Ok ok ok I'm back to take something that was pithy and make it excruciatingly pedantic. I've seen multiple people referring to BCE/CE as, in light of what I say here, "hollow," "virtue signaling," and "politically correct," and these are all very presentist interpretations... https://twitter.com/RachelSchine/status/1301620052798496769

...but if we look at the history of the use of BCE/CE, in many ways it's only recently become so sanctimonious. Its first major instance of uptake was amongst non-Christian (Jewish! like me!) academics who wanted footing in the academy without sacrificing all their principles...

...which, if you think about it, is far from a hollow form of virtue signaling. The fact that this move against erasure had to occur on minute terms speaks to how incremental systemic change is made to be because everyone on the margins lives and dies by the center's comfort...

...which is why I think rather than do that, the thing to do is make the center visible for what it is. This is what Sara Ahmed essentially shows in her "A Phenomenology of Whiteness," when she says: "Spaces are orientated ‘around’ whiteness, insofar as whiteness is not seen."...

...and that because of this, everyone non-white is rendered "exposed," scrutinized, and "different." This is how Christianity often works in the U.S. So, a considered use of BC/AD and calling out BCE/CE as unsatisfactory (and still
Christian!) just does more work in my view.

AND NO, I am adamantly not equating the contemporary violence of whiteness with that of Christianity, though of course the two are related, and that's a whole other story for a whole other day folks.

(dear new followers: this excruciatingly pedantic shit is my actual brand so I'm sorry if you chose wrong)