#christonormativity

[dougielombax]

No!

Empathy is not exclusive to Christians and Christianity.

Cut that bigoted shit out!

Anyone who believes that is LESS than wrong and is in dire need of being called out for it.

In fact I’ve known many so-called Christians who have no empathy whatsoever.

Heck, I’m not exactly religious myself (idk what to believe okay! It’s complicated) and I’m very much capable of empathy (not so much at showing it).

Fucking hell.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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!

.

[amaryllisflair]

As soon as I comprehended Christian hedgemony I started sticking my tongue out at Christmas decorations and churches (I was around 7 or 8). Then in middle school I felt a deep sense of shame of this gross display of inegalitarian religious intolerance. Then in the middle of high school the internet taught me about the concept of "punching up", but by then I'd ditched the habit.

Hello where is the tumblr confession booth. Anyway. When I was five years old I was in a Chuck E. Cheese when I suddenly comprehended Christian hegemony for the first time and I responded to this by climbing through the play structure yelling I HATE CHRISTMAS AND SANTA CLAUS DOESN’T EXIST over and over again. I got my friend to do it too cause I was that kind of bad influence (earlier that year I’d almost convinced her to cut some of her hair off with me to make a concoction using cosmetics I’d stolen from my mother, before I was caught). Anyway that’s why I’m like this.

[chansaw]

preemptory statement that as a jew i’m legally allowed to have as much animosity towards american christian hegemony/christonormativity as i want

[kaxen]

Due to the agonies of Aggressive Christonormativity Month, if I ever own a retail store, all December, I'm playing nonstop Mongolian Throat Singing for no good reason and telling everyone "Happy Solstice or Whatever Your Celebrate ;)"

[lamaison]

There’s nothing that encapsulates my feelings on the Christonormativity of the season that Disney Dreamlight Valley’s new star path being called “holiday” but having nothing but seven straight pages of Christmas items. Just call it Christmas my dudes. They have a menorah that you can craft and some players have seen a menorah rug in the shop, but that’s it.

Otherwise I’m really excited about the update. They surprised us by adding Stitch on top of Woody and Buzz, and there are great quality of life upgrades. The best by far is the ability to offset the time of day. You’re still synced to real time but you can make it sunny at night if you want. Great for people who can only play at night. They also unlocked Minnie and Wall-E’s level 10 quests so I have plenty to do.

[myalchod]

Not to mention that there are non-Xtian atheists — and their atheistic frameworks can differ significantly from Xtian atheists, even those who may descend from multiple generations of atheists. It feels like it’s important to acknowledge that the West in particular has been influenced by being dominated by Xtianity for literally centuries, and how pervasive that is in things many Westerners consider just a normal part of being [ethnicity] or [nationality] that of course everyone will partake in! (Xmas is the most obvious example (still. not. a. secular. holiday!), but it’s far from the only one.)

Things I would prefer to be called rather than “culturally christian”

+ Raised christian

+ Has a christian background

+ Exchristian

These still acknowledge a person’s history with christianity while also respecting the fact that they have left it. Hope this helps!

[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)

[amaditalks]

Do not say merry Christmas to people who you don’t know, and consequently, don’t know celebrate Christmas. That is reinforcing Christian hegemony. That is the culturally Christian thing to do. That is what runs roughshod over individuality, and the great diversity of experience, culture, and belief in our society. 

The phrase “happy holidays” is not meant to suggest that every holiday that someone might be celebrating is a major holiday within their religion or culture. It is not meant as a value judgment of any holiday nor meant to equate any holiday to another. It isn’t putting anything on par with Christmas, which is also a Christocentric idea, it’s recognizing that despite the societal weight of Christmas it’s not the only thing going on.

Assuming Christian observance and being less inclusive and more christonormative is not the argument I would ever expect from anyone who wasn’t a supremacist flavored evangelical or a Christian nationalist.

“Happy holidays” is a simple acknowledgment that there are a lot of things being celebrated from the end of November till mid-January, and well wish for whatever a person may celebrate, whatever way they celebrate it.

And yes, it may have originally been meant to only encompass Christmas and New Year’s, and then more largely the period, in the US at least, that begins with Thanksgiving, and ends with New Year’s. But now, it’s very much a recognition that there are a lot of things going on in this time period that are important to a lot of people and that’s a good thing.

why is happy holidays a silly phrase?

Like “BCE” and “CE” for “BC” and “AD,” it seems not Christian on its surface (because it doesn’t explicitly mention “Christ”), but it is still implicitly very Christian in how it considers time (i.e. setting Jesus’ birth as year 0, or assuming that early winter is ‘the time for big holidays’)

That is, it’s based on the idea that Christmas, Chanukah, and Kwanzaa are equivalents, or at least holidays of equivalent weight (like, Chanukah is the “Jewish Christmas”). This isn’t true—Chanukah is not the most important or second most important holiday of the year. And very few people celebrate Kwanzaa like that. And there is no Muslim holiday that is tied to the wintertime (though Ramadan being in the winter for a while did confuse a lot of non-Muslims on this point, who said “happy Ramadan” during the winter for years afterward….)

So the phrase owes its currency to this very liberal-multicultural-pluralism-diversity-and-inclusion idea of the “big three” holidays that we were taught in elementary school in the U.S. All broader criticisms of liberal pluralism apply here

The phrase allows Christians to pretend that the timing of breaks from school and work (for certain people) is not entirely dependent on Christmas. But it clearly is. And if Diwali has definitely occurred by November and Chanukah is over by December 15, what do you mean by saying “happy holidays” on December 20th…?

I think the usage of the phrase can actually be a ‘microaggression’ as the kids say. Like why say “happy holidays” to me while I hand you a Christmas present and make plans with you for Christmas Eve dinner and tell you “merry Christmas.” What are you trying to say. Lmao.

Also!!! If people are saying “happy holidays” to me specifically based on how they’re racialising me (as opposed to people who just default to it with everyone), then um. Which holiday do they mean? No Muslim holidays tied to December!!

Imo, if you don’t know anything about the person you’re talking to, just say “merry Christmas” if you celebrate Christmas (I do not know anyone who actually cares that much) or say nothing. Say “have a good day” or something. You don’t actually have to assume that everyone else’s experience is the same as your’s while putting on a thin veneer of pretending that that’s not what you’re doing.