#whatabout

[release-by-eileen]

Shadowed by Guilt

Guilt has a way of overshadowing everything.

I came to realize that my guilt is rooted in the belief that I am always supposed to be looking busy. If I don't look busy it means I am being lazy or unproductive. Anything I do instead of looking busy is overshadowed by extreme guilt.

Am I doing something wrong if I don't look busy? No!

My mind sure as heck believes that I am in the wrong though.

[dontforgetukraine]

Signs That You're Looking at Ukraine Through a Russian Prism

by Mariam Naiem

1. Perceiving Russian culture as apolitical Culture is political. Russia weaponizes its heritage, promoting a 'great Russia' myth to normalize the subjugation of other 'lesser' cultures. Literary classics become tools of cultural supremacy. 2. Perceiving this war as 'fraternal' Russian propaganda portrays Ukraine and Russia as inseparably linked peoples. This concept ignores Ukraine's aspirations for independence and self-determination and imposes the idea that, at the core, we are one and the same. 3. Pushing reconciliation with Russian opposition This narrative ignores the power imbalance. Any dialogue must be on Ukraine's terms, if and when Ukrainians choose. External pressure for reconciliation is unacceptable. Ukraine's agency is non-negotiable. 4. Explaining Ukraine to Ukrainians Explaining Putin's motives, Ukrainian history, Dostoevsky's relevance to Ukraine, and so on implies that you possess superior knowledge of the topic compared to Ukrainians, which is not true. Ukrainians have deep insights into Russia's actions based on historical experience and direct impact. Such explanations, even if well-intentioned, might come across as patronizing or dismissive of Ukrainian expertise. 5. Suggesting capitulation Urging Ukraine to yield? It won't end the war. Russia regroups, and casualties mount later. Ukraine's fight is for survival, severely limiting compromise options. Respect Ukrainians' difficult position and right to determine their future. 6. Whataboutism "Other conflicts exist" isn't a reason to help less – it's a call to help more. Each crisis deserves its own focus. Don't use comparisons to justify inaction on Ukraine. 7. Claiming Ukrainians don't deserve help Questioning a nation's worthiness of aid based on alleged issues can be seen as justifying inaction. It's more constructive to focus on the current situation and humanitarian needs. Consider the actions of the aggressor rather than criticizing those defending themselves. 8. Not my war A nuclear-armed autocracy attacking a democracy is everyone's problem. It's not about values – it's about time. This war isn't yours today, but ignore it, and it'll be at your doorstep tomorrow. Ukraine's front line is democracy's front line. P.S. Consider the Ukrainian perspective and try to imagine their experiences. It’s important to avoid assuming how one might act in their situation. What Ukrainians may need most is genuine understanding and support. The key is to listen and empathize.

[onovopreto]

What about... loneliness? Britney Spears já falava: 'my loneliness is killing me'. Atualmente, o maior estudo científico sobre felicidade da história, conduzido há 85 anos pela Universidade de Harvard, nos dá uma conclusão bem resumida nas palavras de Robert Waldinger: “A solidão mata. É tão forte quanto o vício em cigarros ou álcool.” Não é novidade nenhuma que andei sumido. São tempos difíceis offline e um dos elementos mais fortes é a solidão. Mesmo rodeado de pessoas, a sensação de estar sozinho, de inadequação e não pertencimento era (ou ainda é?) muito forte. Creio que muitos LGBTQIA+, mulheres ou pessoas que vão contra o status quo, propondo visuais, pensamentos e formas diversas e incomuns de ser e estar no mundo já passaram por isso. Colocando a área profissional na equação, como uma extensão das nossas identidades, que é a forma como fomos levados a acreditar e atuar, somos ainda mais afetados. Estar desempregado, ser dispensado de vários processos para vagas, desperta gatilhos de rejeição profundos. Mandar currículos, montar orçamentos, fazer contatos e articulações, cavar uma oportunidade e ter retorno nulo, além da sensação de estar sozinho faz duvidar das nossas capacidades. Chamamos um amigo para sair, 'sim, vamos combinar!' e nunca combinamos. Mandamos um email para aquela oportunidade de ouro e nunca recebemos um retorno. Escrevemos um 'tô com saudade!' para alguém e, no máximo, a mensagem é visualizada. Será que a indiferença virou norma? E por estarmos tão indiferentes uns aos outros, nos tornamos cada dia mais sozinhos? Estaríamos gritando na beira de um precipício sem nem recebermos o eco da nossa voz como resposta? Não tenho conclusão ou opinião formada sobre esses questionamentos. Trouxe para refletirmos juntos, afinal creio que ainda é possível construir pontes e formar uma comunidade nos espaços virtuais. E gostaria de saber de você: qual a sua relação com o tema desse post? Já se sentiu sozinho e/ou inadequado? Como lidou com isso? 🤔 ____ #whatabout #pensandoidentidade #construçãoidentitária #solidão #britneyspears #reflexão #bittersweet (em São Paulo, Brazil) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpNkSc8L-1V/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[snovyda]

This is what a lot of the loudest "activists" who claim to support a certain cause do these days. I say claim, because they do nothing good for the cause (and sometimes only harm it) while also harming other people who are already suffering.

[nyancrimew]

anyways not doing any further label discourse on here, how u label urself and what a label means to u is entirely up to urself and no one else and anyone who tells u otherwise can shut the fuck up like its not that deep, words inherently just mean what meaning u give to them and theyre words FOR YOU and ABOUT YOU and only u decide what u are.

[rotzaprachim]

fundamentally I think it’s an asshole move to drag indigenous peoples into one of the worlds great trash fire discourses to prove various points, but one of the most unhinged things about the Antisemitism Log is how deeply so many of these people are not in any way cognizant of the fact turtle island is a massive, massive and far more powerful colony and settler state, so ideologically powerful it has been normalized in their minds like

I know this might come as a surprise, but “Vermont” “long island” and “Florida” are all settler colonies. These jokes about “where to send Israelis” are literally just repeated suggestions to make more settler colonies, showing that no one has actually critically unpacked the problematic ideological tenets of Zionism to begin with beyond “something Jewish I don’t like” because they are literally. Suggesting. The same thing. All over again. I know they’re jokes but the combo of antisemitism and normalization of settler colonialism is really really disconcerting

[tra-archive]

Twitter has exploded with this whole “would you rather be stuck in the woods with a man or a bear” debate, and it shows that once again males cannot grasp women’s reasoning for choosing the bear.

Almost every woman I’ve seen online and talked to in person has picked the bear. Of course, males are using this as an opportunity to call out women for being dumb and not knowing how dangerous bears are. And of course, they’re wrong. So let me clarify something.

We are aware that bears are dangerous. We know bears can attack. We know they’re wild animals. We know not to fuck with bears, especially a mother and her cubs. We’ve heard all the graphic details about what happens in a bear attack. Bears are dangerous.

However, a bear operates on instinct. Bears don’t want to attack you, they’d rather be left alone. Bears will attack you if you’re perceived as a threat to them, their food, their space, or their cubs. Their behavior is, for the most part, predictable, and we have lots of knowledge on how to stay safe while in an area with bears. I’ve been hiking in bear country before, I’ve even seen bears by my house, and I followed all the tips that I was supposed to do. We left each other alone and I have never been hurt or even noticed by a bear.

So why are women choosing bears over men?

A bear won’t attack and kill you if you say you don’t want to go on a date with it.

A bear won’t rape you.

A bear won’t lie and manipulate you to get what it wants. A bear doesn’t hide the fact that it’s a predator that can be violent.

A bear won’t call you a bitch, cunt, whore, slut, feminazi, or any other degrading term.

A bear won’t try to justify sexual assault based on what you’re wearing.

Did a group of bears team up and torture a schoolgirl for 40 days until she died a horrible death? No, that was men.

Did a bear shoot innocent college girls because he was a violent misogynist? No, that was also a man.

Didn’t bears create an entire violent ideology that states they’re entitled to sex and that women should be forced to sleep with them? Oh wait, that’s incels.

Do bears make up almost 99% of sexual assault perpetrators? Nope, men again.

We know that all bears are dangerous. But we have no way of knowing which men are. Sure, it’s “NoT aLl MeN,” but it’s a significant enough number of them that we are wary of all. And instead of considering why women are choosing a wild animal over them and thinking “yeah, their reasoning makes sense,” many men have doubled down and said that they hope we get mauled by bears, further proving our point.

I CHOOSE THE BEAR.

[tarriecat]

About a decade ago I posted a very amateurish attempt at a very tricky needlework style to a Facebook group and one person said something shitty about how bad it was. I don't remember the words but I remember how pathetic it made me feel, and I didn't touch that type of embroidery again.

It took until two days ago for something sufficiently cool to bolster me enough to try even an adjacent kind of needlework. It was much less amateurish, not because I improved (I haven't TRIED in ten fucking years) but because I have enough money to own better materials than I did when I was in my early twenties.

Not that it would have mattered if I was indeed just shit at it. Don't be an asshole to people who are trying out your craft, even if they are really bad at it. They won't get any better because you were an asshole. They'll just stop trying. And you won't remember ten years later that it even happened, but your craft will have one less person in it than it might have.

[alexalblondo]

Don’t let any of that distract y’all from the fact that Horner is still teamboss and has faced zero consequences so far aside from a mean article here and there

[whitehairedanimeboyfriend]

Conversations on here will basically be like

"Hey these new reproductive rights issues are affecting trans men too so let's make sure we include them in the conversation, instead of calling it women's health issues."

"Would you stop complaining? Trans women have it worse than trans men. TERFs want to kill us but only detransition you."

"If living as the gender you are not is so easy why would you transition in the first place? Obviously trans people transition because they can't live with existing as a gender they are not. Obviously "just going back" isn't an option because we often fail to behave the way we're expected to anyway. Forcing any trans person to detransition is a death sentence in and of itself."

"Why are you always speaking over transfems when we talk about transmisogynistic violence???"

[greencheekconure27]

Tankies whenever Russia openly commits a war crime: "Um, akshually, it was Ukraine because daddy Putin told us so.Also it didn't happen.Also they deserved it anyway. Also it's not that bad or a war crime but you should definitely care about this exact thing happening in another country instead which is terrible and a war crime.No you can't care about both."

Anyway, I present to you @troythecatfish:

[desire-mona]

thank god we go by last names for house ships bc i dont think i could handle Grames

[hymnsofheresy]

Do you pray for the hostages too?

Yes. I pray for the 110 or so israeli and immgrant hostages assumed to still be alive. And I also pray for the hundreds of Palestianian hostages arrested without charge in Israeli prisons assumed to be alive.

I pray for a ceasefire so that the Israeli hostages are released. I also pray for the end of Israeli apartheid government, so that Palestianians are liberated.

[snovyda]

"Ukrainians all over the world are expected to be patient and hopeful, but here’s the reality:

The @ICRC lost 3 of their workers but refuses to name their attacker.

@TIFF_NET refuses to stand with Ukrainians and platforms Russians talking about a war *they* started.

The US and UK tease that a visit with Ukraine means “strikes will hopefully be allowed” but never any confirmation, only smiles and waves.

Activists seem to be ignoring the fact that ecocide is happening in Ukraine.

Ukrainians are being harassed and murdered in other countries after resettling.

Anytime a Ukrainian talks about their story, they get jumped on by idiots shouting at them “what about [Insert current humanitarian tragedy]”

Azov prisoners are still being held and tortured, but apparently we can’t talk about them because Azov = N*zis

DMs with d*ath threats and harassment on a daily basis.

And if we tell Russians to go fck themselves, that’s ’hate speech’ 🙃"

[unsolicited-opinions]

I think you'd find people would be more willing to treat you more nicely if you weren't doing insincere whataboutism on behalf of a state whose current main export is war crimes and bullets in the heads of children. That's a pretty obvious reason why people won't engage with you.

There's no shortage of engagement. Case in point: You are engaging with me.

You accuse me of whataboutism. I'll presume your good faith and address that accusation, demonstrating why it think it is baseless.

OP said she hated Israel because it has an ethnic and religious identity. Many, many modern nations have ethnic/religious identities, including Iran and Palestine. Did she hate them for the same reasons?

Instead of engaging in a conversation about what establishment of religion is or isn't okay to those of us who care about civil rights (which I'd welcome!), she told me to kill myself

This isn't whataboutism. This is pointing out hypocrisy and logical inconsistency. She doesn't condemn other nations for these same reasons, therefore these are NOT the source of her condemnation of Israel.

Whataboutism would be if I, in response to legitimate criticisms of the many awful things which the Israeli government has done to Palestinians (I don't for an instant deny the profound, generational trauma of the people of Palestine), refused to engage on that topic and pivoted instead to talking about the crimes of Hamas.

That would be shitty. I don't want to do that. That's precisely the kind of dialogue we don't need.

I want to have open, fact and reason-based dialectical exercise where people LISTEN to each other and support their arguments with facts and reason.

You seem to think I should seek to encourage people to be nicer to me. I think it's kind of fucked up that you seem to think (please do correct me if I'm wrong) that I deserve to be told to kill myself for pointing out OP's blatant hypocrisy (or perhaps just her profound ignorance of the role ethnicity and religion played/plays in modern nation states).

I think perhaps you and I have very different ideas about what good faith dialogue looks like. Still, I'm presuming your good faith and I'm absolutely open to dialogue.

What I'm not open to are double standards which hold the Jewish nation to standards nobody expects of Christian or Muslim nations. Because that's racism. That's a double standard.

Lastly, my goal isn't to get people to treat me nicely. I don't expect racists to respond nicely to me regardless of what I do. My experience is that I can agree wholeheartedly with all the criticisms of Israel's government, but if I ask that those criticisms be framed without antisemitism, I will be told to kill myself.

I think we likely disagree on a lot, but I appreciate that you didn't anonymously lob racist nastiness at me. That's an improvement, for me.

Wishing you well in these awful times and hoping you'll keep having dialogue in good faith and sincerity.

[rotzaprachim]

One of my least favorite genres of article doing numbers with the goyim rn on their hunt for good Jews is the im Jewish and I don’t feel any connection with Israel or Jews in Israel (that would be bad bad nationalism) instead I will die in the holy land, which is New York

like first off

a) many Jews feel connections with other Jews and ha’aretz that are infinitely older than Zionism and it’s in everyone but especially antizionism’s interest we don’t unilaterally equate ahavat yisrael with the state of Israel, especially when Jews are reaching across borders emotionally in light of mass antisemitism

but also

b) you don’t think New York is a settler colony?