#Marginalisation discrimination and genocide

[bijoumikhawal]

People discussing Israel's racist policies and Israel's policy of fucking over non Rabbinic communities and fucking up the transmission of diaspora cultures (such as the teaching of languages) is not the time to go "we don't need gentiles in our intracommunity politics". Foundational to Israel is "maintaining a Jewish majority". These communities are attacked in lathe part because they are seen as not being as Jewish as White, Ashkie, Western European Jews (with respect to how Eastern European Jews are also often mistreated), or their Judaism is otherwise seen as deficient. The maintenance of this majority is also why Palestinians generally, cannot really get an Israeli citizenship, even if they wanted to, and sometimes even if they can prove they are of Jewish descent. "Who is a Jew and what is a Jewish culture" is a constructed boundary: for the past 70 odd years it has been a boundary used for violence. If you want anti-zionists to have politics informed by the needs of Jews, they must be party to these discussions.

[quindriepress]

TLDR; All of Quindrie Press' profits from our November PDF sales will be donated to queer and racial equality charities. Browse at www.quindriepress.com/pdfs 🐉

The world is scary and keeps getting scarier. It's easy to look at America and say it would never happen here, but far-right ideology has already taken root in the UK and we cannot allow it to continue. Please stand up for the friends and neighbours whose lives are at risk the longer we stand by and let hatred spread unchecked: queer people, disabled people, people of colour.

I'm doing what little I can to support my community and loved ones. Every month, Quindrie Press donates a portion of its PDF sales to charities or organisations dedicated to supporting marginalised communities in Scotland. This month, alongside November's charity (TIE Campaign, a charity sharing LGBTQ education with Scottish schools), all of Quindrie Press' profits from PDF sales will go towards Refuweegee (a Glasgow-based organisation supporting forcibly-displaced people) and the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (a charity working to eliminate racial discrimination and harrassment in Scotland).

If you don't want to pick up any of the Quindrie comics, consider donating an equivalent amount to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund to support the victims of a genocide that the UK is complicit in.

Look into who your local councillors are and write to them about the issues that matter to you. Support movements and campaigns that seek to make a difference. Put yourself in harm's way for the people whose very existence is under threat. Even if it's scary, we have to keep going.

Art from THE NIGHTINGALE & THE ROSE by @jmiltondraws.

[reasonsforhope]

Early mornings are chilly in Los Romero, a village high up in the mountains of western Guatemala. As in other predominantly Mam villages – Indigenous Maya people who have lived here since pre-Columbian times – households come quietly to life before dawn. Isabel Romero, a grandmother with long black hair, used to feel somewhat trapped in hers.

“I was afraid of speaking because I was cooped up at home. I didn’t go out,” she says, explaining that like many Mam women, her days were dedicated to the hard work of running a household with little money, and she rarely spoke with other women. “I worried a lot and had headaches.”

Residents of Los Romero live mainly from subsistence farming, growing maize, beans and squash, or grazing livestock. Almost 50% of the population is Indigenous in Guatemala, Central America’s biggest economy, but they do not share in its prosperity. Indigenous women in particular are discriminated against and dispossessed, with a life expectancy 13 years lower, and a maternal mortality rate two times higher, than the national average, according to the World Bank.

In Romero’s village and throughout the region, a community-based collective of women’s circles has been quietly improving Indigenous women’s lives, empowering them to find voices that have been suppressed through centuries of marginalisation.

It was a long process, but Romero’s headaches and fear are now a thing of the past. These days she gets out to workshops, meetings and women’s circles. She shares her knowledge of weaving traditional textiles on a backstrap loom and has a leadership role in the women’s group she co- founded: Buena Semilla (Good Seed).

The initiative emerged from Maya Mam women’s experiences, when French physician Anne Marie Chomat brought them together for interviews for her doctoral fieldwork in 2010- 2012. The simple act of gathering with others and sharing their experiences had a profound impact on the women, many of whom are still dealing with the traumatic legacy of Guatemala’s civil war.

During the 1960-1996 armed conflict between leftist guerrilla groups and the military, more than 200,000 people were killed, overwhelmingly Indigenous Maya civilians killed by the army. Another 45,000 were ‘disappeared’. A truth commission concluded that the state committed acts of genocide...

“There’s so much chronic stress and other issues that are not being addressed,” says Chomat, Buena Semilla’s international coordinator, who now lives in Canada. “So much healing happened in that space of women connecting with other women, getting out of their houses, realising: ‘I’m not alone’.”

Once Chomat’s fieldwork was finalised, several participants decided they wanted to continue meeting and with Chomat came up with the idea of women’s circles. With the help of a grant, the project got going in 2013 and now more than 300 women in two municipalities participate every week or two in circles, each comprising roughly 10 to 25 women.

Wearing traditional embroidered huipil blouses and hand-loomed skirts, the women gather, arriving on foot via the dirt roads that weave through the villages. They meet in a home or community building, or outside when they can for the connection with nature. The circle opens with a welcome and a prayer and then the group engages in breathing and movement exercises. Next up is discussion of the nahual, the day’s name and energy according to one of the interlocking ancient Mayan calendars, traditionally used for ceremonial practices. “Here in Santiago Atitlán it is only maybe 20% of people who speak about [knowledge of nahuals], so we are reviving it,” says Quiejú.

Then it’s time for the sharing circle. “More than anything, it is speaking what they have in their hearts,” says Quiejú. But every time and each circle is different, even though the leaders all work from the same guide, she says.

Sometimes circles will have a guided meditation. Sometimes they’ll have a workshop to learn weaving, or another skill that can help them earn money. Sometimes they eat together. Sometimes they cry. Often they laugh. No matter what, they generally end with a group embrace...

Only 1% of Guatemala’s national health budget is designated for mental health, and nearly all of that goes to the country’s one psychiatric hospital. Most mental health professionals are concentrated in the capital, offering psychotherapy and prescribing medications. For those in rural areas, there is little discussion of mental health or access to services.

“There is nothing for the preventative side, to work with families, to work with communities,” says Garavito. However, he emphasised that the concept of buen vivir (good living) among many Indigenous peoples in Latin America, which includes the traditional festivities, ceremonies and community of everyday village life, inherently incorporates good mental health. “Mental health is a fundamentally social concept and that has been a historical and common practice among Indigenous peoples, without them calling it that.”

...Financial constraints also pose challenges. Since 2020, Buena Semilla’s budget has been funded through crowdfunding and small grants. Staff and leaders all work part-time and many volunteer unpaid, but most circles now meet bi-weekly due to a squeeze on funds...

[Note: If you'd like to help, you can find out more and support Buena Semilla here, at their website.]

Despite the challenges, interest keeps growing. Elsa Cortez joined a circle earlier this year, motivated by her sister’s positive experience with Buena Semilla. In her mid-20s, she lives with her parents and as well as helping to run the household, she weaves belts, drawing from a basket full of spools of brightly coloured thread. She did not go out much before.

“There was a mentality that women were only supposed to be in the home or should only do certain things. That’s how we were raised,” she says. “My family was like that too.”

Thanks to Buena Semilla, those dynamics have started to shift in some families, including her own, says Cortez. Now she is exploring the idea of starting a circle specifically for girls, to help build their self-worth and self-esteem.

“It used to be difficult for me to socialise or chat, but now I am starting to socialise more easily,” says Cortez. “In the group I feel like it is psychological therapy every time we meet.”

-via Positive.News, December 8, 2023

[odinsblog]

More than 15,000 people, of whom at least 6,000 were children. That’s how many people Israel has reportedly killed in the Gaza Strip in a matter of weeks – and those numbers are still rising. Israel has bombed basic societal infrastructure and civilian targets such as hospitals, schools, shelters and refugee camps. Israel has imposed a siege, preventing food, medicine, water and fuel from reaching the 2.3 million Palestinians trapped in the occupied Gaza Strip, leading Oxfam to accuse Israel of employing “starvation as a weapon of war”.

Dozens of United Nations experts have described the situation as “a genocide in the making”, hundreds of international scholars have warned of an unfolding genocide and prominent Israeli genocide expert Raz Segal has called it “a textbook case of genocide”. But most of the world, particularly the so-called global north, is looking the other way.

Despite these horrors, some have chosen to focus the public debate on attempts to delegitimise statements about Gaza made by young people in the climate justice movement. Contrary to what many have claimed, Fridays for Future has not “been radicalised” or “become political”. We have always been political, because we have always been a movement for justice. Standing in solidarity with Palestinians and all affected civilians has never been in question for us.

Advocating for climate justice fundamentally comes from a place of caring about people and their human rights. That means speaking up when people suffer, are forced to flee their homes or are killed – regardless of the cause. It is the same reason why we have always held strikes in solidarity with marginalised groups – including those in Sápmi, Kurdistan, Ukraine and many other places – and their struggles for justice against imperialism and oppression. Our solidarity with Palestine is no different, and we refuse to let the public focus shift away from the horrifying human suffering that Palestinians are currently facing.

Due to the amount of misdirected attention on us, as well as the number of misinterpretations of our position, we would like to once again clarify our stance. All Fridays for Future groups are autonomous, and this article represents the views of nobody but FFF Sweden.

The horrific murders of Israeli civilians by Hamas cannot in any way legitimise Israel’s ongoing war crimes. Genocide is not self-defence, nor is it in any way a proportionate response. It also cannot be ignored that this comes within the broader context of Palestinians having lived under suffocating oppression for decades, in what Amnesty International has defined as an apartheid regime. While all of this alone would be reason enough to comment on the situation, as a Swedish movement, we also have a responsibility to speak up due to Swedish military cooperation with Israeli arms companies, which makes Sweden complicit in Israel’s occupation and mass killing.

We are now seeing a sharp increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic statements, actions and hate crimes in Sweden and the world. The leader of the largest member of Sweden’s rightwing governing bloc is speaking of demolishing mosques, and the Israeli flag was burned in front of a synagogue in Malmö. This is unacceptable. We unreservedly condemn all forms of discrimination, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. Everyone speaking out on this crisis has a responsibility to distinguish between Hamas, Muslims and Palestinians; and between the state of Israel, Jewish people and Israelis.

We grieve the lives lost over the past several weeks and are appalled by the fact that those numbers have been allowed to continue to rise. The death rate in the Gaza Strip is at a historic high, with thousands of children killed in just a few weeks. This amount of suffering is incomprehensible and cannot be allowed to continue. When UN experts call upon the world to act to prevent a genocide, as fellow humans, we have a responsibility to speak out.

Demanding an end to this inexcusable violence is a question of basic humanity, and we call on everyone who can to do so. Silence is complicity. You cannot be neutral in an unfolding genocide.

— Greta Thunberg

[oldandcrusty]

poll time

Definition: A problematic fave is a character or person who’s done or said offensive (i.e. problematic) things. (Dictionary.com)

Now, of course all characters get hate. Even Dorian probably has his haters. But I'm explicitly limiting it to just two companions per game.

Also listing some of their most serious crimes with their names. Feel free to add more in the tags. Or start arguing. idgaf

[notasimblr]

there are so many fucking devastating things happening in the world rn and it looks like all efforts to ensure that good prevails over evil are failing. no one should have to live in fear, whether that be of genocide in a war-torn country or a corrupt government with a literal racist sexist criminal for a leader. the fact that hostility and discrimination is so prolific after how much we’ve learned from our past actions is genuinely sickening. friends in the US, please know that the outcome of the election has been a source of despair for myself and many others watching from countries with the apparent miracle of having politicians who aren’t trying to strip the marginalised population of their rights. i still can’t believe this is happening again. i have never been more aware of my privilege and personal safety. i am so, so sorry.

[shayberri789]

I don't say this to be antagonistic, but purely just to understand but

What is the end goal of freeing palistine? What will it look like?

The minimum should be removal of IDF forces from palestine, ceasing of all crimes againsr humanity and personhood, etc, obviously. Ideally reparations from countries involved to repair, rebuild, and treat the thousands of injured, maimed, ill and disabled people. That's stuff I expect

But people talk about how Israel shouldn't exist, and I understand it was founded on genocide and stolen land (I suppose). But what about the people living there? Both innocents and not. Will they be forced to leave? Many people who moved TO israel did so because it was supposed to be the safest for them. Losing that refuge would be bad for a lot of jewish people, wouldn't it?

What does the end goal for peace look like? What is everyone fighting for? Is there a future that doesn't put several marginalised and historically (and currently) discriminated against and abused groups in greater distress? Can people learn to live together in peace?

Again, I don't mean to be confrontational or disrespectful. I'm not jewish, or Palestinian, and I don't know a lot about the hsitory of both peoples and their countries. All i know is that so many people are hurting and going through suffering almost unimaginable, if not for the sheer amount of documentation about it. And I want to to stop. I want everyone to be able to look forward to the sunrise and sunset without fear or pain. But I don't know how to help if I don't know where the end goal is, and I haven't seen anyone else talk about it

[romanationmovement]

Roma and Jews share unconditional connections rooted in their historical experiences of marginalization, persecution, and cultural resilience.

Here are some key reasons for their interconnected histories and solidarities:

1. Shared History of Persecution:

Both Roma and Jews have faced centuries of discrimination, oppression, and violence across Europe. During the Holocaust, the Nazis targeted both groups for extermination, resulting in the genocide of six million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Roma.

2. Cultural Marginalisation:

Both communities have historically been marginalised and excluded from mainstream society. They have been stereotyped, ostracized, and forced into segregated living conditions, which has fostered a sense of shared struggle.

3. Survival and Resilience:

Despite the systemic efforts to annihilate their identities, both Roma and Jews have demonstrated remarkable resilience. Their cultural traditions, languages, and identities have survived through continuous adaptation and strong community bonds.

4. Diaspora and Statelessness:

Both groups have experienced statelessness and widespread diasporas. Jews were historically without a homeland until the establishment of Israel, while the Roma have never had a recognized national homeland, contributing to their continuous movement and dispersion across borders.

5. Solidarity Movements:

In contemporary times, both communities have often stood in solidarity with one another in the fight against racism, xenophobia, and human rights violations. Shared experiences have led to mutual support in various social justice movements.

6. Cultural Interactions:

Throughout history, Roma and Jews have interacted and influenced each other's cultures in areas where their communities coexisted, particularly in Eastern Europe. This has included exchanges in music, art, and traditions.

7. Identity and Memory:

Both groups place a strong emphasis on preserving their historical memories and cultural identities. They work to educate others about their histories, particularly the atrocities they faced, to ensure such events are neither forgotten nor repeated.

The unconditional connections between Roma and Jews stem from a profound understanding of each other's historical suffering and an enduring commitment to cultural preservation and mutual support in the face of ongoing challenges.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Indigenous health in Brazil: from vulnerable to protagonists

Indigenous peoples usually have worse social and health conditions than their non-Indigenous counterparts. The worse health of Indigenous populations stems from the processes of colonisation that caused ruptures in traditional ways of life, loss of territories, environmental degradation, racial discrimination, and socioeconomic and political marginalisation. Migration and urbanisation result in housing instability and affect the wellbeing and health of Indigenous populations through weakening social cohesion and networks, loss of identity, and spiritual and emotional bonds.

In Brazil, slavery, genocide, and violence perpetrated during colonial history, as well as successive epidemics, contributed to a substantial reduction in the population of the country's Indigenous peoples. As of July 1, 2010, Indigenous peoples comprised only 0·4% of the national population, although they exhibit significant diversity, with 305 ethnicities with 274 languages. Indigenous lands officially recognised by the Brazilian Government comprise approximately 13% of the national territory. In 1990, the Brazilian Unified Health System implemented an Indigenous Health Care Subsystem to provide culturally sensitive access to health care, mainly to those living in villages.

Despite this initiative, substantial health inequities are still enhanced by the intersection with the effects of environmental degradation and territorial conflicts that have worsened in the past 6 years. The health profile among Indigenous peoples in Brazil reflects a polarised health transition with the coexistence of high mortality; increased rates of malnutrition, pneumonia, and hospitalisations for preventable causes; and a gradual increase in chronic non-communicable diseases.

Continue reading.

[heretic-child]

“The term Kizilbash, literally redhead in Turkish, emerged in the second half of the fifteenth century, first used to define the groups that members wore twelve sliced red hats and later identified as the Batıniyya communities who aligned with Safavids. Similarly, it has been suggested that Kizilbashis consist of Turkmen and Kurdish tribes that became adherents of the Safavid Sufi Order of Persia. Kizilbashism originated long before Islam around Anatolia and Mesopotamia, however, after the spread of Islam in the region, a tension began and changed its destiny. From the Seljuk Empire to the Ottoman Empire -and later the Turkish Republic-, Alevis have been seen as 'others' and marginalised as 'infidels' and 'heretics'. Throughout history, subjecting to prejudice and discrimination, Alevis suffered acute social rejection and physical violence, sometimes culminating in quasi-genocidal massacres. It is this historical context prevented Alevis from expressing their identity and practise their faith openly; therefore, Alevism secretly practised and belief and teachings transmitted only through traditional oral elements.”

[lesetoilesfous]

Anders and ‘‘Murder’’ in Dragon Age

Ok so I’ve seen this a few times recently and want to break down my thoughts on it.

Anders is a murderer - this is true.*

(*Though there are some really great meta posts proving how by Dragon Age Canon he killed less than 100 people in the Chantry boom. I’m on mobile but if anyone wants to add that please do.)

Hawke is a murderer. Varric is a murderer. Isabela is a murderer. Fenris is a murderer. Aveline is a murderer. Merrill is a murderer. Sebastian is a murderer.

Guys you, you have a kill count. Hawke and their whole gang are a group of dangerous vigilantes who kill people according to their own personal moral judgements.

The difference between Anders’ Chantry Boom and the Kirkwall Crew’s merry decade of mass murder is that a) the Chantry Boom was the beginning of a Civil War b) That Civil War started, in part, to prevent a genocide

(Canonically, Meredith had called for the Rite of Annulment with no good reason. Canonically, she is going to enact it knowing the Circle mages are innocent. Canonically, the Gallows had over 800 innocent people inside including children and the elderly. Not to be utilitarian, but yes, I would kill 100 political and religious leaders in a corrupt, dictatorial, violent theocracy in order to save nearly a thousand innocent people.)

The third difference between Anders and Hawke and the gang’s multiple-hundreds head count is that you, the player, don’t do it. So you don’t excuse him the way you excuse yourself - despite the fact that Anders’ last ditch effort to save over 800 people after ten years of peaceful protest is infinitely more justifiable than Hawke’s slaughter of hundreds of refugees and gangs in a city that is canonically riddled with poverty, prejudice, unemployment and homelessness.

When I say Anders Was Right, I don’t mean, “he’s my favourite character so I’m turning a blind eye to his actions”. I mean, seriously, I think that what he did was the morally correct choice and a necessary one.

I don’t mean that Anders isn’t an asshole. He’s a huge asshole!!! He shouldn’t have lied to Hawke. He shouldn’t have manipulated them. He’s selfish, and ignorant, and often blind to the way his words and actions hurt other people. He can become self absorbed and arrogant. He demands disclosure of trauma, he’s short tempered, he leaps to conclusions, he hurts people’s feelings, he IS blinded to the causes and needs of other communities because of his single minded focus on mages and his own suffering. And a lot of his dialogue towards Fenris and Merrill (however cartoonishly exaggerated, but more on that anon) is unforgivably rude AT BEST.

I think Anders actions at the Chantry were correct and morally justifiable. Does that mean I think he’s perfect? Of course not! His flaws are what make him interesting!!!!

But even if all of this weren’t true - EVEN IF the rest of the gang didn’t canonically have a kill count as high as, or higher than, Anders’ first action in a civil war to prevent a genocide - EVEN in that case.

I also cannot condone Bioware’s conscious, deliberate, centrist, toxic, ableist caricature of a mentally ill, queer character and his fight for civil rights. I…don’t actually think we need a story right now that explains to us how, fundamentally, queer bipolar men are ‘unhinged’, violent and evil, simply for the fact of their resistance against state and religious abuse. Even when they’ve been tortured. Even when children are going to die.

We have this appalling, condescending, imperialistic idea that people - in reality and in fiction, are only allowed to violently resist violent oppression by the state and church if we find them palatable. If they step a toe outside of our personal comfort zones, (themselves constructed by the same imperialistic propaganda we’ve consumed since childhood) we immediately rescind that right - damning an individual for resisting, even if their life is on the line. Even if it concerns the death of children. This is not a moral choice. It’s a social bias.

As for Fenris and Merrill - I struggle to believe that a man who spent ten years providing free medical treatment to refugees, criminals and the homeless never met an elf or learned anything about discrimination against elves. I also struggle to understand how - despite the fact that the Circles are the only place in southern Thedas where elves are not segregated from humans, and where they can reach an equivalent position of authority to humans, somehow Circle mages are most often the mouthpieces for anti elven discrimination.

And by this of course I mean I don’t struggle at all. It’s very helpful for bombastic, oppressive governments like the USA, and all who support them, to set up a false dichotomy between marginalised communities. To peddle the lie that marginalised communities’ biggest threats are one another and not, say, the church or state actively enforcing violence against them. (The Chantry teaches that mages corrupted heaven. It also teaches that elves are inherently more sinful than humans because they are ‘born further from the Maker’s light’).

Once again, apart from the catastrophic failure in internal logic that results in these forced, cartoonish caricatures of Anders as a character - I also disagree with this because I fundamentally do not believe that we need a story about queer people and mentally ill people fighting people of colour but never daring to raise a finger to the people lobotomising them, r*ping them, killing them and driving them to s*icide. I don’t like that story because I don’t think it’s a good one - I don’t think it’s narratively interesting. I do think it’s morally corrupt. I think it’s toxic propaganda. I think it drives us apart.

There’s this incredibly condescending attitude among DA fans towards people who like Anders. The patronising, lazy assumption is that we saw a pretty blonde white man and didn’t engage with the narrative at all. This is rarely the case. We are also adults. We also played the game. We just came to a different conclusion.

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

I couldn't help but take a peek at twitter to see what the discourse was. Needless to say, I don't feel better for it...

The Internet can be a wonderful thing when it comes to the exchange of ideas and being able to engage with people and experiences we otherwise might never encounter. It can also be a shitshow, particularly when we're inclined to believe we all share the *exact* same frames of reference, and are determined to express our views in pithy soundbites and put downs.

So far as I read through the tweets (which wasn't much since it was quite maddening), it seemed to be Americans defining Irish Travellers in terms of their whiteness, disregarding (or oblivious to) the long history of the persecution of the various traveller communities throughout Europe (including genocide). Thing is, this would make total sense in terms of the *American* experience. Of course, part of the issue is that America isn't the world.

Whiteness, Blackness and the (fallacious) hierarchy of races was, however, invented *by Europeans* in order to justify colonisation, imperialism, genocide and the enslavement of Black people. Xenophobia has always existed, but this new paradigm shifted things, so that in the context of the Americas, disparate European communities could, eventually, be brought together under the umbrella of 'whiteness'. The same is also true of Australia and New Zealand. We're talking about countries that very literally had policies explicitly encouraging migration from right across Europe in order to counter the perceived 'threat' of being 'outnumbered' by Black, indigenous and Asian people.

Within Europe, the exact same racist hierachy still holds, but with more 'bigot nuances' regarding the different white communities. So, Traveller communities absolutely experience discrimination based on their ethnicity within Europe (in a way that they might not in the Americas). I find it hard to imagine anyone in Europe saying otherwise, unless they were being deliberately disingenuous.

There's a whole lot of subtlety to this that most people won't have the time, experience or inclination to deal with eg: as a Black person, I've definitely experienced racism at an interpersonal level from Travellers utilising their 'whiteness'. On the other hand, as a settled person, I can often (though not always...) benefit from the institutions that are structurally discriminatory towards Travellers

Anyway, bottom line is that if you want to blame anyone for this, blame all the crazed eugenicist imperialist maniacs who invented an evil social construct simply to flatter their own egos and justify an otherwise unjustifiable expansionist project. Race is a complete fiction that has profound, real world consequences

I really appreciate your persepective on this, and the time you’ve put into it.

I would just also add that Travellers are still at risk of forced assimilation, in a way that I don’t think applies to any other culture in the UK. There are (lots?) of politicians who would really like Traveller culture to cease to exist, and few I believe are absolutely working towards it (Douglass Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservatives) for example.

I’m willing to be corrected on this, but I don’t think other minority cultures in the UK are under threat in quite the same way? I know there is a lot of pressure on immigrants to assimilate, though. And it’s not that long ago that traveller children were actively removed from their parents and placed in the care system, but equally I’m sure this happened to children from other minority groups, and I’m just not aware of it.

I also think that Travellers face systemic barriers in a way that other groups don’t, in that the assumption in e.g. higher education, is pretty much that Travellers won’t be present in the room. During my PGCE, I had a friend who was an English Traveller, and she found it really hard to listen to discussions of GRT children that assumed no GRT people were present. And she often had the difficult decision of “outing” herself in front of people who were clearly racist, or staying silent and denying her own identity.

I also think the OP of the original tweet lives in Ireland, and my understanding is that discrimination against travellers is still fairly active in Ireland- that it wouldn’t be unusual to see shops or pubs, for example, which explicitly bar travellers, in a way that wouldn’t be allowed with other groups.

I absolutely agree that Travellers can benefit from being “white passing” and do sometimes leverage that in racist ways, but I think it’s really important to acknowledge that Travellers are also marginalised in ways which I don’t think apply to other groups (but I am more than happy to be corrected on this).

I wonder if it would help people from the US to consider it as travellers being essentially a displaced indigenous people?

[thurisazsalail]

I’m tired of ‘leftist’ anti-intellectualism and America-centric xenophobia posing as liberalism.

Protip: If you are anti-academia on subjects of culture not being taught by someone genetically from that culture, even if they know nothing about the culture they are talking about and have never participated in it and were never raised with it... over someone who actually does have a background in knowledge from people of that culture who lived in it and were raised in it... you might actually be the imperialist you are talking about fighting against. You might actually be silencing the people you think you are elevating through deplatforming actual sources from the cultural background talked about, artificially holding up someone with the right genes but no heritage or ties. You might want appearance over substance to be a “good person.” Rethink your views on academia. Think critically. What sources is a person using? Does a person talk about Africa like it's a country and not a continent (ew), or does the person have a list of resources about specific cultures as spoken about by the people from those cultures? Do they make effort in finding anyone from that culture to present or speak in class, if possible? Do they show videos of those people, which are not denigrating to them? Did the person work hard to find resources for you in a language you understand, or did they work to translate for you? Or are their resources some old white dude from 200 years ago, like using the Budge translations for (ancient) Egyptian? Did they quote Fiona Graham or Liza Dalby on geisha? Because of those people is a damn liar who took a fucktonne of money and prestige from an ailing geisha house and ran, and one actually trained as an anthropologist who spent time in Pontocho, where they knew exactly what she was there for and they suggested she debuted as a geisha to better understand them. Does the person gloss over issues like war or genocide? Or do they say, "Yeah, we should probably talk about that. In fact, you can use some example from recent history to understand the attitudes a bit better. Here they are, and here are some differences. Here are some further reading (and if available, video) sources, including from the groups that got really fucked over." If you SAY you are into historybounding (taking historical elements in your wardrobe and making it ‘new’ fashion) and you want to make the frilly French dresses and the London fog coats, but don't ever want to talk about how people eventually used the Versailles floors as a latrine because of the decadence and wanton wealth they collapsed into... and how the common people suffered because of it... Or how England discriminated against it's own people heavily, relegating Jewish English people to certain neighbourhoods or refused jobs to them, or treated the Moorish-descent like shit, or actively would beat the Irish in public and stole their land... you might not be into history or culture. You might just like looking at the pretty things and copying them. You know. Probably culturally appropriating (if not borderline doing so). Not just "history bounding." People in a marginalised group often have to learn things about our own groups’ history, or else we might see "Stonewall" and believe that a white guy threw the first brick, or that "queer" is a slur. Our own people, gasp, might have to learn from... academia. And strangely, I know, it's so weird, but some of the people who teach... use primary sources (that’s sources from the time/place/people the source talks about, like Gay Manifesto written by gay man Carl Wittman)... or are closeted about being experts on the subjects... because they are talking about their own groups and STILL face discrimination and might lose those precious jobs if they are out... and they're just not identifiable by your *outsider* standards. And sorry, but if you don't know your own history, yes, you are an outsider in that sense. Yeah, I can trace some of my family lineage to Turtle Tribe Seneca. But I am an outsider because the only reservation I've ever been on is the one to Olive Garden. I might have to *gasp* turn to actual knowledgeable people to learn something about that. I can't just dress up in whatever or do whatever and say, "No, it's okay! My great-grandmother is Seneca!" and then claim not knowing better because my heritage was stolen by federal American laws. That's not how that works. There is some tentative evidence that some of my family was Jewish before hiding it and coming to America in the late 1930s. But I still have to go through an official conversion process. I still have to learn Jewish history and Jewish culture, and about Jewish diaspora issues. That’s how it works. If you are Japanese in Japan, same thing applies to certain things. Like if you are performing tea ceremony with your school, you can’t just wander in to most of them with whatever pretty kimono you want. There are rules for that. It is a language, not just a dress. You will be sent home. If you don’t want to adhere to those rules, you will not be accepted. That’s how it works. It sucks, totally. But welcome to real life. You might have to actually work at things... Including managing your feelings and not making other people responsible for them. You might have to take responsibility AND bury your ego long enough to learn from educated people. One tip is... Question sources! That was my biggest gripe ten years ago! Plenty of books about Japanese culture, and all of them with lots of white people (white according to American-centric ideas about whiteness) writing the narrative! I had to work to find books about Japanese social ideas written by Japanese authors. You might have to work, too, and not blame other people for not just *handing you shit.* But in the end, accept that other people might know more than you and that is isn't about being Uppity by nature. It's also about "I have all this, you want some?"

If you don't want to learn, then you have to leave the classroom. You can't be a child, throwing a temper tantrum. You're a grown-up. But don't just assume by someone's face that you magically already know how things will be. Ask for a list, a syllabus, a source, a curriculum vitae. That should give you some insight on what to expect. Ask for clarification. Oh, this class is teaching Arthur Conan Doyle? WHAT are they teaching about him, specifically? Erasure isn’t the answer, here. That legacy still exists.

Stick to a scope: you can't fit six books of info in one hour. You need to stay focused. That's part of learning. No "whaddabouts?" Yes, write them down and message them in! But they might not be for this specific post, lecture, or class. The class might need a thing right then, like when my Humanities prof decided that Britain just "had a skirmish" with Benin. No, they committed genocide because Benin refused to become a colony of England, and you need to know that RIGHT NOW while the class is happening, before the moment is gone or internalized. But if you have a side comment about what happened to diaspora in WW2 once they moved to Hawaii and Brazil, the focus of the class might be on experiences *in Japan* and not on diaspora. Email it. It might become another class. There isn't time for that right now. That doesn't mean the prof hates diaspora Japanese. It doesn't mean diaspora don't matter. It just means that the class is limited in focus and time, and right now, the focus isn't on diaspora. Don't make a big dramatic deal about it. Instead, idk, maybe write a well-sourced paper on diaspora experiences while fleeing hostile Showa-era takeover and release it publicly. You can just... do that. I've done that with transcripts for movies that don't have them, for essays on various topics. You can even get paid for that content! No one had to "approve" me. I put it on fucking Tumblr so everyone could have it. Open-source means something. jfc people. Stop whining. Start having open conversations instead of shutting anything new or different down. Stop the anti-intellectualism disguised as liberalism. Stop the xenophobia and nativism disguised as cultural protection. It's great when a culture decides for itself that most people (from that culture) don't want foreign interaction or interference! Leave them the fuck alone! It isn’t hard! Some cultures are closed. Some are semi-closed, like there’s certain things you can learn about or participate in but others are only for people from that background. But don't get mad when a totally different culture doesn't care or uses it for leverage. You don’t get to dismiss a different culture or denigrate them under the guise of “protecting” other POC by erasing them. And if your excuse is (Culture/group) is imperialistic/all people of ____ descent/race are _____ DUDE FIRST OF ALL WTF and second of all, let me tell you something about American history. French history. English history. There are some nuanced conversations we COULD have here, like adults. Or you could just be honest and say, “This isn’t a conversation I’d like to have right now.” That’s totally fine. Sometimes you just don’t have the spoons or time. I often don’t, being disabled. Or you could shut down like a child and say that this is fine but then mute all posts until you get your way, and anyone who posts an actual source is wrong or bad because intellectuals and experts are suspicious. Your choice. Real life is complicated. Figure it out instead of trying to reduce hard things to a box to fit in easily. Expand your world past your little tiny experiences in your own country and background. Stop assuming every fucking thing in the world works like it does in America. Stop approving/disapproving of any information that doesn’t match up with your American morality or experiences- there are *other people* that deal with things other ways than we do. Stop wholesale condemning anyone better informed than you just because of your ego. Start using some of those critical thinking skills you are supposed to have. If you don’t know how, type “critical thinking development” into youtube for tutorials. -------- Edit: hahaha I KNEW that Tumblr deleted something when it highlighted it. I just couldn’t figure out what at the time. The difference between Graham and Dalby: one worked in Pontocho as a geisha for research, and they knew that ahead of time; Graham lied her ass off to geisha and then tried to open her own house after taking only a few lessons to get famous and make a lot of money. She’s a fucking embarrassment and worse. --------------- Update 11/3 Turns out that dig I made about French costuming (a perennial fave in historybounding and historical sewing groups) and imperialism wasn’t all that far off... here’s a whole ass thread about how many fucking African presidents and leaders France has specifically killed, and how much France has done to just Africa relatively recently. That’s JUST to Africa. I bet some of my Mi’kMaq and Algonquin-descent friends would have some things to say about heritage erasure regarding the French.  https://thurisazsalail.tumblr.com/post/633807847387512832

[girlbossgaslightguillermo]

Why is nobody talking about how a lot of AsAms and overseas are conservatives?! Dk why y'all surprised! Falun Gong's newspaper loves trump, Sery Kim is a Republican candidate, Hong Kong protests and Phillipines are Trump-supporting nations always carrying trump banners and signs in their streets, and what about Andy NgO?? Come on binh, it's so easy to tell from their Image Searches at this point!

Look, I’m well aware of how shitty AsAms can be. I can only talk about my own community however. The Indian upper caste community is honestly worse than white Americans. Our culture is deeply casteist and it’s disgusting. Hindutva in India is on the rise, and it’s absolutely terrifying. I’m deeply anti-Hinduism as someone who is an upper caste Hindu because I am anti caste. Hence, Hindu Indian communities can be highly conservative. NRIs (non residential Indians) are just as bad, even the ones who are liberal when it comes to Amrican politics, because they come home to India and then oppress Dalits and Bahujans (oppressed castes). You do realise that these countries have minorities who are victims of our conservative leaders and oppressive communities right?

Sikhs? They’re like that too. Sikh people are doubly marginalised. They faced a genocide in 1984 which was horrifying and many go abroad because they face so much oppression in India itself. You can also read up on the anti Sikh propaganda spread recently with the farmers protests in India. The past few months have been very difficult for the Sikh community. You sound very uninformed on the people affected by this particular event. Please educate yourself.

Thirdly, so what if Sikhs were mostly conservative? So what if AsAms were mostly conservative? That doesn’t excuse white supremacy? White people in America will ALWAYS be worse. Y’all colonise our countries, ruining our economies and then discriminate against us in your own. Someone’s politics don’t change the fact that they are oppressed. This event has been deeply traumatic for the Punjabi/Sikh communities in America. One of the victims was a 66 year old woman who was getting her first pay check. She fucking died with it in her hand. Are you really that much of an asshole that you’re going to go tell her community and family “well :// maybe you shouldn’t have conservative communities ://“. Idk man, fuck you genuinely.

Is trauma porn what you need to understand that these victims can’t control what their leaders/communities are like? They’re just individuals. And they are reminiscent of family members for so many Sikhs in America. I put a bunch of articles on my post. Maybe you should have read them before making such an insensitive comment on anon.

Anyway, all this aside, anyone who wants to help marginalised South Asians in America, read up on the latest CSSA resolution about caste and feel free to sign this petition demanding caste discrimination protections.

[antifainternational]

October 27, Montréal - Grande manifestation contre le racisme

**Grande manifestation contre le racisme** /// ** Mass Demonstration Against Racism ** Le dimanche 27 octobre 2019 Départ à 14h au métro Parc Sunday, October 27, 2019 Departure at 2pm at Parc Metro (English below) Le 27 octobre prochain aura lieu la quatrième Grande manifestation contre le racisme à Montréal, pour dénoncer le racisme et la xénophobie qui oppressent quotidiennement des milliers de personnes que nous cotoyons à chaque jour. Une oppression qui s'exprime soit par des lois discriminatoires, des commentaires haineux, une répression policière constante, ou directement par des actes violents. Selon une recherche de la Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse, les crimes haineux (dont la majorité vise la couleur de peau, l’origine ethnique ou la religion des victimes) ont augmenté au Québec de 21% en 2016 et de 49% en 2017 et la tendance se maintient pour 2018. Quand on voit ces chiffres, il est difficile de fermer les yeux et de nier qu’il y a du racisme au Québec, malgré ce que plusieurs affirment. Les lois racistes récemment passées par le gouvernement de la CAQ, la Loi sur la laïcité (Loi 21) et la Loi sur l’immigration (PL 9), légitiment les sentiments xénophobes et racistes, et motivent les gens à passer à l’acte. De plus en plus de groupes d’extrême- droite occupent l’espace publicau Québec, encouragés par les radio-poubelles et des chroniqueurs de droite qui mettent les maux de la société sur le dos de l’immigration. Cela est inacceptable. Le racisme est un problème systémique auQuébec et au Canada depuis longtemps, des pensionnats autochtones, au génocide des femmes, filles et personnes bispirituelles autochtones disparues et assassinées, du profilage racial par le SPVM à la nouvelle prison pour migrantEs à Laval. C’est pourquoi nous vous invitons à marcher avec nous, pour dénoncer le racisme et la xénophobie ici au Québec et ailleurs au Canada et pour contribuer à y mettre fin. Cette année, nous marcherons dans Parc-Extension, un quartier habité majoritairement par des personnes racisées où de nombreuses et nombreux migrantEs s’installent en arrivant au Canada. Nous voulons aussi dénoncer les effets de la gentrification dans les quartiers à majorité migrante ou racisée comme Parc-Extension ou le Quartier chinois, d’où les gens sont chassés pour faire de la place aux plus riches de la société. Encore une fois les personnes racisées subissent le racisme, la discrimination et la marginalisation. https://www.manifcontreleracisme.org/ /// On October 27, the fourth Mass Demonstration Against Racism will take place in Montreal, to denounce the racism and xenophobia that oppress thousands of people every day. An oppression that is expressed either through discriminatory laws, hateful comments, constant police repression, or directly through violent acts. According to a study by the Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse, hate crimes (the majority of which target the colour of the victim’s skin, ethnic origin or religion) increased in Quebec by 21% in 2016 and 49% in 2017 and the trend continues for 2018. When we look at these figures, it is difficult to turn a blind eye and deny that there is racism in Québec, despite what many are saying. The racist laws recently passed by the CAQ government, the Secularism Act (Law 21) and the Immigration Act (Law/Bill 9), legitimize xenophobic and racist feelings and motivate people to act. More and more extreme right-wing groups are occupying the public space in Quebec, encouraged by garbage radios and right-wing columnists who are putting the ills of society on the back of immigration. This is unacceptable. Racism has been a systemic problem in Québec and Canada for a long time, from residential schools to the genocide of Missing and Murdered Women, Girls and 2-Spirit People, from racial profiling by the SPVM to the new prison for migrants in Laval. That is why we invite you to walk with us, to denounce racism and xenophobia here in Québec and elsewhere in Canada and to help put an end to it. This year, we will be walking through Parc-Extension, a neighborhood mostly inhabited by racialized people where many immigrants settle when they arrive in Canada. We also want to denounce the effects of gentrification in predominantly migrant or racialized neighbourhoods such as Parc-Extension or Chinatown, where people are driven away to make room for the wealthiest in society. Once again, racialized people suffer from racism, discrimination and marginalization. https://www.manifcontreleracisme.org/

[theplantqueer]

i understand why so many disabled people get caught up in it, rely on it, put so much energy into it, but legal means of attaining justice aren’t gonna be what gets us there in the end.

framing things as necessary “because it’s the law” relies on the legal system to reach the justice we need. the legal system that heavily overpolices marginalised peoples, that upholds racist & genocidal policies, that uses carceral forms of “justice” that only further enact harm in communities, that more often than not lets privileged (especially rich) people go free for blatantly violating laws in ways that cause harm. i don’t know about you, but i have no faith in that system.

legality =/= morality and to rely on it as if it does only makes us more vulnerable to harm brought on by that legal system. take the example of something being described as “compliant with disability discrimination laws in this country” - this tells us very little about who can get in a building/what protections this offers/etc, both because the laws fall way short of full protection, and because the number of legal loopholes and lack of enforcement means they don’t actually ensure we’re protected. not to mention the people the legal system already deems unworthy of protection - non-citizens, racialised folks, incarcerated populations...

“don’t touch people’s wheelchairs because it’s legally classified as assault & against the law” is all well and good in the moment, but actually don’t touch people’s wheelchair because it’s harmful to the person and there are ethical reasons that that’s not okay. laws can and do change for the worse, and if our encouragements for ableds to treat us equitably rely on that, then we’ll wind up with no leg at all to stand on (so to speak lol) when those foundations are ripped from under us.

i know ableds don’t tend to listen to us unless they can profit or unless there are consequences, but I guess my point is that the current framing of what the consequences might be to individual and systemic ableism leaves us susceptible to being easily undermined and our foundations removed, making us more vulnerable in the long run.

i’m also not necessarily saying don’t fight the legal battles - so many of us wouldn’t survive without many of them - and i don’t have a blueprint for what exactly needs to happen overall, but building networks of care (as described in Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s book Care Work, and Mia Mingus’s work around Pod Mapping) feels like a good focus personally. Keeping each other surviving and even thriving is a crucial part of this work.

basically, the law won’t save us so we have to save & uplift each other