#we should know better

[mental-about-you-too]

For the last six months, my overwhelming feeling has been: we should know better.

For centuries, the Jewish people didn’t have a nation-state--we had a diaspora. And a big part of Jewish identity and culture is born of that diffuse geographic situation: we didn’t have nationalism to hold us together, so we held together through spirituality, history, tradition, language. Now we have a nation-state, and guess what? Turns out we can be just as xenophobic, territorial, and violent as the nation-states that persecuted us throughout our history.

We celebrate hanging Haman on the very gallows he set up for Mordechai. We symbolically mourn the death of the Pharaoh’s first-born, but we acknowledge it as the final blow that facilitated our liberation. We are the children of the Maccabees. This isn’t to say that these are examples to emulate, only that our mythology and history are full of resistance in the face of tyranny, persistence in the face of persecution. If all we have learned from the legacy of antisemitism is self-preservation, then we have missed the more universal lesson: do not persecute people because their identity differs from yours, and do not underestimate the underdog.

When is Israel going to look in a mirror, and recognize our old oppressors in its own face?

We (I’m speaking not personally, but historically) have experienced oppression, ghettoization, dehumanization, and state-sponsored violence. We carry that generational trauma. We should know better.

To deny a people liberty, systematically impoverish them, and keep them under siege for years and decades; to demand that a million civilians evacuate their homes overnight, but prevent them from traveling safely and restrict them so severely that they have nowhere safe to go; to bomb a dense population center, while cutting off access to food, water, medical supplies, and electricity; to send in air strikes as hospitals run out of power—how could you look at such cruelty, and imagine it to be anything other than an attempt to destroy a people, body and spirit?

And Jews know the legacy of persecution with the goal of annihilation. We know the sorrow, the horror, the resilience.

This Passover, I’m giving to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. Because what Israel is doing is wrong. Because what the US is aiding and abetting is wrong. Because on this holiday celebrating liberation, I’m watching a government commit genocide while claiming to represent my people.

Because my people should know better.

[a-timely-problem]

...my very much straight family seriously keeps insisting that Palestine is terrible and may be the wrong party to support BC to quote them: "They're very homophobic and those leftists should try to go there and survive."

...they don't care about queer people. At all. They're looking for a reason to hate the innocent people that are currently dying, completely ignoring that there are queer Palestinians and that no matter what may or may not be true, you can't ever achieve equality in a country that's being actively eradicated

[hinamie]

7/3: pov u r nanami kento pleased that i managed to pull smth together in time for your bday

[hitwiththetmnt]

Master Leonardo has some tricks to show Casey for his first Christmas

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Hi!! Your Cherik is so good and gorgeous 🤩🤩 If you don't mind wanna try to draw some Fall of X Cherik please?

thank you so much !!

i have a couple of ideas relating to the fall of x period specifically since theres. A Lot i wanna play with, so i hope this lil thing may be a satisfactory start :]]

and the obligatory bonus:

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Battle sprites and extra content from my Dungeon Meshi RPG battle post!

[nanihirunkits]

WE ARE | EP16

[bowtiepastabitch]

Hey! No! We are not the victorians. We can be better than this.

do u ever just remember u can watch good omens? like u spend so much time looking at fanart and memes and fic and text posts about it that u almost forget u can just go straight to the source lmao. i’m in so deep that sometimes i have to remind myself i can go back to basics and put the telly on lmao. or indeed open the book

[fiona-fififi]

Call me homophobic, but I don't actually think it's great representation to stick a complex, dynamic, newly-realized bisexual character permanently with a flat, boring, underdeveloped love interest just because that was the first guy who showed interest.

[mental-about-you-too]

“The oppressor must be liberated, just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred; he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.” -Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom

[alena-draws]

"Come on Spikey, you know smiling suits you better"

[lycandrophile]

just here to say to straight trans men that there are straight cis women out there who think you're twice the man cis men are. another day another time i ask sam collins please i am begging you fuck me like the whore i am

reading this ask was such a rollercoaster…the first sentence is a nice sentiment and then it just takes a hard left turn into wild fetishization.

in case anybody else didn’t know this, talking like that about real life trans men you don’t know (or about anyone you don’t know!) is super weird and generally not going to go over well at all! in fact, if you said this to him and not a random other trans man, it would be sexual harassment. so if you honestly think this is what affirming trans men’s gender sounds like, please take two seconds to actually talk to a trans man because i genuinely believe that the only way someone could possibly think is appropriate is if they’ve never interacted with a trans man in real life before and just see us as attractive faces on a screen.

please take some time to really think about the way you think about and talk to trans men. finding a person attractive doesn’t automatically mean you respect them, so you do actually still have to put some work into the respect part even if you think we’re hot.

[wrmhles]

Lt. Ronald Hollenbeck states: Cleven buzzed the tower with my airplane with all four engines feathered. That’s the kind of guy Cleven was. I had just gotten a couple engine replacements, and he didn't get to fly too much being squadron CO, so he comes over and says; "Hollenbeck, let me fly your airplane for you, I'll put some slow time on it" and the next thing I knew, is this God d--n B-17 was coming across just about 25 feet off the runway and I looked up and all 4 engines were feathered. He (Cleven) said "I wanted to do that all my life." (x)

GALE CLEVEN + GAMBLING [part 1/?]

[softausterity]

wanted to do more ace attorneys. here's dracula and pagliacci

[inkskinned]

oh you know it's all latestage capitalism but the thing is. how are you supposed to be a person inside of this. a person trying to be a better version of yourself.

oh, you started working young, which was kind of hard, but it's just the way stuff works sometimes. and it was 2008 and your family couldn't afford heat. but it's fine, you grow a spine and get used to the professional world and besides it was the suburbs we're talking about here, like, your life could have been actually hard, so what if your father lost his job and you can't afford to move or turn the lights back on. and once you start making money, it's good. you keep doing that. because now they're relying on you. so you have to do that.

oh you were in thousands of dollars of debt at 17 years old so that you could go to school, because you have to go to school if you want to get a "real" job. you even did it "right", you worked parttime and attended community college before you transferred to a public school. you were under so many merit scholarships.

which is fine. you pick yourself up and you say like, okay. i graduated college. i'm holding down a job. i'm doing the Adult Thing, which looks and acts like this, according to all the books i've read. you start with the shitty job and then you climb that corporate ladder.

but the shitty job doesn't cover rent and you stretch yourself too-thin so you get sick. good luck with that. the shitty job no longer pays for your meals. everyone asks why you don't just move, but there's nowhere to move to. and with what money are you going to be moving? and then the loans come back, because they were never going to forgive them, because you were 17 and trying to do the right thing, which was stupid. people are now saying you shouldn't have even gone to school.

which is fine. but because you have no other option, so you do the shitty job, and you apply every day for like 5 new ones, and despite the fact everyone says "there's no one who wants to work!" it's actually just that nobody is fucking hiring so you can either work for 13 dollars an hour in the shitty place you know (where at least you have a passingly friendly relationship with the manager) or you can start from scratch again with a different 13 dollars an hour without knowing how much abuse from the new job you'll be taking.

and if you quit you lose your insurance. if you quit you lose your housing. if you quit, you'll be another burnout kid. the lazy ones. these assholes, look at them!

and you come home to a family dinner and you hear from your father the same old thing. how he worked hard at his job and yes it sucked for a while but he was able to provide for the family and then the house and the dog and the rest of barbie's dream vacation. how the insurance did cover some of it. how you just really need to start speaking up more in manager conversations so they know you're a go-getter. you want to tell him - did you know we're actually doing more now hourly than any previous generation? - but you can't remember where you heard that statistic, and you're far too tired for the fucking argument. and then he starts in on his usual bit. where's the house? where's your kids? where's your ambition.

the same job the same money the same hours doesn't do it anymore. the same nose-to-the-grindstone now just shreds your face off. there's no such thing as upwards mobility, not really. and as far as you're aware, the money certainly is not trickling. you do the soulless stupid shit you signed up for because you fucking have to or else you literally risk your life (food, the apartment, the insurance), but it's not getting you anything. you download the stupid "save more" app and you budget and you do every right thing and then the price of eggs is 7 dollars and you say - oh great! another thing i have to fucking worry about now!

and you go to your stupid job and everyone in your father's generation just tells you to be better about being an adult. they have their homes and their savings account and their bailout and they say. well have you tried not drinking starbucks. well your generation just spends too much on clothing. well you might just be too addicted to travelling. and you - because you need the job - you bite your tongue and don't say i am being held prisoner and you're suggesting i stop pacing my cell if i don't like the scenery and you don't say what the fuck do you think i've been doing with my money and you don't say i haven't spent a cent on something nice in literally forever much less coffee you arrogant asshole. you open and close your bank app and check your loans and check your credit score and check fucking zillow and ziprecruiter and apartments.com just one time more. and still they give you that demeaning little grin and say - see, what you need is -

what you need is for your meds to stop being so fucking expensive. what you need is for the housing bubble to explode into dust. what you need is for billionaires to choke on their wealth. what you need is actual help. what you will get is more economic advice from people who are older-and-wiser.

and above you, almost in a glimmer, you can see the wedged smile of your debt getting toothier, wider.

[navree]

genuinely would love for some of the "both parties are the same" people to name me a single election in the entirety of the twenty first century where the outcome for the country wouldn't have been better if a democrat had won