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#and that's inaccurate and disingenuous
sysmedsaresexist · 5 months
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(By the way, to the person vagueing me, could you please catch the point that bringing up a publisher (that in and of itself is not entirely accurate) to embolden the work of a single doctor that made no actual effort beyond "listening to his patients" and "being a good doctor" and "talking about it" in order to paint an inaccurate representation of the state of psychiatry as a whole and the weight behind the work itself is manipulative? And that saying so doesn't make me the worst person on the internet? Cool, thanks)
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magneticflower · 7 months
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Also, the 'the author said it was more like fanfic adaptation,' isn't an excuse. No one wants a fanfic adaptation of a series they enjoyed. They want a real adaptation that tries its best to stick to the source material.
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bumbleblurr · 1 year
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hot take I don't think idw comics prowl is copaganda like are they not clearly demonstrating that guy is a shithead at every chance they get .
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paper-mario-wiki · 6 months
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If you don't mind me asking, why is it that you choose to refer to yourself in the first person as Scout, but then you refer to yourself as Chase in the third?
The human body is a phenomena of individual atoms, molecules, fungus, bacteria, rot, and entropy coming together in a single space over an indeterminate amount of time. Both Scout and Chase have occupied this form. At one point during this one's window of existence, it has been accurately described as Chase, and I'll honor that for the rest of my life, as it would be disingenuous to do so otherwise.
Make no mistake, this is not a matter of split personality, or any other sort of plurality. I know, in basic terms, that I'm the same person. I'm the same form, and I have the same tastes and aspirations as I did before I transitioned, but when I use the first person pronoun "I" when speaking about things this one had done before it became Scout, it's inaccurate. Because "I" refers to Scout, not Chase. Scout can speak for Chase, and Scout is responsible for Chase's actions, but Chase cannot speak for himself anymore, because Scout isn't going away, and there is only one voice between the two.
I don't find it weird at all that most people don't view things this way when they change their name, as it's often done for a very private and personally important reason. When I'm called Chase it does bother me, because that's not right, I'm not Chase. I'm Scout. But Scout knows that Chase existed, and Chase knows Scout currently exists, even though he physically does not.
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transmutationisms · 3 months
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Feel free not to answer this ask so you dont have to step into this particular hornet's nest but do you have any thoughts about people sharing inaccurate science about COVID in order to push for more COVID regulations? I agree that COVID is being neglected and we need better policies but I'm also a biochemist so it pisses me off to see people cite research in a way that makes exaggerated and terrifying claims. Two years ago, I was warning my colleagues against this condescending "just trust the science" approach but now the same crowd pushing that has shifted to pushing "don't trust any of the positive science, only my catastrophic interpretations of it". Can't we mask without also trying to convince each other that COVID is a guaranteed one way ticket to death and permanent disability?
you must be new here haha i swing bats at this hornet's nest like once a month. yeah i think the current state of covid communication sucks a lot. i mean the truth is that "follow the science" is always a disingenuous sentiment; Science doesn't speak, and scientists disagree with one another. and it's naïve to pretend majority consensus is a reliable mechanism to identify truth—anyone who has followed the covid aerosolisation about-face will recall that although linsey marr was not the first researcher to challenge medical orthodoxy on airborne disease transmission, even well into the covid pandemic the idea of aerosol transmission was marginalised by global health authorities because it was politically inconvenient, out of favour with powerful established academics, and reminiscent to some of pre-pasteurian miasma theories of disease. those who would "follow the science" were not presented with a convenient dichotomy between reasonable evidence-backed expert consensus and fringe peddlers of heterodoxy; to evaluate these positions required actually, yknow, reading and evaluating the arguments and evidence from multiple competing positions, and deciding which had the greater explanatory power. which is good epistemological advice only insofar as it's so obvious as to be trite.
fundamentally a huge driving force of this situation is the social, political, and institutional forces that make expert knowledge (a generally good thing) all too often synonymous with inaccessible knowledge. i don't mean inaccessibility caused by knowledge being specialised; obviously this is inevitable to some extent simply as a result of the fact that no one person will grasp the entirety of human knowledge. but the fact that knowledge is specialised, specific, highly technical, and so forth doesn't automatically mean, for example, that it has to be monetarily gatekept from all but a select few with the resources to persevere through a highly punishing, nepotistic, hegemonic university system; this is a political problem, and one that additionally has the effect of enabling and sheltering low-quality work (see: replication crisis) behind the opaque walls of university bureaucracy and the imprimateur of the credentials it grants. in lieu of an ability to actually engage with, read, or challenge much of the academic research being generated on any given topic, the lay public is supposed to rely on signs of reliability like possession of a degree, or institutional reputation. what we in fact see again and again, and with particularly high stakes in the case of something like a pandemic, is that these measures are instruments of class stratification and professional jockeying that don't inherently ensure quality information: MDs can and do peddle anti-vaxx lies and covid / long-covid denialism; the CDC and WHO can and do perpetrate bad and outdated scientific advice, like that masks are unnecessary and isolation periods can be shortened for convenience. many of these are just blatant cases of kowtowing to political pressure, which arises from the capitalist logic that counterposes disease prevention to economic growth.
this all leaves us in a position where it is, in fact, smart and correct to evaluate the information coming from 'official' and credentialled sources with scepticism. the problem is that in its place, we get information coming out of the same capitalist state-sponsored scientific institutions, and the same colonialist universities; the idea that some chucklefuck on twitter is telling you the secret truth just because they correctly identified that the government sucks is plainly absurd. where covid specifically is concerned, the liberalism of academic and scientific institutions is on display in numerous ways, including the idealist assumption, which many 'covid communicators' make, that public health policy is primarily a matter of swaying public opinion, and therefore that it is always morally imperative to form and propagate the most alarmist possible interpretation of any study or empirical observation. this is not an attitude that encourages thoughtful or measured evaluation of The Science (eg, study methodology), nor is it one that actually produces the kind of political change that would be required to protect the populace writ large from what is, indeed, a dangerous and still rampant virus. instead, this form of communication mostly winds up generating social media Engagement and screenshots of headlines of summaries of studies.
meanwhile, actual public health policy (which is by and large determined at the mercy of capitalist state interests, and which by and large shapes public opinion of what mitigation measures are 'reasonable', despite the CDC repeatedly pretending this works the other way round), remains on its trajectory toward lax, open exposure of anyone and everyone to each new strain of covid, perpetuating a society that is profoundly hostile to disabled people and careless with everyone's life and health. this fucking sucks. it sucked that we have treated the flu like this for years, and it sucks that we are now doing it with a virus that we are still relatively immunologically naïve to, and that produces, statistically, even more death and disability than the flu. and it sucks that the predominating explanations of this state of affairs from the 'cautious' emphasise not the structural forces that shape knowledge production under capitalism, but instead invoke a psychological narrative whereby individuals simply need to be sufficiently terrified into producing mass action.
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etz-ashashiyot · 6 days
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A lot of people have already spoken at length on why "Judeo-Christian" is an inaccurate and often disingenuous and supercessionist term, but one thing that occurred to me today is that it is also just linguistically awkward in a way that I think contributes to the inaccuracy.
You'll note that it's always "Judeo-Christian" and not "Christo-Jewish" (or even "Christo-Judean") and presumably the reason for this is because they are trying to equate them but Judaism came first so it's listed first, right? But because English is a garbage frankenstein language, the order of a compounded word like that can have other meanings, such as:
The first thing is the primary thing
The first thing is an adjective that modifies the second thing (and thus the second thing is the primary thing)
Sometimes it's incredibly easy to tell which meaning is intended, but with this phrase it is not easy to parse because its actual intended meaning is to equate them.
That said, all iterations or interpretations of the term are incorrect, because the areas where Jewish values and Christian values overlap with each other and no one else are very, very small.
Equating them fails because they are not the same and is a way to pretend like Christianity isn't alone as a colonial force driving society in a particular direction and totally includes minorities. Reading it as the values being primarily Jewish with Christianity overlapping secondarily is not correct because the values don't overlap and because it allows people to blame Judaism for Christianity's failures. Reading it as the values being primarily Christian but modified in some way to be more Jewish is not correct again because they are not the same and heavily implies that all failures of church can be attributed to judaizing cultural forces.
Anyway the term is irredeemable and you shouldn't use it in earnest.
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is-the-owl-video-cute · 7 months
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Pits aren't evil, but it's disingenuous to ignore how prevalent they are in dog bite and fatal attack statistics (both on humans and animals). These dogs were bred for bloodsport, and more specifically they were bred to not send out warnings before attacking, that's not going to magically go away just because you're good with dogs or because an individual pit is friendly. If that were the case, the majority of dog attacks wouldn't consist of pitbulls, pit mixes, or other trouble breeds like rottweilers.
Even if the dogs were 100% safe the weird culture surrounding them would continue to be a problem. Why does one individual dog breed need such a zealous defensive squad? Why do attack survivors have to tread on eggshells to avoid offending owners of the dog breed that attacked them? Why do so many people pin the blame on the human or animal victim of an attack when these dog breeds are designed to snap without warning? Why is "bully bashing" so reprehensible, but shit like "chihuahuas are hellspawns" and "cats are so mean" acceptable?
Alright, I suppose we can dissect this.
Claim: Pit bulls are more prevalent than any other breed in dog bites and dog bite fatalities
Fact: this claim is only relaying bite incidents regarding pit bulls and “pit bull type dogs” in the US. Why does that matter? Well these surveys self-admittedly were inaccurate, and no conclusion could be drawn from them, simply because they were relying on the public to accurately identify the breed of dog that bit them and it didn’t account for cases that were not reported or the dog could not be identified as one breed or another. These surveys also did not account for prevalence of one breed over another in the country. Why does that part matter?
Well you could factually say that most smokers in the UK are white. If you then say white people in the UK are significantly more prone to nicotine addiction, that’s a very false conclusion to draw if you don’t account for the fact over 85% of people in the UK are white. This is the same level of false conclusion being drawn from those dog bite surveys because, as I have said before, there are a lot of pit bulls in America. But besides that, they are a very common breed in low income areas. Dog bites are more likely to be reported in a low income area because if a rich person’s dog bites someone, they tend to pay off the victim to avoid the dog being labeled as an aggressive dog and taken away or put down for being too dangerous. Low income families obviously can’t do that. Low income areas will also commonly have lower/less sturdy fencing and other limitations that can lead to a dog escaping the owner’s property. A lot of the bites reported also involved dogs where an owner could not be located, which means strays. A large stray dog of any breed is absolutely dangerous. If I see a stray malinois or something I’m not going to be thinking “ah well thank goodness it isn’t a pit bull” because I don’t particularly want to be bitten by a malinois either.
Bottom line though, the CDC stopped collecting data on what specific breeds were “more dangerous” because there was too much statistical error in the nature of collecting the data for any meaningful conclusion to be drawn.
Claim: pit bulls were bred to attack opponents with no warning which means they can and will attack at any time
Fact: this is another example of a false conclusion.
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For one thing, I couldn’t find any non-biased sources claiming that pit bulls specifically were bred to attack without warning, but even if we say that’s true for sake of argument, attacking an opponent dog in a fight without telegraphing their attack doesn’t mean “this dog does not engage in any body language” thus making them unreadable or whatever. They wag their tails when happy, whine when they want something, and yes! They do in fact curl their lip and growl when they want you to stop doing something. They bark at noises or scents they don’t trust, and they bow and roll when they want to play.
They’re dogs. Therefore, they share a lot of the same body language cues as any other breed will give you.
Claim: pit bulls were bred as fighting dogs so they’re bred for aggression.
Fact: dogs classify other dogs and humans in very different categories of their mind in much the same way they classify a rabbit and a cat and a cow in different categories of their mind. A dog that’s extremely reactive to other dogs may not be reactive towards humans at all.
No modern breed was bred for blanket aggressive behavior because that would make them impossible to keep in captivity at all because the second someone went to feed them they’d lose a hand and the second you tried to get two extremely aggressive animals to breed they’d kill each other on sight. Pits were bred primarily to be reactive to unfamiliar dogs and for physical strength. They were not bred to be reactive to humans, and attack dogs are typically abused in some way to make them reactive to humans in the same way they’re reactive to dogs, or at minimum rewarded for reacting excessively to an unknown human to encourage more extreme reactivity.
So why does one breed need so much defense?
Because pits and other “”trouble breeds”” cause your insurance rates to go up significantly if your insurance provider finds out you own one. Because you can live in an apartment for years and get an ultimatum to be evicted or get rid of your dog despite it never showing any signs of being dangerous. Because there are people who will see a bully dog in the street and hit the gas.
It’s not about them being “more important” than cats or micro dogs, no one is saying that. No one has ever been saying that, but a pit bull gets all the hate and aggression and vitriol people throw at black cats but with legal backing on top of that. People defend the breed because there is a culture of “the only good pit bull is a dead one” and actually act on it. Yes, people insult and mock chihuahuas and that’s very rude and all, but how many places have breed bans against them?
Why do people blame the human over the animal?
Well because any dog will bite “without warning” if it’s raised to think failure to do so will cause it pain and any dog that’s never seen a human other than the ones in its house has the potential to be reactive to outside stimuli. And if you run up to a random dog and try to pet it, it’s not the dog’s fault you got bit it was your fault for just assuming you can touch any random animal and not get bitten/scratched/etc.
Do I blame children for not knowing better or victims that were charged by a loose dog? No. Is that what most bite cases are? Also no.
But hey it’s also weird to frame it as “either the dog is at fault or the victim is at fault and you’re blaming one” as like a blanket statement. Because no. That’s not what’s being said or claimed. Some bites are the fault of how the dog was raised, some are the fault of the person who was bitten, and some are a mix of both or just poor circumstances and the worst of happenstances.
Treating it as a breed specific thing rather than a “people need better education on raising and behaving around animals” thing isn’t going to make less bites happen fwiw.
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unamazing-sheep21 · 7 months
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The Daroga is actually an extremely important character to the themes of Phantom of the Opera
Many people might not know this but living as a Muslim/brown person in the west ( especially France… see: burqab ban, burkini ban, hijab ban, etc) is extremely difficult for some. Not to mention in a world post 9/11. Not to mention ( probably) in the 1890’s like in Phantom of the Opera where orientalist art and inaccurate and often dehumanising portrayals of the Middle East and it’s people ( muslims, arabs, Persians etc) were common and were used to justify colonialism.
In classic literature there’s only like, ONE character who is brown and is treated like an actual human being by the narrative and is presented as a central cast member to boot: and that’s the Daroga/ The Persian in Phantom of the Opera. And even then, every adaptation after either replaces him with a white person or has an incredibly disingenuous and inaccurate portrayal of him and his ethnicity/religion. Heck, in the Phantom Susan Kay book he’s given the surname “Khan” which isn’t even Persian it’s a PAKISTANI name.
Every other presumably brown/POC character are written animalistically and antagonistically. E.g Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights and Bertha from Jane Eyre. Bertha especially who is just used as an obstical/metaphor instead of an actual genuine character who deserves her own nuance and voice.
Now, back to the tittle, why do I think The Persian’s mere existence and especially with him being Persian/Muslim is inexplicably tied to the themes of POTO? Because he’s just like Erik and completely unlike Erik at the same time. In the book he’s constantly described as wearing as astrakhan cap/ a fez. Something quintessentially Middle Eastern and exposes him as ethnic right away to the eyes of the then European public. Both Erik and The Persian have sides of them that the society they live in at large shuns/dehumanises/condemns. For Erik it’s his face, and for The Persian it’s his culture/ religion/ race. But unlike Erik, The Persian has the choice to “ take it off” or assimilate more into society. He can, and it was better for him if he wore, a top hat but he CHOOSES to wear a fez. And he never takes it off. While he CAN and he has the chance to be more accepted in society than he already is.
But Erik can’t “take it off”, he can’t take off his face.
Though we don’t know much about the Persians’ beliefs, it’s safe to assume he was probably Muslim since Persia has been a Muslim country for a long time ( ignore the one we have now lmao). And I like to think that even in France he doesn’t give up this one part of him. He could just convert to whatever the majority religion in France was at the time and he would be more assimilated into French society, but he doesn’t . He actively chooses to keep parts of who he is even though they put him at a disadvantage. In contrast, Erik would give anything and does try everything ( even to phycotic lengths ) to be considered “ Normal” in society.
And throughout all of Erik’s efforts the only one who was ever really there for him was The Persian. But Erik dismisses him constantly.
I like to think that The Persian stayed because he understands Erik to a certain degree, and I like to think that Erik resents him because he doesn’t use every chance he gets to assimilate into society. To be considered normal. Sometimes Erik quite literally would kill for. Instead hanging onto every part that makes him who he is even when it only isolates him further.
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odinsblog · 28 days
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Dear President Shafik,
We write as Jewish faculty of Columbia and Barnard in anticipation of your appearance before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, where you are expected to answer questions about antisemitism on campus. Based on the committee’s previous hearings, we are gravely concerned about the false narratives that frame these proceedings to entrap witnesses. We urge you, as the University president, to defend our shared commitment to universities as sites of learning, critical thinking, and knowledge production against this new McCarthyism.
Rather than being concerned with the safety and well-being of Jewish students on campuses, the committee is leveraging antisemitism in a wider effort to caricature and demonize universities as hotbeds of “woke indoctrination.” Its opportunistic use of antisemitism in a moment of crisis is expanding and strengthening longstanding efforts to undermine educational institutions. After launching attacks on public universities from Florida to South Dakota, this campaign has opened a new front against private institutions.
The prospect of Rep. Elise Stefanik, a member of congress with a history of espousing white nationalist politics, calling university presidents to account for alleged antisemitism on their campuses reveals these proceedings as disingenuous political theater.
In the face of these coordinated attacks on higher education, universities must insist on their freedom to research and teach inconvenient truths. This includes historical injustices and the contemporary structures that perpetuate them, regardless of whether these facts are politically inexpedient for certain interest groups.
To be sure, antisemitism is a grave concern that should be scrutinized alongside racism, sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia, and all other forms of hate. These hateful ideologies exist everywhere and we would be ignorant to believe that they don’t exist at Columbia. When antisemitism rears its head, it should be swiftly denounced, and its perpetrators held to account. However, it is absurd to claim that antisemitism—“discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews,” according to the Jerusalem Declaration’s definition—is rampant on Columbia’s campus. To argue that taking a stand against Israel’s war on Gaza is antisemitic is to pervert the meaning of the term.
Labeling pro-Palestinian expression as anti-Jewish hate speech requires a dangerous and false conflation of Zionism with Jewishness, of political ideology with identity. This conflation betrays a woefully inaccurate understanding—and disingenuous misrepresentation—of Jewish history, identity, and politics. It erases more than a century of debates among Jews themselves about the nature of a Jewish homeland in the biblical Land of Israel, including Israel’s status as a Jewish nation-state. It dismisses the experiences of the post-Zionist, non-Zionist, and anti-Zionist Jews who work, study, and live on our campus.
The political passions that arise from conflict in the Middle East may deeply unsettle students, faculty, and staff with opposing views. But feeling uncomfortable is not the same thing as being threatened or discriminated against. Free expression, which is fundamental to both academic inquiry and democracy, necessarily entails exposure to views that may be deeply disconcerting. We can support students who feel real and valid discomfort toward protests advocating for Palestinian liberation while also stating clearly and firmly that this discomfort is not an issue of safety.
As faculty, we dedicate ourselves and our classrooms to keeping every student safe from real harm, harassment, and discrimination. We commit to helping them learn to experience discomfort and even confrontation as part of the process of skill and knowledge acquisition—and to help them realize that ideas we oppose can be contested without being suppressed.
By exacting discipline, inviting police presence, and broadly surveilling its students for minor offenses, the University is betraying its educational mission. It has pursued drastic measures against students, including disciplinary proceedings and probation, for infractions like allegedly attending an unauthorized protest, or moving barricades to drape a flag on a statue. Real harassment and physical intimidation and violence on campus must be confronted seriously and its perpetrators held accountable. At the same time, the University should refrain whenever possible from using discipline and surveillance as means of addressing less serious harms, and should never use punitive measures to address conflicts over ideas and the feelings of discomfort that result. Where the University once embraced and defended students’ political expression, it now suppresses and disciplines it.
The University’s recent policies represent a dramatic change from historical practice, and the consequences are ruinous to our community and its principles. In the past, Columbia has periodically confronted attacks against pro-Palestinian speech, ranging from the vile slanders against Professor Edward Said to the reckless accusations from the David Project. But where for decades the University stood firm against smear campaigns targeting its professors, it has now voluntarily accepted the job of censoring its faculty in and outside the classroom.
Columbia’s commitment to free inquiry and robust disagreement is what makes it a world-class institution. Limiting academic freedom when it comes to questions of Israel and Palestine paves the way for limitations on other contested topics, from climate science to the history of slavery. What’s more, students must have the freedom to dissent, to make mistakes, to offend without intent, and to learn to repair harm done if necessary. Free expression is not only crucial to student development and education outside the classroom; the tradition of student protest has also played a vital role in American democracy. Columbia should be proud of having participated in nationwide student organizing that helped secure civil rights and reproductive rights and helped bring an end to the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa.
We express our support for the University and for higher education against the attacks likely to be leveled against them at the upcoming congressional hearing. We object to the weaponization of antisemitism. And we advocate for a campus where all students, Jewish, Palestinian, and all others, can learn and thrive in a climate of open, honest inquiry and rigorous debate.
Many members of our University community share our perspective, but they have not yet been heard. Columbia students, staff, alumni, and faculty can sign here to show your support for this letter’s message.
—Jewish faculty reject the weaponization of antisemitism
The 23 authors of this letter are Jewish faculty members of Barnard College and Columbia University. This letter derives from a much longer one by these same 23 faculty sent to President Shafik on April 5.
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soon-palestine · 1 month
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JVL Introduction
The Presidents of three leading US universities were falsely accused of condoning anti-Semitism on their campuses in a highly partisan ambush in front of US congressional hearing in December. Now the Columbia President, Minouche Shafik, is being summoned and 23 of her Jewish faculty are urging her not to give in to attempts to equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism and to defend academic freedom at her campus.
They strongly contest assertions that antisemitism is rife at Columbia. They accept that many students are unsettled by the intensity of debate around the Gaza catastrophe but being uncomfortable is far from being discriminated against or threatened.
They deplore the recent actions of the University’s management to use disciplinary processes to clamp down on protest and see this as an abandonment of Columbia’s record of confronting smears and slanders levelled against staff and students and committing to free inquiry and robust disagreement.
MC
This article was originally published by Columbia Spectator on Wed 10 Apr 2024. Read the original here. Jewish faculty reject the weaponization of antisemitism
by 23 Columbia and Barnard faculty, Columbia Spectator
Dear President Shafik,
We write as Jewish faculty of Columbia and Barnard in anticipation of your appearance before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, where you are expected to answer questions about antisemitism on campus. Based on the committee’s previous hearings, we are gravely concerned about the false narratives that frame these proceedings to entrap witnesses. We urge you, as the University president, to defend our shared commitment to universities as sites of learning, critical thinking, and knowledge production against this new McCarthyism.
Rather than being concerned with the safety and well-being of Jewish students on campuses, the committee is leveraging antisemitism in a wider effort to caricature and demonize universities as hotbeds of “woke indoctrination.” Its opportunistic use of antisemitism in a moment of crisis is expanding and strengthening longstanding efforts to undermine educational institutions. After launching attacks on public universities from Florida to South Dakota, this campaign has opened a new front against private institutions.
The prospect of Rep. Elise Stefanik, a member of congress with a history of espousing white nationalist politics, calling university presidents to account for alleged antisemitism on their campuses reveals these proceedings as disingenuous political theater.
In the face of these coordinated attacks on higher education, universities must insist on their freedom to research and teach inconvenient truths. This includes historical injustices and the contemporary structures that perpetuate them, regardless of whether these facts are politically inexpedient for certain interest groups.
To be sure, antisemitism is a grave concern that should be scrutinized alongside racism, sexism, Islamophobia, homophobia, and all other forms of hate. These hateful ideologies exist everywhere and we would be ignorant to believe that they don’t exist at Columbia. When antisemitism rears its head, it should be swiftly denounced, and its perpetrators held to account. However, it is absurd to claim that antisemitism—“discrimination, prejudice, hostility or violence against Jews as Jews,” according to the Jerusalem Declaration’s definition—is rampant on Columbia’s campus. To argue that taking a stand against Israel’s war on Gaza is antisemitic is to pervert the meaning of the term.
Labeling pro-Palestinian expression as anti-Jewish hate speech requires a dangerous and false conflation of Zionism with Jewishness, of political ideology with identity. This conflation betrays a woefully inaccurate understanding—and disingenuous misrepresentation—of Jewish history, identity, and politics. It erases more than a century of debates among Jews themselves about the nature of a Jewish homeland in the biblical Land of Israel, including Israel’s status as a Jewish nation-state. It dismisses the experiences of the post-Zionist, non-Zionist, and anti-Zionist Jews who work, study, and live on our campus.
The political passions that arise from conflict in the Middle East may deeply unsettle students, faculty, and staff with opposing views. But feeling uncomfortable is not the same thing as being threatened or discriminated against. Free expression, which is fundamental to both academic inquiry and democracy, necessarily entails exposure to views that may be deeply disconcerting. We can support students who feel real and valid discomfort toward protests advocating for Palestinian liberation while also stating clearly and firmly that this discomfort is not an issue of safety.
As faculty, we dedicate ourselves and our classrooms to keeping every student safe from real harm, harassment, and discrimination. We commit to helping them learn to experience discomfort and even confrontation as part of the process of skill and knowledge acquisition—and to help them realize that ideas we oppose can be contested without being suppressed.
By exacting discipline, inviting police presence, and broadly surveilling its students for minor offenses, the University is betraying its educational mission. It has pursued drastic measures against students, including disciplinary proceedings and probation, for infractions like allegedly attending an unauthorized protest, or moving barricades to drape a flag on a statue. Real harassment and physical intimidation and violence on campus must be confronted seriously and its perpetrators held accountable. At the same time, the University should refrain whenever possible from using discipline and surveillance as means of addressing less serious harms, and should never use punitive measures to address conflicts over ideas and the feelings of discomfort that result. Where the University once embraced and defended students’ political expression, it now suppresses and disciplines it.
The University’s recent policies represent a dramatic change from historical practice, and the consequences are ruinous to our community and its principles. In the past, Columbia has periodically confronted attacks against pro-Palestinian speech, ranging from the vile slanders against Professor Edward Said to the reckless accusations from the David Project. But where for decades the University stood firm against smear campaigns targeting its professors, it has now voluntarily accepted the job of censoring its faculty in and outside the classroom.
Columbia’s commitment to free inquiry and robust disagreement is what makes it a world-class institution. Limiting academic freedom when it comes to questions of Israel and Palestine paves the way for limitations on other contested topics, from climate science to the history of slavery. What’s more, students must have the freedom to dissent, to make mistakes, to offend without intent, and to learn to repair harm done if necessary. Free expression is not only crucial to student development and education outside the classroom; the tradition of student protest has also played a vital role in American democracy. Columbia should be proud of having participated in nationwide student organizing that helped secure civil rights and reproductive rights and helped bring an end to the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa.
We express our support for the University and for higher education against the attacks likely to be leveled against them at the upcoming congressional hearing. We object to the weaponization of antisemitism. And we advocate for a campus where all students, Jewish, Palestinian, and all others, can learn and thrive in a climate of open, honest inquiry and rigorous debate.
Many members of our University community share our perspective, but they have not yet been heard. Columbia students, staff, alumni, and faculty can sign here to show your support for this letter’s message.
Sincerely,Debbie Becher, Barnard College Helen Benedict, Columbia Journalism School Susan Bernofsky, School of the Arts Elizabeth Bernstein, Barnard College Nina Berman, Columbia Journalism School Amy Chazkel, Faculty of Arts & Sciences Yinon Cohen, Faculty of Arts & Sciences Nora Gross, Barnard College Keith Gessen, Columbia Journalism School Jack Halberstam, Faculty of Arts & Sciences Sarah Haley, Faculty of Arts & Sciences Michael Harris, Faculty of Arts & Sciences Jennifer S. Hirsch, Mailman School of Public Health Marianne Hirsch, Faculty of Arts & Sciences (Emerita) Joseph A. Howley, Faculty of Arts & Sciences David Lurie, Faculty of Arts & Sciences Nara Milanich, Barnard College D. Max Moerman, Barnard College Manijeh Moradian, Barnard College Sheldon Pollock, Faculty of Arts & Sciences (Emeritus) Bruce Robbins, Faculty of Arts & Sciences James Schamus, School of the Arts Alisa Solomon, Columbia Journalism School
The 23 authors of this letter are Jewish faculty members of Barnard College and Columbia University. This letter derives from a much longer one by these same 23 faculty sent to President Shafik on April 5.
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olderthannetfic · 2 months
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As it is with the "fandom centering white characters, even when they're minor characters" discourse: It's inaccurate and unfair to accuse every person that likes M/M more than whatever the fandom's favorite F/F is of sexism. It's also disingenuous to act as if bigotry never ever plays a role in fandom preferences. There are also innocent reasons why white ships become more popular: there are more white characters to choose from, people like villains (so when the hero is a PoC and the villain(s) is/are white, as is the case with a lot of fiction with heroes of color, the reason people like the villain(s) more isn't always because "people will always find a reason to center white characters," it's usually because "fandom has a long storied history of being villainfuckers." See: the popularity of Kylux). And prioritizing characters of color or women is not going to fix systemic bigotry. Fandom preferences are a symptom, not a cause.
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splatzie · 2 months
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I'm having a thought about how we are supposed to call ourselves members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, not Mormons.
Perhaps referring to ourselves/the Church as Israel or children /elders of Israel is disingenuous. Inaccurate. A bad idea.
It just... Felt funny when it happened several times this conference.
I have no idea if I am looking for insight or agreement.
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pumpkinnning · 6 days
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rewatched bridgerton s1 and now i'm trying to understand why it's bad (spoilers) from a writer's perspective
* criticisms about the inaccurate costumes or over the top music or lots of ballroom scenes or lack of serious worldbuilding are silly to me tbh the show makes no pretense to be sth its not, this is like criticizing YA for having emotional teenagers or horror for being bloody. just say its not yr thing and move on
* obviously the interesting themes of sexual education and agency and empowerment are completely fucking ruined by the sexual assault scene that's not framed as such just because the perpetrator is a woman. there's no coming back from that
* even beyond that though the romance is badly done. there are some seeds of sth that could be interesting but it all stays so shallow and underwhelming. the actors have little chemistry i don't like the way Daphne is played
* the scene with Daphne saying she likes Simon's mom's favorite painting bc it reminds her of the peace of early mornings in the countryside and feeling alone yet at one with the world is very charming but also i was like....yes and ? are they gonna bond over liking the peace and quiet together? nature ???? sth else ??? as if it comes across as very...Omg Surprise Woman Capable of 1 deeper thought = hot !!!!! or is it just about her being like his mom (ew). good example of how attempts at depth can fail if they're not connected to deeper themes and character dynamics
* they make each other laugh with sarcastic observations about the behavior of the people around them and the shallowness of social games. like the prince complimenting all the other women's dresses. this would work with characters who are outspokenly critical of society around them. But their connection is that same kind of shallow. And so much of their romance needs us to buy into the social rules and games. The appeal is omg Daphne is the Prettiest and the Diamond and the most specialest girl ever and Omg Simon is this important Duke and isn't it romantic that they're forced to get married for stupid reasons because of honor based rules. And Daphne visibly cares so much about making a good marriage within the rules of society. So these moments feel disingenuous or like they're just being assholes (but without even truly commiting to it and making it fun!)
* the Duke talks about how they're best friends. but i never got that sense of begrudging respect that develops when antagonists start to like each other. Or that they actually liked spending time together. The only thing that i can think about is her punching Berbrooke (he likes boxing so that's an interesting parallel) and making moves on the Prince that force him to consider she's not just a naive little doll. And the bits of witty dialogue. but that's just not enough.
* this is supposedly about Daphne's sexual awakening but yet there is so little real sensuality. she stares at his arms a bit. he tells her to touch herself. its so basic and bland. giving "everyone is hot and no one is horny" vibes. every romance at its core, even the more chaste ones, eroticize something, and the deeper it goes into their characters the more impactful it is. i don't know what this is eroticizing beyond the fact that they're both hot and it's a Good Match tm. the appeal of the innocent virgin vs. rake who is supposed to educate her and show her the wonders of sex is cut down by the fact that he's witholding information, lying and manipulating her the whole time. and not teaching her much either tbh. that's not hot. it's a story that could be interesting if done properly but tbh it doesn't belong in a fluffy wish fullfillment romance, it's too sordid and psychologically complex and unpleasant (like that is horror romance territory lmfao)
* the sex scenes are a key part of this. i'm not against explicit scenes on tv when well done it can really contribute to the dynamics and be really hot (there's nothing wrong w that) but here there is just this fundamental disconnect btw what they're trying to sell us - the focus on Daphne's pleasure, the sense of freedom and liberation after all that repression - and what is actually happening in the plot, him trying to distract her and lying to her. that's not hot and it's weird. secrets and fucked up dynamics can be hot in a sex scene but you have to acknowledge it somehow, not present it as perfect honeymoon bliss. Unless you're in the close pov of a character who's completely unaware - which is not the case here. We know what Simon is doing ! we can't just set it aside.
* the conclusion scene where they're both standing in the rain and she tells him he doesn't need to be perfect to be worthy of love is beautiful in itself. it's a beautiful message. what is so disappointing is how they get there. Simon isn't given the time to heal from his own trauma - he's strongarmed in a way that feels extremely manipulative. She tries to force him to impregnate her against his consent, then she goes through his private correspondence and tries to guilt trip him into changing his mind, judging his deep and private pains and trauma in a flippant way and telling him he should get over it if he actually loves her. of course he shouldn't have lied to her, but that doesn't make her actions ok. the whole thing is just incredibly unromantic to me. there is no genuine growth happening. Simon ends up being a nothingburger of a character bc he is so reactive and one note. when he's pissed he gets drunk and hits stuff. that's basically it until Woman Shows him the Way. the actor tries his best with the smoldering soulful looks. but that only works for a bit.
* there is absolutely an uncomfortable racial element to this. she's an incarnation of this image of white womanhood that is supposedly morally and emotionally superior and is going to teach silly men how to live properly ; i don't like this dynamic much already. it's bioessentialist it puts women on this pedestal that's actually a burden and makes it impossible for them to be truly human ; it's terfy and smug and self righteous and honestly insufferable. And it's much worse when it concerns a man of color
* really it's mindboggling to me that so many people gave the green light to this. but i think it's a testament to the idea that there are some "normal" elements of sex that couples owe to each other, and also that marriage and having babies is the one right way to happiness and health. ofc this wouldn't be strange for the time period - the weird thing is more that they assumed modern viewers would find this romantic, because, again, this is designed to be wish fullfillment, not historically accurate, and the kind of wish this is fulfilling is yucky honestly.
* Daphne is just not a very appealing character by modern standards, tbh. she's very passive, and she cares the most about following the mores of her society and getting the picture perfect ending that is mandated for her as a woman ; whatever agency she develops is strictly in pursuit of that, and she goes about it in this manipulative way with a sense of her own superiority that comes from privilege, sticking to social rules and gender norms. she will have her babies and insure the triumph of the aristocratic heteronormative family. it's, again, not a surprising narrative for the era, but it feels deeply incongruous for a show that handwaves accuracy for the sake of diversity and female empowerment and wish fulfillment everywhere else
* i still remember enjoying the show on first watch until ep 6 - because its light silly frothy tone is just so fun and entertaining, and the side characters are really compelling, and there are just not enough rom coms these days. it's really the saving grace of the show they're able to listen to criticism and were able to change the way they did romance for s2
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psychopersonified · 17 days
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Tidbits S2 Ep 1 (Spoilers)
Daniel and Morgan - Wanna point out if Louis chose Daniel because of his experience with Morgan however brief - the observant reporter(s) that picks apart his story in the past and in the present.
Armand’s choice in clothing colour - when he’s in white, he’s oppositional to Louis. When they agree to close ranks against Daniel he dresses in black like Louis. Oh the little show they put on at the end, the hand on Louis knee, just screams trying too hard. These boys underestimate Daniel.
Claudia is… inaccurate in her diaries - not maliciously, but it’s her diaries, it’s not factual reporting. It’s her way of coping, her wants, her self affirmation, maybe even her writing what she wants to have happened. The bit about her denying dreaming, and then Daciana saying what she wants to hear before she throws herself onto the pyre.
Louis gets called pretty twice. Yes layered with connotations, but not disingenuous either. I hope they make it a running Easter egg and it happens every episode even in passing.
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lakesbian · 5 months
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wait why is the desperate pleasures ask bait
ok so the lengthy context is that i tend to be fairly outspoken about people mischaracterizing amy--and, you know, Other Worm Characters, See Alec--but talking about amy specifically tends to get people heated sometimes. which i think is sometimes a result of people not wanting to confront the ideas i'm raising when i bring up shitty political connotations that i feel certain interpretations of her can run into (as is the risk with fan content about a predatory lesbian stereotype), and sometimes a result of people just being in the fandom so long that they convince themselves of very specific but not necessarily textually based reads of her, and because those reads are touching on sensitive topics like rape, homophobia, etc, people can take offense when they're not taken as universally true. (which also definitely applies to characters outside of amy too--i think a lot of the worm fandom has been so inundated in like...ward retcons and WoG retcons/insistence on the author's interpretation superseding the readers' and fandom discourse without actually going back to the original text for So Long that they end up with very strict but inaccurate fanon misinterpretations, and then assume that because they've been believing those misinterpretations for so long they must be true. shoutout to when i read the book and then went to r/parahumans to look at discussion threads and everyone was confidently saying Absolute Nonsense about all of the undersiders as if it was long-established fact.)
anyway: people getting heated about ameepy opinions i have does on (usually very rare!) occasion lead to me getting anon hate or smth that scans as bait + last night i was posting in a rb chain about a common amy joke i find 2 be in very poor taste + desperate times call 4 desperate pleasures is a super well known amy fic that's in the General Sphere of amy misconceptions i was talking about last night, so the "have you read it/i think you'd really enjoy it" + the explanation of what it was as if i'd never heard of it despite it being one of the most well known worm fics ever + "it really gets amy dallon" scanned to me as, like, fishing for anger over an interpretation i disagree with. i could've just been reading the tone wrong, u never know w/ anons, but it reminded me of some more obviously disingenuous asks i've gotten & never posted. that said if it wasn't bait and i just misread good news for original anon i'm about to reblog a post w my thoughts on it anyway
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enderwalking · 2 years
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ok yknow what fine #breakingmysilence /rp dsmp and all that here we go: i don't think dream is "obsessed" with tommy in the way that most people who say that mean it, i.e. i don't think that his whole goal is to subjugate and torment tommy because he thinks it's fun. i think that specific aspect of his character is a persona he puts on because he wants tommy to think that he's obsessed and that his main goal is subjugating and tormenting him. it's pretty obvious at this point that his actual end goals have a much larger scope than just him having fun abusing people for shits and giggles. tommy, and tommy's pain, is one tool for dream out of many.
however, i do think it is disingenuous to say that dream does not assign a certain amount of extra importance to tommy in his schemes. he crafts a whole narrative for tommy and keeps tommy afraid of him at every turn because, in his mind, tommy is important. what tommy thinks of him is important. tommy may just be one part of much larger plan for dream, but it is undeniably a very significant part. he would not have gone through the effort to make the whole attachment vault and stage a whole finale as "a bit of theater for tommy" if tommy did not hold some kind of significance in his mind.
so is he obsessed? no, not really, not in the way most people seem to think. but dream did specifically choose tommy to push into the role of hero against his villain, and so it's extremely inaccurate to say that tommy is not important to dream at all.
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