#And another part is definitely Indian people thinking their religion is superior to others

[shut-up-rabert]

Okay so

1.) change your family priest because wtf, that person is just soaking in caste superiority, aise aadmi se dharm gyaan loge khud bhi paap lagega.

2.) well, I do think Dravidian seperatism had a part in all this aswell and was surprised it wasn’t mentioned here, though I was looking for other reasons too. Likes of M Karunanidhi and others basically propagated this narrative like fuck, not to mention that they were athiests (read: evangelical sympathisers) so the religion, which was a pan India thing had to be out of equation and ethinicity and language had to be made the agenda here (No I do not believe in Hindi imposition but it is what it is). This is actually part of the reason a lot of snobs in different comment sections boldly proclaim their superiority to the “north indians” (I’m not speaking about the majority ofc., our people are nice that way and patriotic but this propaganda has been going long enough to fool some)

3.) well, the caste bit definitely has had its effects aswell, but the time the system was implemented caste or varna was pretty flexible and could be changed with occupation, as some texts had decipted and by the time it became rigid (I’m assuming by Dharmashatra the earliest) there should have been enough mixed races in both, but I’m actually confused here. And that is strictly speaking of the north like you said, in the south they actually had more similarities I deduce so ethnicity should not have been an issue.

Another thing is that the texts you refer to are the dharma shastras I believe, but Manu contradicts itself enough for people to think it is corrupted overtime, and it was not really implemented If I know well, because Hinduism reached Indonesia after this time and the priests in Bali are by caste shudras, other than the fact that Vijaynagra and few other kingdoms were started by Shudras afterwards. Other books of the time (religious texts and not rulebooks) actually do not share the sentiment sans interpolations, Ramayan and Geeta for example.

I’m not trying to defend anything (okay, maybe I am ;-;) but the difference in Upper and lower castes phenotype actually fascinates me and the claim here distorts what I have learned. How big a difference we speaking of?

4.) Well yeah, the Right wingers did wrong, but I find this reasoning (no offense my boy) somewhat weak because its simply based on correlation, is their something backing it up?

5.) idek what I’m thing anymore, I’m sleepy ;-;

Stupid questions incoming:

How exactly is Aryan Migration different from like, other migrations? Is it the fact that they did not have a homeland? Was this the place they finally settled at after leaving Africa or were they actually native to someplace else before?

Everyone came from Africa, right? And if so, what is the difference between Dravidians finding this land and what exactly makes Aryans foreigners in some people’s eyes?

oh yes THIS

i should have touched on this that day but the post was getting too long,

no difference at all, in the grand scheme of things, people have been migrating here and there since the beginning, the ethnoclutural backgrounds of places change all the time.

also, they did have a homeland, the pontic steppes, they just didnt build buildings, canals, citadels like many other contemporary societies did. and they did have attachment to the land they lived on, prithvi and her homologues are one of the most important godesses afterall.

and noone actually knows if the first place that dravidians settled was india, or any other society for that matter because by the most agreed upon definition, homo sapiens left africa somewhere around 70-50,000 years ago.

[also, there is no set definition of "human", many consider all the species of the homo genus to be humans, in which case homo erectus (dont laugh) left africa 2 million years ago, and also homo sapiens also left africa once or twice before 50000 ago but those were not permanent and they died off]

so we arrive in asia 70-50,000 yars ago. the oldest settlements are 10,000 old, and the oldest civilisation is egypt at around 5000 years old. now you notice the 65-45,000 year long window between exodus out of africa and starting of the first nation? between this time EVERYONE was nomadic. gunter gatherer at first and then pastoralists and then some places became agriculturists.

there have been so many waves of migrations that cant possibly claim that xyz was the original place of abc people after coming out of africa, i mean just imagine, youre a hunter gatherer, rain doesnt happen on time and the plants are drying, now youll want to get out of that place and go somewhere else, you have no particular place in mind, just somewhere that has food will do. so migrations were the norm for most of histroy, until like two hundred years ago you could just leave a country and go live somewhere else and noone would bat an eye

and everyone was moving around, the americas were settled TWICE, by crossing through the berring strait (which was frozen as an ice bridge back then).

so there is no fundamental difference between aryans and dravidians arriving in india, its just that due to coincidence the dravidians came first.

and i can not claim to know anyones mind unfortunately,

but it might be because right wing hindu conservatives consider muslims and british descendents to be foreigners, so someone promptly pointed out that technically youre a foreigner as well, (though they were wrong in saying that, because no genetically pure aryan is living today, all of us are mixed race, though the hindus are obviously also wrong in claiming that the palce theyve been living in for generations, almost a millenium in some cases is "not their country")

and theres also the caste thing, see in the northern plains (wont make any claims about other places, this is how things are percieved as here) (also im not saying that the following is true, but only that most people believe it too be true, i dont have enough knowledge to support or deny this) upper caste people tend to have more "aryan" phenotype whereas lower caste people have more native phenotypes. so many lower class people feel like that they were the originals owners of this land and in came these foreigners, oppressed us, destroyed our religion, implemented their own oppressive culture etc etc you get the gist.

to some extent this is true (just look at our beauty standards, and no the british didnt cause this) as lower caste were objectively oppressed and kept out of any well do to position under the hindu laws (we had a katha a few days back and the "priest" had the fucking audacity to say that "those who feel like they can be with god by reading the scripture and reciting it dont know that only brhamins can read it in a meaningful way" like what the fuck you bastard)

umm yeah thats it.

[fallen-wing-magic]

What bothers me about some of the criticism against KCD is that these people are acting like Romance Club has never done this before — at least, that they have never done this in a way that matters.

By 'this' I am talking about the 'appropriation' of religious mythology. Kali: Call of Darkness is not the first RC story to use religious mythology as building blocks for a story. Rage of the Titans and Path of the Valkyrie also do this.

"But surely those don't matter? No one follows those religions anymore!"

Wrong. This is simply wrong. Sure, very few people today serve the Greek gods or the Norse gods, but some people still do. Hell, I have *met* people who worship these gods. These people's religions are no more or less valuable than any other. All human faiths are important in their own way.

So, whether you consider KCD to be religious appropriation or not is up to you. But consider how you have acted towards other religions, their history and their mythology.

[the-caribbean-society-blog]

Geographically speaking, the Caribbean consists of the Americas and a collection of islands surrounded by the Caribbean Sea. In theory, though this may sound simple in definition, the Caribbean space is much more complex. It is a region that many shares experiences through the encomienda system, slavery, and indentureship schemes. These heavily oppressive times, despite being a horrific period for our ancestors, gave way for creolisation and hybridisation to occur and form the “melting pot” that the Caribbean space is known for. However, this has not been an easy accomplishment for the West Indian people. Due to the influence of the colonial powers, it has been ingrained in the minds of Caribbean civilisations that European culture held superiority over all other cultures that existed. This not only led to the detachment with our own roots but also created a divide in the Caribbean society. The influence of the colonial agenda has completely shaped the way individuals think and societies function in the Caribbean. This has led to various forms of prejudice such as racism, sexism, ageism and homophobia. With this in mind, this article seeks to address the extent to which the Caribbean space is characterized by grave intolerance and mistrust at all levels.

           To begin, racism can be defined as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race. The origins of racism can be traced to slavery. Slavery was not an invention of the the Europeans. In fact, it had existed long before during times of the Amerindians but became a more organised system towards the end of the fourteenth century when the demand for sugar was high. This led to the European capturing Africans against their will and forcing them to work on the plantations (Plummer-Rognmo) Europeans had always held the belief that their own culture and belief systems were superior. Upon the discovery of the New World and the indigenous culture, the Europeans made it their mission to “civilise” our ancestors. This led to the preconceived notion that those who were not “light-skinned” were inferior. In the past, it was strictly forbidden for those of various races to be associated with one another. Interracial marriages and relationships were heavily punished, while some were even killed for the “offence”.

This led to the formation of racial prejudices and stereotypes which resulted in the most destructive type of discrimination because it affects a wider cross section of Caribbean society than any other form while also inhibiting development. As the lower economic stratum of society is largely made up of people of African descent, race and class discrimination are in many ways inextricably linked. For instance, black culture (literature, music, language and religious forms) has been discriminated against in the Caribbean because it emerged from a race that was historically thought to be intellectually and biologically inferior. Indigenous or creole languages based on Amerindian or African culture are secondary to the primary European based languages spoken on the islands. European dress is mainly seen as acceptable in formal settings, such as for work or Christian worship, while traditional African, indigenous, East Indian and Chinese clothing is usually worn as costumes during cultural festivals or holidays. There is also the implicit acceptance of a historically enriched association of Caribbean people of African descent with criminal activity, violence and deviance which has discouraged many from examining further and remedying the causes of their disadvantaged economic situation and destructive behaviour among black communities. Many conflicts in the Caribbean, starting with the Morant Bay Rebellion and continuing with the Caribbean- wide riots of the 1930s were as a result of racism and classism and led to considerable economic loss among Caribbean economies. Racial Tensions resulting from racist views have led tot the political divisiveness in the Caribbean countries, such as Guyana where the electorate has tended to vote along racial lines rather than for the most qualified, proven leader. Prior to the oil boom of 2019, Guyana was considered to be among the poorest, least developed Caribbean islands (Hookumchand). Despite this, the great strides made by organisations such as the Black Power Movement (1968 – 1970) has created a greater appreciation for our local cultures and has motivated the African communities to fight for their culture and their rights through the promotion of religious festivals, food, clothing and dance (Leslie). It is a stepping-stone for our society in defining our own identity and leaving our colonial roots in the past.

Additionally, another form of stereotyping and prejudice heavily present in the Caribbean is gender discrimination. “Gender discrimination is unequal or disadvantageous treatment of an individual or group of individuals based on gender.” (Langston University). Sexist prejudices extend to both men and women, however, in Caribbean societies women are usually the target of this form of prejudice. The outcome comes of sexism include sexual discrimination, sexual harassment and domestic violence, issues which are heavily present in the Caribbean space. Studies show that most sexist and gender-biased remarks are directed towards women. This is because Caribbean men have historically viewed women as the weaker sex in the European, East Indian and West African traditions. The Caribbean is usually characterized by a patriarchal society led by matriarchal households. Other sexist notions directed at women usually stem from the idea that men are scientifically stronger than men – this is evident where women are rejected as potential employees in industries where the work is physically demanding. Further to this, the labour force is where women feel the effect of sexual discrimination. Men dominate the higher paying jobs and are often denied access to equal pay for equal work. Entire families are affected as most families are single parent headed by a female. As a result, women are faced with a figurative glass ceiling that makes it difficult to attain upward social mobility and thus are faced with a lower quality of life. Sexist attitudes can deter women from starting their own businesses as many Caribbean people are of the view that male doctors, lawyer, engineers, for example, are superior to their female counterparts. This is highly evident in Trinidad and Tobago where many of the flourishing businesses in the country are spearheaded by men. Further to this, the expectations of men that women should be docile and submissive have led to the physical, sexual and verbal abuse of women at home (domestic abuse) and in the workplace. In the Caribbean, an IDB study showed that one in every three women in Trinidad and Tobago experience some for of Intimate Partner violence (Doodnath).  Consequently, even in today’s contemporary society, it is evident that women are still heavily disadvantaged. Sexist attitudes infused with patriarchal values aimed towards women who refuse to the sexual stereotypes expected of them in the workplace and wider society result in many highly qualified and capable women failing to achieve their true potential and therefore, their true potential contribution to the economy.

In addition to this, the Caribbean is space has also been known to marginalise members of society based on their age. According to the World Health Organisation, “ageism is prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of a person's age”. It is an institutionalised form of discrimination that is often overlooked in many areas of work and society. Firstly, ageism in the workplace is common. It is widely accepted that the older members of the workforce are laid off and put on early retirement before other staff members. Also, work advertisements are often phrased such that it associates youth with value and potential, for example by a company stating it is “seeking young, energetic and dynamic individuals for the part of…”. In addition to this,  the aged are also often blamed for the static growth or the lack of new ideas within an organisation. Younger employees are often used to attract younger customers, thus, assuming that the elderly are not appealing. A prime example of the is within the tourism industry where youths are used to advertise the Caribbean islands as an exotic destination filled with excitement and sexual appeal. Ageism can also appear within other contexts such as social or cultural aspects of life. Older people are often excluded from social activities because of the notion that they will not appreciate current music, games and dress. Additionally, many governments focus on researching illnesses and providing healthcare solutions for the young “productive” members of society (Feasley). The concept that the “geriatric generation” will eventually be afflicted with diseases and disabilities is generally accepted as a natural part of aging that cannot be ameliorated. As a result, in the Caribbean, many old age homes are established where the elderly is placed since they have become burdens on their families. Many of them remain there until there last days where their contributions to society is wasted.

As a result, the failure to recognize the contributions that older people bring to not only the workplace but also greater society excludes potential, expertise and connection. Older generations have years of experience that often surpass years of studying at prestigious universities. In a cultural setting, these older generations form the foundations of our culture. They pass along essential life lessons, traditions, cultural practices, dress, food, religion and other important elements of culture. Consequently, these older generations are a direct link to our ancestors and cultural roots which allow us to create and pass our own, unique Caribbean cultural identity. The cultural heritage of the Caribbean is of utmost importance to the Caribbean economy as it is a major attraction for tourists and locals who pay to attend various shows featuring traditional music, dance and art. Neglecting the oral traditions  and other contributions the aged can make to this sector can be to the detriment of many tributary industries that may rely on it.

Finally, homophobia in the Caribbean has become a major issue. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the emergence of free thought and free will has led to those in society to become more comfortable and open about their sexual orientation. Also, an increase in the number of NGOs and support groups such as the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians All Sexuals and Gays (JFLAG) which attend to protecting gays rights has also facilitated this movement.  Sexual orientation is a person's sexual identity in relation to the gender to which they are attracted. Sexual orientations include gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual, and asexual (Planned Parenthood). Caribbean governments face problems in dealing with these issues because territorial laws (for example the Buggery Act of Jamaica) and many Caribbean citizens who are conservative Christians Muslims, or Hindus are against any act of homosexuality. For instance, in Jamaica, once known as the most homophobic Caribbean island, heavily promotes anti-gay prejudice. This Caribbean island has become notorious not only for its anti-gay laws, political rhetoric and murders, but also for its broad societal acceptance of severe sexual prejudice and openly hostile music (Faber). Homosexual persons are often victims of discriminatory employment practices such as bias in hiring, promotion, job assignment, termination and compensation. In many islands, same-sex marriages, adoption and even inheritances are prohibited by law. Such basic human rights are infringed upon, thus, placing these individuals at a disadvantage in society. They are unable to live their lives freely when compared to the rest of society. Moreover, they may experience a lower quality of life due to the fact they are presented with a glass ceiling within the workforce so they may never be able to escape poverty. Lastly, society must also consider that sexual orientation does not completely define a person. A person’s sexual orientation has no effect on a person’s ability to excel in school or in the workplace. Despite the great strides made by the Caribbean today, the Caribbean mindset still has not accepted homosexuals as valid members of society and continue to ostracise these individuals since they do not meet societal standards. In this respect, the Caribbean can still be characterized as a region of grave intolerance as they continue to ignore the impact their oppressive views have on the lives of others

In retrospect, the Caribbean is a highly diverse space with influence from Amerindian, European, African, East Indian and Asian influences. Despite this however, it is this diversity which has created a great divide between the West Indian people. Over time, this gap has developed a mindset of grave intolerance for any issue which conflicts with the views and standards of our society. In recent times, however, the power of activism has led to the break down of these boundaries in an attempt to create an open, more accepting contemporary Caribbean space. Though, much more work is yet to be done as prejudice against persons based on their race, class, gender, age and sexual orientation still lingers within our society.

[betsynagler]

The Four (Thousand, New) Questions

When I was growing up, I didn't really have to think too much about what it meant to be a Jewish American. A large part of that was living in New Jersey, where being a member of the tribe isn’t exactly an anomaly. In Newark, pretty much all of my friends were Jewish or Black, until I spent 2nd grade in Catholic School. You’d think that might make it weird, but even then, it wasn’t. All my new friends just had Irish and Italian names, and I got to sit in the back during mass and read, which is the dream of every second grader. And when we moved to the suburbs, things became, if anything, more Jewy. We joined Temple Israel and actually tried going to services every once in a while, and I went to Hebrew school on Saturdays. At my suburban public grade school, I learned the term “Jappy” something my friends and I called other girls that we considered spoiled, regardless of whether or not they were Jewish, and in junior high, the school bus that came from the most wealthy, Jewish neighborhood in town was sometimes referred to as “The Jew Canoe.” Who did we learn these terms from? Other Jews. We were the ones trading in the laughable stereotypes, because that’s American Jewish culture all over: we joke because we can. It’s never been in doubt in my lifetime that we belong here, to the degree that we are comfortable poking fun at ourselves, enough that while we are very aware that we aren’t and will never be the majority — and if you forget that, you always have the 30 to 60 days of Christmas to remind you — we are perfectly okay with that; and enough to feel safe in the knowledge that the past is the past, because in the Tri-State Area in the 1970s and 80s, anti-Semitism was about as real to me as Star Wars: something that existed long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away. The same thing with Nazis. Nazis were the movie villains nobody got upset about. Nobody ever said, “Why do the Nazis always have to be the bad guys?” Why? Because they were the bad guys. 

That doesn’t mean that my Jewish identity was 100% uncomplicated, mostly because I was raised to figure stuff out for myself. Mine were the kind of parents who took us to fancy restaurants and said, “Want to order the escargot? Have at it!”, perhaps not realizing that they’d end up with a seven-year-old who liked to try every appetizer on the menu but had a stomach the size of a golfball – which led to my parents gaining weight in the 70s, which led to their joining the exercise craze in the 80s...See how history happens? Being able to make my own decisions meant I could quit Hebrew school after one year (I was already a well-practiced quitter of stuff I didn't like, such as wearing dresses and learning the violin). I felt a little guilty about it, so I was definitely Jewish in that way, but one of the reasons I couldn’t get behind religious school was the fact that Judaism was supposedly my religion, but – go figure – our family was not religious. My parents don’t agree on which type of not-religious they are, since my mother describes herself as an atheist and my father calls himself an agnostic, but that’s only if you push them, since neither of them cares enough about it either way. They still identify as Jewish, and therein lay the confusion for me: Judaism is kind of an ethnic identity as well as a religion, but in a weird way, because you can convert to it, which you can’t do with, say, Slavic, and because it’s not one where we all come from one specific place, since Jews were basically driven out of everywhere. Sure, my family were all driven out of one country, Poland, but that didn’t exactly make them feel Polish. No, we were definitely Jews, just the secular kind, which is actually a thing — although I didn’t know anyone else like that in high school, the result being that in my group of friends, a mix of Jews and non-Jews, I was in my own category of Jewish, But Doesn’t Know When Any of the Holidays Are.

When I went to college on the West Coast, where I was meeting new people all the time, it was common for people tell me I didn’t “look Jewish,” which seemed to just fit right in with every other confusing part of my Jewish identity. You might think that, as a stealth Jew, I’d finally be privy to negativity about us, but that never happened. That was around the time of the rise of the religious right, and there were a lot of born-again Christians at Stanford, my freshman dorm was full of them. But while they may have believed I was going to hell, most of them still seemed happy to hang with me while we were alive – one of them even took me out for fro yo once (that’s short for “frozen yogurt,” and eating it together at Stanford in 1987 was called “dating”). If anything, being Jewish around them was an advantage, because they never tried to rebirth me the way they did other Christians, like my poor freshman roommate – I would come back to our room to find her surrounded by a group of them, looking uncomfortable, like she was getting hit on by Jesus. Mind you, I know now that my school was a liberal bubble inside the liberal bubble that was Northern California, and that protected me from a lot of things. But while we were definitely dealing with racism and sexism on campus at the time, anti-Semitism? That just wasn’t a thing.

Neither was being a Jewish person who didn’t support Israel. I didn’t know all that much about Israel growing up. I knew that it was the Jewish state, where I had once had some relatives, and that my cousins and eventually my brother — who finished Hebrew school — went to visit because they felt like it was an important way to learn about who they were. I didn’t. But when, in college, I had my first conversation with someone who’d lived in Israel about the way that Israelis felt this constant existential threat to their existence that justified their defensive posture when it came to negotiating peace with the Palestinians, even though they clearly had vast military superiority, I didn’t necessarily agree, but I got it. I understood why Israelis felt that, in a visceral, six-million-dead-just-because-they-were-like-you way that I think most non-Jews can’t. 

That was probably as much of a surprise to me as it was to anyone: that, on some level, in spite of not looking Jewish, or being able to speak Hebrew, or knowing what Sukkot was (if it wasn’t about eating or presents, it didn’t make it into the Nagler Canon of Holidays), I actually still somehow just was Jewish. And that part of my identity might never have really sunk in if I hadn’t become a New Yorker. Moving here didn’t just mean that I discovered Zabars, or that I was a bagel snob, or that I would be able to have lox at catering pretty much every day (and occasionally take some home if it was really good), although those things did indeed happen. New York was able to absorb and assimilate Jewish culture in a way that allowed it to flourish as one distinct flavor of the whole that is this city of many flavors. New York is a Jewish city – in same way that it’s also Italian, Irish, African-American, Puerto Rican, Chinese, Russian, Indian, Dominican, Pakistani, Caribbean, Mexican, and the list goes on depending on who’s arrived recently and who’s coming next. And so, from the way I relate to food, to my sense of humor, to my analytical and intellectual side, to how forthright/tactless I can be, to my overall worldview: living here enabled me to recognize that I just wouldn’t be this way if I weren’t Jewish.

Everything feels different in 2019 in so many, surreal ways, but what exactly it means to be Jewish in America is definitely a big one. I’ve felt some vulnerability and uncertainty as a woman for most of my life, as you do, but I’ve never felt that way about being a Jew until now. To the point that I can’t call myself “a Jew” any more, because suddenly, that’s an epithet. How the hell did that happen? When did we allow them to take that word away? Then there’s the realization of, Wait, we can’t make those jokes any more because there are people who actually still think that shit about us? And they’re telling other people? Fucking internet. Add to that the fault lines within the American Jewish community over Israel and the ground really starts to feel like it’s swaying under your feet. How much we should continue to support this country that seems increasingly unrecognizable to me, that is so racked by fear and sectarianism that it appears to have given up on peace and democracy, that votes for a leader who has demonstrated time and again that he is both racist and corrupt? Well, now that I’ve put it like that, okay, maybe this is something that Israel and the United States have in common right now, but that doesn’t make it any better for those of use who are trying to stay on the sane side of it all. I’m lucky that most of my family is in agreement with me on these issues, but my mother has some cousins with whom she is close that she had to ask to stop sending her political emails, because their conservative views about Israel seemed to have somehow spread to abortion and immigration, despite that fact that they live in San Francisco. Jewish Trump supporters? From the Bay Area? What the hell is the going on?! Come on, this can’t be us. When an audience at the Republican Jewish Coalition cheers when Trump says “Our country’s full. You can’t come in,” don’t they hear the eerie echos of what the American government said to the boats full of Jews they sent back to be slaughtered in the holocaust? Don’t they know that we are supposed to be sharp, and educated, and fucking liberals? Oh, wait, is “liberal” now a bad word not just among conservatives but for some on the left too, as in the “liberal elite who control everything” that they’re always talking about? But, double wait, wasn’t that just another way anti-Semites used to say “the Jews” without saying “the Jews”? But triple wait, aren’t Bernie Sanders and Glenn Greenwald Jewish? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Of course, this about when all of your older Jewish relatives shake their heads at all of this and say, “See? This is exactly the shit always happens to us. Somehow, when things go bad in the world, and people start believing crazy conspiracy shit, that always turns back on the Jews.” I never believed that before, so to see it sort of happening right before my eyes is really something. But at the same time, I’m sure as hell not going to let that make me just silo up. Yeah, there are the swastikas, and the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, and “Jews will not replace us,” but can we honestly say we have it worse than everyone else who’s under attack in this country right now? What’s the point of joining a grievance competition that just gives the people who are trying to divide the left exactly what they want? It’s how, when the new questions that confuse and divide us just keep coming — What do we say or not say about Ilhan Omar? What about the schism in the Women’s March? What about the Senate bill that would allow state and local governments to withhold contracts from those who boycott Israel that Chuck Schumer supported? — they just get us to go after each other.

Let’s not do that. Sure, maybe this is just another case of me getting older and less able to accept how the world is changing — sort of a, “Damn Nazis, get off my lawn!” type of thing – and maybe I should just go along with this new normal. But that's one thing I know is definitely not me. MoTs like to talk shit out, sometimes too much, but eh. Let’s bring that tradition of analysis and argument — and I mean the kind where you’re forthright and emotional, but you still know how to listen — to bear on the questions we’re having both on the left and in the Jewish community about how we move forward, instead of fleeing back into our fears from the past.

[bougainvilea]

I’m becoming more and more aware that people online don’t really know what it means to be Jewish, so I’m making a helpful list!

Under the cut, I deal with the following things:

the difference between Judaism and Christianity 

the streams in Judaism and why they’re not denominations

Judaism as a culture

why Judaism is not an ethnicity (and why you can’t be half Jewish)

the word ‘goy’

historical antisemitism

Jewish rebellion

feel free to reblog, especially if you are not Jewish

To start off with, some definitions:

observant = the extent to which one considers themselves religiously Jewish as opposed to culturally/socially/historically/etc Jewish

to keep Shabbat = according to religious law, from Friday night to Saturday night you have to keep the sabbath holy, by following a bunch of rules like no starting a spark (which means no electricity or cars or anything), no picking up a pen, and a bunch of other things you can read about here. 

It does not mean christianity without the new testament. We have our own traditions, laws, and an extra book known as the Mishnah. Our traditions center around different things, our sabbath day is different, our days start in the evenings.

On this note, I’ve seen a post going around saying that Judaism is inherently different to xtianity, and it is 100% accurate. By which I mean, our laws are debatable. Even if you are 10000% observant, you could differ in tradition to someone else who is equally observant. You might be in different streams (see next dot point), or different cultural groups. This is beacause the words are interpreted differently by different Rabbis, and consensus is not wanted or needed. 

Judaism has streams. These are not similar to christian denominations. These streams are within similar communities and interact quite frequently. The difference between this and denominations is that Judaism is a culture (as I’ll get to later), which means that those who are “secular” (like me!) are not ‘just Jews not doing all the things they should be doing’ or ‘ignoring some of the laws’ - they have their own Judaism that is expressed through different practises and traditions, but they remain a community. Of course there are still people who consider themselves orthodox but only go to shul/synagogue on the High Holidays. But there are also communities of people who have interpreted Judaism’s multifaceted nature into their own unique brand of Judaism.

some examples are:

Ultra Orthodox - Usually what you see when you picture a Jewish person. Streimel (this hat so expensive), suit, study torah all day, pray very often, keeps Shabbat, etc. They are NOT NECESSARILY EUROPEAN. 

Reform - usually centered around the idea of ‘tikkun olam’ - which means repairing the earth - this stream is known in the Australian Jewish community for singing prayers to unusual tunes - my personal favourite is Adon Olam to ‘I Want It That Way’ by the Backstreet Boys (0:52 is when it gets Jewish lmaoooo). They differ from ultra-orthodox and orthodox because they “emphasize the evolving nature of the faith, the superiority of its ethical aspects to the ceremonial ones, and a belief in a continuous revelation not centered on the theophany at Mount Sinai.”

Secular Humanist - that’s me! I am atheist, but I am a part of the Jewish people and identify with the history and people within it. I feel a connection to the Jewish people’s struggles, revolutions, and liberations throughout time. I believe that Jewish people can create change and that we can use Jewish values and traditions to better the world without a focus on god. 

Judaism is a culture. This is the big one, and I feel that most people have heard this if nothing else. But let me specify; Judaism is also a religion. Judaism is associated with centurys worth of traditions and values and texts. And by texts I don’t just mean the Torah and the Mishnah - I mean every single Jewish philosopher or scholar or professor that has ever lived. Did you know that the famous 14th Century Spanish philosopher, Maimonedes, is known in the Jewish community as the Rambam (aka the Rabbi Moses ben Maimon = Rabbi Moses, son of Maimon) and wrote many a commentary on the holy books? Throughout the centuries, Judaism has gained an incredible collection of information and written arguments that have contributed to Jewish lives today. Synagogues, like churches, are great places of worship whilst also housing communities. Jewish people have stuck together throughout the years mostly out of necessity and safety and now have thriving communities of knowledge and culture! 

Judaism is NOT an ethnicity. This post started as a response to a post I saw calling someone “half Jewish, half Irish”. I tagged that you “can’t be half Jewish” and two people asked my why. This is why;

Before I continue this point, I received an anonymous message from another Jewish person saying the following; 

“we ARE an ethnicity (where do you think the curly jewish hair and aquiline nose on many jews - not all, but many - comes from?) but the reason we are considered 100% jewish if we are jewish at all is because we are a tribe and therefore if you are jewish you are considered 100% wholly part of the tribe to keep from any gatekeeping. but it is absolutely an ethnicity with an inherent religion, similar to native americans.”

this is a fair point, so maybe we are an ethnicity, but you can’t be “half Jewish” for the following reasons:

Part 1: Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany

Jews were outlawed from a lot of things in Nazi Germany, obviously. This started in 1933, but by 1935 the Nuremberg Laws passed. These (a) defined what it meant to be Jewish and (b) further separated them from society. 

The image below defined a fully German person (a  Deutschblütiger), a half Jew (a Mischling - “In German, the word has the general denotation of hybrid, mongrel, or half-breed.”), and a Jew (Jude). Essentially, if you were anywhere from 1/8 -1/4 Jewish, you could have Reich citizenship but still were at risk, whereas Jews (more than 1/4 Jewish) were obviously much more at risk. 

this is still today used to distinguish a Jewish person, but not in an antisemitic context. It is in fact used by Israel, so that all those who were targeted by Nazis are welcome to seek refuge and live in the intended state for the Jewish people, Israel. Anyone with 1/8 or more Jewish descent can very easily get Israeli citizenship. 

Part 2: Jewish Religious Law

according to Jewish Religious law, anyone with a Jewish mother is inherently Jewish. (also, anyone who converts - which is a 7 year process, by the way)

The reason these are relevant is because my point is that you can be ANY nationality, any ethnicity, and still be 100% Jewish. 

There are Jews of all nationalities - German Jews, Polish Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Latinx Jews, Israeli Jews, American Jews, Indian Jews, and many more! There are Jews of all ethnicities too - Asian Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Roman Jews, Black Jews, and many many more.

You cannot be “half Jewish, half Irish” because Irish people can and are Jews. Judaism isn’t a racial or ethnic or cultural group - it is a community that transcends all these things. 

A Goy is not a derogatory term, and you shouldn’t be offended by it. Honestly, I don’t think it’s fair for any non Jew to be offended by a word that Jews call them (see the next point), but regardless, goy is a normal word that I use a lot to refer to non jews. See this post for more information. I know some Jews still don’t use it because they know it makes people uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t. (plural is goyim)

We do carry the weight of one fucked up history. There’s a classic joke told at most Jewish Holidays - “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat!”. It tends to accurately represent Jewish history. I honestly don’t know how much goyim know about Jewish history. I’m sure you have at least heard abut the Holocaust, because it was so systemic and systematic, but there are many other instances. If not, please read some online articles. Antisemitism is sometimes referred to as “the oldest hatred”, so here are some examples: (I apologise, this is mostly Europe centric)

destruction of both the first and second temple in biblical times by the Romans and the Babylonians

the spanish inquisition and the explusion from spain in the 1400s

Pogroms (especially in Europe, check out Fiddler on the Roof for an excellent representation)

an insane history of being shut off in our own communities - the first ghetto was created in Venice in 1516 and was seen as a positive thing because Jews had never had their own land before (that’s fucked up????)

blame for Jesus’ death evolved into the idea of a Blood Libel, which was the rumour that Jews liked to kidnap christian children and drink their blood or used it for ritual purposes (?????????) resulting in many christians lynching Jewish people

blame for the Black Death in Europe (because Jewish tradition cites that they have to be clean for Shabbat, so every Friday they bathed and therefore didn’t catch the plague??) 

on a non-European note, Ethiopian Jews were in such danger as recently as 1980 that Israel carried out a rescue mission which took 10,000 Ethiopian Jews through the desert of North Africa so they could live safely in Israel

We have never been quiet. Jewish revolution and rebellion has always existed. Examples are:

The literal story of Hanukkah

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (led by young people from the youth movement I attend to! this! day!)

on this note: Jewish people have many youth movements made specifically for political purposes, and have historically always been very well educated and passionate. I won’t talk about Zionism here, though I want to. That’s for another post. 

(note: Jewish bolshevism is antisemitic and just untrue)

refusing to convert to Christianity or any other religion the many, many times that we have been captured/the leadership in charge of us has changed (this is a big rebellious act in the spanish exile/the exile to babylon/etc)

the current head of the Jewish Agency (Natan Sharansky) was a rebel in the Soviet Union, fighting for freedom and democracy. 

We were LITERALLY so sick of antisemitism that 18-25 year olds went to Palestine and built a nation based on the idea of a socially just society (and kibbutzim)????? how it went after is another story but you understand what I mean when I say that we did not sit silently in Europe. 

So, there you have it - some Jewish facts and figures. I hope I taught you something new. If anyone has anything they’d like me to add, feel free to send me an ask! 

[ashfaqqahmad]

Wahabism in Islam 1

Wahhabism is dangerous for other cultures

Though Islam has originated from Semitic, if you will go through the history, where it was a social reform movement in the early stage, it turned into a purely political movement after the demise of its founder Muhammad Sahab, where Muslim groups were fighting amongst themselves for power. All the battles that Rashidun Caliphate, Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid or the Ottoman Empire fought and conquered princely states were aimed to achieve power and not to do the religious propaganda… But in spite of this, there were a large number of conversions and large populations got converted into Islamic structure.

But the point to understand here is that the definition of Islam that was created in the light of the Hadiths and Quran was appropriate for a certain geographical area but it was not suitable to integrate all the cultures outside of Arabia those embraced Islam but also maintained their own existences. You can understand this better by keeping your own country as a model rather than understanding this through any other region.

People in India were largely Hindus but were divided into castes/sub-castes and many of their customs were there since ages. They did adopt Islam, but still did not abandon those customs, traditions and brought them into Islam itself. You can find many traditions in Jat, Rajput Muslim societies that have no connection with Islam. Those who believed in the tradition of the gurus started following pirs… Those who had the habit of bowing before the idols started worshipping mausoleums.

This happened in almost all countries with their own cultural identity. They incorporated their cultural identity, their customs, traditions into Islam and it got a distinct identity as Sufi Islam. It was a series connecting human with human, which had a rapid impact from Turkey, Arab, Iran to India… The rituals associated with it were due to the integration of other cultures where people linked their ancestral traditions with Islam.

Whatever bloodshed by the Muslims in that period was done, was a result of power hunger but it had got nothing to do with that Islamic fundamentalism, perverted form of which we now see as extremism or terrorism. There was also an era when the Arabic language was dominated, Baghdad was called the centre of knowledge. The supremacy of the Arabic world over the knowledge was similar to that of the West today.

The tenth-century vizier Ibn Abbad had more than a lac books when there were not so many books in all libraries across Europe. Baghdad alone had thirty major research centres of scientific knowledge. In addition to Baghdad, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Aleppo, Damascus, Mosul, Tous and Nishapur were major centres of learning in the Arabic world and Islam was established in a different form.

In India, at that time the Quran was confined to the Arabic language, which people used to read from the perspective of sawab, and the Hadiths had absolutely nothing to do much with ordinary people. Few Hadiths with good messages were sometimes used to be recited in mosques on Fridays or on Shab e Qadr… or there used to be events like ijtema and Milad among women where they used to recite some good Hadiths.

That is, the issues like shirk, biddat, etc. were on a very small and almost negligible scale and the majority of the Muslim population was living unaware of these in their own way. Integrating different cultures and traditions, Muslims had many faiths like Shia, Hanafi, Maliki, Saifi, Jafari, Baqaria, Basharia, Khalafia, Hanbali, Zahiri, Ashri, Muntazili, Murzia, Matroodi, Ismaili, Bohra, Ahmadiyya, etc. keeping their own identity while Deobandis, who claim purity, were also accepting this cultural diversity despite living with the identity of that ideology.

Concept of pure Arabic Islam

This pure Arabic Islam was conceptualized by Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab (1703–1792) who started destroying the beautiful and progressive traditions that were developing within Islam. All those rituals, customs, traditions first began to be recognized as shirk and biddat in the light of the Quran and Hadiths and Islam was given such a narrow form that there should be no scope for any kind of freedom, openness and communion.

Abd al Wahhab, taking the initiative to eliminate whatever is outside the purview of the Quran and Hadith, declared the killing of every mushrik and plundering their property as halal and for this, he prepared an army of 600 people and deployed them in the name of jihad everywhere. He started killing people of all types of Islamic beliefs. He only kept propagating his ideology and whosoever refused to accept him was killed and their property was robbed. He personally attacked the tomb of the famous Islamic thinker Zaid ibn al Khattab and demolished it himself.

He started attacking the Mazars and targeted Sufism. During this time he entered into an agreement with Muhammad bin Saud. Muhammad bin Saud was the ruler of Diriyyah and possessed both wealth and army. Together, both of them started using swords as well as modern weapons. The agreement of these two made it easy to reach out to remote areas to impose their ideology and destroy other faiths.

The burning of all books related to other faiths became a passion for Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab. Along with this, he issued another disgusting order to demolish all the Sufi Mazars, mausoleums or tombs and make urinals there. Saudi Arabia, a nation based on the Wahhabi faith apparently, continued the tradition of Muhammad ibn Abd al Wahhab and for that reason the burial cemetery with the nabi and his family there was also destroyed. Al-Mukarramah, a part of the Kaaba was also demolished for the same reason…

The distorted form of jihad that we see today is originated of this concept. And it was not only started forcibly but also started as a mass awareness campaign where those Quranic verses and the Hadiths were widely disseminated with meanings that could be used to separate all those things as shirk and biddat from Islam, that were not related to the original form of Islam. Gradually, this ideology began to engulf all Muslim countries that were leading happy lives with their mixed cultures.

You can see the changes under Erdogan’s leadership in Turkey. You can understand the changing form of Bangladesh living with a Hindu-Bengali culture from the writings of Taslima Nasrin. In Pakistan, Jinnah and Iqbal, who used to be considered as Pakistan’s builders and respectable figures, are being targeted by the new generation of Pakistanis because of things like Ahmadiyya, Khoja, pork, wine in the same way in which Gandhi is to new nationalists in India. To see this change in India look around, look at the Jat, Rajput Muslim societies of Western UP, Haryana, Rajasthan.

Wahhabism has been playing with the history of Islam, beliefs, mutual harmony and co-existence of identities. Hitler adopted the idea of racial purity as one identity, one type of people, one kind of thinking, one book from Wahhabism itself. Expelling firqas other than Wahhabism from Islam and their slaughter was justified. People of other religions were even declared wajib-ul-qatl (mandatory to kill) and the plunder of their property and the conversion of their women was justified. Pakistan and Bangladesh became their favourite playgrounds.

How this idea of ​​oneness is fatal to an inclusive and diverse society, you can understand it from the model of the Sangh, that wants to impose their ‘model of Hindutva’ equally on the whole of India with diverse cultures… Can tribals of Northeast, other tribal societies and Hindu societies of the south reconcile with the model in which ‘Rama’ is an ideal and superior God? Can the Ram Mandir movement of Hindi belt inspire the whole country? Can a cow be revered as the mother of all Indian people? If not, then is it reasonable to impose this on them…? Wahhabism also has the same track.

The Sangh has one or two countries with a Hindu population but the Wahhabis have a large number of countries as well as countries like Saudi promoting this ideology have huge money and scholars like Zakir Nayak as their brand ambassadors. The thinking of a new nationalist Indian about Gandhi and a newly nationalist Pakistani about Jinnah and Iqbal is the same, that they do not match their ‘model’.

Maulana Maududi and Jamaat-e-Islami

The interpretation of Islam that was made by Ibn Taymiyya in the fourteenth century was later turned into a comprehensive campaign in the eighteenth century by Abd al Wahhab and despite disagreements on some points, Maulana Maududi, the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami spread it in the Indian territory in his own way. There were mainly four firqas in Islam as Hanafi, Hanbali, Shafi and Maliki that were formed following the Imams, having many firqas within them but Sunni from all over India (pre-independence British India) belong to Hanafi firqa those got divided into Deobandi and Barelvi firqas in the nineteenth century following Ashraf Ali Thanwi and Ahmed Raza Khan.

The Arabs place themselves in the Hanbali firqa, while the people of the Middle East and Africa belong to the Shafi and Maliki firqas, but all of them are Sunnis (Shias are completely different from them) and have three ideologies as Salafi, Wahhabi and Ahl e Hadith prevalent among them… In terms of bigotry, you can place Ahl e Hadith, Wahhabi and Salafi from bottom to top. Salafi and Wahhabi don’t even consider other followers of Islam as Muslims.

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Maududi had spread this ideology in the Indian territory, and growing rapidly that has now reached the stage where you can see this change around you in the educated, modern-day Muslim (Deobandi) youths in the form of ankle-length pyjamas, beard, etc. Barelvi society is against all this.

There are two faces of this ideology… The one that has created a variety of organizations and has waged a war in the name of ‘jihad’ that will last until the whole world is coloured as they like and the other face that cleverly defends all those things with logic, on the basis of which these jihadi groups are flourishing.

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It is an art of changing oneself, defending one’s evils and flaws… The same way as the Sangh, that considers the concept of a Hindu nation as an ideal, has transformed itself into a cultural organization that makes the temple of Lord Rama in north India an issue to bring the BJP to the power, on the other hand, it teams up with the Periyar supporters in the south who curse Rama, at the same time it gets moulded to convince Lingayats who abuse the deity gods of north India.

It can also support mob lynching in the name of cow slaughter in north India and converts itself in some way to stand with the population eating it in the northeast or south. Flexibility is necessary for the spread of any ideology and they also know this. Therefore, to fit that which cannot be adjusted with the original idea, other ancillary organisations or armies are formed, that may look different from the outer side but have the same roots and from integrating the opposing idea to ‘shoot’ or ‘blast’, they do all the jobs well.

[midukki]

im a little ignorant about this whole mahatma gandhi being not so mahatma...(cuz my school puts him on a pedestal & i've grown up believing he's perfect lol) i was wondering if you could educate me a little about it? i do know some about his sexist views though. thanks so much! :))

Hi there! I’ve got two asks about this so I’ll just jot down what I know from the reading I’ve done:

Gandhi was a known racist. He believed that Indians and whites were superior and more civilised than Africans. “To the extent that he wrote Africans out of history or was keen to join with whites in their subjugation he was a racist.“ (Prof. Ashwin Desai). A quick google search should show you the kind of remarks he made about black South Africans during his time there [more here] (Also noting that South Asians, especially Indians, are notoriously anti-black- so it’s really no wonder that this part of his personality is overlooked in the nation’s history books)

Gandhi had a very perverted attitude towards sex. He is recorded to have conducted ‘sex experiments’ to test his celibacy (ie he made naked women share a bed with him). Some of these women were underage. [more here and here]

Gandhi does not sit well for most Dalits in India. Actually, the quote that Gandhi shouldn’t be considered ‘Mahatma’ at all came from the father of the Indian constitution, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar; who was also the leader of the Dalit Movement and one of Gandhi’s biggest critics. Their ideological differences definitely played a big part in this [more here]. But even more so was the outcome of the Poona Pact in 1933. The pact culminated a hunger strike that Gandhi led to ensure Ambedkar’s proposition of a constitution enabling Dalits to elect their own leaders, with reserved political seats (quota), was NOT to go forward. Gandhi, a high caste Hindu, believed that the best way to address caste based discrimination was to, among other things, involve oneself in activities reserved for the lower caste (toilet cleaning etc), whilst Ambedkar, also an esteemed lawyer and Dalit who had grown up facing caste-based discrimination, found that representation was the best way to address this issue. Thus, Gandhi blocked what could have been a great step forward for the lower caste in India. [more here]

The other anon asked me how he was ‘Hindu-centric’ and I really don’t know much more about that then the above mentioned and the fact that he was a devout Hindu most of his life (even if he was critical of all religions). However, I fail to see how being ‘Hindu-centric’ (so to speak) is a bad thing? I think the author of that post I reblogged included that part because the ‘mythology’ of Gandhi (and his incorporation of spirituality/Hindu concepts into political ideology) is a significant part of the current Hindu nationalist regime and their subsequent erasure/oppression of minorities in India. [edit 07/06/17]

As a side note, I used the term ‘mythology’ of Gandhi because as you said, he is put on a pedestal and is considered to be perfect and the father of the nation and whatnot. But as you can see he was also an extremely problematic individual. And what is also problematic is that we can’t dismiss the countless amount of good people his ‘mythology’ inspired: he most certainly played a significant role in India’s independence (along with numerous others who we tend to forget about due to the magnanimous, all-encompassing scale of this mythology). It’s a classic case of separating the art and artist. So people like Mandela and MLK Jr don’t automatically become problematic because they prescribe to Gandhian philosophy. People who look up to and excuse his racist, perverted personality do. We have to keep in mind this complicated dichotomy that is associated with the ideal that is Gandhi. All I can say is that I won’t be calling him Mahatma ever again. 

Another thing to note is that people on tumblr tend to just take new information and criticism at face value. I implore you to do your own research on the topic because I am no expert (and please, please correct me if I’m wrong!! I too want to learn). These are just some starting points for your own research- but I hope the help.

[sheikhspeare]

What is Islamic Dress? - Ajmal Masroor

What is Islamic Dress? The other day I was giving a talk at Leeds Grand Mosque. It was impromptu invitation by the Imam and the committee. I went there to pray my Taraweeh prayers (Evening prayers only in Ramadan) and they saw me and requested if I could say a few words to the congregation. I spoke from my heart and generally people were pleased with the core message of my talk. The talk was broadcast live on my Facebook page and has been viewed by more than 30,000 people. However, a number of people commented about what I was wearing and not what I was saying. It saddened me that there are people in our community who give more importance to outer display of what they perceive as piety instead of the prophetic definition of piety – the inner piety. Their ignorance was obvious in their comments. They were focusing on head covering, length of my trousers, my jeans, my shirt and my hairstyle. Some even went as far as calling my dress code unislamic and my clothes as the clothes of Christians. One person suggested I should have worn shelwar and Kameez, a Pakistani tribal costume that is worn mainly by people of that region. Of course there were people who challenged and rebuked such foolish comments but the fact that we have such prevailing ignorance in our community worries me greatly. You may not like what I am wearing but that does not give you the license to insult me. You may not like what I am saying but that does not give you the right to be rude to me. We can disagree but we can remain civil, we may disagree but we must always remain cordial. That is the teaching of the blessed Prophet. In the recent days I have been aghast by some peoples’ levels of ignorance when it comes to what is Islamic dress and what is not. I have received polite criticism to offensive comments from people about my own dress code. What worries me most is that our community has not progressed much. I have heard this irrational and unfounded claim 30 year ago and they are still regurgitating the same old obfuscating dress code diatribe. The clothes that have been associated with piety in our world today have nothing to do with the types of clothes the blessed Prophet used to wear. It has nothing to do with piety for sure. Shilwar/Kameez is an Indian/Pakistani/Punjabi traditional costume; the blessed Prophet never saw such clothes in his life. The prophet never wore or even saw the Bangladeshi national costume - lungi and Panjabi. So those who think Pakistani and Bangladeshi national costumes are the only true representation of Islamic clothes need to know that such a claim is not only an error but a lie too. The prophet never wore even the Arabic traditional long garments that we see today. At his time most of his companions could not even afford one piece of cloth to cover their naval to knee, never mind one long piece of covering from shoulder to their feet. The idea that they wore such lavish and flowing white robes is a total fantasy. The exquisite robe with golden embroidery or silver threads and regal looks worn over the smooth white long thawb did not even exist at the time of the Prophet. How could he have worn it? The prophet wore the clothes of his people. In other words he wore what the Makkan wore when he was in Makkah and he wore what the people of Madina wore when he was in Madina. In several narrations the prophet is reported to have worn clothes of various tribes and nations when they were gifted to him. Let us not forget that at the time of the Prophet clothes were imported from Syria, Turkey and Persia so he wore whatever was available through imports. He wore clothes without mocking people or looking down upon them. He wore clothes showing respect and honour to the people who gifted them to him in the first place. Prophet did not scoff at other people’s clothes and he did not attribute a religion to any clothing. Those foolish and ignorant people who assign religion to clothes are contradicting the beautiful teachings of the prophet. The various types of hats or head covering that we see today were also not prevalent at the time of the prophet. The Indian style long or circular hats came from India, how could the prophet have worn them? The red and white, black and white or pure white coloured headscarf with a black circular ring worn by the Middle Eastern scholars also did not exist at the time of the prophet. The prophet wore a turban but the shape and design of his turban would have reflected the design and shape of the local people. To suggest that the modern day hats and scarves are the only tradition of the prophet for head covering is another lie. The blessed Prophet covered his head for sure but he also left his head uncovered. To claim that only covering the head is the tradition of the prophet is also false. Keeping it uncovered is also part of the tradition of the prophet. The ignorance of our people is so deeply imbedded in their psyche and sustained by even more ignorant so called scholars is that they now consider wearing a hat or head scarf as essential part of prayer. People complain if the Imam leads prayer without a head cover. I have seen people walk out of the mosque abandoning their regular congregational prayer over this issue. I have even seen people abandon jum’a prayer because the Imam was not wearing a hat. This is the most outrageous depiction of their ignorance. The true sunnah of the Prophet is to wear clothes that resemble the customs and cultures of your local people as long as it does not clearly contradict an established prohibition. I will summarise below the clear parameters set for clothing. Let me first make a few emphatic point from the outset: • All clothes are Islamic unless they are immodest. • In Islam there is no fashion or style of clothes that is prescribed for the believers. • What is proposed is an ethical parameter called modesty (hayaa) and constitutes the universal requisite for all Muslims. • Wearing clothes that resemble local fashion and style is the real sunnah. The most important feature of Islam is modesty in every realm of our life. Modesty in Islam is defined by a number of underlying considerations and encompasses all aspect of our life from our mannerisms to our daily habits, how we communicate and compromise, how we walk on this earth, how we behave and interact with each other and even how we dress. The key considerations are: 1. Modesty is both inherent and acquired. We are all born with natural levels of shyness. Everyone is naturally incline towards covering their private parts or their faces would turn naturally red/crimson when they feel embarrassed. These are naturally driven features of humans and not found in animals. We must sustain our natural and inherent instinct of modesty. 2. Modesty distinguishes humans from animals. Animals follow their instincts without feeling any sense of shame or guilt but humans have a strong sense of right and right wrong. We feel firmness in our heart when we do something right and we feel our heart waiver or quiver when we do something wrong. 3. Modesty is considered as the natural tool to keep a society morally sound and ethically unblemished. In other words when modesty from a society disappears the moral and ethical values of the society fast diminishes. A person could be immodest while wearing long flowing robe, Shilwar Kameez, or Lungi Panjabi. Your clothes do not automatically make you modest. You have to make a conscious effort to remain within the bounds of modesty. 4. Modesty is totally antithesis to arrogance. In Islam one must be absolutely committed to shunning arrogance. Arrogance could manifest itself in your clothes, behavior or general appearance. Arrogance destroys all our good deeds and makes them redundant. Devil was thrown out of the heavens for arrogance. It is the sense of superiority that could turn a scholar into a sinner and it is the sense of humility that could turn a sinner into a saint in the eyes of God. 5. In Islam modesty in clothing has a superior purpose than simple cover. It is to remove sexualisation and objectification of people. Clothes are worn as adornment to beautify us and make us presentable, not to be gawked at as a sexual object. Modest clothing harmonises human interactions and restores respect and honour at the very basic human level. With these universal ethical parameters a Muslim is required to wear clothes that: 1. Cover all parts of the body apart from the obvious - hands, face and feet. 2. Clearly covers and not transparent or extremely figure hugging such that it makes ones sexual organs’ outline visible. 3. Do not accentuating sexuality or deliberately provoke sexual attention. 4. Do not explicitly represent the symbol or uniform of other religion or belief 5. Do not represent or reflect the clothes of the opposite gender clearly 6. Muslim men are not allowed to wear gold or silk 7. Muslim women must cover all parts of their body including their hair Islam embraces all local customs and cultures unless it depicts anti-God message, calls people to violence, abuses people’s basic human rights and invites people to nudity, sexual perversion and vulgarity. Islam offers a universal and natural moral and ethical environment for human beings’ physical, emotional and spiritual growth. It clearly prohibits ostentation, wastefulness and exaggeration in every aspect of our life including clothes. In conclusion, I have received a lot of verbal abuse from some people about my dress code but I do not need to change my dress code. I think I dress according to the sunnah of the Prophet and I abide by all the ethical parameters as I have outlined above. I dress according to the local customs and cultures. I am very disappointed with many people who appear intelligent, educated and smart yet they have stooped so low with their abusive comments about my dress code. They are either totally confused or deliberately commenting to cause offense. My suggestion is that they should either speak with knowledge or stay silent.

[jesseturri]

Esotericism: The Province of Highly Educated, Affluent and Powerful Intellectuals?

“Despite the proliferation of interest in the subjects of secrecy and esotericism throughout popular culture, media and entertainment, these phenomena have only recently begun to be treated seriously by historians of religions. In this essay, I suggest a new way of looking at esotericism by engaging in a comparative, cross-cultural analysis, and by looking in particular at its social and political implications. Specifically, I compare two traditions-the Śrīvidyā school of Indian Tantra, and the Rectified Scottish Rite of French Freemasonry-juxtaposing and analogically relating them in order to shed new light on both. Contrary to many popular conceptions, I argue that esotericism is by no means primarily a “counter-cultural” or “subversive” phenomenon; rather, it is very often an elitist phenomenon, the province of highly educated, affluent and powerful intellectuals, who wish, not to undermine existing social structures, but rather subtly to reinforce them, or else to bend and reshape them according to their own interests. This essay examines three primary strategies employed by the Tantrics and Masons: 1) the creation of a new social space or private sphere, which promises “equality” and liberation for all classes, while at the same time constructing new and more rigid hierarchies; 2) a hermeneutical strategy, which appropriates the authority of traditional scriptures, while at the same time asserting the superiority of esoteric exegesis; 3) a ritual strategy, which creates a homology between the body of the initiate, the hierarchy of the cosmos and the hierarchy of the esoteric sect, inscribing the individual into the body of the order, and inscribing the order onto the human body.”

The above passage is an abstract from an essay titled Elitism and Esotericism: Strategies of Secrecy and Power in South Indian Tantra and French Freemasonry written by Hugh B. Urban (a professor of comparative studies at OSU) for the academic journal Numen: International Review for the History of Religions. If one is interested in esotericism, comparative studies or religious history It’s definitely worth a look!

I must say that I really love reading mind mindbogglingly complex books about esoteric metaphysics; seriously, I love it. I love being dazzled by imaginative, poetic, and sometimes shocking spiritual imagery, and challenged by strange concepts that push me into uncharted (and sometimes uncomfortable!) territory where I’ve never been before. But if there is one thing that pisses me off it’s when a group of people claim to have the Truth or the Knowledge or attempt to privilege one reading/exegesis of a sacred text over all others (Urban’s second point above). And, although I’m admittedly not an expert in all the World’s esoteric traditions, in my experience studying various forms of esotericism I’ve reached a lot of the same conclusions that Urban has reached, for example: esoteric practitioners generally believe that knowledge (particularly spiritual knowledge) is power. I’ve explained before why, from a process-relational, religious naturalist, pneu-materialist and non-dual spiritual perspective, I don’t’ think privileging spiritual knowledge is such a great idea and I still hold to this position for the most part (I’m open to having my mind changed! Convince me otherwise! LOL!).

But beyond that, I’ve also had another inclination regarding esotericism and it’s link to traditional/conservative tendencies that Urban puts into words rather well I think: “[esotericism] …allows the individual to live a seemingly orthodox, traditional, conservative life in the outer social world, while at the same time, leading a secret inner life, often involving powerful heterodox or even antinomian esoteric practices.” Urban actually goes further in his paper and shows how esotericism has been used to reinforce various types of racial, gender and class supremacy.

Esotericism: The Province of Highly Educated, Affluent and Powerful Intellectuals? was originally published on TURRI

[frenchifries]

a big issue i see a lot in discussions of race - not necessarily racism, but just like, race in general - is people’s tendency to treat it as an absolute, when in fact race is one of the most arbitrary and malleable constructs of society. race as a concept has only been around for a few hundred years, and it can and does change over time and place.

(before racial categories were a thing, other aspects like ethnicity, nationality, language, religion, etc were how people categorized each other.)

for a very, very long time, whiteness was a concept reserved only for a select few groups of northern europe, for the sole purpose of declaring inherent, in-born superiority over others (and therefore the right to colonize and rule over everyone else). many other european groups - irish, slavic, spanish, italian, etc - were considered inferior, and therefore decidedly not white. over time, in different places, these conceptions changed and diverged.

in the US, it was only around world war II that other european nationalities began to be considered white - and it was only because the US realized that national unity would be necessary in the face of another world war, and so you began to see movements of inclusion, sentiments that we all bleed the same, we are all equal and human and brothers and sisters...

oh, but of course this was still only for europeans. this was how other people of european descent were embraced into whiteness. everyone else was still inferior. after the war, during the growth of suburbs, even european jews were included, because most americans actually were shocked and horrified by what the nazis had done, and if america were to claim any sort of moral superiority, of course they had to include jews. still, obviously this was a very tenuous inclusion, which is why most people consider european jews to be “conditionally white.”

(another reason for the inclusion of other europeans was to strengthen the hold against non-europeans; the more solidarity european-americans felt with one another, the easier it was to pit them against everyone else.)

the most interesting part, i think, was around the end of the 19th century, when race was very much based in law. there were legal definitions of who was white, who was black, and who was other, and these definitions varied state by state. at this time, only people legally considered white could become citizens.

at one point, indians were considered legally white in some places because india had of course been a british colony and so “white” values had been imbued in their culture; and some argued that indians showed the same mental acuity as european whites. (this was when pseudo-scientific analysis of race was in full swing - people were very much into ascribing biological and psychological traits to different racial groups, and calling these characteristics innate.) then some chinese immigrants began arguing for legal whiteness so they, too, could become citizens. the courts determined that chinese people, and in fact all asians, were simply too fundamentally different from white people, and any asian immigrant who had previously naturalized was retroactively stripped of their citizenship.

i guess what i’m getting at is just how weird and varied the history of race is, and that it’s not even close to being as definitive as many people think. by the way, wanna guess how many genes separate any two races? it’s zero. there is actually no objective basis for racial categories; all differences between people from different geographic regions are just a series of superficial mutations that increase adaptability to a given habitat (and even these are not absolute, because there is still tons of genetic variation even within geographically isolated groups).

anyway i forgot if i was going to make any sort of ultimate point but uh. yeah that’s about it.

[bellarkelifestyle]

not normally political but here goes

I have a lot of thoughts about what’s happening to the Muslim/Arab people in America right now and I just want to say that I understand. Living in a white society, it is so hard being an immigrant, especially if you’re part of a visible minority, and I’m not trying to belittle, devalue, or make light of other minorities that have been oppressed over the years like the LGBTQ+ community, or women in general, but because of what’s going on right now in this context, with this ban, this is about race. They (the Trump administration, Trump supporters, xenophobic/racist people in general) can chalk it up to immigration all they want, but they aren’t fooling anyone. Even though it’s said to be temporary, the fundamentals behind even implementing this as temporary action is highly concerning.

If you look at the events that led to World War II, to the Holocaust, it starts with the idea that certain people were creating problems for the German people, that they were eroding the German identity. The “they” in this situation was mostly Jewish people, along with others deemed undesirable, unfavourable and ill-suited to the German nationalistic identity. It didn’t take long for it to turn into a debate on the definition of who/what is German and who/what is not, and we see a frighteningly similar pattern right here and right now, in the continued and deliberate attack on anything related to Islam or the Middle East as well as comments made pertaining to the Latino community. When people in Europe needed help, when Jewish people needed help, they were turned away because of the semitism and the prejudice of the 1930s and 40s, and countless lives were lost. It was horrific, and the world said “never again, never again will we let this happen”, and slogans started coming up saying “as long as people remember what happened in WWII, it’ll never happen again,” and now I have to ask you what was the point of all of these Holocaust Memorials and genocide teachings when we’ve just managed to land right back here all over again, after 70 years with more genocides? (Fun fact: after the horrific events of WWII, a new term had to be coined to be able to properly describe the mass extinction and eradication of a specific group. A term that would be able to encompass all the horrors and disgusting activities perpetrated. So they came up with ‘genocide’; “geno” from genos, generally pertaining to human, or group (like genome), and “cide”, a suffix used to express more than just death; but also loss (see suicide, homicide, etc). A word that should send shivers down one’s spine with just the realization of what it represents. Mass death; extinction.) But after 70 years, what have we learned? We haven’t learned anything, clearly.

But getting back to the present; life became so inconceivably difficult for people that were visible minorities after 9/11. If your appearance in anyway suggested Middle Eastern descent or origin, you became someone that could be targeted, that could be demonized because of what your culture represented, because of what your religion represented. People who have been categorized as ‘Brown’ know what I’m talking about and the behaviour such a label entails. It means the comments about terrorism and being a terrorist said so offhandedly, it means “go back to where you came from” jokes, it means the glances you would get anytime you’d see or hear something about Al Qaeda or Taliban or Isis, it means getting called aside at airport security for ‘random selection’ time and time again because when you’re the brown person travelling in a group of white people it can look suspicious. It happens a lot in Europe, and I understand their fear, I really do. Horrible things have happened in Europe, but horrible things have also happened elsewhere in the world too, for a longer period of time, and that 'fear’ that they feel is the point of all the attacks. They (the radicals, extremists, terrorists, call them whatever you want, their point is the same) want to create that fear to isolate and weaken. We call it 'terrorism’ because it strikes terror - literally paralyzing, unimaginable, unendurable fear - into the hearts of people of diverse nations. It is meant to divide people, to make people distrust their neighbours because of the way they look or the way they pray or the way they dress. It is meant to create factions amongst people that otherwise have no fight with one another, and to create an environment where people are targeted and demonized and blamed for the actions of others. When we react to violence with violence, fear with fear, terror with terror, we are feeding the beast. We are giving those people that want to create worldwide discord what they want. So let’s not let them do that!

Personally, I’m a 17 year old Canadian-born girl of two Indian immigrants, born in Winnipeg, one of the whitest (demographically), most-racist (anecdotally) cities in Canada, where after three months, we moved to Montréal, spent eight years in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in North America, and then finally moved to Calgary where we are now; and I think it’s fair to say I’ve seen a lot of different aspects of what Canada looks like, of what a fairly healthy and functioning diverse country looks like and the truth is, it’s not always fair and it’s not always equal. It’s not always kind, either, and that’s the harsh truth. The notion that a country that’s as generally accepting as Canada is is without flaws is, well, a flawed ideal. Work still has to be done in Canada, but I think it’s safe to say that more work needs to be done in America. I could talk about my own story and my family’s story and just kind of how we’ve seen the world evolve - but then I remember that “evolve” is not the right word, because we’re not becoming something better, we’re just changing, so instead - how it’s changed in the 15 years since 9/11. But that wouldn’t change anything. That doesn’t help people that are scared right now, that feel isolated and alone right now, and that have had terror struck into their hearts because of what 'their’ president said, because of what 'their’ president has done and how he said he would protect the rights of all people in his country. Well, it’s been a week on the job President Trump, and you’ve already failed.

When 9/11 happened, this Islamophobia started, and no one knew what to call it back then, there wasn’t really a word for it. It was just this concept that the Islamic countries were dangerous, and that their ideas were dangerous, and that you have to watch out for them because there’s something wrong with them, and people never really got over that and it’s still visible in the aftermath and the consequences of wars that western countries had no part of getting involved in; but that’s a conversation for another day. When people started comparing Trump to Hitler, I really hated that trend, because you can’t compare the genocide of 10 million people deemed 'unfavourable’ by a sociopath to the ramblings of a racist, rich, white man. I mean there was really no comparison, and it’s unfair to the Jewish population to say that, but never did I think I’d see the day that Trump’s executive policies would align him closer to Hitler’s iconic (sorry, but true) and infamous ideologies than any other head of state since WWII. The fact that his administration has had the audacity to flat-out lie on national television to the very population it swore to serve on its very first day in power is an ominous sign. And nearly every executive order signed since has just further cemented that Trump is a petulant child who is so stubborn he demands that his views and opinions become the law and basis on which to run the country. Because he seems to have forgotten that the core of democracy is that it is run by the people, for the people. Because he is a hypocrite above all else.

But to go back to what this post was originally about. Race. To the people out there who say race is a human construct: that may be true. But to think that we can live in a post-race world is just naive. Unfortunately, that is not the way our world was built, and so we will have to fix it through the limits and barricades the generations of people before us have set up. That means accepting that race is real, that it won’t just go away, and that there truly is a race problem, not only in America, but in caucasian-centric nations around the world. I mean, the idea of being Middle-Eastern or Arab is so taboo that Christianity insists on depicting Jesus as white. You can argue that it was derived from different times, and that’s it’s just tradition, but if you know it’s wrong now, then why not invoke change? Hello? Jesus was a Jewish man from the Syria-Israel-Palestine-Egypt geographic area. He is 99.99% likely to have been brown, with black hair and a thick beard. To think or demand otherwise is frankly, pure stupidity. But it’s not necessarily those believers’ faults, and I’m not here to stir up religious dissent. It’s simply one of the consequences of a system that demands white-washing everything to be at a purity level acceptable for white people, who have always seen themselves as superior, even if it hasn’t been blatantly obvious. Sorry to white people who do care, I and I’m sure many others appreciate the support, but making a difference starts with realizing that the milennia of white-washing and racial negligence that has occurred to create a “proper” society whose idols fit into a range of “white appropriateness” is a system and a concept that need to be changed. And it means stepping up for Black Lives Matter, for DACA/DAPA, and speaking out against religious intolerance when mosques go up in flames or black churches go through mass shootings. It means giving a damn beyond grumbling at the tv, “this is bullshit.” I’m guilty of this too. But we can help invoke change by speaking, by not staying quiet, by taking the leap and breaking the taboo silence that makes us fear being called an overzealous social justice warrior. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. I had to work up the courage to type this, let alone post it for the world to see. But I feel lighter now, so I would definitely recommend it. Change begins by showing support and getting the word out, letting people know that someone out there really does care, and is not okay with what’s going on.

I literally can not believe that we (humanity) have been civilized for nearly 10,000 years and are still unable to grapple with the concept that skin colour does not a person make. Does not define worth or ability or reputation. And no, just because I’m brown doesn’t make me biased in this cause. It makes me a victim, it makes me a bystander, it makes me a sympathizer, it makes me a supporter, and most importantly, it makes me human. Because racial discrimination isn’t just un-American. It’s inhumane.

I would be happy to hear any thoughts people wanted to share! I don’t have all the info, nor do I know all the proper tags to spread awareness, but it’s all out there and all over and trending so if shouldn’t be too hard to find! Spread kindness y'all :)

[underconstruction2017-blog]

The Script

Under Construction by Charles Mee Reconstructed by Kaley Bunce, Sofia Cassidy, and Juliet Shelton

ORDER

Younger No Pig & Hairbrushing

Middle L.A. & The Woman in the Red Dress & Film Noir & Women

Older The Arts & Bad Stuff & I Remember & Mrs. Bridge

Younger Scenes:

Scene 68. No Pig

[A guy comes out to speak. After a few moments, while he speaks, another guy comes out and begins to dance— without any musical accompaniment— dancing not even to the spoken text, rather just dancing in his own quiet world.]

We ended up living in a tiny apartment in a house owned by an Indian couple in Flushing, Queens. My stepmother cried the whole first night. We've come to America, and look at this apartment! It was one of those Archie Bunker neighborhoods. You know when you watch All in the Family, that first aerial shot with all those tiny homes right next to each other? That's exactly where we lived.

I got left back a year at the local public school because I didn't know English. I didn't know how to say "May I go to the bathroom?'

or "I don't know what you're saying." My desk was right in front of the teacher's desk and I would sit there all day and not go to the bathroom until I went home. Then I got a little picture book and I would point to a picture of a toilet and the teacher would know, OK, it's time to go to the bathroom. My teacher told my stepmother at a parent-teacher conference that I wasn't learning English fast enough.

When I came home my father was extremely upset with me. He told me, in Farsi, that I must be stupid. I had the hardest time trying to tell the cafeteria lady that I couldn't eat pork. My father taught me how to say, NO PIG! NO PIG! It took about a month for the cafeteria lady to realize I couldn't eat pork. Whenever they were having pork products, she would make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which was horrible, because I hated peanut butter and jelly! So I didn't eat anything. Then my father told me to say chicken, but I would say "kitchen" instead of chicken. It took me so long to differentiate between the two. Imagine me: "KITCHEN! NO PIG! NO PIG!"

Scene 5. Hair Brushing

four women all brush one girl's hair and then each other's

SOMEONE SAYS What they say is there are rules. And everyone knows what they are. Number 1. Have dinner ready: Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal—on time. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs.

SOMEONE ELSE SAYS Number 2. Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you will be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your makeup

put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh looking. Be a little zestful and a little more interesting.

SOMEONE ELSE SAYS Number 3. Minimize the noise. At the time of his arrival eliminate all noise of washer, dryer, dishwasher or vacuum. Be happy to see him.

Greet him with a warm smile and be glad to see him.

And then there is a radio voiceover? and the girls answer variously yes, no, etc etc all in a jumbled unison

RADIO VOICE Are you fit for marriage? To help you decide for yourself, the author presents in this article several tests that are being used throughout the country to determine individual fitness for marriage. By taking the three tests that follow and studying the results, you can measure your own marital aptitudes. Give serious thought to the result and you will find it's likely taking out a personal love-insurance policy that pays dividends throughout your married life. Are you 21 or over?

VARIOUS VOICES Yes Yes No Yes No

RADIO VOICE Are or were your parents happily married?

VARIOUS VOICES Very happy Average Above average I'd say average Unhappy

Were you happy as a child? Very happy Unhappy Average Average To what degree were you punished as a child? Often and severely Rarely but severely Never Often but mildly Mildly Where did you first learn about sex? Don't remember From other children From strange adults books What is your present attitude toward sex? Disgust Necessary evil Indifferent Pleasant anticipation Intense interest Have you ever wanted to be of the opposite sex? Never as a child, yes As an adolescent As an adult As an adult? Yes! How do you rate with your partner in mental ability? Slightly inferior Definitely inferior Very similar Slightly superior Very superior How do you rate with your partner in willingness to cooperate? Definitely inferior Very similar Slightly superior Very superior Is your religion the same as your partner's?

Yes No Yes Yes No Have you a tendency to be careless or disorderly? Yes No Yes No Are you uncommonly bossy? Yes No Yes No Yes For the Man: Does he insist on having his own way? Always Frequently Occasionally Seldom Never For the woman: Has she a mean disposition? Frequently Seldom Never Never When his luck goes bad does he brood over it and look for your sympathy? Yes No Sometimes Yes No Does she try to please you? Always Frequently Occasionally Seldom Never Is he usually stubborn and insistent in his demands? Yes No sometimes Yes No Can you get him to change his mind? Always Frequently Occasionally Seldom Never Does she try to make you miserable if you so much as look at another woman? Yes No yes, no Yes Does he expect you to shower him with attention and affection in public? Yes No Yes No Yes Does she create scenes in public places?

Yes No Yes Yes Yes Do you believe implicitly in your partner's: Good Judgment? Yes No Yes No Honesty? Yes Yes Yes No Fidelity?

[silence]

Middle Scenes:

Scene 472. L.A.

This could be spoken by a man or a woman:

My head is a lot better in LA There's always a feeling when I am sitting here driving around in the car, coming back into the studio, in and out in my head, and in and out of reality.... If you know my work, you know that things are never finished.... so then you have a lot of narrative threads that interweave self-portraiture fictional characters cultural commentary and much more drama humor slapstick critique theatricality enrepreneurship attitude quests discoveries self-sampling internal recycling auto-cannibalism

revelations cosmologies. Coming together and coming apart and becoming something else free-form random non-hierarchical

everywhere and nowhere. And then you need an overview because or at least a point of view because all trees and no forest means there isn't any difference between here and there even though you still want to be everywhere and nowhere. It's all a blur and the blur could be permanent that would be OK a blur, that's a cool thing, too. I understand art as the pursuit of something. As it is pulling me in this direction I don't quite understand why I am going in this direction. It is important that each piece creates a territory for me to go in like a direction that is opening up. In this piece, which is called Perfect World, the thing is you can fall off of it and it can kill you. You can walk on this surface but it has these holes these cracks and then these soft spots, these traps, where it's just papered over. I wanted to build this thing which somehow mimics real life. I am not interested in artists who close things down, I am interested in situations which open things up. That is just an optimistic perspective. I want to build a work which includes the public but does not exclude the artist.

If you imagine you have children one is a drug-addict with crack one is a drug addict with ecstasy one is thirteen and has four kids and one is kind of a genius.

It is important to see each one in relationship to the other one in relationship to yourself. It is about seeing where all the positive parts are in the things that you have created.

You have to deal with them. You have to like them all the same. Because what we have come to learn is that the future is made not by arguing well but by speaking differently. And speaking differently: that's the job of poets. Because truth is not something we discover; truth is something we create. How it is to be a human being is something we decide not because of how it has always been but because whether or not it has ever been that way before, this is who we want to be and how we want to behave now. Just because, in the past, there have been slaveholders and patriarchs we are not destined to live the same way forever. The reason people study history is so that they can see the way things are is not the only way they have been or the only way that they can be. It is up to us to see what human nature can become.

Scene 92. The Woman in the Red Dress

music overwhelms the scene and the woman in the red dress enters dancing

then a guy enters another guy enters a bunch of people are entering from every direction wild music

unsynchronized frenzy until finally all 10 or 12 are making the same gesture together, scattered over the stage, but dancing the same gestures and moves and maybe this could happen, too:

at a certain point, a woman is lying on the floor a guy leans down and locks lips with her and raises her from the floor into a flamenco-like dance with lips permanently locked in a kiss they go on and on and on and on and on until he passes out and falls to the ground in a heap she turns to another guy and locks lips with him immediately and they dance but she stops them, interrupts the dance to tell him he is dancing the wrong way they lock lips and dance again she stops to correct him again ditto ditto until she spins around, grabs the sleeve of his shirt and rips it then he is pissed they argue they argue and argue and argue and argue and argue till the guy turns front and takes a dance posture and flexes his bicep he flexes his bicep to the music 5 guys join him in bicep flexing dance all in unison then they all do a hip thrust very macho then turns upstage and wiggle their butts (not SO macho) they move through other male display dance moves finger snapping,etc then three women step up and do the same male display moves

Scene 79. Film Noir

NARRATOR When they reached the dark hallway, she slowed their walk.

WESLEY Tired?

VANESSA No. It's just that I want to be kissed.

NARRATOR She looked at him gravely. He walked away, and she followed him. It was a long time before he spoke.

WESLEY When you get to be my age, you won't take things so lightly.

VANESSA I don't take them lightly now.

WESLEY You may be a minx, for all I know.

VANESSA I'm not sure what that means.

WESLEY Look it up. VANESSA Where?

WESLEY Well, I have a fine dictionary in my cabin. Let's both look it up.

NARRATOR He wished that he could have cut that last speech.

VANESSA Let's go to mine where there are no dictionaries at all.

NARRATOR With a surge of dizzying feeling he wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything. Vanessa led him toard her cabin. The night steward sitting in the corridor said, Good evening, and vanished.

She whispered:

VANESSA Won't you come in? I'll make you some scrambled eggs.

NARRATOR She laughed, stepped into the cabin, held open the door, and he was drawn magnetically in. She closed the door. They stood in the blackness and she waited a full minute before turning on a light. She moved to the table and fixed two drinks.

WESLEY Not until I know who you are.

NARRATOR She handed him his glass and took a thoughtful sip from her own.

VANESSA Vanessa Foley

NARRATOR she said

VANESSA and I'm sort of mad about you.

WELSEY Sort of.

VANESSA Really.

Another story:

NARRATOR They passed from the road into a meadow. The long grasses whispered to their slow tread. He ignored the heavy dew which soaked his shoes until he realized that he was not caring for her....

WILBUR Sakes alive! You'll catch your death of cold. Let's sit on this gate.

NARRATOR He had spoken so softly that the charm was not shattered, and, swathed in glory, they perched on the three-barred wooden gate of a barbed wire fence. She sat on a lower bar and leaned her head against his knee. He instinctively stroked her cheek.

WILBUR I've never felt so happy before. I don't want ever to lose you. Can't we be married? I'm not worthy....

MYRTLE Wilbur, you don't love me! It's just the moonlight and walking with a woman. You don't know what you want yet. You wouldn't propose to me if it were a hot afternoon, a muggy, wilty afternoon, and we were walking down Main Street.

WILBUR But you do like me. And when we're both lonely....

MYRTLE Probably no one will ever love me as I want. Why should they? I'm just a little hat trimmer with a love for tea and cats!

WILBUR You aren't. You are the one person I could love if you could only understand how much I mean it.

NARRATOR And as he said it he knew he didn't quite mean it; he knew he was merely living up to the magic moment, and he listened to his own high-pitched voice going on in poetic periods unnatural to him....

WILBUR When I look into your eyes I see all the fairy stories my mother used to read to me....

MYRTLE But you don't want a lady story teller. You want a nice home and somebody to send out the laundry for you. I understand. I often want a home myself. But I'm funny. I distrust sentimentality. You ought to think what you're saying....

NARRATOR Suddenly she was crying in sobs accumulated through years of loneliness. She crouched on the lower bar of the gate

and hid her eyes against his knee. Her hat fell off and her hair was a little disordered. Yet this touch of prosaicness did not shock him. It brought her near to him, made her not a moon wraith, but a person like himself. He patted her shoulder till she sat up and laughed a little, and they strolled back toward the town.

And he: the overwrought self that had sung of love and fairy tales was gone. But he felt toward her a sincere and eager affection.

Scene 103. Women

THE WOMAN SAYS The blue-collar worker is the backbone of our society, Society needs the services and products they provide, whether the workers themselves dream of something better or not. Many of them love their jobs, too— that doesn't change that quite a few of them aren't qualified to do much else. There's no shame in that.

Not that this is why I did it. Not that I am saying that. Luckily, that was never my reason. I was not forced into it in that way. It was my choice.

Not everyone can be a prostitute. You do need a special talent. It's definitely a hell of a hard, fucking job. You need enormous amounts of patience,

enormous amounts of compassion. You have to put up with a lot of shit. It's like being in a war— you're in a war zone.

You're in a society which is misogynistic and full of sexual guilt, and you take that shit on. It can get to you. I compare it a lot to being a nurse.

I had a transsexual, hermaphroditic lover for a while— a female to male, transsexual, surgically made hermaphrodite.

A new option for people. That's one of the great things about living these days. My new lover is totally androgynous. I think it's beautiful.

These days, you see men dressing as women wearing monkey boots, and women dressing as men but with false eyelashes. Now, everything's getting mixed together which I really like.

And strap-on dildos, of course, are really being used a lot to play with gender. Women are getting these big dicks— it's great. And they really know how to use them. It's so real. And of course it never gets soft.

My friend Trish is really good at thrusting. Women aren't generally as good at thrusting, but she has really got it down. Her dick is totally real to her

and I suck it like it's real and I feel like she feels everything that I do. It's just beautiful. The technology has vastly improved. When I first got into porno movies they were tied on with pieces of elastic and were really flimsy. These were invented by men, but now women are designing these fabulously beautiful leather strap-on things.

Older Scenes:

Scene 68. The Arts

A country store. A string quartet comes on, finds chairs, adjust their instruments, tune up, and we just listen to some beautiful Bach while how-to drawings from the Great Artists school or paint-by-numbers paintings are projected

And after a while, over the music, Bill Dow steps up and reads his poem:

BILL DOW Many people from many lands Are living here as one. They work together, learn together For them living is fun.

This nation of ours is a powerful one, It's known from shore to shore. But as it grows, as everyone knows, Cooperation is needed even more.

Rivers, valleys, mountains, plains, Make up our beautiful land. America is a wonderful place, Made by God's own hand.

Scene 49. Bad Stuff

A guy comes out with bloody hands, blood up to his elbows and he stands and shows them to the audience as three young women wearing Victoria's Secret lingerie are brought in on leashes by a guy with a whip and a black cripple, badly burned from head to foot, stumbles in, falls, and writhes on the ground and another guy brings in a guy on a leash who hops up and down and an old Mafia don comes in wearing sunglasses and stands there and a guy comes in on his knees,

walks on his knees along the front of the stage and goes out again all the while some great popular music is playing.

And it may be that on the rear wall is projected a still, or moving scroll with as much of this Jennie Holzer text on it as seems enough:

a little knowledge can go a long way a lot of professionals are crackpots a man can't know what it is to be a mother a positive attitude means all the difference in the world a sense of timing is the mark of genius a sincere effort is all you can ask all things are delicately interconnected ambivalence can ruin your life any surplus is immoral anything is a legitimate area of investigation at times your unconsciousness is truer than your conscious mind bad intentions can yield good results being alone with yourself is increasingly unpopular being happy is more important than anything else children are the hope of the future decency is a relative thing

don't place too much trust in experts eating too much is criminal enjoy yourself because you can't change anything anyway every achievement requires a sacrifice everyone's work is equally important exceptional people deserve special concessions good deeds eventually are rewarded grass roots agitation is the only hope if you live simply there is nothing to worry about ignoring enemies is the best way to fight illness is a state of mind it's better to be a good person than a famous person it's not good to operate on credit it's vital to live in harmony with nature just believing something can make it happen keep something in reserve for emergencies killing is unavoidable but nothing to be proud of listen when your body talks men are not monogamous by nature murder has its sexual side

pain can be a very positive thing people are responsible for what they do unless they are insane people won't behave if they have nothing to lose raise boys and girls the same way redistributing wealth is imperative religion causes as many problems as it solves remember you always have freedom of choice romantic love was invented to manipulate women sometimes science advances faster than it should sometimes things seem to happen of their own accord starvation is nature's way sterilization is a weapon of the rulers the desire to reproduce is a death wish the family is living on borrowed time the idea of revolution is an adolescent fantasy the new is nothing but a restatement of the old the only way to be pure is to stay by yourself true freedom is frightful you are a victim of the rules you live by you can't expect people to be something they're not

Scene 99. I Remember

While television news footage of war— and, or, if there is more than one screen, of war and race riots and other violence— is projected, this text is spoken by one man. or else one man begins and then one or two or three others join him.

I remember many Sunday afternoon dinners of fried chicken or pot roast.

I remember my father's collection of arrowheads.

I remember loafers with pennies in them.

I remember game rooms in basements.

I remember "come as you are" parties. Everybody cheated.

I remember drugstore counter stools with no backs, and swirling around and around on them.

I remember two-dollar bills. And silver dollars.

I remember "Double Bubble" gum comics and licking off the sweet "powder."

I remember catching myself with an expression on my face that doesn't relate to what's going on anymore.

I remember the little "thuds" of bugs bumping up against the screens at night.

I remember when polio was the worst thing in the world. I remember my first cigarette. It was a Kent. I remember my first erections.

I thought I had some terrible disease or something.

I remember the only time I ever saw my mother cry. I was eating apricot pie.

I remember when, in high school, if you wore green and yellow on Thursday it meant you were queer.

I remember an American history teacher who was always threatening to jump out the window if we didn't quiet down. (Second floor.)

I remember Liberace.

I remember pony tails.

I remember driftwood lamps.

I remember potato salad.

I remember salt on watermelon.

I remember lightning.

I remember my father in a tutu. As a ballerina dancer in a variety show at church.

I remember getting erections in school and the bell rings and how handy zipper notebooks were.

I remember not looking at crippled people. I remember chalk.

I remember daydreams of dying and how unhappy everybody would be.

I remember the sound of the ice cream man coming.

I remember once losing my nickel in the grass before he made it to my house.

I remember that life was just as serious then as it is now.

And then, at the end, hard rock music comes on, they all dance in the same way the women did at the beginning of the piece— a wild, ecstatic, enraged, abandoned, insane messy hair dance at the end of which they simply stop and walk off without ceremony.

Scene 36. Mrs. Bridge

woman in red dress entering, dancing solo with floor lamp looking for a place to put it no dialogue here, just music? Benny Goodman or Guy Lombardo or Bing Crosby trying the lamp here, not liking it,

trying it there, not liking it, trying it somewhere else, finally placing the lamp and exiting