#erasure of history

[fixing-bad-posts]

trans people have always existed and they lived

[bixels]

I'm not explaining why re-imagining characters as POC is not the same as white-washing, here of all places should fucking understand.

[unapologeticallygay]

a list of (some of) the things we owe to lesbians

the stonewall uprising (x)

pride marches (x)

homosexuality being removed from the dsm (x)

paving the way for the legalization of cross dressing/influencing gnc women’s fashion (x) (x) (x)

aids organizing and care (x) (x) (x)

fighting to include black women and lesbians into feminism/women’s rights movements (x) (x) (x)

black history month in the uk (x)

legalization of gay marriage in the usa (x) (x)

physically protecting the community (from storme delarverie who patrolled gay neighbourhoods to the butches protecting drag story time)

[ace-hell]

Oh this makes me so fucking mad

So SO fucking mad

You mean israelites, hebrews ffs you mean CANAANITES

THERE WEREN'T PALESTINIANS 3,000 YEARS AGO

THERE WERE JEWISH KINGDOMS

If the tatreez originated 3,000 fucking years ago it makes it jewish, israelite. NOT palestinian

This horrendous cultural and historical erasure of a whole ass ethnic group is absolutely sickening

This accepted activity of rewriting and changing jewish history is so fucking disgusting

This is the kinda shit that makes it so hard for me to feel sympathy and accept the modern palestinian identity

ITS NORMAL FOR NEW IDENTITIES TO EMERGE AND BE BORN, BUT ITS NOT OK TO CHANGE HISTORY SO IT'LL LOOK LIKE YOU HAVE AN ANCIENT AND NATIVE IDENTITY!

I Just fucking hope for the sun to blow us all up soon ffs

[brainwormcity]

We all know there's a fat erasure problem with Good Omens art and photo edits. We've gotta stop being afraid to let them have skin folds, stretch marks and soft bellies but another thing we don't talk about is how important it is leaving them their wrinkles, their eye bags and their imperfections of age. It's part of their beauty but it also signifies something incredibly important, in my opinion.

Part of what makes Crowley and Aziraphale such unique and wonderful examples of representation, is that they're not perfect, model-like young adults. Middle aged queer characters are so important because queer elders as a whole are so rare. The world's respective governments significantly failed queer folks during the AIDS crisis in the 80s and as a result, older queer couples, especially mlm or masc presenting couples aren't particularly prevalent in media, and having that example is a strange little beacon of hope.

So please, let Crowley have his forehead wrinkles and let Aziraphale keep his eye bags. Not only are they lovely, notable parts of their appearance but they symbolize something larger than just that. Let these old, alt, soft, queer man-shaped beings be just that.

[odinsblog]

This is recent history. Ruby Bridges is 68yrs old and she is still alive.

Emily Conklin is thee definition of a racist Karen, and she is trying to whitewash the history white children learn by erasing a rated PG Disney movie that has already been shown for years in Pinellas County schools, usually as a part of Black History Month.

Two immediate thoughts that come to mind are:

“The people who threw rocks at Ruby Bridges for trying to go to school in 1960 now are upset their grandchildren might learn about them throwing rocks at Ruby Bridges for trying to go to school.”

and

“IF BLACK CHILDREN ARE OLD ENOUGH TO EXPERIENCE RACISM, WHITE CHILDREN ARE OLD ENOUGH TO LEARN ABOUT IT”

Look, Ruby Bridges was six years old when racist white parents (men and women) threw rocks and hissy fits because she was trying to get an education. A full year younger than most of the white children who are now being “protected” from learning the truth about what their grandparents did.

I guess these delicate snowflakes are so triggered by the racism of their elders that they need to get the Republican governor to whitewash away the truth.

I’m almost 40yrs old and I used to wonder how it was that in college, white kids my age genuinely believed that Martin Luther King, Jr. died of old age. But somehow, every single Black person my age knew the truth. How does that happen?? This is how it happens. This is a prime example of precisely how that happened and still happens—because to “protect” them from the truth, white kids weren’t taught that he was assassinated. It’s literally no different than raising generations of white kids to believe that 2+2=5. There’s going to be serious problems when they hit the real world. But what can I say? Conservatives like ‘em dumb and ignorant.

Anyway, this is how you get generations of fully grown white adults who truly honestly believe foolishness like “racism is over,” or “Martin Luther King basically ended racism,” or, “we don’t need affirmative action because there is no more racism; if anything it’s white people who are more discriminated against now.” (The majority of white people polled said the same thing in the 1960s too, btw).

Keeping as many white people as possible ignorant of the truth does not happen by accident. It’s very intentional. And that’s not to say that ALL white people are ignorant of the truth. Some of them, like Emily Conklin, know the truth, but just do not care.

And make no mistake: The same white people who want to keep their white children “pure” and “innocent” have ZERO problems criminalizing and sending young Black children directly to jail for even the slightest misbehavior in a classroom.

Evil, racist cowards (redundant, I know).

[marzipanandminutiae]

Museum Exhibit I'd Like To Curate:

"Never Married; Best Friends- Erasure, Discovery, and the Work of Queer Historians"

(shocker: we're not all straight/cis and we're not all out to erase queer history at every turn. never have been. of course, that doesn't mean queer historians have never been complicit in erasure, for safety reasons or personal bias against another letter of the acronym or what have you. I'd love to explore that- and our contributions to the queer history field -in greater depth)

[dougielombax]

No, Jimmy.

A people’s indigeneity does not expire.

This is a universal fact that applies to all indigenous peoples.

Whether it’s the Irish, the Basques, Jews, Palestinians, Circassians, Assyrians, Armenians, Yazidis, Mandaeans, Sami people, Mari people (as in the Mari El), Rapa Nui, Māori, Ainu people, Ryukyuan peoples (Okinawa), Tibetan people or any others.

This still applies even if they change things like their religion or language too btw.

Try telling them that and see how they react!

What other lies are you gonna start spouting?

Are you gonna say that Ireland has always been British? Or that the Armenian genocide didn’t happen?

Because neither of those are true either.

Also.

This post is OFF-LIMITS to anyone who denies another people’s indigeneity. Or who tries to erase or deny their existence or right to exist.

But that should go without saying.

[fromchaostocosmos]

In the war between Israel and Hamas, there have been far too many casualties­—thousands of innocent civilians have died, primarily in Gaza. But this war has another less visible casualty: the hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants to Israel from the Middle East and North Africa known as Mizrahi, whose history is being erased from the popular narrative about Israel. My community is among them.

When angry protesters hurl charges of apartheid and colonialism at Israel, they are, knowingly or not, repudiating the truth about Israel's origin and the vast racial and ethnic diversity of its nation.

I was born and raised in Iran in a family of Jewish educators. I came of age during the tumultuous years of the Iranian revolution, just as Ayatollah Khomeini rose to power in 1979, and soon thereafter, annihilated his opposition­—feminists, leftists, even the Islamic Marxists who had long revered him as their spiritual leader. Until 1979, if anyone had told my observant Jewish family that we would someday leave Iran, we would have laughed. In fact, at our Passover seders, the words "next year in Jerusalem," were always followed by chuckles and quips, "oh, yeah, sure, Watch me pack!" all underlining our collective belief that we were exactly where we intended to remain. We loved Israel, but Israel was a Nirvana­—a place we revered but never expected to reach.

The 30 years preceding the Islamic revolution had led the Jewish community to believe that the dark days of bigotry were behind them. And for good reason! When my father was a schoolboy in the late 1930s, he was not allowed to attend school on rainy days. In the highly conservative town where he grew up, in Khonsar, his Shiite neighbors considered Jews "unclean," or Najes. They barred them, among other things, from leaving their homes on rainy days, lest the rainwater splashed off the bodies of the Jews and onto the Muslim passersby, thus making them "unclean," too. Yet, that same boy grew up, left the insular town, attended college in Tehran, earned a master's degree, and served in the royal army as a second lieutenant. (To his last day, my father's photo in military uniform was among his most prized possessions.) After service, he became the principal of a school, purchased a home in what was then a relatively upscale neighborhood of Tehran. The distance between my father's childhood and adulthood far surpassed two decades. It was the distance between two eras­—between incivility and civility, bigotry and tolerance.

Yet, as if on cue, the demon of antisemitism was unleashed again. The 1979 Islamic revolution summoned all the prejudices my father thought had been irretrievably buried. One day, on the wall across our home, graffiti appeared, "Jews gets lost!" Soon thereafter, the residence and fabric store my aunt and her extended family owned in my father's childhood town were set on fire after a mob of protesters looted it. Within days, she and her family, whose entire life's savings had burned in that fire, left for Israel. As young as I was, I could see that the regime was indiscriminately brutal to all those it deemed a threat to its reign, especially secular Muslims. But the new laws were specifically designed so that non-Muslims, and women, all but became second-class citizens. Members of religious minorities, especially the Baha'i, could no longer eye top jobs in academia, government, the military, etc. Restaurateurs had to display signs in their windows making clear that "the establishment was operated by a non-Muslim." In a court of law, members of religious minorities could offer testimony in criminal trials, but theirs would only count as half that of a Muslim witness. Jews were once again reduced to Dhimmis­—tax-paying citizens who were allowed to live, but not thrive. Then came a handful of executions of prominent Jewish leaders in the early months after the revolution, which sent shockwaves through the community. Jewish schools were allowed to operate, but under the headmastership of Muslims who were officially appointed.

Within a few years after the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini to power, the Jewish population of Iran, which once stood at 100,000, shrank to a fraction of its size. Today, of the ancient community whose presence in Iran predates that of Muslims, only 8,000 remain. For centuries, Iran has been home to the most sacred Jewish sites in the Middle East outside of Israel. But those monuments have either fallen into disrepair or are targets of regular attacks by antisemitic mobs. Only last week, the tomb of Esther and Mordecai­—the memorial to the heroine and hero from the Book of Esther who saved the Jews from being massacred in ancient Persia, was set on fire.

How is it that the 90,000-plus who left Iran, many for Israel, are now deemed as occupiers? How do Iranian refugees fleeing persecution become "colonizers" upon arrival in Israel? These families, my aunt among them, were not emissaries of any standing empire, nor were they returning to a place where they had no history. For them, Israel was not a home away from their real homeland. It was their only homeland. The vitriolic slogan that appeared across my home in 1979 demanded that we "get lost!" In 2024, once again, the same Jews are being called upon to leave, this time Israel. Where, then, are Jews allowed to live?

Iranian Jews were not alone. Jews from Iraq, especially in the aftermath of the 1941 pogrom called Farhood, similarly fled their homeland. So did the Jews of Yemen, Tunisia, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Morocco, Algeria, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, etc. All, destitute and dejected, they took refuge in Israel. Today, they make up nearly 50 percent of Israel's population. To call such a nation colonial GRAVELY misrepresents the facts about Jews and Israel.

In his timeless essay, Looking Back on the Spanish Civil War, George Orwell said that in the Spain of 1937, he "saw history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various 'party lines.'" With the alarming rise of antisemitism around the world, and in light of the bloody attacks on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7, the greatest massacre of Jews since World War II, 2024 bears an uncanny resemblance to Orwell's 1937. But perhaps in no way more ominously than the way truth has been upended to serve an ideological narrative­—one in which Jews, who have lived uninterruptedly in that land for more than two millennia, are cast as white non-indigenous interlopers, with no roots in what has always been their ancient homeland.

A public scholar at the Moynihan Center (CCNY), Roya Hakakian is the author of several books including, Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran (Crown, 2005).

[gemsofgreece]

Turkey is about to convert another Greek Orthodox church to a mosque in Istanbul. They have been doing it relentlessly with many churches in the country, the most well known example being Hagia Sophia of course. This time they are about to convert the Church of Chora, a 4th century monastery which is particularly notable for having some of the best preserved religious art, icons and mosaics of the Byzantine style. It is the prime example of the Paleologan renaissance of the 13th century which was critical for the post-Byzantine and modern Orthodox style as we know it nowadays. Of course all the monument’s masterpieces are going to be covered for the church to be converted into a mosque.

It should be noted that as a city of 15 million, it already has more than 3,000 mosques, yet the need to turn historical churches to mosques seems to feel most urgent to them for some reason. Surely the reason must not be that Istanbul feels threatened by the presence of the remaining 2,000 Constantinopolitan Greeks (aka those who survived the islamisation, the pogroms, the deportations, the death marches and the genocide 🙃). So what is this urgency about?

Taking into consideration that from the next year they are also adding the irredentist fabrication of “Blue Homeland” (since when are Turks indigenous to islands for them to have a blue homeland?!?!?! 😂😂😂) to their schoolbooks, aka Turkey’s claim to half of Greece’s territorial waters in the Aegean Sea and all the islands located in these waters, and because it is obvious to me that a country of 80+ million cannot possibly feel threatened by a country of 10 million, I conclude once again that Turkey is simply threatened by the very easy modern international access to historical sources. So you have to start the brainwashing and the hate speech from an as early age as possible and you have to erase all signs of an alternative view of history from your streets to fight all the contradictory facts that can be learned from international sources within seconds from your phone.

[intersexcat-tboy]

No One Can Produce Both Sperm and Eggs? Think Again.

[pt: no one can produce both sperm and egg? Think again]

Well, for what could have been the first undeniable documented case, we'd need to think of a world without intersex mutilation to grasp this historically denied reality. We would envision a man, unmutilated, peacefully living as a chimera

But instead, in 1998, we heard about an ovary from his absorbed sister that was removed from within him at just over a year old.

I had hypothesized about the possibility of such occurrences, discussing with others how it may be possible, albeit exceedingly rare. This case serves as an example of what could have been an earlier groundbreaking discovery of one individual maturing into the ability to produce both sperm and eggs. Advancements are commonly hindered by societal biases and bigotry, which slow down genuine discovery and understanding of human complexity.

At the time, standard medical procedure was to remove gonads that were considered "contradictory" to prevent potential health issues. The risk of malignancy is usually associated with the presence of Y chromosomal material and/or (especially) dysgenic gonads. Back then, doctors understood that tumor risk was associated with dysgenic gonads. This boy’s ovary did not pose the same risk, making its removal all the more unjustifiable when we know now that ovotestes pose a low risk of malignancy.

There have been two other similar cases, one from 1981 (PDF of study), where a father "showed signs of ovulation", and later in 2010 (PDF of study), where we finally have the reality of dual gamete production. Both gamete production to the point auto fertilization occurred!

I will repeat again: both gamete function HAS occurred, a decade after one boy lost his chance. Why don't we talk about this more? I feel like we're lying when we say it doesn't occur. It's just exquisitely rare

I'm not posting this as merely an intriguing fact, I'm posting it to bring awareness to profound injustices that have been faced by intersex individuals. Recognizing the complexity and diversity of human biology is critical, alongside defending the rights of intersex individuals to live free from unnecessary, oftentimes harmful, medical interventions.

Medical decisions should be made with the informed consent of intersex individuals, rather than being imposed by parents or doctors. This is especially crucial when these decisions are based on limited information and societal ideas, rather than the actual feelings, experiences, and (lack of) struggles regarding the individuals themselves. There are a few studies suggesting support for these surgeries, they have been criticized for being unreliable, poorly conducted, and heavily misleading.

We must continue to fight to ensure that individuals have control over their own bodies

[djuvlipen]

you people really think poc are interchangeable. "nooo they are whitewashing heathcliff!! let's give love to the 2011 adaptation instead, where heathcliff is played by a black man". romani people and anti-romani racism have a very specific history in the uk (which is reflected, for better and for worse, in wuthering heights). it's still romani erasure even when the character is played by a black gadjo. just like casting ciara renée (mixed black, native and indian) in hunchback of notre-dame was romani erasure. just like casting norm lewis to play javert was racist against romani people. it's just as much a form of romani erasure and anti-romani racism as casting white people for the role

[casscainmainly]

Small question, does it have to be Gotham for Cass? There's charas like Dick that can go establish their identity in a different city. Then there's Bruce, Steph, Jason and Duke who are so intrinsically tied to Gotham that this has to be the city for them. Where does Cass lie on this spectrum? Tq!

EXCELLENT question. I think Cass' situation is somewhat unique because of the way her character was handled post-Batgirl (2000).

In favour of Cass not staying in Gotham, she doesn't have the same emotional connection to Gotham as the four people you listed. She wasn't raised there, and in Batgirl (2000), she has next to no ties to Gotham civilians. In fact, it's when she moves to Bludhaven in Gabrych's run that she gains her first civilian friend and civilian love interest. The iconic volving panel is from Bludhaven, too. It's undeniable that the distance from Gotham, from Bruce (and arguably Babs), helps her grow:

Batgirl (2000) #71

It can't be overstated how important ownership is to Cass. To own something means, necessarily, that you not an object. You are a person who something belongs to, and who belongs to something. By calling Bludhaven the "first place that's ever been... mine," she's explicitly saying that Gotham was not hers. Bludhaven was the first place that made her feel fully human.

But there are caveats to this. Cass goes to Bludhaven in the wake of Stephanie's death, a Gothamite through and through. It's probable that Steph's death colours her view of Gotham here, and her willingness to embrace Bludhaven is in response to the pain that Gotham now brings her. (This is also after Babs calls Cass stupid). Feeling like Gotham doesn't belong to her might stem from these specific circumstances, and not be applicable in current canon.

Still, if the story had ended there, I'd say Cass doesn't need to stay in Gotham. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

Red Robin (2009) #17

After Bruce's death, Cass goes to Hong Kong. Well, 'goes' is putting it nicely. She was written off to make Steph Batgirl, which resulted in Cass a) not appearing in most comics, b) being stripped of the bat symbol, and c) being isolated from everyone she cares about, besides Tim. It's a horrific and undeserved fate, reversing everything Cass' story once stood for (narrative agency; becoming a hero; finding a family).

Though Cass regains the symbol and becomes the Bat of Hong Kong, she is no longer part of the narrative; her distance from Gotham became a representation of her distance from narrative importance. That's the real danger of Cass leaving Gotham - unlike Dick, who is a big enough character to be guaranteed solos in Blud, Cass leaving Gotham will forever hold the threat of erasure.

I'm discussing this in a meta-textual sense, but textually Cass knows the danger too.

Gates of Gotham #5

Here, Cass rebuffs Dick's assertion that Gotham will never keep either of them because they don't belong. She says, "It's about how you choose to see the world. Everything else is just an excuse." She's repudiating multiple things: editorial's decision to boot her from Gotham; Bruce's decision to take Batgirl away; even, somewhat, Dick's ascension to the Bat mantle when she wasn't given a chance.

This is ultimately why, though Cass could work elsewhere, I think she should work in Gotham. It's the place she ran to after David Cain, the place she chose to stay in, and the place that gave her Batgirl. Most importantly, it's the place that rejected her. It's not about Gotham itself - It's about how she was ejected from it, and how she fought her way back, over and over again. Cass staying in Gotham ensures history doesn't repeat itself. It rewards Cass fans who survived OYL, Batman Inc, and New 52 with the light at the end of the tunnel.

This is just my opinion! I do love her stint in Bludhaven, so I understand other people preferring her elsewhere. Just for me, she may not belong to Gotham in the way Bruce, Steph, Duke, Jay, or Babs does, but she deserves to be there.

[alwaysbewoke]

[haggishlyhagging]

The spooking experience of "Old is New" is shared among Crones who have been consciously feminists since the late sixties (or longer) and who are now meeting a generation of young women—college students, for example—who have never read and never even heard of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Three Guineas, The Second Sex, Sisterhood is Powerful, The First Sex . . . Feminists who have been struggling to build Women's Studies courses and programs speak to each other of this eerie experience, seeking confirmation of their own clear memories: "It's like beginning from square one," "It's like re-inventing the wheel." "It's as if nothing had ever happened," "They seem lobotomized." "We should have foreseen this."

We should have foreseen this blackout and would have foreseen it, were it not for the fact that the wheel of patriarchal Processions repeatedly grinds down feminist accomplishments to unrecognizable fragments, demolishing our sense of our own tradition. Probably it would have been surprising for Matilda Joslyn Gage to see "the women's movement" starting from square one in 1969, for she had hoped, in the nineteenth century, that her work would be part of an ongoing female tradition. But by now we are able to know more about the mechanisms by which the masters devour the fruits of female creativity and attempt to grind them into oblivion. Armed with this knowledge, Crones/Hags will make every effort to remove our energy from allegiance to their systems, re-claiming our life force and our hidden, but never totally destroyed, traditions. As we re-create Hag-ography we will keep clearly in mind the fact that it is the patriarchs' possession and re-defining of "the past" that makes possible their possession of women by the male-defined "past."

-Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology

[womenaremypriority]

Women literally risked rape and imprisonment to just wear pants and now we have women acting like wearing jeans makes them not women anymore and I’m supposed to be fine with this??!