Settling in to livetweet this. So excited to see these amazing scholars speak! #RaceB4Race https://twitter.com/acmrs_org/status/1285278389432016897

Ayanna Thompson talking about Folger Shakespeare Library and the police there both questioning her presence.

"Who is included? Who is excluded?" Who do these institutions serve? #RaceB4Race

Each panelist will speak for five minutes, then open discussion. First up: @JustinPShaw - "easy to believe pre-modern studies is getting better." "Ask: is that true? From whom is that true?"

#RaceB4Race

Thinks about those who face deep personal loss while having to make white scholars feel comfortable. Thinking about those in pre-modern studies are "the only," "the first."

White scholars publishing their ideas to acclaim. Meanwhile, BIPOC scholars policed at conferences, libraries.

Must do extra work to prove that one is "worth being the token."

"Get invited to sit at the table that is already, inrparably broken. And you don't want us to fix it, just to maintain it. Fixing it would mean tearing it apart to start again." - @JustinPShaw

Asks what white scholars will do after they release their dept BLM statement, and read their new Kendi books.

"When you see me and hear me and sit with my grief, what will you do with yours?" "What then? Or, rather, what now?"

Now Carissa Harris is talking about sexual violence, and the connections between knights and cops as those imagined to protect women from rape. Yet knights are also rapists. Malory himself was a knight imprisoned for rape, when he wrote LMDA.

"Knights do not vow to protect ALL women from rape. But only noble women. Ladies."

Reading an episode from Malory in which Lancelot kills a rapist knight. Corrine Saunders notes protection of women from rape proves chivalric prowess. Yet, knightly rapes also structure the lit.

Reading another poem in which a knight rapes a woman and in which the knight's rape is referred to as "serving" the woman.

Now switching to reading statements by modern police SVUs.

Notes a cop named Washington who ran the SVU in Philadelphia (?) despite numerous complaints against him for sexual assault. 3 of 4 officers who filed complaints against him were Black women. He was finally removed from his position of power but remains employed there.

Neglected linkage between sexual violence and other forms of police violence.

"Both medieval knights and modern police officers hold positions of authority. Both armed as part of their positions."

"One could argue that medieval knights are held more responsible for rape than modern cops."

-end-

Now @ProfCWhit will speak on "Policing and Chivalric Violence."

Talks about talking to a student who had been arrested for protesting from a prof's house he was staying in, that was in part built by enslaved ppl.

He thought about what would have happened to the enslaved man who helped build. It would have likely been similar to his student, who was held by the NYPD for 72 hrs, largely in zipties.

References the slave patrols, the ancestors of modern police.

Student overheard NYPD polices' glee at hearing that a white mob was "protecting" Fishtown. Philly police did not disperse this crowd, which claimed to be "protecting" the police, even when they brandished weapons at protesters. The NYPD officers gleeful hearing about this.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/04/philadelphia-armed-white-men-george-floyd-protests

This is a link that I believe is to a newsstory about the Fishtown white protesters, who injured and assaulted BLM protesters.

Talking about Mussolini's influence by a man who considered himself to be a medievalist: Julius Evola. Evola's followers include Steve Bannon and Spencer. Evola's racism was imagined to be a form of chivalry.

Police inheritors of the violence of chivalry. [IMAGE OF the CHIVALRIC CREST OF RETIRED POLICE ORG IN UK]

Our discussion of police violence today cannot be complete without discussing the violence of chivalric honor. The things that can be justified by chivalry.

--end--

Finally, Margo Hendricks ( @Elysabethgrace ) talking about the policing in the academy. The way "to protect and serve" functions in pre-modern studies.

Academic policing and gatekeeping common to BIPOC scholars in publication, employment, and retention.