#systematic discrimination

[aphantpoet]

If I’m remembering correctly; Hitler got his eugenics idea from American scientists. He was far from innocent, in fact he was horrible but that does not change that he didn’t invent the hatred he weaponised. 

Prejudices and bigotry aren’t individualised issues, they’re systematic

This is a reminder that Americans absolutely knew about the treatment of Jews under Nazi rule. It seems that you’ve all been fed this lie that Americans first learned of the extent of the Jew-hatred when troops “liberated” concentration camps after the war. That’s false. Jew-hatred was reported in the papers. American Jews knew their families back in Europe were disappearing. They appealed to the government and the government did nothing. Then when the camps were discovered and that footage was released everyone acted shocked.

It’s kind of like how everyone suddenly seems to be opening their eyes to antisemitism after Kanye spouted off his antisemitic nonsense. We’ve been beating this drum forever and finally you’re all coming around to the idea of it almost as if it didn’t exist before. Kanye is merely a symbol of a larger problem. Kanye is merely the “liberated” camp. You all looked away and decided to ignore the problem until it was finally in your faces and you couldn’t ignore it anymore.

Antisemitism does not just exist when goyim acknowledge it. Antisemitism exists because goyim refuse to acknowledge it, often until it is too late. Now is not the time to act appalled. You’re late. Catch up. Do better.

[cinephileanonyme]

Séance #13 - #BlackLivesMatter

La croissance exponentielle de l’Internet a permis à la planète entière de trouver des gens avec des intérêts en commun, d’avoir accès à l’information au bout des doigts (littéralement), de prendre la parole sur des sujets qui leur semblent importants et plus. Bref, Internet a offert des possibilités à l'infini qui peut difficilement être condensé en une phrase. 

Cependant, Internet a sa part de points positifs ainsi que négatifs. Ce constat est observable en ligne, surtout lors des débats publics. Le concept de débat public prenant place en ligne n’est pas une problématique en soi. Au contraire, tous ont droit à la liberté d’expression et en ayant accès à la sphère numérique, le partage de croyances n’a jamais été aussi facile. Cependant, le moment où ces opinions personnelles exposées à tous deviennent violentes, irrespectueuses et même barbares, c’est là que des complications s'imposent. 

Il suffit de prendre comme exemple le mouvement Black Lives Matter. Ce dernier a initialement attiré l'attention du public pour la première fois en 2013, mais a depuis pris de l'ampleur en 2020 après la mort tragique de George Floyd aux mains de la police à Minneapolis (Howard University, s.d). Suite à cet événement, le hashtag #BlackLivesMatter prend de l’ampleur sur les réseaux sociaux. Ce dernier mène des manifestations protestant le racisme systématique et misant sur une fin à la brutalité policière qui affecte énormément la communauté noire. 

Toutefois, ce hashtag en faveur de la communauté noire gagne également sa part de manifestants en faveur de #AllLivesMatter. Leur façon de penser étant, pourquoi devrions-nous prioriser uniquement les vies noires? Qu'en est-il de toutes les vies? Cela signifie-t-il que les personnes d'autres races devraient être plus sujettes au profilage racial?

Cependant, la réalité est que la population caucasienne est et a toujours été, grandement avantagée par rapport à la communauté noire. C'est simplement la triste vérité. Et donc, oui, bien sûr, toutes les vies devraient compter, mais lors d’un temps où les vies blanches ont eu la majorité de priorités, il est temps que les vies noires soient prises en charge. 

C’est-à-dire, qu’il est impossible de débattre une cause sans que d’autres se battent contre la cause, surtout en ligne où le contact humain est inexistant. C’est d’ailleurs pourquoi les débats en ligne deviennent si rapidement houleux et même dangereux. Il est trop facile de vocaliser son opinion sur les plateformes numériques et de se sentir inatteignable. 

Bibliographie

[purple-mothman-majesty]

[sarcasticsweetlara]

It's a stereotype if you only write indigenous/mestizo latino people as poor but don't delve more into their life situations rather than when you write about white people that are poor.

There are many factors about poverty and its percentage among certain ethnicities, due to systematic discrimination and erasure

my hatred of the critique of stereotypes basically being “portraying POC in poverty is a stereotype!!!” grows every day because holy shit. poverty is not a choice. it’s a weapon used against minorities as punishment. it only becomes a stereotype when you don’t do the necessary sociological work to examine WHY that person is in poverty. same thing goes for homelessness. “wahhhh you can’t have people of color being homeless it’s a stereotype!” okay are we supposed to fucking ignore the fact that most homeless people are not fucking white??? like imagine having the option to speak to a very real truth faced by racial minorities and examine the sociological context and humanize these people and then instead choosing to make it seem like only white people in poverty matter 🤔🤔🤔 weird

[alioshakaramazov]

back in the day you could go into a town and say does anybody need some fences repaired? any heavy objects to lift? and you could get a meal out of that. nowadays you would need a heavy object handling master's degree and 3 years of relevant experience. and they would not even call you back because they have other 48 candidates

[loostinyoureyes-blog]

From 1948 through the 1990s, a single word dominated life in South Africa: Apartheid. Apartheid -Afrikaans for "apartness" or "separation" -kept the country's majority black population under the thumb of a small white minority. The segregation began in 1948 after the National Party came to power. The party instituted policies of white supremacy, which empowered white South Africans, descendants of Dutch and British settlers, while further disenfranchising black indigenous Africans.

[fondcrimes]

idk anything about fantasy games but I keep running into comments and posts online that r essentially like “fantasy racism is completely different to irl racism because [insert mechanism or trait that is essential to perpetuating irl racism]”

[briar-rolfes-research-oubliette]

Well,,, I had my suspicions but, finally I am certain that the aesthetic of Dark Academia is the aesthetic of: racism,

Let’s do some probing here. A lot of people learn another language at school. Why is French “classier” than another language, for example: Spanish? Mandarin? We live in an era where art and history and philosophy are more accessible to working class than ever before, so why is it phrased like nobody studies them or cares about them anymore? How come the dancing we have in the 21st century isn’t “elegant?” What is the “aesthetic” of old money compared to new money? What was finishing school about finishing? What was it securing?

White supremacy. You’re yearning for a time when Mother Britannia ruled the fucking waves.

I will add that the aesthetic is clearly one of owning books and never reading them or reading about them because (I’m thumping my hands on my desk) they didn’t go to fucking finishing school in Pride and Prejudice! They were fucking poor!! That’s the point!! Lady Catherine doesn’t want Darcy to marry Elizabeth because her family is Not Our Kind!! They do not have the class signifiers of speaking French or knowing Etiquette, because look at her mother! Look at the mud on Elizabeth’s hem!

[semiconducting]

autism discussions on the internet are sooo fucking white

[erving-goffman]

i had a horrible idea i could print a labelmaker X and paste it over the gender marker on my health card. like it would give me so much peace of mind even if i have to peel it off every time i get health services.

[mosspapi]

"Yeah we're trying to get u into see ur doctor at her new office now, but her patients list is already 50% full and there's a huge wait to get in to see her still. I don't get why?"

->Well she's the only doctor who's ever treated me like a human, so I'm not surprised people are tripping over themselves to stay with her lmao. Hardly a surprise.

"What??? What do u mean? All doctors treat you like a human? You are a human?"

->No, they don't. I've never once had a doctor treat me normally or respect me as a human until I stared seeing her.

"I'm gonna need a list of all the things doctors have said to you that make you think that. It's not normal and doctors aren't like that to me, I've only had perfect experiences with them, so something is wrong."

.... ma'am how do I explain to you, a fully grown woman with multiple degrees in science/medicine, that of course you have normal experiences with doctors, you are a straight cis white ablebodied non-mentally-ill woman. Doctors are violently ableist and transphobic towards me. You would not experience that because you do not experience ableism or transphobia.

[displayheartcode]

I could project my disability feelings on this werewolf fic idea

[spocks-got-a-glock]

This is literally like how in the UK the legal age of consent was much higher (21) for gay sex when it was finally decriminalised than for straight sex and it was used to continue perpetuating the image of gay men as either predators or victims.

Tips for governments: people doing things you don't like? Try forcing them into compliance by denying them recognition of their adulthood and threatening them and those around them with punishment for disagreeing.

"They shouldn't socially transition until after 25"

So trans people magically aren't adults at 18 like cis people!?!?!????

[sarcasm] Wow yeah that sounds good and like something a normal government would say. Hope this isn't a dangerous precedent that will be used to repeal rights from other minority groups

[lateantiquechud]

New study out: Systemic Racism Does Not Explain Variation in Race Gaps on Cognitive Tests

https://www.emilkirkegaard.com/p/new-study-out-systemic-racism-does

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Louis' choices as an employer continue to disappoint me. In a crew of over 40 only one is a person of colour. Only a few women.

https://twitter.com/La_Triquetra/status/1729971971948003643?t=lqBSG8bAXxCVjvr4CwodnQ&s=19

It's clear evidence of systematic discrimination.

[withbriefthanksgiving]

The director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN (UN OHCHR), Craig Mokhiber, has resigned in a letter dated 28 October 2023

the resignation letter can be found embedded in this tweet by Rami Atari (@.Raminho) dated 31 October 2023.

The letters are here:

Transcription:

United Nations | Nations Unies

HEADQUARTERS I SIEGE I NEW YORK, NY 10017

28 October 2023

Dear High Commissioner,

This will be my last official communication to you as Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

I write at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it. As someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in Gaza as a UN human rights advisor in the 1990s, and carried out several human rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me.

I also worked in these halls through the genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian Muslims, the Yazidi, and the Rohingya. In each case, when the dust settled on the horrors that had been perpetrated against defenseless civilian populations, it became painfully clear that we had failed in our duty to meet the imperatives of prevention of mass atrocites, of protection of the vulnerable, and of accountability for perpetrators. And so it has been with successive waves of murder and persecution against the Palestinians throughout the entire life of the UN.

High Commissioner, we are failing again.

As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field, I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate. In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules.

This is a text-book case of genocide. The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine. What's more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations "to ensure respect" for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel's atrocities.

Volker Turk, High Commissioner for Human Rights Palais Wilson, Geneva

In concert with this, western corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent, are in open breach of Article 20 of the ICCPR, continuously dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence. US-based social media companies are suppressing the voices of human rights defenders while amplifying pro-Israel propaganda. Israel lobby online-trolls and GONGOS are harassing and smearing human rights defenders, and western universities and employers are collaborating with them to punish those who dare to speak out against the atrocities. In the wake of this genocide, there must be an accounting for these actors as well, just as there was for radio Mules Collins in Rwanda.

In such circumstances, the demands on our organization for principled and effective action are greater than ever. But we phave not met the challenge. The protective enforcement power Security Council has again been blocked by US intransigence, the SG [UN Secretary General] is under assault for the mildest of protestations, and our human rights mechanisms are under sustained slanderous attack by an organized, online impunity network.

Decades of distraction by the illusory and largely disingenuous promises of Oslo have diverted the Organization from its core duty to defend international law, international human rights, and the Charter itself. The mantra of the "two-state solution" has become an open joke in the corridors of the UN, both for its utter impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people. The so-called "Quartet" has become nothing more than a fig leaf for inaction and for subservience to a brutal status quo. The (US-scripted) deference to "agreements between the parties themselves" (in place of international law) was always a transparent slight-of-hand, designed to reinforce the power of Israel over the rights of the occupied and dispossessed Palestinians.

High Commissioner, I came to this Organization first in the 1980s, because I found in it a principled, norm-based institution that was squarely on the side of human rights, including in cases where the powerful US, UK, and Europe were not on our side. While my own government, its subsidiarity institutions, and much of the US media were still supporting or justifying South African apartheid, Israeli oppression, and Central American death squads, the UN was standing up for the oppressed peoples of those lands. We had international law on our side. We had human rights on our side. We had principle on our side. Our authority was rooted in our integrity. But no more.

In recent decades, key parts of the UN have surrendered to the power of the US, and to fear of the Israel Lobby, to abandon these principles, and to retreat from international law itself. We have lost a lot in this abandonment, not least our own global credibility. But the Palestinian people have sustained the biggest losses as a result of our failures. It is a stunning historic irony that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in the same year that the Nakba was perpetrated against the Palestinian people. As we commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the UDHR, we would do well to abandon the old cliché that the UDHR was born out of the atrocities that proceeded it, and to admit that it was born alongside one of the most atrocious genocides of the 20th Century, that of the destruction of Palestine. In some sense, the framers were promising human rights to everyone, except the Palestinian people. And let us remember as well, that the UN itself carries the original sin of helping to facilitate the dispossession of the Palestinian people by ratifying the European settler colonial project that seized Palestinian land and turned it over to the colonists. We have much for which to atone.

But the path to atonement is clear. We have much to learn from the principled stance taken in cities around the world in recent days, as masses of people stand up against the genocide, even at risk of beatings and arrest. Palestinians and their allies, human rights defenders of every stripe, Christian and Muslim organizations, and progressive Jewish voices saying "not in our name", are all leading the way. All we have to do is to follow them.

Yesterday, just a few blocks from here, New York's Grand Central Station was completely taken over by thousands of Jewish human rights defenders standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanding an end to Israeli tyranny (many risking arrest, in the process). In doing so, they stripped away in an instant the Israeli hasbara propaganda point (and old antisemitic trope) that Israel somehow represents the Jewish people. It does not. And, as such, Israel is solely responsible for its crimes. On this point, it bears repeating, in spite of Israel lobby smears to the contrary, that criticism of Israel's human rights violations is not antisemitic, any more than criticism of Saudi violations is Islamophobic, criticism of Myanmar violations is anti-Buddhist, or criticism of Indian violations is anti-Hindu. When they seek to silence us with smears, we must raise our voice, not lower it. I trust you will agree, High Commissioner, that this is what speaking truth to power is all about.

But I also find hope in those parts of the UN that have refused to compromise the Organization's human rights principles in spite of enormous pressures to do so. Our independent special rapporteurs, commissions of enquiry, and treaty body experts, alongside most of our staff, have continued to stand up for the human rights of the Palestinian people, even as other parts of the UN (even at the highest levels) have shamefully bowed their heads to power. As the custodians of the human rights norms and standards, OHCHR. has a particular duty to defend those standards. Our job, I believe, is to make our voice heard, from the Secretary-General to the newest UN recruit, and horizontally across the wider UN system, incisting that the human rights of the Palestinian people are not up for debate, negotiation, or compromise anywhere under the blue flag.

What, then, would a UN-norm-based position look like? For what would we work if we were true to our rhetorical admonitions about human rights and equality for all, accountability for perpetrators, redress for victims, protection of the vulnerable, and empowerment for rights-holders, all under the rule of law? The answer, I believe, is simple—if we have the clarity to see beyond the propagandistic smokescreens that distort the vision of justice to which we are sworn, the courage to abandon fear and deference to powerful states, and the will to truly take up the banner of human rights and peace. To be sure, this is a long-term project and a steep climb. But we must begin now or surrender to unspeakable horror. I see ten essential points:

Legitimate action: First, we in the UN must abandon the failed (and largely disingenuous) Oslo paradigm, its illusory two-state solution, its impotent and complicit Quartet, and its subjugation of international law to the dictates of presumed political expediency. Our positions must be unapologetically based on international human rights and international law.

Clarity of Vision: We must stop the pretense that this is simply a conflict over land or religion between two warring parties and admit the reality of the situation in which a disproportionately powerful state is colonizing, persecuting, and dispossessing an indigenous population on the basis of their ethnicity.

One State based on human rights: We must support the establishment of a single, democratic, secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and, therefore, the dicmantling of the deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the land.

Fighting Apartheid: We must redirect all UN efforts and resources to the struggle against apartheid, just as we did for South Africa in the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s.

Return and Compensation: We must reaffirm and insist on the right to return and full compensation for all Palestinians and their families currently living in the occupied territories, in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and in the diaspora across the globe.

Truth and Justice: We must call for a transitional justice process, making full use of decades of accumulated UN investigations, enquiries, and reports, to document the truth, and to ensure accountability for all perpetrators, redress for all victims, and remedies for documented injustices.

Protection: We must press for the deployment of a well-resourced and strongly mandated UN protection force with a sustained mandate to protect civilians from the river to the sea.

Disarmament: We must advocate for the removal and destruction of Israel's massive stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, lest the conflict lead to the total destruction of the region and, possibly, beyond.

Mediation: We must recognize that the US and other western powers are in fact not credible mediators, but rather actual parties to the conflict who are complicit with Israel in the violation of Palestinian rights, and we must engage them as such.

Solidarity: We must open our doors (and the doors of the SG) wide to the legions of Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian human rights defenders who are standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their human rights and stop the unconstrained flow of Israel lobbyists to the offices of UN leaders, where they advocate for continued war, persecution, apartheid, and impunity, and smear our human rights defenders for their principled defense of Palestinian rights.

This will take years to achieve, and western powers will fight us every step of the way, so we must be steadfast. In the immediate term, we must work for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the longstanding siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal assault in Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to the Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families, and fight like hell for a principled approach in the UN's political offices.

The UN's failure in Palestine thus far is not a reason for us to withdraw. Rather it should give us the courage to abandon the failed paradigm of the past, and fully embrace a more principled course. Let us, as OHCHR, boldly and proudly join the anti-apartheid movement that is growing all around the world, adding our logo to the banner of equality and human rights for the Palestinian people. The world is watching. We will all be accountable for where we stood at this crucial moment in history. Let us stand on the side of justice.

I thank you, High Commissioner, Volker, for hearing this final appeal from my desk. I will leave the Office in a few days for the last time, after more than three decades of service. But please do not hesitate to reach out if I can be of assistance in the future.

Sincerely,

Craig Mokhiber

End of transcription.

Emphasis (bolding) is my own. I have added links, where relevant, to explanations of concepts the former Director refers to.