Holy mother of God *is horrified*

[elspethdixon]

Oh my God, every time I wincingly look back at the ongoing Cultural Appropriation bitchfight of doom, it gets worse. I'm not otherwise going to get involved, but here, I just couldn't help myself.

So, for those, like me, who hadn't seen or heard about Teresa Hayden's post wherein she expresses her anger over people badmouthing her husband (at least, that's what I assume she was doing from the descriptions - I haven't read any of the stuff involving him, either, but apparently he said things that offended people, refused to appologize when called on it, and then deleted his journal because people were yelling at him): Holy fuck, she calls fans of color and those who support them nithings.

In terms of offensiveness, as a former student of old English? Fuck, people, that's, well, not as horrible as the other n-word (which, please God, I hope no one's actually said), but it's pretty god-awful. Like, enough that I was reduced to staring at my computer screen in horror.

She has basically stated that all the people who disagree with her husband (including but not limited to, fans of color) are hateful, malicious, deformed, insane, sexually deviant, possibly cannablistic, sub-human or less-than human things. Because that's what that word means. It means monster. It means Not-a-Person. It means Grendal in Beowulf, the Ring-Wraiths in LotR, the in-bred, cannabalistic degenerate monsters in Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear."

That's what she's saying fans of color are. Maybe she doesn't really know what the word means and implies, but even if she just thinks it's an old spelling of "nothing" that would be offensive all on it's own.

And to think I used to respect her so much...

ETA: Apparently, there are differences between the Old Norse and Old English definitions, with the Norse one being a far worse insult and the Anglo-Saxon version being a little less on the digusting monster side and more on the outlaw side (see the discussion of several people with more expert knowledge than me in comments). Both versions are still insults, though.

Comments

[boosette.livejournal.com]

Not my field of study, but I know how to track down articles from sources more reputable than wikipedia. I dug one up that indicates nithing is as serious an insult as it's being made out to be. In other words, my school's JSTOR subscription, let me show you it.

ETA: I can also provide a .pdf copy of the article on request. It's actually quite interesting.

Nithing was a status term, very similar to outlaw, but carrying an even greater opprobrium with it. A person could be outlawed as a killer and yet not be a nithing. A nithing was the lowest of the low; he was a violator of trust, a truce-breaker, a betrayer of friend, kin, or guest, the murderer and more. Conviction of certain crimes carried nithing status with it automatically*; in other cases it appears that naming someone a nithing was itself a solemn juridical ceremony. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle relates how Earl Swein Godwinesson, through deceit and treachery, slew his cousin Earl Beorn. King Edward and the whole army convened and declared Swein to be a nithing. The effect of the designation was immediate: six of Swein's eight ships deserted him, and Swein was forced to flee across the channel to Flanders.

*Here Miller cites Larson, Earliest Norwiegian Laws, which states:

In medieval Norwegian Gulathing and Frostathing laws, an outlaw forfeited all his movables but not his land; land, however, was forfeited for nithing crimes, which both the Gulathing and Frosthathing laws specifically enumerate.

Both the quotation and the footnote are on p. 186 of the cited text.

Miller, William I. (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wimiller/cvnet.htm) "Choosing the Avenger: Some Aspects of the Bloodfeud in Medieval Iceland and England." Law and History Review 1 (1983): 159-204.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

It does look interesting - thanks for the citation! I'll have to see if my local libray's databases have a copy (one of the few things I miss about College Park now that I've fled DC and its environs is access to the University of Maryland's academic databases).

[boosette.livejournal.com]

I think I'm most excited in that this might actually be useful for the Medieval Women class I'm raking right now. Fandom and academia collide!

[skywardprodigal.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this citation.

[boosette.livejournal.com]

You're welcome :)

(On another note, it feels really good to be able to use the controlled chaos that is MLA after semesters in APA hell.)