” Those Angles and Saxons — and their kingdoms — were distinct, and the other kingdoms of English speakers (not to mention Wales, Scotland or Danish settlements) were certainly left out of the term’s coverage.
This is as ridiculous an argument as saying that, because Alfonso VII titled himself 'Emperor of all Spain' but maintained Castile, Leon and Galicia as three separate kingdoms in personal union under him, there were no Spanish people in 1150. Actually even worse, England was a single unitary kingdom after Athelstan and never partitioned between his successors unlike Alfonso's Spain from two centuries later.
(Also, in that passage 'Northumbrians' referred to the Anglo-Danes of northern England, where Viking influence had been strongest and the longest-lasting Viking kingdom in England was located. Ethnic divisions between Angles, Jutes and Saxons had already effectively ceased to exist several centuries before Athelstan, hence why - as the article admits - he literally called himself emperor of the Anglo-Saxons and not emperor of the Angles and Saxons)
Excellent response. Some of those points came to me as well, but not in such a detailed way, and you mentioned several arguments that never occurred to me
This fucking midwit trap just- "durr- anglo-saxons weren't native to england-" yeah, no shit "durr- they participated in trade" and? hand waving "RACISM." I can barely engage with modern activist "journalism." The sad thing is a bunch of idiots will read this and think it made them smarter.
It's indeed a huge, and hugely wrong, cope. That the Anglo-Saxons were divided into several kingdoms until the Viking invasions forced them to come together under Wessex or die doesn't mean there was no Anglo-Saxon identity (as much as any ethnic identity could exist in a time long before nation-states anyway), any more than Italy being disunified between the Lombard conquest of the peninsula in the late 6th century and the Risorgimento in the 19th meant there was no such thing as an Italian in those 1300 years or that there were no Spanish people between 711 and 1492 because Castile, Leon, Galicia and Aragon all existed as separate kingdoms throughout most of the Middle Ages. And that argument doesn't even work because England had been a singular, unified political entity for about a century & a half before the Normans ran it over.
The English kingdoms didn't speak different Angle and Saxon and Jutish languages, they just spoke different dialects of the same language (Englisc, or Old English). Their adherence to Roman Catholicism set them apart from the pagan Vikings and, to a lesser extent, the distinct Celtic Christianity of the Britons/Welsh. An Englishman from Wessex would most definitely not consider himself interchangeable with a Welshman from across Offa's Dyke, and a Northumbrian would find that West Saxon more familiar than he would a Pict from past the ruins of the Antonine Wall.
Even the political organization of Saxon England was different from those of the continent until the Normans rolled in and imposed what we would recognize as feudalism (the 'Norman Yoke', if you will) on the locals, which included things like eliminating allodial (inherently private) property - now all land in the kingdom belonged to the Norman king and you were only just renting it - unlike the situation under the English and Danish kings. (No shit an Enlightenment era liberal like Jefferson, who liked the ideal of yeomen farmers owning & running small farms, would prefer to identify with the Saxons than the centralizing and more directly oppressive Norman ruling class)
Finally the argument that Anglo-Saxons aren't Anglo-Saxons because they weren't the first people in Britain is stupid enough that I don't even need to address it. Suffice to say that if that's the case, then there are no Europeans outside the Basques and Georgians because everyone else's Indo-European ancestors were native only to the Ukrainian and Southern Russian steppe; no non-Bedouin Arabs from Hejaz and the Najd are actually Arabs; the only true Africans outside of West Africa are pygmies and the Khoisan, and so on. Literally every-fucking-body outside of these very few groups exclusive to a few regions with terrain that ranges from 'highly defensible to 'inhospitable' aren't autochtonous, they've conquered and been conquered by somebody else at some point in history. That obviously has no bearing on whether the non-autochtons are distinct ethnic groups themselves.
Tl;dr this Jonathan Davis-Secord is wrong and the America First caucus' organizers should've had the stones to commit to their plan regardless of how much the media screeches about how evil & racist they are, because the presstitutes are going to do that anyway regardless of what they do or don't do.
Haaa!!! Is that the argument they make!?!? I wonder if they’d be willing to apply that to native Americans
This was indeed one of Davis-Secord's main arguments.
This is as ridiculous an argument as saying that, because Alfonso VII titled himself 'Emperor of all Spain' but maintained Castile, Leon and Galicia as three separate kingdoms in personal union under him, there were no Spanish people in 1150. Actually even worse, England was a single unitary kingdom after Athelstan and never partitioned between his successors unlike Alfonso's Spain from two centuries later.
(Also, in that passage 'Northumbrians' referred to the Anglo-Danes of northern England, where Viking influence had been strongest and the longest-lasting Viking kingdom in England was located. Ethnic divisions between Angles, Jutes and Saxons had already effectively ceased to exist several centuries before Athelstan, hence why - as the article admits - he literally called himself emperor of the Anglo-Saxons and not emperor of the Angles and Saxons)
We wuz limeys an sheeeit
Yeah but that fake black skeleton called dibs, so I'm afraid rules are rules
A nicely verbose reply. I should brush up on my Anglo-Saxon era history.
Excellent response. Some of those points came to me as well, but not in such a detailed way, and you mentioned several arguments that never occurred to me
This fucking midwit trap just- "durr- anglo-saxons weren't native to england-" yeah, no shit "durr- they participated in trade" and? hand waving "RACISM." I can barely engage with modern activist "journalism." The sad thing is a bunch of idiots will read this and think it made them smarter.
Yea I felt like this article spent a lot of time debunking shit that I had never even heard of
A whole fucking generation that never heard of 1066, can’t read cursive & math is raycisss
The Cult gaslighting continues.
So over/under 5 years on whether simply identifying as white will be considered racist.
There have been journalists, academics, and checkmarks who have been expressing that opinion for 5 years already.
Journalism is so shit I go in to it just expecting lies now. I used to be mad when they lied but now it's just expected.
Washington Post. Consider the source
Wasps are faggots for the most part. Don't group all us with them
Found the papist.
who is "us"?