#and then out of the fucking blue a post saying ''jews will make any excuse they can to torture something living''

[boccs]

It's so wild how sometimes I'll come across a person's blog, I'll be scrolling along laughing at some of the memes they've reblogged, and then I'll get blindsided by just outright pure antisemitism or racism. Then their very next reblog will be something quirky about being queer.

[pointlesstrashyexistence]

Any idea why my reblog wouldn't go through? Since I obliterated every single point you made, you ought to read it. The reply I posted tagged you instead.

No idea. As far as I know I haven’t blocked you and I don’t know what post you are talking about since I haven’t been tagged in anything.

Never mind. I realized that you were in fact were a racist and I blocked you’re other account so you got bitter and tried to argue using information that is innacurate. And if anybody would like to know the other account of this person, it is thoughtsandreplies.

So I’m going to go over each statement the person made with the exception of what originally began this, Immersion (Piss Jesus). Art is a very personal experience, but how you interpret art does not give you the right to use it as an excuse for racism.

So 1) No one is actually saying that Lincoln was a racist. They’re arguing whether or not the depiction of the Black man in the Emancipation Memorial, a real former slave named Archer Alexander is racist and if it should be taken down because of that. This specific instance is not about the white man involved, but the black man being represented and if his representation as someone physically and what could be taken as symbolically lower than a white man is degrading. This is a complex issues that even two of his descendants are have opposing opinions on. Muhammad Ali was a direct descendant of this man and his third cousin, Keith Winstaed, and his oldest daughter, actress Maryum Ali, have opposing opinions. Winstaed is in favor of keeping it because he is more focused on the historical context, that the sculpture of Alexander was meant to be seen as empowering because has broken his chains and beginning to rise. However, Ali is viewing with the eyes of someone living in the 21st century who expects better representation for minority communities that have historically been vilified in art, literature, television, and politics. She believes the statue is degrading and offensive because even if Alexander’s chains are broken, he is still below Lincoln, a white man, and is in a position that can be interpreted as him bowing to him. As I said before, art is personal and both people have valid interpretations of this piece. This is not the same as tearing down statues of actual racists. We put up statues of people to honor them, but we must be able to recognize that we can no longer honor people who were legitimately horrible. I don’t see any statues of Hitler in Germany so what’s your excuse for why you want to keep up sculptures of racists?

2) off the bat I could tell you were a racist who hasn’t bothered to examine their words and actions by referring to the Black Lives Matter Movement as a “historically illiterate mob”. Most of the people in the movement are black so I can assume you are perpetuating the stereotype that black people can’t read which is enforced by the fact that it was illegal for slaves to be literate and black and brown communities have historically and continue to receive less funding for their schools, which leads to lower quality books and teachers, which leads to students who have difficulty in their studies, which leads to students who have lower grades, which leads to black and brown communities being forced to accept work at lower paying jobs, which leads to black and brown parents that are not able to spend time with their children in order to make enough money for food, water, electricity, and housing, which leads to kids who don’t receive the attention they need, which leads to students who are being taught by these same lower standard teacher with old outdated books, which leads to students being frustrated over not being at the level of their studies that they should be but are unable to seek outside help because of a lack of tutors and familial help, which leads to students who “act out” because they were not able to develop the emotional tools necessary to monitor behavior and are then forced into prisons by teachers who have called the police on them, which leads to another lack of education because the U.S. prison system does not want to rehabilitate prisoners and help them become better people, it just wants to find a way to legally continue slavery.

3) It does not matter if someone had doubts about whether or not someone had doubts over their racial superiority. What matters is that they still willingly continued to be a part of that system that benefitted them because it was more convenient to not do anything. Also, nice job on conveniently leaving out the fact that Jefferson was known to have raped his slaves and produced multiple children with slaves, but still did not bothering freeing any of his slaves.

4) Don’t bother bringing up almost any of the other founding fathers also since they were also slave owners perpetuating the system because it helped them make money. And don’t try to excuse it by claiming that it was just accepted at the time. Abolitionism was a thing during that time. Even when Columbus began raping and pilaging, there were people who knew what he was doing was bad. There is writing about how people already knew Columbus was fucking insane and even Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain, you know, the ones who started the Spanish Inquisition, was so disgusted by rumors about Columbus that they had him investigated and took away his titles when they found out about what was happening. They’re not off the hook though because they were still, you know, the reason for why many Saphardic Jews were imprisoned, killed, and forced to run away.

5) No, I don’t use the word ��racist” too lightly, you’re standards for what count as racist just don’t include enough things that are racist.

6) Black people live in fear because they have historically and systemically have had legitimate reasons to, not because I’m calling out things that have been blatantly racist.

7) Yes there has been property damage. Yes there are people who are going to use these events as an excuse to do whatever they want. That will always be a part of protesting. But don’t act like cops aren’t doing this same thing, intentionally planting themselves in protests and then creating violence or causing property damage in order to give other cops a reason to attack protestors. If you know enough, you can spot them based on whose wearing shoes that can be run in or heavy combat boots, whose wearing nondescript clothes that you can see protective gear under, and who is wearing the “color of the day”, a tactic cops have used in order to disguise themselves among protestors but signal that they are cops to other cops by wearing matching accessories like armbands, headbands, or wristbands.

8) Funny how you don’t want to bring up the fact that these are populations with large black and brown communities that are usually overpoliced. Also, just because someone is a Democrat does not make them a liberal. The only reason I’m in preference of Democrats is because of the multiple marginalized communities that will hold them accountable for anything they do.

9) Not every single time a black person is killed is it because of racism. That “black-on-Black crime” people like to bring up? That’s not racism, that’s just the fact that people in close proximity to each other are more likely to kill each other and there are still heavily legally segregated parts of America due to wealth disparity. That example you brought up about a black cop killing a black man? That’s not racism. That a person knowing that they are untouchable because of the power that they have because the only good cops are cops that have quit. If you haven’t quit or been fired, you are likely a member of the blue wall of silence that refuses to condemn offices who intentionally act violently knowing that they will not be punished. Also, let’s not forget that people can also be prejudiced against people in their race or ethnicity because of the shade of their skin and the socio-economic class.

10) When have you seen any white man being bashed for having a black wife or being a “big brother” to black children? Often the only people who have problems with black women getting married to white men are black men who feel like they own black women and then claim they are “betraying their race” when they seek love from men in other races and ethnicities, but expect black women to stay silent as they chase after snow bunnies who fetishize mixed children. The only other case I could think of would be racists not wanting races to mix. And the “big brother” thing? The only reason I could think of would be complaints about wanting more black men to be “big brothers” because white men just cannot relate to the experiences of being a black child.

11) You conveniently left out that despite being one of the smallest racial communities in the U.S., black people are also the most policed, and will get arrested for things cops would let a white man go with like weed charges. Look no further than lovely white wonderbread comedien John Mulaney saying in his second comedy special “the comeback kid” “it’s (weed) always been legal silly goose”. This means that they have a disproportionate amount of black people in their records because if black people only make up 13% of people in the entire nation, they should only make up about 13% of all crime to, but they make up more because policemen have quotas to fill for how many people they arrest in order to receive more funding, and its easier with a racist system backing you up to arrest Black than white people.

12) Again, people in close proximity to each other are more likely to kill each other than people who do not know each other and people who live far from each other. Also, it’s the ultra extremists who really want to abolish the police. I still think we need a protective system, but we need it to work for the common people, not corporations and politicians. I think that every district should use the same system as wealthy white neighborhoods, where anyone who wants to be a policeman must be assigned a position in the neighborhood they are from because anything they do wrong will make them accountable to their neighbors, family, and friends. Also I believe that all cops should undergo mandatory psychological evaluations every 3-6 months, especially cops who have worked on extremely traumatic cases. I also believe that the U.S. should require at least 3 years of school for anyone wanting to become a cop because no one is actually able to learn the law, learn to enforce it through peaceful means unless in dire circumstances, and care for the wounded, mentally ill, physically disabled, or anyone mentally impaired by drugs and alcohol in 6 months.

13) Another example of how this person is racist because they are actually suggesting that we enforce racial discrimination and black poverty. Also, if you want to bring up gangs, the biggest gang in the U.S is police force using propaganda that promotes the idea of “belonging” and economic stability in order to entice people who do not feel like they belong wherever they are, and then giving them a gun and badge that basically means “kill whoever you want because we will cover it up for you”.

14) Unless a woman feels like she is able to provide a stable enough home environment for her and her child, NO ONE WILLINGLY CHOOSES TO BE A SINGLE MOTHER! Single motherhood is caused by multiple events. A woman was impregnated by someone who left her, a couple with a child divorced because of legitimate reasons because divorce is a long and financially exhausting process, a woman was raped and decided to keep the child, and woman was raped and forced to give birth because she lives in a state that limits women’s healthcare, which includes abortion.

15) Fatherless homes do not equate to a rise in criminal culture. If that were the case, all wlw couples and single mothers would raise criminals. Do you know what does equate to criminal culture though? Teaching people that they are superior to someone else because of their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or sexuality and then promoting violent behaviors in that child.

16) Black families were never more intact during slavery than after slavery. Slaveowners and slavetraders intentionally worked together to make money and create a lack of unity among slaves by selling individual families members to different regions. One of the first things that former slaves did after they were freed was go out and find their stolen family members.

17) I can’t say anything about economics since I don’t have much knowledge about the economic system before the New Deal. However I will say that this is the only valid point you have made. Politicians have historically tried to get as many black votes as possible when they realized what a reliable voting community they were and then never actually done much to help the black community. However this is a very general statement.

18) How is group called Black Lives Matter that is focused on gaining racial equality attempting to sow discord in a nation by basically say “can you stop targeting us just because you’re racist and don’t like the color of my skin”.

19) How is a group asking for racial equality a lie? Are you really going to deny racism when we have seen shootings, lynchings, and people getting run over by cars all within the last month and a half?

20) WTF IS A LIE ABOUT A CHANT THAT MEANS “I HAVE NO WEAPONS, DO NOT KILL ME”

[redvalravn]

Lisamouthfilter.exe has failed to install

Mom: isn’t it amazing your cousins both have brown eyes and their baby has blue eyes? Me: that’s called recessive genes Mom: you used to have blue eyes like your cousin Me: and then they turned green, and my hair turned darker and you were upset Mom: what can I say I like what I like. I have preferences that doesn’t make me prejudiced Me: you are prejudiced. You make racist comments. Mom: I am not racist. It’s not like I’m a member of the kkk or anything Me: you don’t have to be a member of the kkk to be racist. Mom: that’s not true, I think it’s someone’s actions that make them racist Me: that’s not what racism is Mom: look I just think that statistically minorities commit more crimes Me: that’s generalizing, that’s racism Alex: well like think of it this way, if me and a person from the Dominican Republic apply for the same stockroom job, the guy doesn’t speak much English, we have the same qualifications though, but I’d still get the job Mom: because he doesn’t speak English Alex: but it’s a stockroom job, English isn’t required. Mom: it’s a matter of being educated. Yeah minorities have a harder time but they can rise above their circumstances. I have a black kid on my bus who is very nice, very smart. Alex: but black people and other minorities have a history of generations of shit like redlining and being passed over for jobs for white people Mom: so they have obstacles but it’s totally possible to rise above that Me: do you drive mostly black kids or mostly white kids Mom: white kids Me: because you live in CT, a rich state and it’s so much harder for a minority to live here as opposed to white people Mom: look okay I just don’t think it’s a mindset that makes you racist. Listen we got a nice brand new bus, very nice bus. There’s another black kid on my bus that cut up the back of a seat, and when we asked him why he did it he was like I dno... Me: why are you holding the actions of one kid to his entire race? Have you seen white kids get in trouble? Mom: of course Me: then see you’re basing your opinions of an entire race around 2 individuals. That’s what racism is Mom: don’t you want to live in an Area with more educated people and people like yourself? Me: no I don’t give a crap if people of other races live around me. Alex: you say this, yet we live in Boston, which is still very white and segregated Me: true Mom: Boston is still segregated? Alex: yes it is. Very much so. Mom: but Boston is a liberal city Me: that doesn’t mean anything, you can be liberal and still be racist. Alex: gran torino was an excuse for Clint Eastwood to be an old racist grandpa. Mom: what? But that was such a good and heart-wrenching movie. Me: I’ve never seen Gran Torino Alex: Clint Eastwood spent most of the movie calling the Asian family next door various racial epithets. the plot of the movie is that this poor Asian kid gets forced by a gang to steal Clint’s car. Clint goes all ptsd on him pulling out his old rifle and chances him. Clint then grudgingly tales the kid under his wing while continuing to insult him at every turn. After the gang rapes the kids sister. Clint decides to get rid of them by ticking them into murdering him because the only reason police would put a gang away is they killed a white person. Mom: but that doesn’t make Clint Eastwood a racist. Hollywood tends to be full of liberal people Alex: Mel Gibson is part of Hollywood and he’s still an asshole Mom: oh well Mel Gibson is the worst don’t get me started on Mel Gibson Me: well yes see mel Gibson is an actor and he’s still an anti-Semite, because he made anti-Semitic remarks Mom: I dno. I don’t have all the answers. Speaking of which what do you guys think about trump naming jerusalem as the capital of Israel? Me: I think it’s a move to please his base that think that it will encourage the rapture and the onset of the apocalypse Mom: The UN is anti Israel and keeps attacking them. Israel is trying to the right thing but no matter what they do they are attacked for it. Alex: the Israelis are more trying to appear to do the right thing while doing nothing. I think the UN picks on them because they are a democracy and there for can be influenced unlike say Saudi Arabia Mom: look jews were killed during the holocaust Me: what does that have to do with anything? Alex: see this is what I hate about people arguing about Israel is that someone brings up the holocaust when it’s completely irrelevant to what’s happening now. Mom: Well the Israelis are not murdering families while they sleep and stabbing people. Alex: that’s a minority of Arabs that do such things and there are conservative israelis that have attacked Palestinian settlements. Also the Israelis have killed far more Arabs than the other way around. It’s like a child fighting an adult. Until Israel shows restraint this will continue. Me: I’ve been to Hebron, in the area where it’s mostly Arab and the area where it’s mostly Israeli. The Arab area is full of soldiers on duty with guns. Mom: aren’t there soldiers everywhere in Israel? Me: yes, because everyone is required to serve in the military, but I’m saying that in areas that have more Jewish people it doesn’t feel like a police state Mom: Well I just see all these videos that Palestinians put out that they teach their kids to hate Israel and their government pays stipends to the families of suicide bombers. Did you go to the golan heights? Me: yes Mom: did you know that the people on the other side used to shoot Israelis from across the border Me: yeah because they felt like their land was being stolen, which it was Mom: My cousin Avi who is in the Israeli defense force says they show restraint when they can and they even warn Arab people by dropping leaflets that they’re going to attack the area Me: yeah for all the good that does Alex: *laughs* but they still destroy the area. The problem I also have with that is that a lot of them dont have the means to get out. They also don’t say when they’re going to attack so people will try to get out at the wrong time and they end up being caught in the attack and they die anyway. Mom: Well it’s just that what your cousin said...btw I read that Palestinians use their children as human shields and then make videos that say they killed our children to foster hate. Me:...are you saying that they deliberately herd their children into the line of fire for the express purpose of being able to say look they killed our children? Mom: look I’m just saying that I believe what [some woman I don’t remember] says that there will be peace in the Middle East when Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel (She kept talking but at this point I got up to go to the bathroom and because I needed a minute) Mom: what did your tour guides have to say about this Me: I felt like we were being fed a lot of propaganda Mom: look any group of people will say what they need to say to survive, it’s only natural that they would put out propaganda. Me: of course they would only say good things because they want us to move there. Alex: yeah that’s the whole point to increase the Jewish population in the area by getting more Jews to move there Me: yeah it’s so they can increase the percentage of Jews and decrease the percentage of Arabs living there Mom: well the Arabs do a good job of killing themselves off don’t they? Alex: ...what the fuck?? Me: see THAT was a racist comment. Also you keep saying Palestinians plural, like it’s the entire group, when really it’s only a few Arabs that do this. Mom: well the Palestinians... Me: see you keep doing it. Mom: I mean the few Palestinians that stab people and suicide bomb Jewish areas Me: then say that. Say “the ones that do these things” because it’s more accurate Mom: okay fine Alex: also, there are a few Jewish extremists that attack Arabs Mom: no. There are Jewish people that stab Arabs? Alex: no, they shoot them. Mom: you’ve read this? Alex: yes, I’ve read this. Again, it is only a small portion of Jewish people that do it, just like it’s a small portion of Arabs that stab people and suicide bomb people Mom: okay fine, I get that they feel like second class citizens but I just see all these articles about the UN being unfair and your cousin Avi posts these articles on Facebook about Arabs stabbing families and how hamas pays stipends to the families of suicide bombers Me: that’s your problem, reading articles on Facebook. You’re supposed to google these things and fact check them *mimes typing* gee maybe the UN has reasons for condemning israel Alex: because Israel has done shitty things Mom: they’re trying to survive while all the countries around them think they don’t have a right to exist Alex: yes, the most extreme hardliners think they don’t have a right to exist. A lot of Arabs living there just don’t want to be treated like second class citizens and resent the fact that they don’t have a voice in the Israeli government that’s very conservative right now. I guarantee you that if Netanyahu were to stop acting like they’re in a constant state of war with these people then he would lose a lot of power. Mom: but a lot of Arabs kill each other like saddam Hussein, colonel gaddafi Alex: Hussein killed a select subgroup of Arabs yes. But you seem to be naming Arabs who the US has backed that killed other Arabs Mom: what? Alex: yeah, we’re the problem Mom: okay fine I’ll try to read more about this it’s just it takes so much time to look up all this stuff This is all paraphrasing and the order of which topics were talked about may be inaccurate because this happened last night and both our memories are fuzzy but the main ideas were definitely said.

[anarchetypalarchive]

we must be miles up

aka that ninja ship party (brian/danny) post-concert whippets fic for the wonderful @egocentrifuge‘s birthday rating: m for non-specific dick grabbing  content warning for recreational drug use (nitrous), unironic use of the word ‘tubular,’ and excessive pining on ao3 excerpt:

“Hi,” Danny says, like he doesn’t have his arms full of bright, neon-colored balloons. “How was your shower?”

“Did you rob a clown,” Brian says flatly.

“I have drugs!” Danny singsongs in reply, stepping into the room and letting the balloons tumble out of his arms and go rolling in random directions.

“Are those drugs LSD, and did you take them ten minutes ago?”

Danny laughs at him and scoops up one of the balloons, pops it into the air in Brian’s direction. “No— The concert, remember? You were asking about whippets. And here they are. I made whippets appear. I’m the goddamn whippet king.”

“Ah,” Brian says, letting the door swing shut and catching the balloon before it hits the floor. “I remember. And then I said, ‘after the concert, why don’t you go out in your boxers and buy drugs?’ That was my favorite part of the conversation.”

“These are indeed my drug-buying boxers,” Danny says, agreeably and without hesitation.

Look, Brian is—Brian is hip with the kids, okay?

Really. He spends most of his days playing video games and writing songs about dicks. He regularly performs for crowds of twenty-somethings. He has an instagram.

But sometimes—very occasionally, once in a blue moon—he has to outsource information about hip things to somebody more knowledgeable.

Unfortunately, that somebody is usually Danny.

Danny is, somehow, the youngest old person Brian knows—which is some hell of a feat, honestly, because he includes himself in that list of young-old people.

Meaning Danny regularly squeals with unbridled joy over Skittles, and Danny is incapable of encountering a chair or couch without sitting on it sideways or backwards or upside down, and one time Danny pushed aside a room of eight year olds to get a turn at hitting a Dora the Explorer piñata, and then again to grab several handfuls of cheap dollar store candy.

But Danny is...worldly, or whatever, and perhaps more intune with all things “cool,” not that Brian would admit it. Brian is cool. Brian is hip! He has a phD, okay, he knows things.

What he doesn’t know is why the hell a few handfuls of people in the crowd at their concert are holding inflated balloons.

They stand out like a sea of multicolored jellyfish, or like Bozo the Clown got drunk and wandered into a concert and forgot how to make balloon animals. Brian stares at them from backstage where he and Danny are waiting for the opening band to finish their set, and he wonders if this is the new version of holding up lighters or the lit screens of cell phones.

He says as much, wondering aloud, and glances over in time to see Danny blink at him in surprise before he breaks out into giggling, snorting laughter.

Brian tries to be insulted. Which is—not easy, to be honest, because mostly he’s just appreciating Danny’s face and the way he squeaks when he laughs too hard.

As it is, Danny doubles over and ends up with his ass on the stage floor, legs bent, head between his knees as he, in Brian’s frank opinion, overreacts completely to a totally reasonable question.

“You know, you’re really harshing my quest-for-knowledge mellow right now,” Brian says dryly.

Danny visibly struggles to quelch his giggles. “Sorry,” he says, not looking particularly sorry at all. “They’re, uh, balloons filled with noz, dude.”

Brian gives him a look he’s hoping isn’t as blank at it feels. “Okay.”

“Nitrous,” Danny clarifies, and then, “They’re whippets, man.”

Ah. That one hits. He wasn’t aware that shit was still popular since, hell, the early nineties. “They look like they got lost on the way to a bar mitzvah.”

“My bar mitzvah would’ve been a hell of a lot cooler if these guys showed up.” Danny pauses. “And creepier, seeing as though it was filled with a bunch of dorky twelve year-old Jews.”

“You do it before?” Brian asks, curious despite himself.

“It’s been a while. Used to at concerts and shit. It was…really fucking good, actually.” Danny’s eyes drift like he’s remembering something sublime. “Why,” he asks, reaching up and making grabby hands at the air until Brian rolls his eyes and takes his hands to haul him to his feet, “you interested?”

And that—that’s actually an interesting question. Brian’s instinct is to say no, just on the basis that huffing gas out of a gross balloon in a city he’s never been to before just feels like a less than exciting endeavor.

But the way Danny had looked in his reminiscence—that’s something to consider. And, anyway, Brian is hip, remember, he’s cool, he’s willing to entertain the idea of huffing gas out of a gross balloon in a city he’s never been to before.

“Sure,” he says, shrugging. It’s not like it’s going to happen any time soon; they’ve got a full schedule for a majority of the night. It’s not like they have time to go looking for a balloon dealer in the middle of a crowded concert.

Danny opens his mouth to respond, and then Brian registers the fading applause and the squeak of microphone feedback as their band is introduced. Danny lights up, bouncing on his feet a little. Brian smiles at the fact that Danny’s excitement over an imminent performance hasn’t lessened since their early days. If anything, it’s gotten even greater.

Then Danny’s throwing an arm around Brian’s shoulders, and they’re walking out on stage as they jostle each other in little hyping-up actions, and Brian’s half-blinded by the lights as applause fires up again, and he forgets about much of anything other than the crowd and the stage and Danny.

——

There’s an energy that remains long after the end of a successful show; it usually means Brian and Danny spend far too long meeting with fans, signing scraps of paper and fanart and random objects (a dildo, once, that was memorable) until their well-meaning manager ushers them back to their hotel. By then, they’re near-dead on their feet.

Danny’s got his arm around Brian’s shoulders again as they walk unsteadily down the hallway towards their hotel room. This time, he holds up his phone. Brian smiles tiredly until Danny explodes into an improvised thank you commentary to their fans with enough glee that he’s clearly amused at Brian’s confusion.

Brian gives Danny a small shove and steals his phone from him to add to the video, grinning as Danny swears and stumbles against the wall. They scuffle a little for the phone good-naturedly, shouting over each other at the camera (“Thank you all—” “Well, I thank you all more—” “I thank you all the most—” “Times infinity—”) until a disgruntled hotel guest throws open his door and snaps at them to shut the hell up, people are sleeping here.

The video ends with Danny giggling out an apology over his shoulder as they finally reach their room at the end of the hall.

Brian fumbles with the room key, having to slide it a few times with increasing impatience until the light turns green and he can push the door open.

And then Danny’s crashing into him from behind, shouldering past him into the room. “I call first shower!” he sings out, voice hoarse from the toils of the concert but no less delighted for it as he tosses his bag down haphazardly in the entryway, charges into the bathroom like a conquering general, and pulls the door shut behind him.

“If you think that’s going to stop me from coming in there with you,” Brian starts, struggling to keep the laughter from his voice in favor of a faux-menacing tone, and then he gives up and grins when he hears the unmistakable click of the lock of the bathroom door sliding into place. “A celebratory bro shower,” he calls out over the sound of the water turning on. “Like football players do after the big game? Probably? Dan?”

He’s mostly talking to himself at this point, moving further into the room to claim a bed. The only benefit to Dan commandeering the bathroom is that Brian can now be a supreme asshole and take the bed Dan’s going to want—the one closest to the door, farthest from the AC, because Danny always ends up freezing his skinny ass off in hotels.

That might have something to do with the fact that Brian turns the air down to ‘Hypothermia for Dan’ levels on the totally legitimate pretense of it being scientifically better for the health of specifically and only your balls if you sleep in the cold.

(“You can’t use your PhD in fucking theoretical physics as an excuse to pretend to be an expert in everything,” Danny complained once.

Brian had taken that as a personal challenge and then, well, here they were.)

So Brian takes the bed closest to the door, farthest from the AC, and tosses his duffel bag down before he collapses onto the plush sheets. He’s still buzzing with post-concert adrenaline, with the two encore performances that had left Danny with a hoarse voice but grinning wide, the both of them squinting against the stage lights out into the crowd as the final strains of “Wish You Were Here” drifted out and bled into applause that rumbles and hums in the center of his chest even now.

This is Brian’s life.

Yellow light from the parking lot filters in through the thin curtains, and maybe it’d feel tepid, lonely, if not for the muted white noise of the shower running and steam rolling under the crack of the bathroom door and Danny’s gentle humming, changing keys on a whim with little hoarse post-show voice cracks that shouldn’t be so endearing.

This is Brian’s life and it’s surreal, sometimes more so in the gentle aftermath of a concert than in the heat of one.

Not that the shows don’t have their moments. Danny gets so caught up in the energy sometimes that it’s like his emotions can’t stay within him. More often than not, that manifests as Danny sprinting across stage to wrap Brian in a bear hug after their final song and kissing him so hard on the cheek Brian thinks—hopes, sometimes—it’ll bruise.

But Brian remembers the first time, early this year, that Danny’s traditional end-of-show kiss landed directly on his mouth.

There’s a photo some fan took that’s made its rounds on social media—it’s the split second after Danny kisses him and pulls away: there’s the blur of Danny bouncing back to center stage, and there’s Brian, wide-eyed, hair mussed, mouth open slightly. During the show, he’d managed to compose himself pretty quickly, but Danny discovered the picture within a few days and was so delighted by it he still sends it to Brian sometimes.

And so now sometimes Danny half-tackles him at the end of shows and ambushes him with a kiss—a real one.

And it’s—it has to be an adrenaline thing, a celebratory thing, a raw energy reactionary thing, because Danny never makes a big deal out of it and it never lasts more than a fraction of a second and he never mentions it after.

And Brian doesn’t ask about it.

And it’s fine.

It’s just a thing they do.

Brian kicks off his shoes and lets them drop from the bed to the floor as he tugs his phone from his pocket, pulls up the Instagram app to watch the comments start pouring in on the video they just uploaded.

One day, maybe he’ll get used to their popularity and the virtually instant feedback it provides, the outpouring of support and love; for now he smiles at the generic i wish i could’ve been there! comments, the i was there and it was fucking incredible, the come to my city next!

He huffs out a laugh at someone’s i’m calling the police. danny’s making me confused about my sexuality and can’t really stop himself from typing out a quick Get in line in response.

A few minutes later, he rolls his eyes at someone’s reply of Danny and Brian sitting in a tree, F-U-C-K-I -N-G. Rolls his eyes harder when he sees the comment came from Ross.

He’s about to reply to that, really gearing up for a stupid, satisfying back-and-forth, when a rush of steam billows out from the bathroom as Danny pushes the door open. He emerges from the cloud of steam, skin wet and flushed from the heat of his shower.

Brian is, somewhere in the back of his mind, aware that he’s staring—and, fuck, he’s never going to learn any better than this, is he; he’s never going to end up anywhere but here, watching Danny like he’s on the outside looking in, like Danny’s not tangible for him, like the way he looks at theorems he can’t touch.

Danny catches Brian staring and grins, striking a dramatic pose that nearly dislodges his towel and almost gives Brian a fucking heart attack. “How do I look, stud?”

“Like a demented Towel Wizard,” Brian deadpans.

“You’re goddamn right I do,” Danny says proudly, pulling a shirt on over his head. He drops his towel to pull on a pair of boxers, and Brian—doesn’t pretend to leer, doesn’t make a joke, just glances away and doesn’t look back until Danny’s towel hits him in the back of the head.

Brian snorts and finally hauls himself out of bed, gently shouldering Dan out of the way and tossing the towel on top of Danny’s damp poof of hair as he goes to take his own shower. “If you used up all the hot water, the police will never find your body.”

“Uh. I gotta— I gotta go, you know what, we need ice, I’m gonna go get ice.” Danny’s laughing as he ducks out of reach of Brian’s annoyed, swatting hands and grabs the ice bucket before darting out of the room barefooted.

The only consolation for the lukewarm shower is that he’s almost positive Danny left without grabbing his copy of the room key, and Brian’s not going to be in a hurry to finish showering to let him back in when he has to do the Knock of Shame.

Surprisingly, Brian gets in and out of the shower with no sign of Danny returning, and it’s only when he emerges from the bathroom with his hair wet and plastered down to his head that he hears—well, not a knock. It sounds more like Dan is kicking the door.

“Property damage,” Brian calls out, and takes his sweet time letting him in, throwing on an undershirt and a pair of sweatpants and fuck you, Ninja Brian likes to go commando sometimes.

He’s not expecting to open the door and see Danny with his arms full of bright, neon-colored balloons.

“Hi,” Danny says, like he doesn’t have his arms full of bright, neon-colored balloons. “How was your shower?”

“Did you rob a clown,” Brian says flatly.

“I have drugs!” Danny singsongs in reply, stepping into the room and letting the balloons tumble out of his arms and go rolling in random directions.

“Are those drugs LSD, and did you take them ten minutes ago?”

Danny laughs at him and scoops up one of the balloons, pops it into the air in Brian’s direction. “No— The concert, remember? You were asking about whippets. And here they are. I made whippets appear. I’m the goddamn whippet king.”

“Ah,” Brian says, letting the door swing shut and catching the balloon before it hits the floor. “I remember. And then I said, ‘after the concert, why don’t you go out in your boxers and buy drugs?’ That was my favorite part of the conversation.”

“These are indeed my drug-buying boxers,” Danny says, agreeably and without hesitation.

And, alright, sure, Brian had asked about the balloons, had expressed interest in trying inhalants—he’d try anything with Dan, the definition of succumbing to peer pressure, the archetype of the teenager doing anything to get a smile from his crush, and it’s not like he’s a goddamn straightedge, hello.

He just imagined getting high with Dan for the first time to look like—fuck if he knows, just something different than a dark, strange hotel room in a dark, strange city, balloons floating in air-conditioning flurries over the carpet.

Danny ducks down and scoops up a bright green balloon, reaches out and bobs Brian gently on the head with it. “So. You ready for this, Daddy-Mack?” he asks, which—that’s not really fair, actually, because aside from the fact that daddy just came out of Danny's mouth, whatever the form, Brian’s still trying to psyche himself up.

You have to give a man the proper psyching up timeslot before encouraging him to inhale copious amounts of nitrous. That’s just polite.

What Brian intends to do is give a deadpanned intonation of “You better believe it, baby.”

He’s pretty sure what he actually ends up doing is giving Danny a deer-in-the-headlights look and blurting, “What.”

This is because Danny blinks at him in surprise, and his tone is concerned when he asks, “You’re not, like, nervous, are you?” which basically makes Brian want to go outside onto the balcony and find out if it’s possible to die from a fall from the fourth floor.

He struggles to save face, to smooth things over with sarcasm. “Nervous? Who’s nervous? Frankly, it sounds like you’re just accusing me of being nervous because you’re nervous. Nice try, Avidan. Of course I’m ready. I’m cool, okay, I’m hip, I do this shit all the time. Let’s go rail a couple lines of coke after this.”

“Brian—”

“But not off of my body.”

“Brian, hey—”

“I know you want to, but this chest is just too hairy and manly, okay, it’s for your own good. We’re just going to have to kick it old school and do it off a questionably-clean bathroom counter.”

“No, hey, c’mon,” Danny says soothingly. “It’s okay that you’re nervous. It’s like you’re actually being honest for once.”

And Danny says it to make him feel better, Brian knows, and he wants to feel better, but for some reason it’s frustrating.

He wants to say, That’s not me—the fear, I’m not that, I’m just standing here behind it wishing I could kiss you.

Instead, he says, “I resent the implication that I’m not always one hundred percent genuine with you at all times.”

Danny snorts. “Yeah, okay, Captain Deflection.”

“Hey, don’t get all psychoanalytical on me. Which one of us has the PhD here?”

“You can’t use that as an excuse to pretend to be an expert on—oh my god, never mind, forget it, can we just do drugs now.”

“Just a minute; I have to update our Twitter. ‘About to suck down mass quantities of nitrous and also dick.’”

“No— No, give me your phone, dude!”

The scuffle for Brian’s phone ends with a balloon clinging to Danny’s hair via static electricity, Brian half buried under pillows and bedding, and the Twitter update reading About to suck mass quantities of dick, so Brian counts it as a win overall.

“You suck,” Danny informs him, reaching up to grab the balloon and pull it from his hair.

“Mass quantities of dick,” Brian reads from his phone agreeably, nodding. “The internet doesn’t lie, Danny.”

“I hate you.”

“Duly noted. Are we going to do drugs now, or do you want to keep putting them in your hair?”

“Don’t say drugs in that stupid voice, holy shit, you make it sound like we’re doing high-quality crystal meth.”

“And yet we’re doing cheap-ass inhalants, which, frankly, I find insulting. I’m not a cheap date, Daniel.”

Danny looks at him fondly. And that—that’s been happening a lot, the ‘Danny responding to flirting with anything other than exasperation or awkwardness’ thing. Brian’s not sure how to handle it. It’s easy to flirt with Danny until Danny stops taking it as a joke.

“Aw,” Danny coos, jumping into bed with Brian and bopping him with the balloon. “I’m sorry. You’re right, baby. Lemme buy you something nice.”

“I want a statue of a dick in my own likeness created with pure crystal meth,” Brian says dully, batting at Danny’s hands before he can get hit on the nose with the balloon again. Jesus, maybe he is Captain Deflection.

“We could probably make a song based on that,” Danny says thoughtfully, his eyes doing that middle-distance thing they do when he’s thinking of possible song titles.

His fingers are working at the knot of the balloon in his hands, and Brian’s gaze is drawn to them the way it always is when Danny’s fiddling with something, unable to keep from watching the pads of his lithe fingers brush against the rubber, his blunt nails tugging at the knot.

God, he wants those fingers in his mouth.

“Ninja Brian’s Crystal Dick!” Danny bursts out suddenly, triumphantly, and Brian startles, torn from his reverie.

He manages to laugh, shaking his head. “I’ll add it to the list.” Along with ‘Ninja Brian Regularly Thinks About Sucking on Danny Sexbang’s Fingers and That’s Not Something He Should Be Thinking About A Coworker, Probably.’

Danny finally manages to work the knot free, and his thumb and forefinger pinch the opening of the balloon closed. “Alright, you watch me first.”

Brian looks at him dubiously. “Right,” he says, “otherwise I might get confused and try to stick the balloon up my ass.”

Danny laughs and bops him with the balloon again. “So stupid,” he mutters. “Just watch, okay?”

Brian puts his hands up in surrender and slides back on the bed until he’s sitting with his back against the headboard. “Teach me, oh great Whippets Guru. Should I take notes? Do you have a PowerPoint?”

Danny’s already bringing the balloon to his mouth, fitting his lips tight over the opening. He flips Brian off with his free hand and then appears to let out the air in his lungs through his nose before he inhales deeply from the balloon. He pauses, then breathes back out into the balloon before inhaling again. He does this a couple more times, each breath getting more shallow, and then he pulls away, pinching the opening closed with shaky fingers as he holds his breath.

His face is flushed, and his eyes flutter closed.

Brian realizes he’s sitting silently, still, attention rapt. He swallows. “Danny?”

A few long seconds pass before Dan lets out the breath in a shuddery exhale. His first breaths of real air come in short, shaky gasps, and when he opens his eyes, they’re glazed over slightly, almost unseeing.

He looks—he looks like he’s waking up from a wet dream, or being tenderly asphyxiated, or coming, and either way Brian’s holding his breath and aware that he’s half-hard in his sweatpants.

Going commando feels, abruptly, like it had been a bad idea.

“Fuck,” Danny says, voice thin and breathy. His gaze lands on Brian as it clears, and he smiles dreamily, contently, the way you’d smile at a lover.

Brian is going to die.

“You okay?” he croaks out.

“God, yeah, I’m... I forgot how good that is.” He twists around a little where he’s sat and then reaches down to snag another balloon off the floor. “Your turn,” he says cheerfully, holding the balloon out to Brian.

“I mean, I—could just watch you again. That was—informative,” Brian says, stilted.

Danny laughs. “C’mon, dude. Time for baby bird to take flight.”

“Why are your metaphors so weird.”

“Just take the stupid balloon,” Danny commands, brandishing it half an inch from Brian’s nose until Brian snorts and takes it.

“Peer pressure turned me into a drug addict,” he intones, grinning when Dan swats at him. He fumbles with the knot of the balloon for a minute until he finally manages to free it up, and some of the gas escapes for a fraction of a second before he manages to pinch the opening shut.

“Don’t overdo it,” Danny says seriously. “You’re gonna get lightheaded, but stop when you feel like you need to. There’s nobody to impress here.” He pauses, smiles impishly. “‘Specially since I’m never impressed by you.”

Brian cheerfully gives him the bird and only hesitates for a second before he bows his head to take the opening into his mouth. He keeps his lips tight, not letting any of the gas escape until he’s ready, and then he follows Danny’s example as well as he can remember.

He lets his breath out through his nose slowly, like he’s doing the opposite of pre-show breathing exercises, and then he inhales.

The gas comes in quicker than he expects, and it takes a moment to figure out the right amount of tension to keep so he’s not overwhelmed.

It’s a bit anti-climactic, not that he really knows exactly what to expect—just like taking in air that doesn’t manage to satisfy the beginnings of a burn in his lungs, the ache for oxygen.

He looks at Danny, who gestures encouragingly.

The burn increases when he breathes in again, and then it happens abruptly, where he suddenly wants to gasp for breath, his brain sending signals that something’s not right, that he’s breathing but it’s not giving him any air.

A fuzzy sort of hum seems to shoot up from his chest into his head, the breathlessness blossoming into an intense head rush, all the small sounds of the hotel room going loud and reverberating, like he’s standing too close to a concert speaker taller than he is.

It turns into something all-encompassing, something more like a rushing tremble that goes straight back into his chest, into his heart.

Brian pulls away from the balloon to gasp desperately and shuts his eyes. Warmth buzzes into his fingertips, and he’s vaguely aware of his hands twitching minutely, and fractal patterns spread outward in a variety of mixing, spilling colors behind his eyes.

It’s almost overwhelming.

He realizes, belatedly, that he’s shaking, that it’s hard to catch his breath, that he’s opening his eyes and seeing without seeing, that when he finally focuses in on Danny that Danny is watching him with faint concern and fondness and—

“Brian,” Danny says. “Hey, Bri, look at me, you’re fine.”

And Brian does look at him, and it’s practically second nature to match the rhythm of Danny’s carefully controlled breathing.

And then—then Brian’s not entirely sure he’s not dreaming, because Danny leans in and cups a hand around the back of Brian’s neck and draws him in to kiss him slowly and deeply.

(Later, Brian will realize that Danny is probably working to coax Brian to match his breathing, to get him to stop hyperventilating and to enjoy the high, but for now—)

As Brian gasps for breath against Danny’s mouth, he’s relieved, somehow, that Danny has kissed him for the first time (truly kissed him, teeth and tongue and no applauding crowd to distract him from it) just after they’ve both inhaled nitrous—it gives him the excuse to be breathless, to be wide-eyed and slack-mouthed and staring at Danny like he's born technicolor in a grayscale universe.

Brian doesn’t want it to end, but eventually Danny breaks away, leaving Brian’s lips buzzing, the rush gradually cooling down. “So?” he asks, smiling at him fondly from where they’re touching foreheads and breathing hard. “What’s your consensus, cool guy?”

“Tubular,” Brian breathes out, dazed and grasping for Danny with weak hands.

Danny blinks once and then bursts into soft laughter, nose scrunching, eyes creasing up. Brian can’t really force himself to be insulted, not when Danny looks as incredible and addicting as he does. “Yeah,” Danny giggles, taking Brian’s hands in his own, pads of his thumbs rubbing at the backs of Brian’s hands like a worry stone, like a security blanket. “Yeah, it is.”

Brian’s pretty sure he’s in love.

“You kissed me,��� he says stupidly.

Danny blinks at him. “Yeah,” he says, a small smile tugging at his mouth, like he’s amused. “Further bulletins as events warrant, Reporter Brian?”

Brian gestures vaguely in a way he hopes conveys what the fuck but probably just comes across like I have no fine motor control! “You kissed me,” is what his brain offers up, like a broken record.

Danny’s starting to look somewhat concerned. “Yeah,” he says again, slower. “I kissed you earlier tonight. And, like, last month.”

“Those don’t count,” Brian tells him, and he’s starting to get frustrated, because Danny knows this, of course he knows this, he has to know this.

Dan smiles again, but this time it’s confused. “What do you mean, those don’t count?”

“I mean—” Brian breaks off with an annoyed sound. “I mean they don’t count, Danny, what the hell— Those are just, they’re, you’re just...celebrating,” he says.

Danny’s frowning now. “Says who?”

“Says—” Brian breaks off again, brow knitting. He stares at Danny, trying to understand.It’s like a physics problem he’s stuck on—all the evidence is there, but he just can’t see the answer. “Says… I don’t know. You never make a big deal out of it. I just figured...”

“What was there to make a big deal out of?” Danny asks, looking bewildered. “I like you. I wanted to kiss you. You never make a big deal out of it, either. Figured you were cool with it.”

“I am cool with it,” Brian says hastily, mind working feverishly to catch up. “I am— I’m the coolest with it, I am ice cold with it, trust me, I have no complaints.” He pauses when he realizes Dan’s starting to laugh. “Alright, well, that’s not necessary, it was an easy mistake to make—”

“Shhh.”

Brian blinks. “Did you just shush me?” he demands, incredulous. “Did you just—”

“Shhh,” Danny hushes again, eyes still creased with amusement as he leans in.

He’s not expecting the warm press of Danny’s mouth against his own again.

A faint noise rises unbidden in him, and he hesitates, caught up in the fact that Danny is kissing him for the second time, hesitates because he’s not supposed to be so lucky, hesitates because he’s expecting to wake up.

He feels the wet heat of Danny’s tongue tease at his lower lip, and instinct kicks in: his mouth opens, and he tips his head to make the angle better, allow them both to press in closer. He’s breathless again soon in the best way, like he’s high again but better, because Danny’s nudging his legs apart and shifting into his lap and letting his hand slide from his jaw down to his neck, his collarbone, his chest.

He hears an embarrassing, protesting sound and staunchly refuses to believe it comes from his own mouth, except he’s definitely trying to pull Danny in again as he breaks away, and Danny’s definitely laughing at him again.

“I don’t want to take advantage of you,” Danny says solemnly.

Brian stares. “What.”

“You know,” Danny stage-whispers, wide-eyed. “In your state. You’ve been doing drugs, Brian.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Brian says, and their next kiss is punctuated with Dan’s laughter.

He’s content to do this for hours, making out with (mostly) innocent roaming hands like necking teenagers; he’s so overwhelmed by just this, by his luck, that he’s not expecting more.

He nearly chokes when Danny slides a hand under the waistband of his sweatpants.

“Why am I surprised you’re not wearing any underwear,” Danny hums in between open-mouthed kisses along Brian’s jawline.

“That’s purely coincidence. Also, not that I’m complaining, but why is your hand—on my dick,” he strangles out suddenly when Danny’s hand shifts.

Danny pulls away to look at him. “Well, Brian,” he says, “sometimes, when two assholes love each other very much—”

“Shut up.”

“I mean, do you want me to draw you a diagram, or.”

“Shut up, I meant— I didn’t know you wanted more than…” He gestures.

Danny looks fondly amused. “Can we just set a blanket statement that I want to do conceivably everything with you?”

Brian has to admit that feels fucking incredible to hear.

Still: “Conceivably anything?”

Danny’s expression is wary. “Yes?”

“Raising alpacas in South America?”

“What.”

“Melting down twenty-thousand dollars worth of quarters to make life-sized metal busts of ourselves?”

“What is happening here.”

“Stealing those gay penguins from that zoo and smuggling them back to Antarctica.”

Danny kisses him again, presumably to shut him up, but it’s a kiss with fondness and intent and wandering hands with a destination—

And Brian can’t really find it in himself to complain.

[ma-at-thought]

Story-Time With Ma’at

White Supremacists and Nazi Bingo

I actually had to sit here for a minute and stare at this title. I’ve written about a lot of things on Tumblr, but even just a few months ago, I wouldn’t have thought I’d be writing a current events piece on fucking Nazis. Given the content, this will be a long time-traveling story-time.

Let us go back in time, to my innocent years fresh out of high school.

There I sit, at the computer. It’s not my computer of course, but it’s the first home computer I ever had access to. Ah, how I remember those buzzes and pwings that heralded incoming internet connection. I scroll through the chat rooms that have been created that day on Prodigy, and I stumble across one for white supremacists. Curious creature that I am, I go in.

It was really boring. I can’t honestly remember what was being discussed in there. It certainly wasn’t anything relating to white supremacy. It was just people who happened to be white supremacists chatting about whatever was happening on the news, or talking about a TV show, or sharing stories about their lives. I was very baffled; by the chat name, I should have been bathed in vitriol about the more colorful people in the country. But nope, just people talking like ordinary people.

I finally get curious enough to send a private message to one of them. I pick the most articulate one, and open the conversation stating that I am not a white supremacists, but want to understand what was going on with such a thing. I even tell him that I’m half Hispanic, a lie to see if he changes how he speaks with me.

Spoilers: It didn’t change how he spoke to me. I ask him how my mixed race would influence his behavior, and he tells me that he wouldn’t marry or have a child with me. That’s it. I ask him about concepts like ethnic cleansing and he is disdainful of the very idea. All he cares about in relation to other races is that his bloodline be “pure”, and there is no reason to do any harm to anyone over it. It was his choice to not marry or have a child with someone non-white, you see, but he has no problems working with or interacting with any people of color. I find that to be very weird (and a potential start for a modern Romeo / Juliette story,) but not harmful or violent like historical Nazis or the KKK is. I thank him for his time, he wishes me well, and that was it.

Let us go further back, to my 8th grade year.

Schindler’s List is released. My 8th grade class has a field trip to go and see the movie for educational reasons, and we’d spend the next two days in history and religion (Catholic school) classes discussing it.

That movie is awesome. In the sense that it fills you with awe. Do you know how hard it is to keep a bus full of 8th graders quiet? Well, on the trip back to school, it is easy as pie, because literally nobody says a word. Complete silence. And if you’ve seen the movie, you understand why. If you haven’t seen the movie, I strongly recommend it. It isn’t something people want to see, but it is something people need to see.

And we’re solemnly lined up, still shrouded in quiet, to file into our class room when it came time for the 6th and 7th grade classes to switch rooms. They knew we’d been going to see the movie, and some want to ask us questions. Most of them are hushed, like we were, wanting to know what happened, wanting to be told about this masterpiece of sorrow. But one boy comes up to me, grinning like an idiot. He flat-out asks me “How many boobies did you see?!”

I don’t even think. I punch that kid in the face hard enough to send him staggering backwards. I didn’t even know why I did that, and when the principal asks me, I just repeat what he’d said. And when I tell her what prompted the punch, she looks appalled. An act that would normally come with a three day suspension was instead recorded with a single note of the act, because most of the education staff was utterly horrified that anybody would even think such a thing. 

About a week later, we are all gathered in the auditorium for announcements. Parents are invited to this meeting as well. As it turns out, there is a planned KKK march coming up, and the school staff wants to discuss options for us. Our school is on the route, and while we don’t have many kids of color, everyone is still very concerned about this, and what our few non-white students would experience if the KKK happened to come by during recess. 

In the end, it is decided that the safest thing to do is to close the school that day. The teachers ask our parents to not show up to this “parade” either; they feel that the best way to show these hooded assholes they aren’t accepted was to have them marching down completely empty streets with no one to yell at. Most of the public schools take our lead and cancel school that day too. Some people joke (in that somewhat non-humorous, mildly disturbed way) that school is cancelled on account of ‘heavy snow’.

We spend our day at home researching the KKK and the Nazis, so we will all have class discussions on the matter the next day. And as far as I know, those paraders really did march to nearly-empty streets.

And one last trip further back in time. I am right around seven years old.

Her name is Ruth. She and her husband are friends of my grandparents, and came over to our house (my grandparents raised me) to play Bridge every couple of weeks. I’ve known her for most of my life, and years before had been given an explanation for why her arm was crippled. I understood what Polio was. She’d been very sick when she was young, and was lucky she didn’t die because of it. 

So here all these old folks were, waiting for the fourth couple to show up so they could play a card game I do not understand to this day. I'm sitting on the couch with Ruth; I'm not allowed to hang out in the room once the game started, but my grandparents are just fine with me socializing before it begins.

I don’t know.. maybe I just never saw Ruth wearing short sleeves before. She usually wore long-sleeved blouses and sweaters, but today she’s wearing a short-sleeved white shirt beneath her jacket, and she’s taken the jacket off. We’re chatting, because she’s a very cool adult who is all about socializing with kids, and then I see her tattoo. I’m shocked, because tattoos were strange, and mostly on younger folks. I reach out and touch the blue numbers on her inner forearm and ask why she got them.

The whole room goes silent, which is enough to make me shy away; I thought I’d done something wrong. All eyes are on this couch. But apparently, Ruth is prepared for this question. And so that day, I learned about Nazi concentration camps, and how Jews were rounded up and labeled with a numbered tattoo. I learned how she got Polio in the first place. The Bridge game was put off for about an hour, as these adults talked to me about this dark time in history, let me ask questions, and tried to help me understand these events well beyond what history classes taught seven year old kids.

And now, we come back to the present.

In this particular present, Nazis are still relevant. Two days ago, I discovered that a few people I was friends with on Facebook had Nazi inclinations. At first, I thought they were posting pro-Nazi political cartoons to mock them, but as it turned out, I was wrong. I kept trying to discuss the matter with them, mostly because I was desperately hoping that I was incorrect in starting to think they were Nazis, but it wound up being like a game of Nazi Bingo. 

They call the Nazi symbol the NSDAP flag. They believe that banning immigrants is the first step to making America better, and don’t think it should stop there because people of color are making trouble. They treat the Nazi Party as though it was a worthwhile and acceptable political platform. They talk about how no violence or imprisonment or lists would be necessary if there wasn’t so much active resistance to their ideals. They’re white. BINGO!

In truth, though, I do see a problem with what’s going on today, from “the good guys”, and that’s the over-liberal usage of the term “Nazi”. Not all white people are Nazis. Not all Republicans are Nazis. Not all who voted for the Mad Mango are Nazis. Not even all white supremacists are Nazis (though all Nazis are white supremacists. It’s sort of a prerequisite.)

Political parties do not equate to Nazis. (Unless it’s the Nazi party, which I half expect to show up on ballots in some places.) I know quite a few Republicans who are horrified by what’s going on. Even ultra-conservatives are outright comparing Bannon to Nazis. You don’t get much more right-wing than Glenn Beck, for example, and he’s declared Bannon to be similar to the Nazi propagandist Goebbels. My grandparents were Republican and if they were alive today they’d be absolutely livid about our current government. 

As for the Outrageous Orange, many people did vote for him because they liked some of what he had to say, and were certain that there was no way he could enforce the rest. You can recognize those guys now; they’re wide-eyed and shaken, regretting their vote. And believe me, I understand the “I told you so” urge. But let’s not label them as Nazis. They’re horrified, and they Do Not Want what is happening; many want to try and stop it. They don’t want four years of this.They don’t even want four months of this. They could help ensure that we don’t have to deal with that, but if we keep calling them Nazis, it’s going to drive them away. They didn’t understand before the vote, but they absolutely understand now.

I support punching Nazis. I’d like to do it myself, but there aren’t any in my immediate vicinity. There have been some political comments going around about how anybody can be labeled as a Nazi to excuse violent behaviors toward them. Those comments are correct; I’ve been seeing little hints of that here and there, and we can’t let that keep happening. Anybody who supports ethnic cleansing, be it through deportation, denials to immigrants, or violence, qualifies for Nazi-hood, and therefore punching. Anybody *coughBannoncough* who insists on being prepared for a religious war and tries to ‘rally the Christian soldiers’ against Islam (or really, any religion or skin color) qualifies for Nazi-hood, and therefore punching. But just being Republican, or voting for the Crazy Carrot, aren’t enough to qualify as punchable Nazis. 

Violence isn’t the answer, not when it’s applied in a blanket manner over whole groups because of the actions of some members. Call your Senators; you can look them up here. Call your House Representatives; you can look them up here. All of us should have learned from history, but it is rapidly becoming apparent that our Cheeto-In-Chief and his Cabinet of Horrors are ignoring history entirely. Tell the government officials that represent you in House and Senate that this is wrong, and ask them what they plan on doing about it.