#conflation 2023

[fairykukla]

Last night I finally got to debut my sea witch costume.

Shown here with my tentacle shrug/wrap.

Here's a close up of my makeup and hair:

And mask, of course.

I sang Poor Unfortunate Souls at karaoke.

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads / storygraph

Small Joys

literary fiction set in 2005 rural south England

follows a depressed/anxious young Black man who’s moved back to his hometown after dropping out of uni, becoming friends with the excessively joyful new flatmate who takes him under his wing

recognising mental health struggles and harmful relationship and finding community and happiness

music, birdwatching

gay MC, ace-coded SC

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

there's currently misinformation going around tumblr about what the SSI marriage penalty is, so this is my attempt to explain it in plain language.

when you marry someone who is not on SSI, and you are on SSI, their income is counted as your income. your SSI will be docked according to their income from then on. if their income outstrips your SSI (maximum SSI is $914 a month as of 2023), you will be ineligible for SSI from then on.

if two people on SSI get married, their maximum SSI benefits are reduced by 25%. they no longer get SSI as individuals, they get SSI as a couple, which is 25% less money than individuals are eligible for.

collectively, these two processes are known as the marriage penalty.

some news outlets are currently (September 2023) incorrectly reporting a bill as removing the marriage penalty. this is false. the bill is changing the savings cap for married couples on SSI. the savings cap is the amount of money you are allowed to save in your personal account before being kicked off SSI. this is different from the marriage penalty, and outlets referring to them as the same are conflating two different laws that apply to SSI recipients. please do not assume based on mis-worded news articles that you can get married without losing your income and health care if this bill passes. you may be putting yourself in danger by doing so.

[fishyartist]

INFORMATION: https://decolonizepalestine.com/faq (information about Palestine)

https://www.ochaopt.org/crisis (up to date information on reported death tolls)

https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds (information about the BDS movement)

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2023/11/09/antisemitism-dangerous/ (short article about the difference between antisemitism and anti Zionism, and why conflating the two is dangerous. More articles from the same site here)

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

https://cartoonist.coop/journal/cartoonist-cooperative-buy-an-e-sim-for-gaza-donation-drive/ (esims allow Palestinians to contact each other+the outside world during Israel-created blackouts. Through this you can donate esims and get cool art)

https://donate.unrwa.org/-landing-page (UNRWA is a UN program created to provided lifesaving assistance, employment and direct relief to Palestinian refugees. Their funding was cruelly cut severely by several countries, including the US, during the humanitarian crisis in Gaza)

https://bdsmovement.net/Act-Now-Against-These-Companies-Profiting-From-Genocide (Palestinian-lead movement to challenge international support for Israeli apartheid+colonization through boycott, divestment, and sanctions [hence BDS]. Linked to their site earlier for more info, this is specifically what they’re calling on us to boycott+pressure and why, while emphasizing a need to focus effort on vocally boycotting a small number of brands for maximum impact)

LINK (CLICK ME) TO MORE WAYS YOU CAN HELP

[avi-on-jumblr]

awful tweet warning:

Before I describe everything that's wrong with this tweet, let me transcribe Stephen Fry's words:

I am Stephen Fry, and I am a Jew. The great Irish thinker and writer Conor Cruise O'Brien once said that antisemitism is a light sleeper. Well, it seems to have woken up of late. The horrendous events of October 7th, and the Israeli response, seem to have stirred up this ancient hatred. It's agonizing to see all violence and destruction that is unfolding, and the terrible loss of life on both sides brings me an overwhelming sadness and heartache. But whatever our opinions on what is happening, there can be no excuse for the behaviour of some of our citizens. Since October the 7th, there have been 50 separate reported incidents of antisemitism every single day in London alone, an increase of 1350%, according to the Metropolitan police. Shop windows smashed, stars of David and swastikas daubed on walls of Jewish properties, synagogues, and cemeteries. Jewish schools have been forced to close. There is real fear stalking the Jewish neighbourhoods of Britain. Jewish people here are becoming fearful of showing themselves, in Britain, in 2023.

(Then it cuts off.)

For those who still don't know why this tweet was ignorant and inane, let me explain.

"To hear him conflate antiZionism with antisemitism has shocked me."

Guess how many times Stephen Fry mentions zionism? Zero! Guess how many times he mentions the country of Israel? Zero! (Unless you count "the Israeli response" which is unrelated to the existence of the country, or Zionism at all.) What this person is saying, is that they consider the smashing of shop windows, and the vandalism and marking of Jewish property, to be anti-Zionism. Considering they are an anti-Zionist, by following their logic, we can conclude that they not only believe this destruction and harassment is acceptable, but they believe it is ethical.

Further, they accuse him of showing no care for the Palestinians, even though he explicitly states that the loss of life on both sides brings him overwhelming sadness.

Finally, they accuse him of "[Centring] people in this country". It is disturbing that this person believes one cannot be concerned over two issues at a time. It perpetuates the idea that we can only talk about the "worst oppression" and talking about anything else means you are complicit in "silencing" someone else. If this were true, we would not be allowed to talk about Gaza either, or Ukraine, or police brutality, racism, islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and so on and so on, because clearly there are other issues with hundreds of thousands more deaths, and millions more displacements, so why bring attention to it ever?

Unfortunately, people are not talking about those countries, like Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, Congo, and more, and anyone who does is spammed with "free Palestine" comments. In fact, the most I've heard people talking about Sudan is when these TikTok geopolitical experts attempt to spam the Palestinian flag and get it wrong.

This is not new. This is obviously not new. I have seen tweets like these every single day in the hundreds for the last 80 days. It is not surprising that people think smashing windows is "anti-zionism", nor that they think it good. It is not surprising that they hear a Jew speak, and experience shock and disgust, regardless of what we say.

I do wonder if they would regard anything short of a second Holocaust as antisemitism.

[anistarrose]

So, it's not a moral failing to be bad at what I'm about to describe. But collectively, most of Tumblr is bad at identifying polls that function as bait for bigotry and harassment. Polls that, either intentionally or unintentionally, encourage people to spew hatred about a marginalized queer sub-community — because that sub-community is considered, at least by some, an acceptable enough target.

Most of us have probably seen that polyamory poll go around (as of September 2024). Fewer people have probably taken a look at the notes on that poll — and in many ways, that's for the best, because a lot of the notes are fucking vile. I won't link the poll itself, but content warning for threats of domestic violence and suicide in just this sampling. I don't know enough about the poll creator to make assumptions towards their intent, but that poll was functionally bait, acting as encouragement for people to spew vitriol and bigotry.

And none of this is specific to that individual poll! In December 2023, a single person made a series of polls about friends with benefits, and the "question" of whether aromantic heterosexual cisgender men were queer — and those polls led to huge waves of arophobia and sex negativity (inseparable from, let's be honest, some mask-off radfem shit). On top of that, multiple polls about people's feelings towards sex, or experiences with such, have turned into a festival for bashing both asexuals and virgins — insofar as the people doing the bashing use those words as anything but interchangeable insults.

Polyamorous people. Aromantic people, especially aromantic allosexuals. Asexual people, especially those who are virgins or sex-repulsed. That's a clear and obvious trend — they're all people who do relationships differently. People whose relationships and identities are considered "cringe." Who are considered acceptable targets to mock within the queer community. Making fun of "polycule drama," making fun of "queerplatonic," making fun of a-spec microlabels.

So many people who call themselves sex-positive refuse to extend that positivity to polyamorous people and aromantic people. To casual sex, to sex without monogamous romance. They insist that the polyamorous, the aromantic, are in fact the predators, the abusers, the degenerate queers that the conservative pearl-clutching queerphobes were right about. They tack on asexuals to the "abuser" category, too, because allegedly no one could ever be happy in a relationship with an asexual; because allegedly it's manipulative to your partner to refuse sex! Meanwhile, asexuality and sex repulsion are conflated with the completely different concept of sex negativity, twisting the language of sexual liberation to demonize asexuals further...

And yes, polls play a role in all of this! Of course, not every poll about sexual experiences, for one example, is a poll intended to bait or to harm people! But if they blow up, there is a high risk of people feeling emboldened to comment things like: "so many people are okay with casual sex, or multiple sexual partners! this is what's wrong with the world, it's all just toxic hookup culture!" Or if not that, then things like: "look how few people on this virgin loser website have had sex! this is what's responsible for cultural sex negativity! they'd all be better, more progressive queers if they just got laid more!"

And that's not even getting into the obvious, and obviously intentional bait. The "cishet aromantic men" poll, most egregiously. Clout-chasers hide behind the veil of "I'm just curious about people's opinions!" and then, put out a poll catered to the most rancid, exclusionist, verging-on-radfem opinions. At the very least, catered to platforming them seriously, when people inevitably feel emboldened to say that shit they've been thinking.

And "emboldened" really is the key word here. These polls increase the social acceptability of saying cruel shit about polyamorous people, a-spec people, and whoever else becomes the queer community's acceptable target of the year. The groups discussed in this post are by no means the only popular targets for harassment and exclusionism, but they are some of the most egregious examples I've seen personally, and they are tied together by their non-normative approaches to relationships or lack thereof. Moreover, the groups overlap — I am personally aromantic and asexual, not polyamorous — but even then, my struggles with amatonormativity overlap with those of polyamorous people.

And I bring this up because for years, I've witnessed popular Tumblr bloggers attack a-specs and polyamorous people within the same posts. With the same tactics, using cringe culture in addition to demonizing alternative types of relationships. Now, polls are another weapon for harassing us. And, it is... absolutely exhausting.

Of course, there's obviously a sliding scale of how prone polls can be to harassment. I don't think polls just asking about people's sexual experiences need to be totally anathemized and blotted off the face of the earth, for example — but you know, maybe consider searching OP's blog for "asexual" and some other keywords before you reblog one?

Furthermore, maybe just don't reblog polls about "does X count as LGBTQ," even if you're in support, because you're still legitimizing the poll to begin with. Maybe proceed with caution with posts that mention polyamory, even if not in an inflammatory way, unless maybe you know that OP is polyam themselves. Maybe block, obviously don't harass, but just silently and unceremoniously block people that make a lot of clout-chasing polls about controversial queer issues.

I don't know. I don't have all the answers. I'm not an expert on catching these red flags myself — the first time I saw the polyamory poll, I ignored it just because it was irrelevant to me as a non-partnering person, not because I clocked it as something that would generate hate and threats. So really, if I do have a plea to end on — it's just to listen to people, polyam and a-spec and otherwise, when they say that some post is generating hate and threats towards them. And then, maybe, try to learn some red and orange flags from the experience.

None of us are part of every queer sub-community that Tumblr loves to harass. We all have blind spots, and that's inevitable, not a failure of you as a person. But after seeing so many of these bait polls go around, after seeing multiple rallying effects in the communities followed by people letting their guards down, and circulating a slightly different bait poll... well? I just hope that eventually, people will be willing to learn.

[biracy]

I can't remember if I've posted abt this before but regardless: I'm sorry but I really and truly cannot get behind the idea that there is any wide-scale societal "pressure for trans men to be feminine" or "to be twinks" or whatever. You are either conflating a very small online community's beauty standard (usually some kind of transmasc pseudo-appropriation of "femboy" aesthetics, which yes, are often Bad and regressive and fetishized and etc.) with Mainstream Society, or confusing society not wanting trans men to transition with "wanting trans men to be feminine", which are certainly not the same thing. Ultimately if a cis person believes there is any validity to the concept of being trans (i.e. not a Posie Parker-esque "there's no such thing as a trans person" type), they are more likely to think that trans men should be like as masc and buff and hairy as possible or whatever bc that's what cis people think men look like and it's easier for a lot of people to recognize someone who Looks Masc as a man. It is difficult sometimes to see derision of trans guys who are Too Feminine and Not Hairy Enough or whatever (which is not always something someone has control over btw) as anything but "this is Skye who I think is a confused little girl because Skye does not pass" slightly restyled for 2023 "filthcore fagdykes" or whatever lol

[utilitycaster]

different anon, but the "theist DNI" ask was hilarious to me because I am still reeling from the post and especially OP going "the gods aren't really gods (because they're not omnipotent but just really powerful)" in it and then in the replies doubling down on the standpoint of "gods aren't real" - apparently just over the bank, basically conflating real world and Exandria in one fell swoop with this Universal Truth(tm) - because of course they can't produce any analysis of worth. they refuse to engage with basic tenets of the setting that do not fit their particular worldview. it really time and again comes back to people being unable to engage with religious concepts beyond a very superficial and milque-toast "Christianity evil, actually"

Yeah, this is true for like...a lot of the people claiming Campaign 3 is Great and we are all Not Leftist nor Intellectual Enough nor Capable of Parsing Black and White Morality; they say that and then they make and reblog posts with messages like "well you see the Good Brown People who were Colonized will Always be radicalized solely in the name of their own liberation haha don't look at any historical events from the last century", and in the end I do think it is all mostly in the name of trying to support the conclusion that killing the gods is definitely the right answer, and trying to work backwards from there to make the text fit.

I really didn't address the point that their arguments about the gods not being "real gods" were absolutely nonsensical (pro-tip: in a media analysis you can't just reference other works of fiction nor, if any of these ignoramuses did, literary and/or political theory, without actually analyzing them and drawing comparisons in the service of a thesis; "gods in this work are different than the gods in Exandria" is not actually a meaningful statement given that it's like yes Runescape and Exandria are two entirely different settings, things are different) but as always, follow the thread and the implications and you'll find the problems: so if the problem is that the gods are powerful but not all powerful, or don't admit they're not all powerful...does that mean they're ok? If they had given Ashton and Imogen what they wanted, would that mean that killing the titans and Aeor was totally fine? Is your argument that the gods are a colonizing force because they are from outside of Exandria and because they (with the people of Exandria) killed the titans (but the people of Exandria are ok for doing this for reasons of [crickets]) or is your argument that they are a colonizing force bc they didn't kiss your blorbo so sweetly on the head and tell them everything they were doing was good and correct? Because this really is leaning towards the latter. It is, again, an individual grievance falsely claimed to be a system of oppression.

And that's really the key. We are looking at a party with a lot of valid personal traumas, but virtually nothing in the way of in-world systemic oppression, and I do not think it is a coincidence that this party has a unique appeal for a group of people who are overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly from financially stable upbringings, overwhelmingly from wealthy Western countries, and overwhelmingly people who were raised Christian, left the religion, became some kind of dullard nihilist who labors under the misapprehension that this makes them leftist, and really, really fucking hate being reminded that they are not, in fact, remotely close to being Christianity's greatest victims. It has a unique appeal for people who are obsessed with painting themselves as powerless to enact change - who, as I said in earlier tags and also like a billion posts dating back to at least early 2023, fetishize and glorify a lack of agency - because then haha you can't blame them! they can't do anything! I think they're REALLY mad, actually, that one of the most prominent critiques of Campaign 3 has become "this indecision and inaction and endless waffling is actually insufferable" because that drives a spike through the idea that you can evade judgment through doing nothing, despite this being like, one of the most basic ethical concepts. And again just as I don't think the CR cast is doing THAT message on purpose any more so than a (horrendously flawed to the point of failure) anticolonialism message, I just think that the mismatch of plot and character and the multitude of issues in the execution have unintentionally presented themselves in this manner.

Anyway yeah this inability to consider the idea that maybe Bells Hells have a wildly limited viewpoint and so do you is superficial, it's self-obsessed, and it's so goddamn banal.

[marypickfords]

“While attending Smith College from 1915 to 1919, the white girl crafted mixed-media diaries where she engages in epistolary soliloquies with an imaginary male interlocutor named ‘Jonathan.’ [...] A fear of morbidity pervades [Helena Edna] Davis’s letters to Jonathan, their self-accusatory tone as constant and troubling as that threading through Medora Espy’s contemporaneous diaries. Drawing on clinical terminology, Davis characterizes her ‘moods and strange feelings’ as symptoms of being ‘supersensitive or extremely sentimental.’ ‘Queer isn’t it?’ the nineteenyear-old muses, rhetorically conflating multiple vectors of divergence under perceived pathology. Davis goes on to describe herself as ‘supersensitive—or else crazy!,’ a ‘sentimental nut,’ ‘a huge joke,’ and ‘plain nuts.’ [...] Davis fleshes out this self-diagnosed deviance through film consumption. Her college diaries are dotted with drawings, newspaper clippings, stage programs, and amateur Kodaks, but only one image of a celebrity: Lillian Gish. A pocket-sized headshot, the sepia ephemera is collaged next to an entry where the moviegoer shares her secret ‘queer’ yearning: ‘I wish I were a man.’ Davis continues in a pressed speech, ‘I wouldn’t let Cora and Beth know it for the world. But there are times!—. . . I wonder, sometimes, that they don’t suspect. I hunger for it so, & they never understand!’ ‘Isn’t Lillian Gish appropriate up there?’ the girl blurts out at the end of her admission.”

— Diana W. Anselmo, from A Queer Way of Feeling: Girl Fans and Personal Archives of Early Hollywood (2023)

[everyday-is-brighter-with-you]

[ ID: Tweets from jia whose handle is @heartkiss_ on 28 October 2023 reading:

what is happening in palestine and sudan and the congo are not disparate causes that require dividing our attention, it is the same fight, several groups are facing occupation without coverage while palestine is being scapegoated, standing with palestine is standing with the rest

it's similar, in my mind, to how standing with haiti when they are repeatedly made an example of on the world stage is never solely about haiti, but about standing with the carribean, with enslaved africans, and with indigenous peoples across the 'new world' in general

corrections, as growing up in the imperial (imperial is censored with an exclamation mark) core has skewed my perspective: 1.calling congo "the congo" has imperialist (imperialist is censored with an exclamation mark) implications 2. while it's fair to link western black struggles to palestine the erasure of genocide on the african continent is more complicated than I thought

we can't conflate what is happening in congo or sudan to palestine, there is a history of northern african countries and countries in the middle east denying the atrocities there due to antiblack sentiment, we ought to highlight that erasure in discussions about global solidarity

end ID]

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

"Authoritarians may seek to control an individual's body. Since anti-oppression is the basis for anarchist thought, some individuals or groups have found that those who identify as anarchists are most sensitive to accusations of being oppressive. This sensitivity is exploited in order to conflate a mere opinion with fact, giving it the power to control. This may range from an opinion that one race has ownership over a particular hairstyle, to an opinion that one sex has ownership over a particular gender or gender expression. Authoritarians may then seek to ban individuals who openly disagree with these opinions from events or spaces, or even enact physical violence on them."

"Authoritarians who find power with identity politics are quick to disregard, silence, or altogether erase perspectives that are not socially valuable in upholding their dogmatic and unnuanced view of oppression. Any ideas coming from those belonging to the oppressed category are given precedence, regardless of their relevance to anti-authoritarianism; while any ideas held by those belonging to the oppressor category are automatically treated as suspect or less worthy of consideration.

This leads to the acceptance and proliferation of a subculture where those perceived as oppressors are intentionally given less opportunity than those categorized as oppressed. Rather than creating genuine equality by abolishing identity categories (along with their corresponding forms of oppression), the larger social hierarchy is inverted, and oppressive power is merely transferred rather than destroyed."

[fairykukla]

My Saturday look. I had intended to dress up as Captain hook, and had all my gear to do so, but I didn't have the energy to "be" the character. And I didn't have any other male-presenting clothing with me to dude around in, so I went with this easy and comfortable attire.

I was doing tarot readings in the game room for a few hours. That was nice.

[darkmaga-returns]

Anti-Trump progressives are shouting the now-ascendant Republicans are going to “take away your healthcare” and “deny Americans their ACA insurance.” Bravo! Because if that happens then finally, maybe, Americans might get the health...care they need when they need it without declaring bankruptcy.

There is healthcare, health insurance, and health care: all different yet frequently conflated. Healthcare as one word is a massive, byzantine system that consumed nearly 18 percent of U.S. GDP in 2023 ($4.9 trillion, more than the entire GDP of Japan.) 

Health insurance is a promissory note to deliver specified “benefits” (medical care) in return for a premium paid. Such insurance is widely considered, albeit falsely, the necessary key to getting medical care. People with insurance frequently cannot get care, and most uninsured do get care because of EMTALA’s (Emergency Medical Transport and Labor Act of 1986) unfunded mandate.

The benefits or medical care provided by insurance is at the discretion of the insurer rather than chosen by the patient with advice from the doctor. Denials of needed care are common. Wait times to see a physician are dangerously long, with an average maximum of more than 132 days. Death by queue has been documented in both Medicaid and Tricare patients — they are dying while waiting in line (a queue) for technically possible care that is not provided in time to save them. 

[bisquid]

Civil war started in Russia because the fascist neonazi War Crimes Elite™ group Putin hired (because his own military was too incompetent) have decided that they would be Better Dictators Than Putin, Actually, and have occupied at least one Russian city.

The vast majority of Russian citizens would really like nobody to die, thank you, but are trapped in a dictatorship ramming them repeatedly into fucking disaster because Putin is a selfish lil crybaby with delusion of grandeur

So civil war started in russia because its citizens want to kill Ukrainians more effectively. Why am I not surprised

[uwmspeccoll]

Celebrating Brenda Cárdenas as Wisconsin’s Poet Laureate!

Today we’re thrilled to celebrate Wisconsin’s new Poet Laureate, Brenda Cárdenas! Cárdenas is the author of 2023’s Trace (Red Hen Press) and Boomerang (Bilingual Press, 2009), as well as several chapbooks. She also served as co-editor of Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance, and Between the Heart and the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest, for which she was recognized by Chicago Women in Publishing. She served as Milwaukee’s Poet Laureate from 2010-2012, and is Professor Emerita of English here at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Cárdenas frequently collaborates with artists in other mediums, and recently her poetry has been set to music by the Greek trio Starwound, and by composer Daniel Alfonso. Much of the work in her recent collection, Trace, highlights her inter-art, inter-textual, ekphrastic practice, as poems recognize the work they respond to, and follow from: prints, paintings, sculptures, photography, film, and other poems. This ekphrastic impulse manifests in incisive, multi-sensory description that surrenders to memory, or imperative, or history, or feeling. Responding to the art of El Anatsui, she demands: “Plant / feet so firm, will takes root. Plant will / so wide, ears sprout ancestral maize.”

Her poems conflate human bodies with material, modern life, and with capital-N-Nature – not a flattening, but an enchantment, as objects, landscapes, people are animated by and through one another: “How many stones did I have / to swallow before my legs / believed their own weight?” Grief over a dead sparrow found in one’s bathtub. Grief over a family drowned in a river seeking a better life. A litany of plastics overwhelming the page and the planet. Playful language of children’s literature – P is for… — juxtaposed with a “blood-splashed underpass” and “peyote tongues.” Religious iconography. A stone that “hissed like a radiator” and chatter that scattered “like mice”.

As Mauricio Kilwein Guevara puts it in the introduction to her 2005 chapbook, From the Tongues of Brick and Stone, “These feathered poems come with heart and lungs, bones, muscles, sinews, claws, and tongue.”

Cárdenas will serve as our Poet Laureate for the next two years.

Linocuts by Jeff Abbey Maldonado, and featured in From the Tongues of Brick and Stone.

Read more poetry by Brenda Cárdenas.

Listen to a recording of Alfonso’s “Para los Tin-Tun-Teros.”

[thebubblesoutlet]

Angelica asmr (who made a whole lot of funny leftist tumblr-adjacent queer content) making a hard right pivot and coming out as transphobic, trump-supporting radfem because of her "christian beliefs" then CONFLATING paedophilia with queernes is NOT something I had on my 2023 bingo cards