#middle easterners are legally White in the US

[aegons-queen-rhaella]

Yeah, this isn't the correct take yall think it is...

Just because she is a colored candidate doesn't mean we have to vote for her 💀

Bw voted for Trump, too. Btw, yall act like blk males cared about BW in the first place 🙄 They prove time and time again they don't give a shit about us.

Hispanics are voting for Trump because they are tired of illegal immigrants in this nation and sucking up resources that are supposed to be for American citizens. Not all immigrants are Hispanic, btw. There are black, Asian, and Middle Eastern illegal immigrants, too. If you and your family are legal immigrants, you shouldn't be worried. If you are, then get your paperwork in order.

White women are not voting for their daughters rights to be "taken away". There are no rights being taken away.

Abortion was never truly federally protected, and the over turn of Roe V Wade was so that the states have a choice if they want abortions. You can still receive abortions in the States.

Trump isn't for a national abortion ban and never will be because that amount of government overreach is too much and can become tyrannical.

Kamala is pro-war, giving tax dollars to fund overseas proxy wars, wants to give illegal immigrants everything citizens should be getting, is a weak border czar, can't give out a plan to save this nation, can't give a speech without a teleprompter, always laughing and not serious, not respected by world leader that don't like women, and more 🙄

Stop trying to guilt people because they voted for Trump. Stop the fear mongering.

[isaacsapphire]

why are you so racist just like alt right people who will repeat verbatim the antipalestinian sentiments you have? why is it antisemitism to donate to palestinian familes who are suffering in a warzone you dont have to donate youre not being guilted by anyone all posts have never said you must if you cant they only ask to spread awareness, why is this awareness to middle eastern lives asking for help a threat to you?

Buddy, you are either stupid or disingenuous. It’s not inherently antisemitism to be scammed by faux Palestinians, but the scammers are feeding off a lot of antisemites. E-begging scammers aren’t a threat to anything but the financial wellbeing of people who have soft hearts and heads, but they’re annoying and frequently post gore.

[hero-israel]

DECOLONIZE PALESTINE!

White Eurocentrists are working overtime to colonize Middle Eastern politics, undermine national sovereignty and the rule of law, and make wars longer and deadlier.

The whole point of the ICC's existence is that it can intervene in countries that don't have independent court systems. In addition to Israel not being a party to the ICC anyway, past ICC leaders have said the Israeli court system is perfectly capable of prosecuting their own criminals - it isn't like some anarchic ex-Libyan splinter-statelet or eastern European dictatorship where all the judges are just store mannequins with the leader's face on them. Netanyahu is under active criminal indictment, his judicial overhaul FAILED. For the ICC to step in anyway completely undercuts their own value proposition and reason for existence, and also makes clear that having an independent court system doesn't matter at all AND ISN'T WORTH FIGHTING FOR. But, uhhhh, people should totally still act like their judgments are morally serious!

And then a bunch of Europeans went and "recognized" Palestine, even though Palestine does not have control of its borders, does not have unified leadership, does not have a monopoly of force... what the fuck are they "recognizing"? Why don't they just give a Grammy Award to Palestine as being the best new album? They are corroding language to a point where it means utterly nothing, but expecting us to take it seriously all the same. Oh and they "recognize" Palestine on the "pre-1967 borders," which don't exist, because the armistice - WHICH WAS INTERNATIONAL LAW - flatly says the armistice lines are not national borders and that national borders can only be established by direct negotiations. Europeans ignore the international law set up by Middle Easterners so they can center the process around themselves. (Flashback to COVID vaccine controversy: the international law signed between Israel and Palestine says the latter is responsible for its own vaccines, but Europeans want everybody to talk about the laws signed in Switzerland).

Right after Trump won in 2016, the Obama Administration signed off on a UNSC resolution saying all Israeli presence beyond the armistice line was illegal - thus totally abandoning the "land swaps" framework that all sides had acknowledged for 30+ years. Who could ever expect a Palestinian to negotiate a land swap ever again once the UNSC and USA all agree that Israel is entitled to nothing? This will make future negotiations HARDER and a future state LESS LIKELY. It is blindingly obvious that if Hillary Clinton had won, USA would never have gone along with such a revision; instead, Obama went panic-shopping for a symbolic victory at any price.

Europe - and, sorry to say, the last few Democratic U.S. presidents - is very clearly sending a message to Palestine: "You will never have to negotiate, just hold out longer and keep fighting and dying more." And also sending a message to Israel: "You can never trust a signed legal agreement, we will undermine any arrangement you make with Palestine." This toxic internationalism leaves peace even less likely.

If Europeans and "peace processors" really want to free Palestine, let them send their armies into Gaza and wipe out Hamas to the last man, seize all the weapons and crush all the tunnels, and help stabilize a new unified Palestinian leadership. That is the ONLY intervention they could attempt that would possibly help at all.

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

🚨 ISRAEL BURNS HUNDREDS ALIVE IN SCHOOL - EMAIL YOUR ELECTED OFFICIAL 🚨

Israel has killed over 100 Palestinians during morning prayers at Al-Taba’een School in the Al-Daraj neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City.

Israeli military aircraft targeted the school while worshippers were performing Fajr (dawn) prayers, according to reports from the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The sheer power of the bombing tore people apart and incinerated what remained. The photos and videos from inside the school are beyond words.

At the time of the bombing, over 6,000 Palestinians were sheltering in the school. The current death toll is expected to rise, with the number of injuries still being counted, though they are anticipated to be in the hundreds.

“The school area is strewn with dead bodies and body parts. It is very difficult for paramedics to identify whole bodies. There’s an arm here, a leg there. Bodies have been ripped to pieces.” - Mahmoud Basal, Gaza Civil Defence.

Israel claims with every heinous war crime that they are targeting Palestinian resistance fighters. However, evidence for this is often non-existent. Even if it were true, in some of these school bombings, the death and injury toll has seen up to 80% of the casualties being children.

Families and children are sheltering in these schools. Under no circumstances is it ever acceptable or legal under international law to bomb a school. Yet, Israel, with the full backing of the US, UK, and Germany, has bombed over 150 schools in Gaza with impunity.

WHEN WILL ISRAEL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR WAR CRIMES?

👉 EMAIL YOUR ELECTED OFFICIAL NOW! USE THE FREE TEMPLATE IN @HumantiProject’s bio or visit HumantiProject.org 👈

——

* Sources: AJ, Middle East Monitor, Ahmed Kouta, Sky News, and other journalists on the ground.

You can share your thoughts with Kamala Harris about this, and all the other atrocities.

[tododeku-or-bust]

when you say brown do you mean anyone with a tan/darker complexion or anyone who is not of full European descent?

A white person with a tan is not a person of color lol. You can be pale and still be a person of color. Interestingly enough, the US census and legal definition of white designates everyone of Middle Eastern and North African descent to be white. And we ALL KNOW at this point that that does NOT APPLY 🤣.

The Sociological Definition of Whiteness

(the intro is a good explanation of what I think Black and Brown AREN'T, which is racialized as white. I figured it's far easier to tell you that)

[lowresolutioncryptid]

I’ve been seeing a lot of terfs deny the very clear link between trans exclusionism and nvzism/white supremacy simply because they do not understand the history behind it. ignorance is not a legitimate excuse to perpetuate systems of white supremacy. And it is further testament to the harm that banning critical race theory and queer studies in schools is doing to y’all’s brains. Because if I’m being completely honest, I’m seeing an alarming amount of self-identified terfs and radfems who are legit STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE. My blog is 18+, not for children, anyone under 18 gets immediately blocked. Anyway…

Transphobia and anti-blackness are historically linked and continue, to this day, to be overlapping forms of systemic oppression. Black trans women, specifically, have higher murder rates than any other group. Both trans and black people statistically face more medical discrimination than cis and white people, respectively. The combination of both of these marginalized identities forms a particular and very sinister intersection of oppression.

Not only do both of these systems of privilege work to uphold the social and structural power of cis people and white people.. biological essentialism and transphobia also, historically, were used to define the beliefs of white supremacy and race essentialism. Race essentialism is the false belief that it is “natural order” for whites to oppress other races. For centuries, white “philosophers” made up a whole list of pseudoscientific “reasons” WHY they believed racism was “natural”. One of them was the idea that “distinct and separate biological sexes were the mark of a more evolved race-“ meaning the white race.. they compared European patriarchal sex roles and gender roles to the matriarchal cultures and gender variance that they observed in communities of color.

I have seen terfs accuse people who bring up this historical fact of “masculinizing” black women and women of color, which is a very real issue, but in this case and with historical context, that is a misunderstanding and most of the time is being said by people who want to silence trans people and shut down any criticism of terfism.

Acknowledging the thousands of years of acceptance of gender variance and third/fourth gender categories within pre-colonial African, Indigenous, Latin, Asian, & Middle eastern cultures, is not to blame for the masculinization of women of color, and as a matter of fact: the invention and enforcement of Eurocentric gender roles REQUIRES and RELIES on the masculinization of women of color in order to uphold white women’s place within white supremist systems as the “ideal of femininity” that they can then weaponize against women of color when they do not adhere to those Eurocentric standards.

During times of enslavement and segregation, black women were forced, legally and socially, to conform to very strict Eurocentric femininity standards in order to avoid harassment and violence, and if they deviated from these norms and codes they were dehumanized, masculinized, and were “made into examples” of white femininity being “superior”. Gender roles and biological essentialism do not exist in a vacuum outside of the white supremist systems that they were created within and invented to maintain. To imply that all women share the same experiences within these systems is akin to saying “I don’t see color”.. it’s denying the lived experiences of people of color.

Most gays are familiar with the symbol of the pink triangle, the badge worn by LGBT victims of ww2 concentration camps, but the transgender victims are often overlooked..

“Hitler’s Nazi government, however, brutally targeted the trans community, deporting many trans people to concentration camps and wiping out vibrant community structures.” - Museum of Jewish Heritage.

The US holocaust memorial museum that holds remembrance vigils for the victims persecuted by the nazis, under the Obama administration, included both gay men and transgender people in their list of victims. However, under the Trump administration this was changed to only include gay men. When asked about this change one of the museum’s head curators responded that because trans people were viewed by the nazis as indistinguishable from gay men that they are “included” with the definition. This is an obvious cop-out. The other reason that they gave was that the term “transgender” was only officially coined in the 1980’s, despite the thriving population of German trans people and gender-nonconforming subcultures that pre-date the nazi control of Germany.

Ancient Judaism recognizes at least six (6) distinct sex categories and gender roles, our women fulfilling “traditionally masculine” roles and vice versa.. this is a direct threat and opposition to nazism which relies on Eurocentric patriarchal gender roles. White women serve one purpose within nazi ranks: BIOLOGICAL incubators for white babies. If you don’t have 1) European genetic material 2) biological capabilities of reproduction (vagina, womb, mammaries) to be exploited for domestic labor, you are not considered a “true” woman by nazis. “Woman” being defined within nazism by biological, reproductive traits is so eerily similar to terf’s definition of woman that the only explanation for still perpetuating these ideas that I can think of, other than apathy or being full blown nazis, would be ignorance and historical illiteracy. The systemic eradication and erasure of trans and gender-nonconforming people by the nazi party was essential in maintaining these standards at a structural level, as well as the reinforcement of these false beliefs within popular culture. In order to maintain that false image of “dominance” “supremacy”, they had to invent a subclass that was then deemed “inferior” by their own standards.

When trans people of color and trans Jews are explicitly telling y’all that the harmful rhetoric you spread about trans people has DIRECT historical links to white supremacy and nazism, and (whether intentionally or unintentionally) upholds these systems that are killing us, it’s not your place to dig your heels into the ground and come up with excuses. It’s your place to listen and reevaluate your views.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

I have this theory that US Americans think people are like chocolate that can be separated into three distinct categories : white chocolate (white people), milk chocolate (poc) and black chocolate (black people) and they don't know what to do or how to deal with the fact that humans can't be neatly sorted like that, especially outside of the US where this kind of rigidity in classifying people doesn't exist. (They can bash "white" people all they want, but even white people are not some kind of monolithic culture. But good luck trying to make them understand that)

They have created a particular system based on what their history gave them but, in doing their effort to better things, they forget that most of the world doesn't work like this. And since their country is the bigger melting pot, I don't know how beneficial this is at the end of the day. But it's their own business on how they'll do it. The problem is their refusal to understand foreigners, or that these things can differ from country to country. That's why some short-circuit when they have to categorise light-skinned people from countries that are very unknown to them. Greece falls in that category, sadly.

Meanwhile, if they asked Black Greeks (according to all the Greek media about Afrogreeks I've watched), they'd get the (rightful) answer "This is a country of White people lol" 😂 Even most Greeks look at their own skin from 1900s and be like "yeah that falls on the light skin spectrum and several of us are even German-white, what the hell is with that WASP categorisation shit in the newspapers?"

However! In the US legal system, even Middle Easterners are White . Many often whitepass in the US (to their point they're also asked if they fake their ethnicity).

"Τρέχα γύρευε" as we say in Greek 😂

I believe that with enough foreigners telling them enough times, they will finally accept this knowledge 😂

[aimmyarrowshigh]

How can you support SALS and also the OTW racism thing? I'm not saying racism is okay, but if all content is okay then all content is okay.

They're not related to each other at all.

The kind of racist content that #EndOTWRacism is talking about violates the most important tenet of the "fandom guidelines" that probably spurred this ask: DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE. If someone is intentionally trying to make fandom unsafe for fans of color, then they are BEING AN ASSHOLE.

Tagging the full, legal name of a scholar of color who called out your pro-Nazi non-fanfic for being pro-Nazi and not a transformative work in the first place, is being an asshole. I don't care that they're shipping their two OCs. I care that they were doxxing a real human being. The issue is not "ship and let ship," it's that this person was BEING AN ASSHOLE.

Writing a fic where you turn a white villain into a Native character for the sole purpose of having him abduct and rape your white protagonist is BEING AN ASSHOLE. Was it a ship that I personally hate? Yes. But the issues with that fic were not that it was the ship that I hate, it was that they intentionally used Native identity as a shorthand for "violent rapist," which is obviously racist. And he's already a rapist in canon as a white guy. I don't have to like the ship to let them ship it. But the issue here wasn't the ship. It was the racism.

Writing a fic where the very recent devastation of a Black community and deaths of thousands of Black people is the vaguely-mentioned background for your two white guys to fall in love and bone down is BEING AN ASSHOLE. Especially when, after people tell you that you're being insensitive and racist, you double down on it being "the best fic idea ever." The issue here was not the ship, which was a hugely popular fandom juggernaut of two white cishet dudes. It was the racism.

Writing a fic where you only ever refer to half of your interracial ship by a racial slur is BEING AN ASSHOLE. If you can't think of any descriptors for a Middle Eastern character besides a slur, then you aren't ready as a person to be writing about a character from the MENA. The issue here isn't the ship, which is, again, a fandom juggernaut, and also canon. It's the racism.

Writing fics where you insist that a character of color is actually white because you don't like ~when politics mix into your space opera and he's too hot to be a person of color anyway~ is BEING AN ASSHOLE, and also it's being racist even if you're shipping him (nay, especially if you're shipping him) with another character of color. Whitewashing a character to make them more palatable to you is obviously racist.

Writing a fic where the only person of color in your boy band is a drugged out, terrible person is BEING AN ASSHOLE. Especially when dude, there are videos of the white guys in the band doing drugs. The issue is not any ship involved, it's the racism.

Now, do I, personally, as a Jewish white person, think that all of those were written with the INTENT of making fandom unsafe for fans of color? Probably not -- I think that the last one was borne of unconscious racism, not intentionally malicious racism. Probably. But that doesn't make it Not Racist. And it doesn't make fandom safer for fans of color to give it the benefit of the doubt.

But most of these? Were literally written TO MAKE FANDOM UNSAFE FOR FANS OF COLOR. To punish fans of color for daring to state opinions about the racism that they've faced from a certain fandom or fan or set of shippers. You do not accidentally doxx a scholar of color in your tags. You do not accidentally HAPPEN to change a white villain's race to make them more villainous. You don't accidentally use a litany of slurs to write about a character of color.

I think that there are more accidentally-racist fics on AO3 than there are intentionally, maliciously racist fics. I've written some fics that are accidentally racist myself, and I've learned from being called out and I can only ever try to do better. #EndOTWRacism is not about getting people banned forever from ever writing anything ever again because they grew up steeped in structural racism and it translated in some way to their writing. It's about a) holding AO3 and the OTW accountable for their promise to hire a diversity consultant, and b) making fandom safer for fans of color when these INTENTIONAL, MALICIOUS acts of racism DO happen. Because they are not the same thing as "someone wrote an icky ship."

Also, frankly, because I've seen this argued, too -- fandom is not meant to be a space for children. So arguing that "well then we need to put in place policies to protect children and make them safer in fandom" is a specious comparison. Fandom has never been for children, it's still not for children, and it'll never be for children. AO3 is not a space that children belong in. It's not designed for children. It's not for them.

But it's also not a space that is For Whites Only. And if the OTW doesn't want it to come across like it's a space For Whites Only, they need to follow through and hire the diversity consultant and recognize that intentional, targeted acts of overt racism *against real fellow fans* are not the same thing as dumb reports about a ship being icky, and they can't treat them both with the same velvet gloves.

If a child under 13 gets onto AO3, lies their way into seeing Snape/Harry content, and feels gross about it, that is on them for lying and on their caregiver for letting them onto an adult site unsupervised. AO3 is not for children. If that child, or their guardian, then makes a report to Abuse that someone who wasn't supposed to be on AO3 bypassed the safeguards set up by AO3 and saw something that is allowed on AO3, that's a them problem.

If an adult fan of color gets onto AO3 and sees that they have been doxxed in the tags of a story, or that their community's dead bodies are being used as fodder for a white-guy love story, or clicks into a fic for a ship they like and are confronted with whitewashing or slurs, and they make a report to Abuse, there needs to be a mechanism in place to make the person who IS MEANT TO BE ON THE SITE safer. Whether that's adding a Warning category for Racism, a way for users to flag a work for being racist and having some kind of pop-up or something show up, better block and mute features, suspending users who doxx or otherwise engage in targeted harassment campaigns, or some combo of the above, the adult fan of color BELONGS on AO3. Their experience being unsafe is an AO3 problem.

It has nothing to do with shipping. No one is saying that everyone who ships Steve/Bucky instead of Sam/Bucky is going to get a big asterisk on their profile that says, "RACIST BECAUSE THEY SHIP A BAD SHIP." But if you write a fic where you kill off Sam in a grotesque way SO THAT Steve and Bucky fall in love? Yeah, that's racist and you're not a safe writer for fans of color to be around.

"But how do I know if I'm being racist???"

RULE #1: DON'T BE AN ASSHOLE. If you're Not An Asshole, then your mistakes are just mistakes. If you're Being An Asshole, then that's a problem, not a mistake.

[baradorable]

Name: Marvelous (Hunter Jackson) Age: Mid twenties Gender: Male Species: Human (Mutant) Occupation: Mister Sinister (Former?)

Art by GeckoBara (NSFW)

Time for another one of my OCs.

Before I begin, a warning that his story deals with themes of abuse, particularly towards a young person. I want to make it clear that I'm not just taking real world tragedies and using it to spice up my OC's lore. Quite a bit of these things are drawing from my own personal experiences as a survivor. Obviously though, they're blown to extreme proportions here, since this is an X-Men OC.

Personality

Hunter is a lethargic, dour person, always looking to the negatives. He's kind of a buzzkill, since he's always predicting the worst outcome to any situation. And his negativity is driven to more extremes by his extreme paranoia; he's an ardent conspiracy theorist. But not just any conspiracies: he gravitates to the most insane, bizarre and implausible theories. He'll believe these crazy theories wholeheartedly, despite the logic being tenuous reaches that make sense only to him.

For example: He's convinced the Green Goblin will steal Iron Man's armor. This is because the Green Goblin's secret identity's name, Norman Virgil Osborn, can be re-arranged to create "Robs Nonliving Armor." He unironically thinks this line of thinking is flawless.

And for the record, his off-the-wall theories tend to be completely spot-on. He's stumbling into the right answers.

Marv is also easy to control. He's quick to accept most situations and people he's with, even if he's not there willingly. Even if people treat him poorly, he will justify their behavior and stay by their side. He's so used to putting up with abuse, that he will excuse just about anything done to him.

And he's a nightmare for customer service workers. He's the type to go to a coffee shop and order the most confusing, difficult drink. He doesn't realize how most sane people don't want to make mocha-Cola cappuccinos with 4 tablespoons of sugar and caramel syrup. For this, he is considered the number one enemy of all restaurants in Brooklyn.

Backstory

Hunter is Canadian-born. His father is half-Madripoorian (SEAsian) and half-Aqirian. (Middle Eastern/Arab) and was born in Aqiria. His mother is Costa Perditan (Central American/Possibly White.)

[This isn't really reflected in his design, since his backstory came about after a year or two into writing him in an RP I was in. He was originally envisioned as a white, New York native before I developed this whole family history for him. But in my mind, I primarily consider him SEAsian.]

Hunter (born Wind, before legally changing his name) is the second of four children between his parents. He has an older sister (River), a younger sister (Ember), and a younger brother (Rock.) The mother (Selene) picked out their highly questionable names.

From his father, he has two half brothers; I forgot their names, but I thiiink the youngest was Thien Anh.

Hunter's parents lived in separate countries, as his father worked overseas in Madripoor. The strain would lead to the parents breaking up, though never officially divorcing. They just sort of fell out and never really thought about each other that much; they only ever interacted when it came to dealing with their kids.

When Hunter's powers first activated, his father demanded that he move to Madripoor. As it turned out, his father's "worked" involved a unique form of weapon creation.

Marv's father, Sho Khan, worked with a clairvoyant underling to find powered people (usually mutants) and breed them to create children that were predicted to be very powerful. The kids were brought up to be whatever their buyers wanted; usually as weapons, bodyguards, easy labor, or even power sources.

Sho had no issues bringing his son into this world. Hunter, having grown up very intimidated by his dad, would fall in line and... You get the idea. He was regularly used to help produce mutant children, destined for greatness.

Hunter was quick to rationalize his father's behavior, saying that his father was "giving any teenage boy something they'd dreamed of." He had the best private tutors, a ton of luxuries, and lived in the gilded cage that was his father's penthouse. He knew he wasn't happy. But if other people were happy, and he was making his father proud, then it was all okay. Right?

One day, his father and the clairvoyant brought in a girl his age, from India. The clairvoyant believed that the girl would be useful to them. Wanting to spare her from his fate, Hunter was able to convince his father to let him "keep" her as his girlfriend, to keep him loyal.

Hunter and the girl, Arsha, didn't love each other romantically. But they formed a quasi-relationship in order to give each other a sense of normalcy. They could pretend that they were safe and happy. They could pretend that they loved each other. Hunter had his duties, Arsha had to pretend to be in a relationship with him, and they were trapped under the thumb of Sho. But as long as they could lie together, they could find strength with one another.

At some point, a team of X-Men were able to find Sho's Madripoor base and shut down his operations there. They helped many of the mutants there escape and get back home. Hunter was offered the chance to go with them.

He refused to disobey his father. It was a choice that he would often look back on in regret. To this day, he wonders what it would be like if he found the strength back then to accept their help.

Sho Khan's business was only partially hampered, and they were able to recover from their losses in due time. To this day, he's still running his business. His line of work gave him enough connections all around the world to grow his empire.

Around the time Hunter turned twenty, he was abruptly kicked out of the penthouse by his father. He was freed from his "obligations" and sent back to his home country, and told to never speak of his time in Madripoor to anybody. Hunter didn't know all the details surrounding his freedom, but suspected Arsha was behind it.

From there, Hunter would go to university in New York and get a degree in journalism. He would write as a freelancer for small websites, since most actual news publications refused to accept his articles about baseless conspiracy theories he seemingly made up.

Here's my idea of how he fits into the Marvel universe. You can ignore this if you don’t follow X-Men continuity.

Marv would be captured by Mister Sinister, who was interested in his mutation. Sinister, who kept him around to study his X-Gene, noted how hesitant Hunter was to leave. He quickly discovered that Hunter would make excuses to justify his time there. "I can't leave or Sinister will kill me." "I'm safer with him than with the Friends of Humanity." "I can live here for free, which makes it a better financial investment than living in New York." So when he wasn't running tests on him, Sinister would employ Hunter as a sort of live-in lab assistant. He'd gleefully antagonize the young man, but kept him alive and relatively unharmed. And in return, Marv became a grumbling, snarky, but staunch ally to Sinister. And with that, he developed an uncanny ability to ignore any wrongdoings Sinister did. During the Krakoa era, Sinister dumped him on the island; he was kept alive as a fallback, in case things didn't work out. But now that he had access to the DNA of every mutant around, Hunter simply wasn't useful anymore. Hunter spent most of his time doing his own thing. He kept out of trouble, avoided crowds and stayed away from all that event nonsense. Post-Fall of X, he moved back to New York. Sinister will probably come to collect him. Or maybe his father will come for him. Or maybe the X-Men will save him again. He's heard good things about a guy named Mr. Friend.

 

Power

Hunter has a complex power. But to sum it up: he's currently able to pull out pieces of his soul and turn them into living, sentient constructs. Usually, he creates small animals or simple weapons.

In truth, his power is actually the ability to record and store details of every superpower he comes across, making him the ultimate genetic library. Upon activation, it gives Hunter the abilities of whichever powered being is closest to him. It first unlocked an ability to control wind and gas, which lead him to believe that he was an aerokinetic. But when Sinister's experiments lead him to turning his X-Gene off and on, Hunter's abilities changed to what they are now. His current powers were copied from another one of Sinister's captives at the time.

But yeah. His power is that he can make living constructs. That's the only thing you really need to take away from this.

Hunter always keeps one construct active all times: Step, a stoat companion. Named after a deceased pet, Step is always by his side, no matter what. Being a construct, Hunter is able to reshape him into different creatures or even weapons. But he's a friend and ally before anything else.

Step can also speak. Unfortunately, he's a foul-mouthed, outspoken brat who's quick to anger. Some believe that he's voicing the thoughts Hunter can never bring himself to say. Some believe Step is just a jerk. But regardless, he's fiercely loyal and loving to his friend. And Hunter, in term, loves him dearly.

I don't have any art of Step in his normal form. But here's Hunter's Hellfire Gala outfit. Step has shapeshifted into a sentient cape.

Key People

I already went over the basics of his past. But I want to highlight some of the key characters that came up. I ended up developing them beyond Marv, and they had roles outside of him, in the RP group I was in.

Hunter's father, Sho Khan, is a distant member of the Aqirian royal family - but wouldn't realistically inherit the throne, unless about 64 other people before him died. He lives in Madripoor, where he runs a vineyard as a cover for his real operations.

He has powers, but isn't a mutant. Forty five ago, Sho was one of four children who were experimented on by one of Marvel's many secret underground organizations. Sho gained the ability to become intangible, but he's frozen in place while in this state.

He instills fear into people with his cold, domineering disposition. He's very reserved, but when he speaks, people listen. His intentions aren't fully readable, and there's always a sense of force behind even his most calm words. Between this and being so absent in his kids' lives, this is one of the biggest reasons why he has such control over them: they fear him, but they also can't understand him. They want his approval and are worried about what would happen if they didn't have it. There's also that element of honoring thy father, what have you.

Hunter hates his dad now. But should his dad confront him again, he doesn't think he would be able to fight him.

Sho has 2 kids; a son from an extramarital affair, born shortly after River; and another son from his current girlfriend; the younger son is currently two. Both are Vietnamese, but born from different women. Sho wasn't, like, actively searching out Vietnamese women. He just happened to get with two of them, over 20 years apart.

Sho has 4 kids with his wife, Selene. They met in Costa Perdita, when Sho was traveling abroad for university. Selene was a party girl and met him at a club. They quickly fell in love and had their youthful indiscretions. Their relationship ran hot and cold, featured many break-ups and make-ups, and was fraught with immaturity on both ends. They both mellowed out as they got older.

Selene used to be a minor model and DJ back in the day. She moved on once she had kids, seeing herself as "above" the club scene and music world. Around this time, she also fell into new-age spiritualism and became one of those girls who buys a lot of healing crystals.

Selene is oblivious to her estranged husband's activities. Since she's so far away and mostly benign, Sho doesn't do anything to act against her.

Arsha is a whole deal. The TL;DR is that she/he [is bigender and identifies with both pronouns; I'll use she for convenience] was able to manipulate Sho into taking her in as one of his bodyguards, in exchange for Marv's freedom. She has mild shapeshifting abilities, allowing her to grow a second set of arms, change gender or recover from small injuries. She operates under the codename of Lady Tiger.

She was kidnapped by one of Sho's henchmen, when his clairvoyant business partner foretold that she would be an asset. The clairvoyant didn't see her being useful for the main business, due to her basic power, so she was quick to sign Arsha off to Hunter.

Arsha is very rough-and-tumble. She's quick to throw down when she sees the need, and she's ready to strike first. But she's also very calculating. She's naturally intuitive to any situation, allowing her to read people better than most. This makes her the only person to successfully understand and manipulate Sho.

I really want to make a full bio for her one day. I have this whole story in mind, where she spent several months as a pirate. It's this whole thing, but it only makes sense if I go into super long detail.

The clairvoyant, Moonface, is an old woman. Her power comes from a magic ritual, which she performs to see ahead to the next three days. She refuses to share her secrets, and her ability to see the future lets her stay ahead of anyone trying to sabotage her.

Hunter's siblings aren't particularly notable, except for Ember. She's also a mutant, a pyrokinetic. She's a lot more spirited than her brother, but she's also prone to wild flights of fancy and jumping to strange conclusions. She's fluent in Spanish, having learned from her mother. She wants to become an X-Man one day.

Before Fall of X, she was visiting Costa Perdita. She managed to avoid reaching a Krakoan Gate at the time, allowing her to stay out of the White Hot Room. She hid out with her grandparents and relatives during Fall of X, then moved back to Canada once it was over.

Trivia

Marv speaks English, Tagalog and Spanish. He knows just enough of the latter to be a danger to himself and others.

Hunter's mom also pushed him into acting at a young age. She got him into kid stage plays about environmentalism and equality and stuff. His most famous role was the Koala in Mother Nature's Animal Junction: Say 'Yes!' to Recycling! Hunter hated it and dropped out as soon as he could.

[girlactionfigure]

7 reasons why the Palestinian crisis & the Black struggle for freedom are absolutely nothing alike

The “parallels” between the Palestinian plight and that of African-Americans have been made for decades, and this has always been spurious. Sadly, the exercise continues and seems to be growing as anti-Israel sentiment including global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) inexplicably gain credibility.

1. UNRWA

Beginning operations on May 1, 1950, the United Nations Relief Works Agency for the Palestinian people is the only UN relief agency that exists exclusively for one group — the Palestinians. At the time of its founding, there were some 720,000 Palestinian refugees. Many of these people became refugees after refusing the offer to become Israeli citizens and choosing to await the great victory over the Jews promised to them by the leaders of the Arab states.

Black Americans from slavery to Jim Crow to the civil rights era never had anything that vaguely resembled UNRWA or any type of international relief agency. We were also unsuccessful at being declared refugees — which surely would have led to reparations for 400 years of forced servitude.

2. INTERNATIONAL AID

The Palestinian Authority (formerly the Palestinian Liberation Organization – PLO) receives about $1 billion annually. This money comes primarily from American and European taxpayers. The money is supposed to go to relieve the suffering of the Palestinian people which, as Dr. King said in 1968, “are part of that third world of hunger, of disease, of illiteracy.” Unfortunately, much of that aid goes to political and racial propaganda and programming, as Palestinian children are fed a constant diet of anti-Semitism and hatred for Israel. From curriculum to suicide bomber camps, Palestinian children are taught to hate Israel and the West — on our dime.

Black Americans received no international aid during centuries of slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Neither did we receive domestic aid.  The very term “forty acres and a mule” (what the US  government promised former Black slaves, but didn’t deliver) became code for, “what we never got.” Money to help fund our quest for freedom came almost exclusively from private donors including Black businesses and families, White abolitionists, churches, synagogues, and other Jewish organizations and individuals.

3. ARAB STATES (Arab League)

In the Middle Eastern region alone there are multiple Arab homelands including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and oil-rich Saudi Arabia. They were the dominant force in the Middle East when Israel was reestablished in 1947-48, and used their combined military might to attempt to crush the nascent Jewish State. They failed. Now, not only will these states not take in the Palestinians who have been given official refugee status for three generations, these nations also have a horrible record of human rights abuses against their Arab-Palestinian brothers. They will not allow them to live as citizens, enroll in school, buy property, or even repair their dilapidated dwellings. Palestinian refugees are being killed in Syria while you read this.

Black Americans had no Black nations to which we could turn for help or shelter. While we were enslaved in America, our continent had been colonized by the Europeans. Further, all of North Africa is currently being occupied by Arabs, who stole it from our people. But that’s another list.

4. TERRORISM & TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS

Other than Nat Turner and a few rebellious slaves whom history has forgotten, Black victims of oppression never possessed the means to offer armed resistance to our oppressors during slavery. After slavery (and due to the legal right to purchase guns), Black Americans were able to arm themselves but had no access to rockets, rocket launchers, IEDs, or other explosives.

If Black Americans had been able to fight with weapons, you can be certain that blowing up our sons and daughters would not have been a strategic option. Ever. Under any circumstances.

5. PALESTINIAN ROCK THROWERS & INSTIGATORS

Pictures of Palestinians throwing rocks at, or dropping boulders on unsuspecting Jewish motorists are quite strange to informed Black Americans (my grandmother would have called those rock throwers ‘hoodlums’). During the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s our ‘weapon’ was non-violent resistance. This was by choice and by necessity, as we were vastly outnumbered and outgunned by the White majority. We could not imagine what would have happened to our young men had they stood at ambush on the roads of Montgomery, Alabama, or Jackson, Mississippi, and thrown rocks at White passers-by. We were lynched for simply breathing while Black.

6. UNHRC

The United Nations Human Rights Council has condemned Israel more than any other nation — combined. In fact, since 1975, over 40% of the UNHRC’s indictments have been against Israel. This imbalance is a result of the Arab states’ undue influence over the UNHRC, as they have worked in tandem with the enemies of the US to discredit and delegitimize the Jewish State. The UNHRC is a large part of the reason that even the casual follower of world events may view Israel in a negative light.

Not only did Black Americans ever have something like a League of Nations to condemn our enemies, the UNHRC further insults us by largely ignoring the suffering of African people in places like Sudan, Eritrea or Congo; or Egypt/Sinai where African slavery and organ harvesting is taking place. This disparity prompted former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Anan to comment, “Since the beginning of their work, [the UNHRC] has focused almost entirely on Israel and there are other crisis situations, like Sudan, where they have not been able to say a word.”

7. ARAB REPRESENTATION IN ISRAELI GOVERNMENT

Not only are there Arab members of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) and the Supreme Court, some of the individuals are actively working to destroy the Jewish State. They are very vocal anti-Zionists, and their speech (as well as their legislative action) are all protected by Israeli law.

Black Americans did not become a part of the legislative system until after slavery during Reconstruction. We were exclusively Republican by default, as the Democrats were the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and the KKK. We never called for the destruction of America. We have a long, proud tradition of working within the American legal system to address violations of civil and human rights — for everyone. This process reached its zenith during the 1960s as Black leaders and lay people (led by Dr. King and other stalwarts) marched on Washington, D.C. demanding jobs, justice, and equal treatment under the Constitution. 400 years of hard work resulted in Black people helping to make America the greatest democracy on earth.

There are many more than seven reasons why the Black saga and the Palestinian plight should not be compared, but I believe sufficient point has been made.

Lastly, I do not spurn the Palestinian fight for self-determination.  Every fight for justice is a righteous struggle. I would just say that, what made the Black historic struggle effective was our remembering who our enemy was — and who it was not. In the interest of defending Palestinian human rights, one may want to start with the main perpetrators: The Palestinian Authority and Hamas. But again, that is the subject of another discussion.

[snowviolettwhite]

You know what after this election and everything that has happen I as a Jewish person no longer want to entertain being lumped in with white people and white women. Leave me out of that narrative, Jewish people aren't even European, we are middle eastern. We do not want to be lumped in with you.

Most of you put in place a fascist bigoted rapist who shared legally documents with our enemies intend of the most person to ever run for president just because you hate women and women of color and/or because you have white christian superiority, morality and guilt complexes.

Nearly 60% of white people voted for Donald Trump, 60% of white men for Donald and 53% of white women vote for Donald.

Meanwhile 80% of Jewish people voted for Kamala Harris, 71% of Jewish men voted for Kamala and 88% of Jewish women vote Kamala. (Calling Kamala by her first name because she seems to perfer to be called by instead of her last name.)

Honestly I am starting to think the white radical leftists raised Christian call democrats evil because they hate Zionists and majority of the Jewish American population always votes democrat and are Zionists.

A thought if Black people and Jewish people tell you not say both sides are just as bad and evil, listen to them. They know what they are talking about. They know what happens when a violent revolution happens. The white radical leftists raised Christian romanticize violent revolution the same why conservative Christians romanticize the rapture.

The fact that Black Americans and Jewish Americans have always been to be the backbone of American Democracy and progress despite the clear anti-blackness and antisemitism on left is ridiculous. Then when we either of us need you, you abandon us. Then when bad happens you go blame the Jewish people and want Black people fix it. We told what would happen, you fix it and leave us alone in peace.

Why do so many other groups of people seem not have the same level of self perversion and strength and care for people who are different than them. I do not understand this.

[wordsmithic]

Hi, your post about misuse of Greek mythology was very interesting. I was wondering what exactly is considered a problem in depictions of the Gods. The lack of Greek cultural clothing for sure, and that makes sense, and the tendency to misunderstand their symbols and attributes, I think I’ve seen most people agree on that. But I see different opinions on skin color and I’m not Greek so I don’t know what to think. Is it disrespectful to draw non-white Greek Gods and maybe more specifically black Greek Gods? Some people say it is, others say it isn’t since some of the Gods came from different cultures, and everyone thinks that those who disagree with them are racist so it’s hard to know what is or isn’t acceptable

Hi! Thank you, it's nice to see interactions with this post and people wanting to know more!

While Greeks consider themselves White, other countries like the US don't perceive them as White due to different histories in their social issues. Actually... Greeks are suddenly White when people want to blame us for something that colonizer European nations did (or their own White - usually WASP - people do), but we are non-White when they see our appearance, our names, when they see our dances, our food, our customs, etc. Meaning, when they see what Greek culture and people really are, outside of their fantasy.

We are extremely close culturally and racially with Middle Eastern and North African nations. Western media and education won't tell you that because the thought always made Western powers uncomfortable and ruined their white supremacist ancient Greece fantasy. And yes, how we are perceived affects our interactions and our employability as studies have shown. So, in this context, the Greek gods are already non-White.

(*Many ethnicities are legally White in North American countries but they're not afforded this privilege in reality, because of systemic racism. The Greeks gained "White" legal status in the US and the Anglosphere very recently, but other countries still have us in other non-White racial categories).

In light of this big disclaimer... I think this post has a pretty comprehensive explanation of the situation and expresses the thoughts of the majority of Greeks.

[eretzyisrael]

Defining oppressed Jews as ‘white’ and ‘privileged’ is insulting to all

This article is a few months old but the trends it criticises are with us and continue to gain traction. David Bernstein, Jason Guberman and Elina Caplan argue convincingly in the Jewish Journal that efforts to make the Jewish community more inclusive of Jewish diversity have been used to smuggle in an illiberal ideology—often under the guise of racial justice or antiracism.

David Bernstein

Jason Guberman

The idea that Jews benefit from a presumed system of oppression paints them, in the prescriptive victim/oppressor ideology, as privileged oppressors. This notion, which should be offensive to all Jews, is downright insulting to many immigrants who were often severely oppressed in their home countries. For example, Middle Eastern and North African Jews were “otherized” at times by legal restrictions and by informal yet widespread discriminatory practices. Jews from the FSU suffered overt, government-led oppression that explicitly kept them out of universities and workplaces and sent them to prison or labor camps for so much as learning Hebrew. Defining them as “white” in the binary model where all white people are considered oppressors erases their identities and imposes a worldview completely at odds with their lived experience.

Too often, American Jewish organizations have misguidedly embraced this ideology themselves. One Jewish denomination offered a four-part “learning” on race and racism for rabbis and cantors, proclaiming, “This space is for white clergy and will serve as a white antiracist affinity space.” Such ideological pronouncements and trainings (disturbingly similar to “re-education” campaigns that many suffered through) are anathema to immigrant Jewish communities that oppose the familiar revolutionary concept of dismantling systems, rather than making incremental progress in the very nation and system that has attracted refugees from all over the world. Indeed, for all its flaws, America remains the number one destination in the world for immigrants, voting with their lives to attain the unrivaled freedom of the U.S. Constitution, which ensures that the American system can evolve and that individuals can define themselves and make their own opportunities.

If the Jewish community listens, it will hear an immigrant chorus that is in equal parts dismay and horror. Dismay over the reality that most American Jews cannot recognize the extreme ideological and antisemitic undertones of what is happening right in front of them. And horror over the fact that by the time American Jews come to their senses, it may be too late. These Jews are far more likely to feel alienated rather than supported by these well-intentioned, ideologically charged efforts at making the Jewish community more inclusive. Such efforts do not, in fact, make Jewish life more inclusive. They make it more exclusionary. They shut out Jews who bring to this country all of their high hopes—as well as their traumas.

Read article in full

[naradreamscape]

I am still on a trail for this, but...I have reason to believe the alt-right has infiltrated zionist Jewish circles online.

This is a scenario that I believe needs to be further investigated at least on an "every accusation is an admission" basis: the zio side began trying to claim the pro-Palestine encampments at various colleges had been "invaded" by the alt-right, despite countless witness claims from the grounds that these were largely pro-Muslim, pro-Jewish left-leaning spaces that were quick to shut down any sort of fascist or xenophobic rhetoric...

...meanwhile, zionists have appropriated terms and practices from the alt-right and the Holocaust. The willingness to call an activist a "kapo" or other loaded historical terms, or use neonazi revisionist history, indicates to me that there is either a very, very toxic presence that needs to be identified and excised from the Judaic community, or there is outside interference that is encouraging these deeply antisemitic habits.

Why would a neonazi want to get involved with Jews? Well, they do not like us, and have a long history of being more than happy to steer political movements of any leanings off course. A neonazi sees this situation and has nothing to lose; they are encouraging the genocide of Middle Eastern peoples, and are helping make Jews look terrible and bloodthirsty to the rest of the world - a win-win in the mind of a white supremacist and/or christofascist. Zios as of late have been talking about graphically killing anti-zionists, something they were doing months before, but as of late it has intensified. Something has happened recently.

What is the alt-right endgame for the colonisation of Palestine? The whole purpose of "Israel" is to give landed Jewish citizens a legal "homeland" that they can move to or, potentially, be deported to. The existence of "Israel" as a full-fledged nation would be used as motivation to drive Jewish people out of North America. This is one of many reasons why I find the colony's existence to be counterintuitive as someone who identifies closely with my actual genealogical heritage, and my identity as a Canadian Jew. However, if the colony is given more support and legal validation, that'll be all the more pressure I (and countless others) would receive to "go home" there.

There have also been reports of zio flyers and posters being found in public that have razor blades taped to the reverse edges of the paper. This was a tactic last seen on alt-right propaganda flyers in the mid-2010s. This could imply it's another tactic the zios are learning from possible alt-right connections. These connections would not be identifying openly as alt-right, rather, they would be operating with sock accounts and false personas.

I hope I'm wrong. But, I also hope you all stay safe, and watch out for anyone trying to lead you down any violent path. Palestine will be free, and there is no place for white supremacy in Judaism. Be smart.

[theygender]

I have a very frustrated idea in my brain and I just finished forming the thought after a little bit of time. When the Ukraine-Russia conflict kicked off, there was this solemn "idk how to enjoy life without being guilty cuz people are dying in Ukraine rn" and Ukraine has obviously deserved that care and concern and empathy. But when it comes to Palestine-Israel I'm seeing people who care and have that empathy but God damnit if a lot of what I'm seeing isn't just tearing each other down for supporting the wrong side and I know the conflict is very different than the Russia Ukraine conflict but I also saw that "do you care about the dying children or is it complicated when it's middle eastern children " and I was like yea tbh. Ukraine got so much empathy without questioning or fighting online because uh not that Ukraine is a majority white place but it partly is that and cuz it's Europe. God forbid something happen to Europe suddenly people are a lot sweeter and kinder.

Yeah I've definitely seen the same thing :(

A big part of it I think is, like you said, Ukraine is in Europe. Another part of it at least in the US is that our culture is already primed to see Russia as bad due to years of propaganda, so people were much quicker to want to stand up for a country that was being invaded by Russia. While it's great that Ukraine is getting the support, it feels like the widespread support for Ukraine is more bc of some automatic reaction of "Russia -> Communism/Red Scare/Cold War -> Enemies of the US" than any actual concern for human rights or preventing colonialism

On the other hand, when it comes to Palestine, the US is already primed to support Israel bc of years of propaganda on behalf of 1) our government who wants to use Israel as its own personal military base and 2) Christians who believe that we need to support Israel in order to bring about the rapture. So it's very difficult to try to get people to think past that programming and realize that the people they've been primed to think of as the good guys are committing a literal genocide and that's BAD

And it just gets even worse when you factor in the construct of whiteness. Like you said, with Ukraine being a European nation they're given the privilege of being considered majority white™ in the eyes of US Americans and, consciously or not, that makes people in our white supremacist society more sympathetic to them. Palestine, on the other hand, is a Middle Eastern country and our society has been primed through racist propaganda to view Middle Eastern people (especially those who are Muslim) as bad™. And although Israel is also obviously in the Middle East, it seems like the sympathetic propaganda here has paradoxically primed US Americans to view all Israelis as white. It probably doesn't help that "Middle Eastern" as a distinct racial category is still a relatively new idea here, only becoming popularized after the 9/11 attacks—the US census still legally categorizes all ethnicities we would consider Middle Eastern as white. We're probably witnessing the same type of shifting of the definition of "white" that occurred in the early days of the US with the changing goal lines that determined which European immigrants got to be seen as white and which got oppressed. Just like back then, the answer is always going to be the one that better serves to uphold white supremacy

So yeah, I definitely see where you're coming from. Ukraine gets public sympathy and support from the West as a whole but Palestine gets next to nothing, and the reasons seem to be entirely tied up in white supremacy. People really do think "it's complicated" when the kids being killed are Middle Eastern

[queenofthursday6599-blog]

When I was little I didn't know that racism between white and black people was a thing

It's going to sound weird, but while I knew that racism existed when I was little, I didn't know that racism from white people against black people was a thing.

Because on both sides of my family I've got cousins (like second cousins and stuff, people from my parents generation) who married black spouses.

So I grew up with cousins who were black (step cousins? my mom's cousin adopted them when their parent married in, then there's their younger half siblings who I'm blood related to) and mixed on both sides of my family, but I was closer with the cousins on my maternal side, probably because there were more of them closer in age to me.

So the idea that there was a time in history where white people and black people weren't allowed to get married was shocking to me.

Racism against other kind of POC however I was far more familiar with, for various reasons.

Either by way of the vaguely racist jokes and slurs that would get tossed out by older relatives against asian, latino, and middle eastern people (very few of those in my family).

Or- OR various members of my family getting mistaken for being latino. Specifically my dad, older sister, aunt, and cousin (both from my dad's side of the family) who all have been mistaken for latino at one point or another.

But the person in my family that this happens to the most is my dad.

For being what I can only describe as a dark skinned white person.

Like literally.

My dad did one of those at home dna ancestry tests once, nothing but german, english, and french as far as the test could tell. Man should be pasty as far as the dna results say, but he stays 2 shades darker than the rest of us year round.

He gets mistaken for latino by actual latinos regularly, it's a whole thing. Especially if he ends up working a job with multiple latino co-workers.

Which is also hilarious because his dad (my grand dad) was technically legally mexican because he was born in mexico (even though my dad's grand parents on that side were born and raised in the USA, so I don't even know the story of about how my grand dad ended up being born in mexico), but that's a whole other thing.

Anyways there was a 2 or 3 year gap between me learning that racism as a concept exists (only so many times your mom can tell you not to repeat what your older relative says because it's racist before the idea clicks), and learning that white people being racist against black people specifically was a really big thing that existed, specifically in american history.

There really was a brief period of my life where I thought racism was a white people vs latinos vs asian vs middle eastern people thing.

Which is a different kind of horrible when you take into account that I have a younger cousin who's adopted from pakistan who I literally heard another older relative of mine call Sand N*gg*r when he was out of ear shot when he was like 5 years old.

SO yeah, I knew racism was alive and well, but the people I was around growing up tended to keep black people out of the conversation due to the multiple interracial marriages involving black people, along with like a half dozen mixed cousins in total, in my family.