#I genuinely saw a white person claim the term is racist that person turned out to be an exclusionist

[entropy-sea-system]

I have gotten annoyed when someone brings up that they disagree with me on a discourse stance because me stating it is not an invitation to debate it, but also I did unfortunately do the same thing in the past especially if I felt convinced that people on the opposite side were wrong, I'm glad I started just blocking people more than debating though

[firelxdykatara]

Hello! I say this in the kindest way possible, but can you please provide evidence that theowelspeaks is a terf? I'm a black zutara shipper and for years have really felt shoved by the fandom and it hasn't been my safe space. But YOUR blog and you made me feel better. I'm not in your discord but you're being accused of racism. I don't follow the owlspeaks and wanna support you but if you're being accused of racism why are you calling someone a terf?

Can you please show where they are a terf? I'm only asking this because I really REALLY love you and I support you. And if they are a terf, you need to provide evidence. It is heavily suspicious when a person of color calls out a white woman on racism and you don't address the accusations but just call them a terf. I want to support you I really do because you made me feel comfortable in the fandom, but I need to see concrete evidence that they're a terf. Never mind, I saw the whole situation and honestly I'm disgusted I ever follow or looked up to you. You're literally no different from other racist white shippers. I think there went my love for zutara.

I'm going to take this at face value--not that, on any real level, I actually believe you were a follower of mine or did anything close to due diligence, because if you were or had then you would know that I never actually called that blogger a terf--and answer as respectfully as I can. Mostly because I want anyone who has genuine issues with anything I've said or done to know that despite whatever's going around about me right now, I am willing to listen to criticism if it comes from a place of good faith.

(You can think whatever you want about my insistence on 'good faith', but the fact is that I have weathered being slammed with accusations of pedophilia and other horrible things over differences in headcanon of shit like character ages or writing a fic set years post-canon because I felt like it, right down to the insistence that I'm a horrible racist because of my url, so no. I'm not going to listen to someone slinging slurs and buzzwords in my inbox just because they claim to be a poc. And before that sets anyone off, the slurs I'm talking about are aimed at my queerness. I do not consider being called racist or a white bitch or whatever slurs, because they aren't.)

First of all, once again, I never called that blogger a terf. You can easily read my post about them for yourself and see that--ctrl+F for the term 'terf', and you will not find it. Why? Because I called them out on peddling radfem rhetoric, (which they are) not for being a terf. All terfs are radfems--it's in the name--but not all radfems are terfs, although all radfem rhetoric is exceptionally harmful to queer people in general, and queer poc more than most, as is the nature of intersectionality.

Anti-kink rhetoric, and the insistence that some kink is inherently harmful and that no one could legitimately have these kinks or fetishes without being mentally ill or traumatized, is radfem rhetoric. That's where it comes from, that's where it leads to, and I'll be honest here, 'radfem' is not an identity label. It's an ideology. You do not get to parrot core tenets of that ideology and then claim to not be a radfem. That simply isn't how this works.

Furthermore, I have no idea who the person behind theowlspeaks blog is. I will take them at their word that they are not white, but that doesn't exactly narrow things down--and considering the fact that they chose to put me on blast for their small but dedicated ring of followers rather than actually coming to me personally first about any of this (their blog is very obviously a burner, and it wouldn't have been that difficult to approach me since I've only ever turned anon off once, for one night to give myself some breathing room, and otherwise my asks and DMs have always been open), I have no reason to actually care about what they're saying. But I point out the lack of knowledge of their identity because a) they didn't even reveal themselves as not white until.... yesterday? or something, when they were directly asked about it, and b) trying to frame this as 'white woman accused of racism calls person of color a terf' is... disingenuous at best given the fact that I have been calling them a radfem (which they are) since well before they posted that screenshot and my name wound up on their blog, so you got the order of events just a little backwards.

I blocked them initially because of the radfem rhetoric they were peddling about kink and fetishes, and I have the right to establish that boundary. This blog is for me, it is my space, and I do not have to expose myself to views I find gross or harmful just because they dress it up in faux-woke terminology and try to pretend they actually care.

If they cared about real people more than the fictional characters they are so adamantly 'protecting', then they wouldn't have brushed off the actual racism (from one of their followers--they're more than happy to blast me without any evidence, but that's hardly out of the ordinary for people like that) that was brought to their attention by refocusing the discussion on the fake people who literally can't be hurt by any of this because they don't exist. They wouldn't be ignoring the two woc who chose to contact them and tell them why they made the choices they did regarding both the discord and the smut week event, while being perfectly happy to platform anons who may or may not be who or what they say they are.

I, for one, am not going to apologize for caring more about real people than fictional characters. I'm not going to apologize for thinking it's absolutely ludicrous to pretend that fiction is somehow harmful just by existing, especially when it's appropriately tagged so that anyone who finds the content harmful can avoid it. I'm not going to back down from these opinions just because a handful of people have apparently decided I'm a horrible person because of it. And I'm certainly not going to apologize for thinking it's despicable that someone who was not involved in the conversation chose to leak out of context screenshots rather than privately contacting any of the people involved or even going to any of the mods, before going right to an anonymous blog. You may not care about me or my mental health, but I had panic attacks because of that leak--not because I said anything untoward in that screenshot, not because I've ever said anything in that discord that I wouldn't happily stand behind on my blog, but because I no longer felt safe. And I am not going to bare my trauma to a complete stranger to justify that lmfao.

So, like, think what you want to. I'm pretty sure that blogger is getting high off of the drama they are creating, none of which would actually have happened or been any real issue if more people were able to think, gee, maybe this work that is tagged with things I don't want to read about is not for me! Maybe I shouldn't read this piece, since it would probably upset me, and there's plenty others around for me to consume! I do not trust that blogger's intentions. I do not trust that they actually give a shit about any real people, or they wouldn't have posted an out of context screenshot of... literally nothing tbh, when they had no right to and are now protecting the identity of the person who leaked them instead of giving a shit about any of the real people in that space who no longer feel safe because we aren't sure who we can't trust.

But you've already made up your mind, and I can't change that. I genuinely hope you have a nice life, and find fandom spaces more suited to your tastes.

[qqueenofhades]

I know she wasnt one of your favorite characters and you dont watch the show anymore but what is your opinion on this whole mad queen Dany thing from a storytelling perspective? I personally hate it. But I am really attached to her character.

Short answer: It’s an idiotic giant pile of steaming bullshit.

Longer answer: It’s an IDIOTIC GIANT PILE OF STEAMING BULLSHIT BY A COUPLE OF MEDIOCRE-ASS FAKE-WOKE MISOGYNISTIC RACIST WHITE MALE HACKS WITH ABSOLUTELY NO STORY-TELLING OR COHERENT NARRATIVE ABILITY WHO THINK THEY ARE BEING ~LE RISQUE AND IN FACT ARE ACTUALLY JUST FUCKING DUMBER THAN A BOX OF TRUMPS.

(Deep breaths. Deeeeeeep breaths.)

Obviously, the question of whether Dany was going to be “mad queen Dany” was played with a little and could have been thoughtfully or subtly done (if these hacks possessed any writing ability, which as noted, they do not). But (again, bearing in mind that I don’t watch the show), from what I saw, she went evil in the span of like… an episode and a half? After Jorah, Missandei, and Rhaegal died, and she is justifiably upset and fucked into a corner by illogical plot decisions and contrived writing, apparently these misogynist fuckburglars were just like “oooohh that would Drive a Bitch Crazy!!! UNLEASH THE KRAKEN OF CRAZY!!!” Which perhaps isn’t unique to Dany, since they busily destroyed everyone’s character arcs and 7 seasons of development, but wow.

(Plus I have heard spoilers/hints about Jon having to kill her next episode, which is a whole new LEVEL of Yikes. We knew they were misogynistic asshats and the treatment of female characters had always been gross, BUT WOW.)

Dany’s arc, both in books and show, has had some other problems. I.e. the very cringy “white saviour” business and how POC were generally reduced to props for her story, whether “savage” or as “noble savages” or slaves who needed saving – as usual, the show made that much worse, because again, they cannot write and their entire ethos has been to hammer home Shock Value Grimdark as much as possible. Especially since they apparently claimed that Dany’s turn into madness was foreshadowed in season 1 when she had a “chilly” reaction to Viserys’ death. You know, the brother who mentally, physically, and sexually abused her and sold her into an arranged marriage for his political ambitions. According to these monumental crapsacks, that definitely means a woman is Crazy, if she doesn’t break down in tears over her abuser’s death. They have managed to send a fuckton of gross messages about women throughout the show in general, but that’s a new one.

Dany has, at this point, struggled for seven-plus seasons in show canon to make the right choices, to realize how hard it is to be a ruler, to deal with her Targaryen heritage, to help the entire North in the Long Night (honestly, why didn’t they end the show after that? It’s been nothing but downhill since). They already forced her to act irrational and to play up the Dany-Sansa feud, rather than acknowledging two complicated female characters and their different philosophies and allowing them to find actual common ground. So having us believe (again, when apparently the takeaway here is to kill everyone she cares about Because Bitches Be Cray and then have that drive her into murderous insanity) that within like…. 1.5 episodes, she’s supposed to be the End Level Boss is… wow. (After Cersei got killed by…. a falling ceiling, and don’t even get me started on Jaime and Brienne.)

As far as I can tell, these bogglingly incompetent hacks either got bored with the season/project (since they were offered the budget for 10 episodes but were like “nah we’re good with six!”) or indeed, this was the plan all along. I would not be surprised. They have been absolutely wedded to ham-handed Shock Value as their main plot tactic all along (it was one of the many reasons I quit several seasons ago) and mistake gruesome mistreatment of their female characters as Gritty Medieval Realism ™ or Strong Female Characterness ™. So we can’t say they weren’t on brand until the end. The assumption here is clearly that we were all chumps to “expect a happy ending from Game of Thrones!” …. which, I seriously doubt anyone was. In my version of the ending (TNR), it’s genuinely bittersweet. Not all the favorites make it, in the epilogue it’s clear that the post-war years have been difficult, and so forth. But it’s also not a pointless, nihilistic bloodbath of eight seasons of audience investment masquerading as Woke Postmodern Grimdark Super Smart Cutting Edge Ending.

(Also in my version, Dany melts down the Iron Throne to help fight the Others, survives the final battle, forgives the fake Aegon, becomes Queen of the South, eventually gets married and has a son, deals with the death of her dragons and the contestations to her rule long-term, and doesn’t go goddamn crazy.)

I don’t care how Realistically Grimdark your media is (and I have written many posts on how I would like this whole trend to die with fire and I blame GOT for making other franchises think this is the way to go). In no universe is your audience going to think that sending everything to hell within less than 2 episodes of the final season is a satisfying and meaningful ending, and if you think so, you really have no idea how fiction works and should not be writing it. A GOOD ending does not need to be a rainbow-fluffy-bunnies one. But in no realm, as evidenced by the uproar that my entire dash is in, does this one qualify. The paranoid terror of social media and spoilers is making them go so far as to gaslight actors, film false endings, and then break their hearts when they find that a decade of their hard work is going up in smoke like this.

As far as I know, Emilia Clarke had at least two serious health scares while working on GOT, and when she found out this ending, she left the house and just wandered aimlessly for three hours and tried to drink her sorrows away. How is that acceptable to do on a professional level, far less what you may think of Dany or her character or anything else? When again, the takeaway from this is that anyone who ever identified with Dany or her struggle to overcome abuse, enslavement, helplessness, etc, and admired anything about her, was a chump to do that. Sure. “Mad Queen Dany” was one narrative possibility. But if they were going to pull it off (which, again, I cannot emphasize enough how bad they are at writing) this needed to happen way before. Not out of the blue in the last two episodes of the show, because Women Are Emotional LOL, Must Be Stopped.

I am so sorry to everyone who loved her, or any character on this show, but I honestly, deeply am not surprised. As bad as it is, I have… known for a long time that they were capable of ruining this on a fundamental level, have never actually understood the characters or cared about narrative coherency, and their treatment of women is disgusting on just about every level. But even I am gobsmacked at how badly they managed to fuck it up. That should tell you something.

Me to D&D, every time they have or will open their mouths for the rest of time:

[filmista]

Get Out (2017)

“If I could, I would have voted for Obama for a third term.”

Meeting the parents of your significant other for the first time is often enough of a nerve wracking experience in itself.

You know your partner likes you, but you want his or her family to like you as well. So you want to cause a good impression obviously.

And now while some of us might have unconventional interests and hobbies, that we’re worried they might find well, unconventional and not in an endearing way.

But sometimes matters become even more complicated: your partner may not be from the same country and same culture as you. Or in the case of Chris and Rose, they may not have the same skin color.

Chris and Rose are the deeply in love new couple, all is going well so now it’s time to meet the parents, it’s a logical next step in any romantic relationship that is blossoming in a good direction.

But as I mentioned in the case of Chris and Rose matters are more complex, you see she is white, he is black.

And the situation that is making Chris so nervous, is not entirely that he’s going to be meeting her parents for the first time, but that they don’t know he is black.

Chris and Rose are packing together, Rose asks Chris “babe have you got your toothbrush?” A normal question, on Chris’s part, eventually followed by do they already know I’m black?

And apparently, they don’t, because Rose has neglected to mention it because it’s not something she’s nervous about it.

She quickly reassures him her dear parents are not at all racist, no certainly not, since they would have voted for Obama a third time if they could, certainly that says it all…

No, the Armitages are absolutely not racist, absolutely not, you’re crazy…

They love other cultures, can't you just tell from the souvenirs that they’ve got all over their, what shall I call it “modern imperialist/plantation chic mansion?”

The fact that they’ve got black servants makes them uncomfortable as well, and well Obama is thrown into the conversation a few times again as well, so you see absolutely nothing wrong here.

The Armitages mean well, but still, this somewhat excessively friendly welcome makes Chris uncomfortable, and while you’re watching it you feel some sort of displaced embarrassment, these people are simply trying much too hard to be nice!

The Armitages are trying so hard to be lovely people, likable people and they’re trying so hard to treat Chris as one of their own, and are trying so hard to impress and to create the image that they’re not racist, that one thing in their approach is clearly failing:

They are in this approach already treating Chris as someone who is different, someone who requires special treatment.

You see I believe if you truly were not racist, you would treat the person in question truly like you would anyone else, without even having to give it any moment’s thought.

But it’s not this somewhat excessive friendliness, that seems well placed enough. No, it’s something more sinister entirely, it’s the black servants that seem to do their work with an unnatural cheer.

And then there’s, of course, the fact that the basement can’t be opened because of fungus. Basements that can’t be opened and entered are of course a horror staple, and the viewer immediately feels an unease. And from there on it turns into a nightmare for Chris, but I won’t give that away, you have to see the nightmare for yourself.

The first thing that’s unsettling is their house really, the fact that it looks like a modern kind of plantation and that they’ve got black servants, it reminds of what? Slavery you say, well you would be correct.

My first impression of the house was the only thing that’s missing here is cotton plants and that they’d serve sweet tea, which they later on do, they’re all happily sitting on a great porch, delicately sipping sweet tea, an unsettling image in itself…

But the Armitages still claim they’re not racist and that they love black people and all that, even that they hate racism, there’s an interesting allegory to Nazism in there as well.

And well they’re not exactly lying, the Armitages do love black people, but not exactly in a way that’s healthy.

Like I said it’s initially not all that obvious that something is wrong, these people are being friendly so what is the matter then?

Well, their friendliness hides an inherent racism. Using so called positive discrimination, which is what the Armitages do, is entirely wrong.

Under all those nice words and good intentions is still the core of the most rampant and gross discrimination, which is refusing to understand once and for fucking all!!, that all of us are equal, no matter what our race, gender, birthplace, social rank or religion.

It shouldn’t be anything that we’ve literally had no say over that’s going to define us, it should be our words, our acts, our deeds, that’s going to make us into good persons, jerks, criminals or straight up into a monster.

And what’s perhaps most painful about Get Out, because the film truly is like an open wound sometimes, and sometimes it really does like to throw salt onto the wound to make it hurt more.

Is that all of us have perhaps been guilty of this, I am reviewing this as a white female, I’ve got absolutely no idea what it is like to be black, I have no idea what it is like to be differentiated, to be judged based on my skin colour and I entirely admit that. I will never know what’s it like to pass certain people and be afraid of them, just because of my skin color.

I’ve never considered myself to be racist and I would find myself entirely disgusting if someone did think I was.

And that’s where Get Out does something incredibly brave, it dares to directly confront its audience, in a way that will at times make you incredibly uncomfortable or that might even make you feel ashamed if you’re watching it as someone that’s not black.

Because it makes you realize that it’s giving a mere hint of an idea what it is like to be in their place, and it’s also quite casually saying: hey maybe you’ve been racist a few times without realizing it.

And now that’s something that quite frankly isn’t all that uplifting, maybe it’s happened when you met a black person and you kept ushering that they needn’t be worried about you because you are not racist.

There are two genres that work particularly well for criticizing society and it’s comedy and horror. In his debut director and scenario writer, Jordan Peele combines the two.

It’s not easy to notice, rampant racism that he criticizes rather it’s an inherent racism that he criticizes, a kind of unintentional racism that might be somewhat present in those of us that really don't consider ourselves racist and that would feel shame to be labeled with that term.

He shows us what it is like to be black in a predominantly white society: the result is a trip that’s astonishing, sharp, funny and especially confronting.

The Armitages are to make his point and explore the film’s many layers about racism (although I’d have to say it’s primarily about inherent racism), dream characters:

They are not hate mongering, bible crazed, pitchfork swinging hillbillies, nor are they stereotypical rednecks. No, they’re about as liberal as you could be, the kind of people that claim believe in openness and tolerance.

And that’s what makes it especially frightening when we discover that their front of tolerance and white smiles, hide cores that are rotten. They might be anyone, minus some scarier stuff that I’m not gonna give away.

Get Out is truly genuinely frightening, funny and at times even painful to watch, it’s as I’ve mentioned confronting, it might at times make you feel bad, but luckily it’s not gonna be an altogether unpleasant experience because you’re rewarded to great laughs as well.

The figuratively and literally speaking black and white of this script, could, of course, apply to any country, but in this case, it applies especially, to American society, American society post-Obama that is.

Maybe I as a European focused more on something less profound than harsh digs about racism and discrimination in American society, maybe I especially sought out to be entertained. And let me tell you that entertainment is what you get in its purest form.

There are truly brilliant dialogues! And the characters feel well developed and alive, and all the actors do a tremendous job! Every single one, Daniel Kaluuya is the embodiment of fear and paranoia.  

And especially Allison Williams from Girls had me entirely fooled. Her Rose has to be one of the scariest villains I’ve personally encountered in a film.

And it’s because I’m usually quite good at identifying the villain, but she had me completely fooled, I might have missed any indication that her intentions towards Chris were not good. I was utterly shocked when I learned her true nature.

I mean just look at her (I know, difficult to ignore that utterly cute dog) she looks completely harmless:

(Pardon my french but I’ve got to vent a bit: Rose you fucking fake bitch! I thought you were a good person. I was expecting you were going to walk away without blood on your hands… )

Catherine Keener and her cup of tea are one of the scariest things I’ve seen in a while! This is probably a good time to mention all the symbolism in the film:

As I’ve always quite liked to do after watching a film, I like to dig deep into the internet and see other’s people vision on it, and you know learn some stuff I didn’t know beforehand, get smarter.

And so I learned that the cup of tea, that Keener’s character a psychiatrist uses to hypnotize patients, represents something far more sinister, than just a means of therapy.

Back in the heydays of slavery in America, there was a technique with which to call a slave: it was ticking with a spoon again a cup of tea if the slave heard or saw this gesture, they were expected to go up to their master or mistress.

Get Out is simply chock full of these kinds of symbolism and allegories, about racism and about slavery, for instance at one point there is a bingo game that’s actually an auction, a slave auction to be more precise.

Get Out as well as being about internalized racism, is about “modern slavery” as well. The Armitages love black people you see, but not entirely in a way that’s encouraged and healthy.

They look up to certain qualities of black people and they have an unnatural interest in these qualities, you see they view black not entirely as human, but rather as animals, that you’d observe with a genuine, scientific interest at a zoo.

For them black people serve a purpose, they are something they exploit for their own benefit, so when they admire qualities that black people are said to have traditionally, it’s not so much as that they truly genuinely admire these qualities.

It’s more about wanting these qualities for themselves, anyone that has seen the film, will see what sinister thing I’m referring to here.

And to benefit and exploit, they create a front of impeccable manners and flashy smiles, and good, liberal, tolerant morals.

What’s even scarier, is that it’s never clear whether the Armitages actually see themselves as bad, no, no, they might be so brainwashed by their own bullshit  that they seem to actually believe they are doing a good thing as they put it “we treat them like family.”

Now, of course, it’s not entirely without its flaws, but ultimately they are entirely forgivable.

Peele knows how to mix his themes with the plot until the very last scene - when you watch the film several times you will discover more and more. Also, it's a creepy mirror for white and black, that sets to thinking about relevant issues still present in society.

But it's also because Get Out is just a well-made film, conceived by someone who seems to know the laws of cinema to perfection. Peele, comedian, and actor, cleverly uses music, gets the best of his actors, times the jokes and scares perfectly and makes the most effective use of the camera.

Even if you struggle a bit with how the plot progresses towards the very end - and after all that inventiveness it's a bit of a disappointment a tiny disappointment, however - it still keeps going strong because it’s been almost flawlessly worked out in all of its aspects.

Last thing I will say: Believe the hype for once! Watch it! When you can and want of course :) It will be like nothing you’ve seen before, even if it may use some familiar horror elements, it’s also entirely original and unique in how it ultimately works them out. 

“You know what I say? I say one down, a couple hundred thousand to go. I don't mean to get on my high horse, but I'm telling you I do not like the deer, I'm sick of it, they're taking over, they're like rats, they're destroying the ecosystem. I see a dead deer on the side of the road and I think 'That's a start'.”

[rabbiandrewrosenblatt]

From Debate to Dialogue

In 1992 I took Modern British Literature 3269 at Columbia University, taught by the celebrated professor, Palestinian nationalist, and author Edward Said. He used literary theory and criticism to argue that European colonialism was a system in which the indigenous people in colonized lands were portrayed in art, politics, and everyday discourse as racially inferior to the white Europeans who colonized them. A central thesis of this intellectual project was Orientalism (also the title of his book that popularized the notion) – which is the point that language has the power to normalize the racial distinctions and hierarchies that enabled European empires to colonize, oppress, and enslave the non-white inhabitants of the so-called Orient. A corollary to this was the claim that Zionism was an extension of European colonialism. He argued that the founders of the Zionist movement were white Europeans who followed the same strategy to displace Arabs that European colonizers had used to conquer and enslave non-white Indians, Asians, and Africans. 

By the time I was in Prof. Said’s class, his reputation was well established. He had become an influential person in politics, advocating for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He had been an independent member of the Palestinian National Council. He had once acted on behalf of the US government to convey a peace plan to Yasir Arafat. Many of the Jewish students in my class naturally anticipated that there would be some discussion of politics. There was none. 

However, according to my fellow students there was one episode of politics. It happened in a lecture that coincided with Yom Kippur, when none of the Jewish students were in attendance. The novel covered in that session was Youth by Joseph Conrad. Conrad’s work had been a central case study of Said’s doctoral thesis. Many of Conrad's works feature ships. In Youth, the ship is the Judea. However, in that particular class, Said referred to the ship as the Palestine. My classmates were confused; they would have had less context to question the nuance of this substitution than the Jewish students who observed Yom Kippur. The next class, we all anticipated further discussion about the novel, and his changing the name of the ship. 

There was none. 

If we apply Said’s method of critical analysis to the ‘text’ of his lecturing, then he was taking advantage of an opportunity to frame or re-frame the narrative of the defining conflict of his life – i.e., the birth of Israel at the expense of the birth of a Palestinian state. The classroom is often seen as a place where knowledge, truth, and history are defined for tomorrow’s leaders. If Said saw the birth of Israel as a racist, colonialist displacement of Arab Palestine, then re-naming Judea – the ancient designation for the Jewish state – would be a step toward reversing Orientalism. 

Three weeks ago, I wrote a Friday message that commented on a podcast featuring Seth Rogen. That week’s writing got more responses than any other Friday message. Some were supportive and some critical. Last week my letter included an apology to Mr. Rogen and his family for the personal tone of my criticism of the podcast. I said the following:

In a message two weeks ago, I aggressively argued against Seth Rogen’s remarks regarding the founding of the State of Israel. The wording of the message implied a judgment of how our community and his family educated him. That was wrong, and my words should never have even suggested that. I apologize for expressing my arguments in terms that impugned the Rogen family. I, too, have to learn from my mistakes and errors 

This week, I got a phone call from Mr. Rogen. I want to share what I learned from him and what I believe we agreed we learned from the reactions to the podcast.  

The first and most important lesson is that we can all be guilty of oversimplifying each other’s positions or oversimplifying the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Mr. Rogen told me that he felt that his comments had been taken out of context. I had focused on a sound bite that was intended for a podcast on comedy. To clarify his position on Israel he linked me to a long-format podcast with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. In this interview he said he realized, on reflection with his wife, “when having a conversation about something so sensitive...it is what we said and it is also what we did not say. When you're having even a humorous conversation about something so nuanced, leaving things out or omitting things can become just as bad as the things you do say.”  

I now see that I had responded to an oversimplification at the same level, with platitudes. After speaking with Mr. Rogen and learning more about his personal values, I think that his position on Israel reflects a certain ideal, not entirely different from the philosophy of the Kibbutz movement – in which his parents met – that sought to bring a strong sense of justice and equality to the world. The humanitarian ethos of Zionism is very different from Prof. Said’s view of Zionism as an inherently racist enterprise. 

From the Kibbutz movement’s perspective, the values of liberal democracy and fairness should be applied to the present situation. Israel’s treatment of Palestine and of Palestinians should reflect the humanitarian ideals that were at the core of the humanist labour movement. The argument Mr. Rogen advances sees the current policies and negotiation strategies as a betrayal of the founding principles of Israel. Many Israelis agree. I think there is much to value in such a perspective; dismissing the merits and values of such a perspective is not true to my own thinking, nor is it an effective way to get others to understand my opinion. 

There is irony in the fact that this all began with a comedy podcast and a simple line about how Mr. Rogen’s Israel education was too narrow, and then was carried on by responses, including my own, that were similarly narrow. I don’t think it is a stretch to say that organized Jewish communities present a curriculum designed exclusively to build Jewish identity and love of Israel. It speaks to the nervousness of the diaspora about the disaffection and disappearance of Jews. It speaks to the reality that there are so many narrowly-defined anti-Israel counter-narratives out there – like Prof. Said’s linguistic turn on Youth – that it is only natural to advance a counter-counter-narrative. It speaks to the very real security concerns that Jews have had in Israel from 1920 to the present. However, narrowly focusing on any single factor leaves little room, if any, for a more fulsome presentation of the Palestinian condition portrayed in the media, in the arts, and in the classroom. Too often, it leaves out a balanced view of how dehumanizing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be to ordinary people on both sides – especially to Palestinians. 

Mr. Rogen and I are probably more in agreement than he might think. In the weekly letter of 8 December 2017, I applied this principle [with Terry Neiman] to the Israel-Palestine situation as follows.

It is hard to imagine listening to a narrative from enemies who lie and mislabel us as an occupier, a Nazi, and a war criminal. It is hard to listen to people who cannot utter the word Israel without the modifier of Apartheid… However, in our experience, problems do not get solved without genuine appreciation of the story of the other side. Those who choose to remain callous to the opposite story in a conflict are doomed to a status quo of conflict. 

Palestinians call their story the Nakba - the Catastrophe. 

The Torah, at its core, values investigation that is broadly fact gathering to present the whole picture of any situation. The laws that emerge from this week’s Torah reading [Parshat Shoftim] concerning the procedures of the court reflect the need for both fact-finding and empathy. A panel of judges must include experts in the fields of practical knowledge. The law cannot exist outside of the factual knowledge of a conflict. Interestingly, the members of the court cannot be “exceedingly old.” Rashi understands this to mean that they must not be so detached from having raised their own children that they have ceased to have the patience and mercy that it takes to tolerate the indiscretions of youth. 

There is a law in the Code of Torah Courts that if a court gives a unanimous verdict of guilty, then they must declare the accused exempt from punishment. One interpretation, a close reading of Maimonides in Sanhedrin 9:1, is that if everyone is of one mind to convict, then it may be that the court was biased or predisposed to find guilt and therefore was guilty of either prejudice, group-think, or both. As such, even those who are the most loyal defenders of Israel should be open to widening their lens. 

I am ever mindful that my readers – many of whom I know personally – have a range of views and political leanings. My pulpit gives me the privilege to share my narrative with many, and affords me the advantage of controlling my email distribution list. In contrast to this, Edward Said had a captive, non-Jewish audience that lacked context for his interpretations, and lacked the power to challenge his academic pulpit. He was using his privilege to re-write someone else's narrative. Mr. Rogen and I, with very different audiences, share the quality of getting more diverse, unfiltered feedback than Said got in the classroom. This experience taught me that my words carried beyond my intended readership, and that those readers were sent emotionally and intellectually in a direction opposite to what I intended.

I believe that one’s ability to engage in meaningful reflections on Israel and its policy decisions and its treatment of the Palestinians suffers from being far from the realities on both sides of the conflict. We speak about Israel from the comfort and shelter of being an ocean and a continent away, and fail to appreciate what a luxury it is to opine on Israeli and Palestinian actions when we are not part of the facts on the ground.

On reflection, I see more clearly now how my conversations with political or intellectual critics and adversaries is different from my discussions with my co-author and contributing editor Terry Neiman. Over the years, Dr. Neiman and I have developed a process of  dialogue. We agree, disagree, re-construct, re-approach, and incorporate each other’s perspectives. In contrast to that, the adversarial debates I have with others are more like competitive wrestling matches in which one person will be pinned or submit. To the extent that all our debates seek to open the perspectives of all, it is a good thing. To the extent that they intend to suppress voices and perspectives, it is a very bad thing.   

I appreciate that Seth Rogen took the time to call me to sort this out. I don’t know if his conversations with me or with Haaretz changed his opinion or gave him opportunity to see things differently. I can say for myself it was an inspiration to read further, explore more, and to be disciplined enough not to fall further into the trap of electronically-mediated debate – the so-called echo chamber effect. The chiddush – the novel approach – here is that we stopped lobbing shots at each other in the media and started a dialogue. I look forward to less oversimplification, less winner-take-all debate, less competition for control of the narratives, and more dialogue.