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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V.

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Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We spent both our episodes

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Speaker 1: this week talking about Emily Hobhouse, something I did not

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Speaker 1: expect to take two episodes when I started. She was

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Speaker 1: very busy. It makes sense we need she was so busy. Um.

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Speaker 1: I I had no idea about how like white nationalists

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Speaker 1: had kind of gloamed onto her work after her death

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Speaker 1: and made it into a talking point in a way

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Speaker 1: that reminds me a whole lot of the way irish

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Speaker 1: and dentured servitude is used to like dismiss discussions of

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Speaker 1: slavery of black people here in the United States. Like,

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Speaker 1: I felt like there was a lot of commonality between

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Speaker 1: those two arguments, and I did not know that was

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Speaker 1: going to be part of the episode. I did know

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Speaker 1: part of the episode was going to be the fact

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Speaker 1: that she was a white woman whose work was focused

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Speaker 1: on the welfare of other white women, excluding the black

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Speaker 1: women and children, and also men. There were a lot

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Speaker 1: more men in the concentration camps for black people that

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Speaker 1: her work did not really include them at all, and

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Speaker 1: I just I have many feelings about this that contradict

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Speaker 1: with each other. Yes, I think that's pretty natural, right,

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Speaker 1: There are a lot of things to both admire and

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Speaker 1: abhor in this one person's life story. So yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think it's almost it would be more troubling if you

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Speaker 1: had nothing conflicting. Yeah. Sure. Well, And some of the

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Speaker 1: ways that things like museum interpretation, stuff that's really brief

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Speaker 1: describes her sometimes kind of makes it sound like that

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Speaker 1: she just didn't care, or that like she didn't bother

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Speaker 1: And I don't think that was really it. I think that,

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Speaker 1: for some reason that I don't fully understand, she either

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Speaker 1: didn't think she could do that work or didn't think

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Speaker 1: that it was her work to do. She also wasn't

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Speaker 1: like just sitting around doing nothing in all of that time. Like,

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Speaker 1: it's absolutely the case that she knew about these other

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Speaker 1: camps and did not help the way she helped other

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Speaker 1: white people, but she does seem to have tried to

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Speaker 1: like get someone to help. Yeah, I mean the fact

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Speaker 1: that she was flagging it and being like this is

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Speaker 1: also a thing that needs addressing. Yeah, um mitigate some

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Speaker 1: of my initial like girl, Yeah, but it is also

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Speaker 1: I mean, I I find myself torn because on the

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Speaker 1: one hand, I'm like, you see the problem, get in

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Speaker 1: there and help. But on the other hand, I also

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Speaker 1: recognize that every human has limits, and like it's not

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Speaker 1: like she could save every person that needed help in

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Speaker 1: the world, right right, It's like I have the parts

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Speaker 1: of me that really really want to criticize that decision,

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Speaker 1: and also the part of me that's like, she literally

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Speaker 1: worked herself into an early grave trying to help people.

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Speaker 1: I'm sitting in my house in the air conditioning making podcasts.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, a thing that we did not really get

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Speaker 1: into is that her brother, Leonard, who she was really

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Speaker 1: close to, Like he was a figure within the within

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Speaker 1: liberal politics in Britain, and he wrote things that were

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Speaker 1: related to racial equality and discrimination and things like that

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Speaker 1: during his lifetime, some of which sounds uh up two

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Speaker 1: set best uh some of it it's it's one of

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Speaker 1: those things where it's like a white person writing in

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Speaker 1: the nineteenth century about racism and writing against race is

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Speaker 1: um but is also reinforcing racist ideas. It's like there's

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Speaker 1: that level of it because he wrote a lot about

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Speaker 1: how Britain's colonial empire was subjugating people of color specifically

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Speaker 1: but black people, and that the people within the British

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Speaker 1: Empire like should have full voting rights regardless of color.

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Speaker 1: But then he would make comments about like I'm not

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Speaker 1: really sure if that would work in the United States though, uh,

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Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah, that thing you just said is racist, dude,

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Speaker 1: Like you were in the middle of trying to argue

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Speaker 1: for equal legal and political rights and then also said

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Speaker 1: this really racist thing. But he wrote a letter at

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Speaker 1: one point to W. E. B. DWO Boys where he said, quote,

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Speaker 1: there is nothing of greater importance for the future of

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Speaker 1: white civilization itself than the establishment of more justin humane

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Speaker 1: relations across the color line. And I was like that.

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Speaker 1: I I feel like she and her brother had a

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Speaker 1: lot of mental processes on this subject, that we're in

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Speaker 1: common with each other, but like how it played out

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Speaker 1: into the practical work of their lifetime, there's like a

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Speaker 1: disconnect there for sure. Every single time I read about,

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Speaker 1: wrote about, revised the part about, or described to another

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Speaker 1: person her funeral in South Africa specifically, it really choked

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Speaker 1: me up, both because of just what the thing was

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Speaker 1: like and the fact that she when she died she

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Speaker 1: did there was very little attention paid to that fact

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Speaker 1: in any kind of official uh capacity within Britain, and

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Speaker 1: then when her ashes were sent to South Africa, it

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Speaker 1: was a like totally opposite story. Anyway. Do you know

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Speaker 1: what part of her story gave me pause? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I found touching a little melancholy. Is the idea that

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Speaker 1: she had spent so much time traveling around and trying

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Speaker 1: to help other people, she felt rootless. Yeah. I hadn't

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Speaker 1: really thought of that. That really hit me in a

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Speaker 1: weird way where I was like, oh gosh, can you imagine, right,

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Speaker 1: Because I think for a lot of us, home is

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Speaker 1: so key to our identities and our mental and in

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Speaker 1: many cays physical health. Like just having a place where

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Speaker 1: you go that is yours and it's your little nest.

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Speaker 1: And like the idea of not having that sense of

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Speaker 1: I just want to go home because there is no

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Speaker 1: home is very like it breaks my heart. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I also wonder if World War One had not happened,

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Speaker 1: whether her focus would have stayed the same in South Africa,

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Speaker 1: whether she ever would have turned her attention to the

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Speaker 1: black population of South Africa, especially in when you get

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Speaker 1: to the parts towards her later life, when she was

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Speaker 1: writing about like whether the Women Monument was really a

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Speaker 1: monument for all women, are only the white women. I

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Speaker 1: kind of wonder like whether she would have had a

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Speaker 1: different focus had she continued to be working in South

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Speaker 1: Africa rather than starting to work instead in Europe after

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Speaker 1: the war. I don't really know. I just have a

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Speaker 1: ton of a ton of complicated feelings for her. I

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Speaker 1: admire the determination with which she did all of this

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Speaker 1: work for so much of her life, and also wish

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Speaker 1: her work had been more inclusive. Of course. Yeah, it's um,

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Speaker 1: it's one of those ones, as we said as we

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Speaker 1: started talking about it, like there's you cannot help but

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Speaker 1: have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Yeah. What I

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Speaker 1: don't have mixed feelings about, and what I think she

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Speaker 1: would hate is how her legacy just became this, uh,

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Speaker 1: this African or nationalist talking point. I don't normally try

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Speaker 1: to speak for people from the past, but in this case,

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Speaker 1: I think her own writing and things she definitely said

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Speaker 1: during her lifetime, I do not think she would want

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Speaker 1: her legacy to be used in that capacity. And I

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Speaker 1: think she had she lived to see apartheid, that it

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Speaker 1: would have morally totally upset her. Oh for sure. Uh So, anyway,

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Speaker 1: that is many complicated feelings about Emily Hothouse. If you

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Speaker 1: want to send us a notar history podcast that I

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Speaker 1: heart radio dot com. Uh If your weekend is coming up,

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Speaker 1: I hope it's a relaxing weekend. If you've got work

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Speaker 1: things happening, I hope your work goes as well as possible.

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Speaker 1: We will be back on Saturday with a Saturday Classic

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Speaker 1: and then next week with brand new stuff. Stuff you

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Speaker 1: missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio.

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