-By Warner Todd Huston
On February 27 the Times Online from Britain published what it hailed as amazing proof that 4th century Britain was “multicultural” and “diverse” during the Roman occupation of the island nation. This “new” revelation came from a recent scientific investigation into the burial in York of an African woman. The problem with this whole report is that it does not at all show that Britain was “multicultural” in the 4th century. The truth is the newspaper misapplied the word “multicultural” to this burial in an effort to celebrate the politically correct ideal of multiculturalism as it exists today.
There is nothing as ahistorcal as applying today’s standards and ideas to the past, but The Times falls headlong into this trap in an effort to show that the Romans were somehow just like us today in their acceptance of “multiculturalism.” The problem, of course, is that Rome did not accept other cultures in the same way that Britain’s modern, self-destructive dalliance in “multiculturalism” does.
The story of the 4th century burial is very informative and interesting, to be sure. Originally found in 1901 in Bootham, York, the grave was buried in what was a Roman fortress and settlement named Eboracum, founded in AD71. The researchers found that an African woman (or one of mixed-race, they couldn’t be sure) was buried in a stone sarcophagus and laid to rest with several of her possessions proving that she was a person of wealth and station in life. The medical examination of the skeleton also seemed to show that the woman did not live a life of strenuous labor. A Latin inscription on one of her possessions indicates that she may have been a Christian, too.
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Media’s Obsession With ‘Multicultural Britain’”