#jpr draws

[jpasionr]

First Impressions

Some time after War and Pizza's episode...

Leo almost thought Joyce has the same bad luck as April. After seeing another blackout in a different subway train. And a surprise phone call from her dad (who's completely unaware of his kid being a jellyfish mutant.) Leo almost said it out loud until hearing a depressed tone in their voice. So he held back on the teasing to avoid upsetting them but, somehow gave an awkward pep talk.

Joyce slightly accepted Leo's attempt at cheering them up. They still felt embarrassed almost crying some of their troubles to him. But, eventually grew to like his "go with the flow" way at problems.

(sometimes...)

Its mostly Leo who does all the talking while Joyce listens to him. Once they start being good friends, that's when Joyce begins reaching out to him. Just in a subtle manner where they both feel comfortable, talking about some minor annoyance until going back to the usual friendly conversations.

@tmnt-ocxcanon-comp

[theoriginalwhorphan]

peace through strength [ above is a photo of graffiti street art found anno 2023 in Los Angeles CA that depicts specifically: a mural (by artist @hijackart) featuring a boy child holding a teddy bear drawing a peace sign with a light blue pen over a wall sprayed with gold paint riddled with large caliber bullet holes ][ americanifesto - 場黑麥 - jpr - urbanartopia - whorphan ]

[americanifesto]

if possible, smoke [ above is a photo of graffiti street art found anno 2023 in Los Angeles CA that depicts specifically: a riot (by artist @thepostman_art) featuring the poster of a man wearing a colorful t-shirt smoking a cigarette next to a drawing of a cartoon ghost as well as a stencil of a man making symbols with his hands ][ americanifesto - 場黑麥 - jpr - urbanartopia - whorphan ]

[urbanartuploads]

faces looking up [ above is a photo of graffiti street art found anno 2021 in Los Angeles CA that depicts specifically: a mural featuring abstract art including a severed eyeball, tall cacti, a drawing of the palm trees visible above the property, and two human faces looking upward ]

[ americanifesto - 場黑麥 - jpr - urbanartopia - whorphan ]

[iwantofall]

She kept it after all

Messy, messy follow up sketch to my last drawing

[okanawolf]

Final Drawing of the Velociraptor from Jurassic Park 3! Process + Transparent image below!

Transparent Image!!!

[help-i-need-a-cool-username]

Its 2am and i cant sleep so have some JNPRberries dating headcanons

Ren and Jaune are the most shy, with Nora and Pyrrha being the more assertive ones

Pyrrha is shy herself, but it took JNR a little while to figure it out, because if she knew one of them liked something she would go ahead and do it right away

Pyrrha doesnt tend to ask for what she wants very often, and when she does she turns bright red and wont look anyone in the eyes, even if its as small as asking to hold hands

Nora is very assertive and goes for what she wants, and often has to backtrack when she remembers JPR arent big PDA fans

Nora likes to be on the same level when shes kissing. And if JPR dont pick her up or sit down she will jump on them

With Pyrrha she likes to be picked up and pressed against the wall. With Pyrrha's hips Nora doesnt slide down (unlike Jaune) and Nora just prefers leaning against the wall whenever they makeout

With Jaune Nora likes it when hes sitting. Nora will either push the back of the chair down or half straddle him

Ren doesnt do makeout sessions often so Nora goes in for a long drawn out kiss when Ren is either next to some type of step or sitting down and Nora will bend down to him

Ren prefers small displays of affection and hardly ever initiates anything that isnt a kiss on the head

Most of his affection is shown through long touches or quiet actions

Big things coming from Ren include: forehead kisses, cheek kisses, eskimo kiss, holding hands, leaning in, and leaving his hand on JNP's shoulder

Physical affection towards Ren tends to include: cheek kisses and arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind (Pyrrha), pressing close to him (Jaune, Nora), nose booping and running a hand through his hair (Nora), temple kisses (Jaune)

Jaune is both shy and easily scandalized (Nora doesnt care and often likes to see how red she can make him. Once Pyrrha asked to be pressed against the wall (because her legs were jello) and Jaune started sputtering so bad Pyrrha decided she could never ask what she was thinking about asking him, which was for his hands to stop picking a spot and staying motionless (she maybe really wanted him to touch her ass))

Jaune subconsciously assigned different kisses to NPR (these individual spots draw out what Jaune thinks are their cutest smiles). For Pyrrha its a kiss on the cheek, right below her eye (she gives a shy smile and always turns pink). For Nora its a kiss on the nose (she gives the biggest grin and closed her eyes). For Ren its either a kiss on the temple or in his hair (he has a small smile on his face for a while after).

When JNPR kisses indivdually they all go in with a different technique

Pyrrha likes to tangle her right hand in JNR's hair and her left slides down from their face to rest on their chest

Nora's kisses are wild and enthusiastic. Her hands often go to JPR's shoulders, and she'll either sit on JPR's lap or jump and hang in the air till they lean down, then she wraps her arms behind their neck

Ren tends to leave his left hand on the inside of JNP elbow or wrist and rub his thumb while his right hand goes to JNP's waist or the small of the back

Jaune has a problem of standing really still when hes kissing. He'll either keep both hands on NPR's face or waist. Pyrrha and Nora have learned to grab his hands and move them where they want them to be, while Ren will typically move his left hand up into Jaune's hair and take control.

EDIT: its 3am and i thought of more

Ren is the favored big spoon

Small actions from Pyrrha and Ren are things like bringing food

Small actions from Jaune and Nora are things like "i saw this and thought of you" gifts

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

An estimated 1.3 million Jews currently live in Europe, where they account for barely one-tenth of a percent of the total population. Their share in the global Jewish population is just under 10 percent  – more or less what it was close to 1,000 years ago, yet down from a peak of nearly 90 percent a century and a half ago. In the last half century, Europe lost nearly 60 percent of its Jewish population, and two out of every three European Jews live today in either France, the United Kingdom or Germany.

These are some of the key findings of a detailed report on Jewish population estimates and trends, published Thursday by the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research. The report was penned by Sergio DellaPergola – the world’s leading authority on Jewish demography and a professor emeritus at the Hebrew University, where he chaired the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry – and Daniel Staetsky, director of the European Jewish Demography Unit at JPR. The 88-page report, which draws on numerous communal, national and pan-European data sources, some previously never used, offers the most in-depth and comprehensive survey of European Jewry in nearly a century, according to its authors.

Addressing its significance, JPR Executive Director Jonathan Boyd said: “It provides essential demographic information and context for anyone concerned with the past, present or future of Jews across Europe and is likely to be an essential reference source for many years to come.”

[davidellisartworkstuff]

JNPR on a stealth mission. Nora is hidden in long grass behind White Fang soldiers, while JPR hide further away.*

Jaune, talking on Comms: Okay Nora, when I say the word, you’re gonna spring up and annihilate those guards, okay?

Nora, on the Comms: Got it.

Jaune: And.... Now!

Nothing.*

Jaune: Nora, now. Now!

Nora, standing up and yelling: You didn’t say “The word” though!

Pyrrha, drawing her sword and shield: Aaaaand the element of surprise is gone. *Running into battle, sounds of gunfire and chaos.*

Ren, sighing: I’ll explain it to her later? *Drawing his pistols and running off.*

Jaune, pinching his brow: Yeah, please do! Just smash, Nora! *Groaning.* Oh my gawd.

[strxga]

Adam Taurus, Bumblebee/y and Seeing Red from the lens of someone who hasn’t been in the FNDM since 2015

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not particularly someone who really is into shipping or really defends or excuses Adam’s actions. I like most characters in RWBY - Adam, Blake and Yang included, but I’m someone who likes to analyze from an objective standpoint and I hope I can get my point across without drawing any ire. If you wish to politely discuss things respectfully and in a friendly manner, my DMs are always open! But with that out of the way, let me get right into it.

I’ll dissect this in two segments: the first half regarding RW, JPR, Qrow, Oscar and Caroline and then the Adam vs. Blake and Yang section.

Let me get this out from the get-go: the main characters in this circumstances are, indubitably, the bad guys. This sounds like a very harsh and extreme assessment, but really there is no other way to put it. Ruby addresses Caroline most of the time in a way that makes it sound like, in a way, she feels she is entitled to travel to Atlas because she has set the burden of Remnant on her shoulders, and she has! But Caroline knows nothing about Salem, about WTCH and about her and Ozpin’s centennial long feud. She is merely a high-ranking soldier defending the base in Argus after she was entrusted with it by General Ironwood himself. Now, I’m saying that our main characters are the bad guys, but Caroline herself is also being extremist. We’ve already seen glimpses of her incredibly patriotic personality and her radical way of treating our main characters, threatening to send all of her armed forces against them.

While she is justified in her demanding our main characters surrender herself considering they’ve stooped so low as to committing highway robbery (or would it be airway robbery in this case?) and assaulting members of the Atlas Military. At this point they are actually, inexcusable criminals! And yes, I do understand that Caroline stood in their way and that she blatantly denied their request to at least confirm what they were saying with General Ironwood. Does this make her, from a narrative standpoint, an antagonist? Yes! But let’s remember that she has absolutely no reason to believe these groups of teenagers who refuse to tell the full truth to her! Not to mention that, if the Atlas Military does indeed follow the real-life rules of the military, then lower-rank members can’t just contact high-ranking soldiers willy-nilly. Often you even need a permission and appointment to just speak with them. Is Caroline justified to deny our main character’s request? Yes! But this doesn’t mean she’s in the right either.

The moment she was defied she not only used excessive force but also busted out a giant mech suit to use against the protagonists. It’s overly-ridiculous why she would even do something like this! At this point, it was only a matter of time before the two of them engaged in battle considering they’re in opposite sides. Now, regarding the fight itself, I won’t comment too much other than it’s just laughable a group of not even fully experienced hunters are able to tear holes through the robot... Not to mention how silly it is for the mech’s shield to not cover its entire body and it’s just blatantly awful how easily it was to dispatch of its shields and its rocket launcher design is just practically unreliable in any and all ways. The mech is just filled with unnecessary weaknesses that are very exploitable, so much for the might of high end and cutting edge Atlas technology... But that’s besides the point. It just, ultimately, feels like both sides are wrong but, from an objective standpoint, our main characters are ultimately causing Caroline to have to resort to forceful military intervention seeing as they won’t listen to her and she won’t listen to them.

Now this can only end up badly for Argus considering it’s been left entirely unprotected because Ruby and Jaune thought it would be a good idea to attempt and cross the Atlas Military. Ultimately, this is like saying the Brothers were the villains to Salem’s story, as they refused to upset the balance of Life and Death by bringing Ozma back after he expired even though it was Salem’s own selfishness that ultimately lead the Brothers to wipe the board clean after all of humanity had unified under Salem and decided to reject them, forcing them to get rid of Humanity until its eventual restoration. And now that Ruby, in her selfishness, decided to take down Argus’ greatest defensive weapon against supersized Grimm because she wanted to travel to Atlas fast and as soon as possible, it’s likely several more lives are going to be sacrificed. In the end they decided their own goals are more important than the rest of the lives in all of Argus, including Jaune’s sister’s family and likely Pyrrha’s relative too. It feels like they didn’t not only earn their victory against Caroline due to that robot’s massive defects but also like they learned nothing from the Battle for Beacon and Haven.

Now, of course there’s the second part and... This one is frankly the one I’m the most afraid of discussing, but... Just hear me out. Please don’t instaclick your ‘Block’ buttons and just take your time to listen to me.

I’ll summarize this first by saying the following things: Did I think Yang’s PTSD was accurately represented not just in this battle but throughout the Volumes? Arguably... Yes. Did I think Blake and Yang overcoming Adam was done fruitfully? Yes. Did I think Adam deserved to die? Yes. Did I think he deserved to die now? No. Did I think he deserved redemption? Hard no. Did I think Blake and/or Yang should’ve been able to individually defeat Adam? Hard no for Blake and an arguable no for Yang, but if it I had to decide I’d say she’d be able to keep up with him the most. Lastly, should Blake and Yang be able to take down Adam by working together? Absolutely.

Now to elaborate, let me say this... I know PTSD and abusive relationships from experience, and neither are pretty. This is obvious of course. PTSD is a mental condition which you can work at to get better but you can never truly get rid of it. Some of the more common symptoms are anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, nightmares, flashbacks, body tremors and overall very nasty reactions to things that remind you of your trauma. Yang’s PTSD throughout the volumes was related to Adam and to fights in general, but while her PTSD was shown affecting her severely at first, besides handshakes and hallucinations, there wasn’t really much shown regarding her condition. I understand she talked and sparred with Taiyang, but truthfully you can talk to someone and that’ll still not really help you overcome entirely such mentally and emotionally taxing condition. Even with her PTSD and fear of battles, Yang still jumped recklessly into battles and she still came out winning. It genuinely feels like while she did get better, she didn’t truly learn anything from her past experiences. I don’t think she should’ve had a mental breakdown upon seeing Adam, but rather that more than her just shaking should’ve been shown.

Throughout the volume she still does experience visions of Adam and is utterly horrified by his mere visage, this very vividly represents to us that, despite what we might want to believe, Yang isn’t truly over her condition and still struggles dealing with even the idea of Adam being nearby! So, with this, the least we can realistically expect from her fight with Adam is to, for once, NOT recklessly dive in to fight him... Except that’s exactly what she does. She’s gotten training with Taiyang, sure, but Adam is a skilled swordsman who has been fighting for far longer than Yang has, so the very least is for her to be able to keep up with him but not have the massive advantage she displayed in The Lady in the Shoe. It would’ve been pleasant to see her hesitating more and being shown how she’s struggling to not give in to her fear of him. If, in the previous episodes, they would’ve shown her have a more relaxed and accepting response to her hallucinations rather than the fearful expressions she displayed then it’d make more sense for her to be so confident and reckless fighting Adam, but this wasn’t what happened, so it feels like she just had a massive boost to her mental and physical capacities that came out of seemingly nowhere.

Now as for Adam himself? While I understand he was meant to be nothing more than a foil to Blake and - to an extent, Yang - I still feel like his character was misued. For all the show tells about how Faunus are discriminated against, the truth is we’ve never seen true discrimination throughout the Volume. Adam is the only Faunus that we have canon evidence to have been witness and victim of Faunus oppression through the branding of his face and for having constantly fought Humans who tried to hurt those he cared about while the White Fang was being led by Ghira. His radical views could’ve made a great foil for not just Blake throughout the series but he could’ve represented the ideology that Humans help only in creating monsters like Adam by treating them the way they do and a great opposite on how Adam and Blake go about bettering the Faunus’ conditions; with Blake’s kind but seemingly ineffective method and Adam’s more sadistic and merciless tactics. In short, I feel like he still could’ve played a more important role in the whole Humans vs. Faunus debacle going on in the background.

The world is not black and white, it’s grey, and these two could’ve been great polar opposites; the fire to each other’s water, but this idea wasn’t sadly explored. He could’ve been more than just the former, stalking, abusive and controlling ex-boyfriend. Especially with recent revelations of his suffering at the hands of the Schnee Dust Company. His personal vendetta could’ve even been centered against the Schnee Dust Company or even Weiss herself instead of just Blake. He could’ve been more than that, but I respect and understand the decision Kerry and Miles took when writing him. I wouldn’t call it bad or lazy writing as much as I just feel like it is a greatly missed opportunity.

I understand Adam, or for the matter, any other ‘minor’ characters are only part of Team RWBY’s story and not truly 100% part of it, but what I don’t think many people grasp is that they’re STILL part of the story and they should be fleshed-out some more than just being given tiny glimpses of their past. And this doesn’t apply to just Adam. It applies to every other character besides the members of RWBY! We know barely anything about JNPR and about STRQ, SSSN or CFVY. We don’t even know anything about WTCH’s motivations or even Emerald and Mercury and they’re the main villains! They feel, comparably, flat to the main cast. They’re all part of THEIR story. They’re not the focus but time and effort should be put into getting to know these characters more. I won’t fault them for their writing, but it’s inevitable for the fans to think that they could’ve done better, but that’s true for almost every piece of media, because no one’s a perfect writer and there’s always going to be faults.

While I am not really pleased to see Adam go and do indeed feel like he was a missed opportunity for a great villain, it is what it is. His death, however, was executed marvelously. Ideally, for me, it would’ve been better if individually the two wouldn’t be able to overcome Adam because he would be faster, stronger, every single bit the monster Yang imagined him to be, but once together and understanding each other again, they’d slowly get the advantage on him and defeat him. Symbolically, it would’ve made a lot of sense considering how intrinsically tied to each other Blake and Yang are, but frankly with how Chapter 11 went, it doesn’t really feel like Blake even had to fight at all considering how easy Yang was beating him around without him landing a single hit on her. It could’ve been performed better but ultimately the way he was killed fell more in line with what I had in mind. 

His death feels bittersweet. Sure, they got rid of a terrible person, but one you couldn’t help but feel sympathy for because he wasn’t born a monster, he was made a monster by humanity. He was spiteful, but he was also broken and damaged inside, and rather than heal, he followed on the path of revenge. I’ve formed part of an abusive relationship. I was mentally, emotionally and verbally manipulated, deceived, cheated on, and gaslighted. I felt connected to Adam in a way because he, too, was likely treated that way by the S.D.C. but I saw him as a victim of his circumstances. That’s what made him so powerful. There’s rarely any characters that are truly shown to be the producers of what they were once the victims of. I wanted Adam to continuously evolve and direct his hatred at the S.D.C., at humanity. Him to confront Weiss so she could see his scar and show the kinds of racism and crimes her father was responsible of. Adam’s actions were deplorable and that’s why I, personally, wanted him to continue hurting others in his effort to ‘right’ the Faunus against humanity. He could’ve been an interesting side-villain completely unrelated to Salem’s circle, but again that’s just why I feel he shouldn’t have died at this current moment. Death wasn’t necessary for Blake and Yang to overcome him, but for the narrative it presented it made sense.

It’s not a happy moment for anyone. Blake breaks down and Yang does the best she can, which is to support her friend through her pain. Adam did once care for her after all and she was likely the first person to show him any compassion or anything like that regarding his branding, hence why I think she’s so attached to her, and she was attached to him too. His descent into the madman he is now was slow and gradual and Blake herself says that while they were together as both mentor and student and potentially lovers he was a different man. He let his revenge drive him where he was now and she no longer saw eye-to-eye with him. She left because she stopped believing in him. And now parting with him permanently hurts her. It’s not a time for jokes about how he’s finally gone, it’s not a Bumblebee shipping moment where they could kiss. It was an emotionally-charged scene where we see two broken but healing girls finally overcome their biggest hurdle yet, but to do so they had to take a life, and that’s something that’s certainly going to weigh heavily on them because no matter what Adam did to them, they’re Huntresses and their job is to protect life, not get rid of it. But ultimately they did what had to be done. Adam was far too gone to truly be redeemed or reasoned with.

Now, I’ve been in the FNDM since 2015 and let me tell you though, male characters have almost always been bashed by the majority of fans... Jaune, Mercury, Neptune, Sun... All of them have received such a huge amount of hate with the only one exempt from this being Lie Ren, though I feel that’s more because his character was, at the time, seen just as Monty’s self-insert. Regardless, it just feels like female characters don’t nearly receive the same amount of scrutiny and hatred as male characters do... People in the tags are calling Adam an abusive and pedophilic, psychopathic bastard, and while I agree on most of those, isn’t it kind of hypocritic to call him out on that when there’s another character who falls on the same category? I’m talking about Ilia. I understand and respect Ilia, but she, too, preyed on Blake while she was young considering she doesn’t look any different than Adam does in the Adam trailer too. I’ve seen the tag and I see nothing but love and praise for her and I just ask to myself if the FNDM’s changed at all from these past three years... And then there’s another character who shares many traits with Adam but sees no criticism other than “she’s flat and boring.” This character being Cinder Fall herself.

Adam at the very least could’ve been a vehicle to represent how oppressed and endangered Faunus could and would fight back in such extremist and reckless ways if left unchecked or unsupported but Cinder just falls flat precisely because she doesn’t represent anything, and I just ask myself...  Where's the Cinder hatred for also abusing and manipulating Emerald and Mercury? Where's the Cinder hatred for leading to the mass-death of several innocent Vale civilians through Grimm attacks? Where's the Cinder hatred for killing Pyrrha? Where's the Cinder hatred for being even more obsessed with hurting and killing Ruby than Adam was with Blake? Where's Cinder's hate for killing Ozpin's previous incarnation and scarring Weiss in the same way Adam did with Blake? Where's the Cinder hatred for being a terrorist? It feels almost like all of these awful actions are either ignored or just, swept under the rug either because no one cares about Cinder or because she’s a woman and it’s just honestly saddening how hypocritical the FNDM can be sometimes...

Anyways this post is already far too long to the point I doubt anyone’s going to read it so I’ll just leave it there. If anyone wants to talk to me and engage in friendly and respectful discussion, my DMs are completely open! Just, please no insults or slurs. I know there’s bound to be hate comments but let’s try to keep it respectful ok? 

[jpasionr]

Donut Hole 2013 & 2024

[schraubd]

New Data on BDS, "Apartheid", and Antisemitism

A new report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research explores who and how many in the UK that Israel is an "apartheid" state, how many think we should boycott Israeli goods, and the relationship of both beliefs to antisemitism. It's fascinating just as a treasure trove of data (though I'm not 100% sold on the methodology the authors use to draw inferences from that data). But even just looking at face value, there's quite a lot I find interesting: First, lots of people in the UK just don't have an opinion on these questions. On the "apartheid" question, for example, the plurality winner was "I don't know" at 37% (only a minority -- 21% -- endorsed the apartheid label, but that was still slightly larger than the 19% who affirmatively rejected it. The remaining 22% neither agreed nor disagreed). Obviously, from a Jewish vantage these are very pressing questions and are occupying a lot of our attention with respect to British politics, but it's useful to remember that a great many people simply don't care about this issue. It isn't as big for everyone else as it is for us. Second, respondents were far more likely to call Israel an "apartheid" state than to support boycotting it, which surprised me greatly. I figured that those who endorse the "apartheid" label are those who think Israel is the worst-of-the-worst, whereas boycotters would include that cadre but also some number of people with more moderate views who support boycotts for tactical or contingent reason. Instead, boycotting was pretty roundly rejected (9% support, 46% reject, the remainder split along "don't know" or "neither agree/disagree"), which means presumably there's a solid chunk of Brits who think Israel is an apartheid state but don't back boycotting it. I'm not really sure what to make of that. Third, Labour doesn't stand out in these surveys quite to the degree one might think. Labour voters seem comparatively more supportive of both the "apartheid" label and boycotting Israel compared to Tories, LibDems, or UKIPers, but it's hardly a consensus view and there's far more expression of uncertainty than one would expect given current press coverage. On the apartheid label the breakdown is 27/16, with the rest undecided; and on boycotting Labour voters are opposed by a 16/40 margin (the rest, again, are undecided). Finally, the study authors explore the connection between believing Israel is an apartheid state or supporting boycotts and more "traditional" antisemitic beliefs. They survey a battery of non-Israel related statements (e.g.: "Jews think they are better than other people" or "Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes"), and see how many people endorse zero, one, two, all the way up to six or more of these statements. Then they plot that against supporting BDS or the "apartheid" label. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they find a pretty solid correlation. People who subscribed to none of the antisemitic statements are the least likely to support either boycotts (6%) or the apartheid label (16%). As people support more of the antisemitic statements, the likelihood that they back to the two anti-Israel questions correspondingly rises -- of those who endorse six or more of the antisemitic statements, 47% back the apartheid label and 52% back boycotting Israel. (Note that I've seen media reports which appear to get this backwards, saying that 52% of boycott supporters also endorse 6+ antisemitic statements. That doesn't appear to be correct, and there is a very large difference between 52% of those who endorse 6+ antisemitic statements back boycotts, and 52% of those who back boycotts endorsing 6+ antisemitic statements. The Jewish Chronicle already issued a correction here -- it seems like this confusion was originally in the actual report as well -- and hopefully others will follow suit). One thing that's immediately striking about this is, oddly enough, how low the support is for boycotting Israel/calling it an apartheid state is among the "extreme" antisemites (endorsing 6+ antisemitic statements). Intuitively, I'd suspect that someone who dislikes Jews that much would search out any and every possible means for striking out against Jewish-identified institutions. And to be sure, the fact that support for boycotts and the "apartheid" label increases significantly as one endorses more and more antisemitic statements is compatible with that story. But for the pretty sizaable chunk of extreme antisemites who don't seem to endorse anti-Israel practices, I wonder if we're picking up on the existence of significant "pro-Israel" antisemitism (or if another factor is in play). Even with that caveat though, it's probably not that surprising that antisemites are more drawn to anti-Israel sentiment than are people who possess no antisemitic beliefs. Still, as is often rightly pointed out, correlation doesn't equal causation. For any correlation between A and B, there are three possible causation stories: A causes B, B causes A, or neither causes the other and there is a some other unstated variable that happens to cause both (the classic example of the last case is the correlation between ice cream consumption and crime. Ice cream consumption doesn't cause crime, and crime doesn't cause ice cream consumption. Rather, warm weather causes ice cream consumption and, by causing more people to spend more time outside, also causes increases in crime). So what causal story can we tell about the correlation between antisemitic attitudes and support for (among other things) BDS? One possibility, of course, is that the correlation is spurious -- there's a confounding variable that explains both (the "warm weather" case). I'm open to that possibility, but I confess I'm not sure what likely candidate is. For example, imagine it was the case (and the data actually doesn't support this) that old people were more likely to be antisemitic and more likely to support BDS. Even if that were true, it seems highly unlikely that their antisemitism and their BDS advocacy were unrelated to one another (compare if there had been a correlation between BDS support and having "blue" as one's favorite color. If that was explained by old people being most likely to support BDS and most likely to favor the color blue, then it'd be very implausible that there was any causal story linking blue and BDS to one another). Again, I'm open to the confounding variable explanation, but I'd need to hear the story. So let's leave that aside, and explore the other two possibilities. BDS proponents usually seem most invested in falsifying the causal story whereby BDS support is caused by antisemitism. The reason that's so important is because, in popular argot, BDS is antisemitic if and only if it is motivated (caused) by antisemitic sentiment. This actually strikes me as too great of a concession -- I'm don't think the antisemitism of a given policy position can only be established via the existence of antecedent antisemitic beliefs that motivate it -- but I might be in a minority there. In any event, the idea here is that if someone arrives at BDS without harboring any antisemitic sentiment, then their support of BDS is not antisemitic (and consequently BDS is not antisemitic at least so far as it is endorsed by that sort of person). Proponents of this view generally might concede that antisemites are attracted to BDS, but maintain that many people support BDS without harboring any antisemitic impulses whatsoever. Or put differently, antisemitism is a cause of BDS, but not the only cause, and it's unfair to tar the whole movement by focusing solely on that one cause. Though it doesn't directly speak to this question, the JPR dataset does raise questions about this apologia, since only 6% of people who harbored no antisemitic beliefs backed BDS. That doesn't itself show that most people who back BDS harbor antisemitic beliefs -- we'd need to know more about the base rates to establish that. But it does raise the question of what causal force is operating on that 6% that doesn't apply to the 94% of their non-antisemitic peers who don't back BDS? If that's what we can say about "antisemitism causes BDS", what is there to say about the flip causal story: "BDS causes antisemitism"? Though it gets less attention, for me that's the story that's more interesting (and more worrisome). If this causal story is true, then people might arrive at BDS without any antisemitic ideology whatsoever, but the time spent in the "waters" of BDS would actually cause them to develop more systematically negative views about Jews qua Jews. And that would I think be a far more damning indictment. It's one thing -- arguably a trivial thing -- to say that antisemites will be attracted to any movement which seems to be sticking it to the Jews, and BDS happens to be one such movement. There might not be all that much the BDS movement could do about that. It's another thing to say that people who aren't antisemitic are more likely to become so the more interaction and engagement they have with BDS. Put differently: it strikes me as likely that antisemites would be more likely to want to punish Bernie Madoff extremely harshly compared to the population writ large. It also seems likely that there are plenty of people who want to punish Bernie Madoff extremely harshly who are not motivated by antisemitism. But it strikes me as relatively unlikely that non-antisemites who want to punish Madoff harshly will emerge "out the other side" of that campaign as antisemitic. If BDS is different -- if people come in without antisemitic attitudes and come out with them -- that would be extremely worrying, and it would suggest that there is something fundamentally rotten going on inside the movement, such that it is actually generating of antisemitism. That claim requires a lot more research to establish. But if that causal story is plausible, then we have to be able to talk about BDS as potentially antisemitic notwithstanding the fact that many of its arrivees don't start off as motivated by antisemitism. A movement which converts non-antisemites into antisemites is antisemitic even if the recruits don't come in with any particular desire to disparage Jews. This alternative causal story demands a different way of thinking about antisemitism beyond the question of antecedent motivations. via The Debate Link http://bit.ly/2TuNlWB

[americanifesto]

four eyes for real [ above is a photo of graffiti street art found anno 2020 in Los Angeles CA that depicts specifically: a sticker featuring a young woman of color sporting hair bound into three towering buns festooned with two wearing round glasses without stems and blessed with two actual sets of eyes, as well as these decipherable alphanumerics - Jade draws shit ]

[ americanifesto - 場黑麥 - jpr - urbanartopia - whorphan ]

[urbanartuploads]

four eyes for real [ above is a photo of graffiti street art found anno 2020 in Los Angeles CA that depicts specifically: a sticker featuring a young woman of color sporting hair bound into three towering buns festooned with two wearing round glasses without stems and blessed with two actual sets of eyes, as well as these decipherable alphanumerics - Jade draws shit ]

[ americanifesto - 場黑麥 - jpr - urbanartopia - whorphan ]

[jprdraw]

Sitlali Sihuatl la Oc principal de JPR, ya con su diseño final! Atentos, diario de aquí al viernes verán a sus otras hermanas. 💙 _______ #jprdraw #oc #mexica #draw #drawing🎨 #ink #digitalart #digitalcolor #doodle #animegirl #animeart #mangagirl #mangaart #comic #comicart #dibujo #ilustracion #dibujodiario #instadraw #instaart #characterdesign #diseñodepersonaje #sketchbook #sketch https://www.instagram.com/p/B-GQnzKh_7_/?igshid=iv8nyvfryt8h

[jprepetto-blog]

Keep calm & smile ☮️#juanpablorepetto #jpr #keepcalmandcarryon #love #home #deco #draw #peace #love #smile #shabbychic (en Barcelona, Spain)