#when anyone other then them claims they belong to an ethnic group that they don't- they get called culture vultures

[tetsunabouquet]

I just read an article about the native Americans from the New York area calling us for reperations and an apology with an art exhibition involved, etc. Personally, whilst I do get wanting to know what happened to the Native Americans that were transported to the colonies, most of their remarks are downright stupid. Like, in a statement about the issue, they called themselves Indian. My god, how can they claim they want to pass down their culture, when they don't even understand their culture! Native Americans AREN'T Indians, that was a misconception by Colombus who was travelling to India and mistook Native Americans for Indians. That's basic history! Recently, human footprints have been found in America that are 23.000 years old, even before that discovery most researchers thought that the Native American arrival to the American continent was at least 15.000 years ago. Now, why knowing when Native Americans settled on the American continent is important, has to do with a group called the Proto Indo-Europeans, who were the ancestors to Europeans but also people like Indians and Persians. The latter groups were the first to seperate from the Proto Indo-Europeans and settle in Asia. It's why some Persians like Aria Shahghasemi are white passing, it's because his ethnic group was formed through racial intermingling with the ancestors of Europe and people from the Asian continent. The earliest notion of Proto Indo-Europeans is over 8000 years ago. Native American settlement predates Proto-Indo European culture by thousands of years! So it's literally impossible for them to be Indian and Colombus did not accidentally guess their ethnic origins right. He was so wrong, just like the Native Americans involved with that exhibition. I'm Dutch, but I literally know the origins of their culture better then they do! And it's not like this information is hard to research, anyone with internet access can educate themselves. And then I am not even talking about how pretty much every single of their current problems shouldn't be blamed on us, but the USA. They have been independent from us for over 200 years and whilst there was a New York region where ethnically Dutch did try to maintain Dutch culture and the language, they had all assimilated during the 1910s and there no longer is a Dutch area in New York for over a century by now. I had a god grandfather, he was the stepfather of my mom's ex. He was a Dutch man from New Jersey. He did not have any connection to his roots, which is why he unofficially adopted me as his granddaughter in the first place! He loved that his son had came home with a Dutch woman and when they broke up and my mom got pregnant with my dad who abandoned her at 6 months pregnant, he saw a chance to maintain a fatherly relationship with my mom and have a grandchild that he shares his cultural roots with. He had forgotten about most of the language because there is no Dutch community anymore and he enjoyed re-kindling that connection with me. So how are the current problems in any way, shape or form, linked to the Dutch? Anything like how this man says he wasn't allowed to practice his native cultural rituals and speak his language in the 1970s, were things the US had the power to change, not us. How can we as a foreign nation change US legislations?! Their yapping about our cultural relationships throughout the past 400 years, when our government hasn't been involved in 244 years and any Dutch community in the US being non-existent for over a century is bizarre. Our international relationship in the modern age is practically non-existent. Take your people's problems to the people who can actually improve your living conditions which is your own government in the US. Our culture should share the slave registers, but blaming any legistlation of the 20th century on our nation is absurd when we haven't had anything to say about this region in 244 years.

[esyra]

I cannot help but feel Jewish people have a right to a state in the region after what the Romans under Tiberius and others did, but it should not require atrocities against other people's in the area. Being bullied does not justify bullying others, no matter how many generations suffered. Is there really no way the children of Ishmael and Isaac can live peacefully in Abraham's land? Are any of them even willing to try?😥

I don't oppose Jewish people having their own state, it's literally none of my business how they organize or not, but they don't get to destroy and brutalize an existing population to achieve it just because the British agreed.

Exactly like you've said it, it should not require atrocities against other people but that's what Zionism requires, because it claims sovereignty over a land important to Christians, Muslims and Jews alike. To make Palestine a Jewish ethnostate, it requires erasing the footprint of other religions.

While some prospects of Zionism have merit — calling for protection to a historically persecuted group and understands that the creation of a State is the safest and most efficient way to do so —, all rhetorics used to create Israel, as we know, are untrue and baseless.

Some say that Israel must exist because the Jewish are the only ethnic group without it's own state, which is just widely untrue. Many other persecuted groups like the Mbuti, Romani and Karen people are not even acknowledged and do not have their own State. Even if you consider just religious groups, there are thousands of religions that do not get their own state for there's no reasonable way to empty an entire land nor force people to convert to their beliefs. The Baha'i face ongoing persecution to this day and do not have their own State, for example.

Finally, to say Palestine belongs to the Jews because of the Holy Book it's specially insane, since we shouldn't force our religious beliefs onto others, but also because it's widely untrue.

The first explicit promise to Abraham was at Sichem described in Genesis, Chapter 12 and verse 7: "Unto thy seed will I give this land." The words in Chapter 15, verse 18, are clearer: "Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates." The words used are "to thy seed" which would include all who descended from Abraham.

All Christians, Jews and Muslims believe that Ishmael was the firstborn of Abraham and is recognized by Muslims as the ancestor of several northern prominent Arab tribes and the forefather of Adnan, the ancestor of Muhammad. Muhammad was the descendant of Ishmael who descended from Abraham, whose descendants were promised Palestine/Canaan.

The words of Genesis 21, verses 13, concludes: "And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed." Therefore, despite Israelites calling themselves the 'seed of Abraham', the descendents of Ishmael have every right to call themselves his seed also and ultimately to live in the land.

Furthermore, at the covenant of circumcision made with Abraham (Genesis, Chapter 17), when Canaan was promised to him, it was Ishmael who went through it: Isaac had been born yet.

Therefore the Divine promise included all descendents of Ishmael and although narrowed down in the times of Isaac and Jacob, it did not exclude their Arab brethren. It is well known that many Arabs accompanied Joshua into Palestine.

If everything Israel is based on it's false or unfairly violent, can anyone really claim it has the right to exist?

I'm sorry for the gigantic text but I came back to thousands of asks about if I think Israel deserves to exist and some pointed out the religious rhetoric to justify Israel, I've picked yours to unleash this for no exact reason other than you sounded the most empathetic and I'm trying to stop only answering the nasty asks.

And again, I'm sorry, I don't wish to sound aggressive or impolite but can we stop implying Palestinians are not willing to try? We have no power over Israel, any attempt at peace and justice must come from them first. We can only counter react to Israel, we have no upper hand over them.

[old-school-butch]

‘But you misunderstand my argument - I don't actually think Israel is a decolonization project - I was responding to claims that Hamas' action is some form of resistance to 'settler colonialism' which, since Judaism as a faith is indigenous to the region, is nonsense.’

Except it’s not nonsense at all. The Zionist project was conceived to be a settling of the European Jewry in Palestine initially. No other groups who make claims to their people having lived in a place in the past to justify this kind of state building are taken seriously, nor would they be. This would be like the Roma population going to north India and attempting to set up a state by displacing the locals. They are genetically and ancestrally tied to that land, so why not them, too? Shall we all go back to where our ancestors of a couple centuries, even millennia in many cases, originated from? Is that the logic we defer to to decide what is and what isn’t settler colonialism?

"The Zionist project was conceived to be a settling of the European Jewry in Palestine initially"

The struggle for Jewish self-government goes back a liiiiiittle further than that. Maybe you've not read the Bible but you can track a straight line between 'the LORD said unto Moses, go in unto Pharaoh, and tell him, thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, let my people go' to 'By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion." which happened when the Bablyonian Empire rolled into town. Another four? five? empires later you finally have the Hasmoneansn and Maccabeans self-governments weakening under Roman rule and finally the fall of the second Temple era. Which led to approximately another 2000 years of attempting to return to Zion. But Jews remained living in the area the entire time, the goal of Zion is self-government, to create a nation safe for the Jewish people.

"No other groups who make claims to their people having lived in a place in the past to justify this kind of state building are taken seriously"

What do you think is happening in Myanmar? What do you think Nunavut self-government is about in Canada? The idea of a homeland is pretty old, but modern American politics has an overly simplified view of land claims - either you can prove you were the first humans there ever or you're a settler/colonist who doesn't deserve to be there.

Except when it's about Jews in Israel. When I point out that by this logic Jews have an old erclaim to the region than the later Arabian colonizers, then I'm told the history is either too old and doesn't count, or not real because there's no documentation going that far back in history, or the (actually far more realistic) argument there are a number of ethnic groups and religions that can track extremely long timelines in the same general region because the story of human history is older than our ability to write it down. So I agree with your last point, that while there are obvious impacts of colonialism and conquest, it gets really absurd to imagine that the only place anyone really belongs is wherever they're from 'originally'.

Anyway, Israel has only recently hardened its stance and officially became a 'Jewish state' - 20% of the population are Muslim and many Druze, Bedouin, Circassians and Christians live within its borders. I'm not happy about this recent change and I'm sure those minorities are not as well.

I'd characterize the Arab-Israeli conflict as mostly religious in nature, at its core, not ethnic or even territorial. Islamism is a trans-national movement with the goal of creating a caliphate as a super-state, something the surrounding Arab states find increasingly alarming as they search for stability, but they are content to let it grow in Palestine as long as Israel remains the focus of their grievances. If Israel ever falls, do you think there would be peace in the region? I don't. Look at the wall Egypt is building on their border with Gaza.

[bookwyrm314]

False dichotomy to say that the IDF is commiting ethnic cleansing or genocide instead of war? No, man, that's just words having meanings and using the most accurate words to convey those meanings.

Besides, since when has genocide ever had "nuance"? If you're arguing that there is nuance to whether or not something qualifies as genocide? Does it not qualify as genocide yet because we're only counting identified remains in the mass graves found so far?

You're also claiming a whole lot of things about Hamas which just...aren't true anymore. And are implying that it's ok for the IDF to kill civilians because "that's just war" in pursuit of killing Hamas members. ADDITIONALLY, you keep implying that Hamas and civilians are the same or indistinguishable.

If this was a war, where is Palestine's military? Where are the battles between the armies?

Again, it's not a war because one side is a military (IDF) and then the other side is the citizens of a nation, and inside of that nation, there is a terrorist group, and Zionists keep trying to argue that it's entirely acceptable to kill civilians in pursuit of killing members of the terrorist group.

Even if that was acceptable (it's not. Killing civilians is globally agreed not to be acceptable), it's not even "effective." There are mass graves with bodies tied and shot and dumped together. If those were terrorists, the IDF would LOVE that kind of propaganda, saying they destroyed entire terror cells.

Those aren't terrorists. Those are parents and children the IDF decided to kill because the point is to murder enough Palestinians that the rest flee and Israel claims Palestine.

We can see this because this is what they have been doing the last half year. Everyone has been repeatedly forced out at gunpoint, marched from one city to another, until everyone left is in Rafah and Rafah is being bombed with literally nowhere else for everyone to go.

If the goal isn't genocide, well, somehow the IDF just so happened to be doing that anyway. And I don't believe anyone seriously buys "we are accidentally commiting genocide oopsies" like come on, it's pretty clear by now.

And I am not the one who brought up that stupid Hiroshima example, but, sure, the purpose of those atom bombs was to commit mass murder and the targets were civilians and the point was terror. And since then, the US has been able to do whatever they want with Japan. Uh, it does sound very similar, doesn't it?

If you wanna pick at definitions, that's a huge red flag 🚩 but sure ok fine if a nation has to entirely wipe out another to use the word "genocide", then historical examples of genocide suddenly become empty.

Again, we're back at refusing to use the definitions of what words mean, which, ok, how you plan on communicating with anyone ever?? It's not like this topic exactly has cultural nuance. It's people with guns mass murdering and mass torturing unarmed families, including children. One side is a military. The other are regular people. In their own fucking homes. You ever bother to look up project lavender? That's info straight from the IDF, no claiming I've biased sources nonsense. They admit to shooting families in their homes.

And as far as who "belongs" in Palestine? If we are going to compare this to north and south america, it would be like somebody from the specific part of Africa where everyone comes from arguing that actually they should be in charge of the United States. Never mind the native Americans who have been here the last so many hundreds of years (Palestinians) or the colonizer Europeans (Israel), this should be under control by that particular place in Africa, that nation.

Like yea this was Jewish land a fuckton of years ago, but it absolutely does not make sense to kick out generations of families that have lived in Palestine since Mongolian empire times. Do I think them buying it off of them was legit? Not really. Ghengis Khan conquered that whole swath of nations with violence. But it makes more sense to have a separation of religion and state (yes I'm staring at Muslims who want the Quran to guide nation policy. That shit is fucking weird. No.) than a colonizer ethnostate.

Anyway, you go on to talk about the ways I was describing how this is genocide as red herrings and diversions and stuff, which is kinda weird. Those are examples of what's been going on and why it's called a genocide. That's not a distraction from the point. It's evidence to the point.

Sources? Literally check every news outlet and social media platform and you can look at updated murder counts and watch the violence in real time. People are live streaming and uploading photos and videos of mass graves, bodies missing limbs, etc. I can't stare too long without feeling ill, but I'm not going to pretend this isn't happening.

Look, I'm not a particular fan of Islam and have some Opinions on things Palestine needs to do. A lot of the ACTUAL wars were started by Palestine and kept resulting in losses of life and ceding parts of Palestine. It's not like there ISN'T history here.

It's also not ok to try to use that history to justify atrocities against largely unrelated people. Or if we are murdering kids because the country they live in has terrorists, then we better get started murdering all the kids in the US. (And to be clear, that is a terrible idea, to kill the children of violent people. That literally doesn't help any party on the map.)

Throw all the Jew haters in prison for rest of their lives. Sure. No argument from me. While we're at it, global curriculum on what antisemitism looks like. I didn't know most of those dog whistles until far toi recently. That's its own issue that needs education to rectify it at scale.

Killing random civilians ISN'T at all the same as that. If the IDF actually was targeting terrorists, you know, and they actually were specifically antisemitic, this wouldn't be a whole thing. Ok, it would still have been a thing because the world is antisemitic and that baked in hatred means people would still say whack shit. But it would have also been over pretty quickly and everyone would have moved on with their lives and things would be back to "baseline", which includes the antisemitism issue but it would not be WORSE like it is now.

Why? Because it's 75 years later and all the original "we hate Jewish people" Hamas members are very very dead, except they have been replaced by "wow I really hate the people who are bombing the fuck out of us"

And I think I sorta get that you can't take anybody seriously when they don't understand just how baked in the antisemitism is, but you do also gotta understand that this ISN'T that.

2024 Palestine is full of people who don't hate Israelis for being Jewish. 2024 Palestine is full of people who hate the IDF for murdering their children/parents or kicking them out of their home at gunpoint.

Is the shitty "baseline" antisemitism there? Of course. I don't think the average person has any clue they are repeating antisemitic dog whistles. But the very real fear of violence can't be used to justify atrocities. Your fear is real and a lot of it is justified. That doesn't mean the IDF gets a free pass to do all the awful things they are doing.

Part One of publicly rebutting people from the comments & reblogs of this post:

First off @bookwyrm314 has been fighting tooth and nail, yes, I am going to call out people who are defending terrorists who in their charter call for the genocide of Jews, blaming them for everything that ever happened in the world (hi Nazi playbook) and just the general lack of any acceptance of peace. link to their charter that if you haven't read or even skimmed... why are you backing a group you know nothing about? HAMAS CHARTER

Okay to be honest i copied and pasted the comment thread into chatgpt cause the original thread was really wordy & repetitive, with lots of detailed examples & emotional appeals. it was hard to follow after seeing it all in one place. i wanted to shorten it to just the main points.

The difference between war and genocide is that war involves two military groups, while genocide involves a military group targeting civilians, which is happening in Gaza. War has rules: you don’t target civilians, especially children, or pen millions into a single city and starve them. That's ethnic cleansing, not war. The IDF is shooting children and forcing an entire population on a march to Rafah, then bombing the city. This is genocide, not war.

The logical fallacies are off the charts for the entire argument but I'll play.

False Dichotomy = Black-and-White Thinking or presenting a situation as only having two possible categories (war or genocide) without acknowledging the complexities and nuances of the conflict.

What a hasty generalization or generalizing the actions of the entirety of the IDF, as well as the whole conflict with no evidence to back it up. It's also a nice appeal to emotion, which yeah, we should use emotions it is what makes us humans but what truly makes us humans is having emotions but not letting them dictate what we do or think.

Colonization isn’t a justification for ethnic cleansing. It’s insane to say, "You should have ceded your country to colonialism for peace." There are 1.5 million displaced and starving Palestinians. Mass murdering civilians and claiming there were terrorists among them is a war crime. Hiroshima was genocide because it mass-murdered a city. War involves two military groups, not civilians. This situation isn’t war; it’s military versus civilians. Hamas isn’t the children or the city of Rafah.

This is a straw man. You've misrepresented my argument or maybe based on the arguments below not understood that Israel is an indigenous people of the land, they also accepted a two state solution but the Arabs didn't, which led to the Nakba. I explained all of this but you replied with this which is why I say this is a straw man.

Another appeal to emotion instead of actual facts or references. For the record, you stated earlier that war was ugly, this is part of war.

Hiroshima is a false equivalence, you are equating two very different historical events without even acknowledging the significant differences in context and nature. The second bit is circular reasoning, you are assuming what you are trying to prove without providing any evidence.

Another bit of black-and-white thinking, as if civilians have never waged wars in history or things might be more complex in this situation.

Palestine has existed since families bought land from the Mongols in the 14th century. British colonization doesn’t erase that history. Forcing Palestinians to Rafah, starving, and bombing them is a deliberate strategy, not war. Killing civilians creates more terrorists, not fewer. It looks like an attempt to eradicate a nation. The IDF is blocking aid and killing those bringing food. Forcing people to walk across the country with nothing is like the Trail of Tears. It’s ethnic cleansing.

You are appealing to antiquity/tradition as though because something had historical precedent it should be valid or justifiable in the current context. The Jews do the same but they don't go around in their official charter saying that everyone else are infidels, that one specific group is the reason for every bad thing that happens in the world or that until all Arabs everywhere in the world are dead the 'day of judgement' isn't going to come. So... think on that.

To be honest this has nothing to do with anything. It's a non sequitur.

You present another situation with black-and-white thinking, as though there are only two possible categories, ignoring once more the complex nuances of conflict.

This is a classic slippery slope way of thinking. You are suggesting that killing any civilian ever will inevitably lead to the creation of more terrorists without any evidence for this progression happening.

You again assume what you are trying to prove - that there is an attempt to eradicate a nation - without any sufficient evidence.

A final appeal to emotions.

You claim I lack empathy for civilians, but I can distinguish between soldiers and civilians. Your "whataboutism" shows you care more about winning an argument than understanding the truth. Citizens shouldn’t be targeted, that’s a global rule. Were child victims like Hind child soldiers? The Holocaust had survivors; does that mean it wasn’t genocide? Your argument insults Jewish, Japanese, and Palestinian people. The IDF targeting civilians isn’t war; it’s mass murder. They admitted to waiting for targets to go home and killing entire families. Killing 300,000+ civilians is villainous. Making people walk a trail of tears and starving them is evil. Repeating Nazi tactics to win isn’t worth it. Fifty years ago, we’d agree Hamas is bad, but now Hamas is filled with Palestinians angry because the IDF killed their families. Bombing Palestine makes more angry survivors, not fewer. Killing civilians isn’t smart, and it seems like the goal is genocide.

Another straw man at the start, you aren't actually talking about the point.

Oooh! A new one! You decided to attack the character and motive instead of addressing the actual argument. That's an Ad Hominem. Another new one! A Red Herring! Diverting from the main argument and creating distractions instead of focusing on the main discussion.

You really do view the world entirely in black-and-white don't you? How easy life must be.

You also love to generalize the side you don't like without any evidence or nuance and not acknowledging any of the complexities of the situation.

And another slippery slope!

I was going to go through each point and provide evidence to refute everything but goddamn. For one, you provided no actual evidence, for two this entire thing was so laughable after reading it like this.

You are exactly who my original posts targets and that is why you were triggered.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

I think it is so weird to see European-Americans appropriate aspects of several different European cultures they have zero to no connection to, completely unabashedly, but will throw a fit if someone appropriates something from a "POC" - culture. Do they not see the hypocrisy? For example I've heard American anglos making racist jokes and remarks about Italians without batting an eye (making fun of their looks etc), thinking its all OK because Italians are "white". I just don't think they understand that us Europeans view ourselves as distinct ethnic groups, not as one people. Neither do they understand that us Eastern and Southern Euros have not been seen as "white" here in the same way as the British, Dutch, German, Scandinavian etc.

As a very wise user here said "American Whites tend to be of some mixture of European descend that they don't actually know anything about, and thus they take credit for all accomplishments ever made and had in Europe prior to their ancestors' immigration".

The second part of the sentence is not that relevant but it shows how all Europe is lumped together in this type of mindset. For them, all Europe is one and all Europe belonged to their ancestors, so they can claim whatever they want. It's the same reason they treat ancient Greek culture like it's their τσιφλίκι. Meanwhile, even the modern peoples of the countries their ancestors immigrated from don't like them and constantly tell them "you are not 'Scottish American' if you had one Scottish ancestor 200 years ago!" 😂

Also making fun of how Italians (and Greeks, cause I've heard it) look it's still racist because it's based on distinct and different from the norm physical characteristics one cannot change. And let's be honest, these people view "the Italians" as... not exaaactly whites, when they make fun of their looks. (No it's "not as bad as" in other cases but we play the comparison game when we can just not be assholes to people for how they look? Also the looks of S. Mediterraneans can play a role in their social discrimination but let's leave that for now :p)

And as I always say, we can be very respectful to both "white" and "non-white" cultures. We literally take nothing from anyone by showing cultural sensitivity to all people. It is not rhetoric designed to distract people from the problems of POC. Establishing respect for marginalized communities in the US and everywhere in the world is a priority but at the same time, one can just... make it a stance of life to not exercise cultural sensitivity only when their senses catch that someone else is "The Other"?? This general stance makes things better for everyone and doesn't compromise the safety of POC. Be considerate, people, that's all!

Generalizations were made in this post for the sake of simplicity. I don't think that White US Americans are the devil, and I know they are not a hivemind xD As always, we are talking about a specific type of person.

[qqueenofhades]

Wow, thank you for your very long answer! There are certainly more similarities than I could think of of the top of my head and I can see now even more why people are pointing them out. Personally, I still feel uncomfortable about this - thereby I don't mean comparing the two, I mean things like "Putler" and "Putin=Hitler". But that's on me personally then. Possibly that is because I'm German and we tend to be uncomfortable around the topic of Hitler and Nazis; and by uncomfortable I mean "what should I say, what should I do, how should I feel", not "pls don't ever talk to me about that part of history ever" (though there certainly are people who fall into that category too). I'll give this some more thought.

I'm sorry if I came across as judgy in my first ask - that was not my intention, I was/am just genuinely interested in what you have to say about this. Thank you very much again for taking your time to answer in such detail!

No worries! I'm always open for questions, as long as they're asked nicely or at least in a spirit of genuinely willing/wanting to learn. After all, it's my job, and I wasn't offended by your ask. I'm glad that my answer was helpful.

As for what you said about being uncomfortable: honestly, I think that's good, speaks well of you as a person, and is something that you should lean into, explore, and embrace, rather than try to shun or shut down or avoid. Because humans are inherently tribal creatures who need an in-group to belong to, and an out-group to hate, it has, for most of our history, been organized around the relatively obvious axis of race, ethnicity, and now the modern nation-state. When that goes wrong, war and conflict is the usual result. Some 21st-century countries have done a lot better than others at dealing with and accepting responsibility for their past mistakes, and Germany is absolutely one of them. The fact that the new Scholz administration has been treading so cautiously is proof of that fact. They didn't want to offer Putin, or anyone else, the prime opportunity to claim that the Nazis were once more attacking. However, they realized that in this conflict, neutrality is its own moral decision (hence the quotes about how neutrality/silence in this sort of situation only ever benefits the oppressor) and overturned their entire post-WWII defense policy to directly provide weapons to Ukraine. Regardless of much wider-ranging philosophical and political debates about war and the militarization of the world, that shows a continued awareness of the past and willingness to learn from it that is, shall we say, not necessarily replicated in other leading NATO countries.

On January 6, 2021, during the attack by the Trump insurrectionists, the Confederate flag was paraded through the halls of the Capitol. This, of course, was over 150 years after the Civil War ended, but because America never dealt with that legacy, and never was able to fully disclaim and denounce it, certain political factions quickly discovered that white grievance made a winning electoral strategy and incorporated it accordingly. Now it's openly embedded in our body politic like a festering cancer, and even after said attack, the elected members of the Republican party actually speaking out about it, working on the Congressional investigation, and calling it what it was (an armed insurrection) are so few that I can count them on one hand: Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Imagine if the Nazi flag was paraded through the Bundestag in 2021. I have a feeling that the German public's response would have been much different. Because the American right wing has surrendered so completely to the poisonous grip of this ideology, there's no way out for them, and the entire country is suffering as a result. You would hope that it would, at a minimum, make more of them uncomfortable. That existential discomfort is the first step to challenging and questioning your ideas. Which is probably why DeSantisTrumpistan... Florida... is trying to outlaw making all those poor white people feel bad about racism. They know that's the first step toward changing their minds about it, and since their power rests on it, they can't have that.

Anyway: the fact that you're uncomfortable about this and struggling to know how to think about it is a good thing. Obviously, yes, the Nazi comparison has been overused and oversalted for years, especially now that the right wing wants to act like wearing masks and getting a vaccine is just like the Holocaust (since if there's one thing wingnuts love, it's comparing themselves to Nazi victims while acting like the Nazis themselves). Godwin's Law on the internet exists because everyone, everywhere, wants to pull in the Nazis to make some kind of point, and usually fail to do so. So yes, there is a valid sense of weariness about it coming up again, and wonder if it really applies or is just the usual hollow hysteria. But what do historical comparisons, and history itself, exist for, if we can't learn from it? Putin certainly seems incapable of doing so. And if he's going to continue to rip pages from the Hitler playbook, then there's nothing to be gained in not calling it by its name, and repeatedly making that fact apparent to everyone who has coddled, excused, cozied up to, and otherwise used these exploitative, genocidal systems for their own benefit.

If you're uncomfortable, I urge you, again, to think about why, and to keep moving forward with it. As a German, you think to yourself: what does this mean for me, and what does it mean for the history of a place where I was born, grew up, and which obviously means a lot to me? Does it mean that I'm individually a bad person, and do I need to take responsibility for that? (Most people will do a lot to avoid ever even contemplating that realization, so you're already ahead of them.) Obviously: you are not a Nazi, your family and friends and the people you know and love are not Nazis, the government of modern Germany aren't Nazis, and Nazi ideology has been strictly monitored from ever reappearing in a systemic way in its post-WWII politics. But at one point, it was the Nazis. So what does that mean? How can I think about this in a stronger and clearer and more morally coherent way? What can I do to play my part against it happening again?

All these are foundational questions, and I wish you well with them. I deeply wish that more Americans were able to follow your lead.

[raptured-night]

Do you believe Snape was prejudiced against muggleborns in his teens? I want to believe he was but there are just several facts that don't allow it. For example- He called himself the Half Blood Prince indicating that he was proud of his half blood status. But if he hated muggleborns for having muggle parents or having 'dirty' blood, then why was he so proud of his blood status. Shouldn't he have hated it like Voldemort did?

I believe that Snape’s experience with prejudice was decidedly more complicated than someone like Lucius Malfoy’s or Bellatrix Black’s would have been. Importantly, although Ron does tell us that a larger majority of witches and wizards were either half-blood or possessed some degree of blended Muggle and magical heritage due to the sheer fact that the magical community consisted of a significantly smaller population than the non-magical and there was no way around inter-mingling with Muggles if they hoped to preserve their society (in fact, I would theorize that some of the “eccentricities” and emotional instabilities that we saw from some of the pureblood families were the byproducts of too much inbreeding as a result of a small pool of pureblood families marrying into each other again and again), I would argue that Snape would still have entered Slytherin at a distinct disadvantage.

Significantly, we lack sufficient information on the Prince family to definitively argue whether they were even a pureblood family (if so then it would seem they weren’t counted among “The Sacred Twenty-Eight”) or not and while it has become a popular fanon theory that the Princes were a pureblood family, akin to the Malfoys or Lestranges or Blacks, the absence of information does make it impossible to say that canonically the Prince family were a pureblood family and not just a magical family who may have had a more blended heritage (a more mixed-lineage could even go towards explaining how Eileen came to meet and marry Tobias). Unlike Tom Riddle, Snape’s familial background may not have been vague enough for him to be able to claim ties to any ancient or illustrious pureblood family (as we saw Umbridge do when claiming an unverified connection to the Selwyn family) in order to overshadow his Muggle heritage. Thus, where Riddle was able to enter Slytherin as a half-blood orphan and declare himself Salazar Slytherin’s chosen heir courtesy of his connection to the Gaunt family, at most we see that Snape privately claimed his connection to his mother’s family in the guise of “The Half-blood Prince.” 

Arguably, that provides us with an important contrast to Tom Riddle and some insight into adolescent Snape. Where Tom Riddle uses his connection to the Gaunt family as a means of fully rejecting his father’s Muggle heritage and validating his Muggleborn prejudices by declaring himself Salazar Slytherin’s heir, there are different implications to a young Snape writing: “I am the Half-Blood Prince” in his mother’s old Potions textbook. Rather than using his mother’s magical lineage as a means to entirely divest himself of his father’s Muggle heritage, it would seem that at the point when Snape scrawled that statement into his textbook he was far more set on acknowledging both his magical and Muggle status within the wizarding world in a way that I would argue doubled as bitterly sardonic and challenging. Indeed, the very statement: “I am the Half-Blood Prince” connotes defiance on his part; a suggestion that at one point in his life Snape seemed very set on proving his worth on his own terms as a half-blood from an impoverished background who was nonetheless still “half a Prince,” and that he would defy anyone who might have told him that he did not belong. This does seem to conflict with the idea that all of Snape’s adolescent years at Hogwarts were marked by him having the same deeply ingrained prejudices or the exact ideological beliefs that purebloods like Lucius Malfoy might have. 

If we look at the classifications of Muggle-born, half-blood, and pureblood as allegories for certain racial and ethnic statuses (and that purebloods represented the group with the greatest hierarchal advantage and most privilege) then the extent to which various wizards or witches that came from non-pureblood families could nonetheless still claim some vague status as purebloods could be looked at as allegorical to the concept of “passing privilege.” Ergo, Tom Riddle was able to convincingly “pass” as a member of the pureblood elite by claiming his connections to Salazar Slytherin through the Gaunt family. Furthermore, he completely abandons his more obvious Muggle-given name of Tom Riddle and chooses a name (i.e. Voldemort) that allowed him to further obscure his lineage. I would argue that, in contrast to Voldemort, Snape did not have passing privilege coming into Hogwarts. The very nature of the way he claims his connection to his mother’s magical lineage seems to suggest that an adolescent Snape was aware that his half-blood status was not something he could conceal or entirely rid himself of in the way Tom Riddle was able to do (and again, the very nature of the statement “I am the Half-Blood Prince” does seem to suggest he may not have wanted to pass himself off as more of a pureblood). 

Which brings me to the issues of indoctrination and internalized prejudice. Significantly, I believe that a young Snape may have been aware of anti-Muggleborn prejudice even before he arrived at Hogwarts. The pause after Lily asked Snape if her being Muggle-born would make any difference at Hogwarts was poignant and suggested an existing knowledge on Snape’s part. Which begs the question of how he became aware of the existence of such prejudices? The logical answer is that he learned about them the same way he learned about the other aspects of the magical world, from his mother. It is even possible that in some of the arguments between Tobias and Eileen he may have witnessed both anti-magic and anti-Muggle prejudices from them. When asked by Lily if Tobias liked magic a young Snape deflected by observing Tobias “didn’t like anything much,” so there is a basis to argue that magic might have been a point of contention for Tobias. Likewise, one could make the case that Eileen also lashed out and a young Snape might have overheard her criticizing Tobias on the basis of him being a Muggle. Notably, Snape has to catch himself when he almost dismisses Petunia as “just a Muggle” when Lily is upset after arguing with Petunia (who demonstrated her own seeming magical prejudices by calling Lily a freak) shortly before boarding the Hogwarts Express. 

Overall, I would argue that if an adolescent Snape came to Hogwarts with any overt prejudices they were more likely anti-Muggle prejudices than they were anti-Muggleborn prejudices. Indeed, while a young Snape does hesitate before reassuring Lily that her Muggleborn heritage would make no difference, he does seem rather (naively) convinced that her magical talent would be enough for her to avoid experiencing any anti-Muggleborn prejudice while at Hogwarts. Alternatively, he frequently disparaged Petunia --who in turn targeted him for his class status-- for being a Muggle. I would theorize that a young Snape who might have been disillusioned by a father who is strongly implied to have been potentially abusive to his mother (and quite possibly him) and antagonistic towards magic and who would have potentially overheard any anti-Muggle sentiments spoken by his mother would have arrived at Hogwarts with an existing prejudice against Muggles if not yet Muggleborns.

From there any progression of anti-Muggle to anti-Muggleborn would have been the result a few complicated factors ranging from: his frequency of exposure to a culture of prejudice within Slytherin house by a certain number of vocal and influential peers, the issue of the existing stigma surrounding Slytherin house and how the culture of Hogwarts seems to reward disenfranchisement of Slytherin by the other houses and teachers, Snape’s own growing sense of alienation and disenfranchisement as his bullying by the Marauders escalated and Dumbledore and other figures of authority failed to adequately respond which would have made him more vulnerable to grooming and radicalization, Snape’s own lack of privilege (i.e. his lack of passing privilege, his half-blood status, and his class status) in Slytherin house making it more necessary for Snape to conform with to avoid drawing a target onto himself by members of his house (particularly when he would already feel a lack of security outside of his house due to the Marauders and seeming institutional biases against Slytherin house at Hogwarts), and any internalized prejudices Snape carried as a result of any resentment he may have felt towards his Muggle father, Tobias. 

I’ve written about this before but I believe the road to Snape becoming a Death Eater was a complex one. In contrast to the Malfoys, the Lestranges, or the Black family Snape was not born into wealth and privilege. He had no claims to “The Sacred Twenty-Eight,” and no real social standing. In terms of hierarchy, and to borrow from Slughorn, Snape “did not have much to recommend him.” These aspects of Snape are imperative to understanding what might have led to him becoming a Death Eater and not just in the context of fictional analysis, either. In a very real-world sense, Snape provides us some insight into the ways that adolescents can become radicalized or groomed into extremists groups, gangs, and cults. It is a gross oversight to lump Snape into the same category as Lucius Malfoy because Snape’s reasons for becoming a Death Eater and the outlook of any prejudices he held would have been very different due in large part to his blood status, class status, and social standing. 

Lucius Malfoy supported Voldemort and became a Death Eater because he regarded Muggle-borns as a threat to the privilege he already held in wizarding society; he became a Death Eater because he was motivated to hold onto his privilege, which is why both he and Narcissa Malfoy were willing to set aside their blood purity ideologies and turn away from Voldemort when it became clear that Voldemort was an even greater immediate threat to them than Muggle-borns. In contrast, Snape held no significant privilege in wizarding society; he was not a pureblood, he seemingly could not pass as belonging to one of the “Sacred Twenty-Eight,” and he came from poverty and of a low-class standing. Rationally speaking, Snape did not become a Death Eater because he had reason to believe Muggle-borns were threatening his privilege in the wizarding world because Snape did not enter into the wizarding world with significant advantages or privileges (indeed, as a half-blood his position in a world dominated by Voldemort’s ideology would be far more precarious which is why I suspect that the alternate future we saw in Cursed Child where Voldemort won saw a post-war Snape relegated back to a mostly invisible role as potion’s professor at Hogwarts again while someone like Umbridge with more passing privilege was upgraded to the role of Headmistress). I would argue that prejudice against Muggle-borns was not even a driving factor in why he became a Death Eater (although he might have had what he felt were valid reasons to believe that inter-marriages between Muggles and magical people didn’t need to continue and that Muggles like Tobias were only a danger to them and their world) so much as the promise of power, protection, and belonging. 

Which brings me back to the driving force behind a lot of the radicalization of adolescents we encounter in a very real sense. A common factor, the one which renders them most vulnerable, is their feelings of disenfranchisement and their disillusionment with a society that not only seems to not work for them but is unfairly designed to work against them. In a fictional context, Snape manages to encapsulate the idea of the angry young person whose outlook and future prospects seem hopeless (regardless of any innate talents, ambition, or hard work on their part) and who feels unfairly attacked by institutions and systems beyond their control. More than any prejudice as a motivating factor, I would argue that a young Snape would have been very vulnerable to grooming from peers like Lucius Malfoy who could build off any existing anti-Muggle prejudices he might have carried while also promising him a chance for greater social standing and influencing power. 

It is important to keep in mind that even in his own house he was dismissed by Slughorn, who famously cultivated a social networking system of carefully selected students he felt had the most potential. Thus, one can imagine an ambitious young Snape who once looked to Hogwarts as an escape from his circumstances on Spinner’s End and who seemed to defiantly insist upon making a name for himself on his own terms (i.e. “I am the Half-Blood Prince”) having all his childhood ambitions gradually disappointed; over the course of the seven years he would spend as a student at Hogwarts he would be confronted by the cruel reality that life in the magical world was no less fair to him than life in the Muggle world had been. Enter the likes of Lucius Malfoy (who also is symbolically the first person to extend Snape a hand of welcome at Hogwarts after running up against James and Sirius on the train) and other impressive peers from pureblood families and one can begin to see what some of the allure of the Death Eaters might have been (that’s not even getting into the fact that the Marauders had so staunchly aligned themselves on the opposite side so it would also have felt like a natural extension of the lines that had been drawn at Hogwarts in choosing the side in opposition of his school-hood enemies). 

The extent to which Snape carried any significant anti-Muggleborn prejudices (that is not to say that he didn’t carry Muggle-born prejudices to some degree but that those prejudices were not so significant in his consciousness that we could argue they were the main motivating factor in his decision to become a Death Eater) is, I believe, debatable. Certainly, he called Lily a Mudblood in a moment where he had been rendered powerless and emasculated and Lily later claimed that Snape “called everyone” like her Mudbloods (which I suspect was supposition and hyperbole on her part; otherwise, it paints Lily’s character in a less sympathetic light wherein we discover she was willing to overlook Snape’s use of slurs up to the point she was no longer the exception when it came to him using them) but even that instance could stand as an example of assimilation. Whether Snape was remaining silent while his peers used derogatory slurs around him or he chose to use them in his company, the instance where Snape was put under pressure and the language asserted itself is a testament to the way existing in an environment of prejudice and allowing it to go unchallenged can lead to us internalizing those prejudices. Indeed, when Snape later refuses to allow Phineas Nigellus to use the slur in his company can be looked at as an example of Snape having learned from the mistakes of his youth and taken the initiative to proactively challenge prejudice whenever possible as an adult. 

Ultimately, I believe Snape did internalize ideas of anti-Muggle prejudice but I also would argue that that was not the primary reason or driving force for his becoming a Death Eater. I believe there were a number of factors that led to that choice and it was primarily the allure of power and security that proved the most appealing to him. There is also a strong case of naivete to be argued on Snape’s part, in that he --like Draco-- seemed not to fully recognize what he had signed up for until the reality of it hit home. That Voldemort would target someone he knew, a formerly treasured childhood friend, appeared to bring home to Snape the reality of what he had become a part of and who he had pledged his allegiance to. I would also argue that early on, Voldemort appeared to have been willing to recruit gifted Muggle-borns into his ranks, so it is also quite possible that during the first war Voldemort’s rhetoric might have been slanted more firmly against the idea of Muggle incursions in their world or the way the Secrecy Act disenfranchised their people rather than a blatant call-to-arms against members of their community that, while Muggle-born, were still magical and ran the risk of alienating people away from public support. 

That is often the case with extremist organizations; they test the waters and start with more palatable or deceptive “populist” messages with a broader mass appeal before they introduce their more extreme views by degrees. We have seen some of this with the Trump administration, who began under more innocuous slogans like “Make America Great Again” and have only become more emboldened since in their dog-whistles to white supremacy and ideas of nationalism (e.g. Trump has even openly come out and declared himself a nationalist in past interviews following the Charlottesville attack on protestors and his refusal to condemn those actions). Significantly, in the first war, we know that Voldemort had enough popular support his followers were able to outnumber Dumbledore and his Order by twenty-to-one. I would argue that was achievable only if Voldemort first entered the scene under a more flexible message that allowed him to draw in members of the wizarding world with more casual prejudices towards Muggle and build up his inner circle of the more extreme Death Eaters like Bellatrix and Lucius who held the strongest anti-Muggleborn prejudices. 

Finally, I believe that the likelihood of internalized prejudice cannot be underscored. Someone who may have grown up with an abusive Muggle father, like Snape, could have internalized prejudice about his half-blood status as something with the potential to mark him as inferior. His resentment of his father becoming a resentment of Muggles, in general, is the very sort of toxic cocktail that could lead a young Snape to align himself with a Voldemort who his peers assure him can understand him and his hatred of his Muggle father. In that scenario, Voldemort is merely someone sympathetic to his situation; someone who validates his belief that Muggles are a danger to the magical community; that they are to blame for keeping their kind oppressed and forced to remain in the shadows; they are a poison to their society, etc. Additionally, being at Hogwarts and feeling as if the majority of the school were rooting for him --and his house by extension-- to fail would have only strengthened a culture of peer pressure, allowing house-mates from the most influential families to set the tone within the house, decide house politics, and enforce a group-think where the consequences of going against the popular narrative are complete ostracization within one’s house and no protection from the ostracization Slytherin students can expect to face in general. Thus we have Snape, a half-blood from poverty and a preexisting internalized prejudice against his potentially abusive Muggle father coming to Hogwarts and being sorted into a house where his options are to choose between his house being his only respite from the institutional biases of the school at large or a place where he’s further alienated from everyone else except the people out to get him can also get him where he sleeps. Indeed, the very fact that up to SWM, Harry observes that Snape was “clearly unpopular” might suggest that Snape had been reluctant up to that point to fully assimilate into the ideologies of his house and his friendship with Lily led to some friction (it might go towards explaining how Sirius and James could publically humiliate him to onlookers and not a single member of his house come to his defense). 

All this to say that I suspect that Snape’s path towards becoming a Death Eater happened by degrees. I would argue that he might have arrived at Hogwarts with some internalized prejudice against Muggles but an ambition to prove himself on his own terms (i.e. as “the Half-Blood Prince”) and a belief that raw talent and hard work would be enough for him to distinguish himself. When those ambitions proved faulty and when faced with seemingly insurmountable institutional biases within Hogwarts and slim prospects outside of Hogwarts that was when he became disillusioned and more susceptible to the ideological grooming within his house. That is why these contradictions in Snape may not be contradictions at all but rather more insight into the way a small boy who managed to seem impressive talking about his future would become a Death Eater. He may have started off with a certain degree of faith in the idea that gifted people like him and Lily could take the world by storm; that he could succeed as the Half-Blood Prince and she as a Muggle-born and no one would question their right to be there or their place in the world. Sadly, by the time he left Hogwarts, both he and Lily had had that innocence stripped from them and the choices he made would take him far from whatever ideas he once had as a boy for their future. 

[sephiroths-stuff]

Something I relearned today

Cishet, able bodied, white, well off, educated, neurotypical, christian/a-religious* men, and this goes for cis/het/NT/able-bodied/white christian/a-religious, well off, and educated women** too, will never understand the pain that those who are different from them go through, and they will generally think your claims of bigotry, persecution, and attacks being leveled against you are being exaggerated, because they have never been attacked for existing the way you have.

Never let that dissuade you from speaking out, calling out injustice, taking action when it needs to happen, and being unrelenting in standing up for yourself when at all possible. When people call you a liar for exposing injustice, hold your head high, and cut them from your life with no regrets.

To my siblings of color and other minorities: are not obligated to tell anyone anything to prove your experience as a minority is valid. You should not have to defend your voice in spaces when it belongs there.***

Those with privilege who do not actively try to embetter those who suffer are part of an oppressive system. If you have privilege, you are obligated to help others, because having great power comes great responsibility and having the ability to help and choosing not to and that inaction leading to suffering puts the blame in your court.****

EXTRA THINGS TO NOTE BELOW:

* a-religious just means the general deist/agnostic/atheist etc.

**People who are some subset of the privileged I listed above obviously have different amounts of privilege than someone who is all of the above types of prigileged, and women are generally less privileged than men of the same race who have the same other categories of privilege, meanwhile, a white cis woman inherently is generally more privileged than a black cis man etc.

I am in none of these categories of privilege outside of education, and I only have that because I got scholarship haha and I might not even get to finish college due to illness and money. I'm a trans, asian/pacific islander, bisexual, Neurodivergent (autistic/schizophrenic), disabled, poor, and Sikh but also looking into Jewishness as an exploration of my adopted family's ethnicity and religious background (I personally don't feel like any one religion holds all answers for me, plz don't start discourse with me abt that on this post this isn't the place)

*** this is in reference to gatekeeping people, not, for instance, people claiming to be things they aren't for clout. For instance, people (mainly goyim) have attacked me for saying I'm of jewish descent because my adopted family is Jewish. (Which would imply that they don't see me as actually related to my own family) Jewish beliefs through the ages have mixed opinions on adoption, but MY JEWISH FAMILY had me take their last name (which did but no longer sounds jewish because it was anglicized for... Well they immigrated in the early 1900s so take a guess), and I have been told by multiple people of my family as well as other members of the Jewish community that especially as I'm exploring the religion and have Jewish parentage, I have the right to say I am Jewish. I shouldn't even have to say that but this is Tumblr and someone's gonna take this out of context someday on my resume lmao. But anyhow. Don't gatekeep. This goes for white passing poc, closeted people, ace inclusion, people with invisible disabilities and illnesses who want accommodations, etc. They are all valid and members of their communities.

**** If that was worded weirdly, basically, if let's say someone knew someone was dying and was the only one who could save them, and knew this, and still actively chose to let them die, they would be responsible for their death. Same concept.

~ being poor/uneducated/disabled is a weird issue because it's something that could happen to anyone, even white, able bodied and or educated people, especially with our medical system, but it disproportionately effects bipoc/poor/disabled people and often intersects them and is because of one or both things. White people can be poor and be an oppressed group due to it, but their poverty is NOT due to their race, which is an important factor. It's the poorness that's oppressed not the race.

~ if you are white or otherwise privileged and feel that this post is calling you out for treating your bipoc/disabled/lgbtq+/etc friends poorly, it probably is, and you should step back and rethink your internalized prejudices~

There is no TLDR. Because people need to read and fucking understand this. To be a good ally you don't just reblog posts that say "fuck terfs" and "I hate nazis" and "eat the rich" you amplify minority voices, you aid people when you can materially or even by giving time or emotional support if that's your capability (EMPHASIS ON IF YOU CAN. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO DUE TO A VALID ISSUE I'M NOT GUILTING YOU). And above all, you let the people in your life know that you are there not as someone who will silence them when they say uncomfortable truths or call out injustice, but boost them up and help them and defend them as they make the best of a world determined to tamp out the lesser privileged.