#called the intersectionality of jewishness and blackness

[hindahoney]

The only people who benefit when black people and jews are divided are white supremacists

#research at my job rn is focused on the time frame at twitter immediately after kanye said all that stuff #so im having to read the absolute worst takes ever #about bs that he was saying at the time #and a lot of people were really exposed to these antisemitic conspiracy theories through kanye #and it just makes me really fucking sad idk #we are stronger when we are together #like jews have always been at civil rights rallies and fighting for equality of all kinds #we both experience discrimination and persecution from the same people #it isnt a competition white supremacists hate us too #a lot of the antisemitism im seeing from this sample set is the same conspiracies that have been around for thousands of years #about jews controlling minorities #so that they can... idk control the world and oppress white people? #but i cant recall a time where minorities actually started to believe they were being controlled by jews before this sample set #it hurts it really does #anyway ill always support black people and jews and i dont have to choose between the two #i took a course with some incredible professors that are like the forefront academics of african american and african diasporic studies #called the intersectionality of jewishness and blackness #our histories arent just parallel #theyre intertwined #anyway ill get off my soapbox i just have to read this bullshit for my job and it made me upset lol #jumblr #judaism #frumblr #jewblr

[lacewise]

Hey. I’m still seeing near daily hate speech on my timeline, especially to Jewish and Israeli people (minding their own business!!!). Stop it. Get over yourselves. People other than you also have a right to live.

Hate speech, bigotry, and threats are never acceptable behaviour. There should especially never be a time when intersectionally marginalized people don’t feel safe in communities meant for them on the basis of one of their other identities. I thought we went over this. That includes Jewish people. That includes, explicitly, every group that you think “deserves” it, because discrimination against them is “for a reason” (the only reason is discrimination). If it doesn’t, you have biases you need to unpack and grapple with… yourself. A good start is a lot of listening to Jewish people who explain how it’s discriminatory (which they shouldn’t have to do). No arguing. Just listening.

I’ve seen this about Black people, I’ve seen this about Romani people, I’ve seen this about Muslim people, I’ve seen this about Latine people, I’ve seen this about trans men, non-binary people, ace people, aro people, he/him lesbians—and I could go on. Right now, most often, I’m seeing it about Jewish and Israeli people (which are not interchangeable groups). It needs to stop. It needs to never have begun. You need to deal with this, now.

Unfortunately, I think I need to include some examples of antisemitism: sending Jewish people unfounded conspiracy theories and allegations is harassment. That includes using tags meant for in-Jewish community use.

Spreading the unfounded conspiracy theories because they “sound like” what you think about Jewish people is antisemitic discrimination.

Making Jewish people “prove” to you they have the “right opinions” before you’ll let them into spaces they have a right to access is antisemitic discrimination. Which you’d think a group of people who just learned collective punishment is bad would know.

Saying things like, (and I really hate quoting discriminatory language, so I won’t forgive anyone who made this necessary) “But so-and-so is Jewish” or “Did you know so-and-so is… Jewish…?” is monstrous. It’s antisemitic discrimination, and it’s pretty actively trying to cause harassment campaigns (or worse) against specific Jewish individuals. If you see that, you need to report and block whoever is doing it. I really don’t care what the current euphemism they’re using for Jewish people is, euphemisms have a history in discriminatory practices going back hundreds of years.

Trying to dox Israeli people, trying to mass report them off the internet, telling them to “Go back to their country” (really?), are all active and organized harassment campaigns I have witnessed. Which, after October 7th, strikes me as both violent threats and a support for terrorist attacks.

Some of you were platforming people who are clearly calling for progroms for months and then demanding to know why any Jewish person deserves to live in Israel.

This cannot keep happening. This cannot happen.

Don’t harass Jewish people. Don’t harass Israeli people, especially using antisemitic conspiracy theories. Not every Israeli person is Jewish, and every Israeli person cannot be constantly and individually held responsible for the failures and violence of the Israeli government. If people are committing crimes, you need to focus on the individuals and groups directly and provably responsible, and the government itself. And you still shouldn’t engage in hate speech or harassment campaigns. I shouldn’t have to debunk multiple conspiracy theories at once to say, “Don’t harass Israeli citizens.” You just… shouldn’t be doing it.

Don’t spread hate speech. Don’t engage in hate speech. Don’t engage in harassment campaigns. Don’t justify or defend other people doing it.

#off topic #not fiber arts #this is a daily thing!!! #it should not be happening AT ALL #I just… who raised you and why do they sound like Nazis #I just want to make pretty fabric!!! #antisemitism #leftist antisemitism #discrimination #harassment

[djuvlipen]

I grew up along Romania’s Black Sea coast. My father was the first in his family to graduate from university, and my mother went to a vocational school. Being educated was unusual in our Romani community. My parents raised me with a deep sense of justice and dignity. They told me to be proud of being Roma, while non-Romani people told me there was something wrong with me.

My parents still preserved some aspects of traditional Romani culture: They were obsessed with me maintaining my virginity and being a “good woman.” In many Romani communities, women get married as teenagers. Those who attend school often drop out before high school because they get married, or to care for their younger siblings and perform household chores. Others leave school out of fear of the racism they would face.

Romani women aren’t a monolith. But we all contend with patriarchy and marginalization both inside our culture and from the outside world. The contradictions I have witnessed led me to ask questions and eventually, to discover feminism and to fight for equality. Along this path of activism, however, I learned that I had to define my own understanding of what it means to be a feminist within my Romani identity.

Romani people have endured centuries of injustice across Europe, as an ethnic minority, yet we have a long history of resistance. By the late 1990s, I had graduated from university, gotten married and become a mother. I was also an activist in the Romani movement. I started to wonder what elders meant when they said that we struggled for our “rights.” I learned about the discourse around the universality of human rights. As Romani people, did we really believe in human rights? Or did we only believe in human rights when it came to our rights, Romani people’s rights? What about everyone else? And who is in the position of power to define Romani rights? I debated these questions with my soul mate and fellow Romani activist, Nicolae Gheorghe.

At the same time, I began to question the condition of women and girls in our community, and why we were treated differently from the boys and men around us. Even when I joined the Romani rights movement, I was expected to behave in certain ways that men defined. They determined who was a “good” Romani woman activist. Some Romani male activists tried to monitor my sexuality and called me a “whore” when I had a relationship with a man when I wasn’t married. It was the verses of our beloved Polish Romani poet known as Papusza (whose real name was Bronislawa Wajs) that brought me comfort. She wrote about the Holocaust and of being a woman defying constraints and traditional roles for women, for which she was ostracized by the community. Where were women’s rights within the discussion of Romani rights?

Then came feminism. I met Debra Schultz the American Jewish historian, who could see all these questions burning inside me. She bought me the first books about feminism that I read, including works by thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir. But I really fell in love with the work of Black feminists Angela Davis and bell hooks, whose book, “Ain’t I a Woman” became like a bible for me. And later, I met law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who introduced me to the concept of intersectionality between race and gender. Finally, the way I saw the surrounding world and my Roma world became clearer to me.

Feminism gave me the lens to question the world’s power dynamics, from private spaces to international politics. Despite this intellectual awakening, I still went on to face horrible racism when I met white feminists, who said they didn’t see the point of including Romani women in feminist agendas when there was already an existing Romani rights movement. When there was a spike in racism against Romani people in Europe around 2005-07, I reflected on how to practice a feminism that did not erase my Roma identity and that did not reinforce the oppression of my community.

Neither of the two social movements that I have moved between — feminism and Romani struggles — wanted Romani women’s concerns to be highlighted unless those in charge got to decide how to portray such issues. Every social movement has its prejudices, I learned.

So, what is Romani feminism? To me, it means I have the freedom to choose what version of a Romani woman I want to be. Romani feminism is the force that makes it possible for our communities to grow and to challenge others around us. Our feminism reminds us that the greater Romani movement should not only be about how to get into the structures of power, but how we should never forget the local communities, and the people. We should be close to our people at the local level, in their daily lives, while challenging both racism and sexism.

We Romani feminists reiterate pride in being Roma by constructing and reconstructing through archive, memory and art, the possibility for the next generation to practice a new identity, without the burden and control that our ancestors faced. Our work ranges from creating collaborations such as the Roma Women’s Initiative, a group of female Romani leaders across Europe, to providing social services to Romani women who continue to face harassment, racism and other challenges. We are creating our own ways to help each other.

Some may call me a pioneer, or a traitor for splintering the Romani rights movement. For others, I am not radical enough. But after three decades as a Romani feminist, I am still acting against “anti-gypsyism,” manifesting the love of my people, crying out loud with pain when I feel and see how others hate us.

Nicoleta Bitu is a Romani feminist activist and scholar based in London.

#roma #radical feminism #radblr #nicoleta bitu #romani feminist writings

[whyshedisappeared]

Dear World: I Don't Care

by Avi Lewis

I don’t care that you sympathize with Hamas

I know you wouldn’t tolerate any of the things they did to us if they would’ve done it to you

I don’t care that you’re outraged by Israel’s response to the massacre more than the massacre itself

I know you would do everything to eliminate such pure evil if you experienced it yourself

I don’t care that this doesn’t fit neatly into your carefully constructed narrative of ‘Israel as aggressor’ and ‘Palestinian as victim’

The truth hurts sometimes, but hey, don’t let facts get in the way of your feelings

I don’t care if you think we are at fault, that we had it coming, that Hamas’ actions’ didn’t occur in a vacuum (or to deny they ever happened)

If you feel that the poster of a kidnapped child hurts your cause, maybe yours is a lost cause

I don’t care about your calls for a premature ceasefire, about your demand that we provide them with electricity, that we stop fighting for ‘humanitarian reasons’

What of a humanitarian gesture to release our 230+ hostages – elderly, children, babies – snatched from their cribs?

I don’t care that you’ve rallied for Palestine as part of your march for LGBTQ rights, trans rights, workers rights, socialism, climate change, intersectionality, Black Lives Matter, fighting Islamaphobia and ‘all forms of racism’

Your gullibility would be laughable if it wasn’t so hypocritical. None of those things exist under Hamas

I don’t care that you ‘love Jewish people – just hate Israel’, that you have some friends that are Jewish, that maybe you’re ethnically Jewish yourself – and therefore you’re entitled to levy every libel in the playbook against us

Words matter. They lead to actions. When a lie is repeated often enough it’s accepted as truth. You are laying the groundwork for more attacks against us

I don’t care that you wave the flag of ‘human rights’, that you’ve become overnight experts in international law, that you shout fancy slogans you don’t understand such as proportionality, occupation and apartheid

Your humanity is selective. In your mind, human rights don’t apply to us because we are undeserving. You didn’t speak up when our women and children were horribly assaulted

I don’t care if you think we are colonialists, imperialists and settlers and that we should just go back to where we came from

We are back to where we came from

I don’t care if you believe in a one state solution, a two state solution, a federation, an internationalized Jerusalem or any other theory drawn up in your ivory tower

We won’t readily hold out our necks and endanger our lives in order to satisfy your thought experiments and placate your conscience from afar

I don’t care if you consider yourself anti-Zionist but not antisemitic

We’ve seen enough Jews around the world attacked over the last 3 weeks under the guise of ‘anti-Zionism’

I don’t care that you think we are too powerful, too technologically advanced, too sophisticated

If we didn’t build ourselves up to this point we’d get eaten alive by Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Iran and Palestinian terrorism

I don’t care that you blame us for 1948 refugees, for the fact that they have no state, for the keys that they wave in their fantasy of ‘right of return’

Three weeks ago we got a glimpse of what that ‘return’ looks like and what it means for our children

I don’t care if you think we aren’t real Jews, that Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism, that Jews are a religion and not a nationality and so we deserve no state

Your denials have zero impact on the strength of our ideals and the self-affirmation of our identity

I don’t care that you accuse us of flaunting the myriad of UN resolutions, inquiries and statements

They reflect more on the institutional decay of the UN than on us

I don’t care about your media coverage, the lies, the equivocation, the acceptance of Hamas talking points and statistics

You echo chamber is just a another weapon in their strategic arsenal

I don’t care that you accused us of bombing the Al Ahli hospital

It was only a matter of time before you found a symbol for Israel’s wickedness. The subsequent retractions were a fig leaf once the truth emerged that Islamic Jihad was responsible and that the hospital is still standing

I don’t care that you see us as a criminal state, a terror state, usurpers, baby killers, Christ killers, Khaybar Jews or any other depravity that exists in your mind

Your libels lay the groundwork for our dehumanization. Rings a bell. We will fight it

I don’t care that you’ve inverted the truth by accusing us of genocide

If positions were reversed and Hamas held the power we do now, you’d see what a genocide looks like

I don’t care that you’re angry, boiling and outraged

I don’t care that you’re glued to your TV screens and Telegram channels

I don’t care that you’re mad

I don’t care if you’re out on the street, waving your flag and chanting your slogans

We won’t die silently the way you want us to

For the first time in 2,000 years we are organized, we are motivated and we will defend ourselves

We fight for light over darkness

Morality over evil

Not that it matters to you – but we will stick to the rules and hold the high moral ground not because you expect it from us, but because they are a value for us

We will do so ethically and thoughtfully, for we are the People of the Book

Our power and strength are our necessity, because the alternative for us is:

Be’eri, Kfar Aza, Pittsburgh, Toulouse, Farhud, Hebron, Birkenau, Belzec, Babi Yar, Kristalnacht, Kielce and Kishinev

Do you think for a moment that we would return to that reality just to make you feel a little better?

You are deeply mistaken…

World,

For so, so long, I really, deeply cared

I cared about fitting in

I cared about what you think

I cared about being a model citizen

I cared about setting a personal example of how a tiny people in a tough neighborhood could still be a Light unto the Nations

How the world’s oldest minority – now a majority here – could treat its own internal minorities par excellence amidst the complicated and messy reality of ethnic conflict

How we could painfully dismember parts of our homeland and offer them on the platter of peace to Palestinians that want neither peace nor some parts (they want all of it)

How we could dazzle you with USB sticks, drip irrigation, operating system kernels, Nobel Prize winners, swallowable medical cameras, deep tech, quantum mechanics, generative AI and cures for disease

But now I’m finally accepting that you don’t care

You never did

You don’t see and you don’t hear

And because I cared about what you think so much, that so deeply hurts

But you don’t have my best interests at heart

You take issue with my base identity, with what I represent

Don’t expect me to wait for your approval this time

It doesn’t matter what I do, you’re not going to change

It doesn’t matter how I act, because your issue is with who I am

Now I’m going to block out your noise, and do what it takes to win this war

Today

Finally

I no longer care

#swords of iron

[heavenaintaniceplace]

ive already expressed how bunk the culturally christian discourse is but something else occurred to me and its that the discourse not only alienates exchristians (on purpose) but also alienates poc, largely i think also on purpose. because ive seen so many false equivalence posts insinuating that backlash against culturally christian is the same as resistance to the idea of ‘white privilege’ or that being ‘culturally christian’ is the same as being white in a racist society. and so many people keeping this discourse going are white and trying to call out other white people for having another level of what theyve interpreted as unilateral all encompassing privilege, going back and forth on how privileged the cultural christians (exchristians, people raised atheist, people who have converted to other religions, jewish folks and muslims too now if they breathed the wrong too christian air or lived in the wrong country) are and equating it to being inherently racist. and you can see how this analogy doesn’t work for people of color and literally anyone marginalized in any other way. even if you think ‘culturally christian’ works as a term (it doesn’t but go off, mostly because yall stripped it of anything meaningful from conception) how can you say its equivalent to white privilege even for poc without being racist? for all this “you need to unlearn christian biases!” none of you are unlearning your racist biases.

being ‘culturally christian’ is not a person of color’s version of white privilege you myopic racist fucks. the white ‘culturally christian’ enjoyers are either trying to dodge some sort of guilt or accountability but it shows how they use intersectionality is broken and oversimplified otherwise we wouldn’t be having this discussion in the first place. its no surprise a concept made by a black woman (intersectionality) is misused by white folks. and no, i don’t care if youre white and nonchristian saying this, if you can make those kind of claims with no nuance then i get to do the same. a lot of the popular bloggers who say this are white and reblog from people known to harass poc anways...

and now for the personal anecdote as a black person: black churches didn’t get firebombed, be segregated and get defunded so they couldn’t organize against white supremacy for you to say ‘culturally christian’ is the same as being white and racist for everyone. they didn’t edit the bibles they gave enslaved people for no reason, they didn’t burn crosses in people’s yards and march streets with them in white hoods, or claim black people didn’t have souls or that integration was ‘unchristian’ or say that “only jesus could fix racism!” for you to get your white ass on tumblr and say this shit. i hope you feel genuinely uncomfortable and unsettled reading that.

#i say this as a black person which shocks people because (gasp)! a black exchristian??!!? impossible! #our churches dont get firebombed by white supremacists and segregated for yall to say all poc have equal privilege #or benefit equally bc we might share one (1) similarity with the people that hate us #you are disgusting if you say this #and literally all of you saying this are white. every blog had a race listed and it said 'white' #and no im not interested in a conversation or understanding with you all im interested in you fucking off forever <3 #tumblr is always a white centric echo chamber its just become more obvious now #culturally christian discourse #culturally christian #ex christian #ex christian poc #poc ex christian

[xxlovelynovaxx]

So first of all it's aro awareness week. If people are calling it month, that's new.

Secondly, there are more than twelve extremely marginalized identities. Not only that, but you chose to complain about one that most people outside of aromantic circles don't even fucking know about! Aro erasure is so damn bad that unless you know an aro, you probably don't know aromantics exist!

Thirdly, April is National Autism Awareness Month, National Child Abuse Prevention Month, National Parkinson's Awareness Month, Earth Month, Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and National Arab American Heritage Month. November is Native American Heritage Month, Diabetes Awareness Month, Epilepsy Awareness Month, and National Homeless Youth Awareness Month. March is Women's History Month, HIV/AIDS Awareness Month, and Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. All of that, btw, is in the US alone!

It's not co-opting to address multiple issues at the same time. Do you think we should just let aromisia and aromisic erasure continue until racism is all gone? What is your solution? What time will you give to aros? We're ignored during pride month - told we're cishet invaders and don't belong. We took a week and now the entire community, including black aros, are "co-opting black history month" for having that week.

You wanna say we should co-opt disability pride in July? AAPI Heritage and Mental Health Awareness and Jewish American Heritage in May? Latinx heritage in September? Are you going to suggest that we should shut up and not be so obnoxious about our identity outside of June, just like all the queermisic allocishets?

When does our very existence get to get acknowledged, not lumped in and under the hypervisible queer identities, but having our own time where people can't sweep us under the rug again? That's the whole reason it's not in June in the first place!

The worst part is, there's so much racism in the queer community that we could actually be addressing! Insisting on uplifting aros of color during aro week, and queer people of color during pride month! Talking about how racism and queermisia intersect, how so much of queermisia originated as a tool of white supremacism and colonialism, how white queer people benefit from racism even over nonqueer people of color in a way that people of color never do, queer or not!

But nah, sharing a history month with an awareness month is "co-opting". Even assuming you're only focusing on racism, I guess you're mad at the mentally ill on behalf of AAPI people? Diabetics and epileptics on behalf of Native Americans? What about bi people for their week during Latinx heritage month? /sarcasm

If we're gonna talk erasure of people of color, let's get mad that two-spirit people only get a single day of awareness? What about that HIV awareness gets a whole month but black HIV awareness gets a single day? What about that medical abuse doesn't have so much as an awareness day at all, despite affecting people of color many times worse due to medical racism? /genuine

I just... I can't even begin to get over how detached from anything this post is! We can fight multiple types of bigotry at once. In fact, according to intersectionality, we have to, because they won't be brought down until they're ALL brought down. My gods.

#vent post

[angrybell]

Ok, so this is Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University. She’s the first Black woman to be head of Harvard in its history. And yet for all that, she’s basically your run of the mill bigot that has ruled Harvard for most of its existence.

When the Supreme Court came down with the decision striking down affirmative action as practiced by Harvard (where they discriminated against disfavored minorities to favor other minorities), she didn’t welcome the ruling. Dr. Gay said it was not going to change Harvard’s values.

Harvard gets to be one of the top countries in the US because it’s been around since before th country was founded. With that longevity, comes money and an old boy network that kept Harvard regarded, unfairly, as something special. Its a name. But the part about its brand that has never really changed is that at its core, Harvard loves bigotry. It did have quotas for Jews, deliberately trying to keep them out for decades. It kept the numbers of African Americans to a minimum. There were 3 Black students admitted, on average, to each class between 1890 and 1940. By the 1969, the student body had seen a slight change. Enrollment of African American students in the student body reached 7 percent.

So with this history of being a place that hated to admit Jews and Blacks, you would think they would be doing something to change the culture. All that has really happened is that the culture has changed to being actually worse, thanks to to a healthy dose of progressive intersectionalism. Now, the school is tolerating harassment of its Jewish students by supporters of Hamas (and yes, I take the position that if you are calling for “Free Palestine” and a ceasefire, you are offering your support to Hamas. Own up to it.)

Dr. Gay repeatedly takes the position that the use of phrases like “intifada” and “From the River to the Sea” are personally abhorrent to her but that Harvard seeks to foster free speech. Is an interesting way to phrase it. It’s also, based on her history I believe, absolutely a lie.

Why? Because when Dr. Gay finds something personally abhorrent, she does something about it. She tried to penalize people to the extent she has the power to do so.

For example, let’s take the Winthrop House Dean controversy. In 2019, when Harvey Weinstein started to have criminal legal troubles, one of his defense team was a Harvard faculty member and Dean of Winthrop House, Ronald Sullivan. Gay lead the charge to have Sullivan penalized for defending Weinstein, eventually succeeding in having Sullivan removed as Dean of Winthrop House. Gay didn’t anyone representing Weinstein because she, rightly, found what Weinstein did abhorrent. She then ensured that Harvard penalized Sullivan for Weinstein’s sins and for the unforgivable sin of acting as legal counsel for the man.

So Dr. Gay found it personally abhorrent. When she finds something personally abhorrent, she takes action. And she made sure that a man was penalized by losing his position.

And lets not kid ourselves about Harvard. It’s a name. It is not a place that is welcoming to controversial ideas that deviate from its far left theological position. Conservative voices are barely tolerated when they are allowed to speak at Harvard.

But as of yet, I cannot find an instance when the SJP and/or Muslim Students Association have ever been penalized for what they are saying when it comes to the harassment of Jewish students. I can find videos of pro-Hamas supporters harassing Jewish students who showed support for Israel.

This is not to say I’m abandoning my stance on the 1st Amendment and free speech in general. I hate university speech codes. I think they foster the antisemitism and violent progressive ideas because they are not allowed to be countered. They are being protected by Dr. Gay and her administrators… while using money, tax money, given to them by the government in a variety of ways.

So when Dr. Gay wont come out and condemn the calls for “intifada” or “From the River to the Sea” - because the most she will say is the language is abhorrent, not that it violates Harvard’s speech code, not that it shouldn’t be used, and certainly not that it is being used to bully Jewish students - she may as well be setting off a laser show display that indicates that she approves of the message. She is not a woman who has ever been shy about going after people trying to exercise their free speech that she does not approve of. Even if it means hurting their livelihood.

Dr. Gay performance leads to one conclusion: she is just as much an antisemitic bigot as Lowell was back at the beginning of the last century when he set up the policy to excludes Jews. Dr. Gay seems to want to drive them from the school through antisemitism.

#Jews #American Jews #Harvard #Claudine Gay #antisemitism #antizionism

[burning-bubble-tea]

The comments on an Israel Palestine video passed the vibe check so hard I’m so happy.

The video was trying to “critique” the one state solution with a multicultural angle to avoid Palestine becoming an ethnostate of any kind and this persons rebuttal was that… Jewish people must have an ethnostate and that if the one state was implemented there would be more Palestinians than Jewish people because of all the refugees that would return to Palestine.

Zionist propaganda failed and I’m so happy, the comments were full of people being like, you could have said the same thing about South Africa apartheid that white people needed a place away from all the dangerous black people like what the hell, this Zionist needs to do some serious self reflection.

Like we see this replacement therapy bullshit everywhere. Oh the Asians are coming and they’re going to outnumber us and steal our jobs and then our precious white supremacy will be over!

Well I live in an area with majority Asian and guess what? White supremacy is still alive and well. Just because they’re are more of a people doesn’t mean that race becomes the superior race.

Because the concept of race was thought up by colonizers!! We don’t have to think hierarchically. We can unlearn it to the best of our abilities!!

People fear affirmative action and diversity because it feels like power is being taken away and given to the other but no, it’s being redistributed!!!

Now can the redistribution go wrong? Totally!! We’re all fucking human and yes, we can be really fucking mean to people because they’re white!! Now some social justice scholars think you can be racist to white people others say no, I can see where scholars who think white peoples can experience racism are onto something but also I hesitate to call it racism per se in the sense that I do believe white people are also oppressed because we all suffer under colonial capitalism. But also intersectionality I feel correctly points out how there are different flavours of bad that can layer on top of each other to make a gross oppression cake.

Trans black women often have to eat a transphobic, racist and misogynistic cake because they embody those positionalities.

But also a cis white guy also suffers under that same cake but it’s bad in a different way.

Cis people face transphobia in the sense that if they ever slightly veer off of rigid binary gender norms they can also face harassment, to gain white privilege white people (and those who try to ascribe to whiteness via internalized racism) literally become cruel people and when you hurt others you hurt yourself. You become heartless and inhumane if you try and ascribe yourself with white supremacy. Men struggle under patriarchy in the sense that patriarchy puts men on top sure but also the hierarchy is harmful as they are pitted against other men and are barred from emotional connection as western ideas of hegemonic masculinity demands them to fulfill impossible standards and failing to meet those standards is met with ridicule.

My oppression is your oppression is our oppression. We are not free until we all are.

[goldheartedsky]

I told myself I wasn’t going to make a post like this—that I wasn’t going to stoop to the level of making call-out posts—but I really can’t stay silent after what has happened in the last day or so.

The TOG fandom has a serious issue with excusing antisemitism and allowing people who have painfully hurt marginalized groups to continue to ignore, dismiss, and refuse to acknowledge their limits of intersectionality in regards to social justice. I have seen it myself, been on the receiving end of it, and have talked to other Jews in this fandom about what’s been going on and it needs to start being addressed.

Now, I’m not going to name names or tag people (mainly because I have been blocked by almost all of them for this very issue) but if you message me I will gladly tell you the users involved in this. Also, if you have doubts of any of this’s validity and would like screenshots, feel free to reach out to me here or via Discord and I will share them.

A lot of this started when a member of the All&More server had brought up the scientific and medical “discoveries” during the torture and medical experimentation that took place during the Third Reich and how a lot of the origin of it isn’t taught. LR made a comment saying that “we are three-dimensional creatures who are stuck moving forward in time and can’t go back” and added that not using the research won’t make past horrors not happen. When the original user added that there has been a movement in medicine for removing Nazi scientists names off discoveries and that progress was slow moving, she deflected the conversation onto herself, saying “Not using research won’t make my family not harmed by the Japanese” and then immediately pivoted into admitting that, from what she understood, there weren’t any particularly valid scientific discoveries made by them. She then said, in regards to said Nazi atrocities, “Take it, learn about it, put it in context, and then own it and transform it.”

A Jewish member of A&M voiced their discomfort about possibly taking medicine that was a direct result of the murder of their grandparents and other relatives, to which LR said, “Still stuck in the 3rd dimension, still moving forward in time.” I brought up the fact that medicine was built on antisemitism and racism and that starting over would be better than a lot of the procedures we have now. There is a longstanding issue in medicine of disregarding black pain and so much of what we have now is created by eugenicists—including Nazi scientists. There is still a lot of Jewish trauma due to medical experimentation and that is oftentimes dismissed.

LR then made a flippant comment about “Does this count as Godwin’s Law?”—which is about how all internet discussions lead to someone being compared to Nazis/Hitler. When called out on the inappropriateness of the comment, she did not respond and was backed up by one of the mods of the server. There was no apology made nor an acknowledgment about the casual antisemitism of the comments she made and the dismissal of Jewish trauma/pain.

Now, fast forward a couple months when I was contacted by a third party who had not been in the server at the time but had joined and heard about what LR had said there. H said they were friends with LR and had concerns about antisemitism and would like my perspective. I explained what had happened and offered screenshots if they would like them, which they did. They thanked me and apologized that it got to a point that I felt unsafe in the server and had to leave, which I appreciated.

A couple weeks later they reached out to me again and offered to broker a conversation between LR and myself because the situation wasn’t sitting well with them. I was skeptical (because I had been blocked at that point) and didn’t have a lot of hope that this conversation would actually take place but I felt a responsibility to try and be the bigger person and deal with what had been said head on, so I agreed to sit down and have a discussion with her as long as there was a third party in the chat as well—given our history.

After a couple weeks of back and forth with H and hearing that LR had said that she would “think about it”, she finally agreed. I was asked for a time and date and I gave my availability and was told she would be asked for the same. A couple days later, I was suddenly told LR would only be comfortable with this conversation if H acted as a “literal go-between” with us copy-pasting our responses in their DMs so we can “sit with the message and everyone can get to them when they can” rather than it being a session with an actual back and forth and was asked if I was okay with that. I honestly said no, because this was supposed to be a situation where she and I sat down and discussed what she said in the server, not a back and forth message relay where the conversation got dragged out for days or weeks or however long it was going to take. I said if she was serious about meeting me halfway on this, she needed to be able to sit down and actually talk.

H copy-pasted my response to LR and came back that she had backed out of the conversation, which part of me had expected from the beginning—even though all I wanted from this sit down was for her to understand how hurtful the antisemitic comments were and an apology.

These comments that were made in the server are not a secret. It’s pretty well known what was said and again, these were all on record, not privately made in some DM. She has still not owned up to the comments she said, nor has she ever apologized for them. She has ignored message after message about them and blocked more people than I can count. Many of the people defending her when the discourse begins have also been messaged about the comments she’s said and also either block people or ignore the messages completely and refuse to acknowledge them.

Now, this being said, in the most recent conversation about fandom racism, someone brought up the post that was made reducing users on ao3 to faceless, nameless numbers without saying who they were, what they had done, and how they were specifically contributing to the problem of racism in this fandom. They made the comparison of other situations like HR looking at pay stats to see how to fire and included “Nazis, capitalists, and colonizers.”

This is not an invalid argument. There have been other Jews in the fandom who specifically voiced feeling uncomfortable for the exact same reason. However, another person, LT, decided to specifically make a post calling the OP out and drag them for having the audacity to liken it to the Shoah (which, mind you, this person is not Jewish nor did they decide to capitalize Shoah or the Holocaust as they should have). She received a reply saying, “you’re offended by antisemitism? Here’s LR’s (someone LT has agreed with multiple times over racism in fandom) track record of antisemitic comments” which outlined everything I delved into previously.

LT said that they were “unaware of this incident until a couple days ago” but agreed that it was an upsetting display of casual dismissal of Jewish pain and hoped that LR had apologized. She was then called out for being aware of it and still continuing to reblog LR’s posts even after knowing about the comments and was linked to my post clarifying that LR had not apologized and refused a discussion about it, to which LT said that she had gotten “quite a different version outlined in the post linked and corroborated by a third party” and “felt uncomfortable” making a value judgement, insinuating that I was not being truthful about my side of the story.

I messaged LT off-anon and said that I was not lying nor over-exaggerating about what had happened in the server or about the following discussion about trying to broker a conversation with LR, and was immediately blocked by her. I am also not the only Jew who has sent her messages about this topic, only to have their messages ignored.

Now, am I surprised that I was immediately blocked after voicing my issues with what LT had said in that post? No.

She has a history of making antisemitic comments, most of which happened during the brunt of the Israel/Palestine discussion happening, which included statements such as “You cannot be considered indigenous if you hold a position of power”, that, despite having been displaced for 2,000 years, the Jewish diaspora was “integrated” into their respective communities (a wholly untrue statement), as well as linked to and promoted a website with extremely antisemitic articles including one about “Spartan Jews” and how Israeli Jews are violent to “send messages to their deprived self-esteem” that they won’t be victims again. Half of the comments on the site’s front page included such hits as “Death to all Jews” and “Wow, I had no idea this was happening—I guess it is true that Jews control the world and the mass media.” This website was repeated in multiple posts as “unbiased” and “a good resource” for other people to truly know what was going on.

Jewish dissent on the content of some posts and that website went unacknowledged and dismissed.

Being that LT is a relatively big user in the TOG fandom, her posts got circulated frequently. Seeing things like that touted as unbiased was extremely triggering for me and multiple Jews in this fandom that I’ve spoken to.

Now, the reason I made this post in particular was because I have seen a lot of echoing of the sentiment: “no matter how much you disagree with their sentiment, aligning yourself with racists is...well aligning yourself with racists.”

This statement NEEDS to become intersectional. If we are criticizing the work of people because of who they hold company with, why does that end at racism? If we are going to have a discussion about racism in this fandom, why are we letting it come from people who have openly said antisemitic things, people who have stood by them and supported them in silence, and people who have silenced Jewish voices speaking up about this issue.

These are not separate issues. This is a really good post regarding the white washing of Jews in social justice discussion and it comes full circle into the medical experimentation discussion. Jews were not seen as white during the Holocaust. The Nazis were trying to cleanse the Aryan race because they did not view Jews as white. They experimented on them because they did not view them as white and, thus, disposable.

Every Jewish diasporic community is still vulnerable. Even though the US has half the world’s Jews, over 50% of the religiously based hate crimes are consistently anti-Jewish even though Jews make up 2% of the population. Chinese Jews are still holding their holiday celebrations in secret due to government crackdowns. The attempted genocide of Beta Israel was less than 50 years ago. Across the Middle East and North Africa, Jewish communities are barely hanging on after centuries of attempted destruction. These are not just Jewish issues but racial issues as well because when people make the sweeping generalization of “Jew” and they only mean white-passing Ashkenazi Jews, it erases so much of our community.

I absolutely agree that this fandom needs to have a discussion about race and portrayal in fic and what we can do better moving forward—and I want to see that done—but we also need to acknowledge what so many people starting this discussion have said and the marginalized groups they have hurt along the way. I see these posts come across my dashboard and know exactly who they're coming from and what they think of people like me. If we are going to say, “No matter how much you disagree with their sentiment, aligning yourself with racists is aligning yourself with racists,” then we NEED to be saying, “If you are aligning yourself with antisemites, you’re aligning yourself with antisemites.”

We all need to move forward. But that means moving forward together. Jews included.

#i just really needed to get this off my chest #I really don’t want to start shit but some of this has been bothering me for months and I can’t stay quiet anymore #I’m just so tired #intersectionality includes Jews pass it on

[party-gilmore]

"tikkun/olam/orgtfo isn't that bad they said that one antiblack thing that one time and deleted and apologized for it stop trying to dig up receipts on something so old they're supporting intersectionality actually why are you so mad that they're so popular huh"

...

*remembers just how big they blew that whole the debacle up*

*actually listens to black bloggers about their continued interactions and red flags with that blog*

*recalls that commentary on post just within the last year about how 'no Jewish people benefit from white privilege because being Jewish automatically means you're not white' and how it was specifically framed to minimize the generational struggle of black people in america rather than just call attention to the still severe but very unique and seperate jewish struggle and also... [looks at self in mirror] is just... blatantly false???*

*thinks about how the only times I've ever gotten kill yourself messages have been when I spoke out against their commentary on posts (in fact, ^that one in particular), and i was active in the prime of the supernatural fandom's grip on this website so that's... saying something*

*and oh yeah the whole zionism thing*

Look I'm not here to gather receipts or link to call outs or go hunting down all the specific instances, this is just me venting about the fact that i can't seem to get away from having to see posts with their damn icon in the reblog commentary because people just. People either don't care or, (mostly, I'm sure/hope) just don't know, and i am TIRED of it. I'm sure someone else has put together a more succinct and sourced post but this is just me complaining about what I'VE personally seen - which is as LITTLE as possible, but i hit that block button as soon as I started getting wind of their M.O.

But. Unfortunately. That doesn't keep that blog off my dash. So i am BEGGING, like. Especially on long posts, I'm not saying you have to super sleuth and go digging for info on everyone in a reblog chain. That would be wildly paranoid and ridiculous. Just be aware of that name and take it with a grain of salt, and please stop putting it on my dash.

(and, given how some similar other posts of mine have gone, i KNOW folks are going to get a hold of this that are gonna be fucking clowns on it. it's just gonna be insta-blocks all the way down the chain, i'm not responding to SHIT. y'all have not earned my time.)

#vent #not intended to be a callout exactly #just complaining about what i personally have seen and am frustrated with

[eretzyisrael]

How They Did It

Between 1967 and 2021, the enemies of the Jewish state and the Jewish people created in effect an army of anti-Israel operatives in key positions in Western societies, including Israel herself. These operatives are often opinion leaders who influence the behavior of their countries.

Here is how they did it.

The Arab nations failed to defeat Israel in major military conflicts in 1948, 1967, and 1973. At that point, they turned to cognitive warfare, the manipulation of information, attitudes, beliefs, and feelings, in order to weaken their enemy and deny it support from third parties. Thus there were two primary targets: the population of the State of Israel, and the Western nations that might become sources of financial, logistical, diplomatic, or other forms of help for the Jewish state.

The objective of cognitive warfare is to divide, disrupt, and isolate the enemy so that it be finished off more easily by military means. Terrorism is an important part of cognitive warfare, because frightened people are prone to Stockholm syndrome. But this discussion will be limited to the non-kinetic aspects of cognitive warfare.

The cognitive war began around 1967, initiated by the Soviet KGB as a propaganda campaign. The terrorists of the PLO – whose actual ideology was close to that of Nazi Germany – were presented as a national liberation movement, which found approval in the leftist student and antiwar movements that were part of the larger Soviet cognitive assault on the West.

By 1973, the challenges facing the cognitive warriors of the Arab world and their advisors were great. The Jews of Israel had lost the overconfidence of the post-1967 era. The USA had (finally) resupplied Israel with the weapons needed to reverse the advance of her enemies and – although she was prevented from achieving a crushing victory – she had clearly established her military superiority. But the militarily weak Arabs strengthened their cognitive warfare capabilities to include more than mere propaganda. They launched operations to fundamentally change important features of the social landscape of the West.

Cognitive attacks were aimed at the following Western targets:

International institutions; the UN and its agencies (easy targets because of the built-in Soviet/Third World majority).

Major early victories included several anti-Israel UN Security Council resolutions during the Carter Administration (the US abstained), and of course the “Zionism is racism” resolution in 1975. Although the resolution was ultimately revoked, the “UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” it created and the annual observance of “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” remain. The UN Human Rights Council has a unique permanent agenda item to discuss Israel’s “human rights abuses” at every session. UN reports on health, the status of women, the environment, and other subjects often wrongly single out Israel as a violator.

International NGOs have been persuaded, by infiltration and financial grants from Arab and left-wing sources, to join the campaign. “Human rights” groups like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International have been particularly useful in accusing the IDF of war crimes. Recently HRW produced a tendentious report calling Israel an apartheid state.

Institutions of higher education (easily bought with oil money).

Starting almost immediately after 1973, Arab states began to make major donations to leading universities, establishing departments of Middle East Studies (where “Middle East” does not include Israel), endowing chairs and fellowships, and so on. This has continued to the present day. Other quasi-academic institutions, such as influential think tanks like the Qatar-supported Brookings Institution, have also benefited.

This is an extremely far-sighted and effective strategy, because influence trickles down to other faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. Ultimately these students graduate and take their places in education, business, government, and even law enforcement and the military.

Even in Israel, leftist academics produce a constant flow of pseudo-academic material that can be used as support for NGO and think tank documents that call for anti-Israel policies. Israeli NGOs, supported by the international Left and Arab/Iranian/Turkish sources, provide information for use in lawfare against Israel and the IDF, as well as propaganda.

Student and labor movements, liberal churches (easy targets because of left-wing connections).

Since 2004, resolutions supporting the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement against Israel have been debated and often passed by student governments, labor unions, and liberal churches. While there has so far been little effect on Israel’s economy, the debates provide a forum for disseminating false accusations against Israel.

Student organizations have been established on campuses that promote anti-Israel ideas and intimidate anyone who supports Israel. The recent widespread acceptance of postmodern “woke” ideas including intersectionality, critical race theory, and third-worldism has made it possible to connect Palestinism to diverse causes, even some that are clearly inconsistent with it, such as LGBT rights.

These organizations are supported and nurtured by faculty, departments, and administrators that were put in place by Arab (and more recently) Iranian oil revenues, as well as traditionally left-leaning academics.

Corporate interests (easy targets because of their dependence on Arab oil).

Immediately after the 1973 war, the Arab oil boycott caused a spike in prices and supply shortages. Oil companies in the US, who have great influence in politics, began to take public political stances, calling for what they referred to as a “more even-handed” policy in the Arab-Israeli conflict (in other words, calling for the government to stop supporting Israel). They funded propaganda outlets that followed the Arab line.

More recently, large corporations – particularly the very influential and powerful tech companies – have begun to adopt “woke” policies, out of a combination of fear of popular boycotts and the absorption of woke ideas from the academic world that provides their personnel. Infiltration of anti-Israel activists and attitudes into the tech companies that increasingly determine popular culture is especially worrisome.

Social media.

Recently someone noted that pro-Palestinian personality Bella Hadid has 21 million Instagram followers, significantly more than the total number of Jews in the world. Social media provides a huge amount of leverage for cognitive warfare, since it reaches literally billions of people throughout the world. Clever manipulation of social platforms can have a massive effect at very low cost. As usual, Russia is leading the world in developing this cognitive warfare technique, using bots and human-operated social media farms. But Iran and other enemies of Israel aren’t far behind.

Minorities (whose grievances could be blamed on Jews and Israel).

As early as the 1930s, Soviet propagandists realized that racial discrimination in the US could be used to sell communism to disaffected minorities. It has also been possible to sell them Jew-hatred, and the closely related hatred for the Jewish state. The racial mass psychosis that has gripped the US lately presents a wonderful opportunity to attach anti-Israel messages to “anti-racist” activities via the principle of intersectionality. Combined with the historically high level of antisemitism in the black community, it’s been possible for Israel’s enemies to spread preposterous lies, such as that “Israel trains American police to be racist” effectively.

Antisemitic politicians.

Politicians like Jeremy Corbyn, Ilhan Omar, and others are effective propagandists. It’s difficult to defend against them, because opposition can be discounted as politics, and because they have large bases of support (e.g., among Muslim populations) of which the politicians in their own parties are afraid.

For whatever reason, Israel’s successive governments have either been unable to fully internalize the danger posed by cognitive warfare, or have failed to come up with an effective strategy for fighting it. But with each military conflict that Israel is involved in, the cognitive attacks become more and more intense. They have already affected the IDF’s ability to fight.

The solution is to employ a proactive, not reactive strategy; to attack rather than defend. But what would such a strategy look like?

That’s the subject of my next post.

Abu Yehuda

#Academia #information war #Jew Hatred #The UN #Wokeness

[emerald-studies]

Diverse Perspectives | Discussion 1

****Whew, Tumblr deleted this entire post that was in my queue, so if there are mistakes in the transcript, sorry. I still highly, highly, suggest you read as you listen. I’ve added resources so you know what we reference in this discussion.***** 

[ It is required to participate and watch/read these discussions, in order to follow me. Participate or get tf out. We aren’t performative in my lil’ area on Tumblr.

This discussion isn’t representative of an entire population or meant to be super professional. It’s to share different perspectives and also is an opportunity for me to practice what I preach: intersectionality. If you’d like to participate in this series please send me a pm or an ask and I’ll get back to you ASAP. We can do a written, audio, or video interview.]

To open this series, I interviewed Rachel, (AKA @reality-wont-ruin-my-life / @emmettisapowerbottom) for her perspective as a Jewish woman.  

Transcript:

I recommend you read while you listen, I’ve made some clarifications because my ADD brain is shitty when I try to speak words.

(it has also been slightly edited for clarity)

-

Faith: OK, thank you for doing this with me, so I just want your perspective because you are a Jewish woman. 

Rachel: Yes.

F: And I feel ... we don't talk about anti-Semitism enough in the right spaces.

R: Yeah.

F: I think we talk about it ... in history and then, ... it's not even called...I don't even remember it being called anti-Semitism, it was being ... framed as ... with this thing of the past that is around. So, first question for you is, 

Do you believe that by learning about the Holocaust in such an apathetic bland setting, which is a classroom, we are being told anti-Semitism is a thing of the past?

R: Um, I think it has less to do with where we learn, because I do think it's really important to learn about ... the history, but I think the way it's taught is really where the issue comes is that they kind of teach it as this one event that's kind of a standalone thing instead of saying ..., hey, this is a historical pattern. So a lot of people seem to think antisemitism started with the Holocaust when there's thousands of years of history of it before that. And then they think it ended when the US joined the war, which the US didn't even join the war to help the Jews. That's a complete lie. So I think it's important that it's taught. But the way it's taught is, you know, you read The Diary of Anne Frank and you look at a few power points. And everyone stares at the Jewish kid ... us ... to--

F: Omg not to make it about me, but I remember watching ... a Jackie Robinson film and (also) learning about slavery in seventh grade. I was ... the only black person in the room. And they're always ... this *looks behind* it's just ... what? (are you looking at?)

R: I think every kind of minority group has that experience where the class talks about something and just ..., you know, everyone's staring at you.

F: Yeah. So, yeah, I agree with you. ..., context matters and I think ... even the pattern or how even the Holocaust even happened, ... it shouldn’t have happened and we're told we're learning about this, so it doesn't happen again, but what are these teachers telling us? They're not telling us what was the process of basically convincing a whole population that it's OK to kill, mass kill, people? So I feel ... it's not really seen in that context. I mean, at least I went to many different schools and, you know, different history classes. And it never really seemed ... it was deeper, ... it was more of ..., you know, this is your homework is about the Holocaust. It's ... this shouldn't be ... it shouldn't be ... that. I don't know how to explain it ... this is more than just ... a piece of paper that we fill out.

R: Definitely, yeah, I think people kind of get lost in that and think it's just this one unit instead of ..., you know. It decimated ... a third of the world's Jewish population and 90 percent of the Romani population.

F: Yeah, and it, I think that also isn't talked about because I did a whole presentation on, ... the experiments that took place and they took, ...disabled people or differently abled, whatever you prefer...and then I know, ..., multiple minority groups were put in those camps. So I also think it's interesting that I mean, .... I don't know how to explain it, I think by making it just about the Jewish population, it's ... “better” for people. People ... they can put it in a box, right, ... this won't affect me if it happened today. But, you know, if you have a family member that's a part of this group or part of the LGBTQ+ ... they were affected. So it's ... this* isn't just .... A certain people's problem. (*The Holocaust)

R: But at the same time, I feel ... especially when learning about and teachers tend to take her Jewishness out of it so that people can relate to it, ... she was a Jewish woman ......don't.

F: Yeah, it's ... you can humanize someone by just seeing them as human, you don't need to make them ... you don't need to make them fit, you know? Um, do you think the Internet has helped or hurt the Jewish community in terms of information and accessibility to the general public?

R: I say a mix of both because for me personally, ... growing up, I really separated myself from my Judaism at home. I was ..., oh, I don't you know, I think this is something you want to do as kids. It's ... you do your bar mitzvah and then you're just ... gone for awhile and finding ... Jewish people on the Internet really helped me reclaim my connection with my family. And now I study it ... it's my college degree... is Judaic studies and the history. But I've found that it's been really helpful for me finding ... Jewish people on the Internet, but at the same time...... conspiracy theories are a huge thing on the Internet, and so many of them are based on anti Semitism without people even realizing. So I think it's the spread of information and the ability to scapegoat groups from the Internet hurts Jews a lot, but it also really helpful for us in finding community within ... Jewish people.

F: Yeah, ... yeah, I can definitely see that because, I mean, I think that's...I've only ever heard the “pro” of social media is meeting people, like-minded people or different people, which I mean, thank you, Tumblr, because of this... but that's the only pro I've ever heard, is just meeting people. So I just think it's interesting that ..., ... there are all these negative things, you know, ... anti vaxxers..Flat earthers, ... “climate change isn't real”. It's just .... At least we get to meet each other? Look on the bright side, I guess.

R: Oh, yeah. You know, take the good with the bad or whatever. I have, but not to the extent some other people have, because I don't really have ... the stereotypical Jewish, which is ridiculous because you come in every color and everything. And also, I do want to say I don't speak for every Jew, every experience, ... I'm an upper class white woman living in Oregon. So, you know, I have a very different perspective than say and also I'm a certain branch of Judaism citizen. So I have a different perspective from ... a Black Orthodox Jew from New York, it’s going to be a very different lifestyle. So I haven't had death threats anything. I just...a lot of middle school and high school was ... when people would find out I was Jewish. ... Can I say, ... a Holocaust joke.?

F: Ugh 

R: No, know, that's ... everyone when you're a kid, that's their first reaction. When you say things ..., oh, now I can make this joke about ovens and ..., please don't do that.

F: Oh, my God, that's so awful. I don't know why they do that.

R: And then all of a choir director once was ..., Oh ... because I got this solo in this piece that was about Anne Frank. She's ..., Oh, yeah, she even looks ... Anne Frank. I was ..., this was on the radio.

F: That's that's not OK. Oh my gosh. It's .... Look, look, she's not ... this, ... she was gorgeous, obviously, I think everyone's gorgeous, but ... she ... I've seen, ..., her eyes on people (edit: I meant she has common features, like everyone else) ... she's not. Yeah, her features are....Oh, my gosh...., it's just because--

R: the things that are considered stereotypical Jewish features are largely Middle Eastern features, ... it's thick hair, ... kind of bushy eyebrows, the nose with the bump, curly, dark, untamed hair.

F: Yeah, and that's just ... such a large (edit: large population), stereotypes are never really accurate. they're based on something dark, ... really dark. It's ... if you actually look into stereotypes on certain groups, it always has a dark origin. So many people have...ugh I’m not just going to even...

*Rachel’s video cuts out*

F: Ok next question: 

Why do you think people of color are able to be anti-Semitic or kinda just hold anti Semitic beliefs, consciously or subconsciously?

R:  I think a lot of it is the perception that being Jewish is inherently tied to having power, and so a lot of communities look at it as punching up, when that’s not the reality of the situation, so I think when... this goes for every other group I think that because that’s the kinda the stereotypical argument for why people don't like Jews is “Oh, well we control the world so other people were super wealthy we’re super rich so people can say, oh I can hate this group because they’re above me, so I’m punching up.”

F: Mhmmm

R: But you know there are Black Jews, there are disabled Jews, there’s...all these intersections. There’s plenty of poor Jews. So there’s this idea that just because you’re Jewish you’re rich and powerful.

F: Hmm. That’s a really good way to look at that, because you know I kinda do see how that falls into the “Eat the rich” or whatever. Um...and I recently learned, is it true, I probably should’ve researched this before, but is the illuminati Semitic? ... the idea of an illuminati?

R: The concept is, largely because of who they claim are in it. They are largely Jewish people. And also, it’s the same thing with the “lizard conspiracy/the lizard people”, which I was explaining this to my Mom...actually let me find the message...I think his name is David Icke? But he’s the creator of the “lizard conspiracy” and he also is a Holocaust denier who simultaneously believes that Jews funded the Holocaust to get ... attention….

F: *scoffs in disgust and utter confusion*

R: ...and to get people to pity them. And so a lot of people with go after Soros or the Rothschilds and say ... “oh they’re a part of the illuminati, they’re lizard people who are controlling the world.” and so, no, the concept of this elite group that runs the world and many of the people you’re putting in it are Jewish people.

F: Hmmm, oh ok.

R: Also throughout history, this goes way before the Holocaust, this has been going on for 2,000 years but ... Jews have been accused of running the-Jews--with the lizards they’ll say “Oh they’ll eat your kids” or they’ll do this thing. So Jews have been accused of this thing called blood libel, which is ... sacrificing Christian children and drinking their blood. Which never happened, there’s no documented cases of this, but we---there were large mass murders of Jewish people in the middle ages and also for stealing communion wafers. They would say that we would steal them and ...….stab them to ... to try and kill Jesus. Which sounds...... I think when we learned that we all laughed uncomfortably...but no you don’t understand, thousands of Jews were murdered for this….this isn’t a funny thing. And so it's this idea of ... this secret...Jewish society that’s gonna kill your kids, steal all the wealth and even--they’ll try to, David Icke, again, I don’t know if I’m pronouncing his name right, I’m sorry. But--

F: Who cares (if you’re pronouncing his name right) honestly?

R: It’s not anti-Semitic because these Jews who I’m accusing aren’t really human...but yes they are.

F: Yeah

R: These are Jewish people.

F:... any group of people are people...so he’s trying to say Jewish people are alien, so it doesn’t count?

R: Pretty much.

F: *wtf confusion laugh*

R: So I think a lot of times the people who spread the conspiracies don’t know….the prices of it. Once you learn, you dig a little deeper, you can see the issue that comes from it.

F: Do you think um that in that sense that memes can be hurtful--or harmful because of ... you know the illuminati meme. So people don’t know that the concept of the illuminati is essentially anti-Semitic, so do you think ... meme culture is contributing to ignorance?

R: I think yeah to some extent, because when it gets widespread enough you know? It becomes normalized and then when someone tries to speak about it and says, “Hey this thing is problematic” they’ll be ... “Oh no it’s just a joke, you’re taking it too seriously, it has nothing to do with that.” Well, if you look back, ... it does and historically these kinds of “jokes” have led to groups being persecuted. It’s just a matter of if someone tells you something is problematic, don’t brush it off.

F: And I would ... to point out that I made a joke about Mark Zuckerberg being a robot lizard in response to um...him uh trying to buy Native lands and I was like “What?”(when someone said it was Semitic) honestly my brain doesn’t even go to---I don’t research who people are. I don’t know why I didn’t know he was Jewish, I didn’t know. And then I went to I forgot what website I went to, I went through all the stereotypes of Jewish people and I didn’t see anything about “lizard”, but it was ...I was trying to find a way to excuse myself...but if someone tells you its wrong, it’s wrong.

R: And I think it’s about being willing to learn and listen ..., I made those jokes. I didn’t realize until earlier this year what the basis of it all was. So I’ve made plenty of jokes about the illuminati and lizard people….and then started reading things by other Jewish people and I was ... “Oh! I never thought about that.” I didn’t connect the dots and put that all together.

F: Yeah and especially with ... jokes ... they’re so modern, memes are so modern, so when we’re told about anti-semitism being framed as a past thing, we do this. So when we use jokes and stuff--I mean non-Jewish people, I think when we use jokes in general, honestly, about any group, we don’t think “Ok what’s the context of this? What’s the history behind this?” Because---BEYONCE friggin’ singing about the illuminati....

R: *laughs*

F: I mean she was kinda ... dragging it, but the jokes get that big. So I feel ...---I don’t know. I want to publicly apologize for calling Mark Zuckerberg a robot lizard because I thought that was a meme and not based in anti-Semitic language.

R: We’ve all done that so many times.

F: I was talking about how he’s ... a robot and acts weird, so it’s completely on me.

What do you want people to know about your culture?

R: Um, that it’s not a monolith. There’s this ongoing joke in the Jewish community that if you have two Jewish people in a room you’ll have three different opinions.

F: *laughs*

R: So we all practice differently, we all have a different relationship with religion and spirituality and that the big thing is that we’re not this all powerful group. I think it confuses people that Judaism isn’t...first off Judeo-Christian is not real we’re not--Judaism and christianity are very different so I get annoyed when they’re lumped together. “Judeo-Christian values” ... no we have completely different values and beliefs.

F: Yeah

R: I think it really confuses people when I tell them that I don’t believe in God but I still consider myself very Jewish, because it’s so intrinsically tied as this just religious concept but because of the persecution that Jewish communities have faced, it’s taken on this double role as an ethnicity and a religion. So ..., I’m a white person, there’s no way that I’m not white but I’m also a Jewish white person so it's kinda a different path, a different history. And I still have this connection with my Judaism, while at the same time, you know, I haven’t been to synagogue since I was 13, so I don’t believe in higher powers and stuff, at least at this point in my life. That could change, but I think it’s such a part of who we are and there’s that generational trauma that Jews are born with--or at least biological because you’re still just as Jewish if you convert to Judaism, I think there’s also this idea, Oh! My cat just came in...

I think there’s also this idea that when you’re controlling the world you're trying to make everyone like you. But Jews don’t proselytize, Jews aren’t trying to make other people Jewish. Which is very different than the way some other religions operate, where it’s going out and trying to get everyone to agree with you so you can save their soul or whatever...

F: Mhm

R: Also when it comes to--this is less for Judaism, this is for every group, ya know I was talking about um The BLM protests and using dark humor. In my experience at least, I think the groups that are affected can use dark humor about it. So ..., Black people can make jokes about police brutality, I can’t make jokes about police brutality because it’s not affecting me personally, so I feel ... Jewish people, we wanna make Jew jokes between ourselves, that’s fine, but when other people make jokes ... ok now it’s uncomfortable because of that power imbalance, ‘cause you haven’t faced a holocaust or gone through these things I’ve gone through as a Jewish person, and I haven’t gone through these other things. So I think when people make a joke “Oh I have a dark sense of humor, I like to use dark humor to cope” well it’s not ... your trauma to cope with. I think that’s with every group that’s gone through something...there’s certain dark humor that you can’t use.

F: Yeah that’s such a good way to put it because ... you may be coping with other things but it’s not the thing you’re talking about, so why do you need to cope with the jokes about that? I’ve heard, anti-Semitic jokes and I’m ... “What the-” *leans back* from ... non- Jewish people and….who is that for? How is that make you feel better as a human? I was like: “Why are you doing this? Shut up.”

R: Yeah.

F: They know it’s wrong...it’s like the “edgy” 4chan type of thing ... *~I’m so edgy~* No your’e not. Personally, I think you’re weak if you can’t come up with a joke that doesn’t hurt a group of people

R: Oh yeah. Oh and then another thing I’d ... people to realize about Judaism is for one….the issue of Judaism and anti-Semitism is separate from the issue of Israel/Palestine and anti-Zionism and also not every Jew has the same opinion on it and we’re not all experts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so you don’t need to derail every discussion with “Oh what are your thoughts on Palestine? Do you support Palestine? Do you support Israel?” Because it’s so separate, and such a complex issue. You know because I was born Jewish doesn’t mean that I automatically have this innate knowledge of the entire conflict. It can kinda be used as a way to derail people when talking about anti-Semitism we face, ya know you’ll--I’ve seen this a lot on TikTok where people will make videos talking about things they face and a lot of the comments are “Free Palestine”...well they didn’t mention Palestine, we don’t know their views on Palestine. Just ‘cause you’re Jewish that doesn’t make you a Zionist, just---I’m sure people who have Palestinian heritage doesn’t make you anti-Zionist, ya know? They're separate issues and people ... to lump them into one…..and if someone says that anti-Zionism is treading into Semitism, then we should listen to them because they’re two separate things and you can protest in Israel and not be falling into anti-Semitic tropes. 

F: Right, that’s such a complex subject. I would never ask someone straight up: “Who’s side are you on?!”  because it’s so, so complex. I remember I tried to dedicate a whole day to just researching, “Ok what’s going on?” and it’s just ... so much information it’s just hard because I don’t even want to speak on it because it has nothing to do with me, so I was just trying to get--I remember when it was on the news a lot, right? I’m like trying to understand what you guys are saying, so I like to do background researching and oh my gosh, I can’t imagine summing up your opinion in one sentence about that or why you chose this side and not that. It’s so varied.

R: Ya know I’m still learning about it, I don’t know that much about it so ya know when I try to talk about this Jewish thing they’ll be ... “Oh! What are your thoughts on the  Israeli-Palestinian conflict?” I’m just ... *raises hands up* “I don’t know, I need time to learn more”

F: Yeah it’s like *looks at phone* “hold on a sec (while I research more on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and get back to ya)”

How do you see yourself in your country?

R: Um...it’s complicated because I’m from a privileged family in a privileged area so I know I have intrinsic power in this country, Judaism is easier to hide than other things. You can’t look at me and know I’m Jewish whereas you could look at a Black person and know they’re Black, you could look at a Muslim wearing a headscarf and know they’re Muslim. So it’s much easier to get away with things, I’m not going to be profiled until I open my mouth and say something about my Judaism, but at the same time, there is that fear because we’ve seen it before, Jews in Germany weren’t identifiable by looking at them but it’s on their birth certificate and they started rounding up. So I do get that little pang of panic every time I see “Jewish cemetery desecrated” or “Swastikas drawn on synagogue”...last time I went to synagogue was after the Tree of Life shooting, I went in solidarity and there was ... armed guards outside and it was so scary thinking about “Oh my God there could be a bomb threat, there could be a shooter.” and there’s this idea where I know I have privilege and I know I’m in a position of power but at the same time, ... I know that I have to be ready to flee if something happens, because every few generations of Jews have had to do that, for thousands of years now. So it’s all complex intertwined identity, where-so I call myself “Conditionally white”, I benefit so much from white privilege and everything except my Judaism is white, white, white but then there’s at the same time, I wasn’t considered white under the defining whatever, where you write down your race, in the eyes of the US until ... the 50s. They had white and Jewish as two separate ethnicities or races. It’s such a weird place to be.

F: Yeah and of course, I know you say you are/look white so you have all this privilege and stuff but at the same time, being scared of sharing a part of you that’s...an average white person doesn’t have to be scared of ... saying “Oh I believe this” and then if you feel the fear of sharing that, just in general or fear of a hate crime, that is very valid. And I think sometimes we forget that.

R: It’s interesting sometimes hearing people talk about Judaism. They think of it as this “Oh taking over the world, there’s gotta be a lot of them” it’s ... well, there’s 14 million of us in the world right now, about a third are in Israel, the US has 1.5 million. Compared to that, probably half the world's population is Christian. There's 1 or 2 billion Muslims, we’re a very small group comparatively.

F: I do think the illuminati thing perpetuates that so much, subconsciously or unconsciously….although it’s supposed to be a “smaller group” or whatever but still they make it ... this huge thing kinda framed like Scientology. It’s so weird that people don’t--I’ve heard many Christians claim that “I’m scared to say I’m Christian” and it's just ... that’s so valid for you and I’m not disregarding your experience...the historical context behind it, even people who are Muslim and all these hate crimes...I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hate crime against a Catholic church...

R: Not in a very long time and when it has been, it’s usually between Christian sects.

F: Yeah, that too,  infighting. I dunno where I was going with that. *laughs* but I know what you mean by blowing up this population to be a “threat”. I think that happens with any group that someone disagrees with like the “liberals” “antifa” they blow it up to huge populations, ... “Oh my gosh we’re being invaded!” I’m surprised that more people haven’t seen with, you know the steps to genocide, that’s one of the things (steps), it’s making this group of people a “threat” that’s “invading” a space...I’m surprised that people don’t see that about any group but especially about the Jewish community, AGAIN! That’s not the first time! It’s just constant, there’s no breaks!

R: Yeah that’s most of Jewish history since other major religions came in….you know we haven’t been in power since Christianity came in.

What’s the biggest misconception bout your community?

R: Um, I’d say probably getting back to that rich/powerful thing. Just the, ya know that and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict thing. Those are the two things I hear the most and also Holocaust deniers..which I don’t know why there are so many but there are like or the people who say “Oh yeah it happened but it’s not as bad as they make it seem.”. 

F: Sooo stupid. I just can’t imagine denying any sort of crime against humanity, .. I can’t even talk about it, it makes me so pissed. 

Do you feel like there is adequate representation of your community in the media?

R: Um I think we definitely have more representation than other groups...but I find it to be kind of more one track or stereotypical so it doesn’t show ... the breadth of the Jewish community. The only show about Jews is Unorthodox and that kinda portrays Orthodox Judaism in a not great light. But I think there’s a lot more Jewish….you know they used to say “Jews control Hollywood” because a lot of actors and directors were Jewish and it’s ... “Well, maybe we’re just creative?”

F: *laughing*

R: So theres a lot of famous Jews and I guess a lot of Hollywood producers are Jewish but I think when it comes to actual characters, we don’t see practicing Jews that aren’t relying on stereotypes. But I don’t think the media is particularly targeted harmful to Jews the way it’s targeted other communities.

F: What do you think about the movies about the Holocaust that come out every year? And I’m not saying anything against them, I’m just curious what your take on that is because it’s interesting that I see a lot of these movies come out right? But in school it’s a day lesson, but the media keeps on talking about it. Do you appreciate that? Do you wish the content was better? 

*both laugh*

R: I think some are better done than others. I prefer, my area of study is the Holocaust, so I have to submerse myself in all that stuff because that’s what my thesis is going to be on, it’s frustrating sometimes to see the fictionalized stories pushed over the real ones, especially the ones that have Christian charac---Boy in the Striped Pajamas made sob when I first watched it. Then I watched it again and I realized you’re only side because the little Christian kid dies.

F: *gasps in awe/mind blown* Ugh you gotta put that somewhere and share it because that’s such a good point!

R: And then there's, there was drama about some of the Holocaust books and they were ... hey “this  isn’t a real story this didn’t happen but your pushing it as a real story”. So I….there’s so many real life tragedies that sometimes it seems a little weird that  you create your fake characters about it. But at the same time, I do enjoy Holocaust movies ... I do consume content but there does seem ... a weird disproportionate obsession with it. I’ve said this to my family, I don’t really trust non-Jews who are super into WW2. ... there’s something about it, why are you so into it? “... I think it’s cool how that could happen, it’s cool to think about how….” I don’t really trust your motives, there’s something off to me. I think when it’s their personality is ... WW2! Holocaust!...Why are you so invested in this? 

F: Oh my gosh yeah. Do you think there could be more movies about real people in real stories? ... I’ll look at “Is this movie true” (On google) ... The Boy in the Striped Pajamas So (I looked up) “Is this true” and it said, “Ummm no.” and it’s like... OK but wouldn’t it be more impactful to have real stories that are told?

R: I think so to some extent but I also don’t think they should do it without permission and sometimes there isn’t someone’s permission to ask.

F: Right.

R: But you don’t want those stories to die, you know if there’s a family left and this story is important and you don’t want it to get lost in the books but you know, so much has already been taken from the Jewish community...you have to weigh whether or not it’s worth it to contribute to that to get a story out there.

Do you think some directors and writers choose to make a story about the Holocaust as Oscar bait? 

R: Probably. I think tragedies tend to do well in the awards circuit and I think tragedies about white people especially tend to do well. So I think if you...have this event, something that everyone knows about, everyone knows about the Holocaust, and they go “Ok well they’re not going to turn down this story about this kid in the Holocaust”. I don’t know every director's intention, there could be some who want to get the story out there. But I do think it’s easier to get something about a major historical event.

Do you feel that Jewish people are put in a box, only being seen as victims?

R: I’d say it’s usually the opposite. I’d feel ... both sides of the political spectrum put Jewish people in this box of “oppressor”.

F: Mhmmm

R: You see it because it’s one of those groups that gets hit on both sides. Where ... a lot of people say “Oh yeah well in the Holocaust you were all the victims.” which doesn’t annoy me because you’ll see these people say “They just willingly got on the carts to drive to camps and no one fought back.” well, no there were militias there were uprisings. They weren't just happily getting on these buses and not fighting for their lives. So I do think there’s a lot of victimization when it comes to the Holocaust, but a lot of people say “That was in the past, now no one’s attacking the Jews, no one’s doing anything so they’re taking advantage of us”. So I think in a historical context Jews are placed in a box of victimhood but in a modern context, it’s flipped.

F: Hm. How do you see left v. right, can you explain how you’ve seen each group take hits at the Jewish community?

R: Yeah

F: Kinda ... just a few points for people to watch and look out for?

R: The right is pretty much what you’d expect, neo-Nazis, swastikas, SS tattoos which is not fun, I don’t like seeing those. You see these white supremacists and I think on the left, they think all the Jews in that group are included in the white supremacy, when we’re explicitly excluded, we are not considered white by white supremacist standards. But you see the left use Steven Miller and Jared Kushner who, you know, they’re Jewish, they’re also terrible people but they happen to be Jewish...and them being terrible doesn't make them not Jewish but you see people like that...from the left we see a lot more of the anti-semitism coming out kinda disguised by anti-Zionism.

F: Mhmm

R: Again, I think there are perfectly valid reasons to be anti-Zionist. Another issue I have that the left like to do, which sometimes is valid and sometimes isn’t, is comparing things to the Holocaust.

F: Mhmm

R: Sometimes I think that’s…..can compare something, especially if Jewish people are saying that “Hey, these are things that we were seeing happening in Nazi Germany that we’re seeing now.” I remember getting really upset when I was seeing vegans compare animal farming to the Holocaust and ... yeah I have a lot of issues with the meat industry but don’t conflate those two things ‘cause its basically saying Jewish people are cattle. That’s how it comes out to the Jewish people.

F: Yeah I just looked up, I just wanted to make sure, yeah I have definitely heard that in the vegan community and it does bother me, um...I um feel like genocide is a better way to put it because it’s a mass killing of a population, the Holocaust-

R: Yeah the Holocaust is tied to a specific event. 

F: Yeah, so I have also seen a video of a Holocaust survivor who went vegan, who compared it to the Holocaust, but I think that is his right.

R: Yeah when you are affected. If someone is from a group and critiquing a way a group is handling something, ok I’ll listen to your side of this but when it’s an outsider, I’m not sure you have a say in that.

F: No, and even the way the Holocaust happened, the steps to the Holocaust didn’t happen to animals, the animals weren’t stereotyped, they weren’t vilified. I don’t think it’s accurate.

R: At the same time I don’t think it’s just comparing everything to the Holocaust, just listen to Jewish people when we start saying, “Hey, this is looking eerily similar.”. I remember in 2015/16 I remember saying, “Hey when you look at his platform,” I’m sure we all know who he is--

*laughs*

R: “he has pretty much the textbook definition of fascism.” “Oh no, he doesn’t have this one step, it’s fine.” And then he’ll pass that step and it’s like, “Hey guys, I told you we’ve seen this before….these are the 14 steps and we’re at like 12 now.”

F: Yeah and you’ve studied it so you’d think that people would listen to you.

R: Yeah I started learning about the Holocaust, probably ... first grade in Hebrew school. Ya know ... I’ve seen all these pict---also if people could not just share these Holocaust pictures, constantly without any warning, ... those are photos that are traumatic to a lot of us. Now, I’m used to seeing them again because it’s what I study but you see people, they’ll share things, when they’re comparing to the Holocaust, they’ll put like a Holocaust photo...you know those are people ... that I know. Those are my Grandparent’s friends, those are the parents of one of my teachers. I feel like people forget, they lump it into the numbers “Oh yeah 6 million Jews died”, but yeah each of those 6 million was a person. So when you post a photos, piles of dead bodies, those are people. 

F: I don’t agree with that either, even our presentations we would do about the Holocaust, it didn’t feel right seeing these people put behind a title.

R: I feel like people get swept up by the numbers that they forget it’s people. It’s real people who went through this. And it’s sad because we’re getting to that time because the last of the Holocaust survivors are reaching the end of their lifespan, so it’s gonna be harder and harder to have people come in and tell you firsthand, which helps to humanize it. 

F: Yeah and especially the deniers, what going to happen when these people--and thank goodness they survived, hopefully they have a peaceful passing, but once they’re gone they’re going to be like “Oh no one has been there….”

R: So another thing, I went to a racist white high school. We had a lot of issues, we had 3 Black people at my school and we had issues with graffiti slurs against the Black people, so they brought in a Holocaust survivor to talk about tolerance, but it was very propaganda. So this Holocaust survivor came in and talked about how they befriended one of the nazi guards and I was like “This is not the story that we need to be sharing…

F: Wh-what?

R:... this nazi guard and this Jewish person became friend like that’s not how it is for the 99.9% of them. Don’t use it as your propaganda for tolerance saying “Yeah the victims and the ones who are hurting them should just like this person should just forget about what happened to them and just be friends with them.” So I think it’s just used as propaganda a lot instead of letting it stand as the story it is. 

F: Or even “taking the high road”. Just like pretending you love everybody, “I love the people who did this to my family, my community”

R: It makes the people who don’t (take the high road) seem like they’re being irrational...hey I don’t like Nazis, I support punching Nazis then like “Hey you need to preach tolerance.” no they murdered people I know.

F: Yeah I’ve even, I’ve only seen one Nazi-Nazi in Nevada in person, it’s just ......he was wearing a Deutschland shirt, it’s just so crazy how--I made a post about this, and he just looked so weak, that always stuck with me. He looked so weak and insecure, and I’m like you should feel that way because there are so many groups of people who are stronger with their bonds with each other, like the Jewish community or any community, that you should feel weak because you just want to be an angsty little white boy. Side note: he looked me in the eyes and I looked at him back and he left. So….

*laughs*

F: That was only a fraction of what you feel. I feel ... we’re so desensitized to swastikas, I mean I haven’t seen one as graffiti, but the image, I feel we are too desensitized to that.

R: Oh yeah I get frustrated with people who say “We need to reclaim the swastika”.

F: *Laughs* “Noo”

R: I get you wanna reclaim if but it’s too far gone. It’s traumatizing for the Jewish community, I get it used to be the symbol of peace…

F: Right

R: But it’s just not what that is anymore.

F: I mean that’s why it was taken, I’m sure you’ve studied this, but that’s why Hitler got people to jump on board because it’s this pretty picture of this “peaceful future”. So taking it back would almost be like...that’s where it started and look at where we are...

R: I personally haven’t come across Jews who want to reclaim it, it’s non-Jews. And there might be Jews who want to, I don’t know every Jew on Earth but the ones I’ve interacted with are all uncomfortable seeing swastikas. And you know when I see those photos of swastikas on this Jewish cemetery destroying the grave, it’s ... I can’t help picture that with my Grandparent’s graves, ... oh what if this was where my family was buried.

F: Yeah in my hometown there was a lot of that going around, just everywhere, it’s just disgusting. The fact that non-Jewish people suggested reclaiming that? That’s just disgusting and inappropriate. You don’t have a right to-- for anyone watching, you don’t have a right to go up to a Jewish person and say “No but I wanna do this” no, that’s not right, if it doesn’t apply to you, don’t speak on it. Or try to reclaim anything. I’m done with reclaiming things. When you said “non-Jewish people” I thought that you were talking about your Jewish friends who thought “You know maybe we could take it back…” 

R: No.

F: Deadass

R: No all the Jewish people I know don’t like seeing swastikas and have no interest in seeing them in our lives. 

F: Like understandably, it’s not even crazy! I wouldn’t. Ugh. 

What would you like to see more of from allies?

R: Um, I think more listening, I like this kind of stuff, just having a conversation. Just not speaking for us and just amplifying our voices. And again, not conflating Judaism and Christianity. Not being like “Oh our Judeo-Christian values” Jews aren’t good because they’re related to this Christian thing, no it’s our own thing, it’s very different religion. And even if what the Jewish person is saying something you don’t agree with, just listen at least and say your side, you know we’re not a monolith. We aren’t one person with one mind. We aren’t going to agree on everything, and you know if someone said that something you said was anti-Semitic, don’t get defensive, let them explain why and try and be better. Because we’re not going around saying every single thing is anti-Semitic.

F: Of course, you have a reason

R: Call out celebrities when they promote dangerous things.

F: Yeah like dangerous ideas. I would like to personally work on what things are inherently anti-Semitic and have been popularized so I know and can share that info.

R: And also for the stuff I’ve seen recently, when people seem to be calling out anti-Semitism they call it out a lot more strongly with Black people and that’s a problem. Black people can be anti-Semitic, we saw that with Nick Canon, we saw that with Luis Farakesh, (Edit: She meant Louis Farrakhan)

F: Ice cube

R: We’ve seen Black celebrities say anti-Semitic things and also white celebrities so don’t just call it out when it’s just Black people. I’ve been following some Black dudes on twitter who are saying “Hey this makes me really uncomfortable. Why are you going so hard against this person and not against this person?” 

F: Yeah I guess I never thought about that with the Nick Canon thing. That was a mess. 

R: Yeah and what he said was completely wrong. 

F: I heard so many different versions of what he said, ... “Black people are beautiful” but wait no that’s not what he said

*laughs*

F: I do think um my question about POC people being anti-Semitic was based on Ice Cube, honestly. That shocked me, I was shocked, my jaw fell when he posted an anti-semitic image, not a swastika. How can you want support and then do this? So...

R: I think it’s the idea that they’re punching up.

F: Yeah, I’m glad you mentioned looking for how people react to a POC being anti-Semitic V. a white person because I can’t even recall the last time I heard a white person like be called out, or dragged/cancelled as much as Nick Canon. 

R: Yeah you’ll see it with the right-wing politicians, they’ll get called out, but you don’t see it from the moderates or left wing celebrities, even though they’re also out there saying things.

F: Like anyone can be anti-Semitic anyone can be racist and I think that’s why I want to share your perspective to help a little bit, because even your friends and family can be saying stuff like this, it’s important to not let it slip through (and think) “Oh they didn’t mean that”...address it. I hope this helps in some way. Thanks for letting me interview you

R: Thanks for wanting to interview me.

F: No problem. I’m gonna stop this and then we can talk a lil’ privately. Byeeee

R: Bye.

Let’s have a discussion! Did you learn anything new from this conversation?

Let me know here.

-

To close out each post, I’d like to write a lil’ paragraph about the person I talk with:

Rachel is kind and expresses her thoughts skillfully. Her resilience is deeply apparent because she’s able to study the horrific history of her people and still stay sane. That is a feat I could never, ever, live up to. Reliving pain takes such a huge amount of strength and power. Rachel’s kind words (and others’ from in the egg gang ;) ) really helped me when I was in a dark spot. I’m blessed that you took the time to talk with my wacky self. I hope we continue to be friends and I also hope you know that I’m always here for you, Rachel, as you were there for me. 

You are a treasure. 

-Faithxx

#intersectionality #jewish community #discussionswithfaith #twilight

[queermediastudies]

Putting the “Camp” Back in “Conversion Camp”

How But I’m a Cheerleader (2000) Makes a Comedy Out Of Conversion Therapy (And Whether or Not it Should)

Jamie Babbit’s cult classic, But I’m a Cheerleader (2000) paints a satirical portrait of what most queer youth fear most, conversion therapy. The titular cheerleader, Megan (Natasha Lyonne) is your typical all-American good girl. She goes to church, she never drinks, and she is even dating the high school football star. She is the kind of daughter that white, middle-class Americans dream of having, with one glaring exception. Megan is a lesbian. With the help of the self proclaimed “ex-gay” counselor Mike (RuPaul), her family and friends stage an intervention before shoving her off to True Directions, a conversion camp run by Mary Brown (Cathy Moriarty). Once there, she realizes that she is in fact a lesbian, one who is in love with her fellow camper, Graham (Clea Duvall). 

The film is hilariously over the top, hence it’s description as a camp classic. Babbit uses exaggerated gender roles to illustrate the intersection between gender performativity and sexuality. Unfortunately this decision to poke fun at heteronormative stereotypes come at a cost. Even the gay characters are uncomfortable stereotypes, and the film ignores any questions of intersectionality. Moreover, Babbit does not always handle the horrors of conversion therapy with the kind of tact and grace such a subject demands. Essentially, while the film attempts to show the ridiculousness of gay conversion, its use of stereotypes and one-dimensional characters lashes back to harm the very people Babbit is speaking on behalf of. 

One of the most easily recognizable problems with But I’m a Cheerleader is its overwhelming whiteness. There are all of four characters of color, and only one of those characters is a woman. Jan (Katrina Philips), the one woman of color, is treated terribly in the film. She shows up with a unibrow, dark mustache, shaved head, and baggy clothes. When she introduces herself, she smiles and says, “I’m Jan, and I’m a softball player, and I’m a homosexual” (00:14:36). Essentially, Jan is a lot of outdated stereotypes about lesbians put into one character. The twist, though, is that Jan is actually straight.

This is a good example of how Babbit attempts to tell an important message, but she fails to see the harm she causes while doing it. Jan’s character is essentially Megan’s foil. She is everything a “dyke” is supposed to be, except that she is not attracted to girls. Megan, on the other hand is a lesbian that completely defies all of the stereotypes that Jan encompasses. Both women are meant to discourage our tendency to make assumptions based on appearance. While that is a wonderful message, the problem is that Jan is the only woman of color. There is a definite lack of positive representation for masculine women of color, so there is nothing inherently wrong with having a black, butch character. However, black women are often portrayed as more masculine than white women in both fiction and non-fiction. One need only look at the conversations the media has had about Serena Williams or the New Jersey Four to see how black women are ascribed a level of masculinity that white women are not. In the film, this is exacerbated by the consistent assertion that Jan is ugly, which is never challenged by any of the characters. The motive behind Jan’s character was excellent, but it is clear that the consequences were not thought out. Babbit could have avoided the problematic elements of her character by adding in more women of color, giving the masculine stereotypes to a white character, or by having a conversation about how her blackness and dark facial hair affected how she was treated. Instead, the meaning of Jan’s character is one-dimensional, and she comes off as the butt of the joke rather than the harbinger of an important message. 

Jan is not the only character wrought with gay stereotypes. Andre (Douglas Spain) is the most stereotypically gay man in the film. Whether by coincidence or not, he is also a person of color. Regardless, his character is so stereotypical it is almost offensive. The boys are taught to play football, chop wood, and fix cars in the hopes that heteronormative activities will straighten them out, so to speak. Andre fails miserably at all of these tasks, which, again, is fine in concept. What is offensive is the way he flails about and shrieks in a way that is so unnatural it plays out like a bigot’s idea of what a gay man is really like.

There are other issues of intersectionality and representation that are not quite so garishly offensive. For example, Joel (Joel Michaely) is Jewish, and very devoutly so considering he is never seen with his yarmulke. The True Directions programs, however, is very Christian-oriented. This tension between the two religions is never addressed, and that is truly a shame. Moreover, race is not mentioned once. As previously mentioned, there are horrendously few characters of color. Even worse, however, is the fact that not one of them has a storyline that acknowledges the difficulties of being a gay person of color. The film is a comedy, so no one should expect an especially fruitful in depth analysis, but there is not even one or two off handed jokes about it. The fact of the matter is that the characters of color are not fully realized people. They are surface level representations that rattle off jokes. It should be acknowledged that pretty much all of the characters have this shallow level of development (such is the price one pays when creating a satire that makes such liberal use of stereotypes), but that is no excuse for not acknowledging how race plays a factor in homophobia and gender norms. Much of the movie is centered around learning how to “act straight”, but performances of gender and sexuality shift when different identities come into play. Harris and Holman Jones explain how intersectional performances play into feeling like a minority, “In “feeling queer,” racialized subjects intersect with religious, gendered and sexualized minoritarian subjects to “do” minoritarianism differently” (Harris and Holman Jones, 2017, p.574). In a film that is all about acting out the roles society demands, ignoring how people of color are expected to perform their minoriatarianism does an injustice to the topic at hand.

There is also a good bit of homonormativity, a concept that describes the push for queer people to fulfill heteronormative roles even in gay relationships. The three same sex couples we see in the film follow the general idea that one person in the relationship should be more feminine and the other more masculine, though some couples embody this concept more than others. Dolph (Dante Basco) and Clayton (Kip Pardue) are the couple that fit this mold the least, but one there are remnants of it in their relationship. Dolph is on the varsity football team, and Clayton is generally more demure and submissive. Unlike Dolph and Clayton, Graham and Megan fulfill their homonormative roles with a good amount of clarity. Graham is by no means butch, but she is more masculine than she is feminine, at least by society’s standards. She has short hair, she never wears skirts, and she has a tendency toward profanity and vulgarity. Megan, on the other hand, is, well, a cheerleader. She only wears skirts, she wears her hair long, and she spends most of the moving gasping at any mention of sex. Finally, there is the old gay couple, Lloyd (Wesley Mann) and Larry (Richard Moll) who are “ex-ex-gays” as the film calls them. Once again we see the more feminine half of the couple, Lloyd, performing typically feminine activities like setting up dinner and getting in touch with his emotions. Larry, on the other hand, is a curt, large, bearded man who is quick to anger. The two could easily fit in to any heterosexual sitcom. 

While domesticity is the goal for many queer couples, the film ventures into what Duggan (2002) calls, “equality politics,” (p. 44). Essentially, it is the trap that members of the gay community where they ask the powers that be for marriage and military equality. After that, they feel that there is nothing left to do, so they promise to depoliticize gay culture. Duggan describes them best when she writes, “These organizations, activists, and writers, promote ‘color-blind’ anti-affirmative action racial politics, conservative-libertarian ‘equality feminism,’ and gay ‘normality,’” (Duggan, 2002, p. 44). In it’s failure to acknowledge race and the enforcement of heterosexual roles onto gay characters, the film certainly demonstrates these equality politics and a message in favor of homonormativity.

Perhaps the most difficult to address issue with the film is the premise itself. It begs the question: should conversion therapy be used for comedy? Moreover, questions of how to do that respectfully arise, and, frankly, there were several instances where Babbit failed to do so. Babbit’s own history is important in understanding why she created a comedy about conversion therapy. She herself is a lesbian, and her mother worked at New Directions, a rehabilitation center for teens and young adults. Obviously, the name of the conversion camp, true directions, is a play on New Directions, and Babbit further explains the connection between her mother's career and But I’m a Cheerleader in an interview with Wheeler Winston Dixon. “So I'd always wanted to do a comedy about growing up in rehab, and the absurdity of that atmosphere. But I didn't want to make fun of twelve-step programs for alcoholism and drugs, because they really help people, but when you turn it into Homosexuals Anonymous, then I felt that was a situation I could have fun with” (Dixon, 2015, p. 2). Babbit likely felt that conversion therapy would be a harmless target because making fun of the programs and their leaders is not damaging to anyone. However, as we have seen with Jan and Andre, the queer community was not spared from the ridicule. Moreover, while belittling the programs themselves, Babbit made light of some truly traumatizing experiences. For instance, the teens are given electric wands, which they must use to shock themselves when they have “unnatural” thoughts. Pain-based aversion therapy is a very real, traumatizing experience that too many people have had to face. But I’m a Cheerleader makes a mockery of it by using it for a number of sex jokes and showing that it does not hurt that bad. Graham playfully shocks Megan with it, eliciting a yelp, but not much else. Another girl in the program, Sinead (Katherine Towne), proclaims that she likes pain. She is then shown in multiple scenes using the electricity as a masturbatory tool. There may be arguments in favor of this detail, perhaps that Babbit was trying to show how pain can be reclaimed and used for pleasure, but I personally find it tasteless. It is especially questionable since Babbit herself has never gone through that trauma. When creating gallows humor, one must examine if they are on the gallows or a member of the crowd. A person on the gallows who laughs is using humor to cope. A person in the crowd who laughs at the man getting hanged is simply cruel. It seems that Babbit believes that she, having experienced lesbianism, has just as much of a right to stories of conversion therapy as someone who actually experienced it. She does not. This is not to say that the premise of this film is off limits. Babbit simply should have been more careful in how she portrayed the horrors of conversion therapy.

But I’m a Cheerleader has the difficult job of being a breakout text. Cavalcante explains that a breakout text accomplishes three things, “ Breakout texts also generate three definitive breaks: (a) a break into the cultural main-stream, (b) a break with historical representational paradigms, and (c) a breaking into the every day lives of the audiences they purport to represent,” (Cavalcante, 2017, p. 2). It may have not been hugely successful, but it was popular enough to make its way into straight communities. Moreover, it breaks plenty of ideas of historic representation. Finally, it made its way into gay communities, and it has continued to live comfortably within them. This is why we need to be so hard on the film. As with anything that may be the foundation for someone’s knowledge about a topic (i.e. homosexuality, conversion therapy, gender non conforming heterosexuals, etc.) there is a responsibility to provide quality representations. Babbit sometimes fails to do so, and if that those failures are not examined critically, then harmful information will be mindlessly spread around.

As a pansexual woman, I am always looking for content that portrays strong, sapphic characters. I am also always on the fence about using tragedies to create humor. I am stuck between knowing that some people use humor to cope with trauma and wondering if people should be laughing at atrocities. That is what drew me to But I’m a Cheerleader. I enjoyed the film, in spite of its flaws, but I do have to say I was a bit hurt and disappointed. I am Latinx, and I have been teased about my dark facial hair in the past. Hearing Jan get torn into for her unibrow and mustache while the pretty, white women around her did nothing was really upsetting. Moreover, as someone who is undecided about particularly dark humor, I really do feel that Babbit was tactless in her making of this film. Still, there were elements that I truly loved. As mentioned in the title and the introduction, this film is beautifully camp. The 1950′s aesthetic that the straight people emulate obscures the setting of the film, and the garish colors tell a story all on their own. The gay men are forced to wear bright blue, and the lesbians are forced to wear pink. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, outside of the program wears brown, obscuring their own identities and showing just how they all fit in together. The set design is also used in a really stunning way. Every once in a while something, typically something that represents sex or genitalia, is placed in the background to remind viewers that the sexuality of the participants will never be erased.

When it comes down to it, But I’m a Cheerleader has heart, and it has a great message. It is immensely funny, and the characters are shallow but lovable. The film’s best attribute is that it shows that anyone can be gay or straight, regardless of our assumptions based on how well they perform gender norms. The criticism shown above should not discourage anyone from watching the film. Rather, it should encourage people to watch it while being able to recognize and accept the ways in which it can be hurtful. It can have harmful stereotypes, unhelpful ideologies, and tactless jokes, but it also has love, bite, and an abundance of humor.

References:

Cavalcante, A. (2017). Breaking Into Transgender Life: Transgender Audiences' Experiences With “First of Its Kind” Visibility in Popular Media. Communication, Culture & Critique, 10(3), 538-555. doi:10.1111/cccr.12165

Dixon, W. W. (2015). An Interview With Jamie Babbit. Post Script, 34(2).

Duggan, L. (2003). Equality, Inc. In The Twilight of Equality? Neoliberism, Cultural Politics and the Attack on Democracy (pp. 43-66). Boston: Beacon Press.

Harris, A., & Holman Jones, S. (2017). Feeling Fear, Feeling Queer: The Peril and Potential of Queer Terror. Qualitative Inquiry, 23(7), 561-568. doi:10.1177/1077800417718304

#QueerMedia #intersectionality #homonormativity #breakout text #But I'm a Cheerleader #Natasha Lyonne #Dante Basco #homophobia #conversion therapy #camp

[creepingsharia]

Terror-linked CAIR attempting to ”Train 200 Muslim Candidates to Run for Office”

Source: A site apparently run by CAIR called https://muslims.vote/strategic-election-plan/

Encourage and Train 200 Muslim Candidates to Run for Office​

CAIR or the Council on American Islamic Relations is a notorious Hamas front group that has had numerous leaders convicted, deported and/or tied to Islamic terrorist activity. They are a well-funded organization of legal jihadists that terrorize American citizens, corporations and organizations.

Read the article below for more background on CAIR.

...the Democratic-CAIR partnership

...

In 2014, the UAE published a list of 82 designated terrorist groups. Nestled between al-Qaida and ISIS was the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR, a group with deep ties to the Democratic Party.

The UAE designation was not a slander. As former US prosecutor Andrew McCarthy chronicled in his 2010 book, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, CAIR was founded in 1994 as a front organization for the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian branch Hamas. In conjunction with other Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood front groups and fundraising arms, CAIR’s job was to promote political Islam. Its operations, based in Washington, were to focus on political influence. To achieve this end, it presented itself as a civil rights organization.

As McCarthy and terror experts Daniel Pipes and Steve Emerson have copiously documented, CAIR’s ties to terrorism are legion and continuous. After 9/11, CAIR refused to condemn Osama bin Laden until after he acknowledged that he ordered the attacks. CAIR denied that al-Qaida was behind the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and demanded the removal of billboards in Los Angeles describing bin Laden as “the sworn enemy,” of the US claiming the depiction was “offensive to Muslims.”

Likewise, CAIR consistently refuses to condemn any terror attacks committed by Hezbollah or Hamas. Making this refusal explicit, in 2004, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad said, “If they want us to condemn a liberation movement inside Palestine or inside Lebanon they should condemn Israel dozens of times on all levels at all times, and we will not condemn any organization.”

Seven CAIR leaders have been convicted on terrorism charges. One of the convicted terrorists, Ghassen Elashi, had two jobs. Together with his brother in law, Hamas leader Mussa Abu Marzouk, Elashi founded the Holyland Foundation for Relief and Development, (HLF). HLF was Hamas’s fundraising arm in the US He was also the founding director of CAIR’s Texas branch. Following 9/11, federal authorities began investigating HLF and its ties to Hamas and in 2004, HLF was indicted for transferring millions of dollars to the Palestinian terror group. It was found guilty in 2007, and Elashi was sentenced to 65 years in prison. CAIR was named in the trial as an unindicted co-conspirator.

Senate Democratic Minority Leader Charles Schumer noted in 2003, “CAIR, we know has ties to terrorism…Prominent members of CAIR’s current leadership also have intimate connections with Hamas.”

One of the means CAIR uses to block criticism of jihadist Islam is intimidation. Rejecting criticism of Islam as “Islamophobic” opponents of the group risk being labeled as “hate groups” by CAIR or its allies if they dare to speak out against CAIR’s positions and goals. For instance, in 2014, CAIR waged a very public campaign to cancel showings on college campuses of “Honor Diaries“, a documentary by Muslim women exposing the cruelty suffered by women and girls in Islamic societies. The same year, CAIR compelled Brandeis University to cancel its plan to confer an honorary degree on Muslim feminist and human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Likewise, CAIR disparages and seeks to delegitimize counterterrorism investigations and investigators as “Islamophobic. A civil suit filed by the estate of 9/11 victim and former high-ranking FBI counter-terrorism agent John O’Neill, Sr. asserted that CAIR’s goal “is to create as much self-doubt, hesitation, fear of name-calling, and litigation within police departments and intelligence agencies as possible so as to render such authorities ineffective in pursuing international and domestic terrorist entities.”

CAIR actively supports the anti-Semitic boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign that seeks to ostracize Jewish supporters of Israel and economically harm Israel. Like Hamas, its members and leaders reject Israel’s right to exist. Although CAIR leaders and spokesmen insist that their rejection of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and support for Hamas, (whose covenant calls for the genocide of Jewry) is not anti-Semitic, CAIR leaders and spokesmen have often made inarguably anti-Semitic statements.

For instance, addressing a pro-Hamas rally in Washington, DC during the terror group’s 2014 war against Israel Awad, called Israel a “terror state,” and accused the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC of controlling and corrupting US politics. In his words, “AIPAC should have its hands off the United States Congress. They have corrupted our foreign policy; they have corrupted our political leaders.”

Like the Clinton administration before it, the George W. Bush administration was eager to develop outreach with Muslim Americans and CAIR was a beneficiary of that outreach. But in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration gradually began changing its position. In 2008, following the HLF trial, the FBI cut off its ties with CAIR.

Barack Obama reversed course. From the outset of his presidency, Obama shifted US foreign policy towards Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. At his June 4, 2009 speech at the University of Cairo where he called for a reordering of US ties with the Islamic world, Obama courted the Muslim Brotherhood. Ignoring then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s explicit request, Obama invited representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood to attend his speech.

Back home, among other things, Obama embraced CAIR.

According to terror researcher Patrick Poole, after the HLF verdict, in 2008 federal prosecutors in Dallas intended to indict CAIR for its role in terror funding. Shortly after entering office, then-attorney general Eric Holder ordered the Dallas prosecutors to end legal action against the group.

Senior administration officials held regular meetings with CAIR officials. According to White House visitor logs, CAIR officials visited the White House 20 times during Obama’s first term.

Since 2014, CAIR has focused on grafting its anti-Israel and anti-Semitic positions on the Black Lives Matter movement. Using the progressive language of intersectionalism, CAIR and its allies expanded their anti-law enforcement campaign to include a campaign to demonize policing in African American communities. The narrative they developed claims that African Americans are “Palestinians” and US law enforcement groups are “Israeli security forces.” The campaign has been wildly successful. In 2016, Black Lives Matter published a charter that explicitly embraced CAIR’s positions. Israel was castigated as an “apartheid” state that was committing “genocide.” BLM endorsed the BDS campaign and called for the US to end its military support for the Jewish state.

The Movement for Black Lives, an umbrella group that encompasses BLM has published identical anti-Semitic positions in its platform. Black Lives Matter demonstrations in recent months have included the defacing of synagogues and Jewish businesses with anti-Semitic graffiti in Los Angeles, Kenosha and other cities.

The inroads CAIR and allied activists and groups have made with BLM have earned it a powerful position in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party – currently the most powerful wing in the party. CAIR-allied politicians Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have advanced CAIR’s anti-Israel and anti-Jewish positions on the national stage. And CAIR in turn has been quick to castigate their critics as “Islamophobic.”

In January, CAIR announced it was launching a voter drive to register a million Muslim Americans to vote. As a sign of the group’s political power, 120 lawmakers, (117 Democrats and three Republicans), wrote letters of support for CAIR ahead of its annual gala that month.

In July, CAIR participated in the Million Muslim Voter Summit which endorsed and hosted Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Speaking at the conference, Awad noted that as a 501(C)3 organization, CAIR is barred from endorsing political candidates. He immediately added, “However … we have the pandemic of racism that has been elevated, promoted and endorsed by this administration….The White House is championing anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-black policies…I would like to hear on behalf of our constituents…from Vice President Biden, how soon is he planning to repeal the Muslim ban?”

Attesting to CAIR’s influence in the Democratic Party, in his remarks at the summit Biden pledged to end the so-called “Muslim ban,” on “day one,” of his administration.

At the Democratic Convention last month, CAIR ally and outspoken anti-Semite Linda Sarsour spoke at an event at the convention’s Muslim Caucus. Awad also spoke at the event. Sarsour’s prominence and notoriety for her repeated, well-publicized slurs of Jews has made her a lightning rod and her participation in the convention raised the hackles of Jewish activists and ignited Republican condemnation. Biden’s campaign spokesman Andrew Bates quickly distanced the campaign from Sarsour, condemning her bigotry and disavowing the BDS campaign she supports.

CAIR was infuriated. Awad condemned the campaign for distancing itself from Sarsour. “The Biden campaign has a long way to go to gain support from American Muslim voters,” he said.

Other Muslim and progressive groups including CodePink and MoveOne.org piled on.

In the hopes of controlling the damage, Biden’s top campaign advisors held a conference call with Muslim activists to apologize. Tony Blinken, Biden’s top foreign policy advisor apologized profusely and pledged that a Biden administration will be “genuinely inclusive” and ensure Arab and Muslim representation at the decision-making level.

Given CAIR’s power in the Democratic base, it is hard to imagine Biden long maintaining his anti-BDS position in any meaningful way. It is also hard to imagine a Biden administration building on the Israel-UAE alliance to strengthen America’s allies in the Middle East.

#Islam #Muslim #Jihad #Sharia #Legal #Law #Immigration #Elections #News #Media #Politics #Travel #Finance #Terror

[bookandcover]

Our monthly book for our family’s Anti-Racism Book Club, Sister Outsider is a collection of essays by foundational Feminism theorist and activist poet Audre Lorde. It was interesting and illuminating to appreciate, as I read, that these essays were penned and published between 1976 and 1983 because so many of the concepts Lorde explores are central to how race, gender, and sexuality are discussed, in academia and in activism, today. Most notably, in my mind, are her descriptions of intersectionality and how intersectionality operates in each life, shaping our perspectives and experiences. Lorde doesn’t use the term “intersectionality,” but this is what she so profoundly describes, as she advocates for unity through diversity (and not “in spite of” or “by erasing” differences). She offers an incredible message of hope. The task she sets to all of us is not an easy one, but it’s a powerful one and one she deeply believes in: through seeing each other more fully, through understanding the intersections of someone else’s complex identity and where that identity does or does not overlap with our own, we can find shared humanity and shared conviction to fight for change.

Audre Lorde is Black, female, lesbian, and the mother of two children. Her perspective and experiences are shaped by these different aspects of her identity, and she explains how each part of her multi-faceted identity has placed her outside of society’s “norms” in a variety of contexts. Even within sub-communities, she has found herself on the outside because of one of her identities. She describes how, when hoping to attend a Feminism conference for queer women, she wasn’t sure how to attend and care for her teenage son, as no boys over age 10 were allowed at the conference. Lorde’s identities do not have a “hierarchy of othering” nor are they separable from each other. Through these essays, she shows how these identities are linked, yet one may be more central to certain experiences than others. She identifies with women across the Feminist movement, yet her Blackness is often misunderstood or blatantly judged by white women. She identifies with Black men struggling against racism, and speaks about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., but she’s repeatedly othered and traumatized by the violence against Black women perpetuated by Black men. She speaks out about the violence and hatred from Black people directed at other Black people and she does a lot to explain and examine “internalized racism” (another term that she describes without using this exact wording, and yet it’s a concept that’s important in race discussion today). I wondered whether Lorde is credited with developing these concepts, and how other thinkers built on her ideas, and where the specific terminology itself came from. I’ll do some more digging.

In our family discussion, my sister pointed out how much she liked the part in the Introduction—written by a white, Jewish, Lesbian mother—in which the author explained that Lorde’s explanation of and examination of her intersectional identity allowed the author to examine her own. Although these two women’s identifies are not the same, the act of intersectional thinking and awareness  that Lorde demonstrates allowed the author of the Introduction to better think about these things in herself and to process how to discuss her complex identity with her son. I found this to be such a poignant point—that intersectionality can function as a tool. It doesn’t mean we need to identity with Lorde’s perspective in a specific sense (and the majority of readers will not be able to, having their own identities that are complex, but different than Lorde’s) but we can identify with her ways of thinking about identity. We can learn from her methodology and apply it to ourselves and to our interactions with others. There are a lot of aspects of our intersectional identities that we take for granted on a daily basis. These are the ones that align with the “norm,” the privileged identity in America, and therefore are those we are not forced by others to repeatedly be aware of…the world is designed to fit those aspects of identity. But that doesn’t mean we should not actively examine these aspects of identity as well, and I feel that intersectionality helps us do this, helps us “check our privilege” in these areas. If I read about the experiences of a Black, female lesbian, I gain new understanding of the things I take for granted in my whiteness and my heterosexuality. If I read something written by someone with a physical handicap, I gain new understanding of how I take my able-bodiedness for granted. This does not work only across one dimension, but across many dimensions simultaneously, as I feel affinity for Lorde in her femaleness, but also nuanced understanding of how her experience of being female has been fundamentally different than my own.

This book gave me confidence to speak up about race and identity, more so, I think, than any other we’ve read since June 2020. Because identity is so complex, I am going to make mistakes. I am going to be blatantly racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, and many more things, as these things are ingrained in all of us by society. I am going to be the most blind in the areas where I have experienced the most privilege. But each person’s identity is complex, and race conversations are not “us versus them”—it’s “me and you,” talking and processing, and trying to get to know our differences. Lorde has such a strong conviction in the process of unity, of coming through understanding of each other and each other’s diversity. And it’s clear that this is only achieved through closeness, through effort, through work and discussion (which is inherently painful because it works out the deep thorns of hatred). Lorde’s faith in this is so powerful and it uplifted me to try, with each person, to get closer to understanding their intersectional identities. I know that this is not a project that I can expect another person to enter into with me, and Lorde points to several times when she’s exhausted by this work, when she acknowledges how less emotionally-taxing certain conversations about race with white people would be if they were conducted by another white person.

I think that, on some deep level, I have always struggled with a fear of misspeaking about race. This is a funny fear to have because I have already misspoken about race. I have said things out of ignorance, out of racism, that have hurt others, probably more times than I know. I have had friends call me out. I have apologized. I have felt sad about the impact of my words. I have felt ashamed about my ignorance. Why would I still dread these experiences? I guess, because they are painful, and no one likes anything painful, but they are definitely less painful for me. So I try to overcome my fear of them. I think I am someone who craves the approval of others. I like to be liked, something cultivated from a very young age when I won the approval of teachers and of my parents by being a strong student. I didn’t really have the experience of disappointing someone (I probably should have, so I could have made tools earlier for dealing with it). Why do I want/need the approval of strangers? Why do I want to be liked? Why does this factor into a fear of judgment and of misspeaking? I think as I’ve grown up I’ve improved at taking criticism. I am good at taking criticism on things I produce: my writing, my school work, my work work. I am getting pretty good at taking personal criticism from loved ones—“you said x and that hurt my feelings”—I am good at admitting fault. I do not feel insecure about mistakes or failures. Yet, I’m somehow more afraid of hurting strangers, and the hurt that comes from speaking up and hurting others about race. My logical mind rejects this—“your hurt is microscopic and should not be the focus when you’ve hurt others”—but I also know I still feel this. I’m not doing a great job of talking myself out of it.

Audre Lorde, however, is. My favorite moment in this book is the following quote:

“If I speak to you in anger, at least I have spoken to you: I have not put a gun to your head and shot you down in the street…”

I felt this moment strike me deeply and shift something tectonic within me. I felt this change the way I thought about my fear. I felt the incredible power of someone telling me I’ve hurt them, of being willing and able to do that. Yes, I still would not want to hurt someone else because I would not want to hurt them. But I feel, in a new way, that I am not afraid of misspeaking on race because of the backlash on me. I need to try to not hurt others, but I will. And when I do, I will need to try harder. I will be grateful for words of anger because they are WORDS. Words are not something of which to be afraid; words are opportunities.

Another striking part of this book for me was the conversation between Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde. I’m a big fan of Rich’s poetry and routinely taught “Diving Into the Wreck” to my students, as a way to talk about Feminism and identity. I really appreciated seeing these women converse, modeling, I felt, the approach to conversations around intersectionality that Lorde supports. These two women don’t hold back, and they don’t always agree. Yet, their friendship and trust deepens through their acts of disagreement and reckoning. The best part of this essay, for me, was when Lorde brings up how Rich asked her on the phone in a conversation around race to provide “documentation” of her perspective, as a way to help Rich “perceive what you perceive.” Lorde, however, takes this request as one coming from an academic/rationalist perspective, a perspective that has often been employed to discredit Lorde’s own, as a “questioning of her perceptions” (which, white men academics too often feel, are suspect when coming from a Black woman). Neither Rich nor Lorde backs off their approach—Rich tying this need for documentation to how seriously she takes the spaces between her and Lorde that she seeks to fill with information and understanding, and Lorde pointing out that documentation supports analysis and not perception, which is the way the world is directly received by her, a Black woman. I don’t think this conversation is colored by them being respectful of each other in their words and language, but by the honesty that is evidence of deep and true respect.

This book is bookended by two essays that take place aboard—the first in Russia and the last in Grenada. In both, Lorde has another identity that she comments on less explicitly, but that is nevertheless explored: that of the English-speaking American aboard. She’s supported by translators and guides throughout her academic trip to Russia, and she experiences Grenada in terms of the American Imperialist invasion that overwrote the narrative of the local people with whom she feels strong affinity through her mother. In Russia, Lorde compares and contrasts the systems she sees at play with American systems (the poor, horrified Russian man to whom she explains that Americans don’t have universal healthcare and if you can’t afford it, “sometimes you die”). Reading Lorde’s descriptions of her trips invoked in me a deep desire to travel, a pining for those experiences that I’ve tried to stamp down firmly in the past year, but travel has been such a significant part of my life over the past 5 years…it’s hard to silence my longing. (I cried yesterday morning about wanting to visit the remains of Troy where they’ve been unearthed in western Turkey near Canakkale…) I felt like these bookends helped me expand the principles of intersectionality beyond the American Black-white dynamic, although this is the hugest and most painful power dynamic impacting America today, to remember that these issues are universal. Lorde focuses more universally than some of the other authors we’ve read recently, focusing her commentary on all aspects of her identity, and not solely race. Struggles around race, gender, sexuality, nationality, and many other aspects of identity are occurring around the world, and it’s important to work to understand the intersectionality of others’ lives and experiences in a complex, nuanced way. By doing this, Lorde shows, we can direct our emotions and our efforts vertically, working to dismantle stratified systems of inequality, rather than battling over differences on a horizontal plane.  

#sister outsider #audre lorde #important reading #talking about race #talking about sexuality #talking about gender #intersectionality #intersectional feminism #feminism #reading blog #fifth book of 2021