#(and that's how they internally justify their shitty bigotry)

[altschmerzes]

y'all gotta cut it the fuck out with the ace- and arophobia i mean it

[theobot]

I love (read: hate) how goyim seem to have no idea what an appropriate Nazi comparison is

Like w this Gina Carano situation theyre all shouting “well Pedro Pascal implied kids in cages at the border is like the Holocaust why aren’t they mad at him” because he’s right? That’s an apt comparison my dude? We, the Jews, the people who are kinda the authority on this, also regularly draw that comparison because internment camps are bad and the situation stinks of genocidal intentions (and actual genocide at this point). It’s the thing we’re talking about when we say never forget and never again

“Ok but she was just pointing out that nazi Germany was teaching people to hate their neighbor blah blah blah” No. Nazi Germany was using marginalized groups of people (Jews, Roma, LGBT, disabled, etc) as scapegoats for all of the world’s problems and then putting them in work camps and killing them. It wasn’t “hate your neighbors for disagreeing with you” it was genocide justified by pre-existing bigotry

Genocide is not the same as people being mad at you because you said something shitty on Twitter

[nothorses]

I'm sure this isn't news to you but I'm realizing that the reason people treat atheists like shit is because they think religion is a natural state of being and that being atheist is inherently anamalous. It's like they think religious beliefs occupy a specific part of the brain and that atheist just have a hole where religion should be. Which is why they think atheists are the only ones internalizing Christian beliefs, because everyone else already has a religion so they don't have a hole to be filled with Christian beliefs.

They don't see atheism as it's own seperate religious belief, they see it as an absence of religious belief. And when you look at it that way their opinions about atheist people start to make a lot more sense.

I just think it's interesting.

Oh yeah, 100%.

And it's something they'll never admit, but:

There is absolutely stigma around atheism. There are stereotypes that exist to reinforce and "justify" bigotry against atheism.

One of them is that atheists are inherently immoral; religion is considered the source of human morality, so by rejecting religion, atheists must be inherently cruel, discompassionate, immoral people.

At best, we need religious people to teach us morality in the absence of our own source. At worst, we're actively choosing to be evil.

That goes hand in hand with that "absence of belief" idea: atheists are assumed to be less developed, less moral, less thoughtful and caring and connected, less capable (or incapable) of love, etc. because religion is not only a thing every human has: its the thing that lies at the heart of humanity. It's what makes us people in the first place.

Atheists are literally seen as subhuman and soulless.

And this is very much a stigma that comes from Christianity (in the US, at least)- I don't know enough about other religions or cultures to say how things might be similar/ different there.

But like... that's why all those posts about Atheists are so hyperfocused on 2012 reddit Atheists. Because that's the last time it was popular for Atheists to stand up for ourselves or take any pride in our beliefs, and because some of those people did it in a really shitty, really hurtful and ignorant way, and the rest of us are rightfully embarrassed by our association those people.

To them, it's "proof" that Atheists are unfeeling, immoral, malicious subhumans who deserve all the contempt they feel towards us. Nevermind that it was a subgroup of a niche subgroup that hasn't been popular in a full decade.

[ablednt]

Actually helpful advice for the kids on this hellsite

Once again tired of "don't make a carrd or tell people your triggers" posts going around literally telling kids it's Dangerous to set boundaries. So here's what I've learned in my teen years on how to stay safe in the hellscape that's the internet.

Identity

You don't have to link all your social media together but you can if you want to. Don't give out something that is more private (like discord account, Skype or zoom account, facebook, Snapchat etc.) publicly or to people who aren't familiar with yet though.

Use a nickname rather than your real name or birth name, an account and name change may unfortunately be necessary so if you want to keep a name safe or use it irl then don't attach it to public social media. This can be fun though! Go apeshit coming up with different aliases and names! Call yourself lizard if you want to!

The only thing you absolutely need to put somewhere on your account (or carrd) is that you're a minor. You don't have to give the exact age but I promise this is important because even if there's plenty of context clues that you're a minor if you don't indicate this somewhere clear and adults start treating you like shit you need to be able to point out that they're knowingly doing this to a minor. That has saved me from gross bullshit a lot. Yes, people should default to treating people who's ages they don't know as a minor to play it safe but the majority of people assume everyone is the same age as them so you need to make it clear you're not an adult.

Pronouns don't make you identifiable and anyone who acts like putting your pronouns in your bio is unsafe is probably transphobic lmao. You don't have to if you don't want to (and don't mind people not using/knowing your pronouns) but it's safe to put them there most of the time. (The only exception I can think of is if you're closeted and your parents may find your account but in that case you should probably stay closeted online to unless you feel safe/know they aren't likely to find your account.)

You don't have to list every privilege you have and you probably shouldn't but if you're white you probably should indicate this somewhere. This is to hold yourself accountable because yes even teenagers can be racist and underaged people of color also deserve to feel safe. If you're nonwhite and don't feel safe doing so you don't have to list your race or ethnicity.

If you're part of a system/plural or questioning you do NOT have to say your systems origins, if you have DID/OSDD, or list your headmates/alters. The system community has a lot of people in it (and singlets adjacent to parts of the community due to bullshit discourse groups welcoming them) who will target underaged systems to fakeclaim them or harass them etc. I suggest having everyone use aliases/nicknames on a system account and you only tell your origin to people you feel comfortable around and safe with. Your safety and privacy is more important than your trendy system carrd goals I promise!

You shouldn't really just list any disorders you have but it really does no harm to put marginalized identities you're proud of on a carrd or in your bio. You might get a shitty anon or two but I promise people aren't going to dox you if you say you're autistic on your carrd or something.

I personally wouldn't list any special interests that are particularly recognizable (popular media should be ok but more niche stuff may not be) or publicly share a kin list just because you never know if you'll want to switch up your identity online to feel safe and the more things are clearly tied to your current nickname and handle the harder it will be to do this. However if you feel safe doing so it's not the end of the world. Just be careful about it and don't feel pressured to give more info than you're comfortable giving.

You do NOT need to tell people your trauma in order to tell them your triggers. If you need something tagged with a tw you really should indicate this somewhere so people know to tag it (unless you intend to send every you're mutuals with an anon with what to tag which is also an option but may be difficult) but you shouldn't tell them your trauma or medical history to justify it. Your boundaries aren't up for debate and you have nothing to prove. You should only talk about your trauma if you feel safe doing so (and even then please don't give identifiable details like.names of people involved or specifics as that can cause serious problems.)

Boundaries & etiquette

DNIs are good! BYFs are good! Anyone who tells you that they're not good or useful is absolutely trying to disrespect your and other people's boundaries. You can and should make a DNI and list the people you don't want to interact with. (Generally it's better to say groups rather than specific people or names because it's easier to again not be recognized if you need to change accounts/aliases but you can do this if you have strong reasoning and absolutely have to to feel safe.)

DNIs (and also.trigger lists) don't have to all be bad things! You can put fandoms that make you uncomfortable, things that trigger you but aren't bad inherently, etc. on these lists. They're about helping you feel safe not having the hottest takes or being the most morally correct.

Some people you should put in your DNIs as a minor are proshippers/anti-antis and MAPs. Both of these groups have been proven time and time again to groom minors online so the earlier you get away from them the better.

Once you have your DNI please do be aggressive in reinforcing it! Block people who break your DNI, tell people who complain about your DNI to fuck off! Do not tolerate people trying to debate the boundaries You have set this is your corner of the internet to feel safe! They can go somewhere else! Being blocked by a kid on the internet is not the emotional blow abusers act like it is. You're not mean for having boundaries please internalize this and stand up for yourself!

If other people have a DNI you need to check that before following them this is for both your own safety and theirs. If you're unsure what something on someone's DNI means ask around to find out before following just in case.

Do NOT get involved in discourse! This doesn't mean you can't ever take part in or boost serious things. Discussing/calling out bigotry (racism, ableism, transphobia, etc.) isn't discourse. Sometimes callout posts for legitimately harmful people is necessary so that's not automatically bad. But I'm taking about the shit that's #discourse. Stay out of ace discourse. Stay away from syscourse. Don't debate with terfs or transmeds or shitty people. I know it seems like it'd be cathartic to win debates with shitty people, I know there's people who will try to bait you into the latest argument over which lgbt+ identities can say what slurs or whatever the fuck the pointless bad faith argument is, and I know you want to prove that your marginalized identity doesn't make you a bad person like bigots say it does. But as someone who's mental health was absolutely destroyed by discourse as a teen it's not worth it. By all means discuss issues as they arise, broaden your perspectives and horizons, etc. but don't engage knowingly in discourse it will save you so much trouble in the long run.

Try to avoid talking to adults 1x1 if you can avoid it! It's okay to dm with an adult you feel safe talking to sometimes and while it's certainly okay not to interact with adults at all if you don't feel.comfortable it's generally okay to do so. But if an adult is going out of their way to consistently talk to you in private needlessly that can be a red flag. If an adult tries to insinuate that they're the only adult around you can trust that's DEFINITELY a red flag. Basically talk to people in places you can easily involve others if needs be. If someone sends you a dm that makes you uncomfortable screenshot it in case you need to show someone etc.

Don't discuss NSFW things with adults, in spaces adults have easy access to (for example a discord server open to all ages), or even with other underaged people who haven't indicated they're comfortable with it. There's nothing inherently wrong with being aware of nsfw stuff or experiencing sexual attraction as a teenager but it's very important that you don't put yourself in situations that may be unsafe for you or others. Most good discord servers have rules against this for this exact reason. Now, to make it abundantly clear, if you did or do ever say something nsfw and an adult takes advantage of this or responds in a way that makes you uncomfortable this is NOT your fault! The responsibility falls on adults to act appropriately but it's still a good idea to keep youeself out of harms way.

That's basically it on a general level. Once again, posts telling you not to make DNIs or carrds or trigger lists (all used to set clear boundaries) are very suspect and either grossly misunderstand how these things work or are intentionally demonizing them in order to have more opportunity it excuse to do harm. Setting clear boundaries is good. Doing things that help you feel safe and respected is good. Just don't go and get involved in discourse or give out personal information or anything.

[pansunset]

If there’s one thing I hate more than anything, it’s a bootlicker who throws members of their own community under the bus to appease oppressors.

I have a reddit account because the storytime subreddits like r/entitledparebts are entertaining and subs like r/niceguys are great for cursing my friends discord servers. Reddit culture as a whole is... eh, but you can find a few gems.

This isn’t about reddit. This is about one user, who’s name I’m not gonna censor because this is fucking horrific. Buckle up folks.

One thing I notice in disabled spaces is physically disabled people being shitty towards those with mental disablilities, and vice versa. But this goes beyond that. This person, for reasons I can’t possibly understand, chose to respond to my rant about abled ‘devils advocates’ for abusive parents, by saying that the murder of a three year old disabled child was justified.

They claim to also be disabled. Of course, nobody is required to give any stranger their medical history, but when you use your disability as an excuse for awful bigotry? I’m sorry but I’m gonna need to know WHAT made you think this was remotely acceptable. This person also thinks killing Alzheimer’s patients is okay.

This is an issue in a lot of communities. Conservative women betray fellow women to advance themselves, terfs betray the LGBT community to put trans people down, etc. But nobody ever talks about the internalized ableism you see on display here, because there’s not enough communication from the physical and mental sides of the disabled community.

This also kinda ties in to ageism because this person is saying vulnerable people don’t deserve life, and disabled children are the most vunerable members of society.

Either way, I’d like to say one thing: it doesn’t matter how spotless you get those abled boots., they’ll be back 10 minutes later covered in fresh blood

[truethingsiwishicouldsay]

How to be a shitty progressive

Several examples of problematic shit from subpar examples of progressives. Organized by category.

Male feminists: “I’m totally for women’s rights, as long as they don’t point out how porn harms women, how feminism focuses on women’s liberation, or how I need to stop telling women they’re not a real feminist unless they fuck me.”

Transactivists: “Down with cis. Murder anyone who expresses any reservations about my gender identity. Cis people’s bodies are disgusting. I’m more woman than you will ever be because I work harder to cater to the male gaze. Women aren’t allowed to talk about their bodies because it triggers me, and I want everyone to walk on eggshells around me because I like controlling people with my emotional fragility. Either help me pressure people who aren’t attracted to my body type into fucking me or I’ll ruin your reputation in the community like I plan to ruin theirs.”

Gays: “Women’s bodies are disgusting. I can engage in all sorts of casual sexism because I was raised with it, and don’t see a problem with it because I don’t need women to get my dick in. I grope gay boys at Pride and scare them back into the closet because that’s what being out and proud is about! Also I think I have a free pass to grab your tits and will whine that you’re a homophobe if you’re not okay with it.”

Lesbians: “One hundred percent of men are garbage. Anyone who sleeps with a man is a dick worshipper and is sleeping with the enemy. Bi and het women are garbage too. In fact everyone is garbage but lesbians.”

Libfems: “I’m going to help my trans friends sexually pressure, gang up on and ostracize people who aren’t attracted to them. That’s totally progressive guys! Also I’m going to turn a blind eye to the crimes of the porn industry because my totally woke boyfriend will get mad if he can’t jack off to women being pissed on. I can’t point out the endemic sexism in many nonwhite societies because that would be racist! Being trafficked for sex is an empowering personal choice! I’m the BEST feminist! :D uwu :D”

Radfems: “You’re invalid. And you’re invalid. And YOU’RE invalid! I’m the fucking Oprah of invalidating identity and sexuality, and I’ll come right onto your blog to make you feel like shit because THAT’S MY POLITICS. I don’t feel complete as an activist unless I’m attacking someone or bitching about someone where they can hear. And by the way, I’m the one who decides who is valid or not, and I’m justified in antagonizing total strangers because I think their very existence is a threat to women. I’m the best feminist. Fuck y’all.”

Disabled people: “I will now use my mental illness or personality disorder as an excuse to be a raging cock to everyone around me. If you protest, you’re ableist. I don’t believe in actually doing anything to manage my problems, by the way. So much easier to take them out on others.”

Pagans: “There is absolutely no sexism in Paganism. Let’s ignore that a lot of us define women by their fertility cycle. Let’s ignore that many of our founders were ragingly sexist males like Gardner who wanted to watch naked women whip each other. Let’s bully random Christians who haven’t done shit to us! Oh, and we love to invalidate each other and infight. Did I mention that we let an awful lot of our “elders” sexually exploit vulnerable people and then sweep it under the rug? Nah, that’s just a Catholic thing. Oh, it happened to you? You’re lying.” 

Blacktivists: “Hi white demon, here’s exactly how you should act if you don’t want to be a demon. Except I’m gonna call you a demon anyway, because you’re all demons and you deserve all the hate we throw at you no matter how good or bad you actually are. You will never be good enough no matter what you do. What’s that--you’re not racist and have never done a thing to me? Doesn’t matter, you’re still a racist demon. Kill whitey. Kill Jews--oh wait, I meant destroy the Zionist conspiracy against the black nation. What do you mean there’s no evidence that that’s a thing? Racist. Oh, and by the way I’m bigoted as hell against members of other races too, but I get a pass because I’m oppressed.”

White liberals: “I’m so lost at this point that I’ll agree with any progressive I’m talking to even if they’re attacking a totally undeserving group. I’m either so full of white guilt and self-loathing that I hate my own race, or I’m still stealth-carrying a knapsack full of bigotry and barely pretend to tolerate people who aren’t like me. I might be legit frustrated that I’m singled out for vilification because of my race, but I have no idea how to handle it maturely. I will either “other” most members of my race and wish I wasn’t white, ignoring the need for a cultural housecleaning by distancing myself--or I will throw fits and threaten to join the MAGA crowd.” 

Queer kids: “HOW DARE YOU NOT PSYCHICALLY DIVINE MY INCREDIBLY OBSCURE GENDER AND SEXUAL IDENTITY THAT NOBODY HAS EVER FUCKING HEARD OF!!!!!!!! YOU HAVE VIOLATED MY PRONOUNS YOU ARE A BIGOT I’M SICCING ALL MY FRIENDS ON YOU!!!!” 

Democrats: “We’re so fucking corrupt that we undermined our most promising candidate in decades for someone more controllable, who then failed because almost nobody wanted her by comparison. We are like the mediocre boyfriend who will never get a job, give you an orgasm or do the dishes, and only has a chance with you because the other guy keeps trying to kill you. We are almost indistinguishable from pre-1980s Republicans except on a few issues, and like the vast majority of progressive people, we are too fucking busy infighting to actually get much done at all.”

EVERYBODY: “Everyone in my ingroup is uwu perfect and has never ever done or said anything problematic at all. I will turn a blind eye to any internal problems, denying them and attacking anyone who points them out instead of acknowledging and working on fixing them. Meanwhile everyone outside my group is garbage, a threat or irrelevant. Squabbling with one another is much, much more important than uniting against the people trying to kill us.”

[eunych-born-eunych]

tell us more about witchcraft tumblr

oh boy. follow @alkaloidwitch​ for my unironic witchcraft opinions. I’m a witch! and a materialist with a background in empiricism/scientism, also a materialist in the marxist dialectical sense! you can be all of those things at the cost of your popularity among idealist witches, non-witch materialists, and most of all:

Normies.

my materialism and my witchcraft both grow out of madness; human beings are computers complex enough to perceive things that are not real. For things I know to be real, there is materialism; for things I know to be chimerical, there is witchcraft. as the chaos magicians, wankers that they are, put it: belief is a tool. believing something now may serve a purpose, even if you do not intend to continue believing it later. Playing make-believe with my literal demons now will help me try to make sense of the material world better later.

And it is imaginative play, much as it is deadly serious; much of what we do in life is imaginative play of some kind. let’s pretend there’s a thing called money and let’s pretend it belongs to this specific kind of paper, these specific bits of metal. let’s pretend a corporation is a person. let’s pretend sex is simple; no, let’s pretend sex and gender are different; no, let’s pretend to stop believing in gender and start pretending to believe in ungendered sex.

materialism, again, is the resolution. imaginative play doesn’t have to be bad, but things that are only imaginary play by certain rules; we learn them as children. so when your imaginative play, witchcraft, seeps into your view of the world (as it must), other people calling themselves witches are sometimes going to believe or imagine mutually-contradicting things; the politest way to resolve an imaginary conflict is to come up with some imaginary solution, the more minimal the possible, and stop talking about that because it’s gonna harsh yr witchcraft to get snippy.

entirely different things happen when people come, materially, into conflict. and witch tumblr frustrates me a lot because my tacit acknowledgement that

“none of this is real like rocks are real, so when your imaginary collides with the material world, the material world is always going to trump. if it is materially bad, I don’t care that your imaginary justifies it, and if it is entirely immaterial there’s no point arguing about it”

…is not super popular with tumblr witches. there’s lots of, like, arguments and discourse and positivity posts about the wildest shit.

a three-screens-of-scroll witch tumblr textpost: positivity post for lazy witches! uwu // • positivity for lazy witches who [emoji-capped bullet points all the way down]me: it’s so inspiring that lazy witches can be positive despite the incredible scrutiny and terrible hardships the morning people witches subject them to, ⭐⭐⭐⭐🌟

so, like, I don’t have the same reaction to the idea of demon apologia that OP did. thinking highly of demons just isn’t that uncommon in my circles. to me, that post’s fucking ridiculous because why would you ever bother making it? if you wanna work with demons, do it, but like… other people don’t like demons, and make their own witchblr posts from that perspective, and you can resolve that conflict by just ignoring the imaginary content that is not meant for you.

a clarifying example is in order.

‘don’t use sigils you find on the internet, anyone can upload a curse and say it’s a different spell!!’

my guy. that is so far from being anybody’s real, substantive problem. you would never know unless they told you. their imaginary isn’t accessible to you and you can ignore it. if someone tells you they made a sigil you used to be a curse, and you feel like you have indeed been cursed, that’s still an event internal to you. and after all, someone could lie and tell you their beneficial sigil was actually a curse after you’ve already used it, just to fuck with you.

I can’t get this level of panicked about that level of made-up problem! if the idea of curses hidden in graphics created by random Internet denizens appealed to me, I’d engage with it on my own and not waste time trying to convince other people they should care about my niche paranoia.

the thing is, cultural appropriation is way less imaginary than witchcraft. there’s a real, economic impact to the mass-production in the West of symbols indigenous to ‘exotic’ colonies. there is a real dehumanization involved in treating someone’s proudest and most mundane garments, alike, as being a gaudy costume purchasable cheaply from any two-bit metaphysical store.

(privilege claim for the next bit: I’m a white, American settler-colonialist. that’s a me. I’m a that.)

and on the subject of metaphysical stores…

… run by white settler-colonialists who claim to have spirit animals and have no sense that there might be something inappropriate about shopping for toys in the cultures and religious practices of living indigenous populations whose homeland we are still occupying by force, whose access to their own cultural history we are still actively sabotaging, to sell bastardized sweatshop lookalikes whose significance is less than half-remembered and wholly stripped of context to other white settler-colonialists

there’s endless newb questions in this form:

Q: “can I use this color candle to mean this thing?”A: “I don’t care?”[a reblog insisting that actually they CAN’T use that color candle to mean this thing is the version that went viral]

, which indicates extreme hesitancy to break the rules of the imaginary.

on the other hand, witch tumblr is actively resistant to any demonstrable criticism. these same people fretting about candle colors also throw bizarre tantrums mocking the concept that they should stop cleansing with smoke from white sage, a critically endangered sacred herb that isn’t farmed, and how dare you say they shouldn’t call their white ass waving burning herbs in the air on occupied land ‘smudging’.

no-one cares if you think about the candle differently; stop asking for our input on that shit, because you don’t need it and we have better things to do. on the other hand, people very much do care if you engage in the alt religious scene’s rampant bigotry, but you don’t wanna listen to us on that. those priorities are fucked.

also witch communities have long, long memories, and some things happen again and again. a sampling:

the annoying

‘fluffy bunnies’ who read one barely-researched pop-Wicca text and are here to tell non-Wiccan witches what they’re doing wrong.

relatedly, ‘curse-shaming’, a practice in which even ‘respectable’ Wiccans participate, is genuinely aggravating if you’re at all into, like, historical witchcraft, because for a very long time (Wicca under that name had no public presence before 1954) there’s been not much more traditional for a witch than a curse.

arguments about “male witches” (that no-one acknowledges arose out of transmisogynistic practices in Dianic Wicca, and not really in reaction to men).

‘the Burning Times’ (not real, any historical events embarrassingly misrepresented).

“Easter is a pagan holiday;” relatedly, “Easter is Eostre is Ishtar”.

“Christmas is a pagan holiday.”

the ugly

an entire alt-history of Europe and European magical practice in which Jewish people play no perceptible part.

neo-Nazi physiognomies being passed around as “correspondence charts”.

every reputable resource on Norse mythology, Heathenry, or Asatru has an explicit public disavowal of Nazis, for very good reasons.

anti-Black propaganda, dated to the sixteenth century, about Afro-Carribbean syncretist esoteric/religious practices being repeated with all explicit reference to race left out on Tumbler Dot Com in 2017.

gentiles doing Kabbalah.

an all-white vision of the Hellenistic Mediterranean.

that one girl who stole black people’s bones from burst/eroded graves in a Louisiana graveyard and posted about it on Tumblr (one of witchblr’s few big mainstream crossover posts), leading to her arrest.

the (mostly) harmlessly bizarre

god-marriage

god-phones

what is a familiar really? (& relatedly: sex with spirits. EXTREMELY traditional, by the way),

etsy shops where you can buy custom spirits (NOT as in alcohol),

chemically-treated quartz named as if it was a real mineral,

“correspondence charts” broken alphabetically into individual readmore posts listing the magical properties of various objects (with a reblog later on in the chain complaining that people need to be more obsessed with pointless minutiae)

minors-only witchcraft discord server drama that you’re actively, unsuccessfully trying to avoid learning about

looking for witchcraft podcasts that aren’t run entirely by dudes

“my dog is horrifyingly sick, what spell should I cast?”//”GO TO THE VET”

a wealth of incredibly shitty and boring and unreadable esoteric PDFs by snake-oil salesmen

skyclad discourse

my tarot cards just read me for filth

thirty-year-old woman who should know better by now: christian witch is an oxymoron

christian witchblr: the Law of Attraction is just the prosperity gospel for Democrats

someone’s angry about the existence of secular witchcraft again

[orchestraofoutrage-blog]

Racism and the ‘Orchestra of Outrage’: a prologue, part 1.

Racism and the Orchestra of outrage

It is the current year (surprisingly), and by any reasonable metric, you will be forced to conclude that racism in its truest form has been diminishing across our Western civilisation for some decades now. Western countries are the most economically, culturally politically and religiously diverse and open in the history of the world. Bigotry, homophobia, sectarianism, sexism and the rest of the ‘orchestra of prejudice’ has been in full remission for at least three generations, depending on where you live, and with rare exceptions.

This may sound like fuel for the most reactionary leftist firebrands to sound off on the usual hi-explosive hysterical battle cries. Trump is literally Hitler, we know. Nazis are in every Starbucks, transphobes are on every bus, prisons are full of minorities, gay teenagers are still anxious, and college students are still offended by what is reported on the 6 o’ clock news. Yes, Trump exists, yes, racism exists. Yes, you work in a shitty job, and your peers are doing better than you by every standard you judge important. So yes, uncomfortable realities are still a reality. But the hysterical reactionaries are exactly that, hysterical, and I’ll come back to them.

But the fact here remains, and it is a virtually prima facie case on the evidence of living in or even walking through any area in the Western world, that racism is less of an influencing factor in our broad societal discourses than at any time in history. Its not controversial to state, that in real terms, the whole concept continues to becomes increasingly minimised and specialised as people get on with leading productive lives. Yet, as anyone who dwells on the internet, and many others who dwell in the outside world will know, it remains a primary bogeyman of our political rhetoric at every social level. You can still pretty effectively threaten, bully, censor and silence any discussion with an appropriately crafted accusation of racism, no matter how unfounded or unrealistic the accusation may be.

The attraction of keeping “racism” in play is many fold. I will discuss several of the reasons for that as we go forward.

First, racism is an established press magnet. You can use it to sell pretty much any story. The word and the idea are the stuff of gossip columns. Let me put it into context: once upon a time, neighbourhood gossip in the real world would revolve around the finest of lurid insinuations- that someone was committing adultery, cheating on their husband or wife with someone else in the community. But that narrative has been played out in the yellow press. It may have reached its zenith with Bill Clinton or Tiger woods. Except in the rarest cases, the press or news dont care about cheating, or fidelity, or marriage, or anything to do with fidelity or the traditional family unit, they’re far too cynical and nihilistic for one thing. But i digress. Racism is the new best scandal you can sell, and it seems to have maintained its incendiary spark, despite being squeezed and crowbarred into our discourses and news media like a jack in the box for a few decades now. We haven’t grown out of that silly thrill quite yet.

A quick google search on the word “racism” under the “news” category for today brings up a perfect list of examples of the power of the concept to sell narratives. News stories for today include Australia consider its foreign and domestic policy through a lens of racism, when considering how to uphold and maintain their social and political values when Chinese people are buying up and insinuating themselves into large sections of their economy and their education system.  This is a news story about current-year racism in its finest, purest stupidest form. Is it racist to discuss any notion that nominally broaches the issues of nationality and culture in a forthright and honest manner, when legitimate social, economic, political and civilisational traditions investments and values are at stake? Yes, it is, in fact, according to several mainstream interpretations of the concept. The international news media dont care about the Australian people or their livelihoods or the future of their civilisation, but they do care primarily about the puerile and superfluous moral outrage that can be wreaked, like a finger-wagging neighbourhood gossip who spreads trashy half-truths and basks in schadenfreude. So we can see a story like this pop up most days (no hard task for the BBC) whereby they propagate the fallacy of the reputation-ruining racist minefield and then force real people to march through it.

Essentially Australian politicians, business leaders and academics are trying to figure out how to speak out about the concerns they have without saying what they are actually thinking. The primary fear, of course, is the fear of being misrepresented, and that fear is completely justified. No one wants to lose their livelihoods or their education, or god forbid the future of their educational system because some faceless hack has decided their legitimate concerns are sinful. And make no mistake, in the absence of religion in our social discourse, racism and the rest of the outrage orchestra happily takes its own place on the podium of perdition. (If we don’t have a structured moral scaffold on which to look down upon others, then, my friend, we simply are not journalists. And yes, we can invent our own Higher Power- lets call it “social justice”.)

Further on down the daily racism banner headlines there is a story about a racism row in Swedens world cup team due to one of their players- of Assyrian ethnicity - being insulted online. This is a sports story for people who aren’t interested in sports, but who prefer the off pitch drama and political bolloxology of the racism joust. Without prejudicing the actual story and legitimate personal concerns of the player in question, anyone who has spent any time expressing opinions on certain corners of social media will have been threatened with murder and exposed to racist/sexist/bigoted abuse regardless of whether you’re responsible for getting the team you play on kicked out of the world cup in a humiliating fashion. Its not the wildest thing to experience. Go to any youtube comment section and tell someone where you’re from. Wherever it is, you’re liable to get threatened with all manner of violence. Try uploading a video, and see how that goes.

Regardless, as i said, it makes sports more interesting for people who dont care about the games. UEFA have been on their anti racism campaign for long years now, and for the most part its working, but regardless, you’ll hear about it when it occurs. We can use racism to make anything interesting to people who aren’t interested in a subject for any other reason. Entire academic disciplines rely on this strategy, and again, I will discuss the academic aspect in all the detail it deserves in good time. But it gives sports writers an additional lever arch file to add to their portfolio. They can segway from sports into politics and social policy and wherever they want from there.

The world cup has throw up another few racist nuggets of interest in the last 24 hours, regarding controversial hand signals thrown by Albanian players on the Swiss team which references politics of the former Yugoslavia and the post dissolution wars that followed. Being that these are primarily white skinned persons, directed at Serbians who are white, this is a rather more complicated political issue so naturally its received less attention from the news media. That in itself is another wonderful aspect of the stupid game of musical chairs that media pundits and journals play with the racism issue. Identical behaviour that would be classified as racist if it were directed between persons of markedly different skin tones is an entirely different issue when the colours change. This holds true regardless of the actual context of said behaviour, no matter how legimately odious or replete with violent and perverse insinuations that behaviour may reference. Its too much hard work to sell those types of narratives in the current year.

Its of no surprise to anyone, that rather than deal with the actually potential life and death and complicated issues of ethnicity in parts of the world where the stakes are high, and where the word ‘racism’ remains its original ultra-violent and decidedly less nebulous rhetorical currency, we would rather discuss the netflix story, the beautiful and brave tale of social justice, whereby a netflix PR executive was sacked recently for the use of racist language.

Yes, in the almost exemplary ‘Mad Hatter tea party’ version of reality, this particular executive was fired for using the notorious N Word, in a meeting about words that should be severely restricted and censored when broadcast on their streaming network. While this may indeed have been a cover story of some kind, an excuse to oust a man who was targeted for ousting, the play on this tale is remarkably unironic in a situation seemingly tailor-designed for irony. In this version of reality, the N-Word cannot be discussed, even in the context where it is used demonstrably as a word to be censored. Whether this is the case or otherwise, this is the acceptable version of the anti racism crusade that we are being treated to by the orchestra of outrage.

There are at least four other superfluous examples of journals shoehorning racism into the headlines for outsized clicks on undersized stories which only reach the levels of attraction they do because of the self-propelling artificial hysteria of the racist epidemic shoring them up. But the main points have been highlighted.

We may quickly double back to reference the inherent implication of the earlier Australian story, which overlaps in an appropriate way with the miniature Netflix saga. In this version of reality there is no legitimate context for discussion of certain matters, even when those matters are demonstrably in your best interests and the best interests of your country and/or colleagues, as the Australians are experiencing. However, even in a putatively sterile environment, where the discussion of offensive language is the very intention of the participants, there is no ability to discuss honestly.

 The obfuscation of reconstructed standards and boundaries is unmatched except by the hysteria of the reaction when it has been decided someone oversteps.

I cant wait to get all this crap dealt with so I can get to the heart of the issue. But thats for another day. Coming soon..