#xenophobia /

[effervescentdragon]

a propos max's comment about having the wrong passport and the discourse about racism the other day;

okay so i didnt wanna answer these anons before because i didnt have the energy or the will to do it, i was having too much fun traipsing around munich, and i also didnt wanna keep dragging the outrage towards the blog of a person who started thag bcs some of yall are too comfortable being mean to people for any percieved slight and i didnt want to expose them to that but there are some things i wanna say.

my problem with the whole thing was that the commonly accepted and constantly reinforced idea of racism is very us-centric and does not apply to europe. as humpty dumpty once said, words only mean what i want them to mean and same word will be used in different socio-political-cultural contexts for different things, given that participants in the conversation are assumed to have the same background contextual knowledge as to why those words are used thusly. my issue stemmed from the fact that for usamericans, racism as they perceive and experience it trumps everything, and they are guilty of dismissing and mocking the very real existence of something we in europe like to call xenophobia, which all of those labeled immigrants have experienced. i believe it is laughable and deserving of mockery to come onto an european person's post and americasplain that actually no, white people dont experience discrimination. it comes feom an erroneous belief of what a "white person" is, relying on purely the colour of someone's skin. for example, in the early 20th century, irish immigrants were considered non-white in the us. race as such is a complicated construct, and definitions change through time, just like language does. you do everyone a disservice if you refuse to accept that the baseline of discrimination is power imbalance, and this power imbalance may come from many different origins and is dependent on the lens you're looking at it through. it can be class, nationality, ethnicity, race (in whichever way it's meant), sexuality, religion, gender, etc.

one of the things you learn as a linguistic student is that you have to be aware of the context of utterances at all times and that it does you no good to assume that your lived experience is important or impactful in any way to someone who is speaking and is not you. any generalisation or playing "me is woe-est" will only have you ridiculed (or blocked), because nobody takes kindly to their own experiences being invalidated or being told that there is only one way (of experiencing something, in this case opression) or the highway. developing critical thinking skills and the ability to listen to other people's experiences is crucial if you want to interact with the world as a whole. not everything is about you.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

you're trans, jewish, pro-ukraine, and zionist-- why are you in russia? why have you not moved to israel or someplace else?

Dear anon,

there is a saying in Russia and it’s “have you stopped drinking Konyak on sunday?”. You have a presupposition that you need to adjust.

I have?!

I was born in Moscow, I am Russian but I live in the southern part of the United States. It’s nice and warm there but I miss the snow and not meeting odd xenophobe but it’s better than being bombed and being Jailed if I wear a rainbow scarf around children. I have family who is on the infamous foreign agent lists and also left because the alternative was jail. Which is by the way gulags 2.0 at the moment.

as for the whole “WhY dOn’T yOu JuSt LeAVe?” it’s a hugely entitled and privileged point of view. My family still works in Russia, get their pensions from Russia, have their homes there and intend to die there.

You ever wonder why some many Israelis, Gazans and Lebanese don’t just leave? There’s your answer.

check your premises,

Cecil

[prokopetz]

It goes without saying that you'll often encounter prejudices that wouldn't fly today when you take in older media, but sometimes you also encounter prejudices which simply have no contemporary analogue. I've been taking in a lot of American media from the 1970s lately, for example, and there seems to be this whole thing about the moral degeneracy of the Swedish going on – and while I know there's probably a fascinating cultural context to that, it never stops feeling vaguely like I'm somehow being pranked.

[macmanx]

An exploration of the depth of a father's love, and his attempts to keep his son happy, healthy and safe in a world rife with racism and violence.

This is one of the best and most impactful episodes of the podcast so far.

[jewish-microwave-laser]

hello gringo. you are strapped into an electric chair. next to you is a person who will mention the country argentina. if you mention nazis or nazism in the next 30 minutes, you will be killed. if you resist the temptation, you will survive

good luck

[belle-keys]

europeans be like “omg north americans are so racist it’s horrible” and then elect fascists

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The Quebec government is tightening controls on immigration by suspending two major programs that are pathways to citizenship. Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge announced the moratorium on social media late Wednesday, saying the province wants to “better regulate” the arrival of newcomers to Quebec. The government under Premier François Legault is temporarily freezing two key programs that lead to a Quebec Selection Certificate, which allows immigrants to eventually apply for permanent Canadian residency. Under the plan, Quebec will no longer accept new applications for the Regular Skilled Workers Program. It also put the Quebec Experience Program, which is for recent graduates, on ice. The freeze on both takes effect Thursday.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[charlesoberonn]

[sayruq]

[allthegeopolitics]

In Spain, the far-right is calling for the expulsion of Muslims, labeling them on social media as “invaders” by referencing historical events from the fall of Andalusia and the Reconquista, according to an official. Sergio Gracia, president of the Center for Research on the Far-Right (CINVED) in Spain evaluated the far-right’s anti-Muslim rhetoric for Anadolu. Gracia said the far-right uses the concept of “Reconquista,” or reconquest, and related historical events to justify reclaiming Spanish lands from Muslims and expelling them.

Continue Reading.

[purpleweredragon]

The Holocaust survivor introduced herself as someone forced to flee Belgium – the country where she was born – in 1943 and travel “across war-torn Europe and dangerous seas” before coming to the UK in 1947.

“Now, when I hear you using words against refugees like ‘swarms’ and an ‘invasion’, I am reminded of the language used to dehumanise and justify the murder of my family, and millions of others.

Why do you find the need to use that kind of language?”

Ms Braverman responded by saying she “won’t apologise for the language that I’ve used” to “demonstrate the scale of the problem” around immigration.

[awnowimsad]

So there is this post, claiming that a Japanese hotel is being review bombed, because they refused a man service for being an IDF soldier.

People ate this up of course. At the time of the writing, it has over 12,000 reblogs. Lots of people praising the hotel staff for ~taking a brave stand~ and such.

But, you know, I thought it was a little weird, that the only source the post includes is... Nothing! OP just claims it was from "an israeli group".

So, of course, I decided to do some checking.

Turns out the hotel manager had no fucking idea whether the tourist had ties to the Israeli army or not.

[...] since the hotel did not inquire about the guest's military background at the time of booking, it appeared the reservation was canceled solely based on the guest's Jewish or Israeli name. [...]

So the OP of the above post is already intentionally misrepresenting the situation by claiming the hotel was only refusing to serve Israeli soldiers. (and we don't even know if the guy was a soldier...) But twelve thousand people thought that this was legit.

Great to know twelve thousand people on this website feel that xenophobia and racial profiling are justifiable and even praiseworthy!

Ok cool cool cool cool. Yep. Just another normal day.

YnetNews is rated High Credibility by Media Bias/Fact Check.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

How does it feel knowing you come from a colonial settlement that murdered over 40k people?

It pains that so many people have died in the holodomor and the gulags, including my relatives

it pains me that my country is currently annexing another and acting like they're nazis for fighting back

I can't be out of the closet back home and one time they bombed my home town

but I don't think european guilt is productive...

What is productive is donating to ukraine!!!

let's not assume where people ARE from,

Cecil

[xclowniex]

I'm still thinking about that post.

Like how can you be just that blatantly xenophobic towards Israelis?????

And whilst yes antisemitic could also be the term that applies, xenophobia fits so well considering they claim that they only hate Israelis and not jews (which we know isn't true).

I'm sorry but if an Israeli who you do not know the political views of, simply existing scares you, a non Palestinian in the US or some other non middle eastern country, you are xenophobic.

If an Israeli in the diaspora who has not expressed any support for the current Israeli government makes you uncomfortable, you are xenophobic.

Israeli civilians, both in Israel and the diaspora, are not the Israeli government.

If you cannot cope with someone from a country simply existing, you are xenophobic.

The only exception I give is to Palestinians. Not because they're incapable of being xenophobic to Israelis, but because there is more at play than for non Palestinians. I will still call out xenophobia and antisemitism from Palestinians, but I will also give them more patience.

[hilacopter]

leftists when there are bigots in their country: obviously not everyone here is a bigot because we're human beings with differing opinions and political views, people who generalize all of us as bigots are being xenophobic.

leftists when there are bigots in the country they don't like: SEE THIS IS PROOF THEY'RE ALL EVIL ULTRA-RIGHT WINGERS AND WE ARE JUSTIFIED IN WANTING THEM DEAD WE MUST CLEANSE THE WORLD OF EVIL

[gaydiation-poisoning]

Y'know maybe I'm in the minority on this but honestly if you like

See some random ass app or tech or whatever coming of China and your first thought is it's some scheme by those Evil Chinese you might just be a racist piece of shit actually-