#non-Jewish folks since a lot of times there is a lot of confusion

[the-fire-within0]

Hey idk your history or anything but Lilith is closed to non-Jewish people.

Hey there, anon. I'm open to discussing Lilith, but whether Lilith is a closed practice for non-Jewish people is a bit complicated. First, I'm not sure about your background. Second, I don't know your intentions behind asking. Third, I'm unsure about your research on Lilith or your own beliefs. I'm not trying to be rude; I just want to clarify a few things before we proceed to avoid any potential misunderstandings.

I believe it's important to understand Lilith both as a specific figure and as a symbolic one. Although I rarely engage with Lilith in my practice, I acknowledge her occasional presence. While modern portrayals frequently depict Lilith as a feminist icon and "goddess of fertility," or "mother goddess," these views do not trace back to traditional beliefs about her or what she was associated with. She is represented as the complete opposite of these newer tellings.

Regarding that, there is archaeological evidence of Aramaic incantation bowls and amulets used in Semitic regions to ward off Lilith or demons. She is a demon associated with lust, miscarriage, and child abduction, with her name's etymology linked to screech owls, night bird, night creature and the night ("laylah," Hebrew). She is primarily a figure in Jewish apocryphal works. However, it is possible that the inspiration for Lilith came from the Mesopotamian demonic goddess Lamashtu, who in which, bears much resemblance to her.

In Mesopotamian mythology, "Lil," "Lilītu," (Akkadian) "Lilû" (masculine version) refers to a group of disease-bearing wind spirits/demons rather than a single demon. Additionally, the image on the Burney Relief plaque is unlikely to be Lilith, as scholars have suggested that it might represent Inanna/Ishtar or her sister Ereshkigal instead. Another aspect to mention is that "ardat-lilî" refers to the ghosts of young women who died without experiencing sexual fulfillment or marriage. Therefore, they would attempt to seduce young men. The term "ardat-lilî" translates to "maiden lilî"/"phantom bride." They were described as a troubled and restless spirit associated with negative sexuality and the wind. They are suggested to be a form of succubi, believed to possess the ability to fly and enter houses through windows. There's a bit more of an explanation of ardat-lilî within the book Women in the Ancient Near East. (You can just ctrl + F to search keywords).

Another thing to point out that Lilith within the Hebrew bible is only mentioned once in

Isaiah 34:14, NRSV, "Wildcats shall meet with hyenas; goat-demons shall call to each other; there also Lilith shall repose and find a place to rest."

However with this translation alone, scholars suggest that it is associated a type or class of demon (similar to the Lilītu). Lilith can also be identified in the Dead Sea Scrolls as a "singular entity" but there isn't much detail that goes further than that.

11QpsAp, "And I, the Sage, sound the majesty of His beauty to terrify and confound all the spirits of destroying angels and the bastard spirits, the demons, Lilith. . ., and those that strike suddenly, to lead astray the spirit of understanding, and to make desolate their heart."

In this translation, there is a reference to Lilith in the Songs of the Sage (4Q510–511). For more information about 4Q510-511.

In rabbinic literature, the Babylonian Talmud, during the exile, Lilith poses much more of a threat to men if they were to sleep alone,

Shabbat 151b, "It is prohibited to sleep alone in a house, and anyone who sleeps alone in a house will be seized by the evil spirit Lilith."

There are mentions of the appearance of lilith (lower-cased on purpose), with depictions of having long hair and wings.

Niddah 24b, "Rav Yehuda says that Shmuel says: In the case of a woman who discharges a fetus that has the form of a lilith, a female demon with wings and a human face, its mother is impure with the impurity of a woman after childbirth, as it is a viable offspring, only it has wings."

The notion of Lilith as the "first woman" primarily stems from satirical literature like the Alphabet of Ben Sira.

Honestly, interpret this however you like. There are countless theories, different ways to interpret texts, and various personal beliefs. Even if you see everything as just lessons and don't take it seriously, that's your choice. If someone wants to explore and learn about Lilith or liliths, I'm personally not opposed to it—as long as they understand her/their exact origins. Some people practice demonolatry or just conduct extensive research in demonology, so it's hard to make definitive statements. That's why I find it complicated to say that an entity, demon, deity, or anything similar is closed. Additionally, converting to Judaism is NOT an easy process. From what I know, Jewish people would not want to work with demons. They would prefer to ward them off or avoid any involvement with them altogether, and or whatever their standpoint might be since not one individual is the same.

It's also important to note that Lilith isn't part of Christian theology (this goes to anyone just learning, honestly). The Christianized version of Lilith I'd like to think is very washed-down or "declawed."

If you'd like to discuss any potential errors in my statements, feel free to reach out. Please provide relevant links to support your points, and avoid generalizing one person's opinion as representative of everyone or an entire group, not only that, it's good to be respectful while discussing, that's all I would ask and kindly appreciate.

There are so much more information in terms of Lilith, with which you can look at through these links since it's a lot harder to fit everything into one post:

A good video to learn from too can be the video from Dr. Justin Sledge/ESOTERICA called Who is Lilith - First Wife of Adam - Ancient Origins and Development of the Myth of the Demon Queen:

[salixsociety]

Witchcraft Ask Tag

I was tagged by @pomegranate-jewitchery, who made the original post! Thank you! Fair warning, I think you tagged me because you expected me to be a jewish witch, which I am not. I have Sephardic ancestry, but I am not and have never been culturally or religiously jewish. Sorry for any confusion and I hope you don't mind me still participating!

How long have you been practicing? Hard to say! I grew up Catholic and very engaged with my culture, but not actively aware of any non-Christian traditions. In my early teens I rejected Catholicism and started engaging with folk magic and Germanic paganism, and that's what I've been doing since (with the necessary growth and adjustments)!

How would you describe your practice? Not as witchcraft, ironically. I consider myself a tovenares, which translates more or less to a feminine practitioner of usually benign magic. I'm also a Germanic pagan and Óðinn/Wotan devotee. My craft mostly consists of local spirit work, herbalism/healing, hearthcraft, art magic and divination!

What tools do you use in your practice? Because my practice is my life and my life is my practice, really I use everything around me for my craft. But my favorite tools are my bullroarer, cauldron, whisks, divination cards and art supplies. I also, of course, use many herbs.

What kind of divination is your go to? Omen reading! But when I have more pressing questions, I usually do trance divination or card divination. Or, sometimes, traditional forms of divination using organic material!

Where do you think your practice falls on the low energy to high energy scale? Low energy, realistically. Folk magic is so integral to one's life that it only rarely requires a lot of energy. But, when it comes to my craft as a seer and tovenares, it's more high energy! That's just rarer, as I do not have a community to serve at present.

What are your favorite resource(s) in witchcraft? (books, youtube, podcast, etc.) I collect books and they are definitely my primary sources! My favorite authors are Jozef Haver, J.R.W. Sinninghe, H.R. Ellis Davidson, and Marcel Cleene! I spend a lot of time on archive.org as well lmao!

How cycle oriented is your practice? The cyclical nature of everything is at the heart of my craft! Both as an Orthodox Christian, as a Germanic pagan, and as a practitioner of magic I center cycles in everything.

How does nature play a role in your practice if at all? If cycles are the heart nature is the blood, lol. My practice cannot exist without nature. Everything I do is in accordance with my local nature!

What is your witchcraft hot take? I have too many to count. One that's been on my mind lately is that it is not frequently talked about that eclecticism and 'deity collecting' lends itself extremely strongly to (mis)appropriation!

What is the weirdest thing to happen to you via your practice? Being warned about a landslide ahead by the Fair Folk!

What is the best thing to happen to you via your practice? That I knew I was going to marry my now spouse upon just hearing their voice through a video, even though they lived on the other side of the planet!

~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~

I'd like to tag @lailoken, @windvexer, @creature-wizard, and @wortcunningwitch! In OP's words: "Feel free to share as much or as little as you would like, and don't forget to pass it on!"

[frownyalfred]

im all here for jewish bruce so please dont take this as me disagreeing with you or anything because canon doesnt even matter in the first place and mostly im just a little confused but if kate is bruce's cousin from his moms side and being jewish comes from your mom doesnt that mean kates mom is jewish and it doesnt have anything to do w. her dad who would be the kane part of the equation unlesd her dad is also jewish idk i dont really go here im just creeping on the sidelines rn yanno

Sure! Anon, this is a question that comes up a lot, and I’m not expert, but here’s what I know:

-Martha Kane and Jacob Kane were siblings

-The Kanes are established as Jewish in canon (including Jacob)

-Kate is Jewish, which, according to halachic interpretation, assumes that her mother was Jewish at the bare minimum (but that her father likely was Jewish as well)

-Martha, being Jacob’s sister, would also be Jewish (barring a weird half-brother situation, or that he converted at some point)

-The above exceptions would be unlikely considering the Jewishness of the Kane name, “Jacob”, etc. 

-At the bare minimum again, since Judaism is technically matrilineal (more about this later) and the Kane family line is Jewish, any of Martha’s children would also be Jewish

-Bruce Wayne would halachically be Jewish

Now, all of this hinges on Jacob Kane being Jewish by birth and the Kane family being Jewish overall. But there are also some additional clues:

-Kate’s family was intentionally made Jewish, in a nod to Jewish creator Bob Kane, whose family was also Jewish

-Martha and Jacob’s generation usually married within Judaism by tradition (this has changed a lot in the last few decades) and marriage into another faith was generally frowned upon. 

-The above makes it unlikely Jacob married into a Jewish family unintentionally (i.e., Kate’s mother being Jewish was important to Jacob as a Jewish man)

-Jacob is a commonly-given name to Jewish men

-Martha marrying outside the faith would explain why Bruce was not necessarily raised Jewish (in this retcon, at least)

Hey? Everyone keeps arguing about matrilineal Judaism. What does that even mean?

-This comes up a lot in Jewish Batman discourse. Matrilineal Judaism is a remnant of Biblical times, where Judaism could only be confirmed if the mother was Jewish (assuming the father was not present, etc)

-Certain sections of Judaism hold this strongly, including Conservative, Orthodox, Reform (to an extent) and some other traditions

-For a long time, and still somewhat to this day, it was frowned upon to marry a non-Jewish man (i.e., Jews tended to marry Jews)

-Patrilineal Judaism (Judaism passed down by the father)  is slowly being more accepted, as well as other discrepancies (adoption, Jewish grandparent, etc)

-Some traditions still don’t necessarily view someone as Jewish unless they practice Judaism (had a bar mitzvah, converted, etc) but this is rare, largely because of the “one drop” rule in the Holocaust, and modern aliyah standards of Israel. 

-When folks in the fandom talk about Batman in the context of matrilineal Judaism, they’re usually referring to the fact that, if Martha Kane was Jewish in any way when she had Bruce, he would technically be Jewish by birth in the eyes of many rabbis, regardless of his own practiced religion or atheism. 

-Like I said earlier, all of this hinges on if Jacob Kane was Jewish by birth. I.e., that Martha and Jacob’s mother was Jewish. 

I believe that canon has been established enough where we can assume that Jacob Kane was in fact Jewish by birth, that he married a Jewish woman, and had a Jewish child (Kate). 

I don’t believe this retcon intentionally made Bruce Jewish. Again, some would argue that he’s not really Jewish, as he’s never practiced or recognized the religion in canon. 

However, Judaism is tricky. It’s an ethnic group, a religion, and a cultural tradition, all amassed into one messy blob. It’s likely, if Martha was raised Jewish, that there were still some vestiges of Jewish cultural practices in how she raised Bruce (celebrating some holidays, traditions, or observances) unless she explicitly chose to ignore them. 

All in all, I would say it is very likely that Bruce is technically Jewish. More likely than not. An accident? Yes. But a good one for all of us Jewish fans. 

[ariainstars]

Sorry, But I Don’t Support Minorities (Any More)

For a start: I will not use inclusive language in this text. (I usually don’t, only in this case I want to make sure it’s known from the start.)

Secondly, if you identify as trans or non-binary and / or are a huge Harry Potter fan, I am warning you: don’t read this.

If you do want to hear me out, be respectful in your comments or hold them back altogether. I won’t tolerate bullying merely because I am expressing my own opinion. Though the topic touches a sore spot in me, too, I will be as objective as I can.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I am not and never was a fan of J.K. Rowling and her works. I found the Harry Potter hype strongly exaggerated, the books mildly unoriginal and biased, the films ok until they became so overloaded with derivation from other sources (dragons, elves, magic wands, brooms, unicorns, centaurs, phoenixes, basilisks, flying horses - stories like Star Trek or Star Wars at least have their own world-building) and later so dark that they were no fun anymore. In my opinion an average writer was lucky because she tapped into a trend and was at the right place and right time with her stories. I daresay years from now many fans will wonder why they liked these stories so much and realize that they just jumped on a train, having been too young and naïve to question it.

I don’t own any of Rowling’s books or DVDs or merchandise and I never have been part of the fandom. So, I come from a different corner when I say that I have my own attitude about the current shitstorm regarding J.K. Rowling now being coded as “transphobic”. This is due to personal reasons of my own.

  1. The Discussion Can Add Confusion

Rowling stated that in her youth she had problems with her own identity due to her father having wanted her to be a boy. I can understand that because I went through a long period in my late teens and early twens where I had difficulties identifying with the sex I was born with. At times I also felt physically attracted to females. In my case, it turned out to merely be a phase: I am an average cis woman. I can understand that for some people, such doubts may turn out to be more than a phase. But I know what Rowling refers to because I have been there. And I am grateful that there was no gender discussion when I was young because it would have confused me even more than I actually was, and I already had more than enough other problems. I was and I am a “common” woman, but there was a time in my life when I did not like it very much. That time was bad enough, combined as it was with other aspects in my life I had to come to terms with, which at times almost drove me to despair to the point where I contemplated suicide. So, I am glad that in my time being gay / straight / trans / cis / non-binary or other was not such an issue, at least not where I grew up. With my confusion and disorientation, well-meaning people might have taken the opportunity to encourage me to “embrace my lesbianism / trans identity”, when in truth I am neither. I was discouraged, from many sides, to liking myself, and that self-loathing took many forms. 

I am extremely cautious when it comes to gender identification because I know that finding one’s way in life under difficult circumstances can take years and years and end in a very different place from where it started, well beyond adolescence. In my case, for a long time I thought I was “not really female” because I love my independence and never wished for children: this is not due to some masculine trait inside of me but to my growing up with a disturbed mother who strongly invaded my life and mind and did everything that was in her power to trap me. I suspected that something was wrong with her since my early teens, but I found out the truth only about twenty years later. I had to accept her the way she is and put distance between us. 

Then there were my peers: where and when I grew up it was trendy to be (or appear) as tomboyish and easy-going as possible because this was seen as a sign of a “strong, modern, emancipated female”: fie on you if you wore your hair a little longer, liked clothes or only had to much as a flower-pattern on your notebook. Again: I simply had to get away. For many years I had been led to believe that my too “female” or “masculine” traits were a problem, when the actual problem was not mine. And if this happened to me, I daresay there may be many others in similar situations; which is something that who supports and encourages trans people usually does not consider. People who are confused about their sexuality without actually being trans need understanding as well.

  2. What About Us?

As a native Italian, I cringe when I only think e.g. of Lady and the Tramp’s silly “Bella notte” scene or films like Good Fellas or of The Godfather trilogy, cultural phenomena that did a lot to cement the general audience’s idea of how Italians are like. Not to our advantage. - No, “bella notte” is not correct Italian. No, we don’t play the mandolin, it’s an outmoded instrument that you are more likely to find in a museum. And no, spaghetti with meatballs are not Italian food!

Following the 2009 economic crises many countries in the European Community applied for financial “umbrellas”; Italy didn’t, it paid into those funds. Italy was the first Western country who went into lockdown as the Covid-19 crisis struck. The country functioned, though under huge restrictions and security measures. In both cases, other countries’ reactions in and outside Europe were like: “Typical - Italians are too lazy to work!” When it came to negotiating an economic pact to help Europe start again, the countries who had said this the loudest held their purse-strings tight - after having locked down too late and hidden the truth about the casualties in their own countries. Convenient.

Italians are generally often seen as silly and not trustworthy. And nobody talks about how demeaning and disrespectful, and on the long run damaging, it is to portray us in such a stereotyped way which at best is good for a laugh. The prejudices stick, and they have destroyed or turned into a living hell many existences.

There are huge now discussions about banning films like e.g. Gone With the Wind due to its “clichéd portrayal of Blacks”. Nobody talks about abolishing The Godfather or other films of that kind although they contribute to the stigma that Italians are either all in league with the mafia, or easy-going, silly folks who sing and drink wine all day and have no idea of what hard work means. Most Italians have too much personal pride to victimize themselves and bo-hoo “the rest of the world just won’t understand us”. They love their country but that does not make them not blind to its shortcomings. I hope they stay that way. In any case, I intend to.

  3. The Actual Problem: Bullying

I can sympathize with anyone who comes out as trans because I know what it’s like to be bullied. I was bullied myself for many years due to my Italian origin as well as my upbringing while I had to live among persons who were on a lower social level than I. I was e.g. accused of being stuck-up and “inhibited”. I know now that the female bullies were envious of my self-esteem and insinuating that I was missing “fun”; while the males were counting on another girl being at any guy’s disposal for free and were angry when I didn’t let them have their way with me. 

The actual problem with any kind of intolerance and discrimination is bullying. Whatever form it takes, bullying is or ought to be unacceptable. Bullies will be bullies, they do not care who they harass and why: if they e.g. can be convinced to leave trans people alone, they will vent their frustrations and build up their self-image by bullying people who are fat or black or whatever. Except trans people won’t be there to witness that (unless by coincidence they are both trans and fat / black etc.) 

We live in a world that gives a great deal of importance on competitiveness; as a result, even in families, schools and other institutions that ought to educate children and youngsters to be respectful towards themselves and others, bullying is often not seen as such, or simply downplayed as “assertiveness”. Bullies do not want to hear reasonable argumentation and learn to be sympathetic: they want to show off their power, provoke an emotional reaction from their victims to see how far they can go, and gloat when they can hurt them. They will not change their minds and they will never be trustworthy, no matter how many discussions about your particular situation you have with them. 

To bullies, the world is a jungle where only the strongest have the right to survive; any attempt to make them rethink their attitude will only make them laugh at their victims’ alleged stupidity (because that’s what a humane, respectful attitude is to them) even more. The only language they understand is violence. If you are bullied, protect and, if you can, defend yourself; never try to discuss. Minorities were silent and subdued for such a long time with good reason: because they knew that the more they held their heads up and did not hide what made them different, the more targets they offered for bullies. No one ought to go in hiding because he is queer or black or Jewish etc., but sometimes it’s unavoidable simply for self-protection. I am almost fifty years old and I have never witnessed a nasty person changing for the better. If anything, they became worse, because every time they got away, they felt more superior than before.

Particularly sly bullies will make their victims believe that they have changed, maybe even pulling off the role “I’m a victim myself”. Please, please, whether you belong to a group of minorities or not: don’t listen to them. Ever. Maybe they once were victims, but it turned them into arseholes, and now they are sunk too far in their own filth to care. Compassion is a good thing, but it should never go as far as to delude yourself, endure abuse and sympathize until you become an object for compassion yourself.

For instance, I like wearing dresses, cooking and sewing and looking after my household. Fifty years ago, that would have made me a pattern housewife; nowadays, feminists would either want to strangle me or at least have a good laugh at my expense. This just goes to show how short-sighted any kind of prejudice and bullying is. Any human being ought to follow its own nature with a healthy self-esteem, and esteem others as well. But with our today’s view of the world we are supposed to be not altruistic and respectful but “strong” so that “we will make our way in life” (i.e. feed capitalism in any way we can); and nothing can make you feel “strong” more easily than finding someone who is allegedly weaker and pick on him. We are expected to be “winners”, and the first thing winners need are “losers” to serve them as a foil. The pool from which to choose is large.

  4. Who Is Subject to Intolerance Can’t Be Intolerant… Really?

For many years of my life, I always found myself a supporter of someone who was ostracized for one reason or another.

A woman who had left her husband. (It was the early Eighties.) A gay man. A girl who had been harassed by being called ugly. A woman who had been abused sexually by a family member. A woman from East Germany (I live in the West and there are lots of prejudices.)

For the record: these persons were of different age, origin, upbringing, social status, intellectual level and character, and they did not know one another.

I knew and supported them for years, listening, loyal, supportive, interested in their problems and personal development. I never attacked or criticized them. And each and every one of them sooner or later accused me of “not understanding them” and “being prejudiced towards them”. In the case of the abused woman this was particularly unfair because I have been abused myself in my family, though psychically and not sexually. The divorced woman, my own mother, viciously accused me of lying and being in league with her ex-husband after I had been loyal only to her for entire decades.

It appears these people only were my “friends” as long as I told them what they wanted to hear. When I suffered, I was put off with “pull yourself together”. Like I had no problems, because the only people in the world having problems were them. Thank you very much. So, I was supposed to accept their growing insolence due to their being such poor victims, while from their point of view I deserved neither understanding nor respect.

Only recently, in the aftermath of the riots caused by the killing of George Floyd, I posted a comment on a video on youtube… guess what. I was immediately attacked by a black woman saying that my “stupid remark” just went to prove how a white person would never understand “things like these”. She had not even read my post carefully enough to understand what I actually wanted to say, she simply felt entitled to offend me.

I do not say that I dislike trans people or that they are bad, I’m sure there are as many good or bad people among them as anywhere. If someone says e.g. that though born with male organs they identify as female that is their very own affair. I must not like it or understand it. Tolerance means leaving other people alone to do as they please. Any person is “bad” only the moment they behave badly towards others; being different from the mainstream does not count.

But when I have to watch and read people nowadays defending trans or gays or blacks or some other minority, believing to be being open-minded or particularly noble and heroic by supporting them, all I can say is that I have been there and it did me no good. I won’t get caught up in another wave of “minority tolerance”: in my experience, it’s a waste of time. Many of those who now proudly burn their Harry Potter books and proclaim that they will no longer support the author, respectively that they “love Harry Potter but love trans people more” will make the experiences I made. Except they most probably won’t talk about that, because these experiences are so humiliating.

Minorities of any kind do not want to be supported, understood and defended by people who are not in their shoes: it hurts their personal pride. Which I can understand, although it’s a lame excuse for being mean to the very persons whom they expect help and support from. They will tend to envy the ones who do not have their problems due to being white / straight / cis etc., and consequently turn a blind eye to the fact that these can have huge problems of their own. Many of them expect their supporters not only to understand them but to support them enthusiastically at every turn, and if these don’t, (or if there is the slightest reason for them to assume that they don’t) these “victims” will feel entitled to be offended and become vicious aggressors, with a whole fan club behind them protecting their backs and convinced of promoting a honorable cause.

I am fed up with being tolerant. It seems you can hardly do anything anymore without offending someone: watching Disney movies or old classics, wearing a pink dress, calling a woman a woman instead of woman / trans / cis / non-binary etc. There is always someone who will point to these things saying why they’re not right.

I’m sorry but clichés, prejudices and stereotypes can’t be totally avoided: the human brain is not wired to know all facts about everything and everyone. What you can do is teach children and adolescents to be respectful towards everybody, even if they don’t like a particular person or group. Nobody has the right to force you to like everybody and to agree with every life style. But it seems the world has become full of people who seem to have nothing better to do but feel personally offended at the drop of a hat and make a fuss about how hurt their feelings are. Helping someone out who is in a difficult situation is not the same as catering to the keyed-up hysterics of some entitled brat. Seeing the difference between these two can be quite difficult because the latter often show their true face only after years and years, when they realize that for some reason or other, they can no longer squeeze you out for their personal benefit giving nothing back.

Who follows my account is aware that I did not like The Rise of Skywalker. Heaven knows I wrote enough about it. But I did not and will not harass the studios twittering, mailing, making youtube videos etc. ranting and raving about what rubbish it supposedly is for years, like the haters of The Last Jedi. Listening to them, one would think their whole reason for living had been destroyed on purpose. We most probably largely have to thank them for the Episode IX disaster, the flattest and most uninteresting Star Wars film ever made; not to mention the harassment the actress Kelly Marie Tran was subject to. Anyone has the right to dislike the development the authors chose for the saga, but for heaven’s sake: after all, it’s just a movie. If such a relatively insignificant thing can be hyped up like this, I don’t want to know what’s in store coming from people who feel offended for much more personal reasons, like race or gender.

Tolerance cannot be one-sided; it cannot mean that whatever one side wants does not have to be reasonable or useful, but they are entitled to scream and yell until the other side gives in. (If for no other reason than to satisfy them so they will finally shut it.)

  Conclusions (I did warn you…)

I. Hogwarts is not my world

Hogwarts is supposed to sound like a dream come true, but I never liked the idea of a “school” where pupils, who are still children and adolescents, are taught spells and engaged in games and tournaments where they have to risk life and limb. These facts are commonly overlooked, I guess, because “the heroes” usually don’t get hurt. The heroes overcome their traumata but do not get wiser from them, on the contrary: their suffering is supposed to make them seem nobler so that we will root for them more. Harry loses his parents before he could get to know them; his adoptive family mistreats him, but he doesn’t care about them; Cedric dies in his stead, but they were not close friends; Dumbledore dies when Harry was getting too old for a father figure; Snape dies, but Harry never liked him either. The list could go on. Harry always remains an innocent; he never gets to look into a metaphorical mirror where he has to see all of the bad that is inside of him, his darker sides are always projected and personified by someone else. (When he does look into a metaphorical mirror in the first book and movie, he finds out that the Philosopher’s stone is, magically, in his pocket. How convenient.)

I can’t invest emotionally in a fictional character who stands out before having earned or deserved it. Harry is like a Chosen One who skips the hero’s journey: from an abusive household, he is catapulted into a whole new world made of mystery and wonder, where he immediately is singled out, admired before he lifts a finger, unexplainably lucky, awed due to his heritage, envied by who is not as special as he. Harry remains untainted by own sins because other people do the dirty work for him; which seems ok because they are, for one reason or another, uncool - Dumbledore = old, Ron = weak / foolish, Hermione / Snape = unpleasant, his parents = dead, and so on. Yes, Harry sometimes makes mischief, but people usually cut him slack because of his past as an abused child, his parent’s tragic death, and his undefinable power that makes him resist the Evil One. The Dursleys, Snape and Draco don’t tolerate him, which is why they are coded as villains or at least very disagreeable characters. How do you recognize a villain in these stories? Simple, he’s being mean to Harry. Everybody else gives him special treatment because you don’t want to upset the person whom you expect to defeat the ultimate villain. I always found his character bland and uninteresting. We e.g. learned why Snape was so lonely and bitter, but not why Harry was so “good” although he had grown up unloved, in an abusive household, until he was eleven. 

For decades now Harry Potter fandoms and clubs gather all over the world proudly proclaiming that they are something really special and not like “them Muggles”. No wonder these stories are so popular with who feels misunderstood and downtrodden. Wouldn’t it be nice to be born with capacities ordinary people can’t even dream of? When maybe you’re just a common person, shocking thought. Nowadays, if you want to be someone outstanding, make it up in your mind and it automatically becomes true. And if you identify with the protagonist, you get to be a hero before you did anything special into the bargain. Harry is a victim of other person’s sins and / or blunders and his story is about unfolding the details of his victimhood and correcting them so he gets his happy ending. We are supposed to sympathize with this: well, I can’t. Victimhood and alleged inborn virtue are insufficient to make a protagonist “overcome his trials” and emerge triumphantly over his sidekicks or enemies, without any real loss on his side, while they get killed or, at best, ridiculed. And I will not pick up the part of that sidekick any more.

 II. Feminism Is Not My World

While I am an advocate for women’s independence, I do not identify as a feminist. I have an independent nature: that does not mean I am or should be ashamed of being a lady. This where we live is the era of the tomboys, of the feisty, cool, tough females. And often they don’t just go their own way but feel entitled to scorn women who do have their own job and live with a man who respects them, but also like the color pink, pretty clothes, flowers, romantic stories and everything else the new wave feminism likes to dismiss as “brainwashing”. Today you can hardly let your daughter watch a Disney movie without being accused of undermining her identity with false ideas about womanhood because, oh wonder, it seems a “real woman” must think and act like a badass guy.

Louder for the feminists in the back: you can actually look and behave in a way that is coded as “female” and be intelligent, independent and self-respecting. Women who went their own way have existed in every age and culture, often making great achievements and changing the world around them; they were intelligent, compassionate and took matters into their own hands. They did not proclaim that they unfairly were victims of men: they knew how to make men respect them. Being a woman is not a stereotype thrust upon you, it’s natural. If someone rejects qualities that are identified as “female”, it’s their very own affair. If I wanted to return the offense, I might as easily say that “feminists” and “empowered females” are just too smug to do the dishes.

 III. Trans, cis, binary etc. is not my world

For millennia, people had to accept the sex they were born with. Now you can have surgery and take hormones to get rid of a problem which you can’t solve on your own. Sorry, but I can’t get my head around it: to me the gender diversity discussion is unnatural. Good and right things are always the same, they cannot change with time and “scientifical / medical progress”. Tomboyish females and same-sex lovers are as old as the world, but it’s only a few decades since you can surgically have your sex changed if you feel uncomfortable with it, and even less time since you can claim the right to be both male and female or not to choose any sex at all. Excuse me, what’s behind it? Fear of missing out? I know, nowadays we are supposed to “change the stars”, but excuse me, it’s not possible. Rowling did not change the stars: as I wrote above, she got lucky.

I can say from own experience that for healthy growth a person needs limits. It is not “tolerant”, in my opinion, to say that one can be male or female or binary or none of that, all by choice. If I raise a child calling it a boy because he was born with male organs, or by Catholic standards because I am a Catholic myself, I believe no one has the right to say that I am intruding into its personality. I would be intolerant if said child would later come out to me e.g. as trans or atheist and I would dismiss its identification and opinion as a matter of principle, or disown it altogether. Rejecting rules and values is like pretending that it is wrong to be e.g. female, or straight, or that Catholic values are rubbish. None of that is true. It is true that a trans or gay or atheist or Buddhist etc. is not automatically an immoral or inferior person.

I can accept other people’s choices about their gender identification; that doesn’t mean I must like or support their mindset. It doesn’t automatically make me “transphobic”. If it is intrusive or intolerant to say that someone is male because he was born with male organs, what will come next? Will “normal” females no longer be entitled to protect their most intimate privacy because any guy can share our private space, like a public toilet or dress room, claiming he’s a woman (and he might well not be trans, but a lying voyeur?) Will we no longer give our children male or female names? Not teach them any values? No longer send them to kindergarten, to school, maybe not even feed or clothe them or furnish their nurseries according to our own judgement, because the poor babies can’t choose by themselves yet?

We all did not choose to be born in the first place.

If you want to protect your children from suffering, don’t have them: suffering is a part of life. Trans is not my world. I don’t want to destroy it or to behave rudely towards it; I simply do not want to have part in it. I want people to care for me, and to do so because I am me, not because I come out with this or another sexual orientation or make myself an advocate for people who belong to this or another minority.

All of the above is why I will not jump on the current “I defend minorities” respectively “I defend downtrodden victims” train. The good part is that I don’t have any Harry Potter book or merchandise I could burn anyway. 😊

Anyone who is uncomfortable with my point of view can unfollow me. Bullies will be blocked and reported without further ado. Greetings from a notorious Muggle.

[twen-nee7]

How Trump Changed My Dad

tw: racism & all the prejudices

Last weekend, I saw my father, and, for the first time in my life, I heard him say racist things about Chinese people. In fact, this was the first time I heard him say anything this openly racist at all, except against “reptilians who call themselves Jewish.”

This isn’t some story about us uniting after a long period of time and him being a racist. My dad has always been in my life, and I love him very much. This is a story about how he has changed since Trump became president.

This is pretty long, so get the rest under the cut!

TL;DR: My dad has had his worldview skewed so radically due to conspiracy theories that he thinks that everything Trump says is true, and that has become a seed for racist remarks and ideas that are in direct opposition to viewpoints he had even last year.

It is interesting, and tragic, to reflect upon what Trump’s presidency has done to my family-- or, well, I suppose, my father. Before I really begin to get into this story, I am in no way condoning is point of view in any sort of way or trying to make excuses for him, because he is a grown adult who can make his own decisions. That said, he is also incredibly gullible under the correct circumstances. Unfortunately, Trump has kind of become those “correct circumstances.”

Before I get completely into this, I’d like to give some backstory on who my father is, because I think that’s important to realizing how absolutely floored my sister and I were to hear him say racist shit about Chinese people.

My dad grew up in a Jehovah's Witness family. If you’re unfamiliar with that sect of Christianity, they are a cult. My grandfather was excommunicated from the church when my father was young, and my dad (and all his siblings and my grandmother and my grandfather’s parents and brothers-- you get it: the whole family) was forbidden with interacting with him. To interact with my grandfather-- my dad’s dad --was to meet the same fate. No Jehovah's Witness is allowed to talk to someone who was excommunicated.

Despite this absolutely bizarre-ass rule, children are allowed to communicate with these people, so long as they’re not a full part of the church. My dad and his siblings were just not able to speak with my grandfather because my grandmother (and the rest of the family) were not allowed to interact, not because they were fully a part of the church. Thankfully, my father avoided the ceremony that would make him a true Jehovah's Witness throughout his life, so I have been able to correspond with my family who are still a part of the cult due to this loophole. 

This loophole also made it possible for him to escape from an abusive situation with his step-father, and he moved in with my grandfather when he was thirteen.

I know this is exposition-heavy, but bear with me here. I want you guys to see the person I grew up with, not the guy that he is now, so you can understand why I am so confused and upset.

My dad is a fucking fantastic musician. He has so many good stories, but here are some highlights from his life:

* A close family friend who is a Native American taught him a lot about his culture. My dad likes to talk about how sacred nature is, and he also loves to talk about the very odd experience he had following the man’s meditation instructions. According to my father, he was teleported (in his mind) to a library where every book is the book of someone’s life. When the Librarian asked him if he wanted to read his book, he said no. This experience rattled him.

* He moved to the South Side of Chicago in the early 90s to chase his dream of music. He worked in a diner that was at an intersection where gang violence was common, and he lived even deeper south in the city than the diner. He recalls with horror what he saw, but he is quick to explain that there is a duality to people: people in gangs, he always likes to say, are just as human as the rest of us, and he always tells us he met “a kindness I never saw in anyone else,” in the people who came into his diner (especially the gang members).

* He also lived in Austin, Texas in the 90s, and played music with a band with an incredibly diverse background. He was on TV a few times (I imagine it was local, lol), and he loves to tell the story about the time that he ended up playing guitar at a Latinx club because he did a good job putting electricity into some guy’s house. He uses his story there to explain how to be humble-- he always tells us that everyone in the club was dancing to the salsa tune, then his dumbass had a guitar solo and he played the blues, which killed the vibe. “Always take in your surroundings.”

* When getting a tattoo, the tattoo artist mentioned in passing that a biker had paid her with his soul for a tattoo. My dad and his friend were drunk, and they bough the guy’s soul for $20 and planned to use it “to get big.” The next day, they were sitting at the table with this guy’s soul contract, and my dad said that something came over him-- “I knew that if I did what I wanted to do, I would get famous, but I also knew it wasn’t worth it.” He burned the contract. The karmatic repercussions of using some poor guy’s soul to become famous just isn’t worth it.

My father also taught me how to respect life. I lack empathy. I feel like I would have a much harder time with my life without my father’s patience in my earlier years. He taught me how to be socially appropriate in a way that wasn’t demeaning, unlike the rest of my family who berated me (and continue to do so) when I did something they viewed as wrong. One particular story sticks out:

When I was about nine or ten, we were camping with his side of the family. I caught a crawdad (crayfish for you non-Appalachian folk) out of the creek, and I was very curious what color it would turn if I boiled it. So, I did just that. 

I’m definitely not proud of that. 

My dad had always tried to explain to me the sanctity of life and how we shouldn’t just kill things prior to this, but that time he really seemed upset. He told me how disrespectful it was to the animal, and then told me to think about what it would be like to be boiled alive. He then told me I should at the very least eat the thing, which... I told my cousin to do because I am a picky eater.

That lesson definitely stuck with me more than, “Don’t kill spiders.” or, “Hunting for sport is wrong.”

Throughout my life, my father has been the level-headed one. He has been the one with useful life advice who actually knows how to have friends and talk to people. He has been the man I looked to to be socially appropriate and a “good person” because my mother has been chronically unable to keep any sort of friendly relationship for anyone longer than a year or two. She isn’t a very good social role model.

So, imagine my surprise last weekend hearing my dad talk about how much he hates the Chinese.

His basis? The time we went to California, and “they were way worse than the other drivers.”

I looked him dead in the eye and said, “Dad, everyone sucks at driving in California. It isn’t just Chinese people. White people can’t drive either.”

Now, I know he doesn’t hate Chinese people because of their driving. We went to California in 2004. He has never once mentioned a goddamn thing about Chinese people not being able to drive (or Chinese people in general regarding that trip), so it’s pretty fishy he would suddenly bring it up sixteen years later. 

This is especially odd since I’ve only ever heard him sing words of praise for Chinese immigrants, or, honestly, immigrants in general-- up until about a year ago, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

When my parents split-- and I know this may seem like another unnecessary deviation, but hold with me here --my dad’s obsession began. He moved in with his father, my grandfather, the man who hadn’t seen any of his family aside from my father and me for thirty years. My grandfather was a doomsday prepper. He owned something like 300 acres of land in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains down in what is known as a “Holler” here-- a small community of people who are very close to each other, live on the same road and are usually pretty friendly toward each other.

My grandfather also deeply believed in the corruption of the government, and how that would inevitably be the downfall of everything. While he wasn’t spouting anything about Hollow Earth or the sky actually being a projection, the man was distrustful of all things establishment. This kind of thought process definitely didn’t help my dad when he was going through a divorce, and I remember he really got into learning more about the 2012 Doomsday at the time.

To back up a bit, my parents have always been conspiracy theorists. My mom claims to have prophetic visions and that she is in contact with a Gray alien, which, yes, is probably just the schizophrenia, but my dad never questioned her and honestly, believed her. He was all about aliens and Area 51 and “Bush did 9/11″ when my parents were still together. He only got worse when he moved away, taking up the Doomsday stuff and digging deeper into 9/11, and then kept falling down this fucking abyss of a rabbit hole when he moved from my grandfather’s place into an apartment in the suburbs.

There, he didn’t have things to do after work. He didn’t need to attend to the horses. He didn’t have the hills to walk through. He had himself and oh dear god, man

The release of the first Assassin’s Creed was where the decline became noticeable. We bought the game, and the next time I saw him, he was telling me about the Knight’s Templar. As the years wore on, he only got worse. 

If you guys have seen the “Q Map,” that shit is all shit I can explain to you. Yes, I can tell you about the Draco-Reptilian Nazi Fleet, the Space War, and how Draco-Reptilian Nazis live in Hollow Earth. I can tell you how the Vatican relates back to the Knight’s Templar back to Moloch back to Egyptian Pharaohs back to Ishtar up to modern-day banks.

Look, I myself am gullible. I have the same kind of trait that makes me very paranoid and distrustful of people, especially authority.

My dad was spouting shit about “Kh****ian Jews” and how they were actually reptilian people (not real Jews!) who owned all the world’s banks and were trying to manipulate the populous into a One World Government, and, I’m sad to say, I believed it. Then, thank god I met my partner who shut down my bullshit really fast and has been a wonderful person to ground myself with.

(For those curious, my dad has asked for my partner’s bloodtype because they’re Jewish, and was visibly relieved when I told him it was B- instead of “an RH bloodtype” because that means that my partner is human... yeah.)

All that to say that I have an open mind. I’m willing to at least humor the idea of Nazis in Antarctica based on Admiral Byrd’s papers. Hell, I even humored my dad’s Flat Earth bullshit for a little bit, until I watched that Netflix documentary of Flat Earthers trying to prove the planet is flat, but only further proving it is round.  I’m totally willing to listen to alternate ideas, and I definitely find a lot of merit in many conspiracies.

This isn’t about aliens visiting Egypt or civilizations predating Sumeria, though, this is about my dad tripping on conservative conspiracy theorists and falling into a tailspin down the wrong fork in the trail.

This started with him listening to what he describes as “an underground conservative news channel.” He originally began being wary of the Democrats because he believed Hillary Clinton was a reptilian, but he originally was like, “Yeah, all politicians are these reptilians.” I honestly have no idea when that changed. The man didn’t even care all that much about politics until around the time of the 2016 election.

I’m assuming this is because Clinton was running, and he felt invested in not letting a reptilian become president? I swear, this man has a whole section of his brain dedicated to “Why The Cintons Are Bad,” and that only got worse as the 2016 stuff ramped up.

He started watching Alex Jones. I lived with him during this time, but I was going to college so I wasn’t home with him very often. I’d come home to the TV on Alex Jones practically foaming at the mouth every night and my dad asleep on the couch. Around this time, he started talking down to Democrats, which, hey, that’s fine, both parties in this country suck, and he honestly was interested in Bernie as a candidate.

He does still like Bernie, for the record. He even said this year that he wouldn’t mind Bernie as president.

The election rolled around; Trump got elected. Then, a lot of stuff happened.

* My dad was working for my uncle (his brother-in-law) and also renting from him. My uncle was barely paying him enough to live, so he decided to take his old job back.

* Shortly thereafter, my uncle sold the house my dad was living in. He didn’t even offer it to my dad. He fucking sold it under his nose. Not to mention, my dad was the one who put in all the flooring, bathrooms, wallpaper, etc into the house.

* My dad moved into a small farmhouse in the middle of a corn field. His old house was in a town, so he at least had interaction with other humans outside work. There are so few houses on the road he lives on that it doesn’t even have the ability to buy internet if he wanted to.

Living very much alone in the middle of a goddamn field has really impacted him.

My dad surrounds himself with what he believes to be unbiased news, but outright says are “underground conservative news outlets.” I mean, the majority of his time is spent listening to this fucking bullshit, playing old video games and jamming on the guitar.

Since the election, my dad has come to view Trump as an absolute force of good. He does admit that he does not like Trump as a person, and that he thinks that he’s honestly pretty gross, but he has been more-or-less brainwashed to believe that Trump is going to “save this country.”

Why?

* Trump is weeding out “the people the Clintons put in.”

* Trump is “going to make sure people who committed treason get what they deserve.” He points to John McCain and how Trump evidently tweeted something nine months before McCain died that eluded to the date?

* Those people who are committing treason are also part of a child trafficking ring and drink the blood of terrified children. I mean... maybe minus the blood drinking, but at least this one makes some sense, I guess.

* Trump is disbanding the Federal Reserve, which means that he is “taking the reptilians out of this country!” as well as putting the US dollar back onto the gold standard-- as if we have that much gold.

These were the original reasons why he liked Trump. He really thought, and continues to think, that the fucking orange in office has the best interest of America at heart just because he isn’t a politician. Anybody who ran for office who wasn’t a politician and got elected would have my dad’s praise, but it just happened to be Trump.

And what does that mean? It means my dad began by not agreeing with all Trump’s policies. It means my dad had a fucking brain, that he drew those conclusions himself with some aid of “”news”” (conspiracy) outlets.

But, because of the trust that he has put into this man, and the trust he has put into his “underground conservative news,” my father has allowed his perception of reality to become so incredibly skewed. For example:

* “Trump’s tweets are encoded by a quantum supercomputer to give news to the masses! Every misspelled word, random number and incorrectly capitalized letter means something, and it changes every time!”

* Dad says he doesn’t mind immigrants, but he constantly talks about how the people who want to get into America “aren’t actually struggling.” He pointed to something that happened in Mexico a little while ago and said that the people trying to get in weren’t starving, and he said that was all because they were a distraction hired by the Democrats to pull news from the trafficking of children over the border to contribute to the “adrenochrome market.” This is where some of his racist shit started.

* He believes all earthquakes in America in the last four years have been due to the Democrats “blowing up underground bunkers” to hide the fact that they are “conducing illegal human research.” He believes there is a whole world underground full of clones, and claims that ships docked on the West Coast exist there to help people that they take out of these underground cities. He also, of course, believes Trumpy-poo is the whole reason why “those poor people” are being liberated.

* According to him, there are Chinese tanks in the Amazon, and China is mounting an invasion on America. Believe it or not, this isn’t where he started talking shit about Chinese people.

* Trans* people do not exist. He also has become worryingly fixated on who he thinks is trans*? Literally any concert he sees on TV with a female lead singer becomes him pointing out “why that is actually a dude.” He’s also very fixated on “Michelle Obama is actually a man.” When we ask him why the hell that matters, he says it’s dishonest because “no man wants to be a woman.” Christ.

* On that note, he told me point-blank that women have more rights than men. I am AFAB. I fucking bluescreened.

* The BLM movement is just a way to deter from the election. The Democrats are busing in people to start riots and make cities shut down. “It isn’t a natural escalation of things to destroy your own neighborhood.” He also thinks the whole movement is shit beyond that because, “Everyone gets treated like shit by the police. I’ve been held down and beaten by a cop-- it’s just part of living in a city.” I... moving on

* “COVID-19 was created by the Chinese for the Democrats to skew the election.” He then points out all the sicknesses that broke out around other elections, like SARS and H1N1. This is where the sudden hatred of China comes from.

There is also just... so much more, but it is so incredibly tiring to try to think of all the things he tells me. Every time I look away to edit this anecdote, I remember more bullshit, so this is going to be the finalized list.

So, all-in-all, my dad went from being a very empathetic, compassionate man to having those traits used against him to believe that being racist is okay. My dad got sucked into politics because he was worried about the country being ran by reptilians, and now he believes that wearing a mask during a global pandemic is “unpatriotic” despite spending the majority of his life complaining about patriotism.

My sister and I try to set our dad straight. Any time he says something racist, we counter it the best we can, and it usually comes down to, “I’m not talking about all of them. I’m talking about the ones the Democrats paid off to do this stuff.” Unfortunately, there is no convincing him otherwise on that part, because if we try to show him anything regarding it, he deflects by saying that we got it from “a mainstream news source.”

I feel powerless as all hell because my dad has become something very distressing, and Trump / conspiracies are all he ever talks about.  I can only hope that his absolute bullshit “underground conservative news outlets” either get shut down so he has to look elsewhere or that he somehow finds some news source that he trusts that isn’t sucking Trump’s dick. I don’t know.

[infiniteglitterfall]

please help me name this march

I need to announce the second annual SF Bi+ March. That was the temporary title last year. I threw it together kind of hastily, out of my years-long need for there to BE a bi March.

But I don't want to call it that, long-term, because just putting a plus isn't really very inclusive of the pan, ply, omni, nonbinary, polyamorous, intersex, ace, aromantic, and just plain queer people I mean to include. In fact, it helps erase them.

I want there to be room for people to join because maybe they don't think of themselves as multi-spec, but their relationships are erased in the same ways and for the same reasons. I want it to be as obvious as possible to people that they belong. And a lot of that is going to require writing outreach materials, eventually, that make that clear.

But yeah. Just calling it the bi+ march, or even the M-Spec March or something, isn't gonna help with that. I want to build a really strong coalition, over time, that fits together all the forgotten and erased people, and works to educate people on why they might belong there and why they're welcome.

Also, I want to put together a website that shows people how to start one in their community. It's always bugged me that in SF we have what's always called "Gay Pride," we have "Dyke March," and now we have "Trans March," BUT the biggest chunk of the community doesn't have a march. And struggles to get visibility in the main one. And the smaller ones don't have the resources to start separate ones.

A LOT of activism is just telling people when and where to show up. This is scalable.

I think of us as liminal people. It's all the people who get erased, told they're basically straight, lumped in under "gay" and forgotten. So, Liminal March appeals to me. But liminal isn't a very accessible term.

Non-monosexual sort of covers it, but also makes monosexual the default. Also, it's boring.

SF BiCon phrases it as something like "people who are attracted to more or less than 1 gender." Which is true, but wordy.

I feel like the essential, central thing IS that it's non-binary stuff, though. It's like, it's a lot easier for people to grasp and support the nice, neat, binary genders and sexualities, than to introduce ideas like "well, these people don't fall in love, and these ones don't experience sexual attraction, and did you know that there are more than 2 genders, and people without a gender, and committed relationships that involve more than two people, and...."

But calling it non-binary will just make people think it's only for nonbinary trans people. That word is already taken!

Julia Serano has pointed out that "an alternative solution, taking a page from the LGBTQIA+ acronym, is to describe experientially bisexual folks as BMNOPPQ folks, where B = bisexual, M = multisexual, N = no label, O = omnisexual, P = pansexual, P = polysexual, and Q = experientially bisexual folks who primarily identify as queer (arranged alphabetically)." But as she also points out, that's clunky and confusing.

I heard it called "middle sexualities" the other day. I've never heard that one before, but it makes sense, and it has some of the same connotations as "liminal" does.

And "Middle March" is sort of cool, because Middlemarch is a thing. In fact, apparently its author (Mary Ann Evans writing as George Eliot) was Definitely Probably Queer, and the book has been made into a Definitely Extremely Queer web series. (I'll link it in the comments.)

Of course, we could go the other way and call it the Queer March, for everyone whose experiences are too complex to fit into that "gay (and trans)" thing we always get reduced to.

It still leaves people invisible. But at least then everyone is equally invisible, and all the content for the March has a reason to be pushing visibility of all these different identities. It's more "we're all boosting each other and fighting together" than "one group is supporting these others."

Or then there's the option of going totally oblique and calling it something like the Brenda Howard Memorial March. Since she was the bi, polyamorous, Jewish, leather, activist who's credited with being the "Mother of Pride."

I thought of "The Forgotten March" or "The Invisible March" too, because ultimately it ends up being all the people who get somehow forgotten in community activism.

TL;DR: somebody help me please! What strikes the best balance between "people in these groups knowing this March is for them, and "binary" outsiders at least knowing it's a Pride thing and being intrigued?

And down the road, if it became A Big Well-Known Thing and everyone now knew what it was all about -- and/or if we had seven new subgroups to fit in under it, that we can't even imagine now -- what name will still be useful and sound good?

Feel free to suggest other ideas and concerns, and to signal boost.

THANK YOU!

[thetreehousesystem]

The Challenges of Ethnic Ambiguity

While this isn’t a post about DID, it is about another important part of my identity; my ethnicity.

My father was born and raised in Syria with Syrian (and possibly some Turkish) descent. My mother was born in Australia to Egyptian parents, with a tiny bit of Turkish in her mix. I was born in Australia, moved to the U.A.E. when I was 7-8 yo , then returned to Australia when I was 13-14 yo. For those who don’t know, all three of these countries I’m descended from, but especially Egypt, are very ethnically diverse, which in turn means my physical appearance is very ethnically “different” and “confusing”. So when people see me, they feel the need to either force me into some guessing game about my ethnicity, make assumptions and treat me accordingly, or, in rare cases, actually ask me and get a mildly accurate answer. While in an ideal world, I wish people would just treat me as another human being, I don’t get that liberty with the way I look and the experiences I’ve had.

Just the other day, I was in an Uber with an Irish friend and we were chatting with the driver who turned out to be Afghani. We were talking about how the driver and I were both lactose intolerant, whereas my Irish friend was not, when I made the comment “only white people are not lactose intolerant”. The driver’s response was “But you’re white!” Right about now, y’all are probably thinking I’m crazy for getting annoyed about passing and being mistook for a white person, but the problem with passing means all your experiences with racism and otherness due to your ethnicity are completely disregarded as if they never happened, which is really damn offensive and hurtful.

That was one of the more innocent times I’ve been mistook for being white. There have been several occasions on which I’ve been blatantly told to my face that there’s no way I’ve ever experienced racism, because my skin is light. When in fact, the entire reason my family and I moved to the U.A.E. was because we were terrified of the backlash against Arabs and Muslims post-9/11. That’s right, I had to leave the country I was born in and grew up in because we felt so threatened. So, I guess I can’t really call Australia home, right?

So what about the U.A.E.? Well I certainly wasn’t welcomed there with open arms. Speaking the Syrian dialect of Arabic meant I was ridiculed every time I would speak Arabic in front of my peers, and having an Australian accent speaking English in a country full of people with American accents meant I was also ridiculed when speaking English, until I adopted the American accent.  Not to mention the times I was cornered by classmates to be called things like “foreigner” and “egg-head”, and sometimes even physically hurt and purposely left out of games and activities my classmates would engage in during our lunch breaks. So no, the U.A.E. certainly isn’t home.

Syria? I remember trying to get a haircut when visiting Syria once. My sister, who has very straight hair compared to mine, was given premium service; a perfect haircut, a blow dry afterwards, a cheap rate, and it was not a rush job. When the hairdressers got to my nappy ass hair, they didn’t quite know what to do, so they gave me a rush job with a shitty haircut and my uncle had to argue with them and pay them extra so they would actually finish the job. And buying clothes for me there was a nightmare because I’ve got the African bottom-heavy body shape. Plus, Arabs are very racist towards each other so the fact I was obviously not 100% Syrian meant I was treated as less than everywhere I went. So I don’t fit in in Syria either. And if I ever end up in Turkey, it’ll be more or less the same.

And then as for Egypt, I can’t speak the dialect, in fact I find it quite difficult to even understand, and my skin colour is far too light for me to appear Egyptian and fit into their society. And Egypt is a pretty dangerous place for foreigners right now. So where do I fit in? Where do ethnically ‘different’ looking people fit in this world? I feel like a god damn Chameleon at this point, constantly changing how I present depending on the ethnicity of the people around me. I’ll speak Arabic, keep my distance from men, and feign what Arabs like to call ‘modesty’ if I’m surrounded by Arabs to prove my Arabness. I’ll shade white people when I’m with my indigenous or black friends to prove my non-whiteness (although I’m also non-stop dissing white people in my head too). And I step up my whiteness, vocabulary, Aussie slang, and enthusiasm for ‘intellectual conversation and debates’ around white folks so I come across as educated, intelligent, and sophisticated enough to live amongst them in their white country. In all honesty, I love having intellectual debates and enjoy giving my Arabic a spin on the rare occasion that I can, but I can only handle so much debating with white people about shit they don’t know and speaking a language I barely remember. I actually feel the least like a fish out of water when I’m spending time with my African Australian and/or my Indigenous Australian friends, but even then I don’t feel truly 100% accepted. I actually kind of feel like an impostor.

I know this is going to be read by a bunch of people who do fit neatly into a certain ethnicity or race and be told that I’m being too sensitive or that there are so many people who are worse off or something else completely dismissive, but therein lies the issue. I am very aware that people of other minority races experience things I will never have to, but that doesn’t make any of my experiences any less valid. Also, the examples I’ve used here are very PG compared to most of the racist encounters I’ve had. I’ve had a group of white boys drive past me and scream out the window “what the fuck is that?” at me. I’ve had neo-nazis try to get me fired from the first club I worked at because they had decided I was Jewish because I’ve got a big nose (which actually looks a lot more African than Jewish tbh). I had to be escorted out of the club by security early that night because those same boys began bordering on violent and their bullshit kept escalating (and no, I wasn’t recompensed for the rest of the shift). I’ve been consistently mocked about my body shape, called all sorts of fat slurs, even starved with the intention of making me lose weight, by the Syrian side of my family ever since I started going through puberty. All because I don’t fit into their idea of an attractive body because I have curves, a fat ass, and thick thighs. And by the way, that has lead to some serious body dysmorphia because even when I do lose weight, my body shape/ proportions stay the same and I’ve been programmed to see that as fat. I was strip searched at the airport when I was 13 coming back to Australia from Dubai, and I’ve never been to an airport since and not been screened for explosives (random my fat ass). But all that considered, the hardest part of all these experiences is that no matter where I am or where I go, I’m literally always having to fight for a place in this world and the reality is that I just don’t neatly fit anywhere. And that leaves a person feeling extremely disenfranchised, discouraged, left out, alone, unaccepted, misunderstood, misplaced, and perpetually lost, a big part of why I tend to seclude and isolate myself from even my closest friends. So I suppose the take away from this is if any of y’all have ethnically ambiguous friends, do not assume their ethnicity. Ask, then accept. And be mindful that because we’ve never had a strong sense of belonging, we’ll likely try to assimilate into whatever your culture is and that’s a very uncomfortable process. So try to be conscious of at least the basics of their culture, whatever parts they’ve chosen to hold onto, and be inclusive with that knowledge in mind. I also want to say, before someone kicks up a shitstorm, that I don’t HATE white people. I just find a very large number of them to be annoying, naive, willingly ignorant, obnoxious, privileged, and superficial. And if you get defensive over that statement, you are one of those white people I just described.

[jewish-education]

Hi :) I grew up in a Roman Catholic household, went to very strongly catholic schools from 4-18 years old, and up until a few years ago identified as catholic. Now I'm starting to return to religion after a rough period in my life I'm finding the more I learn about Judaism the more it seems to fit with how I truly feel about religion and my personal religious beliefs. Do you have any recommendations for good books/videos/websites to learn more about Judaism as an adult? :)

Hello anon,

I’m glad you’re looking to learn more before making any kind of commitment to Judaism. I hope you also considered other branches of Christianity, and non-Christian religions outside Judaism. But I’m going to assume you’ve already done that. Also, a lot of these resources are great for non-Jews just looking to know about Judaism out of curiosity or to support Jewish folks in their lives.

I’m not the best person to ask for basic adult resources since I came into adulthood knowing the ABCs of Judaism (admittedly, not much more). There are lots of blogs run by converts and conversion students that might know more about this learning process. @jewishconvertthings and @soyouwannaconverttojudaism are blogs run by folks who converted or are undergoing conversion and have specialized in answering these questions. But let’s see what I can do.

Books

It makes a lot of sense to acquire/buy/borrow (I bet your library has at least one) an intro to Judaism or basics of Judaism-type book. If you reach out to a local rabbi (even just asking because you’re “curious and want to learn more about Judaism”) they could probably give a good recommendation (that might handily be the same as whatever book they would recommend/require if you decided to formally pursue conversion). 

If you aren’t ready to reach out to a rabbi, then there a whole bunch of book recommendations, posts, and masterposts you can look through to pick out a good one. Since you aren’t getting a book for a specific conversion class, pick one with an emphasis that interests you.

A resources list by @keshetchai. The books on here are more intro to conversion than intro to Judaism, but all the resources I know of from here are great.

Some recommendations by @soyouwannaconverttojudaism including a free pdf of an intro book.

A book list by @gerintraining. Again, every book I know of on here is great.

If you’re looking for even more, @keshetchai compiled a list on another blog of hers of pretty much every Jewish everything on the internet (only a slight exaggeration).

If you’re overwhelmed by those lists, I’m inclined to recommend Essential Judaism by George Robinson. Admittedly I’m still working on getting a copy to read through (been saying that for months lol and have made really good. If you do reach a point where you know you want to convert, Choosing A Jewish Life by Anita Diamant is great!

Internet resources

In terms of internet resources, I can be a little more definitive. When I’m confused about something or am looking to explain it to someone else, I tend to look on MyJewishLearning or sometimes BimBam (if I’ve lucked out and they have a video). 

MyJewishLearning has an article on just about everything, and all of its content (that I’ve seen) is written for an adult audience with the assumption of little to no prior knowledge. MyJewishLearning is pretty pluralistic. 

BimBam is a Youtube channel that produces content for both children and adults. BimBam is non-denominational and provides accurate, high quality information, but I would say it’s non-Orthodox in the norms it presents. For adults, BimBam has great information on topics like holidays, Torah portions (though some of their Torah portion videos are really kid-geared), life-cycle events, and even Jewish ethics. I find BimBam is especially expansive and helpful for prayers (or songs!) where it’s helpful to learn pronunciations alongside meanings and significances. I know you aren’t at the learning prayers stage right now…but keep it in mind if you do get there.

Besides those two, you might also want to check out the websites of Chabad and Reform Judaism (especially if you’re interested in either). Look into both movements from an outside perspective to get a little background before poking around their websites (they’re both in MyJewishLearning’s denominational guide; read “Reform” for Reform, and “Haredi (or Ultra) Orthodox: Hasidic” for Chabad and consider reading the linked article on Chabad)

Best of luck and I wish you a good and meaningful journey. Feel free to keep in touch!

[sayitwithsarcophilus]

Who wants to hear about my disaster OC metal band?

Well, you’re going to.  Meet Maenad!

Alani Manuka: Lead vocals, and the main lyricist.  A statuesque, raven-haired Samoan-American Valkyrie, known for her imposing stage presence, four-octave contralto vocal range (not counting screams and death growls), side gig as a voice actress (most notably Pounamu in Steven Universe and Aghra the Irate in World of Warcraft), and being a big dork off-stage.  Showbiz is in Alani’s blood - her father is a retired pro wrestler turned actor who specializes in Giant Mook roles in made-for-TV movies.  (It’s a living.)  Possibly the largest contributor to the band’s Weirdness Magnet tendencies, since odd stuff tended to happen at her shows even during her Florida death metal days.  (But then again, this was Florida.)  Refuses to be 'shopped for photoshoots because she doesn’t want to contribute to unrealistic standards for women.  Her non-musical interests include sailing, fantasy gaming (favorite race: half-orcs), indie perfume, swords, and cat rescue.  She dislikes dieting and Brutalist architecture.

Lilja Lindgren: Lead guitar.  A trans Swedish guitar prodigy who threw herself into music to escape an unhappy home life and didn’t come up for air until years later, and as a result, technically brilliant but a bit lacking in practical life skills and comes across as kind of an under-informed ditz in interviews.  Smarter than her public image would suggest, but values her privacy and would rather be thought of as “guitar-savant Barbie” by the fanbase than spill her guts to some journalist.  Used to be in a Silmarillion-themed power metal band back in Sweden.  Speaks excellent English but her accent is terrible.  Fastidious and perfectionistic, but only in specific areas - there are whole fields of human endeavor Lilja doesn’t care enough about to be invested in getting it right the first time.  Vanatru pagan.  Hapless in the kitchen.  Voted “Best Hair in Metal” by some internet poll for four years straight.  World’s most catlike dog person (specifically, sighthounds).  

Azalea Hawthorne: Drums, misc percussion, various oddball one-shot instruments.  A Black American musical polymath who got her start as the lead singer and guitarist for a feminist post-punk band in Washington State in the mid-late nineties.  The best-educated of the band (after her first band broke up and the issues with their record label finally got sorted out, Azalea had a big chunk of money and a lot of free time for the first time in her life, so she decided to go to college), as well as the nerdiest.  Usually pretty chill, but gets testy at people who talk like all vegetarians are rich white westerners or confuse her with either Iggy Azalea or Azealia Banks.  Once accidentally sicced a twitter mob on Ryan Murphy after snarking on social media about American Horror Story’s inaccurate portrayal of Legba.  Makes her own loc butter.  Anime fan, does less voice acting than Alani but has bit parts in a few English-language dubs.  Pretty open about her issues - under the logic that whatever she doesn’t talk about, the gossip sites will just make up something worse anyway so she might as well be honest - including her emotional troubles and how she self-medicated them.  She’s not currently into anything stronger than tequila and high-CBD cannabis, but the media like to exaggerate this to the point you’d think she was Raoul Duke with a twist-out.  

Dib Song: rhythm guitar.  Tiny but fierce second-generation Hmong American who got her start in turn-of-the-millennium California metalcore, which does not endear her to some genre purists in the fanbase - not that Dib gives a fuck.  Her particular brand of abrasive ebullience has survived a lot worse.  Dib and Lilja have a sort of squabbling quasi-sibling relationship - Lilja can be condescending and overbearing toward Dib, and Dib gives Lilja a lot of crap for her fussiness, but they’ll both leap to the other’s defense against outside threats.  Enjoys Spectacle Fighter-style video games, weird low-budget horror movies, spicy food, Chuck Tingle novels, and trolling the fanbase on the band’s official messageboards.  Dislikes: shaving her legs, boredom.  Has a pet tarantula named Shelob.  Might be genderfluid?  Definitely enjoys exploring masculinity.  

Dafna Oliveira: bass, keyboards.  (Actually Maenad’s second bassist - the first retired for health reasons shortly after the release of their first album.)  The moe one - very popular with young girls and grown men who kink on quasi-wholesome cuteness.  The youngest member of the band (although only a few months younger than Dib), and the only one for whom Maenad is her first “real” band (although Dafna had plenty of amateur musical experience.)   Many members of the fanbase assume that her “gently creepifying space cadet wood nymph” shtick is some kind of stage persona, but Dafna is, in fact, Like That.  Scary when she gets angry - not that she’s violent or anything, but the contrast between “hippie Disney forest princess” and “disturbingly specific threats involving aconite or box jellyfish” is disconcerting.  Animal lover, monster enthusiast, Jewish, vegetarian, avid crafter, and a pretty competent forager.  Has a few side projects, both considerably musically softer than Maenad’s work - some pretty-but-spooky dark ambient material she’s worked on with Azalea, a jokey garage-punk duo with Dib that mostly produces the musical equivalent of shitposts, and a folk-influenced solo project featuring a lot of songs about sea monsters.

[rotten-zucchinis]

Reflections on (my) embodied queerness-- Part 2: confounding queer family members

This is part 2 of a 3-part reflection about some aspects of my own embodied queerness. 

TLDR: This part is about some misunderstandings I’ve had with my lesbian mother and bisexual sister at various points in time, about my queerness. And how experiences of things like homophobia don’t divide up neatly by “identity labels” (or experiences of attraction for that matter). Note: the experiences and reactions of my mother and sister aren’t representative of all lesbians or all bisexual women (or people!)-- I’m talking about them because they’re people in my life, and the whole point is that there *isn’t* a single lesbian, bi and/or asexual experience.

Part 1: Homophobia doesn’t care about “identity” or “attraction” [here]

Part 3: People reading me unpredictably... or as Shaggy from Scooby Doo? [here]

More than a decade ago now, when I first tried to come out to my mother as asexual, she didn’t believe me because I was “obviously queer”. (I’ve written about that more [here].) It took a good while but she now accepts me as both. I think a part of that was her coming to fully accept that I’m still queer, even while I’m also asexual. Coming out as asexual didn’t mean I wasn’t queer and it make me *less* queer. She’s queer too-- she’s a lesbian (she uses both words). She struggled a little to understand that my “queer” is different from hers. 

In some ways she still struggles to understand my queer because my queer life doesn’t look a thing like hers. Her queer life fits neatly into homonormative ideals-- she’s monogamously married to her wife and they’re raising now-teen children. Mine does not. And even after so many years, my mother is still struggling to recognise the important relationships in my life... But at least she’s trying.

Time-skip: A few years back, my gender-conforming bisexual sister (who was just barely coming to a bi / non-hetero identity at the time as she was starting to experience attraction to women for the first time) told me that she’s more “queer” than me and has more of a right to access “queer spaces” than I do *because* she’s had sex with a woman and I haven’t. This conversation came up initially in reference to a particular queer space that she was also claiming was more for her than it was for me (though neither of us ended up participating in it).

It didn’t matter to her that the particular queer space in question was aiming to prioritise trans and/or non-binary folks (like me, and unlike her). And it didn’t matter that I grew up facing all sorts of homophobic bullying in high school (some of which I’ve written about [here] ) ; that I’d been involved in queer spaces for many years, including as a facilitator for a queer youth group; that I’d had long-term intimate partnerships with women and non-binary people (i.e., non-romantic and non-sexual-- QP ones-- which are valid and “still count” as “real relationships”, whatever that means)... Whereas she’d never done any of those things. In her view, she was still more “legitimately queer” and should have “more legitimate access to queer spaces” than me because she’d had sex with a woman once and I hadn’t (and still haven’t).[1] (Incidentally, the space that prompted the discussion was also specifically a Jewish queer space and she recognises that I’m a whole lot more Jewish than she is, but that apparently didn’t matter either.)

I find the criterion of sexual contact to be a particularly strange ticket into queerness. For one thing, does that mean that people who haven’t had sex with anyone don’t belong anywhere? More importantly, it’s private (i.e., the sex itself, though not necessarily the relationship context in which it takes place). But it is something easy to grasp onto or name, and something very specifically tied to a long history of oppression. It just doesn’t work here, in this very different context

Time-skip: The other day, my sister (who is still very new to the world of dating people who aren’t men and who is still coming into a bisexual identity) learned that homophobia still exists. And she brought this up with me, assuming that I wouldn’t already know about it-- apparently since I’m not out there holding anyone’s hand or anything.

Her: “I wanted to tell you something: casual homophobia sill exists! I was on the subway, holding [ partner ]’s hand and people were actually glaring at us!

Me: “Yes, I am quite familiar with the casual homophobia.

Her: “Oh.” [confused] “Well I had no idea.”

Me [thinking quietly to myself]: “Yeah, I know.”

I experience casual homophobia every time I’m out in public. I don’t think I’ve been on the subway in my entire adult life without having someone glare at me, or hold their children a little closer to keep them away from me... I’m not often  out in the world like that with my sister. She hasn’t had many occasions to notice how people look at me first-hand, and hasn’t been ready to understand the kinds of (negative) attention I do garner when she’s seen it. It’s not that I’d never told her-- I had-- but she wasn’t in a position to understand. Not until she experienced it herself.

One of the biggest differences between my sister’s emerging “queer” and my own “queer” is that while hers *can* be private if she wants it to be, mine can’t: mine is publicly visible even when I’m alone. So I face a lot of casual resistance to mine that she doesn’t-- at least at this point in her life. (My queer is also anti-assimilationst and non-homonormative, and while I don’t think that’s a coincidence, that’s also another story.)

The experiences people have facing things like homophobia (or heterosexism or cissexism or transphobia, etc.) out in the world don’t divide up neatly according to “identity”. Asexual people (and aces more generally) are diverse and have a wide range of experiences. Bisexual people are diverse and have a wide range of experiences. Lesbians are diverse and have a wide range of experiences. There are elements of shared experience and solidarity among these identities, but even so, individuals’ personal experiences can vary greatly.

In order to understand the pragmatic realities queer (or otherwise LGBT+) people face in our lives, it’s not enough to understand our queer (or otherwise LGBT+) “identities” or “experiences of attraction”. There needs to be an understanding of how these things are embodied as we move through and interface with the world. And no identity label or string of labels can communicate that on its own.

[1]  The one sexual experience my sister was referencing, by her own description, was in the context of a 3-some involving her, a man she was dating at the time and another woman she was not. While such situations can absolutely be queer, they’re also situations that some heterosexual women sometimes participate in for “non-queer” reasons... So I find that a particularly odd choice of “proof” for someone to deploy in an effort to police “queer legitimacy” based on “same-gender sex”. But then, I don’t believe in a regulatory hierarchy of queer legitimacy based on sex (or anything else), so I’m no expert on where types of sexual experiences should be placed within one. 

Maybe she wasn’t actually trying to talk about the sex per se, but was instead perhaps trying to tap into some “queer” feelings she had about the experience  that made her “legitimately queer”-- feelings that she couldn’t quite express at the time. Even still, that’s not where she went with that in the conversation. And she couldn’t understand the impact because she didn’t really understand how or why I was (and still am) queer or the homophobia I’d been experiencing for so many years.

[marcjampole]

Why some left-leaners like charter schools & why they shouldn’t. It comes down to confusing Alinsky & Friedman

Whenever I contemplate the fact that many leftists and left-leaning centrists believe charter schools are a good idea, I am reminded of Reinhold Niebuhr’s premise in The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness that it is not the evil children of darkness who cause most of the world’s problems, but foolish, misguided or uneducated children of light, i.e., well-intentioned good people.

Make no mistake about it, from day one the charter school movement has been a darling of contemporary children of darkness, very wealthy families seeking to lower their taxes or make more money by privatizing public schools and the right-wing ideologues who support them. People like the DeVoses, the Princes, the Anschutzes, the Bradleys, the Kochs. I think you get the idea—the selfish ultra wealthy, as dark a group of people as the average leftist or lean-leaner could imagine. These are the people who originally funded the charter school idea, set up think tanks and grass roots associations to campaign for charter school funding and got public relations agencies to make sure the mainstream news media thought this failed idea was more successful than it actually was. These people know in their greedy little hearts that the charter school idea is the big right-wing lie in education policy discussions, similar to the big lies in other important policy areas, such as climate change denial, intelligent design, voter fraud claims, abstinence only training, budget deficit panics and the idea that lowering taxes on the wealthy stimulates the economy. All are discounted ideas of America’s children of darkness that persist and, in the case of charter schools are thriving, in practice and public discussion.

One reason more charter schools are popping up around the country despite their widespread failures and scandals is because of support from well-intended children of light, including a good number of left-leaning centrists and leftists, such as President Obama, Hillary and President Bill, Andrew Cuomo, Howard Dean and Marian Wright Edelman. A survey by Stanford’s Hoover Institute found that 58% of Democrats liked charter schools in 2016.

The advocacy of charter schools by left-leaning politicians can’t be because of charter school performance, since studies show that the students in more than 70% of all charter schools across the country perform at lower or the same level as the students in the competing public school, 31% performing worse. Many of the approximately 29% of charter schools whose students manage to do better than those in their public school alternative have fixed the game. They discourage kids with disabilities from applying or weed out students who are less successful; for example, one Arizona charter school that U.S. News & World Report placed in the top 10 of all high schools across the country starts with 125 students in sixth grade but has a mere 21 in the graduating class. The administration presumably weeded out low performers, who then returned to their traditional public school, artificially raising the performance of the charter school and lowering the performance of the traditional public school. Improvement at a mere 29% of schools, up from a miniscule 17% in 2009, makes charter schools a failure. Only ideologues who prefer to create their own reality would continue a program that fails to work 71% of the time and actually makes things worse about a third of the time. On top of all that, it turns out that charter schools are more segregated than regular public schools. I have an article in the autumn issue of Jewish Currents that goes into greater detail on the disadvantages of charter schools and other right-wing educational reforms such as cyber schools and school vouchers, but I think you get the idea: charter schools are bad.

I can understand why many desperate parents of modest or little means with children in schools of few resources in poor districts might be attracted to the line of bull professed by charter school operators, many of whom are for-profit companies whose investors will make their dough by spending less on the children and lowering compensation for their teachers. Just like subprime mortgages, payday loans and for-profit vocational schools, charter schools target the most vulnerable and sell them a bill of goods.

But what about sophisticated left-leaners, policy wonks like the Clintons and Obama? I think there are three reasons so many mainstreamers seem comfortable with charter schools: First, out of respect for minority communities among whom they think there is a lot of support for charter schools, mainly because the mainstream news media and charter school lobbyists tell them so. In point of fact, there is an organization that purports to represent African-Americans who like charter schools, called the Black Alliance for Educational Options, but it receives most of its support from the ultra-right, ultra-white Bradley Foundation. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Movement for Black Lives, an umbrella group for 50 organizations, have come out vehemently against charter schools.

Secondly, embracing charter schools is part of centrist Democrats’ slow dance away from unions. It’s not that Democrats don’t like unions, it’s that they don’t think about them as a central part of their core constituency anymore. Union issues have become an afterthought. Centrist Dems don’t consider the impact on unions when deciding how to shape policies, in or out of power; e.g., NAFTA. When unions protested that the impetus behind charter schools was to kill public school unions and thereby lower teachers’ salaries, the centrists probably thought it was more union obstructionism, or perhaps veiled racism since charter school folks were falsely touting how minorities could take hold of and thereby improve their children’s education. Maybe they have vague memories of accusations of union racism that marred the first controversy over locally controlled schools, in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville section of Brooklyn in 1968, long before conservative billionaires started funding the charter school movement. On the one hand, who can blame the centrists Dems, given that so many union members abandoned the Democrats for Trump? On the other hand, it’s inconceivable to imagine a progressive movement or a large middle class in this country without a vibrant, large and politically active union workforce.

The last reason is the most subtle, and perhaps the most important. Leftists and left-leaners who have supported charter schools look at its superficial features and see the model for community organizing advocated by the sainted Saul Alinsky. In his Rules for Radicals and elsewhere, community organizer Saul Alinsky proposed to effect progressive change and empower people by organizing them around existing community organizations or symbols for direct nonviolent action against a well-known (“useful”) enemy. The Alinsky model asks the community itself to determine the precise goal of the organizing.

That does seem a lot like charter schools, doesn’t it? The existing organization or symbol is the public school. The community as represented by the school’s board of directors—all community members and parents at the school—determine the goals. The enemy is the public school/union bureaucracy. The nonviolent direct action is to take over the school. The empowerment results when the community has more control over how its children are educated.

No wonder charter schools excited sixties and seventies radicals turned establishment types like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It sure does sound like solid gold Alinsky.

But it’s not even cheap brass plating. It’s an illusion. Underneath the radical left exterior, the operation of a charter school is a conveyance for privatization by which control of all decisions rests in the hands of private businesses, either for-profit companies or non-profit companies whose administrators make big bucks. Since state and national standards drive virtually all curriculum decisions, virtually all the decisions the community boards make come early and involve window-dressing, e.g., make it a Spanish-language school or mandate uniforms. The board can’t dictate that the school not teach evolution or teach that the South won the Civil War. The board can’t restrict minorities or those with handicaps from attending the school, although the for-profit school administration has been known to do so by where they market the school and what they require of applicants. Maybe that’s why charter schools are more segregated than traditional public schools.

Everything else is driven by the administration installed by the charter school operator with whom the community board has contracted. Like many boards of directors in the private sector, the community board becomes a rubber stamp for the senior management. As long as the operator fulfills the terms of the contract, it can pretty much do what it likes. And that almost always involves hiring less experienced teachers and fewer certified teachers, nonunion in most cases, paying them less, and providing them with fewer professional development opportunities. Cut and take profit. It’s how government privatizers make a living, be it in education, prisons or the military, and it’s central to the crony capitalism practiced by the contemporary Republican Party.

In a sense, much like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, the charter school movement is Milton Friedman masquerading as Saul Alinsky.

Charter schools have proven to be a failure. It’s time to move on, to shut down all existing charter schools and reintegrate those schools and the students in them, into their traditional public school district.

But ending a school-reform-gone-bad is not enough. We also have to address what made the charter school attractive in the first place—not the racism, but the lack of resources in public schools. We need to invest in more teachers in elementary schools, where it is well-established in the real world that smaller classes are better for the students. We need to buy schools more computers, updated non-Texas-vetted text books, more enrichment such as music and art materials and teachers, equipment and supplies for special magnet schools and other resources that public schools now lack in many areas. It might be helpful to tax rich school districts statewide to support poor school districts, to in a sense, mandate equity in public education.

There are lots of things we can do to improve our public schools and make sure that every student gets the best and most appropriate education. Virtually all of these ideas involve increasing spending. The only thing that will really help our education system that doesn’t involve spending more money is to end all charter schools.

[jennyschectersghost]

What do you think about the March for Racial Justice being on Kippur?

...Yom Kippur, you mean? I think I have no idea what to make of this question from an anon, to be frank. And I'm sorry I've been sitting on it for so long. But I haven't had the time or energy, honestly. I mean, my dash was flooded with every angle of Discourse about this the other day, and it was mostly...Bad. Very Bad.

Like...I'm a non-black Jew. And I didn't wanna get too involved in a conversation that I'd think should have been led by Black Jews, ya know, and centered around their voices. There were a couple of Black Jews who expressed feeling deeply conflicted, and I can understand where they were coming from.

But I do feel, um, sad and embarrassed about the truly insensitive comments that some fellow non-black Jews made. Yikes. Like the casual comments about how it "could just be moved" or whatever, those were not okay. That was shitty. Jewish or not, Black people have every right to commemorate their murdered ancestors on the specific date they were murdered (or within the specific dates, as we all should in this country). I mean, especially as Jews, I'd think we should definitely understand and respect the value of that kind of commemoration.

And in a country built on the backs of Black slaves, where Black people are *currently* gunned down by police officers for no discernible reason, murdered in cold blood, it makes sense for a racial justice march to be scheduled on the anniversary of a state-sanctioned, anti-Black mass murder. It's a meaningful date, it wasn't picked arbitrarily and it certainly wasn't picked with the intention of excluding observant Jews.

At the same time, in even attempting to discuss the whole mess that unfolded here on tungle dot hell, I think it's also worth acknowledging that Jews for the most part are:

1. possibly extra On Guard and Reactionary right now (I know I am, lol, though I try to keep myself in check) and

2. honestly just flat-out used to having the ways in which white supremacy *can* affect (all of) us entirely ignored, casually overlooked or actively denied. By everyone. So that's almost become the expectation amongst a lot of us, I think.

And I guess there was some confusion about what this march is intended to be. I mean, people seemed to be assuming that it's meant to encompass broader issues of racial justice (and it totally is, as it turns out, but I'll get to that in a minute), or that it might even be a response to what happened in Charlottesville somehow (and it's not or wasn't intended to be anyway, though the organizers have acknowledged the relevance of recent events).

None of this is an excuse for insensitivity or any kind of anti-blackness, of course, especially not the confusion; it just goes to show you the importance of really looking into what it is you're even talking about in the first place, which all of us here on Tumblr seem to struggle with at one point or another, to varying degrees...lol... (I mean, I know I've done this once or twice in the past, like I've just been under the wrong impression in some way due to not really looking into the details beyond maybe reading some unsourced Tumblr posts or, like, maybe skimming one article...and I see it happen all the time.)

Because a lot of the ways in which this can be viewed really do depend on the context of intention. I mean, if the march was being organized *primarily* to commemorate the victims of the Elaine Massacre, to honor Black resistance during 1919 and to focus on contemporary Black issues specifically, then *any* commentary from non-black Jewish folks about our feelings regarding the date being on Yom Kippur would be, um, 100% uncalled for and 100% inappropriate for certain, even the commentary that wasn't particularly insensitive or crass. If the March *is* also meant to address racial justice in a much broader sense, however, then I do think these kinds of concerns are valid and should be voiced respectfully.

Just based on the statement released by its organizers, the march is in fact meant to encompass broader issues of racial justice! But! We should still keep in mind that it began as a response to the lack of justice for Philando Castile's murder, which was an act of anti-black police brutality---and given that fact, and given the fact that we live in a country where Black people generally can be murdered by law enforcement at any given time (often without the murderous law enforcement officers even being properly held accountable), and given the way Black people have been treated in this country literally since its inception right up to the present day---I think it still makes sense to center Black people in this kind of thing, you know, in a march for racial justice that does aim to include broader issues of racial justice as well.

And imho, their statement was very thoughtful. And insightful! The concern wasn't just brushed off; it was recognized. I don't know about anyone else, but seeing that meant a lot to me. I mean, I thought the organizers handled this really well, and they have my full support.

There are a number of reasons why I couldn't attend even if it wasn't on Yom Kippur (mainly that I'm nowhere near D.C., wouldn't be able to get there anytime soon and have two tiny people to worry about), but I will definitely be making some space to think of all the lives that were lost. And I will definitely be making some space to think of everyone who'll be marching, and I will definitely be making some space to pray for their safety.

[catcomixzstudios]

How To Life Chapter 40 - Judaism

The Abrahamic Quartet Part I: Kill It Until It Gets Better

Man, I REALLY hope you end up liking the stories from this one, because at least three other chapters won’t be shutting the fuck up about how good this one is.

Welcome to part one of the story about the God of Abraham. This is all part of what is known as the Old Testament. The people who follow it today are called Jews, though they may also be referred to by several slurs as well because humans are pricks like that.

I have alot of issues with the faiths that sprung from Judaism, but I find this one itself nice overall. Generally speaking, Jewish people (whether devout followers or just culturally so) are pretty kind and laid back individuals. You probably won’t see any going door to door trying to convince you to join their faith. But the mostly calm nature of the people in the faith is almost baffling considering the God of it is completely and utterly psychotic.

As usual, let’s start from the beginning. God came and created the universe, planets, stars, and everything else in the span of a week (he takes a day off because even God needs a tiny vacation from all that). He got pretty proud of a certain place, the Garden of Eden. He creates two humans named Adam and Eve. God told them to have a good time and all that, but to NOT eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. I assume that Adam and Eve had roughly the intelligence of squirrels, so that goes about as well as expected.

Later, a talking snake comes down from the tree and offers Eve an apple from it. Since Eve lacked the specific knowledge that would have told her this is a bad thing to do, she does it. And then gained the specific knowledge that that was a bad thing to do. Whoops. Of course she got Adam to try it too because she didn’t want to be the only one in trouble.

God showed back up and was pissed about what they did and told them to fuck off. This completely avoidable event is considered the fall of man. The pair had a couple of sons, and one of them infamously became the first murderer by killing his brother. Because God liked his sacrifice to him more. Everyone’s kind of a dick here. The murderer, Cain, is cursed and he became that person at the family reunion nobody talks about.

For many generations, people began to spread more and more. Apparently, everyone was totally evil and God decided “Fuck it, I’ll just kill everyone and start over.” As it turned out, the only not-evil people in the entire world are Noah and his family. He told Noah to get two of every animal and shove them on a huge-ass boat. Noah did, and then God flooded the Earth, killing literally every single other human being and creature. It’s okay, they were all allegedly bad. God said so. The waters recede, and he pinkie swears via rainbow to never commit mass genocide by flooding the Earth ever again. How thoughtful.

A short time after, a bunch of people try building a tower-city. This pisses God off for some reason and he separated them and made everyone speak different languages. Though their languages were now different, I imagine there was something they were all saying shortly after this that expressed their deep disagreement with that decision.

Eventually, we’re introduced to Abram. He heard a voice in his head claiming to be God that says he’ll have a ton of descendants, but they’ll be oppressed in a foreign land for several hundred years, BUT ALSO they’ll get a ton of land. Abram changed his name to Abraham and cut off part of his dick as a covenant between himself and this voice in his head. Thankfully everyone else went along with it too, or else he’d be considered nuts.

Soon enough, this voice in Abraham’s head calling itself God told him to murder his son to prove his loyalty. Without a moment’s hesitation, he’s totally willing to do it, but God stops him at the last minute like, “Jesus Christ bro, chill the fuck out.” I imagine Abraham’s relationship with his son from that point on was pretty shaky.

The next few sections are mostly God judging people and folks having kids that will impact later parts of the plot.

Past that, we get to the Exodus. The ruler of Egypt, called the Pharaoh, was getting freaked out about all the Israelites and wants all of the newborn babies thrown into the Nile River. One baby was saved by being put on a floating basket and is double saved by being rescued by the Pharaoh’s daughter. She named him Moses and raised him. Moses was pretty happy with his life, then God appeared to him in a burning bush (it can never be anything normal with this guy). God tasked Moses with leading his people out of this hell-hole and to the land that was promised to Abraham.

Moses tried asking the Pharaoh nicely to let them go, but Pharaoh naturally didn’t want to lose his main workforce. God sent down a bunch of plagues on Egypt in response. Eventually Moses and the rest of the Israelites got the hell out, but they are pursued by the Pharaoh (a strange choice considering all of the plagues that were cast on him, but whatever). Moses is a level 10 wizard or something so he parted a sea as a way for his people to safely cross and escape the pursuing Egyptians. As one last “fuck you” to them, the sea closed up on and killed them.

After the Israelites escaped, they pretty much wandered the desert for a while. They rightfully panicked about dying, but God created water and magic for them. They eventually reached a mountain that Moses ascended to speak with God. After a bunch of climbing back and forth with various people, God eventually bestowed his most important laws with Moses; the Ten Commandments.

While that was going on, everyone ground-level started getting antsy. They just kind of forgot about all of the awesome stuff God had done for them and just started worshiping a golden calf they made. God’s naturally pissed, but Moses pleaded for him not to kill them all. Then later, the original tablets that contained the Ten Commandments are busted, so Moses had to go up the mountain AGAIN. It’s kind of a bad day all around.

Once that’s finished, he went down to them all and preached all of the important stuff for the faith. The identity of this religion truly took form. And I’m sure nothing bad ever happened to those people or their descendants ever again.

That’s pretty much the major stuff from the Old Testament. Most of the stories beyond that are about the spread of God’s people. They can usually be summarized as “A follower of God (or many) isn’t/aren’t having a good time. Some less faithful/non-believers are ruining it for everybody else. God/his follower(s) kill the shit out of that person.” It does sequel-bait a bit by mentioning awaiting the arrival of a messiah that’ll make everything super rad. And boy howdy, will there be sequels.

I will admit that Judaism is, like just about every other major faith we know about, very fascinating to study and sprung up a beautiful culture. One point of interest is that it’s a faith following a single god rather than hundreds. This is actually kind of problematic; at least when there are a ton of gods, they usually keep themselves busy by being dicks to one another. Sure, humans usually got caught in the crossfire, but we weren’t usually the target. Here… well, things take an uncomfortable turn.

I personally take a more critical view of this faith when it comes to the god. I have no qualms with saying that he’s a complete asshole. Worse yet, he blames us for everything that goes wrong, even when he’s clearly the one who screwed up. Beyond the introductory parts, God gets more and more bloodthirsty.

At least if it had a neat afterlife, I might get excited, but there really isn’t much mention of it in Judaism. It’s mostly just God being a weird prick (my favorite example of this is 2 Kings 2:23-:24, where God sends two bears to murder 42 children for making fun of a guy that was bald).

GOOD IDEAS:

- A vast majority of Jewish people (culturally or religiously) are very good people despite the fucked-up deity at the center of it.

- Books like Ecclesiastes have some good bits of advice.

- The sequels are generally more tame (if a bit boring).

BAD IDEAS:

- Lots and lots of murder, rape, slavery, and occasionally misogyny.

- Has a “might makes right” mentality about most things.

- Monotheism is less exciting and means more humans getting their shit pushed in.

LIKELIHOOD OF TRUTH: ~44%. The beginning of the Abrahamic God’s quartet is one of confusing dickishness and murder. I can see the appeal of a single god that actually seems interested in the well-being of humanity (or at least, the part that worships him), but beyond a few good aspects sprinkled in here and there, it’s mainly just unpleasant. Thankfully though, God apparently chills out between the Old and New Testament.

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[evilelitest2]

Here's a tricky one: define cultural marxism

The actual movement of cultural Marxism or the Right wing Conspiracy theory?  Ok well lets do a bit of background

First off, the Progressive movement and most of its subgroups (Feminism, Class reform, Racial Equality then the abolitionist movement) started in the Enlightenment, we see the birth of the modern left in the American and French Revolutions long before Marx was born, so this notion that say, feminism comes from Marx is just temporally stupid, because you see early feminists (though the term didn’t exist yet) back in the 1790, again before Marx was born.  So the the Right wing conspiracy theory is basically an attempt to link all progressive movements into this single monolithic thing that is descended from Marx and since Marx is bad therefore progressiveness is bad therefore Far Right is good.  This was a literal Nazi conspiracy theory, they called it “Cultural Bolshevism” back then and liked it to the giant Jewish conspiracy.  Becauses as always, when you look at the specific progressive issues one by one, you see that most of them are not only really popular but also you know…just good sense.  Like take Gamergate for example, there was no Nathan Greyson article and the notion that feminists are controlling the gaming industry is absurd, but if you take all this bullshit and make it an attack on a vague nebulous “Cultural Marxism” then you can avoid getting into the specifics, because Far Rightists almost always fail when you talk specific policy rather than abstract rhetorical ideas.  

     The vast majority of leftist aren’t Marxist, Marxism is a very specific political philosophy that is actually quite stringent, for example I am very progressive but I also like capitalism (though I want it to be more regulated, more taxed and include better social programs) actual marxists don’t like me and I’d likely find a bullet in my skull in a Marxist goverment, but I’m lumped into with Marxists by the right because if we actually talk about wealth inequality in America, they don’t really have a leg to stand on.  Cultural Marxists is just a vague “Other” who people can rally around to oppose and avoid talking about actual issues with you know…facts.  Again, Marx is taught a great deal on college campuses, but many of those classes are talking about how he is wrong or what mistakes he made or why Communist countries tend to fall apart so disastrously.  But in the grown up world somebody can be a critic of Marx and still like some of his ideas, or dislike Marx and still be a leftist. 

   Ok so unto the actual real life Cultural Marxists who were a very specific thing. 

    So Marxism talks about how it is about the people and it represents the common folk against the elites but if you look at it in practice it is actually a very elitist philosophy, particular Leninism.  Its not only very anti religion, anti tradition, and anti national culture (all of which make you pretty unpopular with every day people) but it is very urban worker focused and also tends to subscribe to Vanguardism, the notion that you need this special elite of ideologically pure Marxist intellectuals to run the country as a dictatorship for your own sake until you are ready for the glorious communist utopia which will come about any second I swear.  The Reds in the Russian Civil War never had the most popular support, and until WWII the Soviets were mostly unpopular among their people.  So for a lot of international Marxists, they were left with a question 

“If the current system is so awful for the common people, why do the common people keep siding with conservatives”.  And then with the rise of fascism in Europe, they were like “wait why are people getting behind this pseudo populism which doesn’t actually serve their interests?”  Thus was born the Frankfurt School, people who wanted to study culture itself from a Marxist stand point.  Normally Marxism is quite dismissive of culture, so these guys were never really popular with mainstream Marxists since they focused on entertainment rather than economics.  

   Now the Frankfurt school actually had a lot of really interesting and valuable insights about media which i recommend everybody checking out, but with the major caveat of remembering that like all Marxists, they really love to simplify complicated issues into nice little simple formulas just like Marx did with his linear view of history, which as somebody who studies both History and Film I have…..complicated feelings towards Marx.  But Cultural Marxists did have a valid point about how if you look at popular media as a whole rather than specific examples, patterns emerge.  They weren’t the first to notice this and not everybody who notices this is a communist, but they talked a lot about the movies that came out in pre Nazi Germany.  Because films are a popular media made by a group of people for a mass audience, if you notice reoccurring trends in a film, it likely say something about the culture as a whole.  The point they made was that even works that weren’t overtly Nazi propaganda (Triumph of the Will, the Eternal Jew and all that) and instead look at the non Nazi works that also had similar themes.  For example, a lot of movies in 1920s and early 30s germany were about a society who have lose their identity and are subjected to some sort of humiliation, and many of them involve either

Strong men taking upset people and driving them to murder (M, Dr. Mabusai, Caligari) 

A secretive manipulative cabal who are secretly causing chaos in society (Nosferatu, D.r Mabusai again, 

A people stripped of what made them respectable and distinct (Metropolis, the Last Laugh, The Blue Angel) 

or 

Movies about how great Nature is and how wonderful it is when people work together to deal with a natural disaster.  (People on a Sunday, the Mountain Films like Holy Mountain) with the city as a negative bad thing that we hate.  

There are reoccurring trends and themes in all these films which hint at what is going on in germany at the time and if you look at the films at the time you see a culture which has lost its way and is in a state of confusion and fear.  

“Again Caligari to Hitler” is a really good book to check out, even if I don’t agree with it at all, cause it really loves its simplifications.  

This is a good introduction to the Frankfurt School though I think that it buys into their arguments a bit too much, if people are interested i could offer my criticism of Kyle’s criticism (for example, Cultivation theory predated Cultural Marxism)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndFysO2JunE

     But the main point is that it is about looking at the larger culture as a whole is a viable form of critical observation that reveals a great deal.  

While the Frankfurt School did get critical acclaim among intellectuals world ride, liberal and non liberal (notice how the Alt Right basically uses the same  times of criticism against popular film like Star Wars or Ghost Hunters), the communist aspect of it never caught on, because as always, Marxist is very good at noticing patterns and identifying problems, not so much with the solutions, bit of an underpants gnome problem.  

Very Good Question, let me know if youwant any follow ups

Edit: Wait, did I even answer the question?  Let me know @connard-cynique  cause I don’t know if I actually defined it so much as explained it 

[kidconquest]

ETHICINITY =/= RACE

A lot of folks seem to have a hard time wrapping their heads around this. While both are related to genetics, race, as a modern social construct, is mainly about physical appearance, while ethnicity is about where your ancestors were from. The most confusion around this comes when referencing Jewish or Latin American/Hispanic people.

Jewish people are ethnically descended from the areas in and around Israel. Latin Americans are ethnically descended from Latin America, and Hispanic people are descended from Spain (since Spain historically colonized much of Latin America, many Latin American people are also Hispanic, but not always).

Among ethnically Jewish and Latin/Hispanic populations, you’ll find varying physical characteristics from person to person, including different shades of skin. In other words, within all of these ethnic groups, there are both non-white people and white people.

[jillmckenzie1]

Secrets of the Universe

There’s a deep vein of eroticism that ties together Marc Acito’s new play that’s running at the Aurora Fox Arts Center. None of the characters actually have sex during the (inter)course of the play, but if you define “eroticism” as “the energy of creativity and connection,” then all of the characters are neck-deep in it. The story told on stage is the true-but-little-known episode of 1930’s American history where Albert Einstein (yes, *the* Einstein) hosts famed vocalist Marian Anderson in his home because hotels were unwilling to offer lodging to African-Americans. Supporting the storyline are the minor characters of Anderson’s accompanist (itself an intimate relationship), a gay Pole named Kosti Vehanen (Mark Rubald), and Einstein’s housekeeper Helen (Sharon Kay White), a stolid German refugee. In their own way, all of these characters demonstrate Acito’s trademark exploration of marginalized or “othered” people struggling to be whole, safe, and seen by the world. It’s an interesting scenario, interesting characters, and an interesting dive into the story.

Jordan Leigh is almost unrecognizable underneath layers of wigs and makeup as the great physicist and plays him as a bubbly jokester, always playing with a quip or a pun. Mary Louise Lee shimmers as Marian Anderson, with a voice as silvery as her gowns. (Full disclosure: I have met Ms. Lee a few times backstage when we have performed in the same nightclubs. I am sure that she does not remember me). The two have an immediate connection as masters of their artforms. As they banter and quip, slowly diving deeper into their friendship, they recognize the similarities between what they do. Both work in the theory (mathematical or practical) of space (outer galaxies or nasopharyngeal cavities) and the vibrations of the song of the universe. Both use their disciplines to create and connect; both are sensual and deeply erotic people. Both are also folks who have experienced imminent threat and danger because of their immutable selves. Einstein fled Nazi Germany, while Anderson was black during the era of Jim Crow and public lynchings. Their bond is strengthened by their deep intelligence and their respective experiences of racism in its varying forms. The bonds between the characters also extend beyond the primary two. Einstein takes an interest in the love life of the accompanist. Anderson and the housekeeper establish their own warm interactions.

Acito is not just a playwright, but also a librettist, and the piece reflects that. Lee sings gorgeously to the live accompaniment of Andrew Fischer on the Steinway grand. (Fischer plays another half-dozen roles throughout the performance, as well). Leigh and the rest of the cast also lift up their voices and the choral bits are lovely to hear. We rarely get a full song, though. This is not a musical; the songs are not full-length. The effect is more the fleeting emotions that flash through us but quickened to life by music. Although the music (a combination of Anderson’s own collection, African American spirituals, and more) is gorgeous, I wanted more. I wanted whole songs and not just snippets.

Another bit that slipped for me was the flashbacks, for lack of a better word. When Einstein and Anderson were interacting in the present, Anderson seemed to experience flashes to other times and places, mostly involving Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and her grandfather, an enslaved man who escaped to freedom. While FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt, as well as refugees from slavery, are fascinating characters, their presence on stage was a bit confusing. Chekhov’s Gun requires the fulfillment of potential after its introduction. Bringing these characters into the story felt like giving them a lot of potential, but not enough time or attention to justify them. In fact, I sometimes wondered if *any* of the minor characters were necessary to the play. The lion’s share of the energy and interest in the whole production is the relationship between Einstein and Anderson. Since the depth of the other characters was not delved into, they ended up supernumerary, using time and space that left less for the main characters and generally complicating the narrative and visual pictures. I never understood what the Roosevelts were doing there at all. I could see a tighter iteration of this piece with just Einstein and Anderson—no supporting characters present on stage, no flashbacks.

The two main characters have an interesting through line on the subject of non-monogamy. Einstein vigorously embraced the practice and encouraged Anderson to do the same. Anderson hesitated on it. There’s something to unpack here about the varying power levels of these two people, even though their primary bond is that of marginalization. Einstein, being white (although Jewish) and male, feels completely secure in violating sexual norms; he doesn’t have to consider what other people think. It’s no threat to his position to have an “aberrant” sex life. Anderson has to consider how such an arrangement would tarnish her reputation–she’s a black woman who makes her living by being “acceptable” enough for conventional folks to buy a ticket to hear and therefore has a higher risk level. The appeal to our more primal natures is universal to us all (who doesn’t like the idea of lots of free sex with no consequences?!), but our abilities to exploit such opportunities are vastly different in accordance with our social statuses. As Anderson quoted, “Free love is frequently neither.”

Which brings us back around to the erotic thread that binds this whole play together. The whole thing is an exploration of the depth, beauty, and yes, erotic nature of non-sexual relationships. All of the characters are bound together by their sensual natures, their physical enjoyments of life, their expansive intellects. These are beautiful friendships, perhaps all the more deep and satisfying because actual sex is not involved. As a comedian myself, I very much enjoyed seeing the characters reap pleasure from the construction and deconstruction of the jokes they traded. Great friendships have been formed from such, indeed from much less.

  Secrets of the Universe and Other Songs plays at the Fox until March 15. Tickets are available now. The story of these American legends is well worth seeing, hearing, and enjoying, in all of its sensory and sensual pleasures.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/secrets-of-the-universe/