#jedi critical indigenous

[underwaterspiderbird]

anybody who calls the acolyte “canon breaking” or “lore breaking” clearly doesn’t know shit about star wars. the jedi were never inherently good, the sith were never inherently bad, they just have different points of view. and for fuck sake stop acting like the jedi know everything and are always right & nobody else can have their own point of view your sheltered church kid is showing sarah.

[underwaterspiderbird]

i disagree wholeheartedly. rest in piss to sol, jecki, yord, and every other pearl-clutching narcissist jedi out there. its not a genocide when it's a system of evangelical psychopaths who point unnatural at anything they don't understand. sure palpatine was an absolute nutcase and who wiped his ass with the legacy of the actually sensible sith & maligned the sith to the surface galaxy, but that doesn't erase the truth of the matter that the jedi, as a system, are an evangelical cult who starve for systemic supremacy, rip children away from their families under the illusion of choice (see anyone that the jedi want who tell them no if u dont believe me), tell them the very things that make them who they are are bad and wrong, "unnatural and corrupting", then they throw them away like trash when their worldview & view of the force doesn't align with theirs. just like the catholics.

the jedi had it fucking coming. i don't care about the younglings or jedha or palpatine's empire, that dude's actions are his own. from an indigenous sith who has never agreed with the jedi, never thought they were the good guys they said they are, and always saw all of the evangelical evil of the world in the jedi, fuck the jedi. even the younglings. they were so brainwashed & disconnected from existence at that point that they might as well have been considered dead before Anakin skewered them & clones swiss-cheesed them. i'm not sorry, fuck the jedi. rest in piss.

I think one of the things I've found most frustrating about sections of Star Wars fandom since being more active in it (rather than just being a Star Wars appreciator) is that some folks are constantly looking for a reason that the Jedi "caused" or worse "deserved" what was coming to them with Order 66. It's hard and horrible to watch the Jedi get slaughtered in Revenge of the Sith, so people search for a reason that it was, in some sense, justified. But that's not what genocide is. No group can "bring a genocide on themselves." It doesn't matter WHAT mistakes they may make. The whole point of the Clone Wars all the way down to destroying Jedha City in Rogue One was to wipe out not only the Jedi themselves, but the memory of them, so that the empire can fully take root.

And this is why the end of the Acolyte finale felt so so so bad to me. It was meant to be, or so I believed, a show about how the Sith were getting closer to their goal of getting rid of the Jedi as we close in on the century before The Phantom Menace. I sat there, I waited for the narrative intention to set in, and that narrative intention surprised me by saying "ah yes, well, some Jedi made mistakes and it was fine for one to be murdered HORRIBLY as a result, and the subsequent cover up of all of it is just the Jedi wanting to avoid senate knowledge of what really happened because the Jedi are too powerful." It's like, nevermind that the SENATE is the power here, and the Jedi long-ago agreed to help them out but are being shouldered with more and more and more and they may have the Force but they are still only people (which the High Republic books show REALLY well). It's like, nevermind that Star Wars is about redemption and always trying to be a better person and learning from our mistakes! It wasn't a situation, when Osha kills Sol in a nasty and cruel way, where you see a person going corrupt and know the narrative behind it is like "oh shit, this is a bad turn for them!" It felt like the narrative was saying she was justified (at least to me) and that's just. Sad? Bleak? The end of the finale felt to me like "hey, some Jedi made some mistakes while trying their best once, and that's why these Sith get to do whatever and that's why the Jedi walked right into their own demise."

When the scene with the senator happened, I thought, oh, interesting, we're going to see the prejudice against Force-sensitives here that leads to the senate clapping in the face of genocide. That leads to the safehouse in Kenobi where we see Force-sensitives carving messages of hope into the wall while they're being hunted down and killed. But that's ... not what happened. In the end, it felt like the narrative said, "yep that guy is right, the Jedi are a power-grabbing cult." It just felt bad, man. I thought this was going to be a story about the lineage leading up to Plagueis and Palpatine and I thought, interesting, I'd love to see that, but it just ended up being this messy thing with clunky writing and a bunch of loose ends that teased me with Jedi characters and then said "eh, these guys deserved it."

We got to see a kyber crystal bleeding for the first time in live action, and I can't even be excited about it! Did we ever really find out how Osha and Mae were created and what weird stuff the witches were up to? Nope! Just woah disappointing as far as even learning new stuff about how the dark side corrupts the Force, and that was one thing I was interested in as the show started to go downhill for me in later episodes.

(RIP Sol, Jecki, and Yord. You deserved better than that, and Vernestra, so did you)

[underwaterspiderbird]

Jedi Apologists in a nutshell

J.A.: *push random kid on the playground and take their toy* fuck you i’m the good guy

R.K.: no fuck you you suck

J.A.: OMG NAZIIIII!!1!1! NAAAZIIII!!! HEY EVERYBODY LOOK AT THIS NAAAAAAZIIIIII DONT THEY KNOW THAT IM THE GOOD GUY AND THAT ANYBODY WHO DISAGREES WITH ME IS A ROTTEN OLD NAAAZIIIIIII!!!!1!!1!

[underwaterspiderbird]

order 66 was NOT a genocide. you can only genocide people & cultures, you can’t genocide a systemically deified super-religion that wants everyone in existence to either agree with them & exist their way or burn in hell for eternity. any decent ppl who went down with the purge forfeit their lives down the drain along with their family, home & very sense of self. they. had. it. fucking. coming.

from an indigenous person, fuck y’all for even comparing order 66 to genocide & talking all over survivors of real genocides to save face for your evangelical faith & the people you think are good guys. you are not about to disrespect the continent-sized OCEANS of blood that make up our ancestors & loved ones who were lost to real genocide. fuck off.

[r7-b7]

Indigenous casual Star Wars fan Hot Takes

The women deserve to live.

The mothers deserve to live.

Trans/Aro/Ace/Intersex characters: we need them. They exist. They have always existed. We need more.

Creators need to hire indigenous actors and artists. Stop just being "influenced" by us and our stories- offer to work with us, and adequately compensate us.

Almost all SW media fans the flames of unregulated White Boy Emotions. Not only encouraging but rewarding Creep behavior and the White women who hold the hands of supremacist genocidal White men. You've gotta do mental gymnastics and 3 paragraphs of his "trauma" to try to justify their femicide.

The Empire moved so seamlessly into power partially because The Republic was already an empire with a galactic militarized police force that people felt they had no chance fighting against. Similar bone structure.

Dave Filoni's Ahsoka costume choices until she's an adult and wears appropriate battle outfits. At 14 she wears a tube top, upgraded to an upper cleavage cut out, whatever perv. He was wrong for that, that was a deliberate choice made again and again until it was retconned in live action. The dedication to the white male gaze and sexualization/adultification of indigenous and Black girls is sickening and prevalent in US media.

The Jedi Order was responsible for aiding the colonization of thousands of worlds on behalf of the Republic.

The Jedi Order is based on a barely-not-a-Boomer cishet white man's perception of a bunch of religions/spiritualities and then applied to fantasy space cops, colonizer mentality is oozing out of the cracks.

People who get really mad about the criticism of the Jedi are usually White and men.

These are only "hot takes" because Star Wars is catered to White Supremacy and those who uphold it.

---

Some people have a BIG issue when I talk about Star Wars and colonizers/aiding colonization. So here you go straight from your Lord Lucas's mouth:

“I have a strong feeling about interesting kids in space exploration. I want them to want it. I want them to get beyond the basic stupidities of the moment and think about colonizing Venus and Mars. And the only way it's going to happen is to have some dumb kid fantasize about it — to get his ray gun, jump in his ship and run off with this wookie into outer space. It's our only hope in a way."

Got an issue? Block me, and be gone. This wasn't for you.

[underwaterspiderbird]

^^^^^^^^ ive been saying this since i was a kid and im SO EFFING GRATEFUL. they were always evangelical fascists, if you disagreed with the jedi or existed differently than them in any way then they would kill you brutally & cover up your death with you being "evil so it was justified". not only do they show the jedi's shittiness, but they also outright show sith beliefs and how the first sith, were actually jedi that were thrown away by the jedi for questioning the jedi, and my indigenous, sith-ajdacent ass LOVES. EVERY. BIT. OF. IT. 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯 renew the acolyte, AJAB<3

"They really take seriously this idea that Jedi are cops. And everyone hates the Jedi, because they're cops. It really takes seriously the idea that--it's very disturbing that the cops in this universe are A) a religious cult that recruits children and B) has the power to read or wipe your mind."

Abigail Thorn on "The Acolyte"

[underwaterspiderbird]

there’s no such thing as “light” or “dark” sides of the force, there never was. its all just different expressions & experiences of the same energy field. “falling to the dark side” is but a religious scare tactic akin to “you’re good and are going to heaven if you believe what we believe but if you don’t you’re gonna burn in hell for all eternity”, no amount of palpatine’s generation of fuckery, the psychos within the sith that could also be found within any group of ppl, or jedi worship will ever convince me otherwise.

suck it bitches

[sun-spice]

I was reading a fanfic that (poorly tbh) criticised the Jedi and their demilitarisation post Ruusan Reformation until just before the Clone Wars.

And it just reminded me of how irl I've commonly seen people disregard the rich thought around non-violence, pacifism and demilitarisation (both supportive thought and some really well thought out criticisms of them).

I'm begging people not to let white xtian non-resistance doctrine dominate their idea of these principles.

There so much out there if you just look for it. Just off the top of my head I've got:

Rabbincal commentaries on peace and justice in Judaism, Martin Luther King Jr and his non-violence and spirituality, Malcolm X's criticisms, Bayard Rustin, Inuit parenting philosophies, Indigenous resistance in all different forms, Amy-Jill Levine, Marc Brettler and Walter Wink's subversive New Testament readings, non-violence in Dharmic faiths and Dharmic influences, the demilitarisation of Japan under US occupation and its affects, nuclear disarmament, just war theory, definitions of violence, non-violent communication, anarchism and the concept of the state as a monopoly on violence.

All fascinating and illuminating discussions and topics.

[underwaterspiderbird]

they’re catholics with the facade of buddhists if anything, fuck outta here

The problem with a lot of the arguments in Star Wars fandom is that it’s like trying to criticize the material on the grounds of it being a bad historical documentary.  When you point out that it’s not a historical documentary, that it’s a space opera/fairy tale, you get back, “Apparently we’re not allowed to criticize anything anymore!”  Babe, no one said that.  They just said it’s not a historical documentary, meaning that if you’re going to criticize it, do it through what the story actually is, rather than by trying to jam it into a genre it was never intended to be. Anyway, that’s what it’s like trying to say, no, the Jedi aren’t Catholic, they’re Buddhists, and attachment means the desire to cling to someone so much that you’d sacrifice a thousand lives to possess them.  Nobody’s stopping you from criticizing them, we’re just pointing out that using a framework that they’re not a part of goes against what they actually are and that criticism should come from their actual content, not something they never were.

[rhizomesandtrees]

What's going on in the realm of public engagement

Public engagement is a dynamic field. Topics of convening, engagement strategies and methods, and best practices shift depending on the local context where it is based. I wanted to highlight two significant trends present in the field that will have an impact on its trajectory in the coming years.

Polarization

In Aftab Erfan’s conversation with the Tyee, she highlights how we are living in a very polarized society at the moment and many people have lost a lot of conversation skills. She also names that conflict management and dialogue go hand in hand, and that good facilitators need to be skilled in both. For her, two key pieces in managing this is slowing down conversations so they don’t escalate, and building people’s capacity to listen closely and frame their opinions and facts.

I think these are critical considerations for the public engagement field as media coverage and protests become more and more polarized – see the conspiracy theories around 15-minute cities and their effects on public hearings as one example. As a practitioner it raises questions about how do we build participants’ skills so that all in the conversation are able to share their perspectives in a way that remains as safe as possible for all parties involved. Similarly, how do I ensure my skills are refined so I am able to facilitate spaces where difficult conversations can be held?

Centering Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI)

Since 2020 there has been an explosion of calls for incorporating perspectives of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion (JEDI) into curriculum, organizations and public engagements. These perspectives are not new, rather the protests for the murder of George Floyd brought calls to support JEDI in our workplace to the forefront of many people’s minds. While there is debate around the success and sustainability of the initiatives that have taken place since then, JEDI remains a critical perspective at my work as we design engagements and decide on which audiences we are engaging.

Many toolkits exist for incorporating JEDI into public engagement (such as this one) and groups like Provincial Health Services Authority have developed cultural safety courses like San'yas, which focuses on working with Indigenous peoples and communities. I think that in the coming years we will see more internal trainings like this being developed for a many community groups on best practices for engagement, and also offering context and histories that may not be highlighted or covered by public education systems.

Overall, I thinking centering JEDI principles and actions is critical to have well balanced and effective engagement with the public. If we only hear from one group in the community our perspectives are limited, and not representative.

Sources

Cheung, C. (2023, September 15). In polarizing times, the ‘fine art’ of tough conversations. The Tyee. https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/09/15/Polarizing-Times-Fine-Art-Tough-Conversations/

Gaudiano, P. (2022, July 27). Two years after George Floyd’s murder, is your DEI strategy performative or sustainable? Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/paologaudiano/2022/06/27/two-years-after-george-floyd-is-your-dei-strategy-performative-or-sustainable/  

Georgieva, K. (2023, April 16). Debunking the 15-minute-city conspiracy theory – and why it erupted at Essex County council. CBC News. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/15-minute-city-conspiracy-theory-essex-county-council-1.6808005

[whorevader]

I love blocking proud Catholics who frame - in the context of Star Wars for fuck's sake - expecting a "religious institution to change their rules for one person" as wrong ♡ I have no idea what you're smoking. Is it God

[underwaterspiderbird]

👏🏼FUCKING THIS👏🏼👏🏼

I don't wanna hear anyone arguing that the Jedi order was oh so good and caring towards Anakin but he was such a problem child who never listened.

This is an excerpt from “There is always another”, one of the CANON short stories in "Star Wars: From A Certain Point Of View: the Empire Strikes Back":

This is extra significant because it's Obi-Wan who's talking. Obi-Wan - who never dared to question the wisdom of the Jedi order and was hard on Anakin for failing to do the same - is now the one who finally admits the truth after death, at least to himself.

Anakin was morally flawed and chose to do awful things of his own free will, but he did not fall because he was inherntly weak or wicked (Obi-Wan used to judge every fallen ex-Jedi like this). He fell because any Jedi in his position and with his trauma would have fallen.

Anakin’s trauma of surviving slavery meant that his traumatized mind would inevitably interpret the Jedi’s philosophy of “transcending selfhood” as “obliterating selfhood”.

And for an ex-slave; the concept of obliterating the self is the most terrifyingly triggering shit EVER.

Anakin and the Jedi order operated from completely different worldviews and lived realities, and it was inevitable for them to clash horrifically unless both of them were willing to understand each other and compromise.

And when we're talking about an institution of care and an individual under the care of that institution? The ultimue burden for reaching out and compromising falls on the institution, not the individual under their care.

And here's the tragic part (the part that Obi-Wan finally admitted to): It was only Anakin who made any real effort to reach out and compromise. He went to great lengths to re-shape himself to fit the Jedi order's needs. The Jedi order - in return - did very little to meet him halfway. There was no real effort on their part to understand Anakin's trauma, and they did not compromise or change anything about how they approach healing to fit Anakin's needs.

Their mantra of "letting" go" was great in theory and a wonderful solution in practice, but the Jedi did not bother to remove the mental blocks in Anakin's traumatized mind that prevented him from emotionally internalizing this wisdom and acting upon it (and isn't that the classic tension between religious/spiritual institutions and religious/spiritual people suffering from unhealed trauma?).

The Jedi order was too arrogant, too rigid, and too closed-minded that they did very little to even address the root of Anakin's trauma with slavery, let alone give him any practical tools to heal from it (and they even carelessly retraumatized him at times).

Anakin would have turned on them eventually, even if he never fell to the Dark Side. It was, sadly, an inevitable outcome.

[that-lazy-snail]

Being a fan of Avatar (the movie with blue people) is literally the most exhausting fan experience I've ever had, and I'm a female Star Wars fan, who's favorite Star Wars movie is The Last Jedi.

I'm by no means claiming that the movie is flawless or even "great" but it is by scifi blockbuster standards pretty good. It's no more or less racist than the Star Wars prequels and the writing isn't any worse than the scriptwriting in the Star Wars prequels either, yet it's treated with such disdain among people on the internet that I can't even talk about it without receiving random hateful comments.

I cosplay from the movie, more specifically the new movie and an OC that I designed in 2018. I love the movie, especially the visual elements and the design of the Na'vi and their culture, I think it's a fascinating metaphor for our treatment of indigenous peoples and our planet, I love the themes the film presents. But I'm also aware that it's harmful to indigenous people as well because it promotes a white savior narrative, that it's harmful to disabled people by promoting the narrative that they can't live full lives unless they're normative. I don't deny those problems with the movie, and I have plenty of criticisms of the new film as well. Particularly the use of locks on Jake and Spider, and I saw a video on tiktok complaining about that and I left a comment saying that I really wish they hadn't done that and I thought it was a really poor styling choice since up until that point none of the Na'vi we'd seen have locks so it doesn't logically make sense to give them that hair style. I got quite a bit of response to that comment, some people agreeing with me but largely people were saying, "why do you cosplay it then?" "why do you support it then?" like is it not okay to like things and also have criticism for them? I'm allowed to like things about it and also not like things about it.

I also keep seeing videos saying that Avatar has no cultural impact, that it doesn't have a long lasting fan base despite having lore comparable to Lord of the Rings. Here's the thing with that, it totally does have lore comparable to Lord of the Rings but the fan base can't thrive like LOTR fans or even Star Trek could partially because the internet wasn't a space in the same way then as it was when Avatar came out and the other fact is the sheer amount of shaming and harassment that Avatar fans get. I've seen people leave the fandom because of the hate they received on the internet. They quite literally get bullied out of their enjoyment of the movie. People say that Avatar has no fans, but it's fans are chronically silent and reclusive in our liking of the film for fear of getting harassed. I am part of Facebook groups of that have thousands of members and a very active discord. Avatar fans exist, they just keep low and quiet so as to protect themselves. I know people who speak Na'vi in the same way people speak elvish or klingon, it's just not something we advertise because every time we try to share our enjoyment of the movie we get mean comments or mocking stitches/remixes of our videos, pictures, etc. It's not fun to be a public Avatar fan, it's scary and exhausting.

I love Avatar, Neytiri was one of the first truly strong and inspirational female characters I connected with as a child (I was 9 when the movie came out) and I was fascinated and enthralled with the world of Pandora, as were so many movie goers. I'm so tired of getting railed on for enjoying this movie, or even just the constant ridicule that comes through my feed about it. What happened to the golden rule of if you don't have anything nice to say (or on this case even anything that provides new/valuable commentary/criticism) don't say anything at all?

I'm so sick of hearing the same arguments I've heard a million times about why it's a retread plot of Pocahontas/Dances With Wolves/Ferngully, I've heard it all before, I've seen those movies before and their plots are in myths and any number of other stories, that's not why I love the movie. No amount of people saying that to me will change what I do like about the Avatar. I don't watch Avatar for the plot, I watch it for Pandora, and for the visual spectacle and the world building.

I'm sick of the argument that Avatar's treatment of indigenous voices is somehow worse than any other piece of media written by and for white communities, it's not. Even Avatar the Last Airbender (which is my favorite TV show of all time and is often acclaimed as a great example of native representation) also falls failure to the same mistake of casting white actors in POC roles and changing the narratives of natives to be more easily accepted and understood by white audiences. This is not to say that ATLA doesn't handle its message better than Avatar, but it's important to be aware of the ways in which all media has flaws, even the things we think are less problematic and it's important to acknowledge them and not tear the media down for it, but use it as means to make new media better. Cameron did improve with the Way of Water, he frequently consulted with the Maori tribes he was pulling inspiration from, there's literally articles written by Maori tribe members on it but it is still a white people movie, written by white people for white people so do with that what you will. But don't claim star wars is any better, the prequels were outrageously racist, and they still maintain majority white casts.

The new Avatar movie (the way of water) is not perfect, there are quite a few things I found to be poor choices in regards to cultural sensitivity (aka locks, and casting Kate Winslet as Ronal instead of a Polynesian actress) but it's still better than it's predecessor, and unlike so many people on the internet say, it is not "a bunch of white people playing poc" since neither Zoe Saldana, nor Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, or any of the Metkayina children or Cliff Curtis are white. In fact, Cliff Curtis is Maori, the culture that inspired the Metkayina and many of the extras who play background Na'vi in the films are POC, because in spite of James Cameron's failings, he did want the Na'vi to be played by people of color. Very very few of the Na'vi in the original movie are played by white people, only a few extras with less than 1 minute of screen time and no lines. All the major Na'vi roles were played by people of black and indigenous color. Eytukan was played by a Cherokee native, Mo'at (these people are the two clan leaders) is played by a indigenous woman from Africa and is very black. Zoe Saldana's parents are Dominican and Puerto Rican for god's sake! She is not white. This argument that he casts white people in POC roles is untrue. The Avatars are white cause they're meant to represent the invadors, wolf in sheep's clothing if you will. The Na'vi are bipoc, and they're played by bipoc.

After Avatar, James went to Brazil and became and activist for native communities. He went worked with Brazilian natives fighting the building of a dam over their local river, a dam with would power a major city in Brazil, but destroy the indigenous peoples access to water. He went to their community, and asked them what he could do to help. He donated money, protested, ran conferences and tried to disrupt the building of the dam using his influence, but it failed, and he had to watch the suffering of this indigenous tribe that he'd grown very close to in their time working together to prevent the dam. He's not Anti-indigenous as people love to claim, he's clumsy and arrogant (like all cis white men) but what he does is an attempt to elevate native voices not smother them even if he doesn't necessarily succeed.

The movie isn't the menace to society people portray it as, nor is it as boring or uncompelling as people claim. But I still can't go online to enjoy it because no matter what I say, I like it too much for "a bad movie" or I'm "too supportive of something harmful" although I still see people buying Harry Potter merchandise in the Barnes and Noble and I'd argue JK Rowling is an actively bigoted individual who's words and paychecks actively harm marginalized communities, unlike Cameron who despite his bumbling is trying his best and actually learning and doing better with the new content he puts out.

People also say things like, "You only like it cause you're white, no POC people like Avatar." which is blatantly untrue, I've seen native people who like it, black people who like it, I have black friends who like it, I know a black cosplayer who cosplays from it. In fact, I know more poc who cosplay from it than white people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of the film, and should be allowed to interact with it without getting harassed. It's just exhausting to like it, so people don't say they do.

I'm tired of even the things that should be praised about the new film being used as a way to tear it down. Cameron said in an interview that he "likes Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman as characters but they're not mom's" when asked why he chose to make Neytiri a mother. Neytiri's motherhood doesn't detract from her warrior-ness, she's still a badass bitch and I think that's the point that this person on tiktok clearly missed. He wasn't saying you need women to be moms to be heros, but how many warrior women who are also mothers can you think of off the top of your head? I can't think of any. The choice to make Neytiri a badass mom wasn't to detract from single or childless female characters but to provide even more diversity in the kinds of strong female characters out there. I loved that 1/2 the cast of that movie was women, just as I loved Neytiri in the first film.

In conclusion, can we please stop making Avatar fans lives hell on the internet. I do my own research about how it is and isn't problematic and make my own decisions, I don't need strangers to yell at me. I just want to enjoy my silly ecoscifi movie about blue aliens. I'm aware of its issues and I do my best to raise awareness of the issues facing real natives, to engage with real native stories and voices and support their protests, legal persuits, tribal sovereignty, land back etc, and be the best ally I can be, but I'm not going to boycot this movie because it does some problematic stuff, or because it has an unoriginal plot, if I did that I could never watch another marvel movie again (and yes they're just as bad if you dig, look at the early ones especially) I'm so sick of the insane amount of factually unsupported hate this movie gets and of having to deal with it. I'm tired, I just want to enjoy my movie which is no worse than any other white backed and driven Hollywood blockbuster.

[revenge-of-the-shit]

God okay I'm just. So fucking tired. So here's a list of resources to educate yourself on issues within Star Wars. In light of the Bad Batch Finale and the announcement of the second season, it's vital that you educate yourself about the racism and other issues present.

Reminder that you cannot be in the middle. You are either racist or anti-racist. If you do not practice anti-racism and choose to stay "neutral", you are only supporting a system that constantly perpetuates racism and harms people.

And if for some reason, you think I'm overreacting; for some reason, you think I'm sensitive; for some reason, your first instinct is to get defensive and lash out; you really need to do some thinking as to why you want to scream at POC who just want the right to be recognized and seen. Who just want the right to not be erased.

And if you think this is "not good enough" because they're "just blog posts" or whatever - don't bullshit me. Even if I posted a shit ton of scholarly articles you wouldn't have read them anyway if you're coming at me with excuses for why you think the discrimination is okay. These posts are accessible, and well-written, and straight from the lived experiences of the many minorities and the allies that want to amplify their voices. I'm not asking you to take everything at face value. I'm asking you to do your own research and engage in some critical thinking instead of blindly accepting what you're given.

*Disclaimer: while I have read these sources, i read some a while ago and if there's an issue you have with some of them let me know!

(If your post is listed and you want me to take it off the list please dm me and let me know!)

The Bad Batch

#unwhitewashtbb carrd - with extensive resources here that speak about the Māori people, their culture, and the current issues they face. If you care about them, then read these resources and amplify their voices.

Petition to #unwhitewashtbb

Why you're actively supporting racism if you decide not to support anti-racist movements because you "have beef with someone" who's an anti-racist

The importance of speaking about #unwhitewashtbb, from a Polynesian fan (With another post by them!)

How Kanan is whitewashed

Clone Whitewashing #1 - how the SW crew most definitely knows how to animate dark-skinned clones with proper facial features yet chose not to

Clone Whitewashing #2 - with really clear pictures of the whitewashing

Clone Whitewashing #3 - with an extensive Temura Morrison reference sheet

Issues with Echo's design

Reasons why the take that "Omega is light-skinned because she's based on Temura Morrison's sister" and the take that "Polynesian people can be light-skinned too you're just being racist" are absolute shit takes (similar post, #2)

How Fennec Shand is whitewashed - the intricacies of her design

Fixed Fennec Shand design

How Temura Morrison has previously also been whitewashed in SW media

The Clone Wars

Islamophobia in Barriss Offee's portrayal, from a muslim woman.

How Barriss is muslim-coded, from a muslim woman.

The Mandalorian

"Bleaching" Temura Morrison

General Resources Around Star Wars

Orientalism in Star Wars

The Islamic Origins Of The Jedi

Ableism in Star Wars

Sinophobia in Star Wars, from me, a Chinese woman.

Resources about AO3 and racism

POC are not a monolith: why it's not ok to say "light-skinned minorities exist" in response to calls to stop whitewashing

How whitewashing has affected SW as a whole

John Boyega and Racism

Orientalism in SW Music

Feel free to add further resources in reblogs or just send them straight to me and I'll add them!

Oh, and by the way, if you think "it's just fiction you're just overreacting this doesn't hurt anyone": news flash: it sure does.

CBC News: Anti-Asian Racism in the media

Role of Media in anti-asian racism

NPR: Hollywood colorism

How the media fuels anti-black racism

Ways anti-indigenous racism is expressed in media and in other ways

NBC News: Rise in anti-asian racism

Resources on anti-black racism

What I've listed above is only a single drop in a massive ocean. There are so, so many other minority groups who are also suffering that I haven't listed. I haven't even touched on homophobia, on transphobia, and I've barely touched on ableism, not to mention that there's so many other issues out there. I haven't talked about the issues with how the Tuskens are portrayed, or how Watto is portrayed, or how Jar Jar Binks was portrayed, or how Kelly Marie Tran was treated, or how Trace and Rafa Martez were treated, or how the fandom hates Mace Windu, or how Poe's backstory was butchered, or much, much more. If you have more resources, please please please share them in the reblogs. It is impossible to encompass everything in a single post, but we sure as hell can try.

Alright. I've given you the resources. I've given you my time and energy. It's up to you now to educate yourself. It's ok to make mistakes - we're constantly learning and unlearning. It's ok to need to take breaks, and to save this for later because you're tired and the world is going to shit. We are human.

But it's not okay to stay willfully ignorant. It's not okay to constantly try and belittle the trauma and struggles of minorities just because you've been okay living in a system that's built on oppression. Educate yourself.

One more tip: when reblogging or sharing your own resources, flood your tags with everything to do with Star Wars. Flood the Crosshair tag. Flood the Hunter and Omega tag. Flood the tags, because this is relevant to their characters and to the entire saga, and fans need to know.

Including tags of the people I posted resources from under the cut!

@royalhandmaidens @queen-breha-organa @milfcaptainrex @milfchewbacca @bisexualmikisayaka @fixyourwritinghabits @starilicious @jester-mereel @milfbailorgana @cafffine @milfcommandercody @thecyndimistuff @shoulderpads-mcgee2

(If I'm missing a tag and you want to be tagged please let me know!)

[short-wooloo]

A Maw Installation Series | The Jedi Were Right — Episode I: Children, Parents, and the Order

by u/Xepeyon

https://www.reddit.com/r/MawInstallation/comments/koq535/a_maw_installation_series_the_jedi_were_right/

“What will happen to me now?”

“The Council has given me permission to train you. You will be a Jedi, I promise.”

― Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi; The Phantom Menace (32 BBY)

Misconceptions are like sand; they're coarse and rough and irritating and they spread everywhere. While misconceptions about the Jedi are aplenty, there's probably no one topic that's as egregious and blatantly skewered as the process of Jedi recruitment. In fact, this particular issue has even affected writers of Star Wars to the point where the real-world misconception had retroactively been inducted as a fictional-universe social issue.

From Reddit posts, to YouTube videos (and more viscerally, their comments sections) to random blog pieces on the internet, a common criticism, which seemingly emerged out of a vacuum, became one of the most iconic levied against the Jedi Order; the Jedi kidnap babies.

So let's take a set back and really examine this and establish the facts;

How did the Jedi recruit its members?

What role did the parents play?

And probably most importantly, what gave the Jedi the right to even ask?

The Backdrop

We being with the first; where did new Jedi come from? To answer this as fully as possible, we need to go back to the beginning, because this is a slightly more loaded question than many probably expect. And by beginning, I mean we start by looking at the proto-Jedi; the Je'daii.

Before the rise of the Old Republic, before the Sith, before even the Force Wars, the Je'daii were. The Rakatan Empire was at its height but declining fast, wrecking havoc across Force-sensitive worlds, turning on their Kwa benefactors and literally nuking the Tuskens into the Sand Age. The date is 36,453 BBY, and a collection of temple-ships called the Tho Yors scattered themselves across the galaxy, inviting Force users from multiple orders into its doors and shuttled them to Tython. These included the Order of the Dai Bendu, the Witches of Dathomir, the indigenous Sith, and a massive host of many, many more[1].

During this period, the Je'daii Order developed, but it quickly became clear that they were less of a religious institution and more of a culture and society. They had rulers, citizens, laws and families. While it wouldn't be accurate to say they had dynasties, there were clearly family lines of Je'daii and their entire society was Force-sensitive. Ergo, in the beginning, the Jedi did not recruit because the Je'daii were already a functioning society among the Settled Worlds[1]; parents passed on their way of life to their children, and then their children passed it on again to the next generation.

The Times a-Changin'

So what changed? In a nutshell, the Rakata. In a massive domino effect (which is too extensive and off-topic for the scope of this discussion), the Rakata came, battles were fought, and the effects paved (or arguably just accelerated) the groundwork for the Force Wars. In its aftermath, the Jedi Order, or at least its more recognizable precursor, emerged. Why is this so significant, you may ask? While among other things, the destructive effects of the Force Wars was the catalyst that caused the Jedi to effectively migrate into the wider galaxy, settling others worlds (like Ossus and Had Abbadon), and come into contact with a fledgling power that called itself "the Republic"[2], at some point before 25,000 BBY[3].

While the precise date of the Jedi aligning itself with the Core Worlds (which was effectively the entirety of the Republic at the time) is now explicitly known, it was known that it had happened within the first century of the Republic's existence. Given that the initial contact between the two powers only happened 53 years after the Republic was founded[4], this means that the Jedi Knights had to have joined the Republic within 47 years of discovering them. It was this contact that, ultimately, fundamentally changed the way the Jedi operated.

While we don't know all of the changes that the Force Wars and abstinence from the Dark Side caused within the Jedi doctrinally, we do know that Jedi families still existed during this time and would continue to do so. However, we also know that, over time and generations (we'll get into whole matter more in Episode II) this gradually was phased out. What took its place? Recruitment.

Very little is actually known about how the Jedi initially recruited, but we do know that it wasn't always children. In fact, even as late as 3630 BBY[2] the Jedi Order still took in adult members, although it had become rarer, not unheard of, to do so by this point[5]. Instead, a new kind of recruitment had taken priority; children[6]. And then, after the Ruusan Reformation, this changed from "priority" to "exclusively". After many hard-learned lessons over literally dozens of centuries (which we will get more into in Episode IV), the Jedi had agreed to the Republic's request to restrict their recruitment to infants and very young children, with only special case-by-case exceptions being made otherwise (among other reforms).

This is the most recognizable form that the Jedi used to keep their numbers up, but this also leads us to the bridge questions; what role did the parents play and what gave the Jedi the right to ask? For the former, the answer is much more simple than people may imagine; Jedi recruited children via permission of the parents[6]. Of course, in the event that a child is an orphan or otherwise has no guardian, the Jedi would simply legally adopt them[7], but in the event that the child's parent did not want to turn them over, they could refuse, and the Jedi (while making a note of it for their records[6]) did not force the issue beyond that.[6][8]

To The Crux

However, this reasonably leads to the next question; how did the Jedi know where all the Force-sensitive infants were? Who gave them that information? Who gave them the right? The answer to all of these is the same; the Republic.

We do not know how long after the Jedi Knights were invited and agreed to join[3] the Republic that this came into play, but the Galactic Republic wrote and passed laws to aid the Jedi Order's existence [S1], which by all accounts apparently beyond what the Jedi themselves seemed comfortable with. Why do I say this? What laws did the Republic make? There are two in particular that make this relevant;

Republic Law 1: Every citizen of the Republic must have mandatory blood tests performed at birth to record the concentration of midichlorians in said infant's cells. The findings and results, if warranted, are then forwarded to the Jedi Temple.[6]

Republic Law 2: Within the Republic, the Jedi Order has the legal authority to take custody of Force-sensitives.[6]

If this is the first time hearing about such laws in the Star Wars universe, you may find these to be disturbing and draconian, but it worth keeping in mind when these laws were written and what they desperately aimed to achieve (I will explain these points in more detail in Episode II and VIII). So why do I say that these the Republic seemed to have gone beyond what the Jedi appear to have wanted?

The reasoning is simple; compare what these laws (specifically the second law) are legally enabling the Jedi to do and compare or contrast that with (1) the Jedi's known record, and (2) the Jedi's known policies.

What the Republic's second law does is grant the Jedi order to exercise authority over all Force-sensitives in the Republic. At this point, you're probably modifying that sentence in your head as "Force-sensitive children", but you'd be wrong. The Republic gave the Jedi unilateral jurisdiction over all Force-sensitives in its borders. By the time of the Ruusan Reformation, that constituted the overwhelming majority of all galactic territories, with only the Unknown Regions and some parts of the Outer Rim being exceptions, such as Hutt Space. The Republic passed laws to give the Jedi a kind of "Force monopoly". So with that in mind, what does the evidence show of the state of the galaxy, regarding other Force orders?

The facts paint a simple picture; other Force orders thrived during the era of the Galactic Republic, or at the very least, were not interfered with by the Jedi Order. As a matter of fact, the Jedi kept in communication with many of these Force orders to learn from them and invited the Jedi to entertain other perspectives of the Force[6], including the Baron Do Sages, the Matukai, the Aing-Tii Monks and the Luka Sene. Of course, the Jedi also believed that efforts should naturally continue to be made to bring other Force orders into the Jedi Order[6][S2], but such relations were never forced[6], which is my point.

Bolstering this perspective is taking into account that this wasn't something done to only benefit other Lightsiders, either; the Jedi also extended tolerance to Dark Side organizations and frequently tried to establish relations with them, as opposed to antagonizing them or trying to destroy them, including the ethnic-Sith descendants of the Sorcerers of Tund (unsuccessfully)[6] and the Shapers of Kro Var (successfully)[9]. The Nightsisters are also an example of this tolerance. Many, and likely most[S3], of these organizations operated within the borders of the Republic, but the Jedi never sought to force recruitment, or even to force diplomatic relations.

Combine this with the fact that the Jedi never took children without permission, and you start getting a very clear visage of the Jedi Order's mode of operation during the post-Ruusan Reformation era; the almost exclusively recruited children, but only with permission.

The Space Elephant(s) in the Room

So the question is answered, we're done here, all finished... right? Well, yes. And no.

The reason we're not done yet is because we really need to address the reason this issue keeps coming up, why some people propagate this misinformation and what the facts of these cases really are. So let's begin;

Ultimately, the reason why this lie (and let's be frank, by now, we know definitively, from sources, that the Jedi being kidnappers is a flat-out lie) perpetuates is almost entirely because of Star Wars fans. That answer may strike you as bizarre, and without context, it is; you don't usually have members of fandoms being the active force in spreading misinformation. However, this point is closely related with two factors; (1) our second point, namely the 'why' of it all, and (2) the reception of the Jedi way of life.

The 'why' is no real secret, and if you've been in this fandom for any significant length of time, you probably already know the reason. It should also not be surprising that, while it didn't start there, this exploded from the YouTube scene. Jedi content, especially critical Jedi content, attracts viewers. There are three stories that are typically used to push the anti-Jedi narrative of them being kidnappers, and I'll start with the least known to the best; (3) the good, (2) the sad, and (1) the lolwut?

The LOLWUT?

The first case (and by far the most poorly written) involves the Zeison Sha. Nope, that's not a tongue-twister, the Zeison Sha were a Force order in the galaxy that descended from Jedi families fleeing from the 1000-year-long New Sith Wars. Initially refugees, they ended up stranded on the planet Yanibar, which turned out to be desolate and pretty inhospitable; they only went there because they were going to be picked back up after the war was over.

So what went wrong?

Specifically, the Jedi who organized and managed the entire operation all got slaughtered by the Sith in the war before they could report it to the Jedi High Council. So the refugees were now stuck on a hellish world, with almost all dying out, except those who were able to use their Force abilities to survive. These Force-sensitive survivors eventually became the Zeison Sha, and understandably blamed the Jedi for "abandoning" them.[10]

Fast forward a few centuries, the New Sith Wars ended and the Jedi go back to their peacetime duties, including exploring, and they find this no-name planet that nobody had heard of, filled with Force-sensitive kids and literally no parents to be found anywhere. The Zeison Sha that had left had evidently done so leaving their children behind, alone.[S4] In the wake of this, and in finding no adults or other persons present, the Jedi Order took up legal adoption of the children they found and brought them into the Jedi Order (you can probably see where this is going).

Some time later, the Zeison Sha (either as a whole or majority) returned[S5] and, understandably, lost their collective shit at their kids all being Jedi. Whether or not they made a formal protest to the Republic and Jedi isn't known, but it is implied due to the general view of the Jedi Order suffering from the incident, suggesting it became a very public scandal.[10] You may be asking now, why didn't the Jedi return the children? After all, as a later incident we'll get into will reveal, that was a practice when dealing with other Force orders.

Sadly, neither the Hero's Guide (to its credit, it's an RPG book, not a proper sourcebook) nor Jedi vs. Sith: An Essential Guide to the Force make this clear, or even touch upon it. However, when we examine the facts and (very limited) details around the events and the culture of the Zeison Sha themselves, we can start to form a picture.

The Zeison Sha was a society that founded itself upon rugged self-reliance, mettle and perseverance, which was in no small part birthed by the refugee settlers being trapped on Yanibar, and the majority dying off within the first few years of their tenure on the planet.[9] While I still cannot understand how the Zeison Sha evidentially left their young children alone for a significant period of time, a culture of self-sufficiency and survivalism matches with the Zeison Sha's methods very tightly, and may imply certain practices, at least during this time, could have pushed the very young to survive on their own, at least for a period of time. Personally, I find this reasoning to be absolute bullshit, but it's the only way I can make sense out of all the parents just leaving their kids behind with no one looking after them.

Additionally, how did the Zeison Sha discover their kids were with the Jedi? The sources never say they discovered this on Yanibar, only that they discovered it after returning "to the galaxy" (implying they went a great distance away, possibly to the Unknown Regions, Outer Rim territories or Wild Space). Further, the Hero's Guide states that they finally returned to Yanibar, they did so in anger and calling the Jedi kidnappers, which strongly implies that this discovery was never made by their initial return to Yanibar, assuming there even was one.[S6] Suffice to say, the entire story is bizarre, massively vague and (imo) poorly constructed, but we're only just getting started.

The Bad

The second case is less a matter of legality, and more one of morality. Such is the nature of what happened with the Dagoyan Masters, which is almost a mirror situation to the Zeison Sha. In both Legends and Canon, this was the same; the Dagoyan had ill relations with the Jedi Order because they mistakenly thought the Jedi had inducted some of the children of their own order against their will, however this was more based on the Dagoyan's distaste for the Jedi recruitment of children in and of itself, regardless of consent.[11][12][S7] Nevertheless, the Jedi Order chose to return the Dagoyan children to keep the peace, and likely also out of their great, if at the time one-sided, respect of the Dagoyan Order[11][S8]. Unlike the Zeison Sha, while the Dagoyan Order did not join the Jedi, they eventually reconciled with the Jedi Order after Mace Windu (basically single-handedly) stopped the Frangawl Cult and saved their Queen, Julia, from Mother Talzin.[11][12]

Regardless, an examination of this case not only reveals that the did not kidnap anyone, but they also returned the children to Dagoyan society when they did not have any legal cause to do so (this doesn't even take into account the fact that both Mace Windu and Yoda imply during the Council meeting that the Jedi inducting the children was not against their will[S9]). So then what's the third case? It's the one I'm fairly sure everybody knows about. The poster child, and indeed a literal child; Baby Ludi.

The Good

Baby Ludi. Who was little Ludi Billane and why is she the typical go-to case for Jedi being kidnappers?

To start, we have to go to Ord Thoden, an Outer Rim planet in the Republic. On its own, it was nothing remarkable except that it was very tectonically active. There were a lot of groundquakes and one city in particular was hit especially hard in 23 BBY; the capital, Domitree.

Virtually nothing is known about the groundquake except that it was bloody awful and caused a lot of devastation. The Jedi directed relief efforts on the ground, where they found a baby in the ruins of the capital city. After searching and being unable to find her parents, or even her identity, the Jedi applied to have her legally adopted and brought into the Jedi Order.[7]

Unbeknownst to them, Ludi's mother was still alive, but was rescued by another force (it is not made clear if this was a Republic rescue force or something local to the planet) and was recovering in another town, outside of Domitree. A month passed and Ludi's mother, Jonava Billane, recovered and started looking for her baby daughter. After discovering she was on Coruscant with the Jedi Order, Jovava booked a ride and went to the Temple to discover that Ludi was now "Aris-Del Wari" and the Order stated that they could not safely return their daughter to her.[7][S10]

It then became a huge, if localized, scandal on Coruscant (which reinforces that the Jedi always obtained permission and didn't use their legal rights in most cases) where the anti-Jedi sentiment orchestrated by Palpatine manifested in public (but also polarized; many also took the Jedi's side, and just as many also thought it was an irrelevant matter consider the galaxy was tearing itself apart at the time) protest.[7] Ultimately, this became the only known case where the Jedi appeared to have actually exercised the legal right the Republic gave them. Some of you familiar with this case may be expecting me to get into the bit of information regarding Jonava after the controversy happens, but who she was as a person (or at least after becoming famous) is honestly irrelevant.

So Where Does That Leave Us?

At the end of the day, when all's said and done, what can we conclude? What was the question we aimed to answer?

Did the Jedi really kidnap children? The evidence speaks; no.

Did the Jedi need permission from a child's parents to recruit their members? The evidence speaks; yes at first, no later on: when the Jedi began recruiting, they almost certainly did, but following the Ruusan Reformation, all Force-sensitives in the Republic became their legal right.[S11]

Did the Jedi take custody of a child without their parents permission? The evidence speaks; no, in fact, it was their practice to do the exact opposite of that.

But this does raise a new question; what was the reason the Jedi preferred taking young children in, instead of emotionally-mature adults? What was the rationale? What could have caused the Republic to make such conventions law? This all leads into the second area of controversy for the Jedi Order, one that is probably even more misunderstood than the "babynapping" bit; emotions.

Are Jedi emotionally void? The Vulcans of the Star Wars universe? Are they simply ascetics? What's the whole deal with the Jedi Code and what do they mean exactly by "attachments"? All this and more will be the subject of the next essay;

The Jedi Were Right — Episode II: Emotions, Attachments, and the Jedi Code

(please see link at the top for sources and suppositions)

[underwaterspiderbird]

“falling to the dark side” is the jedi’s way of stripping agency from anybody who breaks away from them or disagrees with them, it relies on the notion that jedi beliefs are the default & that “nobody could POSSIBLY be a decent, sensible person and NOT want to be a jedi”, & that’s how they get away with othering and conquistadoring anybody who doesn’t think like them.

same energy as “believe what i believe or you’re gonna burn in hell forever” and “my ex is a crazy bitch you can’t trust anything they say”.