#when we’re talking specifically about ethnicity I mean

[mossadspypigeon]

i love goyim saying anything happening to palestinians = insert specifically jewish word here. that’s coopting, bitch.

POGROM is a word SPECIFIC TO JEWS AND THE JEWISH EXPERIENCE. just like HOLOCAUST IS. pogroms btw? happened long before the shoah and long after. a pro pally not knowing this? SHOCKING!!!!

ALSO THE EVENT WAS PLANNED AROUND THE ANNIVERSARY OF KRISTALLNACHT, SO YES THERE IS A CONNECTION. today is the 86th anniversary.

get your disgusting jew hating goyishe ass away from discussions about JEWISH TRAUMA. don’t tell jews how to talk about our history and oppression. you don’t fucking own it, you entitled piece of shit. we do. it’s ours.

i know about the chants fuckwit. i don’t agree with it, but it doesn’t make attacking jews and throwing them on train tracks and driving into them with cars okay.

especially since this is the shit your side does:

you idiots have been chanting for the ethnic cleansing of jews all year (that’s what your beloved FROM THE RIVER means, same with INTIFADA) and now you have issues with a few people saying fuck arabs? especially when the population that waged an attempt at ethnic cleansing was arab? when arabs chant shit like “khaybar khaybar ya yahood” to remind jews of ONE OF THE MANY TIMES they genocided us?

where is your ire and horror when jews are being attacked and chants for our genocide are being yelled? you don’t give a shit. you justify and defend attacks on us. you cheer when we’re raped, tortured, and murdered. as you did with october 7. our lives mean nothing to you. meanwhile palestinians are held up on pedestals. the racism and double standards are disgusting.

also fuckass? this attack was proven to be premeditated to the point where intelligence warned amsterdam police in advance and mossad accompanied the maccabi soccer team. evidence from the perpetrators’ social media accounts and whatsapp groups have been published. stop getting all of your news from bbc and al jazeera.

when you defend attacks against jews, you sound like an ACTUAL nazi.

the footage coming out of amsterdam is terrifying and horrible. this is a pogrom. this is what “globalize the intifada” means.

[saucetail-hasanewblog]

why do people say latino as if that’s some substitute to your ethnicity

[fayoftheforest]

human kite & antisemitism

In the notes of my recent meta on Vampire Kyle AUs, a user reflected on how similar antisemitic stereotypes might overlap with his TFBW character as well. Since I also have some thoughts on this and enjoyed putting together the last lil post I thought I’d do another on this subject too :) 

South Park Fandom Wiki states that Human Kite is heavily inspired by Superman, “being a faraway alien with the ability to fly and to shoot lasers out of his eyes, even wearing a costume with the color red, yellow, and blue and a symbol in his chest to match.”  I think this is pretty cool! Superman was created by Jewish immigrants and is very Jewish-coded in his origin story, being “a refugee with the Hebrew-inspired name ‘Kal-El’ who escaped a dying world and fought Nazis during World War II” (JewishUnpacked). I don’t know if Tratt were aware of these roots, but either way, I think it’s pretty neat :)

South Park Fandom Wiki also claims that Kyle playing an alien character “may be a reference to how Adolf Hitler did not consider Jews ‘human.’" This is. Uh. Less neat.

Similarly upsetting is the name itself, Human Kite, which is a play on words with the horrific ethnic slur “kike.” American Jewish Committee posits that the term “is derived from the Yiddish word for circle, ‘kikel,’ a reference to how Jewish immigrants at Ellis Island signed their entry forms: a circle as opposed to an X, which Jews associated with the cross of Christianity. Immigration officers described those who signed forms with a circle as ‘kikel,’ eventually being shortened to ‘kike.’”

Did Matt and Trey really create his entire character just so that Cartman could call him Human Kike that one time? I can’t say for certain, just in the same way I don’t have a direct quote from them confirming the reasoning behind their selections of names for Kyle and Ike. But I can tell you that if you put ‘em together and you get… yeah. Yep. “Kike” again. Thank you, Tratt, very cool 👍Get a new joke maybe :/

Now, let’s talk specifically about his laser powers. Up until researching for this meta, I had presumed that Kyle’s ability to shoot lasers from his eyes was a direct reference to the Jewish Space Laser conspiracy popularised to the public by terrifyingly influential political figure Marjorie Taylor Greene. In 2018, Greene wrote a Facebook rant speculating that the California wildfires were caused by a giant laser floating in space, owned by the Jews. Very normal thing to believe :|

However, during my research, I realised that these timelines did not match up. As mentioned, Greene’s rant was shared in 2018, but didn’t go viral until 2021. Meanwhile, South Park’s The Fractured But Whole was released way back in 2017! What I had initially assumed was another antisemitic reference is in fact just a dreadful and ridiculous coincidence. Nonetheless, It’s still a commonality that’s worth pointing out, I think.

Just as an aside, I’d like to take this opportunity to give a shoutout to cousin Kyle’s version of Human Kite. Everything about him is an egregious Jewish caricature, from his irritating, snivelling voice to his long list of health issues. It’s not my fault that the limited Jewish gene pool has fucked me over, Tratt! Leave me alone! A meta about antisemitism within Cousin’s Kyle characterisation would be a mile long, so I’ll spare you that for now.

Anyway, what does this all mean when we’re creating fan content around TFBW? Must we just chuck the Human Kite persona into a blender and never speak of it again? Not necessarily. Speaking as a Jewish fandom member, I quite enjoy reading and writing Human Kite. It’s a fun character to play around with! Despite his unfortunate roots, I don’t believe including him is innately antisemitic. It just depends on how you go about doing it! If he’s not secretly running the world, controlling the banks and Hollywood, or consuming the blood of innocent Christians, you’re on the right track. 

You could even go for a little meta-commentary and acknowledge the antisemitic coding within the text! Here’s an example of how I did that in my upcoming TFBW reality swap fic (don’t question why there’s two of everyone, it makes sense within the text lmao)

“Wait, you’re telling me in an alternate reality we’re all aliens?” Kyle gawks at this funhouse-mirror version of himself, who’s busy gawking right back. “No, Kyle, just—just you,” Kenny says. “Oh.” Kyle narrows his eyes. “You know, it’s difficult not to interpret this with antisemitic undertones.” “What, like the Jewish Space Laser conspiracy?” Cartman asks. Mysterion frowns. “Jewish people have space lasers in your universe?” “No,” Cartman sighs and shakes his head forlornly, before muttering, “it’s a made-up rumour to perpetuate mistrust and hatred towards the Jewish community.” “Alright, don’t sound so disappointed,” Kyle huffs. “Guys!” Stan says. “Can we not start this argument again?” “I never said it was a cool rumour, Kyle!” Cartman snaps defensively. “Obviously it’s super harmful and whatever. All I meant was that it would have been cool if it were real. Because, like, space lasers are awesome! Right?” He looks to Kite, apparently presuming that they’re an authority on the matter. “Um.” Kite blinks, then says hesitantly, “I can shoot lasers… from my eyes. And once I did sort of fly up into space and magnify the lasers to destroy Chaos’s tin foil factory. So, uh. Does that help?” Cartman’s face lights up and is split in half by an enthusiastic grin. “It helps a lot, actually.” Kyle groans and pinches his nose. “You have no idea how much education you’ve just undone, dude.” He opens his eyes to glower at Kite. Kenny glances at Chaos. “Tin foil factory?” Chaos waves a hand dismissively. “Outsourcing proved more efficient.”

There we go! A lighthearted little nod, which acknowledges potential antisemitic readings of Human Kite, without justifying or excusing it. It’s not at all necessary when creating fan content around Human Kite, but just know that that’s an option to you, if you so choose. Just make sure antisemites are the butt of your joke, and not Jewish people, lmao.

I’ll finish up by returning to my general sentiment that I held in my Vamp!Kyle post. If you conduct your creations with a basic level of awareness and self-reflection, you’ll probably be alright. Just stay in the know, and you’re all good to go 😎

[rockybloo]

Slightly (or extremely) unrealistic scenario but it’s funny (at least to me) so I’m sharing it:

A random person (preferably a woman) asks Sweetheart and Bitterbat “Do you think I’m pretty?” And, Sweetheart being the sweetheart she is (pun intended 🙂) says “Of course!” Bitterbat on the other hand is like “Yeah, but not as pretty as my girlfriend.” And then Sweetheart just looks at him with a serious face and says “Did you just tear down another woman in the age of the Barbie movie?” Bitterbat confused starts sputtering and before he can say anything else she drags him away saying “We’re having a talk about this when we get home.” Leaving the poor individual just as confused.

…The point is Sweetheart is a feminist no doubt (actually some doubt because you’re the creator so…)

I thought the Barbie movie was cute but...it was def very much 2010s Tumblr feminism for me. As in it just...really lacked dimension for my tastes.

So I don't particularly see it as something that speaks to Sweetheart save for her pointing at Ken during the earlier scenes and telling Bitterbat "Look it's you".

This is a long one so buckle up

In a situation where a woman randomly asked them (while they were their civilian selves) their opinion on her appearance, I imagine this would happen on a mall date where they are probably shopping for make up or clothing. And I imagine this is just someone wanting some outside views on herself to make an opinion on what to get. Or maybe it could even be a random street interaction.

Sweetheart would of course say she looked pretty since...well she isn't called sweetheart for nothing. And she would hype her up some to give her more confidence just for a extra nice cherry on top since she knows how it feels to have low self esteem when it comes to appearances.

Sweetheart also knows her man. She knows he thinks she is beauty herself and no one compares. She can also read Bitterbat's body language and knows he can be blunt as hell. She knows regardless of gender, that man will hurt someone's feelings.

So all she needs to do is give Bitterbat look. A very specific look he knows very well.

It's that "BEHAVE" look.

Bitterbat does what Sweetheart tells him, verbal or not, and he agrees with Sweetheart with a big ole artificially sweet smile. He enters that good ole customer service mode he takes when he knows being "himself" might lead to upsetting Sweetheart, and compliments the woman's appearance enough to send her on her way.

He's a smart guy and he knows his way around emotions very well. It's what makes him dangerous because of how well he can play people.

And once the woman walks away, beaming and happy, Bitterbat drops the act and Sweetheart just gives that amused sigh as she shakes her head some.

"Boy, if you don't stop being mean" But there's a chuckle to it because she finds it somewhat entertaining.

Bitterbat just does that smug ass expression where his forked tongue peeks from his mouth before pecking her on the cheek.

As for Sweetheart being a feminist, I don't really slap labels on OCs save for their race or ethnicity, their sexual orientation, and gender identity.

Labels don't give good enough insight into how a character really thinks so I don't wanna give one to a character and have people misread them.

So, to give her stance on gender based stuff, Sweetheart certainly believes everyone should be equal and that men shouldn't be deemed better than women. She also doesn't believe all men are complete heartless assholes or vilianizing masc things. Nor should more feminine things be deemed weaker and pathetic.

She also loves trans people and believes that women's rights should include trans women as well and that trans rights are human rights. And she believes that change cannot be achieved through the demonization of people just because of their gender identity or sexuality.

If that is what Feminism stands for then yeah, she totally is one.

[oneshortdamnfuse]

The complete refusal by many Europeans to listen to and understand how ethnic identity “works” in America will always get to me, because why am I having a long winded argument with someone who refuses to recognize “Irish Catholic” as an identity in America because it doesn’t include “American” tacked on after it. “Why don’t you add American onto it?” - because it’s redundant when you’re obviously in America talking about an ethnic diaspora you belong to.

For context, it’s on a video response where an American Irish Catholic family makes a light hearted joke about Irish Catholic identity in America but some snarky person from Ireland stitched the video with an “Are ye now?” when the family said “We’re Irish Catholic.” The original video contains jokes that an Irish Catholic in America would understand to be about their diaspora community. While it may contain some stereotypes, none of them are particularly harmful (e.g. no references to drinking and fighting).

You cannot tell me that Europeans with their “superior” education systems can’t figure out that an American saying they’re Irish Catholic means something different from a person in Ireland saying the same thing. You cannot confess to me that you need that clarification on a video where people with “American” accents are talking about their ethnic identity. Furthermore, insisting that people identify as Irish American in the context of their original video is absurd given that “Irish Catholic” is it’s own unique cultural identity here.

There are churches and schools that are largely Irish Catholic here. There are neighborhoods that are traditionally Irish Catholic here. There are accents and dialects that are largely based around Irish Catholic immigrant communities here. There are ways of dress. There are foods and festivals. Naming rituals. Family structures. Religious practices. Folklore. There are remnants of our culture here from when our ancestors left their homelands that eventually grew into their own unique ethnic identity - the Irish Catholic identity in America.

I’m just using Irish Catholic as an example because this video sparked the discussion, but this goes for any ethnic identity here. We’ve been shaped by our ancestors, good and bad. We all deal with a certain level of disconnection and alienation because of choices made before we were born. Enforcing the “American” label onto ethnic groups specifically when it’s not necessary to comprehend that they’re distinct from ���modern day” cultures in Europe serves no great purpose other than promoting “White American” identity.

I said it before and I’ll say it again - it’s good that White Americans remain connected or even reconnect with their cultural roots, because “White American” as an identity was made possible by white supremacy. There’s nothing wrong with diaspora in American referring to themselves by the name of their ethnic group. You can be critical about how people appropriate or bastardize ethnic identities, but Irish Catholic and ethnic identities like it are unique in America and there’s no reason to refer to ourselves by names imposed on us.

When Americans talk about their ethnic identities, that’s not the time to be snarky with a “well actually you’re not from x, y, z.” Just let Americans talk about their own experiences. Maybe learn why diaspora communities behave similarly and differently from you. Correct practices that you think are perhaps misinformed, stereotypical, or problematic,* but realize that not all cultural practices have to be scrutinized for authenticity outside of their cultural context in America.

*e.g. You can correct someone claiming they have “Viking” ancestry to defend wearing ahistorical dress that appropriates from indigenous communities, but yelling at Americans for modifying their ethnic cuisines to suit where they live because it’s not “authentic” enough to you is rude. There’s a difference between appropriation and adaptation. Being from a country doesn’t give you the right to define diaspora communities and impose your definitions on them.

[o-wild-west-wind]

A Biracial Reading of OFMD, ft. Iggy’s Revenge Izcourse

a.k.a. I typed out a sentence that turned into an accidental essay of meta, whoops!

Y’all…I love this fandom to pieces, but I don’t think some of you realize why not all of us love Izzy/may be critiquing him. And major disclaimer—I am in NO WAY telling anyone to stop enjoying him as a character. This is NOT an anti-Izzy post (I will go into more detail on why I in fact encourage you to keep doing so later, and to the people who are sending unsolicited hate mail to Izzy fans & haters alike: please don’t!)—I’m just tired of seeing vitriolic hate against the people writing about him as an antagonist, or critiquing his actions based on canon, or post after post of “why don’t people love Izzy like I do!!” and then aggression when people explain their honest opinions. Look: we all have our skrungly little bad guys. I get it!! I’ve got my own collection!! I too have become a consumer and enjoyer of the Izzy fanon!!! PLEASE don’t take this as an attack—I just want to provide some personal, potentially fresh context from at least one (obviously non-exhaustive) perspective for those who want to know why Izzy isn’t universally adored, and also to make a plea for a safer fandom space where we can talk about our perspectives on these fictional characters without escalating to unnecessary vitriol, especially as s2 be upon ye (bc holy shit fandom is supposed to be fun, we’re having fun and that’s an order 😤)

(Oh, and I know I’m potentially stirring the pot with this post, but this should go without saying: don’t send each other death threats. What the fuck. Nobody do this?!)

So now that the legalize is out of the way: I want to share that the reason I initially imprinted on this show—and on Ed specifically—was because I’d never seen an explicitly biracial character treated with such complexity, nuance, and grace. While our ethnic makeups are vastly different, I too am half-white & half-brown—which means we’re absolutely nothing culturally alike, but our worlds view and treat us as pretty much the same regardless. And like Ed, my dad resents my mom and my racial makeup, and is prone to what I like to call “white violence.” Not going to overshare on the internet, but let’s just say that all this compounded makes Ed feel highly relatable to me (although for legal purposes I promise I have not krakened my dad 🙃).

When I first watched the show (and honestly also until my 3rd or 4th rewatch), Izzy IMMEDIATELY made me think of my dad. He also immediately made me think of Ed’s dad. Their mannerisms, word choices, and tones of voice; the obsessive need for control; the default of violence; the gradual dehumanization until an ultimate kraken-ifying breaking point—it all read to me like an intentional parallel. A shadow of white violence following Ed around that he hasn’t been able to shake, and mirroring to him the things he fears the most, including the things he fears within himself and feels forced to become (he is half-white after all, and this is a whole other post, but tl;dr there can be a lot of baggage that comes with being half-white/half-poc in regards to grappling with your toxic relationship to that white side of yourself, and especially if your white parent was racist and/or violent). And you can claim a different reading of all of this if you want (I genuinely mean that, like I’m in favor of meta & I think it’s great to analyze these things) BUT. that does not change the fact that I felt what I felt as a result of what was portrayed on screen and combined with my lived experience. Because fictional characters are just that—fictional—and are vessels by which you can process the world; we will always bring our personal lived experiences to anything we consume, and that’s okay—that can be the point, even. Art imitates life imitates art. Interpretation is the name of the game!

(more under the cut)

So when I watch this show, it’s a helpful tool for me to process my own feelings of being victimized by the white violence that’s followed me around my whole life, as well as the ways in which I’ve rebelled against it/tried to make peace with a non-toxic version of whiteness (in parallel to the more overt theme of masculinity, which is—ding ding—inexplicably tied to whiteness and western colonialism) via chaos, love, hurt, and sometimes giving up and giving in—and in this process, Izzy is a safe target. And you know why that is? Because he’s FICTIONAL. I can feel rage towards him because he’s NOT REAL. I can better understand and process the pain I’ve felt and rarely seen societally acknowledged by watching it paralleled on screen via actors and writers who have likely also grappled with similar feelings (I mean, I genuinely have made more progress with my personal biracial trauma via this show vs. years of therapy), and if I want to assume the worst of Izzy based on my interpretation of canon to help me through this? That’s fine! Because I can’t hurt his feelings and he can’t hurt mine!! Because he’s not real!!!

And here’s why I still support the Izzy-enjoyment: I am sure that many of the people who love Izzy and defend him to the ends of the earth probably feel a similar way that I do about Ed. It’s why we get all riled up and protective of these characters, why we might take attacks on them as attacks on ourselves; recognition of the self in the form of the other, and all that. Izzy is a vessel by which to safely work through the dark feelings and the pain you’ve bottled up—and he’s a safe way to do that because he’s FICTIONAL. And that’s a beautiful thing imo!! That’s truly the beauty of art—it is what we make of it, and what we make of it helps make ourselves better. It’s good to be open to interpretation.

HOWEVER: that does not give you permission to discount my relationship to this show (as I will not discount yours), and more importantly: that does NOT give you permission to reject the notion that canonically in s1, Izzy is literally and thematically (emphasis on thematically) an antagonist who is purposefully written to cause harm that can be interpreted as a hate crime, especially to those with lived experience of homophobia/racism/ableism/bullying/etc.—and you cannot harass people about this when conversing about theories of canon. If someone sees Izzy’s dialogue as cutting, degrading, and even triggering, that’s extremely fair of them to do so—clearly Ed was written to feel it that way! Con himself has paralleled Izzy with Judas! And can interpret it all differently? Sure! But you CANNOT assume that everyone else will, and then get upset when people don’t. I can’t believe I need to spell this out about an angry white guy in a show about toxic masculinity, but if someone does not like Izzy, it is likely due to a personal history of harassment (or worse) that he is reminiscent of; by making a point to defend him to someone—even if you are well-intentioned—you are very much putting salt in a wound.

I want to take this opportunity to further emphasize some tenets of fandom in general:

you can like characters who do horrible things without needing to jump hoops to argue their morals as pure 👏

conversely, you can critique their actions and still like them (encouraged, even) 👏

you can like characters who do horrible things simply because they’re cool and hot and interesting—don’t worry, we know it’s not the same as liking people like them irl 👏

your liking a villain archetype says nothing about your own moral virtue 👏

you can like horrible characters and see reasons for why they are the way they are/view them as tragic/note sympathetic dimensions of their personality/root for them to have redemption arcs while acknowledging that said redemption arc may not have happened in canon yet and that these are implicit, not explicit, readings of canon 👏

and you can also reimagine canon and change their contexts in fan works so that they ARE morally virtuous 👏 but PLEASE just be mindful and accountable when you do this in a context where not everyone will see a character the same way as you, and where multiple of people of marginalized identities have spoken out about the harm not doing so can cause. Just be honest, sincere, and kind, listen and learn, and don’t harass people for understandably needing space from a character that symbolizes something different to them than it does to you.

Also: blocking tags or people just because they have character opinions different than yours is totally okay and does not mean anything other than “I am curating my online space to have a better time,” it’s NOT personal

And most importantly: FANDOM IS FOR FUN! This isn’t our day job! We come to fandom to decompress. Don’t ruin people’s safe spaces!!!

Like I said, I’ve grown to enjoy Izzy over time thanks to fandom and fanon, and I think it’s fantastic that fandom can have such diversity in the way it interprets canon. I can’t wait for his probable redemption arc (it will likely be a healing thing to witness for many of us) and I’m truly glad that we can all have different relationships to the same characters. But please—when some of us need Izzy to be a punching bag, just let him be a punching bag. No, it’s not homophobic and DEFINTELY not misogynistic to view him as an obstacle in Ed and Stede’s relationship (baffled by the amount of times I’ve seen this take—it’s a funny joke but if you actually think Izzy is treated the way female characters related to other mlm ships have been treated, the point is very much going whoosh). You don’t have to engage; it’s not personal. It’s not about YOUR relationship with him—it’s about MINE. Please let me feel and even discuss rage towards him when I think about episode 10. Please let me throw as many sandwiches at his head as I need to. Because I PROMISE, it won’t hurt him—because he, and none of these characters, are real; and yet we, the fans, very much are.

[stewykablooey]

learned arian speaks persian, do you think stewy also does? 🤔

I feel like he would randomly switch languages in front of kendall just to mess with him, either insulting him or flirting with him, but kendall would never know

im pretty sure we’re supposed to assume (and if not, than this is firmly what i believe + i think arian’s talked about it before) that stewy was born in iran so i am positive that he speaks farsi, as in knows how to speak/read/write/understand the language

does he speak it tho, as in, in his day to day life, probably not. i doubt stewy ‘id rather be called stewy than my ethnic name’ is going around conversing in his native language, he probably only speaks it when he’s talking to his family (and even then, ethnic parents refusing to speak their native tongue to their kids so that they’ll pick up english faster is a thing) and even then (not to project my own immigration experience onto this 40yo billionaire but) outside of all that he’s probably not that connected to his native language anyway, immigrant kid diaspora and all that

but i’d imagine if its kendall specifically then yeah, he’ll speak it for fun. id imagine kendall, woke king that he is, wanted stewy to share his culture with him, made stewy suffer through a lot of ‘dude dont ever feel like you have to act white around me i mean it bro’ conversations.

[redheadbigshoes]

same anon from before!

(Tw: discussions of rape and lynching)

By the men of color issue I specifically mean like, the history of how black men’s sexuality in US history was used as excuses to murder and lynch them. Emmet Till was a child, but we was whistling at a store and white people took that to mean he was whistling at a woman (like sexual catcalling)… And they murdered him for it. White women historically used false rape accusations against black men in the jim crow era as a means to justify lynching. Lynching as a practice has become a lot more lowkey and less obvious, so knowing how history can shape present day attitudes, black men are often portrayed as inherent rapists/predators of white women. This attitude also transfers over to dark skinned and brown people, regardless of whether or not they’re asexual/aromantic and whether or not they’re cishet.

For east asian men, they’re considered inherently effeminate therefore unattractive and not sexual, so desexualized. I’m not as well educated on this topic like how hypersexuality harms dark skinned, brown, and black men of color, so I can’t go more into depth.

I didn’t tackle much on fetishization, but that’s also a huge land mine that men of color have to navigate around society with. Like history of the term ebony, fetishization of east asian men, orientalism, etc)

I really feel that only cishet white men can benefit from privilege around their sexuality. To me they’re the only group of people who’s sexuality is celebrated without caveats if that makes sense? Within black culture, black men can celebrate their sexuality sure but white people looking in from the outside demonize them for it and treat them like unstable animals. White men are the only people in sexual contexts that don’t have a specific porn category with a derogatory name either.

So what I mean is like, sexuality is often weaponized against men of color, so even if they’re cishet and not aroace it does them a disservice to assume that they aren’t harmed by the same culture that weaponizes sexuality against people. Like how can you fully and freely participate in sexuality and romance when you’re treated like a predator or denied attractiveness? Fighting the pressure of having to have sex / a relationship to fit in when your expression of sexuality/romance paints you as just another hypersexual man of color?

I think you need to take into consideration different cultures. From what I read of what you said you’re talking a lot about the US, other countries have different views and even race/ethnicity is viewed differently depending on where we’re talking about. Your point of view, though valid because it’s something that really happens, is very American-centered.

I still think straight men of color are privileged. They’re privileged to experience the sexual and romantic attraction that is considered the norm, regardless of race. Being straight will always be a privilege regardless of other minorities you might be part of. I feel like saying straight men of color (like your example) are not privileged for being straight indirectly invalidates the fact they can still oppress the LGBTQ+ community, not because of their race but because of their sexuality.

The situations you brought up aren’t related with the fact those men are straight, they’re related with the fact they’re black/not white.

Being straight is a privilege.

[captainscifi22]

savage-america:

“But the real reason I had to chime in was that Steve Rogers is my favorite superhero. Why? Because unlike other patriotism-themed characters, Steve Rogers doesn’t represent a genericized America but rather a very specific time and place – 1930’s New York City. We know he was born July 4, 1920 (not kidding about the 4th of July) to a working-class family of Irish Catholic immigrants who lived in New York’s Lower East Side.[1] This biographical detail has political meaning: given the era he was born in and his class and religious/ethnic background, there is no way in hell Steve Rogers didn’t grow up as a Democrat, and a New Deal Democrat at that, complete with a picture of FDR on the wall.

Steve Rogers grew up poor in the Great Depression, the son of a single mother who insisted he stayed in school despite the trend of the time (his father died when he was a child; in some versions, his father is a brave WWI veteran, in others an alcoholic, either or both of which would be appropriate given what happened to WWI veterans in the Great Depression) and then orphaned in his late teens when his mother died of TB.[2] And he came of age in New York City at a time when the New Deal was in full swing, Fiorello LaGuardia was mayor, the American Labor Party was a major force in city politics, labor unions were on the move, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade was organizing to fight fascism in Spain in the name of the Popular Front, and a militant anti-racist movement was growing that equated segregation at home with Nazism abroad that will eventually feed into the “Double V” campaign.

Then he became a fine arts student. To be an artist in New York City in the 1930s was to be surrounded by the “Cultural Front.” We’re talking the WPA Arts and Theater Projects, Diego Rivera painting socialist murals in Rockefeller Center, Orson Welles turning Julius Caesar into an anti-fascist play and running an all-black Macbeth and “The Cradle Will Rock,” Paul Robeson was a major star, and so on. You couldn’t really be an artist and have escaped left-wing politics. And if a poor kid like Steve Rogers was going to college as a fine arts student, odds are very good that he was going to the City College of New York at a time when an 80% Jewish student body is organizing student trade unions, anti-fascist rallies, and the “New York Intellectuals” were busily debating Trotskyism vs. Stalinism vs. Norman Thomas Socialism vs. the New Deal in the dining halls and study carrels.”

Steven Attewell: Steve Rogers Isn’t Just Any Hero - Lawyers, Guns & Money

gotta love a well-researched takedown of such lazy, hoary tropes as “Captain America is a monolithic aryan crypto-fascist”

[fierceawakening]

I'm writing this as an ask because I don't want to blow things up on your blog again (and because I know you asked your questions in good faith, and because I'm far enough removed from the issues to isolate this outside of the larger topic), but: did anyone actually answer your question about "what do you mean by 'right'" question?

I think it's possible this is a "English is silly and words don't always follow one strict meaning" issue.

I want to be clear, this only my take on what people could mean and why it's hanging you up. I could be completely wrong, but I've been thinking thus:

You're talking about right as in a "legal right," but the word can also be used in the sense of "moral right." From what I see, when people talk about things like housing being a right, they mean a moral right: something everyone should have claim to without needing the power of law.

When the UN declares something a right, it's not putting that into law per se, but it is making a declaration that everyone should have access/claim to these things.

So, when people talk about Israel's right to exist, or Jewish right to their homeland, etc., what I think they mean is a moral right. Something that should be a right because it is the right thing (see English being silly?), or because it is the just thing.

I that possibly helps somehow?

That’s what I was asking, yes. “Is there such a thing as a moral right divorced from a legal right, and if so, how should we understand it?”

Because “Israel has a right to exist” (one framing I used to hear a lot when I first became a leftist) doesn’t seem to literally mean “if somehow a framework of the countries of the world were drawn up that no longer included Israel, the other countries would be obligated to recreate it.” It seems to mean “targeting this country for obliteration is morally wrong even if you don’t like its muscular military response to attacks.”

But “Jews have a right to live on their homeland” sounds TO ME more legalistic. (And, indeed, several people brought up that Jews DO have right of return… but got really weird when I then said “should Palestinians?” HMMM.) It sounds like it means “by law people of this ethnicity (or by conversion to this ethnoreligion) should be freely permitted to immigrate.”

TO ME, “who else gets this right to immigrate? How is it decided? How are difficult cases adjudicated?” Seems like a natural follow up question.

If what’s meant is “people shouldn’t discourage Jews from moving to their sacred sites,” a more nebulous sense of “a right,” then okay, I agree. The mere fact there’s a war on should not be a MORAL reason to prevent Jews from finding available apartments on sacred land.

But that doesn’t seem to be what people who say “I’m not anti Jew I’m anti zionist” or even who say “I’m a Jew but not a Zionist” are getting at. They seem to be animated by concerns about land ownership and land use—about rights in a more legalistic sense. (If they’re not just using Zionist to mean Jew and hating. Which some ARE! But my question wasn’t if people do that, it was “is it possible to be anti Zionist without being anti Jew? Why or why not? I personally find this rights thing a bit of a dangling thread…”)

So either people misunderstand which right Zionism(s) mean, or those Zionism(s) do mean “our claims to land get processed first as we are indigenous and they are not. Also we’re more oppressed over longer time periods.”

If they mean the second thing… that COULD be justified, but it needs a lot more clear and specific argument in its favor than, like, “don’t stop Moishe from moving to Tel Aviv.”

(For example: prismatic seemed to be asserting that Jews are indigenous but Palestinians are “invaders,” a claim I’d seen before but not often. Most often I hear “both groups are indigenous,” which would mean indigeneity alone can’t be the sole criterion. And of course if Palestinians are indigenous and Jews are not, as I see some people assert occasionally, then they would have the right to live in the homeland applied first. So I’d need to see the facts on this point, as I personally don’t know them, because I don’t know which sources are least biased.)

[mithliya]

English is not my first language but I'm trying very hard to understand very practical questions not the literal idea, you understand? To be Palestinian Jewish means to say that whoever lived in the region (I think is what you are saying) before 1948 was Palestinian technically because of the mandate? Before it was more to use the cities or being from a religious part before you have national movements with palestinian being distinct and very specific meaning like now.

I wanted to ask by World War I many Jews living in the area were sent to Alexandria under Ottoman rule. Are they Palestinian if they were forced to leave but lived there before the British Mandate, but were back only after 1948 when Egypt forced the Jews to leave and they went to Israel? This isn't a very small group of the going back and forth

If this seems like a specific example I am using it because "Palestinian Jew" is strange if many were unable to be living there throughout forever due to being sent out a lot? As identity I think the people who most strongly thought they were Palestinian Jews as the term were anti british zionists because of Palestine was an aspirational place

here, you can read about the people that were deemed jewish palestinians. we’re talking around 5-7% of the palestinian population and in terms of origins, they were indeed diverse (there were ashkenazi jewish people, sephardi, etc. their origins were not necessarily palestinian (as i said, they were diverse in terms of their countries of origin) but they were considered palestinian by palestinian liberation groups regardless because they were not at all part of the zionist colonial project and were simply jewish people peacefully living in palestine among other people in palestine.

Article 5:

The Palestinians are those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it or have stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father - whether inside Palestine or outside it - is also a Palestinian.

Article 6:

The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians.

i would argue that jewish people who were expelled from palestine are indeed palestinian jewish too, because they were nationals of palestine & lived there peacefully among the other populations until they had to flee. that said, i feel like you believe that i think every jewish person that does not fit under that identity should be expelled? which is not actually what i believe. i’m in support of there being a joined-state in which people have equal rights and protections regardless of religious or ethnic background. the people i would most oppose are the genocidal ppl, the settlers that immigrated recently and aided in the settler colonialism esp the illegal settlers, and people of the sort. i don’t think it would be feasible to argue a jewish person born in israel with parents also born there should be expelled simply bc they came in after 1947, for example. so i’m honestly not sure why you think it’s important to assert which jewish people would be considered palestinian jews historically while palestinians are currently facing a genocide tbh

[progressivemother]

We teach equality not gender roles.

Many people are under the misconception that boys should be outside learning to throw a football instead of inside learning about housework and the opposite for girls. Both need to learn to be independent and do things on their own, both outside and inside the house.

These perceived gender norms impact our children's well-being. Children who chose ‘being tough’ as the most important trait for boys, or ‘having good clothes’ as the most important trait for girls, are shown to have the lowest well-being across the group. On the other hand, children who chose ‘working hard at school’ as the most important quality scored highest for well-being.

Gender roles in society can create certain expectations, and the pressure of gender stereotypes can often get ugly. Almost all the young people will hear jokes or comments being made about other people’s bodies or looks. Gender roles tend to be forced onto our children and it isn't good for their mental health.

Here are some ways my husband and I use to inspire our children to want better futures.

1. Talk about it.

We talk to our kids about gender equality and human rights. By talking to our kids about equality between the sexes and what still needs to be done for us to reach a gender-equal world, we’re setting them up to lead the way for a better future for all.

2. Share the care work.

From cooking and cleaning to working on vehicles and the yard, we set the example by equally dividing all housework and care in our home.

3. Embrace diverse role models.

Role models come in all shapes, sizes, genders, skin tones and cultural backgrounds. We encourage our children to embrace diversity, show them role models from different genders, ethnicity and colours. We remind them that they can be anything they want to be.

4. Empower our kids to speak out.

Young people around the world are stepping up for gender equality. When we empower and educate our children about human rights, we are ensuring a better future for us all. A few great ways we teach them to be assertive include teaching them emotional intelligence, listening to them, allowing them to choose how to decorate their rooms and choose their own outfits, asking instead if telling, cultivating their confidence, and modeling assertiveness. My daughter has become extremely sassy.

5. Fight stereotypes, including our own.

Gender is not about biological differences between the sexes, rather, it’s a social construct — people define what it means to be a boy or a girl, and these social conditioning often expect children to conform to specific and limiting gender roles and expectations from a young age.

Researchers say, children start absorbing stereotypes by age 3, causing the world to expand for boys and shrink for girls by age 10. That’s why we have to start conversations about gender roles early on. We all have unconscious gender biases. These are roles that we’ve internalized based on our society’s set expectations about how men and women should dress, behave and present themselves, and in some cases, what kind of work they should do. It’s in our hands to become aware of these biases and challenge the stereotypes that our children constantly encounter daily.

6. Stop the body shame.

Our world is constructed in a way that makes us compare ourselves to the beauty standards set by the media, culture and society. We constantly measure ourselves against other people and feel judged by our physical appearance. Body shaming is a learned behavior, so it’s important for us, as parents, to lead by example. We be careful not to be critical of body image, including our own, and reject sexist, negative stereotypes of unrealistic body standards. Fostering a body-positive lifestyle at home by showing our children that they are not defined by how they look, but by how they act will ultimately help their confidence in themselves and better their future. Don't get me wrong; healthy eating and exercise is still important.

Gender equality begins at home, and families are at the front lines of change. For the next generation, the examples set at home by us, other care-givers and extended family are shaping the way they think about gender and equality. We need to make sure they grow up knowing that everyone is equal and there isn't a set of standards for anyone.

[paopuofhearts]

Jewish and Native wanting to comment on the Indigeneity bit:

This is a huge misconception that being Native American / Indigenous is a race or ethnic group, the same way there's a lot of misconception in understanding Jewish people as a religious or ethnic group.

Native Americans / Indigenous people [at least in the US, and this will be US centric because that's where I am] have never been an ethnic or racial group, despite being treated as one. We can talk about how Tribal Recognition isn't an ethnic or racial group because tribes were labeled for governmental purposes, and how we are not an ethnic or racial group because labels derive from being reduced to a monolith for conquest due to settler colonialism, as well as the complications on how all of these labels of othering [like blood quantum bullshit] were specifically to push settler colonial ideology to make us disappear.

The belief that we are an ethnic or racial group is part of perpetuating the erasure of why we became who we are today. This is a really great quote by Nick Estes about it:

To understand why the Native struggle is essential, then, we must first begin with why Natives are targeted for elimination: to gain access to territory. Despite popular belief, Natives are not targeted and killed for our culture, spirituality, religion, or civilization. We are eliminated so that corporations and the settler state can gain access to our territory and resources. That requires the liquidation of our societies, the forced removal of our people from the land, the creation of a blood quantum system that dilutes our identity and decreases our population, the confinement to reservations or prisons, the breaking up of our land base and collective identities, and the hyper-policing of our people. Elimination also requires that Natives in border towns like Albuquerque are seen as nuisances and are commonly referred to as “drunk Indians” or “transients.” Both stereotypes are criminalized, although by definition neither is illegal. Police and settlers often tell us to “Go back to the reservation!” or “You’re not from the community!” In those moments, Natives become a criminal element, as if we’re the ones who don’t belong. It’s what Native bodies off-reservation represent that makes us a threat. Native bodies off-reservation represent the unfinished business of settler colonialism; we’re physical reminders that this is not settler land — this is stolen Native land. Despite their best efforts to kill us off, confine us to sub-marginal plots of land, breed us white, or to beat or educate the Indian out of us, we remain. We remain because we resist

The unfortunate thing is that we are relegated to being considered an ethnic or racial group because we live under a settler colonial system / structure that purposely distorts our reality of identity to take power away from us.

This is why when Indigenous people who are for Palestinian liberation say that Jewish people are not Indigenous, we are not saying Jewish people do not have connections to the land: we are saying that it was a choice by those who pushed for a nation-state to use the methodology of building a settler colonial system / structure to reclaim the land. And this is a non-negotiable fact: Herzl, Jabotinsky, Ben Gurion, and dozens of other key political players described how building a nation-state would be through settler colonialism.

However, that doesn't mean anyone else understands this differentiation. So there is a lot of misuse over this point being conflated to something it isn't, in a way that negative impacts Indigenous people and Jewish people alike. [But people parroting this without doing the work of understanding this don't care about either group because their participation tends to be more about virtue signaling being "right" than, you know, doing the work]. *Maybe similar to the issue of antizionism being used to perpetuate antisemitism: antizionism tends to be about undoing the systems / structures of settler colonialism, but people instead make it about the erasure of Jewish connection to the land.

Now, once we get to this point, there's also a lot to potentially be said about "how else would you build a nation-state from diaspora" and the issues of nation-states themselves just being a new side of the same coin of settler colonialism systems / structures as well, but that's potentially another kind of post.

And I want to clarify: that doesn't mean Zionism can only ever be defined as settler colonialism. Because it can't, so it's not just that. But that doesn't mean one of the definitions is explicitly settler colonialism, and that definition has had the biggest impact on the creation nation-statehood.

So there's a little thing to maybe hopefully explain that.

Hi! I saw your tags on unlearning zionism and I was wondering if you've ever spoken about that/the kind of processing you had to do? I think it's... Interesting (for lack of a better word) how this is a sentiment I've seen reflected on pretty much all explicitly non-zionist Jewish blogs I follow, and how much that reflects both how closely entwined the concept and Jewishness has become and the fierce zionism in some people.

Obviously you're free to not discuss this at all, I also understand it's deeply personal. (I'm also not intending to make anyone change their mind, I believe this is a process Jewish people should be afforded on their own terms; I'm really just trying to understand where they're coming from). ♥️

The tl;dr was through talking to people, breaking my rigidities, and being lucky enough to encounter people who were kind, committed to dialogue, and not dismissive.

Longer version under the cut.

In winter 2019 I started dating a non-zionist, so a lot of the early stuff was through conversations with them.

Here are the specific things I recall through them:

They validated my experience of having felt traumatized by a negative experience I had at a protest. I felt very on the defense, and dismissed, as a zionist who wanted to be in leftist spaces and they validated that. I don't know if they were faking it or not, but it felt real, and being heard and not dismissed was super important to building trust and safety. Ultimately, building trust and safety was the most important thing.

They would sometimes patiently poke holes in things I said. Matter of factly, not confrontationally. For example, once I said I didn't like the separation wall dividing Israel proper from the West Bank but that it was necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, and they were like "no, that wasn't the wall, it was a change in PA policy." Another time I was like "I don't understand [West Bank] settlers, if they want to be pioneers and settle more land they should settle the Negev, where they're not encroaching on Palestinians!" and they explained to me more about the situation between Israel and Bedouins and how that actually still would involve encroaching/displacement.

They're very religious, and so they had the tools to poke into my "but just open a siddur! you can see all the references to returning to Jerusalem!" and discuss how that differed from and predated zionism the political ideology. They were able to break through my dismissiveness/derision of Chareidi antizionism and help me understand that it has legitimate religious underpinnings. (They're not Chareidi though.) They affirmed for me that they do feel connected to Eretz Yisrael and they love Eretz Yisrael.

They also explained that indigenous doesn't mean "from a place" but rather describes a relationship to colonialism. It still didn't totally click for me, and they and I have both since come to understand that there are a lot of definitions of indigenous, but what it did help me understand was that when people push back against "Jews are indigenous to EY" they're not always trying to say we're not from there.

In general it helped me break down what I thought an antizionist was. I thought that an antizionist was someone who didn't think Jews had a meaningful spiritual and communal connection to EY, thought we weren't from there, didn't give a shit if all Israeli Jews ended up pushed into the sea, hadn't opened a siddur to see references to return to Jerusalem, etc. I was also pretty rigid in my thinking and had collected a bunch of talking points, mostly that I'd co-created with other members of Jewbook (Jewish facebook). They helped me break out of that rigidity and once I'd done that I was open to learning more.

What happened next is that in fall 2019 is I did a fellowship that, while unrelated to the topic, put me in contact with other Jewish antizionists.

There was one person whose project we visited during an outing on the fellowship, who had discussed their project's antizionism. I was bothered by it and asked them one question: Did they feel Jews were connected to Eretz Yisrael? Did they feel connected to Eretz Yisrael? They responded yes of course.

Another person was my roommate on the fellowship, a leftist antizionist Syrian Jew. For a while one of my sticking points had been Mizrahi support of Zionism -- my thought process here had a few pieces. One, it seemed like white privilege to go against what most Israeli Jews of color believed and wanted. Another was that I felt that a lot of antizionists were dismissive of and racist towards Mizrahim and don't understand or care to understand their needs, history, or motivations (I do still think that's true). I also saw the expulsions from SWANA and the fact that Israel took in the SWANA Jewish refugees as proof of the necessity of Zionism.

So, I think that interacting with a Mizrahi antizionist both taught me expanded perspectives on the issue, and taught me that it's possible to be antizionist and still in solidarity with Mizrahim. I learned more nuance, for example around Israel's taking in of the refugees; I knew they had been mistreated, but I think it helped me connect the dots about what that meant about the entire Zionist project. That was also the year A-WA's album Bayti fi Rasi came out, and when I listened to Hana Mash Hu Al Yaman, I think that's when it clicked for me that Israel taking them in was not some sort of miracle or blessing in disguise but rather a last resort for people who did not want to go but had no choice. The main characters in that song wanted to stay in Yemen which is I think something that hadn't clicked for me before. That may not be the majority Mizrahi perspective but it is a perspective and one I hadn't previously considered.

By the same token, my partner at the time (the one I talked about at the beginning of the post) was raised as a Yiddish speaker, and we talked about Yiddish suppression during the early days of the state, as well as Ben Yehuda's disdain for Yiddish, and the general early Zionist disdain for Eastern European Jewry and "old world" Jewish culture. I was already aware of the New Jew concept (the idea that the old Jew was studious and unathletic, but we should put that behind us to become strong and agricultural). They helped me frame this in terms of antisemitism, connecting it to the vitriol Chassidim receive from other Jews, antisemitism directed towards Jewish men and the ways it's about gender and goyish and Jewish constructions of masculinity, anti-circ rhetoric that depends on the Hellenistic idea of the body as perfection, and Naomi Klein's analysis of the dislike of Yiddish by Ben Yehuda et al as sexist due to their association of it as "feminine" and therefore lesser.

We also talked about the ways that Zionism devalues diaspora culture. I definitely see this in the ways that eg Jewbook zionists used to see the Ashkenazi past in Eastern Europe as simply a time of pogroms and violence with nothing generative or valuable. It seems that zionism posits Israel and Israeli culture as the "right" or "completed" version of Judaism, and discourages us from mourning the loss of culture we experienced during the Holocaust and our subsequent exodus.

I think there is nuance here; there are Israeli Yiddishists, there are people practicing all kinds of diaspora Jewish cultures in Israel, etc. I think this is a case where antizionists take something real and over emphasize it to sound bigger and more harmful than it is. It's not Israel's fault that European Jewry got destroyed and it's not Israel's fault that A-WA's family had to leave Yemen. Sometimes it feels like antizionist project those harms onto Israel and Zionism.

At the same time though, there is a kernel of truth in the way at least that many North American zionists view Ashkenazi culture, thought I can't say how much of that is their Zionism and how much is the legacy of American assimilationism (even among religious Jews).

In any case, 2020 is when I started on my journey to deepen my understanding of old world Ashkenazi culture and history. I started with a day spent in the kids' section of the Yiddish Book Center using the beginner education resources there to start teaching myself Yiddish (I had a lot of familiarity because my extended family speaks it, but I didn't yet). About half a second later the pandemic started, and the chaos from that took all my attention for a while, but by the end of the summer I did a deep dive on my genealogy and spent two weeks tracking down documents and names and towns. At that point my family history was no longer abstract, and I started wondering more about what their lives were like in the old country.

I started watching Yiddish plays on zoom, including a production of the Dybbuk that I fell in love with. I got involved in the shtetlcore movement, which was a social media aesthetic fad that was basically the shtetl version of cottagecore. That spring the duolingo Yiddish course came out and I did a six month streak. The following winter I went to a virtual Yiddish conference. I went again two more times in person, and last summer I went to a week-long retreat where we were only allowed to speak Yiddish. I also do Yiddish drag and burlesque.

With this emphasis and knowledge it's hard for me to accept any framing that the only "right" place for Jews to live is Israel, or that diaspora cultures are lesser-than. At some point I encountered a belief among some zionists (though I don't think most believe this) that the Jewish people's differentiation into a myriad of different cultures was a bad thing, and constituted negatively picking up pieces of non-Jewish culture, and that it's good we're back together in Israel so we can become just one culture again. I obviously strongly disagree and I while I wish we had not had to experience the trauma of Khorban Beis Hamikdash and the ensuing displacement, I think the variety of different cultures we split into is beautiful.

Ironically, Israel is actually a place of great cultural exchange between those cultures. And yes, I do worry there will be cultural loss if everything blends together melting pot style, but that's more of a function of how societies work as opposed to official state policy. And I also think the Jewish subcultures will endure. Also the cultural loss is the fault of the Holocaust, the Soviet Union, and nationalist SWANA countries way way more than it is Israel's.

At this point I've come to view the idea that Zionism is detrimental to Jewish culture as weak, but I still am not a Zionist, and that's because the issue with Zionism is not that it harms Jews but that it harms Palestinians.

In early summer 2020, I, along with many other white people were called to reckon with the realities of white supremacy in the US, and our part in it, far more deeply than we had before. I learned to understand how racism functions as a pillar of the US's underpinnings, how white supremacy morphs to sustain itself, how I as an individual and Jews as a group were being used to maintain white supremacy. It fundamentally shifted how I view these topics and how I understand the way that states function.

It was impossible not to apply these concepts to Israel-Palestine. While it is obviously not a one-to-one comparison and I am frustrated with folks who seem to think it is, the concepts and analyses I learned in June 2020 were very elucidating in understanding Israel as a state, and how white supremacy and Jewish supremacy operate in Israel-Palestine.

One of those concepts is a deeper understanding of power dynamics and the oppressed-oppressor relationship. While that is not the be-all end-all, and it is still possible for an oppressed group to do harm and commit war crimes (as they did on Oct 7), it helped me understand the ways it makes no sense to view Palestinians and Israelis as equal parties or to view Palestinians as "the aggressor" as many zionists do. Riots are the language of the unheard and, yes, so is violence. Do not imagine that I excuse, condone, or celebrate Oct 7, but I understand why it happened.

These past seven months have forced a magnifying glass on Israel-Palestine and I have spent a lot of time thinking and talking about it. I have had many experiences and interactions that have illuminated different things to me, but I'll leave you with this one.

In 1956, a young man named Ro'i Rothberg was killed in Kibbutz Nahal Oz by Palestinians who lived in Gaza. Moshe Dayan came to give a eulogy and in it, he said:

Why should we declare their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate.

Which is to say, he is stating point blank that the Nakba happened, and that Nahal Oz -- and in fact Israel -- is built on land that had been farmed and inhabited by Palestinians. The hasbarist canard of "we didn't steal their land" falls away when Moshe Dayan himself admits it, doesn't it?

He is acknowledging, also, that he understands why the people of Gaza are enraged, and why some of them express this rage as violence. He gives his solution: That the Israeli people, and especially the people of Nahal Oz, must always be on their guard. Must never become peaceniks and forget the rage of the people of Gaza. He says "we are a generation that settles the land and without the steel helmet and the cannon's maw, we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home."

His vision is of an Israel that is always militarized and militant, always on its guard, never to know peace. A people who will send their children to the army generation after generation after generation. Never to rest. Never to be able to lower their guard.

And that is awful! Not just for Palestinians, but for Israelis! Dayan lays out here that if the Nakba is not redressed, this will continue forever. He wants it to continue forever; I want the Nakba redressed.

He knew Nahal Oz would be attacked again. And he was right. On the morning of Simchat Torah of this year, 5784, twelve residents of the kibbutz were brutally murdered. A family that my family knows hid there in their bomb shelter for ten hours with their small children until they were rescued. The kibbutz was destroyed.

And Moshe Dayan knew it would happen, all the way back in 1956. And yet did nothing to change our trajectory. I cannot forgive him that.

In the months since the destruction of Nahal Oz, we have seen Gaza pummeled with a terrifying vengeance. For years I have encountered, albeit few and far between, people who have clammored for Gaza to be "turned into a parking lot." I was horrified by them, but did not take seriously the threat they represented. Yet now, their genocidal flowers have borne fruit. Gaza lies in ruins. 60% of the roads and infrastructure are destroyed. The descendants of refugees are refugees again, chased from their homes by the descendants of refugees. The live in tents, they scrabble for water and food. They live under threat of bombing, or being shot, or dying of illness and malnutrition.

And still Nahal Oz remains destroyed. The Jewish dead of Europe remain dead. The synagogues of Tunis and Algiers remain empty. Nothing is fixed, only more and more broken.

Is it to continue this way? Is this the world we want?

I say no. I say another world is possible. And on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

[bri-the-bi]

Because clips from The Owl House season 3 came out, I wanna talk about how important Luz as a character is for me because holy SHIT.

I’m half Dominican and half Thai. Growing up, I never really saw rep for either specific ethnicities— all Latino and/or Hispanic rep I saw was usually Mexican or unspecified, and all Asian rep was usually Chinese, Japanese, or unspecified. The only rep I would be able to find for one of my specific ethnicities was watching Thai dramas with my dad’s old family friends (which, when you’re a kid, how exactly is that appealing?)

Luz Noceda came into my life in May of 2020, and I remember that because my mom and I were visiting my abuela in New Jersey. She had a heart thing going on, so we had to stay up in Jersey for a few days to make sure she was okay— while we were there, I decided to get into The Owl House.

I had already heard a few things that piqued my interest, and for the most part? The reason I got into it was Luz, a bisexual, Dominican-American, canonically neurodivergent teenager just like I was (I have moderate to severe ADHD and a few friends have speculated that I might be autistic, I prefer not to think about it because I don’t feel like having another identity crisis).

And then I watched the show, and she was more like me than I ever could’ve thought. We both have that foot stompy stim where you just sort of run in place a little bit, we both have a tendency to isolate ourselves when we’re upset, try to solve everyone else’s problems first, find comfort in fantasy and magic. All that on top of her being canonically Dominican and bi?

Luz Noceda made me feel more seen than any other character. Her relationship with Camila reminds me of my relationship with both of my parents, with the dynamic reminding me of me and my mom and the relationship reminding me of the reason I don’t get along with my dad.

It’s 11 pm and I have a lot of thoughts but I’m tired and can’t articulate all of them, but guys, Luz means so fucking much to me. I can’t even begin to tell how close I hold her to my heart because goddammit, she’s like me. And it’s so fucking rare I see a character like me ever, much less to this degree.

Seeing Luz’s story come to an end is so bittersweet to me, especially since it was cut short. I wish we had more content with her.

Thank you, Dana Terrace and the rest of the Owl House crew, for everything you’ve done to bring Luz Noceda and her friends to life.

[herorps]

shadow and bone and racism

shadow and bone just came out so i can now finally break my silence bc holy shit do they go ham on the racism and me being me, i just have to tell you all about it. possible spoilers and triggers for anti-asian racism and microaggressions.

to preface, i was very privileged to receive a screener for the entire first season last month and i was actually excited to watch it bc i have friends who love the books and the show piqued my interest since it was announced. and i also have to say that i never read the books and i probably never will ( tho i’ve been told i would like soc ) but i did like the show overall. 

i think sab is a good adaptation and that the fans will like this show. i thoroughly enjoyed it and as someone who had very little to almost no knowledge about the books, i didn’t have trouble keeping up with the fantastical world. 

however that doesn’t mean i can’t be critical of it. 

i think the show can actually benefit from people being critical about it because so far, it feels like they took a very tone deaf direction and ran a marathon with it. 

what i’m talking about, is alina starkov being half-shu. 

now, i said before that my interest was piqued for this show when it was announced and one of the major reasons is the casting of biracial actress, jessie mei li, in the role of alina starkov. i can’t tell you how happy i was to see that a half-chinese actress was cast as the lead in a series based on such a beloved ip, especially since the creators of the show consciously changed alina’s ethnicity to be half-shu before casting calls were even sent out. ( for those of you who are also non-book readers, shu is the race of people from the country, shu han, and is based off primarily mongolian and chinese cultures ) 

so i was endeared with the idea that this character, that is coded white, was deliberately changed to be coded asian ( and coded mixed race to boot ) because the producers wanted to include diversity into the show. i commend that, i love that, i support that. but i believe the way they handled it, shouldn’t have been the way they handled it. and it’s because alina’s race is constantly brought up. 

obviously of course race is going to be brought up at some point. alina in the show is surrounded by white people when we first see her, and her home country of ravka does have a hostile history with shu han----i get it. racism is going to play a part in alina’s story. but it doesn’t necessarily need to go so far as to constantly remind the audience that she is shu in almost every interaction she has with someone she meets. 

and that’s a big part of the issue, is that nearly everyone she meets will bring up the fact that she’s part-shu. and a lot of the time, it’s said with hostility. now i’m not exactly sure if i’m just being particularly sensitive because of certain recent events, but the anti-asian racism hits differently these days. idk. 

because that’s what it is, at the end of the day. it’s racism. alina is often the target of very hostile racism and it seems to mainly be directed at her character and her character only. 

and honestly, on a surface level it makes sense, i sort of understand what the producers are trying to do. ravka has a turbulent history with shu han and were involved in wars with them and they’re often seen as the enemy so obviously that would affect a shu-mixed person growing up in ravka, a very white country. but on a deeper level, it reminds me a lot of the anti-japanese sentiments during wwii. the production team even created a banner that i felt called back to those anti-japanese propaganda of that era. ( mind you it was shown multiple times, in main focus, and acknowledged by characters that were coded shu ) 

but on the other hand, they’ve done a considerable job to diversify at least the ethnic makeup of ravka. there are black and brown grisha at the school and there are people of different cultures ( noted by costuming, etc. ) in ketterdam and there’s even a shu-appearing trainer that teaches the grisha to fight. so my question is, why is this very hostile treatment primarily geared toward shu people and geared toward alina specifically? it just doesn’t make sense to me. 

and when i say it’s specifically geared toward alina, i mean that it’s very apparent that they’re targeting her specifically, because mal  ( played by a possibly mixed-race archie renaux ) is also coded to be of mixed shu blood. while it is not explicitly stated that mal is shu, it is heavily implied that he is mixed, but he is never subject to the treatment that alina is, and the only times he is subject to racism is when alina is also present. in scenes where we see alina and mal as kids, they are often both referred to as “mutts” or “half-breeds”. but when they are older, only alina is continuously called those things. 

this isn’t even touching the microaggressions she faces after she’s at grisha school and this one line that made my gut wrench so viscerally i had to pause the episode and replay the part so i could confirm what i heard. [ episode 3 spoiler warning ] i’m trying to avoid posting screenshots or from spoiling parts of the show but there’s a scene where alina is being cleaned up and made presentable by servants and one of them says “I’d start by making her eyes less Shu.” [ end episode 3 spoiler ] i don’t think i have to explain to anyone how offensive that is. and i understand that the intention was to show how racist this servant is, that the entire point of of this weird racism plot is to show how the people of ravka can be racist and ignorant, but to have that line be written by a white writer, approved by a white showrunner and said by a white character to the face of an asian actor/character feels very tactless. it feels like another antagonist alina has to go against is racism itself. 

what also turns me off about this scene is that jessie mei li revealed that this scene is what actresses had to audition with. “...the sides that they sent for the audition, like Alina is talking to Genya and they’re talking about her eyes and they’re talking about her Shu ancestry.” having actresses of mixed-asian ancestry come in and act out that scene for white producers doesn’t really sit right with me. and i know that there’s an argument to be had about how it’s important to show the minutia of what it’s like to be ethnic in a world ruled by white supremacy and that it’s important to show how alina’s race affects her story, but i don’t think that going this far is necessary to the development of plot or character. 

and i don’t personally know jml, i don’t know how she feels about the show apart from what she’s probably briefed to talk about in interviews, but it is perfectly valid for me to feel iffy about the microaggressions while she feels that it’s necessary for character development ( again, this is just an example, i have no clue what she thinks of the racism ). our experiences are different, our upbringings are different, but we’re both happy to see representation and i’m happy that she’s happy to see an actual mixed-chinese character on screen as the lead. 

i’m glad that the producers were open to diversity and were open to making the lead a person of color, but it’s things like the treatment of shu characters and exchanges like “Tell her...Oh, I don’t know...good morning.” “I don’t actually speak Shu.” and “I didn’t know the Zemeni had such talent.” “She’s Suli.”  ( zemeni is a race of “dark-skinned” people and suli are coded south asian/mena/wena so this exchange is just white people mixing the brown people up )  that remind me the majority of the writers and producers are white. 

now i’m not saying that you should boycott the show or that this show is the most problematic thing to ever grace my retinas, because i really enjoyed watching it and i want to see what season 2 has in store ( more crows content please ). but, i want you all to please keep all of this in mind when you watch the series and think critically of what kinds of unconscious biases these producers had. you’re allowed to have nuanced opinions, you’re allowed to be critical of the media you enjoy so long as you understand where some people’s criticisms are coming from---where my criticisms are coming from. i just hope in future seasons the treatment of alina gets better and that she actually learns to love her shu side because otherwise it’s just going to be problematic as the show continues. 

[shittyelfwriter]

(tw: rant, mentions of racism, agism, etc) I’m sorry, I know I said I was going to try to be positive about the series. But I am truly a hater first and foremost and after this last episode just CANT talk about silver linings anymore. This is NOT an open dialogue for debate—I am very happy for you if this episode satisfied you! (God I wish that were me.meme.) And I get that everyone is entitled to their own opinions. This is mine, and I’m venting. 

Bluntly: I hate what they did with Bernard. DO NOT GET ME WRONG. I was SO glad to see him. I think Kman did a GREAT job with his tone/mannerisms/personification. I could have cried hearing the bman voice say new things. He’s such a little shit, I love him, your honor. This is not an acting issue, it’s a writing one. They had me in the first half I won’t lie—saying he left to marry a human was fan service as hell! It was clever, it would appease the people who liked him.

And what’s the one thing you don’t do when you’ve decided to appease the fans? YANK THAT AWAY.

They really pulled a WWDITS, but in like. The worst way? I get it, Tim Allen humor. Bernard married an old lady (“but she’s famous, so points”), har har. But least the vampires in WWDITS didn’t look like kids or at MOST A TEENAGER/YOUNG ADULT when they dated old women. What the hell. And how do you fuck up something that was so perfectly ambiguous in 7 seconds or less? And WHY would you do that? “I met someone. A human.” It removes gender, age, race, sexual orientation, just: human. PERFECTLY ambiguous. Just to throw it away for a one liner from Scott later.

It was already bad enough they a) didn’t give Bernard a new outfit after 20 years when his outfit changed between the first and second movies, or b) did such a terrible job with his wig, like what the fuck?? Is that thing??

I’m not age OR body shaming since that’s not something that can be controlled, but costuming fell flat for me for him specifically. HARD.

Maybe it was the fact that I hated how they presented the Santas prior—how do you show human looking Santas, then say they weren’t human, then NOT EXPLAIN WHAT THEY ACTUALLY WERE? Half of those Santa figures BEGAN AS HUMAN, historically. So saints were NEVER human, that’s the angle we’re taking? And HOW AND WHY WERE THEY GETTING REPLACED IF THEY WEREN’T HAVING HUMAN LIFE SPANS? IM AT A LOSS? “Santa’s don’t have accidents” SO WHAT TF HAPPENED THEN?

And WHAT DO THEY MEAN THE CLAUSES WERE MADE FOR SCOTT. JUST. What

There was no Mrs. Claus before Carol but that imagery has existed for at LEAST a century beforehand? Huh?

Also the idea of having a human Santa becomes a one time gimmick when you make his kids magical, now they’re magical and non human and even if they take over AFTER it’s just back to non humans being Santa, so WHAT was the point? What’s the point of any of this explanation, or the clauses?

ALSO: WHY WAS ST. NICHOLAS A WHITE MAN. I called weeks ago they were going to make him WASP-y, god damn it. I don’t think I NEED to explain Myra, Lycia was located in modern day Turkey, but I will. Church history also holds that St. Nicholas was probably Greek. So Krampus can be in the “Yule-verse”, and we can have at least one black Santa in the scene for token representation points, but the original St. Nicholas, the founder of “Santa”, cannot be ethnic and the only other poc (human) person in the series is the villain? GOT it. (The elves, admittedly, have better diversity, so I’m not nitpicking there at all.)

They hinted at St. Nicholas laying the groundwork for Christmas as we know it and gave no examples of how. It wouldn’t have been hard. ALSO ST. NICHOLAS WAS SO BLAND?? That is NOT the guy who was throwing hands at the third ecumenical council because he couldn’t stand a heretic being mad disrespectful. They didn’t even get his VESTMENTS ERA APPROPRIATE.

They also said Bernard was 1600-ish (shoutout to me in 2013, being completely correct about that.) It makes sense because that’s a calculable time from when St. Nicholas “died” in the human sense, to the modern day (give or take a few years.) I’ll spare the explanation on how I believe he and Bernard were connected (as that’s for me to discuss further in RoE,) but THEY missed the chance to say where Bernard came from, and the rest of the elves. Are they REALLY going to lean into “elves are just a magical manifestation of Christmas magic” as their origin, and that’s IT?? HUGE MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR LORE BUT OKAY

And speaking of, why do ALL OF THE ELVES NOW HAVE NAMES OF OBJECTS. Like THREE QUARTERS AT LEAST. The only exceptions (in this series at least, that I counted) were Betty, Noel, Edie, Bernard, and Gary. EVERYONE ELSE WAS NAMED FOR A FOOD OR AN ITEM. WHY. I don’t find it cute or quirky, it’s honestly a little annoying and feels like ANOTHER way to erase cross cultural heritage ties to Christmas. Not to mention, when Betty was talking to Pontoon (fucking. PONTOON ARE YOU SERIOUS) there was just a WHIFF of something like elfish classism and just. WHY

I’ll probably be doing a whole post about my headcanon for how elves come to be, because this, frankly, sucks. A narrative let down, and utterly simple-minded creatively. God the writers really phoned this damn series in, didn’t they?

I’ll add to this after another rewatch if more or different opinions crop up, but I’m just. I—

Besties I really was going to liveblog the 5th episode of The Santa Clauses but I think I’m going to post my thoughts instead because this was honestly

Ah

Not something to make snarky comments about for me? Damn