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Strap in folks, this ended up being a long one.

I’m so fucking goddamn tired. Someone posted in a FB group (not related to Judaism, it’s a group for neurodivergent folks) with an infographic of some common dogwhistle symbols that float around in Nazi circles.

Literally, LITERALLY 100% of the comments fell into one or more of these categories:

- omg why do they have to co-opt everything? I’m a pagan and I’m not a Nazi!!

- most of these are sacred Runic symbols. I have several of them as tattoos and won’t cover them/have to cover them now/am “being targeted” because I have them

- swastikas were originally symbols for peace!!!1!!1!1!

- most of these symbols mean something deeply not-Nazi to me and I “love educating people” on why they’re not actually dogwhistles

- don’t judge people before you know them they probably don’t even have these symbols bc of that/I don’t have these symbols bc of that!!

Just. Shut the ever living fuck UP. Dogwhistles *are* dogwhistles because they can be represented as meaning something else!!!!! THATS THE FUCKING POINT.

I’m so sorry you got a tattoo because of yOuR aNcEsToRs (to be read as: an Ancestry DNA test told me I’m 28% Nordic and therefore am a Viking and needed these “sacred symbols” that I totally understand the history and meaning of and which totally even had a concrete and cohesive meaning across all Nordic cultures and no I’m not homogenising a dozen communities like people do with North American Indigenous nations) and now you think people will see you and immediately assume you’re a Nazi.

Do you think, somehow, that YOUR experience in that case is the one that sucks more? Does me feeling potentially unsafe around you based on a permanent physical change you decided to make to your body hurt you in some way? Or does the very IDEA of it wreak havoc on your psyche so gravely that it matters enough to literally say “that’s actually NOT a Nazi dogwhistle because that’s not why *I* have it/use it/display it”?

Don’t even fucking get me started on the overlap between Norse fanboy AND new age “pagan” (also a homogenisation of many cultures and practices, a great many of which are closed practices that were stolen) communities and deeply antisemitic ideology - suffice to say the Venn diagram isn’t quite a circle, but there’s a lotta crossover.

If I see some of these symbols on bold display by someone, I don’t necessarily assume off the bat that they’re a Nazi, but I damn sure am gonna have some pause as to whether their general values and life practices vibe with my general existence. And that’s just, how it is.

Tl;dr - don’t fucking hijack an educational post about dogwhistle symbolism to be like “but my precious personal connection to them!”

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Trump is appointing three washed-up actors as "ambassador to Hollywood" in order to bring back the "Golden Age of Hollywood". Which has historical precedent: there was an ambassador to Hollywood in the Golden Age, too. His name was Georg Gyssling and he was sent by Hitler to monitor the activities of Hollywood studios. To make sure their films didn't say anything anti-Nazi, resulting in many attempts at anti-fascist films being shut down by the Hays Code. Just a fun historical Hollywood fact there

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I finally found my ideal gender yall

Why can't we ever use bullshit bioessentialism for fun things

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Remember kids: one of the punkest things you can do right now is to look out for your neighbors and make sure they are safe

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Hey, if you do crafts (especially things like crochet, knitting, embroidery, etc), make sure to look up how to identify when a listing is AI generated. You do NOT want to waste money on an incredible looking kit or pattern that is physically impossible to make, especially if you're on sites like etsy hoping to support an actual artist.

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I love being transgender and I’ll never stop.

Today was scary but raising 3k with my sister and being with my girlfriend filled me with hope. I love being transgender and I'll never stop.

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As we see a barrage of evil executive orders come in, they are not immediately enforceable and will takes months or years to implement.

That’s still not great, but don’t let these pile up to the point of hopelessness. Take a breath, and look community leaders who will fight it every step of the way.

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To everyone in red states where book bans are likely to take place soon, here’s some lists for you <3

As a history student going into library science, people way under hype how crazy book banning is

Multiple lists of books already banned in schools/libraries or ones that likely will be:

Banned Books Week 2024: 100 of the Most Challenged Books

Banned Books: Top 100

Banned Book List

Colorado Banned Book List

The Complete List of Banned & Challenged Books by State

Banned Books from the University of Pennsylvia Online Books Page

Top 10 Most Challenged Books in 2023

PEN America Index Of School Book Bans – 2023-2024

Challenged and Banned Books

Places to order books other than Amazon:

Internet Archive (free)

Libby (free with library card)

Thrift Books

Book Outlet

BookBub

Abe Books

Half Price Books

Barnes & Noble

Better World Books

PangoBooks

Book Finder

Goodwillbooks

Alibris

Places to support that fight against book banning:

American Library Association

Unite Against Banned Books

National Coalition Against Censorship

PEN America

There’s a reason politicians fight so hard to limit knowledge and it should scare you.

Some recs below based on reviews I’ve seen

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing by Maya Angelou

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson

Melissa by Alex Gino

Looking for Alaska by John Green

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

All Boys Aren't Blue by George Matthew Johnson

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

All American Boys by Jason Reynolds

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Flamer by Mike Curato

Let's Talk About It: The Teen's Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a Human by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan

Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison

This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You by Ibram X. Kendi and Jason Reynolds

Sex is a Funny Word by Cory Silverberg

Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Drama by Raina Telgemeier

This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Beloved by Toni Morrison

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You know what I just want to say that we Jews should be really impressed and proud of ourselves. Like look at all the history we preserved, look at the history and culture we kept alive and passed down. Look at the things we have loved, we have created, and we have made be it something for the benefit of one, a few, or many.

And we did while going through some of the most horrific, devastating, and world ending events. When you think about we as people have survived multiple apocalypses. We saw the world as we knew it end so many times. And survived and then replanted and regrew a whole new world. Over and over and over.

And we kept all that deeply rich history alive and passed it down from generation to generation.

It is not just that it is not easy, but it is actually really rare when you think about. Look at how much ancient history is lost and look at how much history and culture gets lost during devastations and wars.

Our people survived being culled many times over, we survived the literal shattering of us and we survived be scattered to the four corners of the world.

And yet we from community to community the Torah is the same. The roots still meet no matter how far.

Can we not be awe of this. Can we not be awe of the fact that we are a four thousand year old people. That we are here and we kept it all alive for all this time after everything.

Is that not amazing.

Am Yisrael Chai, we live we really really do.

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Boy howdy if I could control the banks, my life would be very different

I wish I was as cool as all of the horrible things people say about Jews:

Alien Reptilian Shape-Shifting Zombie Vampire that controls the weather, the banks, a space laser, and the world. We also have horns, tails, tentacles, and hooves.

Now that is something to aspire to.

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A lot of non Jews just do not understand ashkenormativity and what non Ashkie Jews mean when we try to discuss it, and it’s really getting infuriating to me. Non Jews think ashkenormativity equals Ashkenazim being like, the privileged oppressors of all Jews, when that is just… completely not the case, and sometimes actually the invert— the early 20th century, for example, was not a good time to be Ashkenazi among other Jews, Samech Tet supremacy was a pretty big thing. Ashkenazim do not have a ‘one up’ on other Jews when it comes to how Jew haters see us, in fact, there’s actually some specifically Ashkenazi specific bigotries and conspiracy theories, things like Khazar conspiracy or chunks of leftists Jew hatred.

Some examples of actual ashkenormativity is the neglect to try to preserve and document Jewish diasporic languages that aren’t Yiddish, or the heavy focus on Ashkenazi history and oppression while downplaying everything else— I can not sit through another Jew trying to say that Jews had it good as Dhimmis or that Mizrachim were living it up with the Islamic countries until we got expelled, please I will explode—, or acting like the epitome of Jewish food is Kugel and Latkes, or the generalisation of non-Ashkie Jews as one cultural group, or the way Mizrachi culture has been looked down upon and seen as ‘primitive’, and are you seeing the pattern yet? Ashkenormativity is an intracommunity issue, and it works fundamentally differently to how most non-Jews think they understand it. It’s mostly based on the idea of neglect and the centralising of Ashkie experiences, not whatever weird idea you have of ‘Jewish racism’. If you’re trying to define it as that, then you’ve fallen for some intense disinformation and propaganda, or you yourself are knowingly spreading that to demonise Ashkenazim. Frankly, I really don’t want any non-Jews to be involved in these things at all, because it’s a self contained Jewish issue, meaning that outside communities can’t really change or work on the problem. It has to come internally.

There are a lot of things I want the Jewish community to improve on when it comes to non-Ashkenazi subcultures. I want things like my family’s customs, diasporic languages, cultural tales, foods, all of that to be preserved, cared for, and revitalised in the same way that many Ashkenazi counterparts are. I want the neglect of our Jewish subcultures to improve. I want to not feel like crying when I hear about how my mother grew up being looked down upon and being embarrassed to be spoken to in her mother’s native language in public, I want to be able to know that’s a complete thing of the past and there’s nothing that resembles it at all now. I want to be recognised properly.

I do not want, in any way shape or form, to make Ashkenazim less safe, or have Ashkenazi culture be less cared for.

Trying to tear down Ashkenazim, who are just as vulnerable to the non-Jewish world as the rest of us are, who need just as much help and respect from the people on the outside, and whose cultures are just as valuable, just as beautiful and integral to the Jewish people as anything else, that is evil. It’s just evil.

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“Architectonic Menorah”, Hanukah lamp, Richard Meier (American, b. 1935), United States, 1985, tin-coated copper

Richard Meier designed each candleholder of the Hanukah lamp to represent an architectural style from various moments of persecution in Jewish history. The holder for the first night depicts an Egyptian obelisk; the last one evokes watchtowers from German concentration camps. Meier writes that the candleholders are “reminders of the common past and struggles that Jewish people have suffered and their resilience and strength” which the Hanukah story embodies.  

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Please don’t pirate books at least while the author is alive. I’ll make an exception for actual billionaires and wildly expensive textbooks you cannot afford yet need to complete your studies. I can’t make an exception for assholes, because we’re all considered assholes by someone.  I don’t know how many people realise how many writers who created successful, beloved stories and characters still die poor while other people get rich off the same work. I don’t think people realise that in the UK the current average yearly earnings for an author has nosedived over the last fifteen years to £10,500. That obviously is forcing people to quit writing. It increasingly means writing is a job for people who’ve inherited money or have wealthy spouses who can support them. I don’t know if people realise that in general, writers are poor and getting poorer. I’m sorry, but if you think widespread sense of entitlement to free books has nothing to do with that … you’re just wrong. 

I say I don’t think people realise - the truth is I hope they don’t, because the alternative is that they don’t care. That’s certainly the impression I’ve got from Twitter, where a truly horrifying number of people are arguing that copyright on  all books should expire after thirty years, and you should be able to acquire books for  free after that. This … would not just mean that everyone gets free books. It would mean if you write a book at 30, not only do you lose any royalties from it at 60, but Disney can take it, make a franchise out of it, Scrooge McDuck it up in a pool of money while you starve because writers don’t get workplace pensions.

Some threads on the unintended (?) consequences of this. I can’t go over it all again. John Brownlow NK Jemisin Michael Marshall Smith Me Marina Lostetter Kari Dru and others William Gibson and others

There are plenty of others. It’s not that this actual idea will actually happen, but I do think it reinforces the idea that it’s not only okay, but sometimes actually virtuous to search for ways to enjoy writers’ work without paying for it. Like it’s somehow a step towards a better world. Not just at the reader end, to be fair, at the employer end too. And I do see a lot of people here too who are all about supporting workers unless the workers are writers in which case fuck’em. 

Like. If you want to radically change society in such a way that mass-media conglomerates don’t exist and so can’t exploit us and we’re supported to make art in some other way than fine. But can you start the revolution with actual rich people please, not ask us to live right now, in the society we’ve got, without the money we need to survive it. Finally, a plea: I really, really, do not want to debate this. This whole thing genuinely makes me feel tense and shaky and sick. If you’ve got to disagree - unfollow me, block me, vagueblog somewhere I can’t see it. The Twitter version of this already has me feeling like I’ve been kicked in the gut. I didn’t want to write this post. I just felt I wasn’t going to have any peace until I did.

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I think news sites are straight up trying to bury antisemitism stories. They have started avoiding using words like antisemitism and Jews almost full stop. At least the big papers. I google Jews or antisemitism often to look for news about how bad it’s getting but when I tried looking up the Anne frank play that was besieged by Neo Nazis the only way I found the articles was by specifically googling nazi flag. And it turns out there were like ten antisemitic rallies that threatened Jews in buildings and areas in the last few days ONLY covered by local media and none of them show up by googling Jews or antisemitism. SEO seems to be the reason. Maybe so Jews don’t show the articles around and people don’t connect the rise of far right and far left (let’s call a spade a spade, terrorist organizations both domestic and foreign) groups. Since people from the far left and far right are the people reading the articles the most and usually the ones writing. Idk. It feels disgusting to have my safety and existence be threatened and for these vultures gleefully making money on it.

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Truly no one is out here doing it like both the NPS and public libraries

So apparently last year the National Park Service in the US dropped an over 1200 page study of LGBTQ American History as part of their Who We Are program which includes studies on African-American history, Latino history, and Indigenous history. 

Like. This is awesome. But also it feels very surreal that maybe one of the most comprehensive examinations of LGBTQ history in America (it covers sports! art! race! historical sites! health! cities!) was just casually done by the parks service.