#antiracist baby

[mmilhouse]

overheard a couple looking at books and one commented that it was good they make stuff like that but she worries it would be inappropriate given that her child doesnt know anything about that kind of thing yet and her companion commented "yeah he hasnt really been exposed to diversity yet to understand that kind of thing" and i keep thinking about the words "exposed to diversity"

[weareagitated]

(via Progressive Politics Antiracist Make Racism Wrong Again Cute - Etsy)

[doberbutts]

It’s very refreshing to see your thoughts on the state of feminism and masculinity, particularly men’s position in the movement. Sometimes coming on here makes me feel insane with the takes I see from people who have clearly never done any activist work, read anything by a black activist, or actual gender studies scholarship. I really enjoy reading your takes, they’re very nuanced and thought provoking!

I was talking with a very good friend of mine (a black lesbian) and discussing how we go online and see totally wild assbackwards takes from people claiming to be feminists and antiracists and then when actually confronted with the work, freak out and state that it's antithetical to the cause. Even when it's work written by people who began the cause. How we grew up in fairly similar yet different demographics and we heard all the same early work from our black elders and then we come online and even the most baby kindergarten-ass idea or theory is shredded in favor of some extreme bastardization of the most radical political viewpoints and that's it.

For her, it's why she doesn't engage with tumblr anymore. For me, it's why I refuse to let people try to talk over me about black politics.

[theremina]

Adoption causes way more intergenerational trauma and collective health crises than I think many "kept" people realize.

If you bother to read it, the science is clear: adoption is violently traumatic, causing devastating, irreversible health issues for millions of human beings. Yet I'd have more luck conveying the severity and longevity of my own trauma to most non-adoptees with "I was dropped on my head as a baby."

Heck, I didn't begin to contend with the horrors of my own situation until my mid forties. Being yeeted directly after birth into foster care and eventually adopted by lovely, well-intentioned folks who were not prepared *at all* to help me deal with the lifelong neurodevelopmental disorders and physical health problems directly caused by my abandonment at birth has permanently damaged me. I'm saying so as one of the "lucky ones".

I adore my adoptive family. They're incredible parents. We love each other dearly. This doesn't change the fact, not for one second, that I wouldn't wish adoption on ANYBODY. Thankfully, my folks understand this. I wish more adoptive parents did.

The modern adoption industry* is, by design, deeply misogynistic, racist, transactional, ableist, imperialist, colonial. Ignorance and hate and apathy and coercion and subjugation and dehumanization and capitalism keep the machine running.

We're already seeing the beginning of Baby Scoop Too: Electric Boogaloo on Facebook. On Twitter. On Instagram. On other social media platforms owned and controlled by obscenely wealthy white men who don't consider private adoptions to be unethical.

You may *think* that legalized human trafficking doesn't really effect you, but soon, if the Christofascists continue their cultural blitzkrieg, the amount of infants and children who end up in the foster care system, adopted by unqualified people, in devastating private "rehoming" situations like the one shared above, or worse, is gonna SKYROCKET.

So...I'm barely on Facebook anymore for a few different reasons. One of them is that I couldn't handle watching a whole bunch of ignorant self-proclaimed feminists making shitty adoption jokes after Roe was overturned.

Another reason is that Facebook is LITERALLY A BABY MARKET.

ADOPTIVE PARENTS ARE BUYING AND SELLING CHILDREN ON FACEBOOK. WHAT THE ACTUAL UNFORTUNATE FUCK.

Nearly 100 million American families are in the adoption triad, with a majority of adoptees' needs and voices being considered last instead of first. It's so backwards.

Non-kinship adoption is a systemic violence that cannot help but touch the lives of billions. That is so very, very bad for ALL of us, not just abandoned infants and children or their struggling parents.

Some straightforward response questions for every person who has ever asked me about about my adoption:

Are you a feminist? Are you antiracist? Are you a humanitarian? Anti-ableist? Do you consider yourself lefty, liberal, or otherwise progressive? Do you respect science? Then please reevaluate your perceptions of adoption.

For every adoptive or bio parent you listen to, listen to three or more adoptees. For every shitty adoption "joke" you've ever told, check in with an adoptee (or first mom) in a kind and caring way. For every ignorant question you've ever asked an adoptee about our "real parents", crack a book!

Please. Do some research. Learn. Please. Center transracial adoptees, international adoptees, disabled adoptees, queer adoptees. Please. This stuff impacts all of us just as surely as countless other aspects of systemic rape culture do. Try to understand. Please.

I'm more certain than ever that we must abolish before we can rebuild.

Please give a shit. Please.

*The fact that adoption is an industry at all should shock and horrify us all, and yet... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[image description: a screenshot of a Facebook post with a black border and caption reading, “Welcome to America, where people try to regime adopted children on Facebook Marketplace.” The Facebook post itself reads, “So basically they either want him to come back home, or have CPS place him in a foster home. Or I can find someone willing to take him in, and ‘under the table’ pay them the stipend, we get. If CPS places him they will have to have an open case against me. In doing that I will lose my job. I cannot work at a daycare, school, group home etc. if I have an open active CPS case against me. How the hell do I go about ‘re-homing’ my child? Should I create a post in market place? Through no fault of our own, we are being forced to re-home our thirteen year old son. He can be the most loving, helpful young man. He does suffer some learning difficulties. He comes with a complete wardrobe and a monthly allotment. Only serious inquiries please.” End id]

[trvthnvker]

the period between 2013 and 2019 was like the most tepid equivalent to an american cultural revolution possible. no one even died we just got really annoying and made a bunch of books called like "antiracist baby" and managed to do pretty much nothing about antiblack police brutality as a national phenomenon

[jellybeanium124]

xxx

I'm angry in this one btw. real properly angry. I don't wanna talk about this because I know some of y'all are thiiiiis close to blocking me for not falling in line and being a good little jew and repeating the slogans thoughtlessly, but I'm so mad and scared and nobody cares at all and I wanna shut up about it so I don't lose all my goyische friends but I can't I just can't.

hm maybe people are being arrested because there is some violence and this is terrifying jewish students?? and I think the author of this article is way too kind to these students. they hail hamas as heroes. they don't think the innocent civilian hostages should be released for the crime of being israeli. they champion themselves as being antiracist when ANTISEMITISM IS AN ETHNIC PREJUDICE YOU DUMB FUCKING CHAZERS!!!

jews are terrified.

rabbis are telling us to stay home.

whenever there's an "assembly" on the uni I live by, I'm terrified it'll turn violent. I'm terrified they'll burn down or deface the clearly labelled building where the jewish org lives.

I stopped wearing my magen david because I'm terrified of my peers, my peers who are supposed to be inclusive and love everyone regardless of ethnicity, seeing that I'm jewish and harassing me or worse.

the average college campus is less safe for jews than it has been in decades.

the optics of your movement are shit. you're infested with jew haters, and no one seems to care!! no goy cares, because you all care more about hating israel than not hating jews. and hating israel turns into hating jews so, so quickly. I want palestine to be a free nation. I want this war to end. but none of you understand that as long as hamas exists peace cannot happen. none of you understand that if you hate israelis you're a fucking antisemite lol sorry. if you want every israeli dead, you want half the world's jews dead. if you don't think that makes you an antisemite, lemme give you another example. let's say you want all black americans dead (not all black people are american, in fact, less than half the world's black population are in america). are you racist? YES. same fucking logic here.

saw a video the other day where some dumbfuck was like "have you considered that all hamas knows is oppression and hatred? 🥺" THESE ARE GROWN ADULTS!! YOU RACIST FUCKING INFANTILIZING FUCKING IDIOT!! THEY ARE GROWN ADULT HUMANS AND YOU ARE TREATING THEM LIKE BABIES AND CLAIM TO BE ANTIRACIST??? if you see POC as too innocent to be bad, then you are falling for the noble savage stereotype all over again. has that stereotype historically been attributed to arab people? no. but it definitely fucking is now with the way y'all think rape and terrorism is excusable.

none of you fucking idiots see anyone involved as full humans because none of you have a goddamn piece in it. you see palestinians as innocent babies who could never rape or hurt anyone, and you see israelis as demons to be exterminated. you're racist, you're hateful, you're not helping anything, and I hope you will one day be so, so ashamed of the fear you've instilled in jews worldwide while seeing them as genociding monsters regardless of ties to israel or anything, as well as the myopic infantilizing racist way you view arab people.

and one last thing: "FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA" IS ANTISEMITIC. IT'S A SLOGAN ENDORSED BY HAMAS. IF YOU ARE CHANTING THAT OVER AND OVER AND OVER GUESS WHAT YOU'RE HAVING AN ANTISEMITIC PROTEST, SORRY. you can't reclaim that slogan, it is calling for the destruction of israel, which will lead to jewish genocide, or just a massive jewish refugee crisis if they're lucky and hamas doesn't succeed in their goal of exterminating the jews.

[readingsquotes]

"Elite panic, manifested in crackdowns on dissent, has clarified to growing numbers of people a basic truth: any hope of building a multiracial left strong enough to confront the resurgence of fascism depends on solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle. This is because Zionism, the movement for a state for the Jewish people in the eastern Mediterranean, is the cause that happens to most powerfully unite liberals and the right in open expression of racist warmongering.

In its aspiration to racialize Jews worldwide, Zionism has two poles: in Palestine, it is a colonial project of Jewish supremacy. In the United States, the most important center of Jewish life outside of Palestine, Zionism has buttressed a liberal multiracial order in which Jews of European origin are considered both white and an aggrieved minority. This combination explains the outrage cycles over antisemitism that punctuate American public life, in which Zionists can weaponize the language of antiracism against critics of Israel. When directed at actual victims of Euro-American racism and colonialism, however, tendentious accusations of antisemitism have always carried a whiff of desperation — which is also why the multiracial character of the Palestine solidarity movement has threatened  Zionism and must be either downplayed or disrupted.

This dynamic, which leaves antisemitism on the far right to metastasize unchecked, has only intensified since Oct. 7. Many of the flashpoints over Palestine have been sites of ruling-class power purportedly charged with reproducing a multiracial meritocratic elite: electoral politics, government bureaucracy, corporations, nonprofits, the arts, journalism, and above all higher education. And it is predictable that after Palestinians themselves, those punished for speaking out on Palestine in these spaces are often Black.

....

Boomer Zionism’s policing of post–civil rights parameters had its first major test in the summer of 2016, when a policy platform document produced by a major BLM movement organization (and co-authored by Rachel Gilmer, a Black Jewish organizer), the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) crossed a red line of Zionist consensus by accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians. The blowback was swift and predictable: Zionist groups decried the statement, and a New York City fund-raiser for BLM was canceled. But compared to critics of Israel in the academy and nonprofit sector, BLM was a robust social movement and less vulnerable to Zionist pressures. Instead the move backfired, amplifying intergenerational schisms within Jewish communities. Activists who had been energized by BLM turned against the heavy-handed tactics of boomer Zionists. Some did so out of solidarity with Palestinians, others because they wanted to preserve the possibility of building alliances with Black activists. For these younger Jews, interrogating their whiteness in the United States also pushed them to question their Jewish privilege under Zionism. In modeling an antiracist approach that departed from post–civil rights parameters, BLM helped shift the conditions for critique within Jewish communities as well, influencing groups like Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow.

[sasha4books]

Sasha4Books: Book Spotlight Directory

(Last up dated: 8/21/2024)

In no particular order:

Girls Weekend: A Monster Bait Romance by: C. M. Nascosta

History Smashers: Christopher Columbus and the Taino People by Katie Messner and Jose Barreiro

Magic Tree House: Fact Tracker: Sharks and Other Predators by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce

SpongeBob SquarePants: What’s Cooking SpongeBob? By Nickelodeon Publishing

Juneteenth by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson & Drew Nelson Illustrator: Mark Schroder

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

 Timelines From Black History: Leaders, Legends, & Legacies  by DK publishing

The Black Girl Survives In This One by various authors 

All I Wanted Was Sushi But I Got Abducted By Aliens Instead by Petra Palerno 

Giant-Sized Butterflies on My First Day of School by Justin Roberts Illustrated by Paola Escobar 

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 

The Juneteenth Story: Celebrating the End of Slavery in the United States by Alliah L. Agostini Illustrator: Sawyer Cloud 

The Girl from the Sea by Molly Knox Ostertag

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

Welcome to Camp Coral! By Nickelodeon Publishing

Cinderella Is Dead by: Kalynn Bayron

Let's Talk About Love by Claire Kann

What a Deai Girl by: Sabina Khan

Little Kids First Big Book of Dinosaurs

All I Wanted Was a Glass of Vino but An Alien Duke Kidnapped Me Instead by: Petra Palerno

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by: Azar Nafisi

When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed

Fangirl Down by: Tessa Bailey

Seasonal Crafts by Emily Kington

The ABCs of Asian American History by Renee Macalino Rutledge et al

Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi et al.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

The First Woman Cherokee Chief: Wilma Pearl Mankiller by Patricia Morris Buckley et al.

The Picture House Murders: A Miss Clara Vale Mystery by Fiona Veitch Smith

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

History Comics: Rosa Parks and Claudette Colvin: Civil Rights Heroes by Tracey Baptiste and Shauna J. Grant

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Alice Wright

Ibram X. Kendi's Antiracist Research Center at Boston University fires almost HALF its 45 staff, as ex-workers claim he had too much power and brand him EXPLOITATIVE

Woke activist Ibram X. Kendi's Antiracist Research Center at Boston University had laid off up to twenty members off staff

Boston University confirmed the center had made 15 to 20 workers as the center moves towards a fellowship model 

Former and current staff alleged that the center had been poorly managed 

Woke activist Ibram X. Kendi's Antiracist Research Center at Boston University had laid off up to twenty members off staff amidst accusations from former workers that the organization was 'exploitative' and poorly managed. 

Boston University confirmed the center had made 15 to 20 workers redundant from a staff of 45 as it moves towards a fellowship model. 

'The Center is evolving to a fellowship model. Dr. Kendi remains the Director. We can confirm that there were layoffs at the Center' Vice President Rachel Lapal Cavallario told Fox News on Thursday. 

'The University and Center are committed to working with and supporting affected employees as they look for their next opportunities' the statement read. 

But staff who worked there painted a far less diplomatic picture, claiming Kendi was given too much power and that he mistreated those working for him. 

He infamously implied that white people should be discriminated against to tackle the horrific prejudice previously inflicted on black Americans. 

The center opened at BU during the turbulent summer of 2020 when America reckoned with nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd. 

Some former and current staff told the Boston Globe that the center had been poorly managed by Kendi. 

'There are a number of ways it got to this point, it started very early on when the university decided to create a center that rested in the hands of one human being, an individual given millions of dollars and so much authority,' Spencer Piston, faculty lead of the center's policy office told the publication.  

Former assistant director of narrative at the center, Saida Grundy, said the center lacked structure and the culture was 'exploitative' as she was asked to work unreasonable hours. 

'It became very clear after I started that this was exploitative and other faculty experienced the same and worse,' she told the outlet. 

Kendi garnered recognition in academic circles with his 2019 book 'How To Be An Antiracist,' which exploded in popularity during the global movement for racial equality in 2020.  

Then-president of BU Robert A. Brown said at the time that Kendi's leadership 'would create a critical emphasis on research and policy to help eliminate racism in our country.'

Kendi's hiring announcement was followed by a flood of donations to BU to support the center and Kendi's work, including a $1.5 million, three-year gift from the biotech company Vertex and a $10 million donation from Twitter founder Jack Dorsey later that summer. 

A few months later, The Rockefeller Foundation donated $1.5 million over two years to help fund the center's COVID-19 Racial Data Tracker.

Kendi's work, especially his children's book 'Antiracist Baby' has gained criticism for teaching children controversial critical race theory. 

Kendi defended his books in June 2022 as a way to teach people, including children, to 'see racism.'

'Well, actually, teaching people to see racism,' Kendi said on 'CBS Mornings.' 'There's a difference. Race is a mirage. Racism is real. And it's – you know who's the most likely to be harmed by racism? Our children. You know who are least likely to engage about it? Our children. That's what's really prevailing me to do this work.'

==

Kendi is a full-blown fraud.

Glenn Loury: I take umbrage at the lionization of lightweight, empty-suited, empty-headed mother-fuckers like Ibram X. Kendi, who couldn't carry my book-bag. Who hasn't read... no, I'm sorry, he hasn't read a fucking thing. If you ask him what Nietzsche said, he would have no idea. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he's an unserious, superficial, empty-suited lightweight. He's not our equal, not even close. Fuck.

[textualviolence]

like octavia butler is a black woman writer & she said in interviews she was a feminist and committed to anti racism. So what else could her books possibly be about i mean shes gotta be teaching us how to be even better antiracist feminists, right? Thats why we read her works. to be more woke. become better allies. "gain consciousness" shut the fuck up!!!! xenogenesis has got none of that in it so stop lying!!! just cause the main character is a black woman doesn't mean the book is here to teach you how to not be racist like a stupid little baby. The "Utopian ending" of xenogenesis is one in which fascism has won. And its because the point isn't fascism bad or fascism good but fascism scary and upsetting (& therefore fascism horny). Give up on your sense of self and your ostensible ethics and morality that are all about how "forced eugenic breeding" and "mass sterilization of unfit populations" is something you're "fundamentally opposed to". Just give in, because it feels good. There you go. Good girl. Your morals mean nothing and you're my little doggy now. And you get a Utopia in exchange (a fascist one). Thats what xenogenesis is about. And no one gets it!!! And donna haraway was like "uhhhh its an opening of feminist possibilities" no it isn't!!!! its an opening of possibilities for my pussy but its not saying shit about what we could or should so as feminists shut the fuck uppppppppppp

[justsomeguycore]

hairspray was straight up such a big influence on me lmaoooo like baby’s first antiracist anti fatphobia exposure

[moleshow]

i was in a bookstore today and found of a copy of how to be an antiracist by monsieur ibram x kendi. now being familiar with his greatest work, Antiracist Baby, i was curious to know what his non-children’s book writing* was like. and, well.

It’s bad.

[surreyambie]

Random rant about something that's been said frequently and better than I ever could.

Sometimes (as a white person insulated from racism) you forget how blatent and openly evil racists were in not even 70 years ago.

The 1949 Rogers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific was both very popular and controversial. The controversy stems from the two main romances in the show and the plot as a whole deal with racism and interracial marriage. The leading man falls in love with an asian woman while stationed on a south pacific island during WWII, the plot covers the couple's struggles with both external and internal roadblocks caused by racism.

Ultimately the romance fails. The leading man fails to overcome his internalized racism and bitterly sings the most controversial song from the show "You've Got to be Carefully Taught." The song states that racism is not natural, and that it needs to be reinforced by those dear to you.

Now today, the biggest denciation you'd see from politically important racists would be to deride its obviousness and say that the show is just "virtue signalling." Of course, the more blatent, yet platformed, racists nowadays may point to some study that shows babies like people who look like their parents more than others.

At the time the show was almost cancelled because of this song and message. Notably the government of Georgia (the state (obviously)) introduced a bill to ban any entertainment with "...an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow."

It's at this point where the more naive might say "but surrey why would an anticommunist bill target a show about interracial marriage?" And the answer to that question is made obvious by one lawmaker's statement that "a song justifying interracial marriage was implicitly a threat to the American way of life." You see, communism at the time was used as a boogeyman to smear and ban any sort of antiracist or tolerant movement, MLK Jr. and the civil rights movement were often accused of being communist conspiracies to create division and weaken America. Remember this next time some racists talks about BLM or the like make nearly the exact same accusation.

When you hear the sort of couching lawmakers and pundits use to deflect accusations of racism or other such bigotry, you realize that they really aren't that different to the olden racists. They point to some nebulous idealogy that they're ACTUALLY attacking instead of actual people, like wokeism, transgenderism, communism, globalism, etc. Sure they might not say that race mixing is communism (out loud) anymore, but they'll sure imply it.

They will try to obscure the hate in their heart for their fellow man because it is so obviously ugly, but it is important that we do not let them get away with it.

[mbvvacationbibleschool]

Beyond Good and Evil

It’s come to my attention that I may be evil. 

A weaponized and naive notion of propaganda, mixed with moral absolutism has caused many people to throw huge swaths of humanity and the strawman versions of their morality or ideology into the camp of absolute evil. It’s always us vs them, isn’t it? I got into some kind of argument where I ended up being treated as some kind of charicaturized version of the idiot yuppie naive swindled evil soft godless leftist environazi that I may represent in the minds of others. To some, I am the posterchild of evil, especially because I am not shy about speaking my mind- spreading the devil’s seeds of deception.  I am the deluded one who has been bathing in propaganda.

It was very telling to me in that I had been painting these foolish stubborn backwards ecocidal fundamentalist assholes with an oddly similar brush.  I even let myself feel afraid of the alt-left anarchistic anti-natal “antiracist” misanthropics that are willing to throw every baby out with the bathwater. Or of course the truly deplorable “neo-nazis” that are allegedly everywhere, rioting, killing, pillaging. For the radical, even you are a brainwashed bootlicker. Truly these people are evil, right? 

First radicalized with the perception of environmental degradation, I found solidarity with the environmental movement, then the psychedelic movement, the posthumanists, moral relativistic deconstructionist and nihlistic philosophers of the current age. I’m all for a free expression of consciousness that is dignifying for people and the planet. You say you want a revolution? Well if what you’re talking about is violence, you’re going to have to count me out.

Most people are starting to see the cracks forming in our society’s foundation as growing problems rear their ugly head in droves with solutions constantly blocked by the bogieman of your choosing - is it the brainwashed left or the brainwashed right? Is it the rich or is it the politicians? Is it your neighbor? Anyone but me, once radicalized, of course. It’s easy to end up in perpetual exasperation with the dizzying paradox of everything changing and nothing changing fast enough.

You want to take down the Borguouse?  Don’t chase red herrings. Divide and conquer, as the old saying goes. A binary view of evil and defining outgroups through tribalism is the most effective way to stunt change or to ensure unintended or civillian casualties (figuratively or literally). Even Liberals are guilty of tribalism and redifining outgroups. I do believe that a binary view of morality will cause hatred and division by default- at best, it will convey easy answers to hard questions that really ought to be wrestled with for one’s own sake. As Socrates once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Yin and Yang is about how everything has aspects of good and evil in it, and that any ideology brought to its logical extreme has severe negative consequences. As Marcus Aurelius said; “Men were born to be in service to one another.” If we are part of the same body (as it also says in the Bible) then why would one hand strike the other?” We are trying to push a leaning tower of a society, and it seems like taking a balanced or weak stance will mean the tower will topple right onto our heads.  

It’s easy for me to say that what we consider as right and wrong is mostly convention, as someone with a very laissez-faire and impersonal view of the divine influence on our human development. My ideas are a hodgepodge of Charlie Darwin and the Dada artists, Nietzsche, and of course the most controversial and brilliant pieces of post-modernist cinema such as Rick and Morty. We came from monkeys and our society has been left to figure it out on our own. The beliefs we hold dear are some sort of hodgepodge of whatever worked and whatever other people were saying - as the old sayings go -  “Might makes right,” and “Truth is whatever your friends let you get away with saying.” The irony here is that deconstructionism, moral relativism and absolute skepticism are the kinds of hip-and-trendy platitudes of the self-described intellectuals of the 21st century. Contrarianism is another common way to come to firmly held beliefs. Do we come to our beliefs naturally, or was Calvinism right after all?

So I want to try and redefine propaganda, as redefining is a post-modern deconstructionist thing to do- propaganda is often a logically consistent simplification of an issue that relies on omission or downplaying of certain truths and exaggeration of other truths to create a desired outcome in the induvials exposed to that message. Sometimes these messages are spread by so called grassroots organizations or well meaning individuals. Sometimes the messages or the desired outcomes could be for your good or the common good, sometimes it is for some stupid distraction or a culture war.  To reiterate  - often there is perception of real problems in so called propaganda or deluded and radicalized groups. A lack of mutual trust and putting up divisions between groups is where the real problem lies. It may help to consider both sides of an issue. It may help to ask if you may be vilifying other groups - even that particular group that you may think deserves to be vilified. EVEN THEM. The challenge is humanizing the people who have been dehumanized, putting a face behind the person that is the posterchild of your outrage.

We all love a good villain because it makes a confusing world so much simpler. Some people bemoan the rising popularity of the anti-hero or the humanizing of villains in television such as Disney’s (tm) Maleficent, or even villainless films such as Encanto, but I really think it’s time for a hard think. We generally only have enemies if they think we are their enemy and vice versa. Learn to communicate before you escalate.  Mutual trust and cooperation is preferable to mutual distrust. See the prisoner’s dilemma or Friend Or Foe. I don’t really believe that there are evil people or evil nations. Only through ignorance and lack of trust or respect do injustices occur, most people think they are acting out of their own self interest. I recommend vigilence against easy answers to tough moral questions, and avoiding vilifying your neighbor. Who really is evil?

[sophopolis]

the university of minnesota found that babies start being racist and otherwise prejudiced at around 6 months old

bc at that stage they begin to notice who their adults respect or disrespect

if u dont respect black ppl ur baby is learning at 6 months old to not respect black ppl

an antiracist infant classroom is absolutely necessary

[clowngames]

How are those nonfiction novels going?

Thanks for asking!

I finished Trust the Plan by Will Sommer. It's a fairly satisfactory account of the history of Qanon, though I don't think it explains the why of Qanon well enough. I think Sommer is a traditional journalist who probably believes in minimal spin or speculation, so I can't fault him for this too much. Did you know there was a Baby Q? The conspiracy theory had its own Babies spin-off! (short story: a young man claimed that he will eventually grow into being Q, and travel back in time to send messages as Q. People... believed him.)

I'm a little less than halfway through How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi, I'm unsure if I'm going to continue it. I think it's an excellent foundational text (and in fact I've nearly written essays about what's rhetorically effective about it), but that's just it - it's foundational. I think there are lots of people - leftists even - who would benefit from this book, but it hasn't said anything I'm not already well-acquainted with.

I'm early on in How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley, and in contrast with How to Be an Antiracist, this book has several starting assumptions about its readers which make it rhetorically much less effective. I'm too early in to give it well-formed thoughts beyond that critique, and in fairness if I'm reading a book about fascism it's a safe bet that I'm already on the left (the book casually asserts that Trump is a fascist which I feel may leave a sour taste in the mouths of liberals).

I still haven't registered for Hoopla so The Joy of x by Steven Strougatz is still in my TBR. I'm unsure how much more to dedicate to How to Be an Antiracist before replacing it. Hoopla also has way more audiobooks by bell hooks than Libby does, so it's a matter of time before I make the switch. Not sure what the best hooks books are so so far I'm picking at random!