#christonormativity

[myalchod]

I’m not going to engage with the original post because I don’t want to derail things and because the underlying politics are not something I have context for, but can we please retire the exhausting notion that holidays with an explicitly and overtly religious origin — especially a religion like xtianity that’s been so aggressively proselytic — are secular?

I’m sorry. You may choose to celebrate them from a secular standpoint, but their existence is part of xtian hegemony and cultural dominance. Everyone’s personal experience is different, but there are so many people in minority groups who have felt pressured to join in these supposedly-secular celebrations or had our lack of celebrating them weaponised against us that it’s important to acknowledge where they actually came from and why treating them as secular (and therefore othering — or worse! — those who don’t want to engage) is inherently problematic.

[poppyseed-hamantaschen]

hey jumblrinas although this video and thread is christonormative, we should still be mindful with how we wrap our gifts during chanukah this year! so here you go :)

I found a guide for a no tape, easy to unwrap wrapping tutorial to make Christmas a little more accessible, wish I just found it sooner

[flightyalrighty]

...Why Santa??? Am I missing something???

i have a burning hatred for that christian old man and how i'm forced to see his jolly fucking face for like half the year

[jewish-sideblog]

Not gonna put them on blast but I saw a tiktok today about Mayim Bialik. It was made by a blonde chick who refused to say Mayim's name. The tiktoker just went "I can never say it!" as a throwaway line to justify it. It was a four-minute-long video.

Mayim Bialik is a Hebrew name. Which means in Latin characters, it's spelled phonetically. Like. Take a look at it. Sound it out slowly. My-im Bee-all-ik. It's five syllables, pronounced the way they're written.

It's been pronounced correctly and consistently on Jeopardy for years at this point. It takes twenty seconds to find a video of her name being said aloud.

If you're going to spend four minutes straight talking about the woman to an audience of millions, take a minute to learn how to pronounce her name. I swear, white Americans will look at a name they don't instantly recognise and just refuse to say it at any cost.

[ohthewhomanity]

It’s also just plain fine if someone does not celebrate the same thing that you do. If your response to “I don’t celebrate Christmas” is “well you should,” regardless of your motivation, you are not doing a nice thing.

Reminder that Christmas, even secular celebrations are tied to Christianity.

It is not a universal day of celebrating family, friends and kindness. It is the Christian day of celebrating family, friends and kindness.

Other religions have their own holidays where those things are celebrated.

And those holidays aren't "x religion's christmas", as christimas is about christ, even if you are celebrating secularly and make it about family and friends, you are still celebrating christ day, just in your own way which may be not centering christ.

[jewish-vents]

I had to turn my asks off completely because I would get nonstop G*za donation asks despite never engaging with that stuff. I don't understand how people can't grasp that those are probably scams, and they call you a heartless evil monster for saying so (and you get called worse if you're also Jewish, of course). The sudden lack of pornbots isn't because they gave up. They just found better scams. I'm sure maybe a handful of those people are legit (though how can we trust that the people vetting them are?) but even if they are, it's scummy as fuck to go to somebody's askbox uninvited demanding people pay up. And for what? Nobody can get in or out of G*za right now. No matter what your personal feelings on the issue may be, how do people not question where their money is actually going? Then again, I doubt these goyim care if it goes to H*mas since they worship them.

The answer, of course, is once again christonormativity. Truly only the Catholics could inspire this level of non critical thinking internalized western guilt in people who've got no ties to this and don't understand the conflict even remotely. I am exhausted of it. I hate that I had to turn my asks off because I couldn't stop the flood.

And aside from posts proving some of them are scams, the number of them who have followed me since my asks have been off says enough honestly!

.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

how many video game ideas do you even have?

an incomplete list of the bajillion video game ideas I have had over the past ten years (if you want verification, @raptorcivilization is usually the schmuck I pitch to) that I can't do because I lack infrastructure and resources:

a redo of the eyewitness dinosaur hunter game for the modern era (but obviously without the eyewitness brand) - so a 3D virtual museum environment with an on-site dig that brings dinos back to life. would include the history of birds after the end-cretaceous.

a redo of the magic school bus explores the age of dinosaurs game (doesn't have to be associated with magic school bus, a cute kulinda protag will work fine) - so a point and click game where you go to different environments, learn about the history of life, play mini experiments and mini games to learn, etc.

a museum tycoon game (why the fuck doesn't this already exist) (I have an elaborate system in my head that would include ethical collection and museum reputation as important factors)

prehistoric photo safari - you go back in time to different ecosystems and take pictures of various things you're asked to take pictures of, like "a pennaraptoran preening" or "a tyrannosaur family group" that kind of thing

an aviary zootycoon/planet zoo esque game - basically you're creating a zoo but it's only birds. I'm not bitter about planet zoo, no, whose asking.

or just another zoo simulator that's a better spiritual successor to zoo tycoon than planet zoo is, so it would include aquatic and extinct stuff like the zoo tycoons always did >_> also more birds

the same idea as above but now it includes fossil/extinct birds too, you're welcome

a game where you go back in time and gather prehistoric life and bring them back to the present and try to recreate extinct ecosystems, with an emphasis on ecosystem dynamics

similarly, an ecosystem simulator like tyto-ecology except... better. and still being developed. and mostly focused on extinct ecosystems.

a stardew-style farming game but you're ravens in a post-human world, creating a new society from scratch. as birds.

a bajillion different @saurian-game - like games set in different environments including the Manda Beds of the Triassic, the Jiufotang Formation of the Jurassic, literally anything other than the red beds of the Permian, Fossil Lake in the Eocene... the list goes on

domesticated Kulindadromeus sheephearder game (@paleopinesofficial you can just steal this idea and put it in your game, that's fine)

fossil stories - basically you live the life of different extinct animals based on their fossils, so dueling/fighting dinosaurs and stuff like that. it would be your basic choose your own adventure story type dealio.

a dinotopia video game. that's it. that's the entire concept. maybe something like simcity or the sims but in dinotopia. there's something there.

jewish themed stardew valley (this isn't dinosaur/bird or prehistoric life related, I'm just annoyed at the christonormativity in stardew [why does xmas exist in this alternate universe] and want to make a jewish version out of spite)

pet parrot simulator. mainly so that people who love parrots but really can't care for them can play the game. also so people who are thinking of getting a parrot can play the game and find out if they really can take care of one. I recognize pet simulators exist but they're never really accurate when it comes to parrot care.

I know I have more but these are the best ones. The ones I come back to the most are the museum tycoon game, the prehistoric photo safari game, and the redo of the magic school bus dino game; and @raptorcivilization is keeping the dream alive for the remake of the eyewitness game.

[ladyimaginarium]

okay so unless you've been living under a rock today is orange shirt day / national truth & reconciliation day! while there were assimilation efforts starting as early as the 17th century, from the 1820s to the last residential school in canada, kivalliq hall in nunavut closing in 1997, first nations (both status & nonstatus), inuit & métis children were forced away from their families to attend residential school prisons where they were taught irrelevant curriculum that wasn't even useful for their development, subjected to colonial schooling policies, forced labour/slavery, unethical scientific research based human experimentation oftentimes without their knowledge nor consent of the children or the parents, corporal punishment, withheld food, inadequate heating, little to no contact with parents ranging from 10 months at a time to even years whereas some parents literally camped right outside the school grounds in order to be closer to their children, forced to wear white european settler clothing & having their hair cut which was & still is a source of cultural pride & sacred spirituality, solitary confinement, overcrowded & unsanitary living conditions, violently punished for speaking their languages even to themselves or outside the classroom, practicing their non-christian cultures & religions, or demonstrating any kind of independence & were abused physically, verbally, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, sexually, culturally & spiritually & many died from disease, malnutrition, starvation, beatings, whippings, electrocution, trying to run away, suicide, torture and/or were murdered; native american, alaska native & native hawaiian children were also abused in the exact same way in american indian boarding schools that started in the 17th century in 1819 & ended in 1969 (notice how canada closed the last residential school 28 years — decades — after america did? "canada's nicer" MY ASS), though while today focuses specifically on indigenous turtle island communities specifically in both canada & america, i& have to point out that this has Also happened to other indigenous communities & otherwise minority groups across the world to varying degrees, including but not limited to: the black diaspora in north america, south america & the caribbean while not being forced to attend residential schools (though the segregation of schools must never be overlooked) although there WERE a few black natives/afroindigenous children who were forced to attend residential schools as well they were forced to abandon their native languages, religions & cultural practices & still face discrimination & attempts at forced assimilation, the sámi people of norway, sweden, finland & russia, kvens, tornedalians & finns by the swedish government, several indigenous siberian peoples by the russian government, the mincéiri / travellers of ireland, scotland & wales, kurdish people by the turkish government, the chin, kachin, karen, mon, shan & rohingya people by the british & myanmar governments, aboriginal australians & torres straits islanders called the stolen generations by the australian government & the māori of aotearoa/new zealand by the new zealand government, jewish & romani by various churches & governments, ukrainians by the russian government, the murle people in southern sudan, ainu, ryukyuan, korean & taiwanese people by the japanese government & uighurs & tibetans by the chinese government that's currently ongoing & this has happened so many times across various countries that forcibly taking children away from their families into another group in the hopes of assimilating them into the dominant culture is now considered a form of cultural genocide / culturicide & linguicide. while this has predominantly happened in the so called western hemisphere to enforce western christonormative white supremacy the overwhelmingly vast majority of the time, the perpetrators of these horrible acts are NOT exclusive to white people; this has happened in every continent except antarctica.

additionally, for residential schools in canada & america specifically, this not only applied to oral languages but even sign languages as well, with the many different indigenous children who used their own indigenous languages—both spoken & sign language—being forced to use english, french, asl & lsq, across various churches & their denominations. even moreso, the residential school system in canada & america (as well as the jim crow laws & the armenian genocide) was sick inspiration for cruel dictators like hitler for the holocaust / shoah / porajmos that resulted in the deaths of millions of lives, most especially jewish & romani lives. this is not the ancient past & assimilation is still ongoing. indigenous children all over the globe are still being taken away from their families & it must stop. every single child deserves to play & be safe, be educated & be protected from those who would harm them. every child matters.

while to my knowledge, none of my family members were residential school survivors but what i can tell you is that the evangelization & indoctrination of native communities by white western conservative christians is very much still ongoing. i was a member of an evangelical church group that has branches reaching into even refugee & migrant groups under the guise of a sort of scout group back when i was in elementary school that i later realized growing up that it was actually an international christian nationalist white supremacist child indoctrination cult with their motto to literally become soldiers for god's army with evangelization & missionary work (i will not name it for my own safety) where i was told by one of my cult leaders that indigenous cultures & spirituality — particularly the dreamcatcher — was demonic, evil & wrong, that literal demons came out of it (literal textbook antinative racism), as was anything that was nonchristian, & that the end was near, the rapture was coming in the form of microchips being planted into arms & that all nonbelievers would burn if they didn't "repent" & that god was always watching me & she told me all of this to my face when i was about 8-9 years old & it was one of the major reasons why for years i hadn't reconnected to my own cultures — that's obviously changed now & i've never been prouder; i also know two residential school survivors, both fierce, strong & powerful native women. even if what i described isn't as severe as everything i& mentioned above, considering the context, you can understand why this hits so close to home to me&. so as a two spirit indigenous person of turtle island i& not only extend my& love & support to my& communities on turtle island but also to our& indigenous siblings & cousins across the seas. solidarity is the only way we can truly go forward.

if you are indigenous canadian, you can call the following 24/7 national crisis hotline for residential school survivors & their families & everyone who's affected by it: 1-866-925-4419

[lolanbq]

I went with "my sibling in christ" because I see it so often, but my Very Close Second is Sunday being a day of rest since that destroys my weekend.

Like shul on Saturday and shops closed on Sunday because it's "a day of rest" for ✨ everyone ✨

enjoy my cultural-xtianity annoyance poll for today. plz behave in the notes.

I avoid writing the word "christ" where possible bc I am jewish and using the word that indicates Jesus is the moshiach and possibly devine is, for me, a form of idolatry. thanks.

[wehaveallgotknives]

shout out to everyone who hates this time of year. whether it’s the incessant santa music in public spaces, the general christonormativity, the compulsory conspicuous consumption or the expectation that you’ll spend substantial time with bio family no matter how little you get along, there’s many reasons so fucken dread december! seasons greasons my fellow unreformed grinches. you are not alone.

[warningsine]

Richard Dawkins level of douchebag is what you get when someone either raised Christian/Catholic, or raised generally in a society that is overwhelmingly those things, becomes/is an atheist without actually doing the work to unpack how Christianity/Catholicism informed their social upbringing and beliefs and society around them generally. Then you just get someone who is spreading atheism like it's Christianity and who'll throw a tantrum when you point it out. It happens a lot too even with atheists who were just raised that way in a christonormative society and who never once questioned why certain things are the way they are culturally. And unfortunately there are a Lot of those people and they throw fits and double down when you point out "hey, you're using a fundamentalist Christian framework for this otherwise secular thing".

And then they'll also think all religion=Christianity/Catholicism=bad. As in, they think that all religions function/believe the same way Christians and Catholics do, and that those are Inherently Evil. And yes every religion will probably have its extremists, and Christianity/Catholicism have undeniably done the most damage overall. But one religion might view something much differently than another and yet because western culture is so steeped in Christianity it's warped even by atheists because they only know the Christian interpretation of it, and refuse to listen and can't grasp that hey maybe it's different for this group!

.

[spacelazarwolf]

Re: “culturally Christian” as a label for people.

Why not just say “goyim?” And if someone has an opinion rooted in Xianity, say “this opinion is rooted in Crain propaganda/mythology, historically”.

It solves the problems of the American centrism of the term, still deals with the issue of “the people this term applies to don’t deal with antisemitism as an axis of oppression,” does not immediately trigger people (or well, doesn’t trigger people who aren’t already a stones throw from being neo Nazis rather than just religious trauma survivors anyway) and doesn’t have the issue of demanding people who are already rejecting one religious framework of who they are accept your religion’s framework.

because “goyim” isn’t a synonym for “people who were raised christian or perpetuate christonormativity” or “people who don’t deal with antisemitism.” there are a lot of goyim who are not culturally christian, especially who don’t live in the west, and there are a lot of people who do deal with antisemitism who are culturally christian. to say that cultural christianity is “american centric” is to admit that you think christian hegemony and cultural christianity only exist and affect people in the us, which is very much not true.

and i’m gonna be honest, i think y’all’s fixation on semantics is rooted in reluctance to address what we’re actually talking about. you can say it’s about your trauma all you want (as if the people trying to have this conversation aren’t also traumatized both on a personal and communal/cultural level), but i’ve said over and over that your trauma isn’t your fault, it’s your responsibility. but you don’t want that responsibility, so i’ll be setting another boundary in that i will no longer be bickering with people about these semantics. future anons like this will be deleted. i do not have the time or energy for this.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

I have a very sincere and well intentioned question as a non-jewish person.

Can you explain why it's bad to call judaism a faith? I saw people in the notes saying it's a religion, not a faith, but I guess I'm not sure what the difference is between those two things?

(I've never called it faith-based, I just want to understand why that would be bad)

bc faith and belief, as concepts, aren't very important in Judaism, or at least are not requirements for a Jewish life.

basically equating "faith" with "religion" is really christonormative and problematic

[rabid-catboy]

I am once again annoyed at the like... christonormativity or whatever you wanna call it in transgender spaces .? Might just be a tumblr thing idk I don't get out much but . trans Jesus n trans Christian angels are great n all I suppose but it's like . :( . That's not my culture and I wish it wasn't treated like the default if that makes sense?? (Also yeah I reblog that sort of art sometimes cuz it's cool sometimes but I don't like how it feels like it's the assumed default if that makes any sense) (feel free to weigh in on this)

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: The Jewish Heart of The Nightmare Before Christmas

On a recent episode of the Disney For Scores podcast, Danny Elfman, composer and songwriter for The Nightmare Before Christmas, was asked about his relationship with Halloween and Christmas.

“Since I was a little kid,” Elfman replied, “my least favorite night of the year was Christmas, and my favorite night of the year was Halloween… At Christmas, I was just a lonely Jewish kid in a neighborhood without Jewish friends.”

And I had to pause the podcast and shout, “I KNEW IT!!!”

I love TNBC for a lot of reasons. The music is catchy. The stop-motion animation is amazing. The setting and characters are fascinating, bizarre, lovable, and unforgettable. But the thing I’m happiest to ramble on about when it comes to TNBC is its message.

Last year, I called this film an “Anti-Christmas Movie.” A Christmas movie follows a character who does not value Christmas as they gradually learn to bring Christmas into their life. However, the upshot of TNBC is that despite Jack’s fascination with Christmas, he should NOT bring Christmas into his life. Instead, he should let the Christmas people do their thing, and he should take pride in his own culture, his own people, and his own holiday.

And in my heart, I knew there was no way a movie like this could have been made only by gentiles. Gentiles love Christmas, and they love telling other people that we need Christmas. As a Jewish kid surrounded by non-Jews for most of my life, I know this all too well. When I was in kindergarten, some girls at school told me that if I didn’t believe in Santa (and Jesus and the Easter Bunny), then there would be monsters under my bed forever. That was just the beginning of a long road of well-meaning antisemitism, and at the end of that road, I’m left with a bad taste in my mouth at the very sight of a Christmas tree. To be clear, I don’t care if other people enjoy Christmas – my problem is with people telling me that I should enjoy Christmas.

In my experience, it’s not just religious Christians who were so eager to remind me that I shouldn’t be alone on Christmas. Atheists love Christmas and are very quick to tell me that I should love it, too, even after I politely explain that I don’t need Christmas to be happy. So while I had no idea whether the creators of TNBC were religious Christians, and given that Jesus is not mentioned even once in the film I had a hunch that they were not, I also had a hunch that this movie would not exist without some Jewish person’s contributions.

Now, Tim Burton is not Jewish, despite his clear love for and frequent use of Jewish folklore, imagery, and history. Henry Selick, the often-forgotten director of TNBC, is not Jewish, and I’m pretty sure Caroline Thompson, the screenwriter, is also not Jewish. So that leaves Danny Elfman. The lonely Jewish kid who, to paraphrase him, felt disconnected from the Christian world around him, loved getting to run around in a monster mask at Halloween, and grew gloomy at the sound of Christmas music in the mall. Danny Elfman, who poured his heart and soul into the character of Jack Skellington to the point where his soundtrack demos were often used in the final film instead of the studio recordings.

Sure, you can argue about who really holds the power of storytelling in a film. The characters and basic plot undeniably belong to Tim Burton. But a movie musical truly comes to life in its songs, and in TNBC, the music never stops playing. The music carries us through this world where Christmas isn’t the most important thing, where you don’t need to take on someone else’s culture in order to feel complete, where people love and support you for who you are in all your oddness and uniqueness.

It’s no wonder I love this movie so much, and it’s no wonder that a Jewish man was at the heart of its creation.

[misguidedandperplexed]

That's awesome :) I've played so many Xmas events because I don't want to miss out on the prizes, but it would be nice to have a Chanukah event, or even a legitimately non-religious winter event.

okay so this is a silly post but my best friend had me get the app "words with friends" (a scrabble knockoff, basically) so we could play together. as a screenager, i've had countless little games on my phone across the years. in the wintertime, many will have special christmas or "winter" (still christmas, just trying not to be) themed events. but this game has a hanukkah event and i seriously appreciate it so much!!

it's judas maccabaeus holding a hammer, with a visible actual magen david in the back?! and sufganiyot and a kosher menorah! there's references to gelt, the oil, dreidels, all of that. once you get to the "expert" level in the themed event (by playing against various bots, like "sufganiyot sofia") you play against judas himself (whose character design i also appreciate). the creation process either involved jews or was well researched. it makes me very happy to see this kind of representation, just in a little word game. sorry if this is an overreaction but i've literally never seen this happen.