#disabled people and lgbt people and immigrants and WOMEN

[theoi-crow]

The humans in Greek Mythology are the mega rich and powerful:

In my college classes people are often shocked when I tell them my favorite part of Greek mythology is the gods themselves and I'm not a big fan of the humans.

99% of my classmates prefer the humans in mythos, especially the ones that stick it to the gods like Sisyphus and feel bad for humans like Kassandra and Helen who have been wronged by the gods because "they're just like us." My classmates and teachers hate the gods and don't understand why anyone in modern times would want to worship such violent and selfish beings whenever I point out there are still people who worship them. They hold onto the idea that people in mythology embody the human experience of being oppressed by terrible gods and fate and we should feel bad for them because "they're human just like us" but they forget that the people in Greek Mythology are NOT just like us. They are more relatable to medieval royalty, colonizers and ultra rich politicians who make laws and decisions on wars and the fates of others, especially the poor and the very vulnerable.

Every hero or important human in Greek Mythology is either some form of royalty or mega rich politician/priest-priestess (of course this is with the exception of people who are explicitly stated to be poor like the old married couple in the myth where Zeus and Hermes pretend to be panhandlers). All of them have an ancient Greek lifestyle more relatable to Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and especially to British royalty during the British empire, than the average person.

All of them.

Odysseus, Patroclus, Theseus, Helen of Troy, Kassandra, Diomedes, Agamemnon, Perseus, Hercules, Aeneas, Paris, Any human who has a divine parent or is related to one, etc. Although sometimes the story omits it, it is heavily implied that these are people who own hundreds or even thousands of slaves, very poor farmers and the tiny barely there working class as royal subjects.

They are the ones who make laws and whose decisions massively affect the fates of so many people. So no, they can't just be forgiven for some little whim, because that little whim affects the literal lives of everyone under their rule. By being spoiled they've just risked the lives of thousands of people and possibly even gotten them killed like when Odysseus' audacity got every single slave and soldier in his ships killed or when Patroclus as a kid got upset and killed another kid for beating him at a game. (A normal person wouldn't kill another person just for winning a game but royalty and those who think they're above the law do it all the time, plus the class status of the child wasn't mentioned but the way he didn't think he'd get in trouble implies the kid was of lower class, possibly the child of a slave or a foreign merchant.)

The gods get a bad reputation for punishing the humans in mythology but, if not them, who else is going to keep them accountable when they are the law?

And whose to say the humans beneath them weren't praying to the gods in order to keep their masters in check?

Apollo is the god in charge of freeing slaves, Zeus is the god of refugees, immigrants and homeless people, Ares is the protector of women, Artemis protects children, Aphrodite is the goddess of the LGBT community, Hephaestus takes care of the disabled, etc. It wouldn't be surprising if the gods are punishing the ultra rich and powerful in these myths because the humans under their rulership prayed and sent them as they did historically.

Every time someone asks me if I feel bad for a human character in a myth, I think about the many lives affected by the decision that one human character made and if I'm being completely honest, I too would pray to the gods and ask them to please punish them so they can make more careful decisions in the future because:

They are not just like us.

We are the farmers, a lot of our ancestors were slaves, we are the vulnerable being eaten by capitalism and destroyed by the violence colonialism created. We are the poor subjects that can only pray and hope the gods will come and correct whatever selfish behavior the royal house and mega rich politicians are doing above us.

And that's why I pray to the gods, because in modern times I'm dealing with modern Agamemnons who would kill whatever family members they have to in order to reach their end goal, I'm dealing with everyday modern Achilles who would rather see their own side die because they couldn't keep their favorite toy and would gladly watch their subjects die if it means they eventually get their way. The ones that let capitalism eat their country and it's citizens alive so long as it makes them more money. These are our modern "demigods," politicians who swear they are so close to God that they know what he wants and so they pass laws that benefit only them and claim these laws are ordained by God due to their close connection just like how Achilles can speak to the gods because of his demigod status via his mother.

Look at the news, these are humans that would be mythical characters getting punished by Greek gods which is why anything Greco-Roman is jealousy guarded by the rich and powerful and is inaccessible to modern worshippers because Ivy League schools like Harvard and Cambridge make sure to keep it that way. That's what we're dealing with. These are the humans these mythical beings would be because:

In our modern times the humans in mythos would be the politicians and mega rich that are currently ruining our society and trying to turn it into a world where only the rich can manipulate wars and laws, just like they do in mythology.

Fuck them.

I literally have so much more to add about my disdain for them and I didn't even touch on the obvious ancient Greek propaganda.

[drdemonprince]

So, I (a trans guy) am kind of coming to terms with the fact that I might be more gay than bisexual after all. Where I live, the queer community is split pretty definitively between the "women, non binary and trans people" (or FLINTA*, if you're familiar with that horrible term) and the gay male community. While I have lots of problems with the former, it is kind of the community I am in, mostly because it has felt safe during my transition. It still feels safe, but not really comfortable. I want to feel like I am part of the gay male community, especially if I mostly want to date queer men in the future.

I am like, so scared of existing in any gay male spaces. When I tried being in them pre T, I felt like an imposter. When I travelled to the US a few years ago, the only place my then partner (also on T) and me were misgendered consistently was in gay bars (in a lot of famous "gay friendly" cities). All of this has left me with a sense of humiliation and not-belonging that gets reactivated every time I even think of stepping into one again, even if I am fairly certain I would not get this reaction now.

How do I get past the shame that is attached to my previous experiences and learn to actually enjoy myself there?

So, I believe that you have the order of operations wrong here. You don't get past shame and then go out to these gay spaces -- you go out to those gay spaces and then overcome (some) of your shame. And that shame may live with you forever in some form. You can still have a worthwhile life with it.

Go to the gay bars. There are many different kinds of them, all with wildly different energies and clientelle, and it is normal and boring and blase for trans guys to be at each and every single one of them.

One way that many newbies unwittingly screw up is by going to the most circuity, dance-y kinds of gay bars that tend to be filled with young, thin, rich, superficial people -- and then they mistake the meanness of that crowd for the meanness of all gays, or interpret the meanness as a sign they are not accepted by "the gay male community."

There is no singular gay male community. There are in fact a wide variety of subcultures with their own beauty standards, stylistic choices, interests, and norms. And there's a lot of cliquishness and mean girl behavior among people who have decided they are high rank in any particular small subculture, don't get me wrong. But you don't have to believe in any of it. They're just coping with their own history of marginalization and rejection by trying to become a new ruling class within their own tiny pond. You can laugh it off as the work of kind of sad, small thinking and just enjoy yourself and talk to people who are not assholes.

So, go to the leather bar. Go to a pup night. Go to an old-timers bar filled with gays over 60 (they will be nice to you and buy you drinks, I promise). Go to a gay bar that's casual and nerdy, with arcade machines and pub trivia. Go to a drag bar on a weekday night and meet some of the newer queens who are still trying to find their chops. And yes, go to the DJ sets and dance clubs all you like, but don't let what a few snatched bitchy 22-year-olds (or insecure former twink 42 year old real estate agents) get you feeling insecure. They're doing that shit because they are insecure.

Bring a friend. Talk to someone who seems nervous and alone on the side of the dance floor, too. Wear an outfit that will get some compliments. Nurse a drink at the bar and trawl grindr to see if anyone seems worth talking to. Join a dungeon or a gay running group. Attend a gay men's support group at your local lgbt center. Meet a ton of people and just get yourself out there, and quickly you will realize that your mind has wildly over dramatized how much you stand out or how much anybody cares.

Fat gays, disabled gays, older gays, Autistic gays, nerdy gays, poor gays, Black and brown gays, immigrant gays, they all feel like they do not belong and are not welcome too. Find them and be kind to them and hold onto them. Notice who is nice and warm with you, but also don't read into it too much if some people are just neutral. Eventually you will figure out what you like doing, which spaces you enjoy inhabiting, and who you want to be there with -- and then you'll have some fun.

[smelly-fozzy]

Don’t vote biden or trump. Look into Dr. Cornel West.

I’m begging you DO NOT vote biden or trump. Our tax dollars will continue to fund genocide if either one has anything to say about it, our tax dollars will continue to oppress and restrict trans people especially trans teens if they have anything to say about it, our tax dollars will continue to criminalize basic human autonomy especially Bipoc women’s autonomy if they have anything to say about it, our tax dollars will continue to make living situations worse if they have anything to say about it.

Don’t vote biden or trump, you have absolutely no excuse to vote either of them. If you care about climate change, or poc, or lgbt+, or disabled people, or poor people, or women, or immigrants, or your neighbors, or your family, or your friends, or your coworkers, do not vote biden or trump. Please look into third party candidates, especially if they have spoken up and are actively routing against genocide. And ask yourself when is the last time biden or trump have done anything that actually benefits you.

[quitblamingnarcissism]

I've witnessed countless examples of children, women, LGBT people, poor people, physically disabled people, neurodivergent people, people of color, and immigrants talking about the abuse they suffer on a regular basis from society as a whole, only to be told that they're lying, they're overreacting, or they deserve it.

I've witnessed countless examples of police officers, the military, landlords, corporations, rich people, and others with power getting away with enormous amounts of obvious abuse because they're good at using propaganda. And any attempt to give them less power is met with fear that society would fall apart.

But slap the "narcissist" label on the exact same patterns, and everyone suddenly realizes how abusive it is. And that's because people love being the hero who defeats the bad guy but hate analyzing their own actions to prevent being the bad guy themselves.

If you believe in "narcissistic abuse", you're not genuinely concerned with helping victims and holding abusers accountable. You just want a convenient scapegoat so your actions and the actions of people with power who you support are never scrutinized.

[lafemmemacabre]

I want to know what it is that Biden has done better by the marginalized and disenfranchised than Trump did as president. Not because I like Trump, but because I can't stand either motherfucker and have yet to be given concrete proof that Biden is even marginally better than Trump in any regard.

You guys had Roe v Wade under Trump. Mismanaged as it was at least there was on paper recognition that there was a mass disabling event going on and there was aid to people who couldn't afford rent or other necessities due to lockdown. There WERE lockdowns, brief and under-used as they were.

He deported Latine immigrant LESS than Biden proudly has. Black people are still victims to state terrorism just as they were under Trump and under Obama. Cop city is happening now. Not only does Biden oppose the meager, too-little-too-late lukewarm idea of defunding the police instead of abolishing it, but he vehemently supports funding the police harder.

He campaigned on being better at committing violent imperialism than Trump (who wasn't bad at it out of progressive conviction by any means, he's just very incompetent and utterly lazy), and by God has he proven in excess that he came through with that one campaign promise.

Raise in the federal minimum wage? 🦗 Protection of trans and otherwise LGBT people during this tremendously intensified tide of violent backlash? 🦗 Student debt forgiveness? 🦗 Etc etc.

In what respect has he done better that is good enough to sell gallons of innocent civilian Palestinian blood for it? You know, other than a veneer of superficial "decency". Because he's not out there talking about grabbing women by the pussy, he just does it silently! Lest we forget his rape accusation(s).

So... In what way is he demonstrably better other than his very frail ability to keep the appearance of civilized politics while still butchering millions at home and abroad?

[gacha-incels]

you can see more than a few similarities between the “original gamergate”, the DOA “gamergate 2” and what’s been happening with the misogynist men freaking out about 🤏 in South Korea. This time the western gamergate incels hate “woke” and “cultural Marxism”, before this it was “SJWs”. In practice their hatred is targeted on the same groups no matter what the year. In SK it’s “megal femi/ feminists” (megalia feminists) and “PC” (politically correct). These men pretend to care about things like “ethics in gaming journalism” or “extreme misandrist feminists”, the topics are smokescreens they use to legitimize their violent hatred of women, minorities, lgbt, the disabled, etc. as shown above with the quote from the Discord chat. I think the shock for many people regarding the Korean incel situation is that the companies they target very often will grovel and beg for their forgiveness, thus validating the delusion of some radical feminist boogeyman placing secret signs in gacha games or cartoons.

for the western gamergate men, their white supremacy is also a huge factor. They form communities and shape their own identities based on hatred and fear.

The “threat” in this case of “gamergate 2” is Sweet Baby Inc.

From the way social media is set up now, it’s easy for these men to rapidly fall into extreme echo chambers. They are angry about the hardships of life and are champing at the bit to direct that anger at an easy, identifiable cause. Can’t find a job? It’s too hard to recognize and understand the force and destructive nature of capitalism, it’s not a concrete thing you can attack right now and they have typically already been indoctrinated to believe anything criticizing capitalism is some scary evil communist ploy. So they turn their ire to an easily identifiable group, like immigrants attempting to live and work in the US. Why are these people trying to escape their countries? Don’t think about it! Can’t get a girlfriend? Surely it can’t be that you need to improve yourself, socialize and not see women as conquests? No, it’s the fault of those damn feminists! Of course these are flippant simplifications of issues that can be studied and analyzed in regards to society, family, religion etc and how propaganda from these sources can beget the type of male who is primed for indoctrination as well but I’m trying to be brief. A lot of this hate and fear also comes in tandem after any type of hard won victory (no matter how small) for any demographic these men are not a part of, they see it as some catastrophic loss of power because they are so used to absolutely everything being made for them or in their power. They think society runs “correctly” because they hold absolute power, so they push back (often violently) on anything they deem an challenge to this. In terms of videogames, this is why they believe just having a main character who is not a white male means “society hates men”or “games are not made for ‘us’ anymore”. You can see this type of attitude emerge in Korean men as well, regarding backlash to more women entering the workforce and gaining more rights. the following is just one example-

After a short period of time, men in these spaces get so indoctrinated that actual facts are false to them if it goes against what they WANT to believe. They don’t want to challenge and evaluate their own thoughts because it’s easy to keep hating. If you’re from the US (or familiar with its political landscape over the past decade+) and this reminds you of the alt-right playbook, it’s because Steve Bannon saw the original gamergate and utilized the force of these angry males.

As the excerpt stated, these men see videogames as “a final escape for a generation of angry young white men,” essentially power fantasies that still reinforce and flatter their sense of importance over the “other”. (Of course the Korean incel demographic is not white and is not living directly in a white supremacist western society so this isn’t a 1:1. regardless that does not stop them from being racist.) In some ways this is from lack of inclusion of some demographics, in some ways it’s reinforced by having the “other” be in what these men see as their rightful place in society. So because of this, you see a LOT of these men foaming at the mouth when they believe a female character design is not “sexy” enough, because her job is not to be a character in a story, it’s to titilate the male viewer while he plays he game. She is made FOR him, for his pleasure first and anything else second. If she isn’t hypersexualized then she does not exist, she is failing the one job she has in these men’s eyes. You can see this in the way men talk about the upcoming “Stellar Blade”game from the developers of the gacha game “NIKKE”. Gaming presents this “sanctuary” for men, many eventually cutting themselves off from reality to live in this fantasy world- an act that can be dangerous for those around him.

Anyone who is new to gacha games, I need you to understand this is how the typical male gacha gamer views an all-female cast especially- they are there to titilate the perceived male user while he “buys” them, gives them orders in gameplay and reads the story. It’s still their male power fantasy, this is why tensions are extremely high when they think a “feminist” works on the game, and/or they think a male character looks “weak” or is sexualized in the same way women are sexualized. They want a clear divide of the sexes (designs of powerful men VS very thin, highly sexualized women), and this type of design threatens that. You can read more on gacha designs here on this blog, I don’t want to rewrite that whole post here. When they think a character is not sexy enough, they will illegally mod the game to change that, you can see in this image the Genshin Impact (a game the korean incels have now dubbed as a “femi game”) character “Shenhe” whose outfits were not deemed sexy enough, so the men modified the clothing on the left (costume and original outfit) to the “clothing” on the right while also increasing her bust size significantly.

This isn’t meant to be an analysis but rather a basic overview and reiteration of some aspects that made up the western “gamergate” situation using plain language. I linked the sources for everything directly on the images. Whenever I do an actual analysis there of course will be more sources and less copy&pasting directly from them lol

[gryficowa]

Fuck Donald Trump

And fuck Joe Biden

They both have blood on their hands, no more justifying "The Lesser Evil", no more lies that you have to choose between the two, Joe Biden is providing weapons to Israel to bomb the Gaza Strip, and Donald Trump wants to persecute trans people and kill the entire pro-Palestinian movement, they are both bad, there is no argument why you support one of them, because if you are for any of them, you are complicit in genocide

For Palestine, for LGBT+ people, for Muslims, for Jews, for people with disabilities, for immigrants, for non-white people, for refugees, for everyone affected by this fascism, we cannot let those who support them live in peace

Because if you refuse them, you will not get what security and peace is, you are a piece of shit that would vote for Adolf Hitler, just because you are bigots

People have tolerated you for too long, this is the end of your terror, you will rot together with the Zionists in a coffin and no one will cry for you

I don't believe in pure good and pure evil, but I know you are shitty people and only want your comfort at the expense of others, karma is a bitch, it will come back to you

Stop being silent, let's not stop talking about Palestine, about LGBT+ rights, about women's rights, about people's rights that have been destroyed by evil people, people have tolerated you for too long, fascism has become something natural because of you (Especially the Nazi rhetoric towards gays and trans people, which you use today), and this shit should never be normal

You have dehumanized trans people and Muslims, you are disgusting, you will pay for it all

You made something that was never supposed to happen happen again, but it was easy to blame the leftists, right? The insistent denial that Hitler was right-wing was the perfect strategy to bring back fascism and normalize it, that's what you wanted, by trying to shift the blame, you unknowingly proved it yourself

Dehumanization of minorities is the gift of fascists, you did it, Muslims and trans people, you dehumanized them and you still lie that Hitler was a leftist, it's disgusting

You censored history books because they were too inconvenient for you, and because of this, many children became fascists. If they knew what fascists did to trans and gay people, they would never have become this way, they would have fought for LGBT+ people so that history would not repeat itself. , it's your fault, you censored the truth because it was too inconvenient for you, fascism will lose (Because fascism is the extreme right, that's what fascism has always been)

You won't erase this history, Rowling will fall

Yes, these are books exploring the topic of homosexuality and trans people, the Nazis burned it because it was "Bad", they considered gays a perversion and trans people evil

For being gay and trans, you were sent to prison and later to concentration camps...

Today you vote for one of those who has the same views as the Nazis, and the other gives weapons to the colonizer so that he can kill the indigenous population…

No more censorship of history, children should know about it!

[witches-come]

Thinking about this quote:

"The "unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn."

In the current climate of the GOP, who can you feel compassion for? Everyone to the left of you are evil communists or RINOs. Can't like women (half of humanity) because that'll make you a simp. Can't care for POC because it's woke. Disabled people are too expensive. LGBT people are degens. Can't care about nature because of human supremacy. Can't care about religious minorities. Can't care about the Christians in the wrong denominations. Can't care about other men cause that's gay. All you have left if you want to care about someone besides you are fetuses.

Pro lifers also see fetuses as a lifeless clump of cells. That's why they speak up for them. It's the last demographic they can feel anything besides hatred for.

Also see: The pets the Haitians are allegedly eating. Blood libel can't even be about children anymore because the right doesn't care about them.

[castielsprostate]

Why are you acting like the Netherlands haven't just won

hi anon, you chose the wrong person to say this to. please don't fucking come at me with this kind of fucking bullshit. if you didn't read my blog info, which i dont except the average pvv supporter to do (no offense), then you'd know the way i identify! woagh! and you'd ALSO know that i actually don't feel very welcome or safe anymore and that im terrified of the people around me because of the person they voted for. the netherlands did not win, they didn't win anything fucking at all if they're regressing on human rights and electing one of the biggest bigots there are. you say "nederland weer op 1" but you know who funds PVV right? you know he gets his money from russia and isreal, right? you know that he does not care about you, right? and that the regular citizen is nothing to him, right? and you know that after he comes for those from an immigrant background, he will come for the LGBT community. he will come for the disabled. he will come for women's rights. he will come for the rights of everyone except white, rich, old men. he doesn't care about the working class, and he sure as all fuck can't make true on his promises. most of the things he wants goes against our constitution, how fucked up is it that people still voted for that?

he wants to cut off immigration, including those that come here for work. he wants to then increase the size of our healthcare and our healthcare workers. quick question, who is going to work in our healthcare? we are already on a shortage, who's going to pick up what's yet to come?

he wants to build more homes, but who's actually going to build those? like, physically, who is going to put those houses together because, guess what! there's no one to do the fucking work. no one works in ANY of these professions anymore, no one WANTS to work in them either. so he would need to get funding to make schooling free for these professions, or create incentives. but where do we get that money? where would you get a billion to make med school (rough term, not really what the term is here) free for only one year? ah, i hear you say, just pull the funding from ukraine and the developing countries. well, 1.) we can't, we're legally obligated to keep paying, and if he somehow does find a way to stop the funding then 2.) we will be hit with fines from both the EU and the NATO, and maybe even the UN. and guess who will pay that, anon? it will be the working class, since he doesn't want to make companies pay more tax, so it will be you and me that pay for this.

and all that isn't even the massive impact he will have on our climate, and don't try the fucking "netherlands is only a small country, it doesn't matter what we do because the us china and russia and india womp womp" because no matter how small the step is, small steps are worth it, too.

and, may i also remind you, anon <3 dat geert wilders in zijn zielige, donkere kut hartje altijd een VVD'er zal zijn. hij is een waardeloze, racistische, homofobische, ellendige, koude oude man en dat is NIET en zal NOOIT zijn wat nederland nodig heeft.

and finally, geert wilders is NOT what the majority of the netherlands wants, it's what 23% of voters want. every other voter did NOT vote for this buffoon, and you're gonna be in those booths again in 6 to 9 months because of the incompetence of the coming kabinet because geert wilders will destroy it.

en, als laatste. stem links bij de volgende verkiezing. stem GL/PVDA of stem volt, stem op de groene partijen die WEL de begroting doorrekenen, die ons WEL uit deze crisis kunnen krijgen en die WEL om ons geven. denk niet aan de toekomst van alleen morgen, denk ook aan de toekomst van over 10, 20, 30, 40, 50! jaar. want op de manier waarop het nu gaat, is er niet meer dan 50 jaar. en dat ene jaar 0% belasting op boodschappen (wat hij trouwens ook niet kan waarmaken, de belastingdienst heeft jaren nodig voor zoiets te kunnen invoeren lmao. misschien heb je het in 2030! en daarna schiet het weer om hoog <3), is niet waard de gruwelijke dood van jou, je kinderen, en iedereen om je heen.

-all the love, sjonnie, a half turk, queer faggot

[putadelilith]

yall really carry a deep hatred for black people if you think our pain must be placed aside for the benefit of another marginalized group. Y’all do it every single time without fail and always on time. Because for each movement I’ve witnessed on here you insist on excusing antiblackness for:

Transgender discrimination

Black Lives Matter (our own movement got derailed by YALL)

Covid Lockdown

Election season (yall came out yall necks for Biden especially)

Human Rights violations of immigrants (multiple times)

LGBT movements

Disability

The Women’s March (majority of speakers were Black women or were funded by Black women. I know I was there)

Looting

“Russian spam bot” scare

The list goes on

Y’all will even go so far as to derail personal life circumstances of Black pain on here that you will flat out erase it. In our faces. I truly believe God herself had abandoned you bc there ain’t no way y’all earned her love. Rot. Truly.

[dovesndecay]

There is nothing new about police enforcing racialized gender norms with deadly violence, but as criminalization and imprisonment have drastically expanded in the last decades, we have needed to respond in new ways to calls for "law and order" that sometimes pretend to operate from a concern for protecting women, queer, and trans people from violence.

We are confronted with a significant task of articulating a politics that refuses invitations to be included in laws and policies that supposedly promote the value of our lives, but actually operate to expand systems that we know target queer and trans poor people, people of color, immigrants, and people with disabilities. [These books]* contribute to the thinking on queer and trans abolition politics, helping us imagine the locations where that politics lives, the tactics it engages, the populations it concerns, the traps it aims to evade, and the stakes of its existence.

Queering Prison Abolition, Now?

Author(s): Eric A. Stanley, Dean Spade and Queer (In)Justice

Source: American Quarterly (March 2012)

These Books:*

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex edited by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith

Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People In The United States by Joey L. Mogul, Andrea J. Ritchie, Kay Whitlock

Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law by Dean Spade

[blackautmedia]

I put together some resources including videos, news articles, and books. These are not strictly confined to Arab/SWANA/Muslim studies but several of the issues discussed still directly affect these communities. Hoping that the below resources will prove valuable to others.

Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11

Arabs and Muslims in the Media after 9/11: Representational Strategies for a “Postrace” Era

Broken: The Failed Promise of Muslim Inclusion - By Evelyn Aulsultany

Orientalism - Edward Said

Terrorist Assemblages - Homonationalism in Queer Times - Jasbir K. Puar

A people's History of the United States

Arab Women Writers - an Anthology of Short Stories

Arab Women's lives retold - Exploring Identity through writing

Covering Islam - Edward Said

Culture and Imperialism - Edward Said

Asian American Feminisms and Women of Color Politics

I, Rigoberta Menchú An Indian Woman in Guatemala

The Wretched of the Earth - Frantz Fanon

Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo powers our lives - Siddharth Kara

Dancing in the Glory of Monsters - The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa

A history of Disability - Henri-Jacques Stiker

Black Disability Politics - Sami Schalk

Black on Both Sides - A racial History of Trans Identity - Riley Snorton

Black Trans Feminism - Marquis Bey

Black Women in White - Racial Conflict and Cooperation in the Nursing Profession

Crip Theory - Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability

Deaf in Japan - Signing and the politics of Identity - Karen Nakamura

Fearing the Black Body - The Racial Origins of Fatphobia - Sabrina Strings

The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture - https://archive.org/details/femalemalady00elai

It was Vulgar and It was Beautiful - How AIDS Activists used Art to Fight a Pandemic

Killing the Black Body - Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty - Dorothy Roberts

Mad in America - Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the mentally ill

Madness and Civilization - A history of Insanity in the Age of Reason

Maladies of Empire - How Colonialism, Slavery and War Transformed Medicine

Medical Apartheid - The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans

The Delectable Negro - Vincent Woodard

The Protest Psychosis - How Schizophrenia became a Black Disease

There's Something in the Water - Environmental Racism in Indigenous Black communities

Violence Against Black Bodies - an Intersectional analysis of how Black lives continue to matter

Violence against queer People - Race, class, gender and the persistance of Anti-LGBT discrimination

The Right to Maim - Debility, Capacity, Disability Jasbir Puar

Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life Under Occupation

Palestine - A socialist Introduction

Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire

Born Palestinian, Born Black - the Gaza Suite

BDS Boycott - Divestment, Sanctions, and the Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Melissa Chen: I Came to America for Freedom, but Now It’s Looking More Like the Country I Left

I grew up in Singapore, where I felt first-hand what it was like to live in a society where free speech is restricted. Social harmony is prioritized over civil liberties in Singapore's multi-cultural society, fomenting a culture of fear and self-censorship on top of legal prohibitions.

I moved to America for college when I was 17. I wanted a challenging education and a social milieu that valued the free exchange of ideas because I knew that was the only way to grow intellectually and cultivate emotional resiliency. It wasn’t until I was in graduate school that I realized that the America I had sought was increasingly resembling the conditions in which I grew up in in Singapore.

Across town from me in Boston, Harvard University had disinvited a record number of speakers, for reasons including their views on topics like immigration, Israel, and sexual orientation. Harvard’s guidelines banned “behavior evidently intended to dishonor such characteristics as race, gender, ethnic group, religious belief, or sexual orientation.” This guideline was nearly identical to what was law in Singapore.

But even worse than that, an intolerant ideology that promoted collective guilt and racial essentialism had begun to emerge. I noticed my white and male classmates were not being allowed to express opinions that addressed issues related to people of color or women. Phrases like “check your privilege” became a part of everyday conversation. This was something that I never witnessed in Singapore, a nation that was prosperous despite its faults because of its focus on the equality of all people.

After university, I co-founded an organization named Ideas Beyond Borders, where we translated and digitied texts about Enlightenment ideas into Arabic for free. We worked with translators who lived in places like Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran and Iraq. My exposure to so many failed states led me to see the common denominators that undergirded societal dysfunction and civil conflict; many of these places were severely dogged by extremism, intolerance, and sectarianism.

Even more than my life in Singapore, this provided me with an intense appreciation for the freedoms we have here in America. Why were the students around me so focused on the problems with my white male classmates and teachers, while they largely ignored the injustices I was witnessing around the world?

And since I’ve graduated, it seems like these trends have spread through our nation far beyond the reaches of academia. While so many were focused on American culture wars, including for example asking Disney to fire Gina Carano for supposedly offensive tweets, few were paying attention while Disney made deals to film with the government in Xinjiang, China, where Uighur Muslims were being held in concentration camps. 

This way of looking at the world has a goal of raising awareness of racial injustice. That’s laudable. But within this conception of the world there is also a simplistic and reductive understanding of power dynamics in which oppression must always come from people seen as  white, male, western, heterosexual, cisgender, or ablebodied – and be inflicted upon those seen as marginalized – people of color, colonized or indigenous people, women, LGBT, or the disabled. 

This lens ignores the struggle against real repression globally, including what I have witnessed in Singapore and the Middle East. In doing so, it empowers illiberal, authoritarian forces, from China, to Russia, to the stirrings of Islamist groups eager to rebuild their caliphate.

All around the world, from pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong to feminists in Egypt, countless people seek the freedoms that we in the West take for granted. Meanwhile, we are undoing the ideas that have made the modern West the most progressive place on the planet, while shielding the world’s most brazen abusers of human rights from criticism.

If you care about justice for oppressed people, it’s incumbent on us to push back against bad ideas. America has problems, and we need to improve, but the center of the struggle for human dignity isn’t here. Please, let’s keep America the country I wanted to come to.

I’m Melissa Chen. Join me in defending pro-human values at FairForAll.org.

[weirdcrocodilelady]

Without directly naming the artist because I don't want to get crucified, I'd just like to say that if she didn't want to publicly share how she's voting, she could have ignored the question or said "no comment." But by coming out and saying "I'm not endorsing anyone because there are problems on both sides," she effectively DID pick a side.

As a popular public figure, her publicly expressed opinions matter whether she likes it or not. Just like if she said "I'm voting for X candidate," it would probably sway a lot of her fans toward voting for X candidate...her statement heavily implying she doesn't plan to vote AT ALL is going to encourage her fans to follow suit. Her mostly young, LGBT+ fans. Someone please tell me I'm not the only one who is terrified by this.

Make no mistake: If you care about the health, safety and general well-being of women, queer people, POC, the middle and working classes, disabled people, immigrants and religious minorities, there very much IS a correct "side" to take in this election. If you want to throw away your right to vote just because your favorite redheaded singer thinks it's a good idea, go ahead...but you don't then get to cry and complain this time next year when queer women just like her and the people she ostensibly champions are suffering and DYING because of the monster YOU helped to let back into office. In other words, good luck babe...

[rawripopsarentlollipops]

Ummm… no.

On every single level, no. My page is not the place for you.

Which means it’s time to do some housekeeping.

This page:

•supports lgbt rights, women’s rights, prisoner’s rights, immigrants’ rights, human rights, animal rights, minority rights (including black rights, Hispanic rights, South Pacific rights, indigenous rights, and the rights of the systematically oppressed), disability rights, and any of the like.

•believes every person should be able to decide what they do with their body (including abortion, premarital sex, and gender affirming care if they so choose)

•believes every person should be allowed access to free drinking water (FUCK YOU NESTLE), free sanitation products, free menstrual products, free hygiene products, and free food if those are their needs. We all eat, drink, sneeze, shit, piss, and sweat, and about half of all humans bleed monthly too. If it’s required to live and it affects 50% or more of the population for upwards of a few months, it should not cost anything. A well functioning society would have more prestigious or luxurious versions available for sale, but there would be something to meet the basic needs of everyone.

Absolute Capitalism has been illegal since the Great Depression for a reason and this is one of the necessary steps for a stable economy and a lower wage gap between the highest paid workers in the nation ($1.25 an HOUR for some people. Not even enough to buy a single item at the dollar tree anymore, as compared to congress’s $100k+ per year salary when several members haven’t even shown up to most of the votes)

•believe the survivors of trauma and listens when they ask for help in making a change. Palestine has been asking for help for decades, and especially since October of 2023. Many women came forward about Trump sexually assaulting people and his response in 2016 was “grab them by the pussy,” which lead to a rise in sexual assaults around the nation. I don’t support Biden either because, as I mentioned before, Palestine has been begging for help for almost a year now and he allowed for the manufacturing of white phosphorus for Israel to use against Palestinians.

•believes that children should have the right to an unbiased education that teaches each subject through a variety of perspectives and encourages critical thinking. And the right to an environment where they will not be shot at

•believes that there should be mandatory psychological evaluation testing with at least one character witness consultation before a person should be allowed to own their first gun. I think this evaluation should take into account the person’s past decade of experiences with authority (middle school and high school record if necessary), and that there should be a national database containing the dna information of every gun known owner in the United States. This would extend the process for getting a license by several weeks but think about how many rapists, domestic abusers, drunks, thieves, and trespassers could be caught instantly, and how many public school, college campus, and workplace shootings will be avoided by forcing would-be criminals to go through a multi step, long process. It won’t solve everything but it sure would make a big dent in the issue

•believes that billionaires are the most evil people in the world. Literally 1 billion dollars can end homelessness entirely in the USA, and most billionaires have so much money that even if they were to give up $1 billion, they could still afford to buy multiple homes, eat out at expensive restaurants with their entire extended family for every meal of their lives, put aside enough money to last their family 10 generations, and still have extra. I think it’s unethical to be one of less than a thousand people who could literally save the lives of hundreds of thousands, and actively choose not to every second that they’re enjoying their wealth. A million seconds is 11 days, a billion seconds is 31 years and 8 months.

•believes that there should be paid maternity leave, 4 weeks minimum as the standard while the nation adjusts but 8 weeks recommended, to encourage birth rate increases instead of forced pregnancy and stillborn births that result in a higher maternal mortality rate. Prenatal and postnatal care should be significantly lower in cost, same with pretty much all birth and pregnancy related health care. It costs $20k just to give birth in a hospital, then about $5k in baby proofing the car and the baby’s room, and like $200 a week on top of that, every week, until the prices increase just to get diapers, wipes, food, clothes, cleaning supplies; etc. it’s damn expensive and overturning roe v wade in response to declining birth rate just means that these burdens are going to be forced on children who probably won’t even live long enough for the fetus to make it to term because it is medically dangerous to give birth before your body is ready for it. And before you say “well they just should do it,” it’s usually not a fucking choice that a child is making on their own. They were forced or manipulated, because they were a child. You are a fucking creep that I don’t trust around children if you are actively saying that a child should’ve acted differently if they didn’t want to be pregnant.

I have more beliefs and more stances, but it’s getting rather late, so I will leave it at this. Anyone reading this, do not interact with me if you are here to be angry or hateful, block me if you have to. If it gets to me, I won’t hesitate to block.

I’m also not a political blog. I’m just not active on here and I reblog every Palestine/ Gaza post that I see because this is still an active issue where my two seconds of attention make a small difference for people who need it.

I write porn.

And not the kind that’s about real people— all of the characters in my works are fictional.