#OP I hope you don't read this whole post as me defending people ignoring this conflict. Even if you block‚ Please read the whole damn thin

[xxxpu55yslay3rxxx]

Gonna kick at a hornet's nest here

I think these posts are counter-productive. You wont convince people by shouting at them. It just feels performative, and dare I say it virtue signalling. at best you are just shouting at people to change their mind, at worst you are just wasting your time.

It's funny people having this mindset of glaring at people not posting about the situation when some of these same people didn't give a shit back then in the 2000's or early 2010's. It feels surreal, because back then, the only 'hip and trendy' middle east topics to care about in the 00's and 10's were the arab spring, isis, gaddafi and Syria. Ask any of these people back then about Palestine and they didn't care and at worst, passively supported Israel because it was considered the default. I'm glad that more people are supporting palestine this time because it used to be rare outside of muslim, arab, or revolutionary circles but damn, there seems to be a lot of ineffectual shouting at people who "don't care".

You have to learn that in conflicts and criseses like these, there are gonna be people who simply don't care or show they're support in non-visible ways. There some people who aren't very emotional or straight up cold but will oppose Israel on principle without using a moralizing expression. There's some people who don't care either way but think what israel is doing is cruel. You have to learn that these people will be there in real life and social media; shouting at them wont do shit. Your main job is to convince the people who are already there in support and share sources and info; that's way more productive.

I will say one thing though, I'm so glad that people are sharing info and debunking israel shit, misinfo and vile propaganda. That shit would be unthinkable a few years back, because debunking smear shit on Palestinians wasn't a priority due to them being Arabs and brown; in other words "not very important or nice people".

Also it's so funny this post is focused on white people trying to not post about this. I've met global south people, hell even people from Syria, Egypt, Lebanon (regions directly affected by the conflict) not care about the issue. I didn't shout at these people nor did I even plan to. At least they accepted what Israel was doing was cruel so there was that. So, it's no just white people who might not care and shouting at people who say nothing is counter-productive

it is so disgusting watching other white people reassure each other about taking breaks from social media and "prioritizing your mental health" when literally the one thing Palestinians are asking for more than anything is that people do not look away from what is happening to them

[dairy-farmer]

anti-semitic themes up ahead.

i hope this reaches well, the court of owls is tied with anti-semitic things. i'm not really the best with explaining but reading a post from someone might help and spread awareness.

https://www.tumblr.com/kalelraejepsen/665890471924678656/i-just-finished-reading-scott-snyders-court-of?source=share

i hope this helps :)

unfortunately it looks like the post may have been deleted, this ask is from july 15th so it's been a few months and looks like i wasn't able to view it in time before op took it down/it was taken down.

unfortunately the whole court of owls being antisemitic doesn't surprise me. as much as i may enjoy one character from dc i definitely don't like the entire media distributor as a whole, like their handling of tim 'coming out' where he's apologizing to his girlfriend for...not knowing he was gay? and needing time to come to terms with it so he broke up with her was the most recent thing i could think of and that was more mildly irritating than in the territory of the very long list of the racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, islamophobic, and other things they've done or poorly portrayed.

i honestly mostly ignore the entire court of owls thing unless someone brings it up because it, to me, was just such a balloon-deflating plot. because whole thing was like someone did a middle school interpretation of 'eyes wide shut'

to me, one of the major reasons the whole court of owl thing wasn't good because it basically removed all the very real reasons gotham was struggling. gotham parallels many major cities that have problems with crime and violence and poverty and saying that it was some "rich shadow secret society" pulling the strings and not the: chronic poverty, absence of social safety nets, gang violence, widespread substance issues, corrupt law enforcement- it just really undercut a lot of the core values that batman fought for: dignity and justice for the people of gotham.

it's understandable as well though that once you start looking at the court of owls comics through a more critical lens that other things pop out as well like antisemitic themes that may present and whether conscious or not- if a writer or artist is bigoted that does have a tendency to leak into what they make which is why 'separation of the art and artist' is not always successful or possible.. and dc does not have a history where they can be given the benefit of the doubt. and i'm not one to defend corporations.

media literacy and developing a good base for interpretation is important for people to be able to pull meaningful lessons from what they consume as well as to recognize patterns and potential issues as well. as a result some antisemitic things aren't as in your face like a plainly derogatory rap lyric against jewish people by jay-z and for many nonjewish comic readers the antisemitism probably doesn't even occur to them. however being able to read an analysis post from the perspective of a jewish person who picks up on many uncomfortable scenarios that are all to reminiscent of antisemitism is a good way to help people remain aware and critical of the media they consume. it's a shame i wasn't able to read the post but even if i can't i can definitely see how the whole 'secret group of ultra wealthy people are behind literally poisoning the city' is uncomfortably similar to many of the deeply antisemitic ideas that have led to violent persecution of jewish communities for centuries.

[cpvnksabm]

Okay, this got way more notes than I expected it to, so I feel like I should say something.

Hi! I'm the anonymous friend of OP who made this!

Just want to clear up a few things:

I asked my friend to post this on my behalf because I was in a severe mental health episode where I wouldn't have been able to handle it if the fandom responded badly to this. Luckily, that ended up being overcautious on my part! No fandom is perfect obviously and I can't say everyone has responded perfectly to this post, but overall, the response has genuinely been so much better than I expected. Thank you guys.

This post is lacking in some detail & nuance, and that's not an accident. I actually originally wrote - I'm serious - a 1600 word essay about this topic, in which I was able to essentially cover every possible nuance of this issue & pre-emptively refute every possible counter-argument. I realised pretty quickly though that probably nobody was going to read all that, so I distilled the basic points into this, hoping it would be a more approachable format.

I've noticed some people in the notes saying this looks like a spotify wrapped presentation. Um, I've been using the youtube app for my music this whole time, I wouldn't know anything about that, it's genuinely a coincidence. I'm not offended or anything, you guys are 100% free to keep calling this a spotify wrapped, I'd just... like you to be mindful of derailing, because frankly, being reminded of spotify wrapped is the dumbest thing to derail a whole serious post for. It's one thing to listen to what I'm saying and then jokingly say "i like your spotify wrapped", it's another thing to only engage with this post to make the spotify wrapped comparison.

People downplaying or defending ocean's ableism (and bullying disabled fans in relation to that) is far from the only example of ableism in this fandom. I know that. I chose to zero in on this issue because (1) I felt it was, in itself, a big enough issue for a whole slideshow (or a 1600 word essay), (2) I've witnessed and experienced this a lot firsthand and therefore felt qualified to speak on it, and (3) I was considering making multiple slideshows similar to this, each focusing in on a different issue, because if I try to cover every issue at once then I won't have time to properly address any of them

I don't consider it inherently derailing that people are bringing up other unrelated examples of RTC ableism in the notes! These are all important discussions that need to happen. That being said - the main reason I made this post was to inspire some self-reflection from abled fans and, hopefully, better behaviour.

I worry that some people in the notes are ignoring criticisms of the fandom, which includes them, and instead focusing on criticising people actually involved in RTC, like the scriptwriters and producers. Those people need to be held accountable too, but let's just be mindful - are you seeing a post that was meant to prompt self-reflection on your own behaviour and instead just using it to dunk on the other abled people for doing ableist things you obviously had no part in, since you could never be ableist yourself?

Okay, above nitpicks aside - thank you to everyone who reblogged this post. Seriously. It gives me a lot of hope to think that I can speak up about the ableism I'm experiencing and have hundreds of people see it, agree with it, and even actively boost my voice. I'm often belittled when I speak up about ableism in fandom - that's kind of what the post was about - and so I had low expectations for how this would go over, but it warms my heart to see the notes on this post go up. I want everyone to know that it really does make a difference when you read and share posts like these, because it makes at least one disabled person feel more welcome in the fandom.

you guys totally free to reblog the base post instead of this addition. i've said a lot of words here and the whole point of the original post was to be simple and approachable - i think sometimes presenting the basic idea in a way people will understand is more important than getting across every nuance. I wouldn't mind this version getting spread around a bit among people who already saw the first part though.

This was made by a friend of mine, who would like to remain anonymous.

[theshoesofatiredman]

Thank you for your response. From a cursory examination of your blog, it looks like we have two things in common:

1. We are both native Illinoisans! I don't live there anymore either but it's where I was born and raised.

2. We both could have written your reblog of my post.

Obviously, you're the one who wrote it but what I mean is that at a different point in my life, I could have written it as well. I have felt the same about the Bible in the past and people "looking for signs" so I wanted to explain more of my perspective now.

Yeah he sent a "sign" in fact he sent a whole book. Your sin of ignoring it is not an argument against his existence.

Kristi is an atheist so I can understand how my beliefs were miscommunicated here. I do still believe God exists and wasn't trying to make an argument otherwise. I don't think that her video is making that argument either, but I do think it provides a good critique of the portrait that some Christians have of the God -> person relationship where God can / does send signs to people that they don't pick up on.

Additionally, I did not ignore the Bible. I started to feel God's absence in my life while I was:

Reading my Bible 4-5 times a week

Attending church gatherings 2-3 times a week

Praying daily

Prayer journaling at least three times a week

Listening almost exclusively to Christian music

All of these things stopped providing a connection to God for me. And even then, I still did them for a while! I was hoping that the connection I used to feel would return. I confessed my struggles to other Christians and told myself that it was a ~dry spell~, something they echoed. But that connection did not return. I had devoted my life to God and had felt his presence in my daily life. But I couldn't feel it anymore and I would read my Bible and no longer feel spoken to.

My question to you is if you no longer could feel a connection to the divine by reading the Bible, would you still read it?

God could send the "perfect sign" ... but he does not beg anyone to worship him

For me, it wouldn't really have been begging me to worship him if he has just reminded me he was still there, if he had granted me the comfort of his presence. I was still singing his praises even when I felt his absence. Isn't it natural to want someone you love close to you? If God truly is the relational God that Christians make him out to be, why would he let his beloved children, his devoted followers, feel like he wasn't with them, that he didn't have their backs? Why would he allow someone he loved and who loved him to feel abandoned by him?

He would not have had to beg for my worship. All he had to do was say "I am here" in whatever way I could receive it.

If you would only worship a God that meets your expectations, you're not worshipping God, you're worshipping yourself.

"He will never leave you nor forsake you" from Deuteronomy 31:6-8 is a promise that echoes throughout the Bible.

1st Chronicles 28:20

1st King's 8:57

Deut 4:31

Hebrews 13:5-6

Joshua 1:5, 9

Matthew 28:20

Psalm 55:22

Psalm 94:14

I could go on! The expectation of "not be abandoned" is not one I came up with. It is literally all throughout scripture. Another question for you: would you worship someone who abandoned you in your time of need?

Thank you again for your response. From the tone of your post, it sounds like my post caught you the wrong way. To clarify, the sentiment of frustration in my OP is only directed at the people who have, quite aggravatingly, put the burden of clear communication on ME rather than on GOD. All I should need to do is earnestly seek him, which I was doing. Saying that I could miss a sign from him and blaming me for it I think is logical nonsense given the Christian God's attributes. If you want to defend why that's not logical nonsense, go for it, but I think you may actually agree with me on that point since your post was more about God's signs being contained in the Bible than anything else.

I love Kristi Burke's videos and this one really resonated with me:

I got similar responses from Christians when I told them that I wasn't hearing from God anymore, that I felt like he had left me, that he was ignoring me. My feelings of abandonment were met with "you're just not looking in the right places" which is INSANE because if God is perfect, all powerful, and all knowing he can literally send you the perfect sign!!! Doing ANYTHING ELSE just doesn't make sense!!!