#anti discrimination league

[psychologeek]

All over the world, in a matter of fact.

Just some of the highlights:

In Tunisia, Anti-Israel rioters vandalized and burned down the historic el-Hamma synagogue.

In Germany, Molotov cocktails were thrown at the Kahal Adass Jisroel synagogue.

star of David and swastikas were sprayed on Jewish buildings and synagogues.

Uk: 320 antisemitic incidents since Oct. 7, an increase of 581%.

17/10:

Calgary, Canada - A man threw eggs at the Holocaust Memorial Monument and at passing vehicles, while shouting antisemitic slogans.

Turkey - The influential Yeni Akit daily newspaper published an op-ed calling on the Turkish government to strip Turkey's Jews of their citizenship.

14/10:

Paris, France - French Minister of Interior Gérald Darmanin announced that 189 anti-Semitic acts had been recorded in one week and 65 arrests had been made.

London, UK - During a large pro-Palestinian demonstration, chants of "Khaybar Khaybar ya yahud" were heard in various locations.

Glasgow, Scotland - A Pro-Palestinian protester told Jews on the street, “Don’t forget where you went in 1940. Ha! Don’t forget where the Jews went in 1940.”

10/10:

France  - Gérald Darmanin, Minister of the Interior, announced that police had recorded 1,000 antisemitic incidents in 48 hours, including 50 that were “particularly serious.” Among them he noted: “People going to synagogues, many of them, shouting threats. There have been 16 arrests in the last two days. Drones entering schoolyards with a camera. But also slogans, graffiti, threatening letters.” 

BREAKING: A Detroit synagogue president, Samantha Woll, was found stabbed dead this morning outside her home in the city’s Lafayette Park neighborhood. She was just 40 years old.  While the motives behind her death are yet unclear, it is worth noting that violent antisemitism has been on the rise across the US. May her memory forever be a blessing. This is a developing story.

[fail-eacan]

Hey guys! Just thought I’d share this with people, since I’ve been looking for a good glossary of antisemitic terms and things

The AJC (American Jewish Committee) has a very nice one that is easy to navigate! It’s called “translate hate” and I’m reading through it right now.

It’s weird cause I’ve seen like all of these at various times, but didn’t quite put my finger on a lot of them until now. Some of them feel almost normal, it makes me feel kind of ill.

[nerdykeith]

Everyday that passes Elon Musk makes himself look more and more pathetic . Now he wants to sue ADL. He blames them for his 60% decrease in advertiser sales and his claiming that it is defamation of them to point out that he is supporting white nationalists. It's not defamation, it is a fact.

It really is quite pointless claiming you are against anti-semitism then at the same time, supporting the very same people with those sentiments.

[theusarticles]

Two men, one a descendant of Holocaust survivor, indicted in connection with threat to attack NYC synagogue | CNN

Two men, one a descendant of Holocaust survivor, indicted in connection with threat to attack NYC synagogue | CNN

CNN  —  A grand jury indicted two men – one of whom is Jewish and a descendant of a Holocaust survivor – in connection with an online threat last month to attack a synagogue in New York City. Christopher Brown and Matthew Mahrer were both indicted on charges of conspiracy and weapons possession. Brown also was charged with a felony count of making terroristic threats as a hate crime, and…

[capybaracorn]

Israel’s ‘anti-Zionists’ brave police beatings, smears to demand end to war

Some have been jailed for refusing to serve in the armed forces while others face threats and harassment from right-wing groups.

An antiwar protest in Tel Aviv during municipal elections [Mat Nashed/Al Jazeera]

(9 Mar 2024)

Tel Aviv/West Jerusalem – In 2015, Maya, a Jewish Israeli, travelled to Greece to help Syrian refugees. At the time, she was an exchange student in Germany and she had been deeply moved by the pictures she saw of desperate people arriving there in small boats.

That was where she met Palestinians who had been born in Syria after their parents and grandparents fled there during the founding of her own country in 1948.

They told her about the Nakba – or “catastrophe” – in which 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes to make way for the newly established Israel. Maya, 33, who had been taught that her country was born through “an independence war” against hostile Arab neighbours, decided that she needed to “unlearn” what she had learned.

“I never heard about the right of return, or Palestinian refugees,” she told Al Jazeera.

“I had to get out of Israel to start learning about Israel. It was the only way I could puncture holes in what I was taught.”

Maya, who asked that her full name not be used for fear of reprisals, is one of a small number of Israeli Jewish activists who identify as “anti-Zionists” or “non-Zionists”.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, a pro-Israeli group with a stated mission of fighting anti-Semitism and other forms of racism in the United States, Zionism means supporting a Jewish state established for the protection of Jews worldwide.

However, many anti-Zionists like Maya and the people she works with view Zionism as a Jewish supremacist movement which has ethnically cleansed most of historic Palestine and systematically discriminates against the Palestinians who remain, either as citizens of Israel or residents of the occupied territories.

But since Hamas’s deadly attack on Israeli civilians and military outposts on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed and nearly 250 taken captive, Israeli anti-Zionists have been accused of treason for speaking about Palestinian human rights.

Many have called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to stop what they view as collective punishment and genocide of the Palestinian people.

“I think [anti-Zionists] always claim that Jewish supremacy is not the answer and it is not the answer to the [October 7] killings,” Maya said.

“Israelis don’t understand how the Palestinian story is all about the Nakba, refugees and the right of return. If we are not able to deal with that then we are not going anywhere.”

Perceived as ‘traitors’

Since October 7, Israeli anti-Zionists have described living in a hostile political and social environment. Many say the police have violently cracked down on anti-war protests, while others have received threats from far-right-wing Israelis.

Roee, who, like Maya, did not give his last name for fear of reprisals from Israeli society or authorities, is also a Jewish Israeli activist. In October last year, he attended a small demonstration of a couple of dozen people a few days after Israel began bombing Gaza. The demonstrators were calling on Hamas to free all Israeli captives and on Israel to stop the war.

“The police pushed all of us [out] violently in just two minutes,” Roee, 28, told Al Jazeera at a cafe in West Jerusalem.

Weeks later, Roee and his friend, Noa, who also did not want her full name to be revealed, attended another silent demonstration outside a police station in Jerusalem. They put tape over their mouths to denounce the sweeping arrests of Palestinian citizens of Israel who had also called for an end to the war on Gaza.

But again, police chased down the Israeli protesters and beat them with batons.

“I think it is very clear that the police recognise us. It doesn’t matter the signs we hold. They know us. They know we are leftists and that we are ‘traitors’ or whatever they call us,” Noa told Al Jazeera.

Many Israeli antiwar activists have also been smeared or “doxxed” – a term given to people whose identities and addresses are made known on social media by those hoping to intimidate them into silence.

Maya said that a right-wing activist had accused her romantic partner of cooperating with Hamas by informing them of the whereabouts of Israeli positions in Gaza. The activist published photos of her partner on Instagram with captions detailing the fabricated accusations.

“We were afraid that our address would be exposed, but luckily it wasn’t. Even before October 7, [these groups of extreme right-wing people] tried to obtain addresses of people to ‘dox’ them and taunt them. Some of our friends had to leave their apartments. That was our main worry,” Maya said.

Conscientious objectors

While most Israelis are required to enlist in the army after high school, antiwar activists have refused to take part in their country’s continuing occupation of the West Bank, where raids and arrests have been intensified since October, or in the war on Gaza. Two young Israelis who publicly refused to join the army are now serving short sentences in military prison.

Einat Gerlitz, a “non-Zionist” and a member of Mesarvot, a non-profit organisation providing social and legal support to Israeli conscientious objectors, said that more people may have refused military service since the war on Gaza began, because not everyone goes public.

“The army does not release the numbers … because the army’s interest is to make sure [refusing service] is not a topic spoken about in the public sphere. The government and army work really hard to glorify army service, so they want minimal attention on conscientious objectors,” the 20-year-old said.

Einat Gerlitz is a 20-year-old peace activist and a conscientious objector. She spoke about her peace activism in a cafe in Tel Aviv [Al Jazeera/Mat Nashed]

Gerlitz added that the October 7 attack did not make her reconsider her peace activism, but she is very concerned for friends and peers who were quickly deployed to Gaza.

“I was worried for them, but I was also worried about some of the commands that they may need to fulfil,” she told Al Jazeera, referring to her worries that soldiers may be ordered to commit atrocities or violate international law.

Over the past five months, Israeli soldiers have razed entire neighbourhoods in Gaza, bombed universities, hospitals and places of worship, and shot at crowds of starving Palestinians lining up for food aid.

Rights groups say that these attacks amount to war crimes and may collectively amount to a campaign of genocide.

‘We need greater empathy’

Many anti-Zionist Israelis say that their aim is to make fellow Israelis recognise the humanity of the Palestinians.

However, they say it has been difficult to counter the messaging of Israeli politicians, some of whom have called Palestinians in Gaza “animals”, “subhuman” or “barbarians” in order to rally support for the war. Some of these statements were singled out by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which issued an emergency order in January on the genocide case brought against Israel by South Africa.

Israeli society also expresses little empathy for Palestinians in Gaza, several Israeli activists told Al Jazeera. They explained they believe this is partly due to Israeli media rarely reporting on the army’s probable war crimes, nor on the catastrophic humanitarian crisis brought on by Israel’s war.

Maya recalls going to a demonstration in Tel Aviv to call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza in late October. About 50 people attended, with many holding up photos of children killed by the Israeli army. But when Israeli children saw the photos, they claimed they were fake.

“[Young Israeli kids] pointed at a photo of a father holding a dead baby in Gaza and said, ‘How can you believe this? It’s not real. He is acting’,” Maya said.

“[Another child] pointed to a different dead baby and said, ‘This is a doll’.”

Addam, an anti-Zionist Israeli and a graffiti artist, who did not disclose his full name, was also at the protest. He said that an Israeli woman called the demonstrators “traitors” and said that her own brother had died fighting for Israel in Gaza.

While Addam was heartbroken to hear about her loss, he said he believes that the government is weaponising Israeli grief to commit atrocities in Gaza. He added that he tries to humanise Palestinians through his art and spoke about one project where he photographed the physical scars that Palestinians and Israelis bore from past conflicts.

“Once there is empathy, it creates an entirely different foundation to begin engaging in reality,” he told Al Jazeera. “It should be a given that people in Gaza are human beings with families, dreams and jobs.

“But, for many factors, there is this ongoing process [in Israel] of dehumanising Palestinians.”

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Rollo runs the anti-magic league and I refuse to believe otherwise

I know this ask was sort of a joke, but it got me thinking 🤔

Surely Rollo isn’t the ONLY person in all of Twisted Wonderland that’s anti-magic, right? There is always variance in a population, and not a single thing that everyone can agree on.

So… There’s gotta be other people who are against magic (for various reasons) and protest its widespread acceptance in modern society. I’d imagine it’s mainly conservative older folks, given that we see the attitude surrounding mages improve over Twisted Wonderland’s history.

Still, I can’t help but wonder what it’s like for those anti-magic folks now. Like, do they actively go out and protest or try to pass more laws to strictly regulate magic? (There’s already laws on magic in place, but they’d be calling for even more.) Most of them probably can’t be overt about their discrimination (at least not without backlash), so I think instead they say vaguely weird things or commit microaggressions. I’d be interested in seeing how that group presents and acts relative to the extreme that is Rollo.

[matan4il]

"That means that if the UN correctly represents the global population, about 1 in every 4 of its members, is antisemitic" i...hadn't actually considered that. a representative body of a world that hates jews isn't going to be fair to jews now is it

Hi Nonnie!

Absolutely it would not be.

I'm glad I can point that out. Just to repeat, a global survey by the ADL found that 26% of adults worldwide (slightly more than 1 in every 4 adult humans) responded in the affirmative to at least 6 out of 11 antisemitic statements. TBH, I think it's very possible that this is an underestimate (it's easy to only respond affirmatively to the more "socially acceptable" statements, like "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their own country" and stay below the minimal 6 out of 11 statements required on this survey to be labeled an antisemite), but it's still the best measure we have, and it's probably very telling that it could be that easy to be antisemitic, but not be defined as such in this poll, yet 26% of all people surveyed were still classified that way.

Regarding the UN, we can talk about the fact that it has never excluded Iran, a country that officially denies the Holocaust, and has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel, the biggest Jewish community in the world today.

We can talk about its long history of treating anything in which Israel is involved, as if it causes much graver harm than any other global crime, which means it belittles countless atrocities, ignores crimes committed against Israelis, while also blowing out of proportion anything that can be weaponized against the one Jewish state. This pattern of discrimination against the only Jewish state in the world, in a way that's inconsistent with how every other country is treated, reveals an antisemitic bias. In fact, even some of the UN's heads have acknowledged that Israel was treated unfairly there.

We could talk about the UN's 1975 resolution that "Zionism is racism" (UNGA resolution 3379, which was eventually canceled in 1991 by UNGA resolution 46/86). Because the term 'Zionism' has been distorted by so many Israel and Jew haters, let's be clear: Zionism simply means accepting the Jewish right to self determination, meaning that Jews, just like every other nation out there, have the right to self rule in the Jewish ancestral homeland. From 1975 until 1991, for 16 full years, the UN actually said out loud that it's not racist for the Irish to want an independent Irish state, it's not racist for the Germans to want an independent German state, it's not racist for the Japanese to want an independent Japanese state, it's not racist for the Sudanese to want an independent Sudanese state, it's not racist for the Kurds to want an independent Kurdish state, it's not racist for the Indians to want an independent Indian state, but it is racist for the Jews to want an independent Jewish state. This resolution, denying the Jews their right to self determination, coming from an institute that supports and recognizes the universal right to self determination for every other nation, is discriminatory against Jews. It is antisemitic. Let that sink in, that the UN did not hesitate in passing an openly antisemitic resolution, and it took them no less than 16 years to wipe this stain from the UN's record.

BTW, resolution 3379 was sponsored by the members of the Arab League and several Muslim majority countries (25 sponsor countries in total). So, the starting point was a ratio of 25 Israel hating countries to 1 Jewish state. It was then further supported by countries that were aligned with the Soviet Bloc (most of which were dictatorships with no human rights, and not caring at all about fighting racism of any kind), because during the years of the cold war, Israel was a part of the democratic west, while the USSR supported the Arab League. This anti-west, anti-democracy axis still exists to a great degree (with some changes regarding which country is aligned with which side), and is probably even more relevant today than 12 years ago, as recent events in the Middle East show. Lastly, the resolution was supported by additional anti-democracy countries. What chance do the Jews have at the UN? We are outnumbered at this organization, that applies no penalties or limitations for non-democratic or antisemitic countries. It's an example of how treating anti-democratic countries democratically is just a reward for the enemies of democracy.

And in continuation to all that, the UN has also repeatedly created bodies dedicated solely to Palestinians, their needs and rights. Again, it implies they must be treated worse than every other nation, if they get special treatment. But you're not gonna find the Palestinians on any list of the deadliest conflicts in history, or even just since WWII, or even just currently active...

Even if we were to accept every grievance the Palestinians make at face value (maybe other than Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' antisemitic and Holocaust distorting statement that "Israel has committed 50 Holocausts"), then it's still nowhere near many other atrocities. So WHY are the Palestinians being treated differently? There's only one thing that stands out about their grievances, and that is that they can be used to harm the only Jewish state in the world, which protects all Jews, and is home to the biggest Jewish community we have today. To use a Hebrew phrase, it's not done out of the love of Haman, it's done out of the hatred of Mordecai.

I hope this expansion on the way the UN's structure makes it inherently prone to antisemitic abuse of Israel helped a bit. I also hope you're well! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[purpleajisai]

babygirl i have a VERY detailed explanation about why this shit happened. me and my girl @petra-kopanja have spoken about this in so much depth we ended up hating tobirama even more and establishing a connection between the existence of such police force with the massacre

Like why did Kishimoto make the Uchihas cops?

Konoha is a military village, so there can’t be that many civilians. Like we have Ayame and the Ichiruki ramen guy (did we ever get his name?). We don’t really know anything about Tenten and Lee’s families and we barely know anything about Sakuras (her dad was a ninja I think). Other than that all of the Konoha characters are ninjas and the parents that we get to know were also ninjas. So like how many civilians could there really be? Not that many. So then who were the Uchiha police force meant to police? The soldiers when they were off duty? On duty? It could be, but why would Tobirama give the Uchihas that much systemic power when he didn’t really like them and wanted to oppress them? Is it because of the whole “people don’t tend to like the ones that crack down on crime” thing? Like “Boohoo people don’t like cops because they have systemic power and have a tendency to abuse it”, “Poor them”. what?

Like why did Kishimoto decide to make this weird connection between a fictional oppressed group (the Uchihas) and a real life oppressor group (cops)? He didn’t have to do it, but he still did. And like why? It’s not really needed for the plot to work, but he still kept bringing it up. What was his intention with this? Is he just stupid?

[phantoms-world-and-more]

Danny forms a team of metas and performs protests and start riots to bring attention to the discrimination metas still face and to the anti ecto acts. Danny leans how to hack and out of spite after the Flash messes with time, not for anything world ending, and accidentally puts Danny in a reveal gone wrong timeline, Danny hacks into the Justice League's computer and threatens to expose every signal League member's identities to the world if his demands aren't met.

.

[codenamesazanka]

thoughts on the chapter

“these differences, both internal and external, allow us to run towards other people and search for a point of intersection” kid out of 8 chapters you spoke like 5 sentences to Shigaraki. What intersection. (I know, I know - the crying child. the only thing Deku can care about.)

Aizawa and Mic visiting Shirakumo's grave

Compress reading Spinner's book with a sad smile...

Did villains just magically stop appearing? because AFO is gone? Because everyone is a bit nicer to each other? Because the rankings got expanded and now everyone wants to get the Eiyuu title?

Shoji says "This award goes to those who rose up 8 years ago." GEE SHOJI. I WONDER WHO IT WAS THAT GOT THEM TO SHOW UP IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I know he's thinking of the heteromorphs that stopped that day. But i just. can't get over the fact that it was Spinner's call to action that inspired them first to even come out.

"peacefully resolving prejudice-based incidents in the rural areas" Peacefully telling a man to put down the rake they're about to hit a heteromorph child with.

I know the intention is de-escalation or something. And that's a good thing! Ideally I don't want the man holding the rake to be smashed into the ground. I don't want the dumbasses spray painting slurs on a wall to be punched around. But the word peaceful here feels like it implies that... it would be victim's fault if they use force to resist violent discrimination. Equal responsibility on all parties and it's up to Shoji, it depends on Shoji to resolve it nonviolently. The originator of the violence doesn't enter the equation.

idk. rubs me the wrong way.

Did Shoji resolve the heteromorph riot peacefully? Not really. He fought Spinner (ah, you might say - well, Spinner was using violence! Shoji has to react to that with punching as well! Yeah. That's what I mean.) Koda had birds shoved someone off a building. What actually stopped everything was one rioter feeling doubts. It's credited to Shoji's words, but Shoji also admits that it's good they showed up and in the chapter here, he calls it an "uprising".

And they showed up because of Spinner.

Well. Maybe Shoji turned to "peaceful resolves" afterwards.

Just to clarify so that no one misunderstands me. Peaceful resolutions are good. I'm glad that's how Shoji is stopping anti-heteromorph incidents. What I dislike is the shallow framing.

"Quirk Counseling Expansion Project" EXPANSION???

Toga became the way she was because she didn't go to Quirk Counseling enough. Needed Expansion. The counselor saying she'll make Toga "nice and normal" didn't go far enough. Needed Expansion.

Again, I get that probably reform is implied in that, or the intent is probably expanding the concept/ideas/tools/methods/scope to include better methods. But wow.

All Might + Crowd of Supporter Statues is the creepiest thing I've ever seen.

Story literally breaking the ending fourth wall to give a happy ending to Deku.

I expect the volume extras to have Shigaraki to come and decay the ending and rescue the league.

It's amazing how the answer to "can someone quirkless be a hero" is a NO. Because Deku's feeling sad and lonely being quirkless and just a teacher and saving a kid from tripping and encouraging a future student. It's not enough. It's not Heroism. So he gets a support item and gets to be a Hero again

And then Shigaraki's Star Wars ghost is just there, not tied into the theme happening on page because Deku failed to saved the fucking guy, but he remembers Shigaraki. for one panel.

Just to repeat this because it's hysterical: This ending is "Can a quirkless person be a hero (and be happy and feel worthy?)" We get a gentle bittersweet but resounding NO. Until All Might comes again to help him out with a 'gift'.

"Remember that day when I used support items to inject acid into an immortal child demon on global TV? The day that you killed a man? Well, data from that day made you this support item. Use it to be a Hero."

Also being a quirkless Hero after all depends on knowing people and having lots of money.

All Might is now about 64 years old.

Shigaraki ghost...........

Something about shigaraki in his original outfit has me all choked up.

That's the appearance he chose to present as in the vestige realm before he disappeared.

The appearance he had in that flashback of him and Spinner bonding over games.

I like how Deku looks back, sees the ghost, but then turns forward and smile. Not even a smile as he's looking at shigaraki. I know this is nitpicky. jfc tho.

"You already destroyed it"/"That depends on what you guys do from now on." I see that there's barely any credit to Shigaraki forcing this amount of change in this chapter. As far as I can see, Deku barely thinks about Shigaraki or even Tenko this chapter. Shigaraki's just a ghost hidden vaguely in all this.

"I'll never forget" lol. The ghost is just like an afterthought from the story to make sure Deku keeps his 'promise'

I don't think a single villain's name is mentioned here. Not a single League member's. Uravity's work towards quirk counseling is not publicly or explicitly credited to her experience with Toga (the vaguest of implication). We don't know Dabi's fate and Shouto is only known as "Endeavor's son" - which might be good? because it's Endeavor's who was the main perpetrator, but still. Spinner lead the uprising but Shoji doesn't mention that. Spinner wrote his book but there's no impact, except for making Compress smile sadly and that's it. Twice has been long forgotten. Deku thinks of Shigaraki's words at the beginning of the chapter, then sees his ghost at the end, but otherwise, nothing.

Truly they've been swept under the rug. A lid put over everything.

Whatever!!!! Shigaraki and the League - the absolute best part of bnha.

[scary-grace]

the new postmodern age (chapter one) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Written for @threadbaresweater's follower milestone event, and the prompt 'a day at the beach'! Congratulations on the milestone, and thanks for giving me a chance to write this fic.

dividers by @enchanthings

Before the war, you were nothing but a common criminal, but in the world that's arisen from the ashes, you got a second chance. Five years after the final battle between the heroes and the League of Villains, you run a coffee shop in a quiet seaside town, and you're devoted to keeping your customers happy. Even customers like Shimura Tenko, who needs a second chance even more than you did -- and who's harboring a secret that could upend everything you've tried to build. Will you let the past drag both of you down? Or will you find a way, against all odds, to a new beginning? (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3

Chapter 1

You believe in second chances.

Before the war, you were living on the margins, just like the rest of even the pettiest criminals were. No one would hire someone with a record, even if the record was for something nonviolent, and that meant that you were always hungry, always freezing in the winter and getting heatstroke in the summer, always one step away from doing something worse and getting put away for good. You were going nowhere fast, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t get back on your feet. It was a struggle to get up in the morning.

But after the war, something changed. Not a lot, but enough, because after a heartfelt public plea from the hero who saved the day, the world decided to care a little bit about people like you. The government passed new anti-discrimination laws, including one banning hiring discrimination against people with criminal records, and for nonviolent criminals like you, they opened up an extra opportunity – a choice between job training or a startup loan for a small business, so you could pay down your fines and restitution while adding something good to society. Sure, it was all in the name of preventing new villains from being created, but you’ll take it. You took it, picked up a loan, moved out of the city to a small town on the coast, and decided to open up a coffee shop.

You’re not really sure why you picked a coffee shop. Maybe because the town you moved to didn’t have one yet, or maybe because you used to hang out in them a lot when you had nowhere else to go. And the program you’re part of worked exactly like it was supposed to. You had to hire people to help you get the building you chose up to code, and that meant you met people in your new community. You showed those people that the criminals they hated were people, too. You’ve paid most of your fines and you’re able to break even anyway, and even though there’s a sign on the door telling everyone that you’re a convicted felon and you have to answer any questions you’re asked about it, you have customers.

Not just customers – regulars. People whose kids you’ve seen grow up, people who talk to you when they see you out and about. After five years of trying, you’ve finally carved out a place where you belong. So yeah, you believe in second chances. How could you not?

You stand back from your front window, admiring the latest addition. There’s the sign identifying your business as one sponsored by the Nonviolent Criminal Reintegration Act, but just above it, you’ve added a bigger sign: Free Internet Access. Osono, whose bakery makes the pastries you sell, studies it alongside you. “Free access? Shouldn’t it be access with purchase?”

“I thought about it a lot, but no.” You’re sort of lying. You thought about it for two seconds and that was it. “This is better.”

“It’ll attract riff-raff.”

That’s the kind of comment that used to really piss you off, but you know Osono. You know it’s just a blind spot, and you know how to respond. “Most things are online these days. Job applications, apartment listings, information on government assistance. When I was in trouble before, free internet access would have helped me a lot. And I usually bought something anyway, even if it was just a cup of coffee.”

“Not a pastry?” Osono nods at the trays stacked on her cart, and you remember that she’s waiting for you to open the door. Oops. You unlock it in a hurry and prop it open with a rock you pulled up from the beach. “Where were you getting food?”

“Wherever I could.” You were hungry a lot. And sick a lot, because sometimes you had to eat things that were expired. You don’t like to think about that very much. “I stole sometimes so I wouldn’t starve. I’ve paid it all back by now.”

“You know how to take responsibility,” Osono says. She slides back the door on your pastry case without asking and starts loading things in. “I wish more of them were like you.”

“Most of us are,” you say, as gently as you can manage. “We just need a fighting chance.”

Sometimes people forget that you’re a criminal, that you’ll carry your record around for the rest of your life. You can’t let them forget. Osono nods in the way that tells you she’s humoring you and lifts a tray of pastries you haven’t seen before out of the cart. “These are a new recipe I’m trying out. What do you think?”

“They’re pretty,” you say. “Is that chocolate in the filling?”

“And cinnamon. They aren’t vegan, but there aren’t any common allergens in them.” Osono passes you the recipe anyway, and you scribble down the ingredients on the back of the name card you’re making, just in case someone asks. “Tell me how they do, all right? If they sell decently I’ll add them to my rotation.”

“Will do.” You help her with the last few trays. “Thanks, Osono. Say hi to the kids and Naoki for me?”

“Will do.” Osono wheels the cart back out the door, then pauses to study the internet access sign. “Good luck with this.”

“Thanks.”

You wait until the delivery van pulls away before you start rearranging the pastries to your preferred setup. You add “new arrival” to the label for the new pastry, then touch the lettering to turn it a pleasant but eye-catching green before placing it front and center in the case. Then you set up your espresso machine, wake up the cash register, switch on the lights and take down the chairs from the tops of the tables – and only then do you switch on the other sign in your window. It’s seven am. Skyline Coffee and Tea is open for business.

It’s grey and cold, and the low tide is closer to noon today, which means you’re in for a busy morning as the people who walk the beach daily stop in for food and coffee first. Only one person orders one of the new pastries, but almost everyone comments on the free internet access. They say the same kind of thing Osono said, and you say the same thing you said to her if they hold still long enough for you to answer. You say it nicely. It’s an effort to say it nicely, sometimes, but it’s worth doing.

Past noon, things slow down a bit. You decide to speed-clean the espresso machine, and you’re so focused on your work that you don’t notice the customer. It’s possibly also the customer’s fault, since he’s peering at you from over the pickup counter instead of standing by the cash register, and when he barks the question at you, it startles you badly. “What’s the password?”

“On the WiFi?” You tuck your burned hand behind your back. “No password. Find a place to sit down and have at it.”

The customer looks disconcerted. Or at least you think he does – the lower half of his face is covered with a surgical mask, and given that he doesn’t have eyebrows, it’s hard to read his expression. “Why?”

“Why isn’t there a password?” You haven’t gotten that question yet. “I want people to be able to use it if they need it.”

“They’re gonna watch porn.”

“Me putting a password on the WiFi wouldn’t stop that,” you say. “And I’m not the internet police. If somebody starts acting up, I’ll deal with it. If not – just use headphones.”

The customer’s expression twists. “I didn’t mean me.”

“Sure.” You’re not a moron. “It’s not my business what you do. Unless your business starts messing with my business. Seriously. Knock yourself out.”

The customer turns away, and you spend a second being extremely grateful that you went for single-occupancy bathrooms instead of multiple-stall bathrooms before you go back to cleaning the espresso machine. Your hand hurts, but it’s nothing running it under cold water won’t fix later. When you straighten up, there’s someone at the counter.

It’s porn guy, who you really shouldn’t call porn guy. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. You dry your hands and hurry over. “What can I get for you today?”

“Black coffee.”

“Sure. Anything else?”

The customer glances at the pastry case and shakes his head. Then his stomach growls. He knows you heard it. What little of his face is visible above the mask turns red. “No.”

“Tell you what,” you say. “I’ve got these new pastries the bakery wants me to try out, but next to nobody’s tried one yet. If you agree to tell me how it was, you can have it half off.”

“I have money.” The customer shoves a credit card across the counter to you, and you see that he’s wearing fingerless gloves. Or sort of fingerless gloves. They’re missing the first three fingers on each hand. “I don’t need help.”

“No, but you’re helping me out.” You add the pastry to his order and discount it by half, then fish it out of the case with a pair of tongs. “For here or to go?”

“Here.” The customer watches as you set it on a plate. “What is that?”

“It’s babka.”

“I can read. What is it?”

“I don’t really know,” you admit. Maybe that’s why people aren’t buying them. “The filling’s chocolate and cinnamon, though. It’s hard to go wrong with that. It’ll be just a second with the coffee.”

You fill a cup, then point out the cream and sugar. Then you realize you still haven’t tapped the customer’s card. You finish ringing up the order and glance at the cardholder’s name. Shimura Tenko. He hasn’t been in before today. You’re not the best with faces, but you never forget a name.

Shimura Tenko sets up shop at the booth in the farthest corner, and although you sneak by once or twice to check on him, you’re pretty sure he’s not watching porn. People don’t usually take notes when they’re watching porn. It looks like he’s working or something. Working remote, but he doesn’t have internet access at home? Or maybe he does, and he’s just looking for a change of scenery. That’s a normal thing to do. A change of scenery is one thing Skyline Coffee and Tea is equipped to provide.

Speaking of that, it’s been a while since you changed out the mural on the café’s back wall. Your quirk, Color, lets you change the color of any object you touch, and choose how long the color sets. You’ve used it for a lot of things over the years, but now you mainly use it to create new murals every few months or so. The back wall’s been a cityscape since the fall, when you saw a picture of Tokyo’s skyline at night and got inspired. Maybe this weekend you’ll switch it out for something a little softer. If people wanted the city, they’d stay there instead of coming here.

Customers come in and out, a few lingering for conversations or to test out the free WiFi, but Shimura Tenko stays put, somehow making a single cup of black coffee last until you give the fifteen-minute warning that you’re closing up shop. Another person might be pissed about someone hanging out so long without buying anything else, but you’ve been there. You let it go, except to ask him how the babka was as he’s on his way out the door. He throws the answer back over his shoulder without looking your way. “It was fine. Nothing special.”

Fine, sure. When you go back to clear his table, you find the plate it was on wiped clean. There’s not even a smear of the filling left.

“Check this place out!” Your probation officer leans across the counter, eyes bright, out of costume and way too enthusiastic for eight in the morning. “It’s looking great in here. You changed something. New color scheme? New uniform?”

“Nope.” You don’t get nervous for your check-ins, but you don’t like the fact that they’re random. Today’s not a good day. “There’s some new stuff on the menu, and in the pastry case. Maybe that’s it.”

“No,” Present Mic says, drawing out the word. He turns in a slow circle, then whips back around with a grin. “When did you repaint that wall?”

“I didn’t paint it,” you say. It’s best to be honest. “I used my quirk. I’m not making money off of it and it’s not hurting anyone, so it falls within the terms of my probation.”

“Take it easy there, listener. I’m not trying to bust you,” Present Mic says. Heroes always say that. You know better than to buy it. “It looks good. Really brightens the place up.”

“I thought it could use it,” you say. “It’s kind of a rough time of year.”

Cold weather always brings you lots of customers, but people are sharper, unhappier, and if they’re in the mood to take it out on someone, they pick somebody who can’t make a fuss or hit back. Somebody like you. You’ve learned not to take it personally. “Not too rough financially. You’ve made all your payments on time. I checked.” Present Mic is peering into the pastry case. “How’s that free internet access thing going for you?”

“Not so bad,” you say. “The connection’s pretty fast, so I get people in here who are taking online classes, or working remote. I’ve only had to kick one person out for watching porn.”

“Yeah, he filed a complaint,” Present Mic says, and your stomach drops. “You made the right call. Don’t worry.”

You’re going to worry. It’s going to take all day for that one to wear off. “I haven’t had problems with it otherwise.”

“Why’d you do it?” Present Mic gives you a curious look. “Free stuff brings all kinds of people out of the woodwork. Why give yourself the headache?”

“I want this to be the kind of place I needed,” you say. “Somewhere safe where nobody would kick me out if I couldn’t buy more than one cup of coffee, where I could use the internet without getting in trouble for it. A headache’s worth that to me.”

It’s quiet for a second, but Present Mic being Present Mic, it doesn’t last. “You really turned a corner, huh? Hard to believe you were ever on the wrong side of the law.”

“We all could be there,” you say. “It only takes one mistake.”

Present Mic sighs. “You’re telling me. Did you catch the news last week?”

“The thing with Todoroki Touya?” The surviving members of the League of Villains all went through their own rehab, and they’re on permanent probation – and last weekend, Todoroki Touya, formerly known as Dabi, lit somebody’s motorcycle on fire after they followed him for six blocks, harassing him the whole way. “I saw. Is he getting revoked?”

“Nope. The other guy was way out of line, and the panel ruled that the majority of people – former villains or not – would have reacted similarly under that kind of pressure.” Present Mic rolls his shoulders, and his leather jacket squeaks. “All I can say is, he’s lucky we’re in the business of second chances these days. Or fifth chances.”

“Why so many?” you ask. “The rest of us are on three strikes, you’re out.”

“Yeah, but you have to mess up a lot worse for it to count as a strike,” Present Mic points out. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a guilt thing. This whole rehab thing is Deku’s idea. And Deku never got over what happened with Shigaraki.”

Members of the League of Villains died leading up to the final battle, but of the five who made it that far, only one of them was dead at the end of the war – Shigaraki Tomura, their leader. To most people, it was good riddance to the greatest evil Japan has ever seen, but Deku’s always been publicly against that viewpoint. Insistent that All For One was the true villain. Regretful that the war ended with Shigaraki’s death, too. “Since he couldn’t save him, he’s stuck on saving the other four,” Present Mic continues. “Which equals infinite chances. So far Todoroki’s the only one who’s needed them.”

You nod. Present Mic stretches. “Let’s take a walk,” he decides. “I’ll buy coffee for both of us.”

“I can’t leave,” you say. “I don’t have anybody else to watch this place. If a customer comes by –”

“Half an hour, tops. Come on.” Present Mic produces a wallet from the inside of his leather jacket. “The sooner we leave, the sooner you can come back.”

You lock up, hating every second of it, and follow Present Mic into the cold, a to-go cup of your own coffee in your hands. Present Mic runs through the usual list of questions, the ones that cover your mindset as much as they cover your progress on your program requirements. Some of them are about how you’re getting along with the civilians in town, and you know he’ll be checking in with some of your customers, seeing if their perception lines up with yours. It feels invasive. Intrusive. Some part of you always pushes back. You always quiet it down. You made this bed for yourself, coming up on a decade ago. Now you have to lie in it.

“I’ve got some news,” Present Mic says, once he’s finished with the questions. “The program’s considering early release for some of the participants.”

“Why?”

“The legislative review’s coming up, and they want success stories,” Present Mic says. “You know, people who clawed their way out of the criminal underworld to become productive members of society. I’m putting your name on the list.”

You almost drop your coffee. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Mic says. He seems taken aback by your surprise. “I mean – you’re kind of who this thing was designed for, listener. You caught your first charge when you were underage, for a nonviolent crime, and the rest of your case is a perfect example of just one of the many problems Deku won’t shush about. Now look at you. You’ve got your own business, you’re paying back your debt to society, you’re participating in civilian life. There are civilians who don’t do that much.”

Of course they don’t. Actual civilians don’t have to prove they have a right to exist. “If you’re approved for early release, the government will waive interest on your startup loan, and I heard a rumor that they’re considering wiping charges off people’s records,” Mic continues. “It’s a pretty good deal, listener. And you’re making a pretty weird face.”

“Sorry,” you say, trying to fix it. “I mean – felonies are a forever thing. They don’t get wiped.”

“It’s just a rumor,” Mic says, and pats your shoulder. “Even if that doesn’t pan out, you could use a break on the interest. Anyway, it’s not a sure thing, but I put your name up. You’ve got as good a shot as anybody.”

You think that’s probably true, which is weird to think about. You’ve been behind the eight ball since you were in high school. Present Mic throws down the rest of his coffee, then turns back the way the two of you came. “Let’s go. I saw a pastry I wanted to buy, and I bet you have a customer or two.”

You’ve heard things about other program participants’ probation officers taking things without paying, but you got lucky with Present Mic – he always pays. Sometimes he even gives you a hard time for setting your prices too low. And he’s right about the customers. When you get back, one of your regulars is sitting cross-legged, leaning back against the locked door with his hood up and his laptop open.

It’s Shimura Tenko, who you never saw before you started offering free internet, and who’s turned into a regular ever since. The two of you don’t talk the way you do with some of your other regulars – something about the mask and the hood and the gloves tells you that Shimura isn’t looking to make friends. But he shows up two or three times a week, orders black coffee, and camps out in the corner of the café until closing time. Sometimes you can talk him into a pastry, and it’s always a babka. Whether he orders one or not, he’s always hungry when he comes in.

Shimura looks up as you and Present Mic approach. His eyes narrow, then widen abruptly, almost comically shocked. Then he slams his laptop shut, rockets to his feet, and books it, vanishing down the street and around the corner. You feel a surge of frustration. “Can you not scare my customers?”

“I’m out of costume. Even when I’m in, nobody’s scared of me.” Present Mic is lying. You’d have been scared out of your mind to run into him back in the day. “Damn, that guy was skittish. What’s his deal?”

“He’s one of my regulars.” Was one of your regulars, probably. People don’t react the way Shimura just did and come back for more. You unlock the door, feeling strangely dispirited. “Which pastry were you thinking about?”

Present Mic sticks around for an hour or so, long enough to talk to a few customers who don’t run away from him. Most of your regulars have seen him before. He leaves a little bit before noon, after eating three pastries he paid for, and as usual, the café quiets down in the afternoon. You don’t mind. Today wasn’t a good day even before Mic put in a surprise appearance and scared off a customer for good. Days like today, you’d rather have the place to yourself.

Sometimes in the midst of proving you’re a model citizen to anybody who looks your way, you forget that there’s a reason you weren’t. It wasn’t a good reason. Your family wasn’t rich, but you always had what you needed and some of what you wanted. Your parents weren’t perfect, but they loved you. You weren’t the most popular kid at school, but you always had someone to talk to. And none of that mattered, because you felt hollow and miserable and lonely no matter what else was going on around you.

Nothing you did or said could make you feel better. Everything felt the same, and everything felt awful, and no matter how hard you tried to explain, to ask for help, to raise the alarm, you couldn’t get your point across. You had a good life. What did you have to complain about?

The judge who handed you your first conviction said pretty much exactly that. You’ve heard that the sentencing guidelines for minors have changed, that untreated mental health issues are considered a mitigating factor these days, but back then it didn’t matter at all. You got help at some point. You take your meds like you’re supposed to, and you did therapy until you realized the people who monitor your probation were reading your notes. And you’re older now. You know the hollow feeling goes away. But that doesn’t mean it’s any easier to tolerate when it’s here.

You’re hanging out behind the counter, staring at your most recent mural and wishing you’d chosen something less cheerful than the field of wildflowers that’s currently decorating it, when the door opens. You barely have time to get your game face on before Shimura Tenko steps up to the counter. “Um –”

“How many heroes are you friends with?” Shimura asks shortly.

“I’m not friends with Present Mic,” you say. “That was a spot check. He’s my probation officer.”

Shimura blinks. He has crimson eyes and dark lashes, matching his dark hair. “Huh?”

“My probation officer,” you repeat. “I’m a convicted felon.”

“Don’t lie. They’d never let a convicted felon run a coffee shop.”

“I got a loan,” you say. “Through the Nonviolent Criminal Rehabilitation Act. It says so on the sign.”

“Your sign says free internet access.”

“Underneath that.” You wonder if it’s really possible that Shimura didn’t see the other sign. Maybe he was just too hyped at the prospect of free internet to look any harder. “How long have you lived here?”

“Five years.” Shimura looks defensive now. “What’s it to you?”

Five years, and you never saw him before today. He must keep to himself. “Nothing. I just – I thought everybody around here knew. I’m not very quiet about it. I’m not allowed to be.”

“Why not?”

You don’t want to do this right now, but rules are rules. “Part of the Reintegration Act involves educating civilians about where criminals come from – like, how a person goes from you to me.”

Shimura snorts. It’s rude, but not anywhere close to the rudest thing someone’s done to you when you talk about this. “The government thinks the people who are best equipped to educate about this are the actual criminals, so I’m legally obligated to answer any questions people ask me – about my record, about why I did it, about the program and why I’m doing that. So they understand what’s happening and why it’s happening. For transparency.”

“And that means anybody can question you, any time,” Shimura says, eyes narrowing.

“Yep. Stop, drop, and educate.” You wait, but he’s quiet, and you’re tired enough and hollow enough that the suspense gets to you first. “You can ask what I did. I have to tell you.”

Shimura nods – but then he doesn’t ask. About that, at least. “It’s dead in here. Did Present Mic clear everybody else out?”

“No. It gets quiet on sunny days when the tide’s low.” You nod through the window, and the sliver of beach visible between the buildings across the street. “I was thinking about closing early.”

“Why?” Shimura’s voice holds the faintest shadow of a sneer. “To walk on the beach?”

To lay facedown on your bed and wait for tears that won’t come, and won’t make you feel any better if they do. “Now you’re here, so I’m open. Do you want the usual?”

Shimura hesitates. Then he shakes his head. “Go home.”

“I’m open,” you repeat. You don’t want him to complain to Present Mic like the actual porn guy did. “Do you want the usual or do you feel like something new?”

“The usual.”

“Come on,” you say. He glares at you over his mask. There’s an old scar over his right eye. “There’s nobody here. Nobody’s going to catch you drinking something that actually tastes good.”

“The usual,” Shimura Tenko says, and crosses his arms over his chest. “And –”

He glances at the pastry case, and you see his expression shift into disappointment. It makes you sadder than it should, but you can fix it easily. You slide the babka you saved on the faint hope that he’d come back out of hiding and into full view. “One of these?”

Shimura stares at it for a full fifteen seconds before he looks up at you. “You saved it for me.”

“Yeah.” You pride yourself on knowing what your regulars like. You don’t want someone you see a few times a week to leave unsatisfied. “One babka and one black coffee, coming up.”

Shimura holds out his card, then hesitates. You’ve never seen him look uncertain at all. “And whatever you think tastes better than black coffee. One of those.”

“Really?” You can’t hide your surprise, or what an unexpected lift it is for your mood. “You won’t regret it. Which flavors do you like?”

“I don’t care.” Shimura waits while you swipe his card, then tucks it away. “This was your idea. I’m going – over there.”

He gestures at the back corner. “I know where you like to sit,” you say. “I’ll bring it out.”

As soon as he leaves, you get to work. You need to nail this. He’ll laugh at you if you bring him a tea latte, so it needs to have an espresso base. What goes well with babka? You already have chocolate and cinnamon on board – what about caramel, or hazelnut? Does he even like sweet things? He must, if he keeps ordering the damn babka. Maybe hazelnut, but what if he’s allergic? You pitch your voice to carry and see him startle. “Do you have any allergies?”

“Not to food.”

You wonder what he’s actually allergic to as you start pulling espresso shots for a chocolate hazelnut mocha. You really hope Shimura likes Nutella, because that’s exactly what this is going to taste like. Using bittersweet chocolate syrup instead of milk chocolate fixes it partway, but when you pour off a tiny bit to try it, it still tastes a lot like something you’d eat out of a jar with a spoon.

Whatever. You’re committed now. You don’t have a choice. You pour it into a cup, make some vague gesture at foam art, and carry it and the black coffee through the empty café to Shimura’s table. “One black coffee and one drink that actually tastes good.”

Shimura eyes the second cup. “What’s in there?”

“You said you didn’t care.”

“Yeah, well, now that I know you’ve done time I’m not sure I can trust you,” Shimura says, and you lock your expression down. That one hurt. A lot. He drags the cup towards himself with his right hand and lifts it to his mouth as he pulls down his mask with his left, but you’ve lost interest in the outcome. You turn and head back to the counter, trying not to feel like someone’s slapped you in the face and convincing yourself at least a little that it works.

You screw around behind the counter, taking inventory and counting down the minutes until last call, but Shimura’s back at the counter with forty-five minutes to go, an empty cup in his hand. It’s not the cup you put the black coffee in. “Fine. You win. I want another one of these.”

“Yep.” You set your clipboard aside and head back to the cash register to ring him up. “For here or to go?”

“Here.”

“I’m closing soon. To-go’s probably better.”

“Are you kicking me out?” Shimura asks. You look up at him, make eye contact, and whatever he sees in your face sets him off. Not in the way you thought it would. “Before, about the doing time thing. You know I was kidding, right?”

“Sure you were. Do you want a receipt?”

“Hey,” Shimura snaps. “It was a joke.”

“Not a good one.”

“Yeah, it was. If you –” Shimura breaks off, his scowl clear even from behind the mask. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I wouldn’t have said that if I didn’t get it.”

“Get it,” you repeat. “You’ve done time?”

“Yeah.” Shimura Tenko covers the back of his neck with one hand. “No charges, but – yeah, I did time. So it’s funny.”

“It’s still not funny.” You lift the empty cup out of Shimura’s hands and turn to start making a second Nutella-esque mocha, trying to decide if you feel better or not. “It’s just not mean.”

A shadow falls across you as you work. Shimura’s following you along the edge of the counter. “So am I getting kicked out or what?”

“Yes,” you say. “In forty-five minutes, when I close.”

Shimura’s eyes crinkle ever so slightly at the corners. You wonder what his smile looks like under that mask, but you’ve got espresso shots to pull, and you need to focus if you don’t want to burn your hand. You look away, and when you look back again, he’s at his table, laptop open, mask on, chin propped in his gloved hand. No charges, but he’s done time. You didn’t expect that. Even though you’ve spent the last five years of your life trying to prove that you’re no different than anybody else, it still catches you by surprise to learn that one of your customers is like you.

You bring the second drink by his table, then start working through your closing checklist. He stands up with five minutes to go, just like clockwork. He leaves without another word, as usual, but when you step outside, he’s still standing there. “You didn’t ask why.”

Why he did time? “Neither did you,” you say.

“Yeah, but I won’t break probation if I don’t answer.”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” you say. It’s not quite dark, but the sun’s almost down, and the shadows are growing long. Late March already, but it feels like you’ve got a long way to go before spring. “If I want people who meet me to look at the person I am now, I have to do the same thing for them.”

Shimura Tenko makes a sound, half-laughter and half-scoffing. “They sure did a number on you,” he says. You turn and walk away, and his footsteps follow yours. “Hey. Come on. There’s no way you’re that sensitive.”

“I’m not,” you say. “I’m just having a bad day.”

A bad day, and you never get a day off. Even if the café’s not open, you’re still in sunshine mode every second, making sure that the people who want to treat you like a criminal look absolutely insane for doing it. You fought hard for this life. You’re glad you fought for it. And today more than usual, you’re just really tired. “I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Yeah,” Shimura says. You’re glad he doesn’t try to apologize again. You know it would be painfully insincere. “How did you know?”

“Hmm?”

“The pastry. How did you know I’d come back?”

“I didn’t,” you say. “I just hoped you would.”

You don’t know why you hoped. Maybe because he’d clearly been waiting a while when you and Present Mic got back. Maybe because you remember how much it mattered to have somewhere else to go, whether you had a place of your own or not. Maybe because you’ve gotten sort of a sense of him over the past few months, and you know he’s the kind of person who pretends not to want the things he wants. Wanting the coffee shop he hangs out in to be open and to have his favorite pastry available is such a reasonable thing to want. You were hoping he’d come back so you could give it to him.

Shimura doesn’t say anything. You keep walking, and he doesn’t follow you. When you glance back over your shoulder as you round the corner, you see him standing just outside of Skyline Coffee and Tea, staring intently at something. You can’t say for sure. But you’re pretty sure it’s the sign that explains about the NCRA.

A while back, you read that some countries set aside two days to commemorate a war. One day to celebrate that it ended, another to mourn that it happened at all. When it comes to the war you lived through, Japan does things differently. There’s just one day, a national holiday, where every government office closes and most businesses do, too. For most people, it’s a day to celebrate. There are carnivals, street fairs, concerts, parties. It’s been a holiday for exactly four years and a whole host of traditions have already sprung up around it.

But there’s one person who never celebrates, and it didn’t take you long to come around to his way of thinking. On April 4th, the fifth annual Day of Peace, you close the café early and make the trek to Kamino Ward.

You’re not sure how Kamino Ward became the place. Maybe because the final battlefield’s been overtaken by celebrations, and at least some people still see Kamino as hallowed ground. The place where the Symbol of Peace made his last stand. The place where the Symbol of Fear passed the torch onto his successor. You get there a little while before sunset, and you join the hundreds of people who’ve already gathered there. The crowd looks smaller than it did last year, and it hasn’t grown much by the time Midoriya Izuku, known to the world as Deku, climbs onto the steps leading up to the All Might statue’s plinth.

Someone hands him a microphone, which he takes with hands that tremble ever so slightly. He’s only twenty-one, and he looks old before his time. “I’m here,” he starts, then swallows hard. “I’m here because we didn’t win. Not really. If you’re here instead of at a party somewhere, I think it’s probably because you lost something. Something, or someone, who was important to you. Something you can’t get back.”

It’s quiet. It’s always quiet after he says something like that. “I’d like to think we did something. That we changed for the better,” Deku continues, “but I think we can only say that if we don’t forget what we had to lose for it to happen. So, um – you know the drill. If you brought a candle, great. If you didn’t, we have some. You can say the thing you lost if you want – we have a microphone – but when you’re done, light the candle and put it down somewhere that feels right to you.”

He takes a deep breath, lets it go. “And then you can go. But I’ll stay until they all burn out.”

People swarmed the first two years. This year they form a line, stepping up to light their candles one by one. You never know what to say when it’s your turn, because it’s not something specific you miss. The way things used to be was awful. You don’t miss that, and you weren’t close enough to anybody to lose someone who mattered in the war. But April 4th has never felt like a happy day. It feels wrong to you to be setting off fireworks and throwing parties in response to a war that almost destroyed the world.

A lot of people say names when it’s their turn to light a candle. Some say places. Some share an ideal they lost, a hero they venerated who fell from their pedestal, a dream they had that will never come true. Each lost thing named is met with respectful silence. But just like last year and the year before, there are three names that aren’t, no matter who says them. “Big Sis Magne. Bubaigawara Jin,” says Toga Himiko as she lights her candle. Say Todoroki Touya and Sako Atsuhiro and Iguchi Shuichi, who still answers to Spinner, as they light theirs. “Shigaraki Tomura.”

There’s always whispering after their names, especially Shigaraki’s. But Deku always goes last, and Deku always shuts them up. He lights his candle and grasps the microphone, speaking clearly, firmly. “Shigaraki Tomura.”

You remember what Present Mic said, about how Deku never got over failing to save Shigaraki. Deku was sixteen when he won the war. Still a kid. Was saving Shigaraki really his job? Maybe that’s the point of all this. It was everyone’s job to stop villains like Shigaraki from being created, and you all failed, so it fell to Deku – and he failed, too. It’s one big, sad, ugly mess. When you’re honest with yourself, you’re not surprised that most people try to cover it up with fireworks.

People begin to filter out of the memorial park, and you find a place to sit down. It’s not like you have somewhere else to go. The others who say settle in as well, in small groups amidst the rows and clusters of candles. You’re within earshot of one of the groups. Without meaning to, you find yourself listening in.

“They’d have hated this,” Todoroki Touya is saying, his voice low and bitter. “Every second of it.”

“Big Sis Magne wouldn’t have. And Twice would have liked it,” Toga Himiko says. Her voice is soft. “All the candles. He’d say it’s like his birthday.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Todoroki Touya’s voice goes even quieter. “Do any of us know when his birthday was?”

It’s quiet. “Shigaraki would hate this,” Todoroki states. “You know he would. What did he tell you to tell Spinner, Deku?”

Deku doesn’t answer. Spinner does. “Shigaraki Tomura fought to destroy until the very end.”

“Yeah,” Todoroki says. “To destroy. And Deku made him a martyr.”

“He destroyed a lot of things,” Deku says quietly. “All For One is gone. One For All, too – there’s never going to be another Symbol of Peace. He destroyed the way we saw villains. We don’t just get to look at what they’re doing right now. We have to think about how they got there. And he destroyed how we saw ourselves.”

“Yeah?” Spinner says. “How?”

“We didn’t think we were responsible for other people,” Deku says. “Now we have to be.”

It’s quiet again. This time it’s quiet for a while. “Whatever,” Todoroki says. “I’m going home. See you all at the next sobfest.”

“He always says that,” Spinner says, once his footsteps have faded. “He’s gonna get tanked at home and text us just like he did last year.”

“I miss Tomura-kun,” Toga says, her voice softer than before. “I thought we’d all be together at the end.”

“I know,” Deku says. “I’m sorry.”

“And you’re sure –” Spinner breaks off. “You’re sure you couldn’t get his ashes or something? So we could –”

“There was nothing left of Shigaraki,” Deku says. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Spinner says. Toga sniffles. “We know.”

The group splits, Toga in one direction, Spinner in the other. A moment later, Deku walks past you, and you do everything you can to fade into the background short of turning yourself camo-colored. It doesn’t work. “Did you hear all that?” Deku asks. You nod. He sighs, or sniffles, maybe. He looks younger up close. “You were here last year, right?”

“And the year before,” you say. The longer you look at him, the worse shape he’s in. “Um, are you okay?”

“It’s just –” Deku’s eyes well up, suddenly. “It’s hard. I can’t say what I want to say to them.”

“Why not?” you ask stupidly, and he shakes his head. “Um – do you want to sit down?”

You wouldn’t ask another hero that, but you feel like it’s worth the risk. Even though he’s twenty-one, you can’t look at him and see anything other than a kid, and it feels wrong to let a kid stand there and cry. Deku sits down next to you. “I know I’m not supposed to ask,” he starts, his voice watery, “but you never say anything when it’s your turn. Most people don’t come here. Even the ones who lost somebody would rather be at a party somewhere. Why do you come back?”

You have to think about it for a second. Deku cringes. “Sorry. You don’t have to answer.”

“I sort of do.” It might hit your probation requirements, and even if it doesn’t, you should explain anyway. “What you said earlier, in your speech – I’m one of the people the world got better for. My life would have been awful if it had stayed the same. But in order for me to have this life, we had to have the war.”

“What did you do during the war? Were you in a shelter?”

You shake your head. “The shelters banned people with criminal records,” you say. Deku’s eyes widen. “Nowhere would let me in.”

It wasn’t all that different from the way you were living before – not much food, not very safe. The only difference was a sharp increase in the number of abandoned buildings for you to crash in. But it looks like you’re making Deku feel worse, not better, and you scramble into part two of your explanation. “I’m one of the NCRA participants. That program only exists because of the war – and you, because you won’t let people forget why the war happened. So I want to remember why the war happened, too. And I want to honor it. Them.”

“Him,” Deku corrects, and your stomach clenches. “I wonder what he thinks of all of this. If it’s enough. If it’ll ever be enough. I mean, obviously it’ll never be enough for him, because he doesn’t – I mean, I can’t ask him, but I know he can see it. I don’t know where he is, but if I could just ask him –”

You didn’t realize Deku believed this strongly in the afterlife. You sit quietly, and after a few seconds, he remembers you’re there. He glances at you, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” you say. “Do you not get to talk about it very much?”

“No,” Deku admits. “People want to move on. And I don’t really blame them. But I can’t. Not until I know for sure.”

It’s quiet for a little bit. He wipes his eyes. You watch the candles flicker down a few millimeters more. “You’re in the NCRA,” Deku says finally. “For job training, or did you get a loan?”

“I got a loan,” you say. “I run a coffee shop now. With free WiFi.”

“Do people like it?”

“I think so,” you say. You think of the kids who come to study, the people who use the WiFi for remote work, the old people who walk the beach every morning and stop by for coffee and pastry afterwards. “I have regulars, anyway. And people talk to me now. They never used to.”

“People talk to me now, too,” Deku says. “It’s nice.”

“Yeah,” you agree. “It is.”

It is, but it’s not quite what you meant, and you don’t want to interrupt when Deku starts talking about the NCRA. It’s not just that people talk to you. They talked to you before, but now they see you – not as a criminal, but as a person like them, minus the squeaky-clean record. That’s new, and that’s good. You know even less about Shigaraki Tomura than Deku does, but even if he’d hate what’s happened to the world he wanted to destroy, you’re thankful anyway. The world is better now. It’s better because of Deku, and Deku’s the way he is because of Shigaraki.

There are fireworks going off over the bay, distant enough that you can’t hear the sound. Closer than that, you hear music and laughter from a street party you passed on your way here from the train station. Deku trails off after a while, and you don’t speak up again. The two of you sit in silence until the last of the candles burns away.

You get home late, and it’s an early morning opening up the café. Luckily for you, everybody else is also running late courtesy of the holiday yesterday. Osono comes by fifteen minutes off-schedule and full of apologies, and while you’ve got your doors open by seven, it’s not until seven-fifty-eight that your first customers come through the door. It’s a double shot of espresso kind of day, and while you’re pulling them, your customers tell you about the parties they went to last night. When they ask what you did, you tell them you went into the city. It’s not a lie.

After the slow start, the shop stays quieter than usual, quiet enough that when Shimura Tenko rolls up just past noon, there’s still plenty of babka left in the pastry case. You start his order before he’s even opened the door – one black coffee, one Nutella-flavored nightmare – and he stops to drop off his stuff at his usual table before he comes up to the counter. You can tell he’s disquieted by something. “Did Present Mic come by and scare everybody off again? How are you going to keep this place open if no one’s here?”

“Mornings are a lot busier than afternoons,” you say. “And spring’s my quietest season, anyway. No tourists like there are in the summer, and it’s not very cold.”

“Yeah.” Shimura glances around, still displeased. “This place had better stay open.”

“It will,” you say. “One shot of espresso or two?”

“Three.”

“Three? It’s your funeral,” you say, but you pull the extra shot. “Late night last night?”

“I went to a party,” Shimura says. You nod. “It was my birthday.”

“Happy birthday.” You cancel half his order. You give people a free drink on their birthday, if you know it and they come in. “Your birthday is April 4th? That’s a tough draw, especially the last few years.”

“You’re telling me.” Instead of retreating to his table like usual, Shimura hovers at the bar. “What about you? Did you go to a party?”

You shake your head. “I went into the city.”

“Which city?”

“Yokohama,” you admit. Shimura’s eyes narrow. “I go to the vigil at Kamino. I have every year they’ve done it.”

“Really,” Shimura says, skeptical. “Why?”

Deku asked you the same question. You have a feeling Shimura won’t like the answer, but it’s the only one you have. “My life is better than it was before the war, because of what happened in the war. I want to be thankful for that. It doesn’t feel right to me to go to a carnival.”

Shimura doesn’t say anything, just watches you. It makes you feel weird. “If I’d known it was your birthday, though, I’d have gone to a party for that. It was your birthday way before it was the Day of Peace.” You’re babbling, and Shimura still hasn’t said a word. “Not that you’d invite me to your birthday party or anything.”

“I didn’t know you’d want to go,” Shimura says slowly. The espresso machine beeps, and you focus on it way harder than you’d do under ordinary circumstances. “Look, I – it wasn’t my party. Just a party. It’s not like I went in a fucking birthday hat.”

“That would look pretty weird with your hood still up,” you say. Shimura makes an odd sound. You look up and see the corners of his eyes crinkling again. “Still, though. I’ll remember for next year. I’ll get a cupcake or something. Even if you don’t want somebody who’s done time at your birthday party.”

Shimura laughs at that. Actually laughs. Your chest constricts, filling with warmth in a way that feels out of proportion to the situation at hand. “I only want people who’ve done time at my birthday party,” he says. “Don’t try to give me that drink for free. You letting this place go under would be a shitty birthday present.”

“Too late. It’s already free and I’m not rerunning the sale.” You pour the black coffee and set it down on the pickup counter, followed by the godawful Nutella drink. “Happy birthday plus one.”

Shimura rolls his eyes, but they’re still crinkled slightly at the corners. He doesn’t respond until he’s already halfway back to the table, and he’s so quiet that you have to strain your ears to hear. “Thanks.”

You should say something. Something like “you’re welcome”, or “any time”. Something that sounds like good customer service, instead of what you’re worried will come out of your mouth if you open it right now. The conversation is over. Nothing else needs to be said. You turn to face your small workspace, searching for a distraction. There has to be something you can clean.

It’s been so long since you had a crush that you barely remember what it’s like, but you’re pretty sure you have a crush on Shimura. As far as crushes go, he’s kind of a weird pick – because he’s a customer, because he’s not the friendliest, because he hasn’t given any indication that he likes you at all. He likes babka and free internet and the horrible off-menu mocha you make just for him. That’s it.

It feels weird to have a crush. Weird in how normal of a thing it is to do, when you’ve been so focused on looking normal and pretending to be normal that you haven’t done anything actually normal in a while. But maybe this is a good thing, and maybe it’s okay. You might get released early from your NCRA requirements, and even if you don’t, you’re doing well. You can afford to like somebody again.

The café stays quiet, and with two hours left before closing time, you’re getting bored. Bored, and you haven’t switched out the mural since before your last check-in with Present Mic. Now’s an okay time for that. You scribble a sign to prop up on the counter – I’m here, just yell – and head towards the back wall. You have to pass Shimura to get there, and as you do, he looks up. “I’m not looking,” you say. “I’ll just be over here.”

“Doing what?”

“A new mural,” you say. “Pretend I’m not here.”

Shimura decides to start right away, and you flex your fingers more out of habit than anything else. Then you set your hand on the wall and activate your quirk, changing the entire wall from the wildflower mural back to the same blank neutral as the others. That’s a good start. Now you just need to figure out what you’re going to do with it.

Actual muralists sketch and line their work. They work from references and they draft the design before they actually start painting. You know that because you used to want to be a muralist yourself. You could sketch and line things, but these days you’re more about feelings than anything else, and feelings take color. You block the wall into a few sections – you remember to do that, at least – and fill in general colors, running your fingers along the edges to blur them together. Grey base and sides. Dark-colored middle. The entire upper half of the wall is light. It’s not until you’ve added the half-circle above the horizon that you get a real understanding of what you’re making.

It's another cityscape, or the ruins of one, something you saw in photos or maybe in person. It looks a lot like the sunrise view from Kamino Ward, the sky on fire with deep purple and orange and pink and gold, the reflection of those colors splashed across the sea, the wreckage of the city bathed in morning light. You’ve done enough therapy to psychoanalyze yourself, and it’s not hard to see what you were going for with this. Things are horrible. Things were horrible for a long time before today, but the sun is still rising, and the sunrise is still beautiful. And it’s a lot easier to see now, with all the other stuff out of the way.

“That’s not paint.”

You weren’t expecting Shimura to say anything, and you weren’t expecting him to pay attention to what you’re doing. But when you look back over your shoulder, you see him staring, his phone set aside, the lid of his laptop shut. “It’s not paint,” you say. “Just my quirk.”

“How does it work?” Shimura asks. You turn back to your mural, and you hear him get to his feet. A moment later he’s standing beside you, answering his own question. “You can change the color of things you touch. And decide how long it stays that way.”

“Yeah.” After using it your whole life, you’re pretty good at it. You can fine-tune stuff, enough to add shading to the buildings and the rubble at the sides and bottom of the mural without compromising the light from the sunrise. “Not a very powerful quirk.”

“You could still cause trouble,” Shimura says. You could. And you did. “This is how you got your charges, isn’t it? Stuff like this.”

“Graffiti? Yeah,” you say. You remember the rush you got the first time you tagged something, the first time you spilled your thoughts and feelings in a way no one could ignore. “Except when you do that, you get charged with trespassing and vandalism, and when they figure out they can’t remove it, you get charged with destruction of property. Throw in malicious unlicensed quirk usage and – boom. Felonies.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Me or them?”

“Giving somebody a felony for painting stuff on walls.” Shimura studies what you’ve done so far. “All of these have been yours, right? Is this the same stuff you were painting before?”

“Not always,” you say. This conversation falls under your NCRA obligations, but it doesn’t feel like it’s the reason Shimura’s asking – and it’s not the reason you’re telling him. “When I first got into it, it was just words or sentences. Stuff I couldn’t figure out how to say out loud. The first time I really got busted, it was for tagging the side of my parents’ house.”

“Your parents called the cops on you?”

“And pressed charges,” you say. He’s staring at you again. You pretend you don’t notice and fuss over the shoreline in the mural. “I got better at it when I was older. The art got better, anyway. But I got in more trouble because of where I put it. And I guess what was in it.”

“Anything I’d have seen?”

“I don’t know. Where did you hang around?” you ask. You got booked in most of the big cities in Japan during your criminal career. “Uh, I did the UA barrier. The one with the – you know.”

“The human shields?” Shimura bursts out laughing. “Did you have a sibling in Eraserhead’s class or something?”

“No, I just thought it was stupid to do the Sports Festival a week after what happened,” you say. Shimura snickers. “It felt like they were using the kids as props to distract from how much of a mistake they’d made, and I was mad about a lot of other stuff, too, and – yeah. I kind of went off.”

You really went off. There’s no other way to describe triggering the UA barrier on purpose at two am so you could make a crude mural of All Might, Endeavor, Hawks, and Best Jeanist hiding behind a bunch of kids in school uniforms. Shimura is still snickering. “Damn. I’m surprised they call you nonviolent with how bad you hurt their feelings.”

“They had to replace the whole barrier,” you say, and Shimura wheezes. “I’m not trying to be funny.”

“No, but it is funny.” Shimura glances at you over the edge of his mask. “And now you run a coffee shop and make things like this.”

He looks away from you, back to the mural. “Is this something real? It looks familiar,” he says. Before you can answer, his eyes widen, and he says it himself. “Kamino Ward. Why would you paint it like that?”

“It’s how I see it in my head. Or how I feel it. I don’t really know.” You reach out and use the tip of your index finger to highlight one of the buildings that’s still standing in sunrise gold. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know.” Shimura reaches out and touches it with one gloved hand. “People are going to be pissed at you.”

“If they recognize it.” You’re not too worried. “Most people just look at the colors.”

“I recognized it.”

“You’re not most people.”

You instantly wish you hadn’t said a word. Shimura Tenko glances at you quickly, then looks back to the mural. “Yeah,” he says. “I was there.”

Your stomach drops. “You were?” you repeat hopelessly, and he nods without looking your way. “I’m sorry. It’s – insensitive. I’ll take it down –”

“No.” Shimura catches your wrist before you can make contact with the mural. “Leave it. I was gone for this part. It’s a nice view. The horizon, I mean.”

That’s your favorite part, and you’re not even done with it yet. “I still have some stuff to add,” you say. Shimura nods but doesn’t let go of your wrist. You pull at it slightly. “I need this back.”

“Fuck. Sorry.” Shimura recoils like you’ve burned him, then backs away. Way too far away. You’d say he was making fun of you, except you can see his eyes over the mask, and they’re expressive in spite of his complete lack of eyebrows. “Sorry. I don’t usually – touch people.”

“It’s okay.” Your wrist feels tingly where his hand made contact, and there are butterflies in your stomach. He doesn’t usually touch people, but he touched you. “Thanks for stopping me.”

Shimura turns away completely. “I have to work.”

“Yeah. I didn’t mean to distract you.”

“I know.” Shimura slides back into his booth. You turn back to put the finishing touches on your mural.

He’s right about it. In the hour left before you close, at least one customer who trickles in gives you a hard time for putting up something so upsetting. You listen to his concerns, but you stick to your guns, and when he sits down to wait for his order, you see him watching it. Just like Shimura is, the screen of his laptop long since gone dark.

[pansexualkiba]

"Spinner..." Tomura began, before thinking over what Natsuyume would do in this sort of scenario. (Granted, Heart-Throbbing School Island Mystery didn't exactly touch on anti-Mutant discrimination, but he could guess.) Instead, he raced to remember Spinner's actual name. "Iguchi... You can talk to us, if you need to."

"Thanks, boss." Spinner nodded, still stiff. "I... can tell you mean that, somehow."

"Of course I can." Tomura replied, mentally cheering over having advanced his social rank with Spinner. "It is a doggy-dog world out here."

"It i- wait." Spinner turned to Tomura, face weird. "Say that again?"

"...It's a doggy-dog world out here?"

"That. No. Dog-eat-dog. Where did you even hear doggy-dog?"

"I've never heard dog-eat-dog before."

"What the- DABI!" Spinner shouted, drawing the rest of the league's attention.

"Good fuck, what is it?" Dabi sighed.

"Settle something for us," Spinner demanded. "Is it dog-eat-dog?"

"Or is it doggy-dog?" Tomura finished the question.

Dabi began to visibly consider his answers, eyes darting between Spinner and Tomura. He began to sweat.

[eretzyisrael]

María Rivera Maulucci, a professor of Urban Studies at Barnard, spoke out against the arrests.

“The root of word education means to lead out, but how are we leading our students out? In zip ties. Where are we leading students out? To buses? To police stations?” she told the crowd, according to the blog.

Comments such as that — and the general support for the anti-Israel students — left Rory Lancman, the senior counsel of the Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, lamenting his alma mater.

3Columbia University’s faculty is facing backlash after their decision to back students at the anti-Israel demonstration on campus was denounced as “grotesque” by members of New York’s Jewish community.Getty Images

“It’s grotesque that we have professors who can’t discern the difference between hateful, discriminatory and violent rhetoric that violates the university’s anti-discrimination policies and terrorizes a segment of the university community and reasoned free speech and debate,” said Lancman, whose legal advocacy groups works to battle antisemitism.

“What you’re witnessing at Columbia is the anti-Zionist, antisemitic movement at its core.”

Lancman described the protesters as wannabe “fascists” who were trying to get their way “through harassment, intimidation and violence.”

Several Columbia graduate students, who only gave their first names, also questioned the professors’ support for the student protesters.

“I don’t think it was a smart thing for them to do,” Dana, 34, told the Post.

3Professors appeared on the school’s steps to support the right of the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” to take over campus space and denounce the administration’s decision to have protesters arrested.REUTERS

“The professors siding with them, basically that tells me, ‘OK Columbia is not a place of discourse, it is not [a] place where you can peacefully argue. It’s a place that sides with a very specific student body.'”

Ali, 26, a transfer student from Tel Aviv University, said the faculty walkout made it clear that the professors were not just endorsing the protest at Columbia, but were actively taking part as well.

“There was no reason to believe that they weren’t part of the protest. They joined the movement because they came out and joined the protest,” Ali said.

He added that the protesters at Columbia have “made no effort to distance themselves from pro-terrorism positions,” calling the demonstrations “disturbing.”

Omer, another graduate student who was putting up pictures of the remaining hostages kidnapped by Hamas, said he was also troubled by the professors’ walkout.

[strawberrycloudmjj]

Reverse Racism; A much needed article/informative post, because if I see another racially illiterate mofo watering down racism to “just another discrimination, I'm gonna fucking combust.

Main source is The Conversation's article on this topic. Content warning for mentioning of discrimination and neo-nazism.

Ah, yes. Racism, that infamous word. This important word needed to help us understand the social relations that are affected with this element.

It is a very great watershed, indeed. Specially because of one controversial topic: Reverse Racism. But what is reverse racism, after all?

Reverse racism is the idea that racism can happen to white people and that white people can/are affected by racist violence by (normally) non-white people. In other words, a myth.

“But Angelle, ain't racism discrimination based on race? Wouldn't that include discrimination against white people as well?” Great question, little grasshopper, but this definition is actually wrong.

Sure, racism does involve a huge discrimination element, but this is only the tip of the iceberg. The correct definition for racism is Prejudice + Power. More specifically, institutional power. Racism is, at it's core, an institution and an structure, made to protect and put white people at advantage.

And this is basically it. Reverse racism does not exist, and if you believe it does, you are either naïve and racially illiterate, at best, or a whole white supremacist, at worst.

Iiihh, are ya surprised? Well, don't be, because this rethoric of anti-white racism is a racist and a neo-nazi belief. Many white supremacists across the world use phrases like “white lives matter”, “all lives matter” (that one a little bit tricky, because all lives indeed matter; but here's the thing, that is what the anti racist movement is here for! And the women's liberation movement! And the mogai activism! The “all lives matter” does nothing but take the focus away from minorities subtly, so it's real important to pay attention.), “It's ok to be white”, and nanananana, and this kind of shenanigans. Many of them are also dog whistles (see Anti Defamation League's dog whistles glossary for more information).

In conclusion, reverse racism does not exist. It's just another racist rethoric, and y'all need to learn to listen to people of colour when we say something is bullshit. Thank you for coming to my ted talk and have a great day.

[matan4il]

Feel like I live in an alternate reality or something cause why is the left NEVER talking about how Arabs repeatedly rejected the two state solution? Sure, hold Israel responsible for their treatment of Palestinians. But are we supposed to ignore Palestine's refusal to find a middle ground that would put an end to decades of violence? Are we supposed to ignore that they voted for a terrorist group that wants to wipe Jews from the face of the earth?

Hi Nonnie! Thank you for this ask.

I wouldn't put it only on the left, there are right wing white supremacists who also use anti-Zionism as a means to attack Jews. But yeah, the difference is people on the left were supposed to care about Jewish lives, too. Instead, the anti-Israeli crowd conveniently leaves out huge chunks of the history, and then uses that false narrative to justify the massacre of Jews:

That Jews were systematically oppressed, discriminated, persecuted and even repeatedly massacred in the Land of Israel for centuries before the State of Israel was established

That Jews repeatedly tried to make peace with the Arabs even before establishing the State of Israel

That in Nov 1947, Jews accepted the UN's two state solution, known as the partition plan, while the Arabs rejected it

That in Oct 1947, the secretary general of the Arab League promised a "war of extermination" against the Jews in Israel... just 2.5 years after the end of the Holocaust

That the local Arabs were the ones to attack the Jews in Nov 1947, then the Arab armies joined them in May 1948. Arabs tried to genocide the Jews in Israel, not the other way around

That despite this, Israel absorbed 160,000 Arabs as citizens when it was established (the ones who did not flee, nor used violence against the Jews), and even offered to take back tens of thousands of the Arabs who had fled

That Arabs were a part of governing Israel from the start, with three Arab elected parliament representatives in the first Knesset

That during its entire history, Israel only expended its borders once, following a defensive war, and it then gave away the overwhelming majority of those territories for peace (with Egypt, with Jordan, and then unsuccessfully with the Palestinians)

That Israel made repeated attempts at reaching a final peace agreement with the Palestinians along the years, and has made offers that gave the Palestinians the exact amount of territory they were demanding

And that Jews ARE native to Israel, with native rights here

Does that mean Israel is perfect? No. But it's far from the monster the anti-Israeli crowd depicts it as. The story is not the simple projection of colonizers vs colonized that these people are selling to those who don't know the history of the conflict. And now, this false narrative has been used to justify the beheading of babies, and rapes that were so brutal, they broke bones...

I hope you're taking care of yourself, Nonnie! Sending you hugs and love! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Dion J. Pierre

Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts responded to recent antisemitic incidents on campus by condemning “Islamophobia” and pledging to review an anti-Zionist group’s demand that the school adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Late last month, someone graffitied a swastika on campus and stole several mezuzahs, small parchment scrolls containing Hebrew verses from the Torah that members of the Jewish community fix to their doorposts. The Daily Wire first reported the story on X/Twitter.

The school’s president, Sarah Willie-LeBreton, addressed the incidents in a letter to the campus community last week. She proclaimed that there is “no place for antisemitism, Islamophobia, or any form of hate at Smith College,” demonstrating what higher education experts have described as a reluctance on the part of university presidents to address antisemitism as a standalone problem.

Willie-LeBreton continued, listing actions the college is taking in response to the incidents, including “considering  a divestment request” which was proposed by the anti-Zionist campus club Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). According to SJP, the school has already acceded to their demand that products sold by Sabra Dipping Company, LLC, owned by PepsiCo and the Israeli food manufacturer Strauss Group Ltd., be banned from campus. The group has repeatedly vowed to target Smith’s endowment, hoping to force the school to divest from companies that conduct business in or with Israel.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has noted in numerous reports and public letters that SJP is responsible for terrorizing Jewish college students.

On Tuesday, nonprofit leaders and academics castigated Willie-LeBreton’s statement, arguing that it betrayed her indifference to anti-Jewish hatred.

“I think it’s time to say that when you respond to a specifically antisemitic incident by condemning antisemitismandislamophobia [sic], you have exacerbated the original antisemitism by not taking seriously what happened, and instead placating antisemites who think that addressing antisemitism as such is problematic,” George Mason University law professor David Bernstein said on X. “But this one is even worse than usual, by noting that Smith is considering a request to divest from Israel, as if that’s somehow a proper response to an antisemitic incident as opposed to encouraging antisemitism.”

Hussain Abdul-Hussain of, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think tank based in Washington DC, challenged the college to cite one example of anti-Muslim conduct, and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) on Campus denounced Willie-LeBreton’s response as “irresponsible and dangerous.” Other users weighed in, calling Smith College “beyond parody” and an “utter failure.”

Smith College did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

The school, a small liberal college for women, is not the only higher education institution that has subtly accused Jewish students of engaging in acts of discrimination of which anti-Zionists are guilty.

On Monday, after Jewish students at Tufts University were spit on and called antisemitic epithets during a student government session held to consider passing four BDS resolutions, university spokesperson Patrick Collins said “Islamophobic words” are entirely unacceptable. By chance, three reporters from The Tufts Daily who were present for the session did not record overhearing any utterances of anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Similar statements have been issued since Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, which was followed by a surge of antisemitic incidents on US college campuses.

In November, the English Department of the University of Colorado-Boulder proclaimed, “We stand against Islamophobia and antisemitism.” Days later, California State University said that “deplorable acts” of “antisemitism and Islamophobia” had taken place “on college campuses across the country,” without citing specific incidents of anti-Muslim discrimination.

Since Oct. 7, anti-Zionists have been accused of beating up, spitting on, and using antisemitic slurs against Jewish, Israeli, and pro-Israel students. Such behavior has been the subject of numerous civil rights complaints and lawsuits. Anti-Zionist student groups have in turn accused pro-Israel students of Islamophobia, citing instances in which anti-Israel activists have been punished for breaking rules, promoting hate speech, or times when they were denounced for supporting terrorism.