love when im watching a documentary and im like "yep thats an egyptologist alright"

oh my god?

*hisses in Egyptologist*

So for those of you who don't know yet, this is Colleen Darnell, also known as The Vintage Egyptologist on Instagram where she goes full colonialist in 1920s/1930s clothing complete with pith helmets and using Egyptians both living and dead as props. (Not kidding: she takes Aesthetique™ photos in tombs.) She's married to John Darnell, who was formerly her professor and PhD supervisor at Yale, and it's quite a well-known scandal in Egyptological circles that the two were having an affair before and at the time of her working on that PhD. John, who was married during that affair, eventually divorced his wife and then married Colleen.

In the field, they're considered bad scholars. Beyond the Yale scandal, beyond the fact they're being ridiculously colonialist in the way they present themselves and their "vintage fashion" choices, which they will extend to wearing on actual digs in Egypt itself, their condescending attitudes bleed through in their scholarship. A scholarship that's mediocre at best to begin with, especially John's. However, because they (especially Colleen) have such a strong social media presence, they keep getting asked for docus or to serve as consultants for popular media (e.g. Jodi Picoult heavily consulted them for her novel The Book of Two Ways and whoof it shows), and most people won't question their fashion choices because "ohh aesthetic".

However, by far most Egyptologists severely dislike them for their academic dishonesty and refusal to acknowledge the loaded history behind their chosen mode of dress.

ETA to address some things I've seen in the notes: enjoying 1920s/1930s fashion on its own doesn't make you colonialist. It's the intersect between the choice of fashion and where to wear it - in this case in a professional setting, in a field with a colonialist history - as well as the overall attitude displayed towards the subject of study.

On this day, 28 July 1915, the United States invaded Haiti, crushing opposition and setting up a dictatorship which governed the country for the next 19 years. US Secretary of State Robert Lansing claimed the invasion was necessary to end “anarchy, savagery and oppression” in Haiti, and claimed that “the African race are devoid of any capacity for political organisation.” The government had been lobbied for some time by US banking interests to occupy Haiti to assert US financial dominance as opposed to dominance by the financial institutions of the French former colonial power. In the years of occupation, the US forcibly dissolved parliament, killed thousands of people – and posed for photographs with their corpses – as well as siphoning wealth from the country. They also tied people up with ropes and forced them to work for no pay, killing people who attempted to flee. US authorities installed a puppet leader, Louis Borno, who admired fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, and had him take out a loan from the National City Bank, the forerunner of Citigroup. Around a quarter of Haiti’s revenues then went towards paying for this loan. The measures left Haitian farmers “close to starvation level”, according to the United Nations. While formal US colonial occupation ended in 1934, US retained neocolonial financial control of the country through the remaining debt until 1947. Reflecting on his role in the events, US Major General Smedley Butler stated that he “helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues,” and described himself as a “racketeer for capitalism.” More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/10016/us-invasion-of-haiti https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=668997001940185&set=a.602588028581083&type=3

This is one of many stories you can read about here, and as always -Free Congo!

Free Free Palestine!

They aren’t ashamed of their fake, manufactured, whitewashed history.

But in reality, America is so ashamed of its real history that it’s constantly banning books and whitewashing history. And the UK and Israel have their own versions of sanitizing and whitewashing their history.

Artist is Monica Villarreal out of Houston Texas

People & countries mentioned in the thread:

Ongoing Edits: more from the notes / me

russian occupants in Crimea detained a crimean woman for simply using ukrainian language in her social networks

TL of the twit in Ukrainian:

Volunteers have passed on the drawings from kids. Our son (20 years old): "Ughhhhh, in 2014, I was drawing such pictures, now I am the one kids draw these pictures for". The main thing is to ensure today's kids don't have the same future.

I feel like the root problem of american tankies' shallow ideals is redirected american exceptionalism. Internet and globalization has caused them to realize that that they're not in fact the best country in the world as school etc has told them. But instead of understanding that they have problems just like the rest of us (though tbf, their ability to cause other nations harm is unmatched) they now flipped to saying that the us must be the worst country in the entire world and the source of all evil. They cannot comprehend that non-americans are perfectly capable of doing the most heinous shit and thus assume that behind every war or conflict lies a us conspiracy and influence - because surely non-americans are just so innocent, naive and primitive and unlike americans lack the cunning to advance their political goals without help by the US. The fact that not only the US government but also its enemies can be vile at the same time and that sometimes they can even be on the good side is completely beyond them which is why they are never truly against imperialism, genocide or opression unless it is done by americans or their allies.

From the protests against Russian style anti foreign agent law in front of Georgian parliament. March 9, 2023.

Just watched a documentary mini-series on how Ukraine was regaining its independence in 1991.

The way the US tried so hard to preserve the USSR. That goddamned "Chicken Kiev" speech from George Bush.

And then that ultimatum that the US would only recognise Ukraine's independence if Ukraine gave up its nukes and a significant portion of other weapons, because for some reason they thought only russia had the right to have them.

Ukraine did agree to this ultimatum. It signed that goddamned Budapest memorandum. The US and UK said they, along with russia, would guarantee Ukraine's safety. And then in 2014 Ukraine, having gotten rid of most of its military potential, got invaded by russia. And the UK and US did NOTHING. Then in 2022 russia escalated its war to all out genocide. Entire cities are completely razed to the ground, tens of thousands of people are killed, millions lost their homes, thousands are subject to torture and forced deportations. Only then the US reluctantly started providing help, which is MUCH appreciated, I must stress on that, but Ukraine still has to keep begging. For its very existence. That was "guaranteed".

And in the midst of this, a lot of USAmericans are like, "why would we care about these millions of people (that we gave security guarantees to) that are being subject to genocide when the roads in my town are bad and the streets are filled with garbage? They must all die because there is garbage on my street!"

Ghada Karmi and Ellen Siegel, in 1973, 1992 and 2011. Photos by Francis Khoo (1, 2) and Jean-Pascal Deillon (3).