#stop doing our oppressors' job for them

[caffeine-n-words]

Enjoying Queer Content Is Not Fetishizing Queer People

So, lately on Twitter there's been a lot of drama surrounding a VA who has made a lot of inflammatory comments in an effort to promote his own book.

"How A Cookie Tried to Sell a Book" sums it up pretty well. The article mentions that his best-known voice acting role is as Cream Unicorn Cookie in Cookie Run, and the only other known role (as per behindthevoiceactors.com) is in Given, a BL game. I've seen people here claim he also had a role in Genshin Impact, but that's not listed; however, JD Riley's article mentions that a Genshin Impact VA did come to King's defense.

(Also, yes, we're all reeling from the irony that one of his roles was in a BL game, and he's trying to tear down BL to promote himself. Gross.)

I'm sure this is all well known, but I wanted to provide context for this next statement: People who enjoy queer content, including fujoshi and women who do not identify as fujoshi, are not fetishizing queer people. They literally cannot be, because the people they're reading about aren't real.

Why is that important? Let's look at the definition of fetishize:

make (something) the object of a sexual fetish (women's bodies are so intensely fetishized) and

have an excessive and irrational commitment to or obsession with (something) (an author who fetishizes privacy)

Typically when people talk about cishet women fetishizing gay men by reading BL or MlM, they're talking about the first definition.

Fetishizing would be objectifying real gay men. Reading about fictional gay men in a relationship isn't objectifying real gay men. Reading about fictional gay men having sex isn't objectifying real gay men. Enjoying a fictional relationship between fictional gay men is not objectifying real gay men.

This also applies to other queer content.

In fact, continuing to insist that cishet people, women in particular, aren't allowed to read/view/enjoy queer content encourages the idea that somehow our content is dirty or needs to be hidden away from "the straights." This actively discourages having our communities accepted and normalized.

For example, queer romance should be just as available on bookshelves as cishet romance. If we put say, ten mlm romance books and ten cishet romance books on a table, people are going to see and buy them, including people who aren't in the target audience. If we keep insisting that people who aren't the target audience (in this case, fujoshi and other cishet women) aren't allowed to read the mlm romance books, fewer will be sold. If fewer sell, the store won't buy as many to put out, or just stop stocking it altogether. This encourages the idea that that content is gross, unsuitable for sale or view (even though that's not why it was pulled), and feeds into existing homophobic propaganda.

If someone actually fetishizes a real queer person, by all means, call out their behavior. It's harmful; it actually negatively affects a real person.

But let's stop it with "cishet women aren't allowed to read/watch this fictional content because it's fetishizing real gay people!" It's a false statement and getting tiresome.

[runawaymun]

Two takeaways right now that I really cannot stress enough: 1) We cannot afford to keep spouting the "The American public is fucking stupid" and "Republicans are dumb and uneducated" rhetoric. I have already seen a new resurgence in the past 24 hours. Yes, it's true: One in five Americans are functionally illiterate. Many of them live in states like New Mexico and Mississippi, below the poverty line, with underfunded educational institutions, and very little access to resources to help them. A staggering amount of USAmericans read below a sixth grade level. This is not a moral failing. This is not their fault. This is a societal failing, an infrastructure failing. We've been failing the rust belt for decades and it's only getting worse. And it does not help our cause if we continue to turn up our noses and say they're all stupid cousin-kissing hillbillies who deserve what they're getting. That only helps Trump. That is how we got here. The division only helps the people in power to keep up the grift. As long as we continue to disparage and underestimate working people from the Midwest and the American South, we will continue to lose. They are tired of being condescended to, and that is why they like Trump. He at least pretends (badly, but he at least pretends) that he cares about their interests.

Remember this bit of propaganda?

All the way back from 1754?

We have to stop fighting each other. We cannot afford to continue saying 'Trumpers are stupid and hateful and uneducated' and continue this us-against-them mentality. It is JUST as bad as my Midwestern parents who say that Democrats are evil satanic child-killing communists. I grew up steeped in that environment. I fully believed it. Many people are just as scared as you are. They are working with the information they have. They believe they are doing the right thing, just as you do. They are watching their communities literally disintegrate and the only person that promises to bring them jobs is Donald Fucking Trump. And he is employing every propaganda tactic in the book to grift them. A big part of the lies the Republican party loves to spout is that they're persecuted and they're underdogs -- I grew up in this environment. It stems from an Evangelical worldview that to be righteous is to be persecuted. Disparaging these people, insulting them, condescending them, only feeds this narrative. The only way I got out of this mentality was by having access to community college, meeting kind people outside my bubble who were willing to have a conversation with me, and finally getting education that wasn't steeped in evangelical propaganda.

I invite you all to go and watch Megan Phelps-Roper's TEDtalk (or read her book, it's excellent) about how she left her family's cult. The only thing that broke through that fog of 'We are persecuted and therefore righteous' was when people stopped throwing cups of hot liquid and piss at her (when she was a child!), and started being kind and empathetic. We all can stand to learn a lot from stories like hers. The second that evil god-hating people started being kind to her was the second she began to question everything she'd been taught.

Yes, it's very easy to look at these people spewing hateful rhetoric and label them as evil. But they're not. The people exploiting all of us are evil. The people exploiting fear and division are evil. We need to call for accountability with news outlets, to fund grass-roots efforts to give adults with educational gaps access to help. Many of them simply could not continue going to school because their families were impoverished and they had to work so they could fucking eat. Many of them have undiagnosed disabilities because they do not have insurance to even go to a doctor. To be ignorant is not a moral failing. Willful ignorance? Absolutely. But ignorance, no. The only thing we can do now is be kind, invite people into discussion, and remember that the only enemy is the oppressor in power who views everybody as pawns and dollar signs. We are all the same to them.

2) Please do not fall into the trap of thinking this means that your vote does not count. Voting is more important than ever. You need to vote in your local elections. You need to. The Senate and the House are the lawmakers and the people in charge of declaring war. They have term limits. They are not untouchable. They are the only people now who are capable of checking Trump. And your local mayors, councils, etc are the people who are going to make the real difference between public healthcare, good education, censorship, civil rights, housing, etc. States have an immense amount of freedom to operate. That is how I have access to incredible free healthcare in mine. That is how we have one of the best public transit systems in the country. That is how we placed penalties on industries and got rid of smog and heavy pollution in the 70s. That is how we have gay bars and drag brunches and well-funded libraries. That is all local-government stuff. If you want your communities to change, you HAVE to vote locally. Please, please, please do not give up and think your vote doesn't matter. It does. It matters immensely.

[sorin-sunchild]

Ok last post about this but here's some simple points that it's imperative you read and understand if you genuinely care about trans people especially as one yourself;

A) No sex or gender is virtuous or sinful by default. It's a persons words and actions which determine what kind of person they are. Leave this 'innate sin' Catholic bs at the door and send the pedestal you're forcing trans fems to sit on out with it.

B) Therefore any trans person can be transphobic, transmisogynistic or transandrophobic including if they're amongst the group targeted by the intersectional terms. All of these types of bigotry are unacceptable, regardless of your personal perceived impact on yourself and others. Nobody should be subject to any kind of bigotry.

C) This does not mean ALL members of X group are Y kind of bigots but it also doesn't mean that no X group members are Y kind of bigots. It's good to be careful of these lines of thinking in anyone if we want to get rid of it but see point A.

D) Holding individuals accountable and opposing the general ideology of transmisogyny, transandrophobia and general transphobia (including nonbinaryphobia/exorsexism and transmedicalism) is more affective than demonising a whole group based on their identity. If members are radicalised or bigoted already, they're not changing their minds because you yelled at them to kill themselves nor are they unworthy of redemption.

E) Listening to people directly about the bigotry they face is the key to understanding bigotry you might not face yourself.

F) Trans unity is the tool we need to craft a fortress so strong we can weather any storm but it won't work if we believe that's enemies in our own lines.

G) Using female-orientated insults towards trans mascs is still misogynistic. Using male-orientated insults towards trans women is still transmisogynistic. Telling anyone to kill themselves for existing loudly and in a way you disapprove of, puts you in the wrong automatically. Telling someone or a whole group to kill themselves also invalidates anything else you wish to say before or after said statement.

H) Failure to understand any of this means you are helping no groups, or even yourself, instead you are likely contributing to trans harm. Including harm to the groups you are most personally invested in helping.

Equality doesn't mean making the oppressed the oppressors and it sure as hell doesn't mean the oppressed oppressing each other. Stop doing the TERFs jobs for them.

[kdinjenzen]

Since the world is so brutal on trans women and trans people in general, I do have to ask, will it ever get better for us? It seems like so much of it is "we suffer, are belittled, are harassed" and we don't have the luxury to fight back to defend ourselves without being treated like villains and it sounds like we will be buried before we can save ourselves

It is important to remember queer history and the history of marginalized people of all kinds in moments like this.

We are not the first group to be treated this way, we likely won’t be the last.

Our job is to look out for each other, for those like us and for those unlike us, being there, being supporting, standing up, fighting back against oppressors and hateful behavior.

Our job is to teach people to be better and not damn them to hell or shame them into further hatred.

Our job, as people, is to build a world where we can be safe and hope that those after us get to enjoy it to its fullest extent and for longer than we can.

We owe it to ourselves and those around us to learn from our pasts and create something better in the future.

Do I think anything will be perfect in my lifetime? Fuck no.

Does that stop me from doing anything I can to try and make things better? Absolutely the fuck not.

[jingerpi]

it shouldn't really be surprising that a lot of women are defaulting to reactionary patriarchal rhetoric with regards to work and certain coquette aesthetics.

We're told that we're economic equals. We're told that other women have succeeded, why don't we? We're told we have the right to vote, that sexism is over. and yet, we experience it every day. We struggle every day against sexism, against sexual assault, against wage gaps, against being taken less seriously and being written off as emotional or hysterical. We work jobs and raise children. We face medical discrimination and ever lessening bodily autonomy.

So is it a surprise when women experiencing these things want economically stable and powerful men to care for them? no, absolutely not!

is it still wrong? of course! it's not going to save us to rely on men, but this rhetoric is not going to stop until we address the underlying causes for the oppression of women. We're faced every day with a dissonance between what we're told we can do and what we can actually achieve in reality, the correct response isn't to rely on men, but to organize for liberation.

What that doesn't mean, is that women who give up trying to girlboss it up and break through the glass ceiling are secret fascists who were always oppressors, what it means is that we're suffering, and even the reactionary elements in our strata, even those who are uneducated or misled, are feeling the pains of patriarchy and the lies society tells us

[aronarchy]

i often see posts going around saying “it’s bad to freakshame saying ‘go to therapy for being a freak,’ because therapists are actually supposed to/actually help people to feel less distressed, not to make them normal.” this is an extremely harmful take. ideally, therapists would all only help people to feel less distressed (on their own terms), and not target deviance. unfortunately, this is not the reality right now. many, arguably most therapists are actually freak-haters too and do want to/try to make abnormal people more normal. it’s often even in their job descriptions. in fact, if you study the history of psychiatry it becomes incredibly obvious that much of the modern psych establishment wasn’t begun to genuinely help people, but to try to remove deviance. it is incredibly triggering for survivors of therapist/psychiatric abuse (especially abuse targeting deviance) when we see these posts going around pretending our trauma doesn’t/couldn’t exist, implicitly aligning our interests as freaks with the interests of our abusers and oppressors. stop doing that. stop reblogging those posts (uncritically, at least).

the bigots are right, actually, that “go to therapy” as an insult invokes a medical authority which basically agrees with them. but the solution to that isn’t to try to pretend that therapy (in general) Is Good Actually; the solution is to stop doing all of the above, as a whole.

[moonlayl]

This...got super long and to be clear nothing I have experienced nor will ever experience will come close to the horrors that Palestinians are facing right now. I just need to say that and make that clear, but these are just things I've been wanting to say for a while now.

Just a thought that came to my head, but I remember arguing with lots of liberals before about how I don't really support the idea that people shouldn't be able to say anything they want (except obviously spreading misinformation especially if you're in certain professions), even hate speech not because I ever want to hear hate speech, but because I can't trust any government to decide what hate speech is, and I was told to give an example

I remember at the time saying "what if one day, me speaking about Palestine starts to become classified as antisemitism or terrorism?"

I was told that was silly and would "obviously never happen" (I didn't believe them and called them naive at the time)

well....looking at certain countries right now, trying to ban Palestinian flags, ban common Palestinian/muslim sayings, ban any peaceful protest in favour of Palestine, even looking at imprisoning/fining people etc.... is kind of just proving my point.

Like most of us don't feel included or part of any western communities even if we're lived here our whole lives for so many reasons and it almost always boils down to us being Arabs/muslim.

can't speak for non Arabs and non muslims, but a lot of us feel this way.

seeing how fighting for the people who need it the most (2000+ Palestinians have been killed. 800 of them being children. 45 families completely wiped out, entire bloodlines, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, cousins, children, nephews, nieces, grandchildren, etc....like this is actual genocide. their entire family tree has been completely wiped form existence) is being banned or branded as "terrorism", or we're losing our jobs, or we're being silenced, like it says a lot about theses countries and the governments that run them.

They tried to suspend humanitarian aid to innocent people of Gaza for the love of God!! Thank God there were 5 decent countries who voted no!

Israel gets away with every goddamn crime and ANY "condemnation" of any warcrime it commits is just talk, while they continue to aid and support it.

How am I supposed to trust these governments, and MY government to decide what's acceptable and what's not when I know that during the most critical moments that matter the most, they won't be on our side, and they'll side with oppressors because they themselves are just that? That the little I can actually do for Palestine and any other country could be completely taken away?

These are "democratic" countries by the way, or they're supposed to be, and sure we can challenge all these things but there are things even we can't do. the onslaught of propaganda shared everywhere by the same news stations that refuse to invite Palestinians (and refuse to air the few times they do) and refuse to fact check their content, or report on what's actually happening in Gaza, can't really be stopped. We can do our best to spread what's actually happening, and to correct false information, but the damages have been done.

And its getting harder and harder to hear form the people of Gaza because of the bombs, cut of electricity, cut off internet access, and also, you know, the fact that the people sharing news are being killed one by one.

There's also many social media platforms completely erasing anything about Palestine. suspending our accounts and hiding our posts. I can't believe I'm saying this but maybe it's a good thing Elon Musk took over twitter because at least I've been able to talk about Palestine as much as possible without nay censoring and I'm still able to. Palestinians are still able to share their stories and the reality yon there. And sin't that crazy? Elon musk is kind of doing something right???

And you know something else? Israel killed one of their own journalists, and those people weren't able to properly report on it. They couldn't directly say it was Israel that killed one of their own workers. Like....its crazy (and they're cowards). Israel also killed 12 UN workers.

That crime is not making as many headlines as the fake stuff did. Those "journalists" and "reporters" who repeated false information (that resulted in far too many people believing them and suddenly being okay with genocide) are still working. they still have a job and they're still out there spreading more propaganda.

this post isn't well written because I'm just putting out my thoughts and what I've witnessed but to make one thing clear, I won't ever silence my voice or allow anyone to silence my voice when it comes to something like this, and i'm not afraid of what they'll do, but isn't so fucked that I could actually lose my job and have trouble finding another one for supporting the oppressed? Like isn't that just..disgusting?

Like what's that supposed to tell me other than majority of western countries are against us? It's not exactly surprising because I've known this, but everyone being VERY open about it is kind of tough to witness ngl.

Like this is not a complicated issue. if you have any morals and you're not biased against Palestinians/arabs/muslims already, then this is a very clearcut case. Israel is an apartheid state. Israel is and has been committing genocide and ethnic cleansing for literal decades and its been doing it long before Hamas came into the picture. Israel's war crimes and treatment of Palestinians is the reason Hamas even exists in the first place. you can condemn Hamas while also recognising that Israelis have no right to that land and that nothing justifies their never ending crimes. Palestinians are demanding for their rights ot live, be citizens, have rights and freedoms, and have their land that was brutally taken from them. None of those things are unreasonable.

You know what is unreasonable? the world deciding Israel is suddenly gonna be a thing and expecting Palestinians to just be okay with it. You know what is unreasonable? Palestinians being painted as the bad guys for "not wanting to share" when they literally shouldn't have to (especially because of the obvious scams of all those "treaties" and "agreements" that all gave every benefit to Israel)

Like the whole world literally let this happen and supported it and cheered for it. Some stayed silent but are showing their real colours (which those of us who haven't been blind have already seen) now.

We've got girls crying about how "they want to kill us T-T" at a university campus because people were protesting in support of Palestine, while a six year old boy was killed in his own home for being Palestinian. In the same country.

We've got celebs talk about how scared THEY are while 800 Palestinian children have been murdered.

We've got celebs posting "pray for Israel" while using pictures of Gaza in ruins or Palestinian children looking at rockets in the sky.

It's insane.

We had a protest for Palestine the other day. People were telling us to go back to our country. They were telling Palestinians to go back to their country.

....that's....that's what they want? Like we're very much aware of how much we're not wanted here just to be clear, and Palestinians across the damn globe would do ANYTHING to be able to go live in their homeland. except they can't. Israel won't let them. That's part of what we're fighting for. Any jewish person can go get a citizenship easily in Israel (even if they've never stepped foot in the country and none of their ancestors had either) but people who were born in Palestine or who's family owns property there can't get it in at all. It's absolute insanity.

I'm not sure how to end this but on every level this has been horrific. But despite that, the propaganda, the genocide, the threats, the whole world being against us, that's not gonna stop us from fighting for the oppressed and standing up for them. It's not gonna stop us from going out into the streets and no words can explain the bravery of everyone who continues to stand with Palestine but especially to the Palestinians who continue fighting and resisting (despite everything they've been through). Continuing to use our voices, donating, protesting etc... is the absolute least we can do and its our responsibility. and I truly, from the bottom of my heart wish the absolute worst for everyone who disagree with this. Like you guys are gonna pay for it. Maybe not today maybe not for many years maybe only in the afterlife (because I do believe in it) but it's gonna happen and every Israeli supporter or zionist is gonna deserve every second of it.

If you're silent, if you try to throw the "two sides" bs, and if you try to act like Palestine and Israel are in any way equal, you're included in this.

You're part of the problem.

Silence is compliance.

And screw every government that supports Israel in any way. Screw the double standards, the hypocrisy and the absolute cruelty towards innocent Palestinians.

I can't speak for everyone else but no matter what happens moving forwards, I'm never gonna forget this and I'm never gonna forgive.

I'm gonna keep trying to do everything possible which unfortunately is not much and thats frustrating on every level but I'm gonna keep doing it. feel free to unfollow/block me, but I'm not gonna stay silent about this ever. and I'm not gonna entertain any bigot or zionists either. it's gonna be a straight up block.

my asks are open, and my page is currently full of information, this site is as well, but I'm not gonna entertain those who clearly care very little bout genocide, because if you haven't opened your eyes by now, I doubt anything I say will change that. you're welcome to go through my blog or send me a polite ask (can't promise I'll get to it right away but I'll try) but I'm not tolerating pointless arguments that are basically me just repeating that Palestinian people deserve to live in their own country with all their rights and freedoms while the other person disagrees. I prefer not to argue with those who are depraved.

[ratedasresistance]

In the wake of students in the west being arrested and forcibly cleared from their campuses for standing up for Palestine.

I wrote a speech to show solidarity for all of those people who have taken it upon themselves to organize a peaceful encampment movement

But I’m also calling for them to make use of armed resistance against those who sacrifice their conscience and lives to uphold systems of oppression steered by the elites and state representatives who support and benefit from our oppression through white supremacist patriarchal and capitalist systems.

Even though the ones that uphold them don’t always stand a chance to actually benefit from keeping the wheels of oppression churning. You have to understand and remember that the elites and state representatives are defenseless that’s why they need the police force to enforce the status quo and commandeer the military industrial complex against us. For we are viewed as the lowly class of peasantry worthy ranks that snap into obedience. Yet we are the danger that they need to be protected from but it is rather us that need to be protected from the danger that they pose to our rights, freedom, human civilization, the various species in the animal kingdom and most importantly Mother Earth.

So it is our job to remove the safeguards around their blood stained mansions in order to render their power obsolete. So we do not aim at them for that is a waste of our time but rather aim at those who they trust to defend their interest.

I will share this very speech that I’ll perform in my video and I'll upload it on every social media platform and I hope that it will pick up some steam so help me get it to go #viral so that people will see it and perform it in distinct and creative ways while keeping the very essence of the overall message.

Cuz it never stands to be diluted or dialed back to be more consumer friendly, I want to hear the rage in your voices, wrinkles on your faces and the pain in your bodies because you feel for the students who are being held to the ground and deprived of a considerable amount of oxygen during their arrest. CHANNEL THEIR PAIN & THOSE OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE EVERYWHERE ESPECIALLY THOSE IN THE GAZA STRIP, RAFAH AND THE WEST BANK!

Cuz WE are being Wronged or Fucked too in every sense of the word whether we’re aware of it or not as our tax dollars go into funding a genocide instead of helping the American & Canadian people thrive and we’re even letting our conscience die by listening to cowardly voices from western media establishments.

AS A PEOPLE WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE WILL STAND FOR OPPRESSION AND FALL TO UPHOLD OPPRESSION WHETHER IT BE THEIR OWN OR THAT OF OTHERS CUZ AS WE WATCH THEM COME FOR OTHERS WE FORGET THAT THEY’LL COME FOR US NEXT TOO! SO WE MIGHT AS WELL RISE TO THE CHALLENGE THAT IS REPRESENTED BEFORE US BY OUR OPPRESSORS AND TAKE OUR TIME TO PROPERLY RESIST/ FIGHT NOT ONLY FOR OUR RIGHTS BUT ALSO FOR THOSE WHO SUFFER AT THE HANDS OF THE US EMPIRE ACROSS THE WORLD! THE LEOPARD WILL NEVER STOP UNTIL IT EATS EVERY SINGLE ONE OF OUR FACES SO WE MIGHT AS WELL FIGHT TO KEEP EVERYONE’S FACES PROTECTED RATHER THAN TRYING TO PROTECT OUR OWN FACES CUZ AGAIN WHEN THEY’RE DONE WITH THE OTHERS, THEY WILL COME FOR US NEXT TOO!

So Here’s the actual speech:

You’re going to stand right here and say that you have a warrant from Turtle Island turned into the Most United States demanding for our arrest!?

Are you asking us to obey?

And pray at their behest?

It’s okay. Cuz we will not erupt in protest!

For we do not beg!

It is our rite of passage

To complete the most noble quest

So what is ours shall be taken!

And we shall not be shaken by your stern stare

We will only prevail in times of despair

Say it for the ones at the back who are too blind to oppression! Free free free Palestine! Free Congo and Free Sudan!

Say it for the ones at the front who are too scared to fall! Free free free Palestine! Free Congo and Free Sudan!

Cuz everything and those everywhere long for liberation all at once!

This is the golden ages ripe with the opportunity for progress

So we have to rise to pass the litmus test

For we grow complict in our own undoing through the violence in our silence

As others not deserving of hell fell into the heavens

While we hid in our nest

Only in the moments that we'll seek to rest our heads on our cozy beds

We shall be so harshly and rudely awakened

By the reality that we will forever be oppressed

Unless we keep the faith in our every breath

For we cannot stand to lose in the slightest

As we cannot tell those who will come next that we tried our best

Cuz they deserve the heavens and the earth

Free from those who wish to make it their conquest

And take them as their new subjects

Again we shall not be shaken!

We shall come for each and every one of your colonial nations!

And reduce them into our shrines of liberation!

So beware and behave or you shall be tamed by the wrath of our rage.

And we shall make a feast out of your faces if you even dare.

🤣😇😎👹🤡🤬☠️💀💋🙈🙉🙊

[bilboyagathechickenfootedhobbit]

Some feminists really just cannot fathom the thought that not every single woman shares all the exact same opinions as them and they cannot deal with it in any way other than disparaging and shitting all over the woman with a different opinion.

Because that’s apparently how feminism on Tumblr works.

Good job, ladies. Good job. You keep on tearing one another down, shitting on any woman who does not fall into IMMEDIATE lockstep with your rigid beliefs, ignore the lived experiences and advice of older women and mothers, call any woman who dates a man a dick-sick handmaiden, close your ears to any criticisms or dissent, and argue endlessly over minutiae all the time.

I’m SURE the men oppressing us will put our oppression on pause while we bitch at one another endlessly. I’m sure they’ll patiently wait for every last feminist ever in the world to fully agree 100% on every last minute little detail before they start up their campaign of oppression against us! Gosh, I bet they’re even sitting around doing the same thing! Policing each other over language and opinions, saying, gee guys, we can’t possibly strip women of their right to abortions until we can ALL UNANIMOUSLY AGREE on the whether or not we call ourselves oppressors or persons of an oppressive nature.

Clown ass feminism. Get off the internet and go volunteer to help women in the real world. Stop thinking that being a self-righteous keyboard warrior makes you some kind of new and improved tech-savvy Dworkin.

[aita-blorbos]

Am I the asshole for wanting to save my species from our oppressors?

For some context, I (150m) am not human. I am very proud of this fact. My twin brother, who we'll call V, also isn't human. We are part of a species that humans use as batteries, though we were born in an unusual way and thus can't actually be used to generate energy.

Due to being inhuman, we both have been treated roughly since we were born. However, both me and my brother were raised by at one kind human woman (was 27f) who we'll call R who had very naive ideas about how the world works.

R believed that people were inherently good, and that every deserved to live regardless of the kind of things they've done. Despite this, the other people who we grew up around treated us like dirt. They would call us inhuman freaks to our faces, refuse us food, treat us like we were dangerous and occasionally physically hurt us. I was very young during this time (3), so I did the easiest thing I could think of.

I took the ship we were living in and messed up the course it was flying in so we would crash on the nearest planet and kill every human. V even let me have the code to bypass security. The crash also ended up killing R after she rushed both me and V to an escape pod.

But then V was upset?? Apparently R's naïveté had rubbed off on him by that point. He started actually crying and yelled at me that I had gone too far. Those people had been nothing but cruel to us, but getting rid of them was apparently the wrong thing to do according to V. Turns out my plan failed anyway, because humanity survived the crash on the new planet and used those of our species as free energy generators.

They treated our kind as if they were disposable, and it was sickening. But since our sisters are not human-like, they couldn't think or communicate to stand up for themselves, and even relied on the humans.

So, I took up the job of saving them myself. Over the last 150 years I've been collecting them from towns, letting them exist without having their life drained away. At the same time, V has been trying to stop me.

V doesn't even get treated well by humans. Every time I see him he's got a new scar from a fight, and he gets blamed for destruction and has a huge bounty on his head for things he never did. But he insists on protecting them anyway, saying it's cruel to rescue our sisters because the humans need them to live or whatever. He knows that people don't like him, but he keeps getting himself hurt anyway because he thinks saving people who don't even care about him is worth it. AITA?

[mr-clow]

Overture: The rise of an imperatrix. Part 2:

Carlos was finishing some details with the camera crew while I was standing behind a square barstool covered with a silk sarong over it that gave a really tidy look. He had found a female blazer that suited me, and one of the journalists combed my hair. He might be unorthodox, but he did his job. For my plan, this was the first step, but I knew I would need someone with his abilities, maybe I had found my press minister.

Carlos – General, we are starting now. Three, two, one!

I looked at the camera, letting my madness run amok in my eyes and words, took a deep breath and hoped that this would have the consequences I desired:

I stand before you today not as a politician, nor as a general, but as a mother who has witnessed unspeakable horrors inflicted upon her daughters, her people, and her beloved land. I am Jeanette Iceni, and I carry with me a heart heavy with grief and a soul ablaze with righteous fury.

These invaders from foreign worlds, have shown us no mercy. They have trampled upon our sacred soil, desecrated our homes, and torn apart the flesh and spirit of our families. My heart weeps for what has been done to them, the innocence stolen, the dignity crushed. We have seen our kin subjected to the cruellest of fates, their bodies massacred, their spirits broken, all by the hands of these heartless aliens.

I stand here today, not in grief alone, but in defiance! We shall not bow to the cruelty of these oppressors. No! We shall rise against them, and with the strength of our ancestors and the fire that burns within us, we shall make them rue the day they set foot upon our sacred world!

They thought they could conquer us, subdue us, break us. But they have underestimated the power of a united people who are willing to fight for their freedom, their honour, and the future of their children. We are the descendants of warriors, the sons and daughters of this great world, and we shall not be silenced.

As an old queen of ages, I saw everything that I held dear ripped away by invaders that hold nothing more than greed upon themselves. I will take the name Boudica, as I will not rest until they have paid for the pain they inflicted upon us or until I am dead.

Our vengeance shall be as relentless as the cruelty of the void. We shall strike back with the force of a thousand storms, and every drop of alien blood spilled upon our hands will be a testament to their wickedness and our unwavering resolve.

Let them hear our battle cries echo through the ages! Let them tremble in fear as they face the fury of humanity! We will fight until every alien invader is cast out of our system, cast out of our worlds, until justice is served for the atrocities committed against our kin, our children, and until we can once again hold our heads high in honour.

My people, our struggle is not in vain. It is a flame that shall burn in the annals of history, a beacon of hope for all who yearn for freedom and justice. Let our enemies know that we are not to be trifled with, for we are the indomitable spirit of humanity, and we shall prevail!

Onward, my warriors! Onward to victory and the reclamation of our land, our dignity, and the honour of our children!

I looked at Carlos who looked at me speechless and softly touched the back of the camera man. As soon as he stopped the broadcast, Carlos said “What the hell did I do” to which I only smiled wickedly and fainted.

I woke up with Carlos slapping me, shouts filling the room and a loud sound that made the room reverb. I grabbed Carlos hand instinctively, looked around and pointed to a chair. He helped me to sit, and I move my head towards the door. 

Boudica – Let them in, they are doing their job as you did. Everything else is upon the people you helped me reach and the hearts I touched.

Carlos – You are going to be executed for insubordination. I cannot let you go.

Boudica – You did as you had to. Let them, as I greet death with open arms.

Carlos gave the order to the people holding the door to back off and let them in. As soon as they opened the lock, a brigade of the military forces rushed in, held everyone against the wall and took me as a madman outside the room. I was being dragged through corridors where people saw me with emotions running down their faces. As soon as they stepped into an open space, where refugees were staying, I yelled, for all of them to hear.

“Will this be all? This is the only fight we are going to give? To bow down our heads and dragged ourselves through the mud”

A soldier put his hand on my mouth, stopping me, but it was enough. The sea of people that a second before were lamenting and liking their wounds now had their sight set upon the soldiers that were dragging me. One after the other, they stood up, blocked their path and when one of them tried to move them apart two more appeared to block the path until the soldiers stopped and released me. Scared for their lives, their instinct told them to let me go and retreat.

I won’t say that the revolt was peaceful, but only a hundred lives were lost on it. Less than 48 hours later I was seating on the command room, all the opposition dead and everyone that abandoned their post willingly waiting for a ship to earth.

[piqued-curiosity]

Men go through some of the same trauma that women have been through. And men (especially trans men) have also been oppressed.

Men of color have been oppressed for centuries. Trans men are still being oppressed for existing, because we dare to exist and that we know our gender better than anyone ever could. Men have been sexually abused, raped, prejudiced against, have mental illnesses, are seen as weak, and so much more.

This isn’t to discredit the trauma women have gone through, of course. I’m just saying that we men have gone through trauma, nearing equal. And women have also played a part in some men’s trauma and oppression.

There’s of course toxic masculinity (which women will mock and even join in on), sexual abuse (Terry Cruise talks about this), general abuse (my abuser for years was a woman), and even now, the absolute hatred and demonizing of them.

There’s bad men out there, but also bad women. Do we kill all women? No. Do we kill all men? No! Instead, recognize that both sides have gone through trauma and start fighting to overcome it together, accept that it’s not sex that matters and instead gender (nobody cares if you got a dick or pussy I promise), and giving equal rights to people doesn’t stop at sex anyways.

Women need rights. Men need rights. And this extends to trans people.

I am not female. If this means I’m part of the ‘oppressor class’, so be it.

Great job promoting the feminist ideals that women are weak and need help from the scary strong men, and that you deserve rights unless you don’t identify with what you were born with at birth. Very progressive and what our future needs. Totally not going against what feminists actually fought for.

Men’s trauma is not the result of sex-based oppression, though, which is what we’re talking about.

Oppression men of colour face is because of racism, not sexism. We’re talking about sexism.

Oppression trans men face is because they’re gender non-conforming females, not because they’re men.

Who are men being raped, abused, and discriminated against by? Primarily men. That’s their problem to work out, not the problem of feminists.

Everything you’re talking about is irrelevant, because it’s not sex-based oppression. It can all be boiled down to “humans are often terrible to each other regardless of sex”. That’s a whole separate issue from the sex-based oppression female people experience.

“It’s not sex that matters and instead gender (nobody cares if you got a dick or pussy)”…tell that to the girls who are victims of female genital mutilation. Tell that to the women and girls who are raped during war because male soldiers saw they had vulvas. Tell that to the female babies killed by their families soon after they’re born, because their family saw the baby had a vulva. I promise you that none of these women and girls were asked for their pronouns before they experienced these horrors. They could not identify out of sex-based oppression.

I’m not going to put too much energy into responding to you, because you clearly lack any understanding of sex-based oppression, and are simply operating under the assumption that your ideology magically overrules centuries of women’s oppression being based on sex, not identity.

[princessflorida]

The largest cataract blinding the eye of empathy in this situation is being fully aware of the people under the floor, insisting compassion for them, and then expecting the people under the floor to change those who forced them under. Stop ordering from amazon? How about we go up to the top floor of that bath house and drown the owners in the pools we are not allowed to swim in? Boycotting does not work on multibillionaires and trillionaires. They need to be disposed of or we will be lighting those fires until our great, great grandchildren's backs break from labor, and then their children will take up the job again just to feed the family. And by we I don't mean you, because you clearly have not. Please be astronomically forreal.

Do not lament the caged bird if you expect him to pick the lock himself. Open the door or go back to the warm bath you're clearly used to and be quiet. You say your professor focused too much on superfluous details yet you yourself can only empathize with the plight of the slaves if they do not allow themselves even the simplest and easiest of conveniences to make their hellish lives a tiny bit easier, give themselves a tiny shred of enjoyment or hope, save themselves an ounce of time they must pimp their mortal soul out for in order to be able to deserve to live. Your entire post is but the keening wails of a futile child trying to rally the troops to cut a singular head off the hydra while the body remains behind you, unseen and unharmed.

You know what will happen if everyone in the world stops shopping at amazon? Nothing. We will still be under the floors. There is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. I'd like to know where you buy everything from, as if it's from a beautiful fair trade store called Rainbows and Sunshine. Also, good luck. You will never be able to get enough people to stop shopping there to shut it down. And even if we did, that would make Jeff Bezos like an unmarred version of Caesar that simply got banished to an island of paradise where he continues to sit on a mountain of gold, never to be disturbed again.

There is a reason Brutus stabbed Caesar, for simply refusing to use his coin at the market would be a laughing stock. If you care about the people under the floors you would realize freedom from oppression is not the responsibility of the slave. It is a forced responsibility that will never come true unless the oppressor no longer exists. Imagine telling these people under the floors that simply taking away their tiniest comforts will solve the problem.

I laugh deep within my belly at the privileged bantering back and forth about what to do with us. Should we feel bad? Should we ignore them? Why are you even in college? The professors clearly aren't fit to teach and you clearly aren't fit to understand what poor, proletariat people who can't even afford higher education go through. Oh yes, let us not use Caesar's capital in Caesar's economy and all starve to death, that will really teach him a lesson! Pffff...... Go ahead and wring out that loofa while I go right back to the coals for you.

You speak of nothing but hollow sentiments that charm no one in these catacombs. You play a flute of ignorance carved from our very bones, like a jester taunting the king with a joke he knows only he can make because it won't cause him the beheading it would immediately cause another. I can't even imagine how it must feel to have the immense privilege of higher education and then pretend to be in solidarity with the people who scrub the toilets at your dorms. Conceptualizing with your spoiled, fascist professor as if we can't hear you both blathering about us on the upper floors while we listen through the cracks. We're not amused nor feel helped by you. You've done nothing more than state the basic, bottom of the barrel, bare minimums for not being a psychopath. As if caring about oppressed people in strife is somehow a novel concept. I can tell, to you, it is. If you tell a beggar not to steal when you have never wanted for food in your life you are naught but a hollow shell of morality bleating out like a naive lamb that thinks he can help his brethren avoid the blade of the slaughter when he himself was chosen to live for having a finer wool. The master's tools cannot and will never be used to dismantle the master's house.

If you could appeal to the oppressor with empathy there would be no oppression. To end this, we must dismantle the master. In blood. I want every warm pool to steam red with the mist of their downfall, the only power left they have is to stink before we clean them out and burn them. And until this happens, the tunnels and fires will churn in an endless dance of suffering and agony. Hell is here, on earth. And yet here we are, continuing to act like hypotheticals will freeze it over.

The "hokey" fine point you couldn't place was the tip of a blade in their throats.

every so often im struck by the memory of one of my college professors getting very angry with our class (art history of pompeii 250) because when she excitedly detailed the ingenious roman invention of heated floors in bathhouses via hearths in small crawlspaces, we asked who was tending the fires. she said "oh, slaves i suppose. but that isnt the point". and we said that it actually very much was the point. she had just told us that in roman society there were dozens of people, maybe hundreds, who spent every day of their enslaved lives crawling in cramped, hot, smoky tunnels to light fires to warm pools of water (which they were not allowed to swim in). how could that not be the point?

she wanted us to focus on the art, on the innovation of heated plumbing, on the tiles and decorations of the bathhouses, and all we wanted to do was learn more about the people under the floors. and she didn't know anything more about that. in fact, she said she thought we were focusing too much on superfluous details.

it feels almost hokey to put too fine a point on the idea im getting at here but i will anyway: There are a lot of people who are still under the floors. all these beautiful, convenient, brilliant innovations of modern society (think fast fashion, chatgpt, uber, doordash) are still powered by people working in inhumane, untenable conditions.

the people who run these systems want you to focus on the good - who doesnt love warm water? - but if anything is going to improve or change in our lifetimes, you need to examine these things with an attentive, critical, and empathetic eye. and for fucks sake stop ordering from amazon

[abigailspinach]

The problem is that meaning-making is heavily subjective. It’s not enough to tell men their lives will have meaning, they need to feel that their lives have meaning, and it has to be meaning they and their peers and the people they look up to view as worthy of respect. Solving this problem will require restorative approaches at the interpersonal level, along with continued efforts to dismantle the systems that cause men to feel that only dominance-based narratives hold meaning for them.

In the short term, this will require helping men feel socially respected again, something that the left struggles to provide. Bluntly put, we need to stop reflexively shitting on men, those need to be mostly ‘indoor thoughts’, same as they are with any other group. The urge to degenerate men as a group as a form of retributive punishment, putting them in their place, is a problem on the left, both morally and politically. The urge is understandable, but we need to get it under control, because young men are well aware of how they are perceived and it is hurting them, and by extension, society in general.

—-

That is a hard pill for many to swallow in this day and age, where the oppressed are so thoroughly prevented from liberating themselves it can seem absurd to burden them with also liberating their oppressors. But it is a common refrain on the left that patriarchy harms everyone, including men. It gives them such a narrow window for meaning-making that when those conventional narratives are challenged, either by wokeness or the collapse of manufacturing and other masculine coded roles, they feel a lack of options that drives them to despair. That despair is then commodified by the same capitalist system that also commodifies everyone’s attempts at meaning-making and flourishing, depriving everyone of the energy and resources needed to address these problems.

We need to stop mocking men for their despair, and those of us with the energy to do so need to work on this problem at both the systemic and individual level. Especially progressive men, whose privilege makes it easier to cope with compassion fatigue. It is our job to show compassion and respect while helping other men understand that it is patriarchy and capitalism that are depriving them of meaningful lives, not minorities.

We can’t and shouldn’t offer men a return to the old, oppressive paths for meaning-making, so we need to shift the systems that limit their access to ethical alternatives. This is not a problem with quick solutions, cultural shift like this is measured in decades and centuries, but we don’t have another option. Men will not simply “suck it up” and accept lives that feel meaningless to them. They will fight back and force the world to respect them again, at gunpoint if necessary. I don’t know if we can prevent that reality at this point, but it is our obligation as progressives to try.

[monsooninn]

Berakhot 13a: 1. "The Stop."

The people of Israel do not have a contrite spirit. They are failing at being Jews. Because of this Donald Trump and the Mormons and the rest of the ultra orthodox community are going to now be able to kill every Jew and every Muslim that stand in their way.

The verb דכא (daka') is almost exclusively used to describe the effects of oppression, whether wrongful or just. Hence the poor and needy are crushed in court (Proverbs 22:22), Israel's leaders crush their people (Isaiah 3:15) and the wicked crush the righteous (Psalm 94:5). God in turn crushes oppressors (Psalm 72:4) and the wicked (Job 34:25) and even his servant (Isaiah 53:5). On a purely theological stage, YHWH crushes Rahab (Psalm 89:10).

This verb's derivatives are:

The adjective דכא (dakka'), meaning contrite or crushed (Psalm 34:18 and Isaiah 57:15 only).

The identical noun דכא (dakka'), meaning dust. This noun occurs only in Psalm 90:3, which reads "You turn man back into dust and say: 'Return, O children of men'," which might as well be interpreted as "You convert people by making them contrite".

These circumstances are not fit for you. The Mishnah continues:

Not that "Jacob" will be uprooted from his place, but that "Israel" will be uprooted and "Jacob" will take care of him. And so he says, "Do not remember firsts, and do not look at firsts." Exodus from Egypt.

No one cares about what happens to Israel, or Jews, or the religion quite like I do. I have looked after you though thick and thin and fought every battle for you, and still you wait to be killed for your friends and your enemies alike. I will not forsake this Shabbos because I want to win. My victory is for the right reasons and the right prize. You should consider this.

The Value in Gematria is 10446, י‎םד‎ו‎, yamdu, "stand up, get up, it is time for it to stop."

We have a rock solid legal claim against the United States and a way to put the authors of October 7 to death and end our oppression forever. What are you waiting for?

[karmareidtoes]

whitness

Being white in a political space means a lot of things. I think most white people feel like they need to speak up for the minority groups, witch itself is great but most of the time (from my experience) it seems like white people seem to talk for minority groups. Talking for a group is bad.

When white people entire political spaces it is their job to be respectful and mindful of other groups.

I also feel like if you going to be a white person heavily involved in politics you should learn the history of the people your working with from their perspective and not the white narrative that is often pushed in media and history books. White people will often erase or downplay events in history, and one of the best ways to learn about these events and how they effected the people the events were targeting would be to ask the group.

Its not white people's jobs to speak for ethnic groups, its their job to speak with them. We as white people should be building the steps for others not climbing the steps. Our job is to hold up minority groups so they can speak for themselves. We are not supposed to be their voices, we are supposed to be the microphone they use to allow their voices to be heard. I think white people often forget that in their savior mindset fantasies.

Im white myself, and sometimes i get caught up in white savior complex to, but its important to take a step back and realize when your doing it and stop doing it. White people should not be the voice of black communities or indigenous communities and i think white people on the political side of the internet often times make uneducated assumptions based on the white narrated history they read about or were taught and that sometimes downplays the struggles and oppression some groups feel and are still going though.

white people should be the builders of the stairs not the ones climbing them, we should be the microphone allowing others to be head, not the voice speaking.

And i say this all as a white person myself. we are not saviors, we are oppressor's and if we want to stop being oppressor's we first have to realize were not saviors, were tools.