#one of them was also wearing one. the other was a hebrew classmate who told me he's close friends with one of the hostages

[faggotry-enjoyer]

U of M sounds like a nightmare rn. I’m an MSU graduate who wants do my PhD in geophysics and I’ve considered U of M bc they do have a good geology department but I think I’m just gonna uhhh Not Go There. I haven’t really heard what’s up with MSU but I know we had an SJP chapter 🥴 So I suspect it’s not quiet. But U of M’s antisemitism makes HEADLINES, stay safe

It's really more of a mixed bag. The antisemitism here is very real and very scary, you'll never catch me denying that. But it's not the whole story.

On October 7th this year, there may have been an SJP protest at Rackham. But the Diag was like a mini Hostages Square all day long, and there were hundreds of people at the memorial in the evening. Hundreds of people saying a prayer for the state of Israel and mourner's kaddish, hundreds of people singing acheinu and hatikvah. A week or so prior, 500 people gathered on the diag in support of Jewish students and our right to be here. And I can't speak to the latter, as I wasn't there, but on the 7th campus security was by us all day to make sure nothing happened.

If I recall correctly, about 15% of the student body here is Jewish. We have a very active Hillel, as well as a Jewish Resource Center and a Chabad. Even when campus is scary, we've got each other and we've got a lot of each other. There is fear, but there's hope too.

[loudlytransparenttrash]

Goodbye 2019: A review of the lies that shaped the year

January

One Twitter user posted this thread, describing how there were “50-70 white men” wearing MAGA apparel who “surrounded us” and “sought to intimidate, mock and scare us” by “chanting ‘build the wall’ and “other trumpisms.” “The group was clearly looking for ANY opportunity to get violent,” they were “bumping into us and daring us to get physical.” Video was then clipped and shared on social media, the mainstream media spread the edited footage and within hours the story about “racist white MAGA hat wearing teens cornered an innocent Native elder while chanting build the wall” consumed the country.

Slate wrote an article comparing the student’s “cruelty” to Jim Crow mobs and neo-Nazis. BuzzFeed’s Anne Petersen tweeted how the students and Brett Kavanaugh are the epitome of “white patriarchy.” Kathy Griffin called for doxing the kids and Stormy Daniels in a now-deleted tweet fantasized about putting these children behind electrocuted walls. New York Times author Kurt Eichenwald wished that these kids should be doxed and denied work for the rest of their lives. Headlines included, “White students in MAGA hats taunt Native American elders,” “Covington Catholic High Student's White Privilege Didn't Win,” “White America, come get your children,” “White victimology, white privilege and the Covington Catholic rules of race,” “Boys Will Be Boys. Covington's Showed Yet Again Why Only White Boys Can Smirk Through That.”

The students and their families were doxed, harassed and threatened for weeks after. Covington Catholic High School was forced to close over security concerns. Then the original video was released that provided context: A group of Covington Catholic High School students went to the March for Life during a field trip to Washington, DC. While there, the students were confronted by the radical black supremacy group, Black Hebrew Israelites, where they were verbally harassed and racially abused, calling them crackers, fa*gots and told them to go find a school to shoot up. A black student was berated as a race-traitor and told his white classmates were going to harvest his organs. A Native activist later approached the kids and started continually banging a drum inches from their face. One student, Nick Sandmann, stood calmly in typical teenage bemusement. That’s it. That’s the story. Once it was realized not a single accusation made by the original poster or the media who spread it was true, everyone went silent, and despite many retractions, no apologies.

February

Empire actor Jussie Smollett was approached by two white men wearing Trump’s Make America Great Again caps and yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him before attacking him, dousing him with bleach and tying a noose around his neck, all while chanting, “This MAGA country!” Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Al Sharpton were among those calling it a modern-day lynching and evidence of the fear and hate black people live with. Harris and Booker even wrote an “anti-lynching bill.” Everybody gobbled this story up and quickly used it to push their idea that it said something more important about the state of race in the United States. Essentially they argued that Trump and his supporters are agitating for this kind of violence and, well, here it is.

Afterwards, Smollett proudly bragged how he had fought off his attackers to the loud cheers of a crowd, a true badass. He then appeared in an ABC interview where his eyes welled with tears as he recounted his traumatic experience and how defiant and inspirational he’s gotta be now. When asked why he thinks he was targeted, Smollett blamed Trump and his evil supporters.

But then some red flags started. 1. He held onto his sandwich during the attack and waited 45 minutes to call police. 2. When police arrived to take a report, Smollett asked that the officers turn off their body cameras. 3. He was still wearing the noose around his neck and wore it “like a tie” throughout their entire 40-minute interview. 4. He said he was on the phone with his manager when the attack happened but he refused to show his phone log to police. 5. He supposedly received a threatening letter a week prior to the “attack” which had child-like writing and drawings on it of his name and the word MAGA, and cliche magazine cutouts of letters pieced together to spell out ��black fag.” In summary, we were supposed to believe white Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats were roaming around Chicago, carrying a noose, they saw Smollett, knew who he was, knew his show, his sexuality and singled him out for a lynching. 

As the police connected the dots, they found the whole thing was a giant hoax plotted by Smollett himself. When the “black fag” serial killer letter stunt failed to receive national attention, Smollett orchestrated the attack by paying two Nigerian brothers he worked with $3,500 to stage the attack on him while getting Subway. Chicago police spent days and worked overtime poring over security footage and devoting resources that could have been put toward real victims. On February 20, Smollett was charged with a class 4 felony for filing a false police report and was later indicted on 16 felony counts of false reporting. Smollett joined a long list of hate crime hoaxes since Trump took office. I can only assume because reality isn’t at all matching their delusion of the gloomy Nazi “MAGA country” they keep going on about, they’re forced to create these endless hate crime hoaxes to validate the delusion.  

March

After spending two years perpetuating allegations that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary and wet dreams of Trump being removed from office and even imprisoned, the entire left, every Democrat and the mainstream media were visibly shaken by Mueller’s investigation ending with zilch. When the news broke that there would be no indictments against Trump nor anyone associated with his campaign, and Attorney General William Barr had exonerated him, those who were so certain of victory and so locked into their conspiracy, were once again forced into utter meltdown mode. Mueller spent tens of millions of dollars, employed 19 prosecutors, more than three dozen FBI agents and an analyst and issued 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 280 demands for phone and email records and interviewed 500 witnesses throughout the course of the investigation. No evidence was found.

There was however a major abuse of the rule of law by Obama administration officials and Department of Justice and FBI employees, a shameful politicization of the Russia investigation by Democrats and an end of journalistic integrity by many members of the media who all did their best to delegitimize and undermine the election. The DOJ and FBI used unverified research to obtain a court order to surveil the Trump campaign, and thereby obtain access to past campaign communications. In applying for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) order, the DOJ and FBI did not disclose to the secret surveillance court that the debunked Christopher Steele dossier (Trump/pissing prostitutes) was funded by the DNC and Clinton, the whole basis for the probe. The FISA application also did not inform the court of Steele’s bias and his desperation to keep Trump out of the White House. It was all a setup.

Since Election Day 2016, the Trump-hating political and media establishment have been in a cute relationship to achieve their desired end of destroying Trump. Their shared hatred of the man is indisputable. But the idea of them colluding in this information operation to maximum political and legal effect is altogether more disturbing. Russiagate put Trump’s presidency under a cloud of suspicion for more than half of his days in office, delaying his agenda through forcing the administration to expend valuable time and resources defending itself from the constant hounding. The Five F’s seems to be the Democrat’s only tactic, all they can do is deceive, degrade, deny, disrupt and hope that it all will eventually wear Trump down enough to ultimately destroy him.

April

On Easter Day, churches across Sri Lanka were targeted by radical Islamist suicide bombers. The Muslim terrorists walked into several crowded churches and murdered masses of people. They also targeted international hotels popular with Western travelers. The bombings marked the country’s deadliest violence in a decade, leaving 290 dead and over 500 injured. After the quick condemnation of white supremacy and Islamophobia after the Christchurch shootings a few weeks prior, the media and Democrats avoided at all costs condemning Islamic terrorism and recognizing the victims as Christians. A host of politicians such as Obama, Hillary Clinton and Julian Castro all refused to condemn Islamic terrorism and none called the victims Christians, while others such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Portland mayor Ted Wheeler stayed silent altogether. Christians being killed at the hands of Islamists goes against the entire left-wing doctrine, despite it happening all over the world. 

It’s not the only time we’ve seen the media and politicians cover for Islamic extremism. Under Obama, officials were so afraid of the phrase “Islamic terrorism” that they redacted the very mention of Islam and even Islamic State from the Orlando gay nightclub massacre transcripts, despite 49 people being killed and 50 others injured by a Muslim terrorist who had pledged allegiance to ISIS. In the UK, police and child protection workers were so afraid of the phrase “Islamophobia” that they ignored and refused to investigate Muslim human trafficking and child rape rings, allowing 1,400 young British girls to be raped with knives, bottles and their tongues nailed to tables. In Sweden, the police and media were so scared of “anti-immigration sentiment,” they covered up dozens of sexual assaults against teenage girls. Not wanting to make their new waves of Muslim refugees look bad, German media and the government also covered up mass sexual abuse across the country where 1,200 women were sexually assaulted and raped in just one night. Who exactly are we protecting by refusing to tell the truth and call something what it is?

May

Alyssa Milano, an actress who has been a valiant fighter for progressive causes, demanded for American women to undertake a “sex strike.” The idea is that women should not risk pregnancy until they have an insurance policy. Uh, so like exactly what Christian conservatives already believe in. There’s something funny about Milano embracing the banner of Christian conservatives in order to own Christian conservatives. Just like when Janelle Monáe advocated for women to go on a sex strike, saying that “people need to start respecting the vagina.” Once again, that’s what conservatives have already been screaming, respecting your vagina, respecting yourself, respecting sex and the good and bad product of sex. 

In championing this “revolutionary” concept of women withholding sex in order to attain bodily autonomy, Milano and her blue-check buddies unwittingly preached the same message you often hear during Sunday sermons, especially in youth groups. The Christian perspective posits that the way for women to attain bodily autonomy is to have self-control over your body and choices, to not give away your body so carelessly and to be aware of the consequences of sexual activity outside of committed relationships. Most Christians embrace Milano’s message, not just because the only women who’d participate and use sex as a political bargaining chip in the first place are those who probably need to reevaluate their sex lives anyway, but it also places greater meaning on sex and the power and responsibility of it, which again is another Christian view.

Milano, like many others, also referred to abortion as “reproductive rights,” which is a pretty new term that replaces abortion and is also much catchier on picket signs when used alongside “human rights.” The problem is the term isn’t even close to being accurate. Abortion has nothing to do with reproductive rights. By the time abortion is even a possibility, post-fertilization has already created a tiny human and the mother has discovered that she is pregnant. In other words, reproduction is already complete. That “right” to reproduction was already exercised when you gave it up, literally and figuratively.  

June

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried her best to compare Trump to Hitler by comparing illegal migrant detention centers to actual concentration camps: “This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying,” she tweeted. Ocasio-Cortez continued this claim during an Instagram Live video, where she said, “The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border. That is what they are. The fact that concentration camps are now an institutionalized practice in the home of the free is extraordinarily disturbing.” 

Of course, the claim that conditions at U.S. border facilities are anything like Nazi concentration camps or Japanese American internment camps is absurd. Detainees are not subjected to forced labor, malnutrition or executions. They also chose to enter these facilities by willingly coming to the United States and either illegally crossing or turning themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol, while obviously concentration camp inmates were forced to be there. Let’s not forget the little detail that any of the migrants may opt for voluntary departure at any time. I don’t remember concentration camps ever having that policy. Concentration camps detained and persecuted their own citizens because of who they were, not temporarily detained people who chose to illegally break into a different country. I don’t think there were many Jewish people trying to sneak into Nazi Germany. Even the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum released a statement rejecting such ridiculous comparisons.

But it’s not just AOC driving this rhetoric. MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough showed photos of border officers escorting kids to showers and compared it to Nazi officers marching Jews into gas chambers. Former CIA chief Michael Hayden posted photos of the Auschwitz death camp, also comparing it to the temporary housing policy at the border. The New York Times published an article that called for U.S. Border Patrol agents to be doxed so they can be “publicly shamed" and “held accountable.” Almost the entire Democrat Party and mainstream media have made similar comparisons. Yet the CBP detention centers are not operating any differently today than they were during the Obama administration. The famous photos of caged kids are from Obama’s time in office. Even when the most anti-Trump news network CNN went to investigate, the kids had full bellies, they were watching soccer, playing video games on big flat-screen TVs, sleeping in comfy beds and participating in tai chi classes, rather than ya know, being caged, gassed and worked to death.

July

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal held a hearing on complaints from Jessica Yaniv, a man formerly called Jonathan who now identifies as a woman, after multiple small business beauticians refused to wax Yaniv’s penis and testicles. The defendant in the case was a young mother who operates in her family home, but there were also 12 other female beauticians Yaniv filed human rights complaints against which put some of them out of business while others paid settlements to save further legal action. Up until July 17, Yaniv’s name was fiercely protected by the Canadian government, as well as technology platforms like Twitter, which banned numerous women and some men who’d tried to warn others about his predations. But once the ban was lifted, it was revealed Yaniv had used “connections” to a band to help solicit advice from both women and teenagers on how to approach young girls and talk to them about tampons and menstruation in female washrooms. You can read the whole thing here.

Yaniv also recently tweeted shock to be turned away from a gynecologist. “So a gynaecologist office that I got referred to literally told me today that ‘we don’t serve transgender patients. And me, being me, I’m shocked... and confused… and hurt. Are they allowed to do that, legally?" I’m sure Yaniv will be taking gynecologists to human rights courts next for refusing to inspect anuses. We have to be careful to not misgender Yaniv as several journalists have been banned from Twitter for this crime against Yaniv. Any concerns about women being forced to touch male genitalia or biological men being allowed into women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, rape crisis shelters and prisons, you’re done for. This whole story resembles a new trend forming, such as the Christian cake shop owner who was sued for not wanting to bake a cake for a same-sex marriage: An individual from a politically designated victim class seeks out a service, intentionally from a small business owner who they know they can exploit, and the moment the businessperson declines - voila! A movement is born with a slew of lawsuits, powerful interest groups and media backing. 

August

Dave Chappelle’s newest Netflix special was only uploaded for a few hours before the PC grievance mob went to work trying to sink it. Buzzfeed lectured Chappelle for his “truly vile” jokes and instructed him “to be more thoughtful.”  Salon spoke out against “the cruelty” and Slate compared him to that "uncle who doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, how much he’s disappointing you.” While “Uncle Dave” was once cool, they say, his jokes in 2019 make you “wince.” Vice went a step further and gave a total trigger warning to its audience, writing "you can definitely skip” it altogether. As of today, “Sticks & Stones” shows a 38 percent score from media critics on Rotten Tomatoes, while 39,881 of viewers have given it a 99 percent audience score, reflecting the massive disconnect between the media and the general public and proving the only ones who are “out of touch” are themselves. This same pattern can be seen with “woke” movies too. Media critics sing their praises and hail their progressive activist messaging and pandering, yet in reality, these movies completely bomb.

Hollywood wants to water down comedy as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but in doing so quickly turns into telling people what’s funny and what’s not and who can laugh and who can’t. Even the most devoted left-wing activist surely can see the problem. But a comedian like Dave Chappelle makes fun of everyone and doesn’t believe in a protected class during a stand up routine, as it should be. He also made fun of things that the right cares about, yet they still applauded the special as a celebration of comedy. But no, because Chappelle didn’t obey by their rules, because he didn’t stand on stage and call Trump a Cheeto (the pinnacle of left-wing comedy), he too must be one of those Nazis we keep hearing about. Chappelle isn’t running for public office. He’s a comic, and we’re not meant to seek the ultimate answers from him. It’s his job to talk about and then joke about current events, trends, what’s going on in the world, his only sin was talking about them a little too honestly. 

September

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations through teary eyes and gritted teeth, claiming that the world is about to end and how unfair it is that she has to save it. Throughout the melodramatic speech warning of “mass extinction” and attacking capitalism, Thunberg repeatedly declared “how dare you!” and “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood!” Sadly, she’s right. How dare a child from one of the most healthiest, progressive, wealthiest, safest and most peaceful countries known to man be indoctrinated to believe adults have failed her and the weight of the world is on her shoulders to save mankind from apocalypse. It’s not her fault.

It’s the fault of the schools who pile on the panic-stricken talk of environmental disaster starting from kindergarten. It’s the fault of the ideologues who obsess over every weather event as if it were Armageddon, whether it’s hot or cold, rain, sun or snow, it’s all evidence of the end looming. And it’s the fault of the politicians, too cowardly and desperate for votes to tell people that utopian visions of a world run on windmills is a pipe dream. And why the hell isn’t China being lectured by the Swedish teenager? Their emissions from aviation and maritime trade alone are twice that of the United States, and more than the entire emissions of most nations in the world, but we’re the ones being told to ban straws, stop eating meat, roller skate to work and stop having kids? Really? Then again, it’s easier to go after countries which roll out the red carpet, gives her a platform and awards her with prizes in return for her criticisms. The real pollution culprits aren’t nearly as accommodating.

Climate activists could learn something from Thunberg’s honesty, though. She argues that “money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth” have to come to an end. Thunberg’s dream for the future means technocratic regimes will have to displace capitalistic societies. We can see this future in the radical environmentalist plans of AOC’s Green New Deal, one supported by leading Democratic Party candidates. It’s authoritarianism. There is no other way to describe a regulatory regime that dictates exactly what Americans can consume, sell, drive, eat and do in their personal lives. As Hawaii Democrat senator and climate change enthusiast encouraged fellow activists to think of climate change as a religion rather than a science, we can only hope that most Americans will continue to reject these regressive ideas. One reason we should is so that Greta Thunberg’s generation, including her army of schoolchildren, can continue not having to suffer needlessly.

October 

Media outlets responded to Trump’s announcement of the U.S. military’s successful mission against ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was not met with much praise and excitement that the world’s most wanted terrorist leader had been stopped, but with anger and snark. Many media outlets, the Washington Post for one example, worked hard to spin the killing of Baghdadi into, somehow, a negative story for Trump, beginning with a look at Baghdadi as not as a brutal terrorist and murderer, but as an “austere religious scholar.” 

The Washington Post followed it up with a chain of negative stories: “Three ways the Baghdadi raid undermines Trump’s chaotic policy,” “Despite the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, some analysts question U.S. ability to prevent ISIS resurgence,” “The U.S. kills an ISIS leader. But Trump is giving the group a new lease on life.” They even complained how long Trump talked for and how using words such as “dog” and “coward” weren’t as presidential as Obama. Oh, and a Washington Post and CNN journalist tweeted how wrong it was for Trump to call al-Baghdadi a coward because it takes guts to blow yourself up rather than allow yourself to be captured...

If only it ended there. The Washington Post joined other media outlets including the New York Times in debunking the “doctored” and “faked” photo Trump tweeted of himself giving a Medal of Honor to the dog that chased down al-Baghdadi. White House reporter Steve Herman also debunked the meme by breaking news on Twitter, "I've requested details on this photo! There was no such a canine event on today's schedule!" He later confirmed in a tweet after speaking to a White House official that the meme was indeed Photoshopped. Jim Acosta of CNN also made sure everyone was aware, "The dog is not at the White House." The Huffington Post wrote, “A photo tweeted by Donald Trump is getting dogged by accusations that the pic is the very definition of fake news. The photo didn’t really happen,” then proceeded to show side-by-side photos to prove it was photoshopped. Everywhere the meme was called “fake news.”

Once the media confirmed that the very clearly photoshopped dog was not at the White House after all, and the meme was just a meme, they moved onto asserting the meme was insulting and disrespectful to the original recipient of the Medal of Honor, James McCloughan, which the photo was taken from. Yet when the meme was shown to McCloughan, he laughed and said he wasn’t offended and he liked it. Now that another outrage had fizzled out, the only thing that was left for them to complain about was... Trump hates dogs because he used the term negatively to describe the ISIS leader. Yep. 

November

Nine American Mexican family members were slaughtered in broad daylight in an ambush by a drug cartel in Northern Mexico, less than a hundred miles from the Arizona border. The family were traveling to visit family when they were attacked by the cartel which left three women and six children dead, including a pair of infant twins. As Trump voiced outrage over the attacks, condemning the violence and offering the Mexican government help to come down harder on the cartels, not a single one of the seventeen Democrats in the race issued a statement on the attacks. 

That’s probably because they’ve already established it’s racist and bigoted to point out that some Mexicans can do bad things and there’s gonna be some bad eggs illegally crossing the southern border, despite leading Democrats including Clinton and Obama holding the same view just a few years ago. Let’s forget those behind most illegal border crossings are actually rapists or in just one city, over just a few weeks, seven illegal immigrants were convicted of rape. For the record, Trump never called all Mexicans rapists. He said there are rapists among those being sent over, along with drugs and MS-13 members, all true. He also said in the very next breath that there’s also good people crossing. Now, it’s also racist to call MS-13 gang members “animals” despite them being known for beheadings, dismemberments and cutting out hearts. And now we know we’re not even allowed to talk about the epidemic of terrorism and violence along the border, even when nine American women and children are massacred as it runs counter to the new, insane Democrat narrative mocking the need for stronger border security or the need for borders at all. 

This is the latest incident that has shined a spotlight on Mexico’s growing crime problem as drug cartels have launched an insurgency in the failing country.  A month earlier, hundreds of gunmen stormed the city of Culiacan after Mexican National Guards arrested one of the sons drug kingpin “El Chapo.” In a stunning display, the Mexican president told his National Guards to surrender to the cartel and release El Chapo’s son. The day after the family massacre, more murders and bus burnings were unleashed on the city of Juarez. The mayor of Juarez said the chaos was the cartel’s response to police arresting suspects involved in an ongoing drug turf war. We’ll have to wait and see if the new Mexican president’s policy of “hugs not bullets” will end the endless territory being controlled by different armed groups, similar to the Middle East and Africa. Maybe love and giving into cartel demands will bring law and order back.

December

Democrats finally did what they’ve been promising to do since Trump won the election, they impeached their mortal enemy. The obsession with impeachment has little to do with anything Trump did, and everything to do with who he is. Democrats never expected to lose the 2016 election, especially not to Donald Trump, which humiliated them even more. And ever since, they have been trying every trick in the book to prove what a horrible mistake voters have made. Democrats have floated the idea of impeachment over fake Russian collusion conspiracy theories, drivel about porn stars and even the president’s criticism of his critics. All of them bombed. With time running out before the 2020 presidential race gets into full swing, they seized on the only thing they had left: bogus “concerns” with a phone call to the newly elected Ukrainian president.

The evidence Democrats have rallied on makes for the weakest impeachment ever launched in American history, highlighting gross abuse of congressional power and serving as a national embarrassment. The impeachment inquiry was kicked off by an unknown person during a phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. An unredacted transcript of the phone call was quickly released to the public, putting the conversation between the two leaders in plain sight for all to see in an unprecedented move. There was nothing to hide. Democrats and media outlets took slices from the transcript and came up with a story about Trump pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s family in exchange for nearly $400 million in military aid. Yet when Trump mentioned “do us a favor,” in the very next sentence, he referred to Ukraine looking into the 2016 election meddling after Mueller did such a poor job, it had nothing to do with Biden. Zelensky himself said there was no pressure and he didn’t even know about the military aid being delayed. 

But House Democrats still held four weeks of impeachment hearings and not a single piece of incriminating evidence to impeach the president of any kind of crime was found, whether it be a “quid pro quo,” “bribery,” or “extortion. In fact, to the contrary, witnesses called by Democrats actually exonerated the president of any wrongdoing. Ousted former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich blatantly admitted that Trump committed no crime. “Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the president of the United States has been involved with at all?” “No,” Yovanovitch said. Former State Department Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker was asked, “In no way, shape or form did you receive any indication whatsoever, or anything that resembled a quid pro quo, is that correct?” “That’s correct,” Volker said.

Despite clearly having no case against the president, Democrats still voted to deliver their promise, it was now or never. Unlike other impeachment cases, it wasn’t at all bipartisan, the House’s impeachment inquiry passed without a single Republican vote. In fact two Democrats joined GOP lawmakers in voting against the resolution, ironically making opposition to impeachment the more bipartisan vote. One Democrat even switched parties after he was pressured by his Democrat colleagues to vote against his will. Now, Pelosi is refusing to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial. She knows Trump will be swiftly exonerated and claim another monumental victory, so let’s savor in the impeachment juices that nobody cares about for as long as we can. At least until the next “existential threat” or “constitutional crisis” they can whip up. 

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Bree’s Faith: Part One.

Anonymous said to imagineclaireandjamie: So I've had this idea running in my head. You know in the trailer when Frank tells Brianna to make a wish? What if she wishes to meet her real father, because she instinctively knows Frank isn't her biological dad? What if the reason why she wants to meet Jamie is because she wants a father/daughter relationship she never got? Perhaps she knows Frank doesn't love her and she just wants to be loved and wanted.

She'd always known she was different, even from an early age and her peers hadn’t had any issues holding back their ideas on the subject. As soon as they'd learnt to tease, her classmates had pointed out the differences between her and her parents.

She had fiery red hair, her parents did not. She had fierce blue eyes, like a sea before storm. They did not. She'd asked her teachers, all of whom had made vague comments about ‘skipping generations’ and ‘recessive genes’. At first it had placated her, but as she'd grown it had just grated more and more. She knew it wasn't a just matter of science, it was something more. She hadn't dared to ask her parents, something told her it wasn't something her mama wanted to discuss. But, nevertheless, she still felt this shift in her bones.

She felt...different. -- The question had arisen in class; 'who do you think you are?' it read. It was meant as an innocuous statement to get the children thinking about who they were, who they wanted to be and where they came from but to Brianna it was simply more of an indicator that she didn't fit. She mulled it over, on and off, for weeks. Sitting in her favourite branch, outside in their garden where she could think straight, she spent hours considering it. If she closed her eyes and reached out she could almost imagine the place to which she belonged. It was strange, there were no cars, no massive buildings, no traffic or rush. The air was clean and the trees were dense and populous, rising above all else.

She ached for it. -- The song the group had sung for them in their whole-school assembly sat at the front of her mind, rolling around over and over. The lyrics haunted her. The woman had told her, with great confidence; 'you always have faith' after she’d approached them afterwards.

Faith.

At first she'd quirked her head to the side, confused. The tall lady with long black hair had winked and walked away, muttering 'soon you will understand', and as she'd slept she had. -- The clear water in the bath used to mock her, her reflection showing all of those differences -ones she couldn’t attribute to anyone or anything-, but now her eyes mirrored something she wanted to dive into. Before they screamed 'different' now they sang to her. The blue swimming with something that connected her to something bigger than herself. She could sense someone else in them. She sat in the water until it cooled, staring at herself until her eyes crossed and she could no longer see clearly. The voice that echoed in her mind seemed closer to her when she looked at herself, more like it was a part of her than simply another segment of white noise.

Brianna Ellen Randall did this night after night, often sitting in the water until it had gone tepid and cold. She didn’t worry though, because her thoughts kept her occupied.

As the water gargled, the bubbling glug amassing at the plughole as she emptied it once more, she saw in her distorted reflection something she’d never seen in all the time she’d been looking at herself this way.

She saw home. -- She started to sneak into her mama and papa's bedroom at night in the hopes that her mama would talk to her in her dreams. Bree's heart would always sink a little when she came away empty handed, she swore she'd heard her whispering a name a few nights prior but so far both of her parents had been motionless in sleep, only moving occasionally to shift position. One night, whilst the wind howled and the windows rattled, Bree had been spooked by the storm. She'd lunged forward as the thunder crackled through the sky and gripped her mama's hand, her small fingers curling around the jagged silver ring that lay there. All at once and without warning Claire had said a name. Bree's heart was pounding so hard in her chest that she couldn't quite make it out, but from that night onwards she'd instinctively known how to get her mama to talk. The next few nights she'd slept through and woken full of sorrow that she'd missed it, but eventually a bad dream woke her and she'd stumbled blearily into her parents bedroom once more. Taking Claire's hand against hers she'd sat on the floor by the bed massaging the ring on her finger until her mama had started to babble in her slumber. First it was just one-off words; then came the stories. Bree collected them, writing down all she could in a little journal her papa had procured for her. Eventually she had a whole pad full. Stories of far off lands, of green, of daring men on horseback, and of a fearless warrior who stood tall amongst all the others, who laid down his life for love.

--

She rushed home after school, forgoing her usual habit of waiting in the library for her father to collect her, she had too much on her mind to wait. She could have just used the bibles the library would have stocked, but she had a feeling she needed her own. Faith, she recalled the woman saying all those months ago. That in itself could have meant any number of things, but the small pocket sized worn thing her mother had given her years ago, a gift from Reverend Wakefield, seemed to call to her. She groped under the plant pot for the hidden key for what seemed like an age, her fingers trapping against the bottom of the heavy ceramic base until she finally managed to grip it. In her haste to get upstairs she slammed the door so hard that her first year kindergarten photo fell to the floor with a thud. She paid it no mind as she scarpered to her room and pulled the tatty bible from below her pillow. At her desk she scoured the pages, no clue as to what she was looking for. Nothing seemed to stand out, nothing that could lead her on the voyage of discovery she'd assumed it would. Her parents arrived home, offered her dinner, generally fussed around her until she shooed them both away. She wouldn't be distracted. The sun started to dip in the sky, the faint rays of deep yellow dancing through the thin gap in her curtains. Then, all of a sudden something caught her eye. It was written in scrawled letters at the bottom of a page, the black ink faded with time and wear. Faith, 17,44; it read, a slight curl on the 'F'. The breath caught in her throat as she ran her tiny fingers over the intended text. So focused on those handwritten words was she that it took her a while to notice the page on which they were scrawled. Hebrews 11. The words of first line seemed to float off the page as she read, trapping themselves on the backs of her irises. "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Her heart was thudding in her chest, 'things not seen' seemed most important. Then, almost at the same time the lyrics to the song the choir had sung to her class sprung up. "They live in you..." whirled around her brain meshed with the lines from her bible, she closed her eyes and focused inwards trying to connect with her conscious.

--

It wasn’t long before her father told her of a most important trip, his eyes alight with excitement at the prospect of journeying -once again- to see Reverend Wakefield on the quest for historical information that only the old reverend could help him to find. The school holidays were fast approaching and Brianna’s mind whirled with the infinite possibilities that now lay before her.

Reverend Wakefield had been the one to give the bible to her mama, that meant that he knew the key to its origins.

Without letting on a word to either of her parents, Bree broached the subject over a quiet family dinner. As the clock ticked loudly on the mantle she turned to her papa, a coy smile on her face as she tried to quash any feelings of excitement before she’d gotten either of them to agree to her proposal.

“Papa, you said Mr Wakefield has a son and his housekeeper has a daughter around my age?”

Frank looked up over his thick rimmed glasses as he sipped on his tea, Smiling a little he passed Bree another bread roll as if coaxing her to eat more before coughing a little to clear his throat. “Yes darling, they do. It’s lovely over there with young Roger and Fiona running about the place, it makes the manse seem alive.” There was kindness in his voice and also a hint of sorrow as he spoke about the children that startled Bree somewhat, but she ignored it and nodded.

“Well, since it’s holidays,” she began, watching as Claire chewed slowly on the last of her beef, before glancing once at her daughter and then back down at her plate, “maybe I could come with you? I’d be good, I promise!” She chimed in almost immediately, not giving Frank the opportunity to decline her straight away. “I’ll play with Roger and Fiona nicely, I won’t get in the way…” looking up from under her lashes, Bree played the doting daughter card whilst her heart was pounding mercilessly in her chest.

Frank placed down his glass and looked across at Claire with an unreadable expression on his face, “what do you think?” He asked, calmly, but Bree picked up on a certain undercurrent of tension. Ignoring it, Bree twinned her legs under her chair to stop herself from bouncing where she sat.

Claire looked at Bree, her eyes softening as she watched her daughter desperately trying to curtail her growing excitement.

“Please, mama...pretty please…” Bree mouthed, her sweaty palms resting solidly on the dinner table as she silently pleaded with her mother.

Claire sighed and nodded. “But please be careful, love. No running off from your father, alright?”

Nodding wildly, Brianna pushed herself away from the table and skittered off to her room - too excited now to consider finishing her supper. It was only later, cocooned under her duvet with the bible clutched tightly to her chest that she felt the slight pinch of sorrow at double-crossing her parents. Frank was willing to take her, something he’d never been accepting of before, and already she was conceiving ways that she could go off investigating a land she’d never even set foot in before.

Heck, she didn’t even know *what* she was looking for. Again the little niggle at the back of her mind piped up, its quiet voice easing her worries just enough. Something was guiding her, something unseen but incredibly hard to evade. Putting her trust in this --ghost-- should have made her nervous.

It should have, but it didn’t.

“I’m coming for you,” she sighed as her eyes grew heavy, sleep claiming her. “Don't worry, you won’t be alone for long…”

--

The fresh Scottish air hit Brianna the second she stepped off the plane and the urge to rush off into the wilderness became almost overwhelming. But she managed to calm herself.

Frank, seeing her immediate excitement, took hold of Bree’s hand, his large warm fingers keeping her firmly at his side. “Stay close please, Brianna,” he muttered, turning his head to give her a firm but fair nod. “It's busy here and your mother will never forgive me should I lose you in the airport before we’ve even begun, eh!”

Bree giggled as Frank tickled her palm and guided her towards customs and their luggage collection.

Reverend Wakefield was there in the arrivals lounge, a large friendly smile plastered across his face with a young lad by his side. Bree spotted her name twinned with Frank’s on the small white placard and she waved at the pair as Frank grappled with two heavy suitcases.

Blissfully the car ride passed quickly. Roger, slightly older than Bree by a few years, helped by pointing out a wide array of scenery as they drove from Glasgow up to Inverness. The mountains were amazing, the beauty of the flourishing heather captivated her in a way countryside never had before. Instantly she felt at ease here, her unconscious guide going almost silent as they made the last part of the drive through Aviemore and up through the last few miles of the Cairngorms national park.

“Do ye like it then?” Roger probed, his wide blue eyes alight with wonder at Bree as she pushed her nose against the glass of the small car as she tried to capture every moment of the passing landscape.

“Oh yes,” she sighed, sounding very much like Claire in that moment, her Bostonian accent seeming softer since her arrival on British soil. “It’s so beautiful out there.”

“I can take ye to see some nice places whilst our fathers work, Brianna, should you fancy? Fiona is verra excited about having someone to share Inverness wi’...”

Frank turned in his seat, listening as the kids conversed. His stomach lurched at the mention of the outskirts of Inverness, the past rearing up before him like a tidal wave as his thoughts turned to Claire’s disappearance and something in his belly told him to be wary of allowing Brianna to wander too far. Shaking his head, he dismissed the notion, certain that Bree knew nothing of her mother's forays into Scottish history. ‘Silly,’ he admonished, not even stopping to warn his precocious daughter of the dangers. ‘Roger wouldn’t take her near to the stones,’ he continued, his internal monologue dismissing it as daft.

In the back, Bree smiled to herself. Roger and Fiona were willing and able to take her on adventures in the Scottish wilds and her inner voice was quietly pleased with the revelation. Still unsure as to why, she knew now that she could get where she needed to be.

The text in the bible sprung forth before her eyes as they finally pulled into the manse. She didn’t know who’d written it, or why...but she had the feeling she was about to find out.

[jewishphilosophyplace]

Haredi Transgender (Abby Stein)

In the depressing and dreary state of our political world in the Age of Trump, this is touching and lovely story about the power of transformation and self-creation is life affirming. For those who can’t get behind the Ha’aretz paywall here I’m posting below the piece by Debra Nussbaum Cohen about Abby Stein, who was born and ordained as a Hasidic rabbi and then transitioned from male to female, leaving her community to find new cultural and spiritual connections.

  By Debra Nussbaum Cohen Feb 14, 2017

NEW YORK – Abby Stein is almost certainly the only ordained Hasidic rabbi who is also a woman. Stein wasn’t female when ordained, of course. She was a young man, soon to be married to a woman also from the strict Satmar community in which they were both raised.

While Stein – then named Yisroel and nicknamed Srully – had long had unsettling feelings about her gender identity, when she married at age 18 in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and moved to Monsey, she had no idea that just a few years later her life would be radically different.

But it is. Today Stein, 25, is a Columbia University student, divorced, no longer ultra-Orthodox �� and female.

Abby, as she is now known, is a petite young woman with shoulder-length brown hair, whose religious origins are detectable only in the Yiddish accent and cadence of her speech. Estrogen has made her face softer and her body more womanly, and has even induced PMS-like mood swings.

Abby Stein today after undergoing gender transitioning, leaving the religious world, getting a divorce and becoming a student at Columbia University. Debra Nussbaum Cohen She is happier than she has ever been and plans to work on transgender issues in public policy. She may even one day run for local public office.

The sixth of 13 children, Stein was her parents’ first son. It was an upbringing full of cousins, weddings and Shabbos tisches (Friday night community gatherings) with the rebbe. Her father is related in five different ways to the Baal Shem Tov, the mystical 18th-century rabbi and founder of Hasidism. As such, the family has customs that reflect its status. While in strict Hasidic communities women don’t drive, Stein men don’t either. They don’t eat in restaurants and work only in Jewish education. After bar mitzvah the boys wear white knee socks rather than black ones — something most Satmar men do only after marriage.

When young Stein questioned her father about why they didn’t go to amusement parks during the Passover and Sukkot festivals like most Hasidim, he would respond that those things were “pas nisht” — simply “not done” – by Steins.

Something nagged at the little boy from an early age, although she lacked the language to describe it. In the bathtub at age 4, she’d prick her penis with pins because, as Stein tells Haaretz now, “It just felt like it didn’t belong there. I realized right away that I couldn’t tell anyone.”

She voraciously read articles about organ transplant from Yiddish language newspapers Der Yid and HaMaspik, thinking “someday I’ll get a full-body transplant.” At age 11, Stein added a personal prayer to her bedtime recitation of the daily Shema (confession of faith) prayer: to wake up a girl.

At 15 Stein went to a high-school yeshiva of the Vizhnitz Hasidic community in upstate New York. One day a classmate gave her a Hebrew-language translation of Richard Friedman’s “Who Wrote the Bible?” That led Stein to read “The God Delusion” by atheist Richard Dawkins, and to the discovery in the yeshiva library of books by Rabbi Yitzhak Moshe Erlanger, a scholar of kabbalah, Jewish mysticism.

Students at the yeshiva typically returned home one weekend a month, and Erlanger was in Williamsburg one Shabbat when Stein was there. They spoke for hours and the rabbi gave her an important work about kabbalah to read. “For the first time,” Stein recalls now,

“I realized that gender could be fluid.”

At 17, Stein’s parents conducted the requisite research for a girl recommended by a shadchan (matchmaker) and the two met for a b’show at the girl’s married sister’s apartment. While theoretically either of them could have declined the match, when the prospective groom arrived the table was already set to celebrate their engagement. “It’s extremely taboo” to turn down such a match, similar to breaking an engagement in the non-ultra-Orthodox world, says Stein.

The bride called Stein’s mother every week, but Stein herself had no contact with the bride during the year leading up to their wedding. The night before the chuppah, she went to the rebbe’s son for marital instruction. She was told they were to have sex only on Friday and Tuesday nights, after midnight, in the dark and in one position. Gender identity doubts persisted, Stein says, but “I kept telling myself everything would be fine.”

They lived in Monsey and were soon expecting a child. Stein’s feelings rose up anew, she says. “Gender began punching me in the face.” Stein got her hands on a smartphone and, in the bathroom at a mall, began her search. “The first thing I Googled was boy turning into a girl. Then I found a Hebrew Wikipedia page about transgender. I couldn’t read English” (Yiddish is the predominant language among the Satmar sect and in its schools).

She also found an online Israeli forum for trans people. “I realized, ‘Wow, there’s a whole world out there’ and that freaked me out,” says Stein. This was before Caitlyn Jenner and the television show “Transparent,” when there was relatively open, public conversation about trans people.

The couple’s son, Duvid, was born in January 2012; a year later, Stein told her wife that she was a non-believer. They talked about leaving Satmar for a more modern community because “we were still trying to make it work.”

Stein joined the New York-based Footsteps organization, which supports people leaving ultra-Orthodox communities, started taking English as a second language at a local community college, explored various online trans communities and opened a Facebook account as “Chava.” With a Footsteps tutor she prepared to take the high-school equivalency test.

Eventually Stein and her wife separated. She worked in Williamsburg and lived with her parents, with whom she was still close; her wife lived with Duvid at her parents’. At first father and son saw each other weekly, until the wife’s parents decided they could not meet unless their daughter was granted a get, a divorce, and Stein promised not to change her appearance and agreed to see the child just once a month.

Hard-hitting depression

After enrolling in a college-preparation program offered by Columbia University, Stein started spending time at the Hillel Jewish students’ organization on campus, and later applied to the school at Columbia designed for students from non-traditional backgrounds. On her application, which required a lengthy essay, she wrote simply, “I grew up in New York City but until I was 20, I never saw a movie, went to a Broadway show or listened to music” – and was accepted.

Once immersed in studies, Stein hoped her gender identity issues would fade, but several weeks into her first semester depression hit hard; she couldn’t get out of bed. A counselor at the university said he thought the student was hiding something.

Yisroel “Srully” Stein, before coming out as a trans woman named Abby. She is happier than she has ever been before, she says today. Eve Singer By then she had begun using women’s deodorant and letting her hair grow, but wasn’t yet ready to confront gender transitioning head-on. The depression intensified and she looked for a new therapist. At the LGBT center in lower Manhattan, a staffer told Stein she was trans. After working at a Jewish camp that summer, she began to transition. Stein began taking estrogen and a testosterone blocker in September 2015, and started coming out to friends. One showed up with a bag of women’s clothes, another taught her how to apply makeup. She began going to trans support groups.

Stein still dressed outwardly as male though “emotionally it was getting harder” not to make the full transition. She wanted to tell her parents personally about her decision so they didn’t hear it through gossip. One Shabbat, back at home, Stein says she lit candles — solely a woman’s ritual — which she had been doing privately for a year.

“My mother said, ‘You look different,” says Stein, but didn’t ask any specific questions. Taking estrogen has changed Stein, in the interim. A receding hairline has filled in and her hair has grown thicker. Her cheekbones have become fuller, she has breasts and her hips have widened. Her son Duvid, now 5, started calling her “Mama” as soon as she got her ears pierced, she says.

Stein started attending Romemu, a Jewish Renewal, egalitarian Jewish congregation in Manhattan, and became close to its rabbi, David Ingber. He offered to speak with Stein’s father, and they met in late 2015.

“It was the first time [my father] saw me wearing earrings. He said, ‘It would be easier for me to talk to you while you’re wearing a kippah,’” Stein recalls.

Yisroel Stein with his son Duvid and his parents. After Yisroel became Abby, a trans woman, she was called “Mama” by Duvid when she got her ears pierced. Abby Stein Her father, who runs a Williamsburg yeshiva for troubled youth, didn’t say much. “He stayed frozen,” Stein says. “He said, ‘I don’t believe it [transgender] exists.’ I showed him kabbalistic and Hasidic ideas. He said, ‘Why would you do that – women are so much less than men?’ Then he said, ‘You know this means I probably can’t talk to you ever again.’ He stood up, thanked David for taking care of me. He didn’t say goodbye to me, he just walked out the door.”

Her parents have not spoken with her since. Stein called home before the Jewish New Year last fall but got no response from her mother, who answered the phone. “It is painful,” says Stein, who likes baking challah her mother’s way.

Speaking out

Stein had her name legally changed from Yisroel to Abby Chava. Now her birth certificate, driver’s license and school ID indicate that she is female. In an emergency room recently after being hit by a car, a doctor asked when her last menstrual period was. Stein and her ex-wife haven’t spoken directly since their divorce. The woman’s new husband turns Duvid over when Stein comes to pick him up.

Today Stein wears a triangle charm necklace. Two corners bear symbols for male and female, while the third indicates transgender. She is dating a woman. And she is on a waiting list for sexual reassignment surgery.

At Columbia she’s majoring in political science, and women’s and gender studies. She teaches Hebrew school at Romemu and at the Congregation B’nai Jeshurun, and recently started a part-time community engagement job at the Manhattan borough president’s office.

Stein is also writing a memoir, and someone is making a documentary about her. As the only Hasid in America to come out publicly as transgender, she is in great demand as a speaker from Limmud Jewish education organization, to college and LGBTQ groups. She also runs an online support group for Hasidic trans people.

Most importantly, Stein notes now, she has never felt better.

“I experienced cycles of depression since I was 12,” she says. “Now I have mood swings, but I can deal with that by watching Netflix and eating pickles.”

http://ift.tt/2lNO6J3

[kansascityhappenings]

Kentucky diocese apologizes for condemning students in video with Native American elder

https://embed-prod.vemba.io/vemba-embed.js

COVINGTON, Ky. — A Catholic diocese in Kentucky said Friday it was “bullied and pressured” into a making a premature statement about a viral video showing a confrontation between a Native American elder and a Catholic school student, according to a letter the diocese’s bishop wrote to parents.

The Rev. Roger J. Foys said in the letter that the leadership of the Diocese of Covington was “being pressured from all sides to make a statement” about the video clip.

“We are sorry that this situation has caused such disruption in the lives of so many,” Foys wrote. “We apologize to anyone who has been offended in any way of our statements which were made with good will based on the information we had. We should not have allowed ourselves to be bullied and pressured into making a statement prematurely, and we take full responsibility for it.”

Foys wrote he especially wanted to apologize to Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann — the teen featured prominently in the video — his family and all the Covington families affected by the video.

“Nicholas unfortunately has become the face of these allegations based on video clips. This is not fair. It is not just,” Foys wrote.

The original January 19 statement said the diocese condemned the actions of the Covington students for the January 18 incident with Omaha Nation elder Nathan Phillips in Washington. The church also issued an apology to Phillips.

After more videos surfaced showing other vantage points, “the very same people who had put tremendous pressure on us to condemn the actions of the students now wanted a retraction from anyone who had previously issued a statement critical of them,” Foys’ Friday letter says. “All of this based again on a video.”

Foys also wrote that Covington students and their families received death threats. The school was closed Tuesday, but reopened Wednesday morning, according to a letter from the high school to parents obtained by CNN affiliate WCPO.

The diocese is now awaiting the results of the investigation into the incident.

“It is my hope and expectation that the results will exonerate our students so that they can move forward with their lives,” Foys wrote.

One video, two stories

The video of the confrontation surfaced January 18. It showed students from the all-boys Covington Catholic High School wearing “Make America Great Again” hats surrounding Phillips as he stood face to face with Nick, playing a drum and chanting.

The students were in Washington for the school’s annual trip to the March for Life rally.

A second video surfaced Sunday showing another group, who identify themselves as members of the Hebrew Israelites, taunting students with disparaging and vulgar language, before the encounter with the Native American.

Covington Catholic parents told CNN affiliate WKRC the students did not incite violence and were calm as taunts were hurled at them. One parent said he tried to intervene to defuse the situation.

Speaking out for the first time, on the “Today” show Wednesday, Nick said he doesn’t owe anyone an apology, but he respects Phillips and would be willing to engage in dialogue with him. Nick also said neither he nor any of his classmates are racist and they’ve been mischaracterized based on videos of the scene that unfolded in front of the Lincoln Memorial last week.

Phillips, on the other hand, told CNN this week he felt hatred coming from the young people in the crowd. When asked about Nick standing in front of him, Phillips told CNN he was trying to retreat and the only way he could do so was to go forward.

“When I started going forward and that mass of groups of people started separating and moving aside to allow me to move out of the way or to proceed, this young fellow put himself in front of me and wouldn’t move,” Phillips said.

Phillips is offering to travel to Covington Catholic High School to talk about the importance of respecting diverse cultures, according to a statement from the Lakota People’s Law Project.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/01/25/kentucky-diocese-apologizes-for-condemning-students-in-video-with-native-american-elder/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/01/26/kentucky-diocese-apologizes-for-condemning-students-in-video-with-native-american-elder/

[vinayv224]

How a rarely discussed religious group became part of the viral Covington story.

A video of an interaction between white high school students and an indigenous activist that went viral over the weekend has sparked a wild internet debate, and thrust a little known religious group into the spotlight.

On Saturday, a viral video emerged of a teenage boy wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat standing in front of Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist and Omaha elder, as he beat a drum and sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The video was taken on Friday, the same day as the Indigenous Peoples March, and showed other boys, many of them also in Trump-branded apparel, dancing and laughing nearby.

Philips told several media outlets that he believed the students, who were from Covington Catholic high school in Kentucky, and were in DC to participate in the annual March for Life, were mocking him, and the video was shared repeatedly as a powerful example of racism in the Trump era.

But the conversation began to shift on Sunday when some observers claimed that a small group of Black Hebrew Israelite protesters standing nearby were to blame for the incident.

Another, longer video soon emerged, showing a verbal exchange between the Covington students and a small group of Black Hebrew Israelite protesters in the moments before Phillips appeared.

In a statement on Sunday, Nick Sandmann, the boy in the initial video, argued that the Hebrew Israelites instigated the incident and that his classmates “wanted to drown out the hateful comments that were being shouted at us.”

President Donald Trump, conservative commentators, and a number of prominent journalists responded to the second video and Sandmann’s statement by saying that the early criticism of students was overblown, and the result of a rush to judgement. Phillips, for his part, explained in interviews that he wanted to separate the students and the Hebrew Israelites, noting that the men were vastly outnumbered by students. “These young men were beastly and these old black individuals was their prey,” Phillips said.

The Black Hebrew Israelites, meanwhile, have said that they are being used as a scapegoat for the students’ behavior. Now, more than three days after the video first went viral, the small group finds itself in the middle of a controversy over very different framings of the rally incident.

The Black Hebrew Israelites, briefly explained

The Black Hebrew Israelites are an offshoot of a broader religious movement scholars often call Black Israelism, which dates back to slavery and Reconstruction, if not earlier.

Writing for the Washington Post, journalist Sam Kestenbaum explains that Black Israelism is “a complex American religious movement” whose various sects are loosely bound by a belief that “African Americans are the literal descendants of the Israelites of the Bible and have been severed from their true heritage.”

Several figures played a role in the creation of this movement, including William Saunders Crowdy, a former slave who embraced parts of Judaism while arguing that there were deep connections between African Americans and biblical Israelites, the descendants of the prophet Jacob. Crowdy travelled across the country with his message in the late 1800s, setting up congregations in states like Kansas, Illinois, New York, and Virginia before his death in New Jersey in 1908.

Crowdy’s ministry also drew on aspects of Christianity. His practice “developed from particular history of African American suffering and the historical, spatial, ideological, cultural, and religious contexts of the Western frontier after reconstruction,” historian Jacob Dorman explains in Chosen People: The Rise of American Black Israelite Religions.

Crowdy’s followers, and the followers of other leaders in this movement, refer to themselves in varying ways, and practice their religion differently, although they are all often lumped under the same umbrella.

According to Andre E. Key, a history professor at South Carolina’s Claflin University, the differences between groups often referred to as Black Jews, Black Hebrews, and Hebrew Israelites are not always recognized, “at times creating confusing connections between disparate movements.”

Some groups, for example, focus on adapting a combination of Jewish and Christian teachings to predominantly black congregations, while other groups use terms and traditions of Judaism as part of an entirely distinct belief system that does not desire the support or approval of any existing religion.

The Black Hebrew Israelites who were at the Lincoln Memorial on January 18 were not immediately connected to a specific sect, but appear to fit into this latter group. Their version of religious practice developed in the years after the civil rights and Black Power movements, as some members wanted to distance themselves from “white��� Jews and Judaism. Kestenbaum traces the development of these more radical groups back to the 1970s and 1980s, noting that several offshoots developed around the Israeli Tanack School in Harlem, also called One West.

Kestenbaum explains:

The One Westers saw themselves as radical reformers of earlier generations of Hebrew Israelites who had gone astray. They would troop out to street corners dressed in colorful and ornate capes and leather — vivid imaginings of what ancient Israelites might look like transported into the urban culture of New York City. They were also early and eager adopters of new media, hosting local television slots and filming their often-confrontational street ministry.

The One Westers believed that other nonwhite groups, including Native Americans and Hispanics, were also descendants of Israel’s 12 tribes, adding that these communities must acknowledge their history as Israelites before issues like poverty and police violence “could be overcome.”

The differing offshoots or “camps” affiliated with One West have some common beliefs, including a strong sense of black nationalism and an ardent belief in the end of the world being imminent. When compared to other facets of Black Jewish groups and Black Israelites, this group is largely seen as a fringe sect, and has fractured further since 2000, spawning groups like the House of Israel.

But the internet has helped these groups spread their message. If you live in a city like Washington, DC, Philadelphia, or New York, there’s a good chance you’ve seen members of the House of Israel or other offshoots of One West engaged in a highly confrontational form of street ministry.

As these groups have become more well known, organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center have argued that some Black Hebrew Israelite groups are “hate groups” and fit into a rise of black nationalism in the face of resurgent white supremacist movements. The SPLC refers to them as an “extremist sector within the Hebrew Israelite movement whose adherents believe that Jews are devilish impostors and who openly condemn whites as evil personified, deserving only death or slavery,” and also have a history of sexist and anti-LGBTQ remarks. Groups like the Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge contest this description.

The Black Hebrew Israelites say they aren’t to blame for the high school students’ behavior

As the backlash to the initial media coverage of the Covington students (and backlash to that backlash) continues, some critics have argued that the students’ behavior was “wildly mischaracterized.”

In Reason, a libertarian news outlet, Robby Soave argued that “far from engaging in racially motivated harassment, the group of mostly white, MAGA-hat-wearing male teenagers remained relatively calm and restrained despite being subjected to incessant racist, homophobic, and bigoted verbal abuse by members of the bizarre religious sect Black Hebrew Israelites, who were lurking nearby.”

But others, like Deadspin’s Laura Wagner, argue that additional information about the event should not end outrage over what happened to Phillips. “Nothing about the video showing the offensive language of Black Israelites changes how upsetting it was to see the Covington students, and Sandmann in particular, stare at Phillips with such contempt,” Wagner wrote on Monday.

The Black Hebrew Israelites involved argue that they are being unfairly singled out in attempts to excuse the students’ treatment of Phillips.

Ephraim Israel, a Hebrew Israelite present on Friday, told the Washington Post that the students were “mocking me as I was trying to teach my brothers, so, yes, the attention turned to them.”

“I explained to them, you want to build the wall for Mexicans and other indigenous people, but you’ve never seen a black or a Mexican shoot up a school,” he said.

While the longer video does show the men taunting other march attendees before turning to the students, who begin to chant and yell in response, Phillips has also told media outlets that he had problems with the students even before their confrontation with the Black Hebrew Israelites. And other videos posted by people on the National Mall that day seem to show Covington students harassing other people in the area near the Indigenous Peoples March.

On Saturday, Shar Yaqataz Banyamyan, another member of the Black Hebrew Israelites present on Friday, discussed the situation on Facebook Live. He argued that his groups’ comments toward the students — which included claims that the students were “Donald Trump incest babies” and “dogs” — were “just rhetoric.”

“Nobody started your children to mount up on us and surround us and start chanting and doing so-called indigenous dances mocking the march,” Banyamyan said.

from Vox - All http://bit.ly/2sPj09v

[skylersus]

“Oh, So You’re a Jew?

Religion. “A specific, fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects.” However, this definition does not include that it is a heated topic of debate in today’s society, a sensitive subject, and the root of my identity struggle. I was forced to confront my religion, Judaism, at a young age because of people in my neighborhood and school. I was targeted because of it for the majority of my life, especially coming from the predominantly Catholic side of my neighborhood. People were outwardly mean or accidentally offensive. Regardless of the circumstances, both groups made me feel like an outsider in my own communities.

I was never super religious. We celebrated Hanukkah and my mom made a big dinner for Rosh Hashanah and Passover and it ended there. However, I did go to Hebrew school for a few years in elementary school, and knew a decent amount of Hebrew. My mom always says it’s too expensive being Jewish, and she was right. Temple tickets were insanely pricey. Deep down, I always secretly wished we were more avid followers. I loved reading the prayer for Hanukkah, finding the matzah, and just the culture in general. Excited to learn more Hebrew every week, it was the highlight of my week. I absolutely loved going there and my teachers really liked me. However, as time progressed, I became less pumped for it, and instead dreaded it. Unfortunately, I started to become embarrassed about my religion. Why? Because of the anti-Semitism I was surrounded by. Eventually, I stopped attending.

Around this time, my insecurity seed was planted. The Catholic school boys I knew from my baseball league in my neighborhood were pretty direct with their comments. They were racist, sexist, and, of course, anti-Semitic. They would point out I was Jewish, make fun of my appearance or ask me questions in a condescending tone to put me on the spot.  “Oh, you’re a Jew?” Sometimes they would shout demeaning things in the street. Most of them were younger than me, and I felt stupid for letting them bully me. From a young age, I learned to avoid the topic of religion and keep mine a secret, as a means of protecting myself from the mean neighborhood boys.

This continued up until middle school, but eighth grade was its own experience. I transferred to a local Catholic grammar school, St. Gabriel’s, in September 2012 when I was 13 years old, from a public school in Manhattan, called Manhattan East. Riverdale, my neighborhood, better known as the “White Bronx,” is a mixture of the city and the suburbs. It is geographically apart of the Bronx, but not culturally.

It was weird seeing my former elementary school classmates who went to the public middle school watching me walk around in a uniform when I was originally a public school kid. I was embarrassed about it. I left M.E because I wanted to go to school with my little sister, Kolby, who was 11 at the time, and entering sixth grade. I am thankful I transferred because it led me to my high school, which became a second home to me and gave me my best friends for life, but I always wonder about the “what ifs?”

Besides the obvious change from public to catholic school, the dynamic was completely different. I forgot what it was like to attend a neighborhood school. In Manhattan East, I was the minority, and now I wasn’t once again. For the obvious changes, I had to wear a uniform now. I can clearly recall how uncomfortable I felt walking to the bus stop for the first week of school. I felt like a stranger in my own body. There was only one class per grade, compared to having at least three in middle school. Walking in first day, multiple prayers were thrown in my face, and I was stumbling through them, attempting to keep up, while the rest of the class glided through them. It was awful.

The most awful part, however, was the wrath of my classmates. It was somewhat paradoxical; I was pretty popular, outgoing, well- liked, and making a lot of friends, yet I was also being ostracized. I already knew some people at St. Gabe’s, including one of my elementary school bullies, who I started talking to before I transferred, and she was one of the main culprits.

Catholic schools and their faculty unintentionally isolate the non-Catholic kids. In my class, people were caustic. They made Jew jokes, assumed stereotypes, put me on the spot and asked me weird questions about being Jewish, or would just be very offensive. I remember someone asked me “Did any of your family die in the Holocaust?” and laughing afterwards. They also knew how sensitive I was, and that I could not defend myself. I was weak, and they took advantage of that. Even my “best friends” made sure to make me feel terrible about myself. Basically, they treated me like a zoo animal on display. I never understood why. I wore Uggs and PINK (because I felt forced to), liked the same music (One Direction, Justin Bieber, Miley, Cyrus, Drake) and TV shows as them, although I had different style than the other girls in my class, and enjoyed some indie music they would not be caught dead listening to, like the Arctic Monkeys and other rock bands. I felt restricted to only liking what my classmates approved of. Overall, I did not look like a foreigner; I was white with brown eyes and skinny. Besides my big nose (which they made sure to point out and connect it to my religion), I looked normal, didn’t I? I did not understand it.

St. Gabe’s became a home to me, due to the closeness of the community, but it was also a source of torture for me. Being Jewish was hell for me, and I figured I would be in this predicament for the rest of my life; being targeted for it. Being Catholic was like being in a special club I was not allowed to join. I constantly questioned myself and wondered why I had to be born Jewish. It just isolated me and did not do anything for me. I felt worthless and ugly. I prayed that one day, hopefully I would be able to convert or something. I once told my mom I wanted to convert and I will never forget the hurt on her face. My self-esteem was at an all time low. I genuinely hated myself. I did not know who I was, only who I wanted to be- Catholic and normal like my classmates. This fostered from my younger years, and grew into something much greater. Making sure to not let people know I was Jewish, I was basically hiding a part of me. It’s hard for me to look back on now, to realize I was so ashamed of myself. My family was disappointed when I shared my feelings with them, but understood people were terrible. All I wanted was to stop being Jewish and start being Catholic, was that too much to ask?

I found myself dealing with the same identity struggle in the beginning of my freshman year at Saint Vincent Ferrer High School on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. A few girls from St. Gabe’s went as well, but by the end of our four years, we were not really friends, and it was for the best. In freshman religion, my teacher would mention confirming freshmen quite often, which made me wonder about possibly converting. I even asked her about it one day, and she told me it is very possible and my school would be so excited for me to do so. She told me to keep in touch with her about it.

However, I never did, and I am thankful for that. As the years went on, I stopped being as sensitive, started sticking up for myself, and made sure everyone knew exactly who I was. I was not unsure of my identity; I made my own identity. Nobody could tell me anything. I even defended other people. I used my struggle to become socially aware, and advocate for inclusion, not just for Jewish people, but for all races, genders, and religions. My experience, although grueling and painful, has helped me tremendously, and encourages me to help others who feel as I once did. I would never wish that on anyone; feeling clueless, vulnerable, and scared in your own body. At Syracuse University, there are many Jewish people, and we have bonded over similar situations. It is so refreshing to finally be surrounded by people who relate to me after being around mostly Catholic people for so long. Although I do not identify as Jewish anymore, I am proud of my heritage and background. And to anyone who has a problem with that- you have a problem with me.