#things Jews are blamed for | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

princesssarcastia · 7 months

Text

the way public discourse is profoundly failing both Palestinians and Israelis in turns isn't surprising, but it sure is a depressing refresher on the importance of refusing to dehumanize anyone. the importance of remembering that states are not moral actors; and that a nation's government is not its people, and often does not represent the will of its people.

i mean, shit, as an american, how fucked would i be if people in other countries tried to hold me responsible for the bloody things my government has done in my name? pretty goddamn fucked. so i should refuse to level that condemnation at anyone else.

so as we watch netanyahu call this terrorist attack israel's 9/11, and watch his administration gear up to carry out what might charitably be labeled ethnic cleansing, if not outright genocide, against people who had fuck all to do with it, in some twisted strongman show of force and revenge, in a continuation of the same violence that will only beget more violence as it always does...

i can only see the specters of the american wars in afghanistan and iraq. and i can refuse to condemn israeli people for the actions of their government. all while expressing grief and outrage at the atrocity hamas committed against israel. its truly fucking horrifying what they did, and what israeli people suffered.

and also, as someone whose government has a long, torrid history supporting right-wing dictatorships and leaders, to the detriment of those leaders' peoples and also, to the eventual detriment of americans...

as someone whose country literally lived through the frame of reference that netanyahu is using to contextualize what israel's government is about to do...

i can say firmly that israel's government, much like america's government, creates its own demons. this is what happens when you visit nothing but war and cruelty upon a group of people. this is the end result! this is always the end result of oppression and violence. you reap what you sow.

that doesn't justify what hamas did, or what it will continue to do in the coming days. but goddamn, if you spend decades taking away people's homes, taking away their opportunities for economic advancement, refusing them any meaningful participation in their own governance, penning them in with no resources and no hope, and then gunning them down in the streets when they try to protest it or otherwise acceptably fight for change and progress—

you will always end up where we are right now. always. if you leave a group of people with no other option within a system but to wait for better days and kinder enemies and suffer horrors in the meantime, some of them will inevitably radicalize and seek violent options outside that system.

and millions of Palestinian people are now going to suffer, and die, and become further displaced, as they have suffered for decades. because israel's government, like america's government, can't stop sowing the seeds that inevitably grow into its deadliest enemies.

so long as they continue to oppress palestinian people, things like this will continue to happen. which is why we should take every opportunity to condemn that oppression, and why i can refuse to condemn palestinian people for the actions of hamas. all while expressing grief and outrage at the atrocity the israeli government is committing against paelstine.

#and to all those motherfuckers on twitter now blaming egypt for what's about to happen...#really sincerely FUCK you. fuck y'all #hamas ≠ palestinians #and the israeli government ≠ the israeli people #and CERTAINLY the israeli government ≠ jewish people generally #if you wanna condemn groups or actors for the atrocities being handed out like fucking candy right now--#good! me too!#but don't conflate palestinians with hamas #and don't conflate israelis—or jews—with netanyahu's government #and be sure you're not dismissing or dehumanizing any of the real people #who are suffering and dying for things outside their control #i might delete this later?#but idk. after several days of consuming mainstream news coverage #and select punditry coverage #and unfortunately also some truly disgusting hot twitter takes #my own thoughts are finally coalescing into something coherent #wanted to get it out

11 notes · View notes

lemonynuggets · 5 months

Text

I might not talk a lot abt serious topics on any of my socials and might not understand much about anything bc I don’t follow news but I feel like I should leave it clear that I want Israel to cease fire

Yeah I’m jewish and it makes me so sad that people are acting like every Jewish person is a zionist, I can tell what’s a genocide and I can tell that that’s what Israel is doing rn, and I don’t believe ANYONE deserves to be a victim of one

So, yes, I’m jewish, no, I don’t agree with destroying Palestine

#I feel like I worded that very wrong #It came out kinda selfish #i didn’t mean to make this sound like it’s about me idk im sorry I’m anxious #But yeah I believe everyone deserves to be free and like. If u have a problem with someone just talk like adults instead of killing everyon #I just felt the need to talk abt this also bc I’ve been seeing a lot of people blaming jews as a whole instead of the Israeli government #And like we don’t need growing antisemitism together with a fucking genocide #Things are so bad already #Just be nice to each other #Please

8 notes · View notes

rotzaprachim · 1 year

Text

a wild flavor of tumblr user is a certain kind of white American self id’d leftist or commie who reblogs and posts things about I just think all liberals and centrists should DIE (*guillotine* meme) and then posts things needing to be nicer to demographics that vote 80% Republican and are very systemically involved in the structural and practical oppression of people of color and the whole US hegemony like brooo I get having a seriously messy relationship with your own cultural background but who are you talking about? Guillotining everyone at mawmaw’s thanksgiving?

#My mom was bitter about white middle American farmers and like it made me kind of …..#but also they do fucking vote 70-80% Republican and horrifically abuse the millions of undocumented laborers who run the system #But I see this kind of thing with a lot of white working class American groups #It’s not an argument against empathy we any group we all need more empathy #It’s that a) I think white Americans who got into leftism by themselves often end up #In this violence-centric ideas of reform that are still intensely conservative and culturally Christian #Like bro you just want to kill everyone to make a better shiny world of good people bro #And b) they have exceedingly little empathy with why people from any other background might have family or complex relationships #To conservative ideology #The white leftist culturally xtian relationship to many diasporic groups etc #Idk it’s interesting……#Also like I’m not letting anyone off the hook but uh some of the language that gets pulled up in these talks #Can be a weird reflection of Fox News rhetoric #The Real WorkinG Class (from predominantly white and rural areas)#Versus the Coastal *Liberals* and *urban people* at fault for income inequality #Or the death of American working class leftism or something #Like blaming that specifically on California and New York and or some of the areas with the highest proportions of people of color and Jews #It’s just like hmmmmm sussssss to me

21 notes · View notes

ganymedecatamitus · 7 months

Text

I'm not going to pretend to know what I'm talking about. My family has lived in America since 1952. I've never been to Israel, I've never been to Palestine. I'm not a diplomat or an aid worker. But I do know that people in the same position as me like to pretend that they know more. I ask only in the coming days that you do not take anyone at face value, that you give the time for at least a cursory Google search to make sure what they say is even true. That you question everything, from every side. That you not rely on black and white moralism, that you care about people as people, and that you form your own deeply held beliefs.

Because people in my position will be regurgitating the opinions of others, either of those in the same positions as us, or of random authority figures (which is arguably worse than unvetted opinions of other people, as they have elections to win and public opinions to sway). People are dying, people have been dying. The only thing we can do is accept the truth, not what we think is the truth, not what makes us feel better, not what empowers us, but the truth.

But I will say an obligatory "this is the British empire's fault" because, well, that's the truth.

#it drives me crazy that no one points that out because its TRUE #britain colonized palistine first and then hoarded it for 90 years deploying taxes #then after the holocaust the european leadership REALLY didn't want jewish people moving back jnto their homes #cause then. y'know. they'd actually face conseuences for allowing all that to happen #and britain was like 'hey guys great idea. what if i just scooted these people over'#'and we dumped the jews over here. and then blamed it all on a fringe political movement'#'and then anything that happens there isn't our fault. we can blame that fringe idea that doesnt have majority support'#'wipe our hands clean of the whole thing. ee get to make a mess and then leave #'we LOVE doing that its our favourite thing'#i don't wanna tag this post because it feels ghoulish I might change my mind but idk

10 notes · View notes

former-leftist-jew · 4 months

Text

"Christa... I felt the same. That it would have been better if I was never born at all. The world hated me just for existing. To give countless joy to many people, I gave up my life. But - when I did, I wished from the bottom of my heart. If someday I was given a second chance at life... This time. I would live for no one but myself!"

Ymir (left), convincing her beloved Cyrsta (right) to stop lowkey throwing herself into suicide missions to please the society that openly wish she'd never been born... because Ymir has spent her whole life hating herself for being Jewish "Aldean."

I'll admit, when I first saw this scene in Attack on Titan, I cried for like an hour, and had to process it for like a day. This show understands what it's like to go from a self-hating Jew trying to "pass" as goy, to learning to love yourself and live for those you love, despite the people who want you dead, better than most media I could name.

#attack on titan #ymir x christa #ymir x historia #ymir #i avoided attack on titan for YEARS #because i'd heard it was antisemetic #then the same leftists who called it antisemetic #cheered on the people yelling 'gas the jews' 'fuck the jews'#so i decided “fuck it”#“I'll watch this series myself and make up my own mind”#i will say this #watching this series after oct 7 #hit much different than if i'd watched it before #so much of the historic fantasy antisemitism and racism it discusses is what irl jews are going through RIGHT NOW #the world openly hating and reviling us #blaming us for the sins of our ancestors #blaming us for the actions of a gov't we're not part of and can't control #holding us responsible for the actions of random jews we've NEVER MET and whom we have no control over #holding us all personally responsible for every bad thing one of our people has ever done #meanwhile excusing every act of aggression against us as justified #and condemning every act of self-defense for ourselves as inexcuseable

6 notes · View notes

schraubd · 10 months

Text

Things Jews Are Blamed For Volume LXVI: The Wagner Coup

Seemingly as soon as it began, the "Wagner Coup" in Russia has come to an end. Shortly after taking control of the city of Rostov-on-Don and turning towards Moscow, Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin announced he was backing down in a deal brokered by Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko. (Prigozhin's safe transfer to Belarus has reportedly been "guaranteed" by Putin. Good luck with that).

But as brief as it was, things move quickly in the fast-paced ecosystem of the antisemitic conspiracy theory world (maybe why we had a two-fer today!). So in the short window when Wagner was on the march, we got some oh-so-typical content from sources close to the Kremlin:

The head of Russia's state-run television network RT said Saturday there was "no doubt" that the ongoing uprising by the Wagner mercenary group against the Kremlin was orchestrated by the secret services of the US, Britain and "perhaps one Mideastern country," a clear reference to Israel.

RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan is notorious for trafficking in baseless conspiracies and spreading false information at the behest of the Kremlin.

The "irony" is that Israel, of course, has been among the more tepid supporters of Ukraine compared to most of the western world, and thus seems quite unlikely to wade into the fray by supporting regime change in Russia. But plausibility was never the antisemite's strong suit.

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/c9umW3L

#anti-semitism #conspiracy theories #coup #Russia #things Jews are blamed for

45 notes · View notes

halalchampagnesocialist · 7 days

Text

How to spot Liberal Zionist Propaganda 101

This post is by no means exhaustive at all. There are many Liberal Zionist talking points but these are just some of the most common ones. While on the surface they seem a little naive and hopeful at best, they are very much harmful. If you claim to be an ally to Palestinians, this post is primarily for you!

For starters, liberal Zionists will often try to both-sides the issue of Palestine, talk about how it's complicated, they'll claim that the conflict hurts both Israelis and Palestinians, how the only way forward is one where Jews and Arabs "just need to get along," amongst other things. They also often like to centre themselves, even when acknowledging Palestinians as the victims of Israel or this "conflict." From time to time, they also like to engage in tokenising certain Palestinians whose views tend to more or less align with theirs. Here are some common arguments you may hear from them:

1. Any form of justifying Israel's existence or claiming that the only solution is two states

It does not really need to be said why justifying Israel's existence is harmful but justifying its continued existence also means legitimising Israel's land theft, its expulsions of Palestinians, and its ongoing harm to Palestinians and other populations. Reducing any sorts of “solutions” into a binary is unhelpful. Needless to say, a 2ss would not even address any legitimate concerns Palestinian have, such as the right of return, and would only legitimise Israel’s colonialism. Talking about a two-state solution also implies that the root of the conflict lies in Palestinians not having their own state rather than being an occupied people. It is very much also possible to construct a paradigm where Jews and Palestinians both live together on the same land as equal citizens that doesn't involve two separate states, much less an ethnostate.

2. Security for Israel could only come through peace

This is a similar talking point to the one above. Not only does it centre Israeli safety and security above Palestinian liberation but it mistakenly assumes that once Israel makes peace with Palestinians, it'll achieve security. The reality, however, is that Israel's imagined security has quite often come at the expense of peace. In fact, "peace" has just acted as nothing more than a smoke-screen for Israel to carry out its expansionist policies, particularly in the West Bank. When liberal Zionists talk about peace juxtaposed with Israeli security, they're talking about attaining a negative peace rather than a positive one.

3. Israelis are not their government.

This point does nothing to actually help Palestinians. It is also an incredibly tone-deaf thing to say when Israel has targeted many Palestinian civilians by having alleged proximity to Hamas, such as being family members of militants or leaders (inc. children!), civil servants in a Hamas-led government, or even any male above the age of 15 they consider to be a potential combatant! It also deliberately erases Israeli civilians' support of and culpability in Israel's actions towards Palestinians.

4. Netanyahu and/or the Israeli right are the source of conflict.

While it is true that things have gotten inadvertently worse under Israel's various right-wing governments, they are not the source of conflict, but rather a product of extremist nationalism and Jewish supremacy perpetuated by the system. Both the 1967 occupations and settlements were undertaken under centre-left governments in Israel, and Israeli policy under non-right wing governments has been just as harmful towards Palestinians and has paved the way for where we are today. Blaming Netanyahu just also obscures the violent nature of Israel's military occupation over Palestinians which long precede him coming into power.

5. Netanyahu and Hamas are two sides of the same coin

I don't think I've seen any allies give validity to this claim but it's an extremely reductionist claim and is sort of similar to the one above. Groups like Hamas are merely a response to the Israeli occupation while Netanyahu is a byproduct of it. While some Israelis may see Hamas or their actions as an "obstacle to peace," Israel's actions and policies long pre-date Hamas and how Israel is currently responding to Hamas is no different to how Israel has engaged with Palestinian militant groups in the past, regardless of political affiliations or political goals. It is also important to note that Hamas has agreed to the establishment of a state along 1967 borders while Netanyahu aims to prolong the occupation and empower the settler movement (some of whom are part of his coalition government) as much as possible.

6. Israel is not a settler-colonial state.

While it is indisputable that Jews have historical connections to Palestine, that doesn’t automatically make you Indigenous or negate Israeli settler-colonialism. Colonialism in particular describes a relationship of exploitation. There are many cases of this, but we most clearly see this in the West Bank where Israel exploits natural resources on occupied Palestinian territory for its own political and economic gains. In terms of settler-colonialism, it is widely known that Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to make way for Jewish refugees and migrants to the new state of Israel, and is still actively facilitating Jewish migration to Israel today while denying Palestinians their right of return.

7. (X) doesn't help Palestinians.

It is not up to anyone to determine whether certain tactics or strategies are helpful or not. This point only seeks to discredit pro-Palestine organising. Only Palestinians get to decide what is actually helpful for the cause or not.

8. Any sort of Hamas-blaming.

On the surface it may seem like there’s nothing wrong with this, but this point is often harmful and usually lends itself to right-wing talking points because its objective is to deflect blame away from Israel. Certain arguments blaming Hamas also aim to minimise Palestinian suffering perpetuated by Israel. It also paints Israeli violence as retaliatory to Palestinian violence which only obfuscates Israel’s (and by extension, the US’) role in its state military apparatus and the differing power dynamics between Israelis and Palestinians. In other contexts, this point seeks to also legitimise certain opposition, such as the Palestinian Authority. Hamas-blaming also tends to sometimes lead to racist diatribes about Palestinians and their culture.

9. Al-Jazeera is not a credible news source.

Al Jazeera is a news source like any other. It has varying editorial policies and therefore will have equally good reporting on certain issues while having terrible reporting on others. The difference is that Al-Jazeera's news on Palestine is credible because it comes directly from their Palestinian reporters on the ground and first-hand eyewitness accounts. Western news sources are no more or less credible than al-Jazeera. Compare this to CNN, NYT, and any other Western news sources where Palestinian voices are often entirely missing from the narrative.

10. Overemphasis of antisemitism on the left

Antisemitism is a real issue and has the potential to fester in left circles if not directly addressed head on. Combatting antisemitism is extremely important, however, it is not an issue exclusive to the left. There is also a double standard in that no one expects Zionists to call out Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism. Certain accusations of "antisemitism" also seek to distract from what's going on in Palestine by making it about Jewish comfort and feelings. Combatting antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism etc is always important as the basis of good politics.

Last but not least, be wary of native collaborators or any sort of normalisers! They are Palestinians or Arabs who try very hard to appeal to Western liberal consensus and can end up perpetuating a lot of harm to the cause and/or other activists. You will know them when you see them.

#palestine #israel #liberal zionism #other palestinians feel free to add onto this whether it be other points or anything else

4K notes · View notes

stephobrien · 2 months

Text

Is your pro-Palestine activism hurting innocent people? Here's how to avoid that.

Note: If you prefer plain text, you can read the plain text version here.

Over the last few days, I’ve had conversations with several Jewish people who told me how hurt and scared they are right now.

To my great regret, some of that pain came from a poorly-thought-out post of mine, which – while not ill-intentioned – WAS hurtful.

And a lot of it came from cruelty they’d experienced at the hands of people who claim to be advocating for Palestine, but are using the very real plight of innocent Palestinians to harm equally innocent Jewish people.

Y’all, we need to do better. (Yes, “we” definitely includes me; this is in no small part a “learn from my fail” post, and also a “making amends” post. Some of these are mistakes I’ve made in the past.)

So if you’re an advocate for Palestine who wants to make sure that your defense of one group of vulnerable people doesn’t harm another, here are some important things to do or keep in mind:

Ask yourself if you’re applying a standard to one group that you aren’t applying to another.

Would you want all white Americans or Canadians to be expelled from America or Canada?

Do you want all Jewish people to be expelled from Israel, as opposed to finding a way to live alongside Palestinian Arabs in peace?

If the answer to those two questions is different, ask yourself WHY.

Do you want to be held responsible for the actions of your nation’s army or government? No? Then don’t hold innocent Jewish people, or Israelis in general (whether Jewish or otherwise), responsible for the actions of the Israeli army and government.

On that subject, be wary of condemning all Israeli people for the actions of the IDF. Large-scale tactical decisions are made by the top brass. Service is compulsory, and very few can reasonably get out of service.

Blaming all Israelis for the military’s actions is like blaming all Vietnam vets for the horrors in Vietnam. They’re not calling the shots. They aren’t Nazis running concentration camps. They are carrying out military operations that SHOULD be criticized.

And do not compare them or ANY JEWISH PERSON to Nazis in general. It is Jewish cultural trauma and not outsiders’ to use against them.

Don’t infuse legitimate criticism with antisemitism.

By all means, spread the word about the crimes committed by the Israeli army and government, and the complicity of their allies. Criticize the people responsible for committing and enabling atrocities.

But if you imply that they’re committing those crimes because they’re Jewish, or because Jewish people have special privileges, then you’re straying into antisemitic territory.

Criticize the crime, not the group. If you believe that collective punishment is wrong, don’t do it yourself.

And do your best to use words that apply directly to the situation, rather than the historical terms for situations with similar features. For example, use “segregation,” “oppression,” or “subjugation,” not “Holocaust” or “Jim Crow.” These other historical events are not the cultural property of Jews OR Palestinians, but also have their own nuances and struggles and historical contexts.

Also, blaming other world events on Jewish people or making Jewish people associated with them (for instance, some people falsely blame Jewish people for the African slave trade) is a key feature of how antisemitism functions.

Please, by all means, be specific and detailed in your critiques. But keep them focused on the current political actors – not other peoples’ or nations’ political or cultural histories and traumas.

Be prepared to accept criticism.

You probably already know that society is infused with a wide array of bigotries, and that people growing up in that environment tend to absorb those beliefs without even realizing it. Antisemitism is no exception.

What that means is, there’s a very real chance that you will screw up, and get called out on it, as I so recently did.

If that happens, please be willing to learn and adapt. If you can educate yourself about the suffering and needs of Palestinians, you can do the same for Jewish people.

Understand that the people you hurt aren’t obligated to baby you. Give them room to be angry.

After I made a post that inadvertently hurt people, some were nice about it, and others weren’t. Some outright insulted my morals and intelligence.

And I had to accept that I’d earned that from them.

I’d hurt them, and they weren’t obligated to be more careful with my feelings than I had been with theirs.

They weren’t obligated to forgive me, trust me, or stop being mad at me right away.

I’ll admit, there were moments when I got defensive. I shouldn’t have. And I encourage you to try not to, if you screw up and hurt people.

I know that’s hard, but it’s important. Getting defensive only tells people you care more about doubling down on your mistake than you do about healing the hurt it caused.

Instead, acknowledge that they have a right to be angry, apologize for the way you hurt them, and try to make amends, while understanding that they don’t owe you trust or forgiveness.

Be aware that some antisemites are using legitimate complaints to “Trojan horse” antisemitism into leftist spaces.

This is a really easy stumbling block to trip over, because most people probably don’t look at every post a creator makes before sharing the one they’re looking at right now.

I recently shared a video that called out some of the Likud and IDF’s atrocities and hypocrisy, and that also noted that many Jewish people are wonderful members of their communities.

I was later informed that, while that video in particular seemed reasonable, the creator behind it is frequently antisemitic.

I deleted the post, and blocked the creator. I encourage you to do the same if it’s brought to your attention that you’ve been ‘Trojan horse’d.

EDIT: Important note about antisemitism in leftist spaces:

While it's true that some blatant antisemites are using seemingly reasonable posts to get their foot in the door of leftist spaces, it's also true that a lot of antisemitism already exists inside those spaces.

This antisemitism is often dressed up in progressive-sounding language, but nonetheless singles Jewish people and places out in ways that aren't applied equally to other groups, or that label Jewish people in ways that portray them as acceptable targets.

If you want to see some specific examples, so you can have a better idea of what to keep an eye out for, I suggest reading this excellent reblog of this post.

Fact-check your doubts about antisemitism.

Depending on which parts of the internet you look at, you’ve probably seen people accused of antisemitism because they complained about the Likud and/or IDF’s actions. So you might be primed to be wary, or feel unsure of how to tell what counts as real antisemitism.

But that doesn’t mean antisemitism isn’t a very real, widespread, and harmful problem. And it doesn’t mean many or even most Jewish people are lying to you or being overly sensitive.

So if someone says something is antisemitic, and you aren’t sure, I encourage you to:

A. Look up the action or thing in question, including its history. Is there an antisemitic history or connotation you aren’t aware of? For best results, include “antisemitic” in your search query, in quotes.

B. Understand that some things, while not inherently antisemitic, have been used by antisemites often enough that Jewish people are understandably wary of them. Schrodinger’s antisemitism, if you will.

C. Ask Jewish people WHO HAVE OFFERED TO HELP EDUCATE YOU. Emphasis on WHO HAVE OFFERED. Random Jewish people aren’t obligated to give you their time and emotional energy, or to educate you – especially on subjects that are scary or painful for them.

@edenfenixblogs has kindly offered her inbox to those who are genuinely trying to learn and do better, and I’ve found her to be very kind, patient, reasonable, and fair-minded.

Understand that this is URGENTLY NEEDED.

In one of my conversations with a Jewish person who’d called me out, they said this was the most productive conversation they’d had with a person with a Palestinian flag in their profile.

THIS IS NOT OKAY.

I didn’t do anything special. All I did was listen, apologize for my mistakes, and learn.

Yes, it feels good to be acknowledged. But I feel like I’ve been praised for peeing IN the toilet, instead of beside it.

Apologizing, learning, and making amends after you hurt people shouldn’t be “the most reasonable thing I’ve heard from a person with a Palestinian flag pfp.”

It should be BASIC DECENCY.

And the fact that it’s apparently so uncommon should tell you how much unnecessary stress and fear Jewish people have been living with because of people who consider themselves defenders of human rights.

By all means, be angry at the Likud, the IDF, and the politicians, reporters, and specific media outlets who choose to enable and cover up for them.

But direct that anger toward the people who deserve it and are in a position to do something about it, not random people who simply happen to be Jewish, or who don’t want millions of people to be turned into refugees when less violent methods of achieving freedom and rights for Palestinians are available.

Stop peeing beside the toilet, people.

#I/P #I/P conflict #I/P war #Israel #Palestine #Gaza #free Palestine #Israel Palestine conflict #Israel Palestine war #Jewish goyim solidarity #choose peace

3K notes · View notes

specialagentartemis · 11 months

Text

I get variations on this comment on my post about history misinformation all the time: "why does it matter?" Why does it matter that people believe falsehoods about history? Why does it matter if people spread history misinformation? Why does it matter if people on tumblr believe that those bronze dodecahedra were used for knitting, or that Persephone had a daughter named Mespyrian? It's not the kind of misinformation that actually hurts people, like anti-vaxx propaganda or climate change denial. It doesn't hurt anyone to believe something false about the past.

Which, one, thanks for letting me know on my post that you think my job doesn't matter and what I do is pointless, if it doesn't really matter if we know the truth or make up lies about history because lies don't hurt anyone. But two, there are lots of reasons that it matters.

It encourages us to distrust historians when they talk about other aspects of history. You might think it's harmless to believe that Pharaoh Hatshepsut was trans. It's less harmless when you're espousing that the Holocaust wasn't really about Jews because the Nazis "came for trans people first." You might think it's harmless to believe that the French royalty of Versailles pooped and urinated on the floor of the palace all the time, because they were asshole rich people anyway, who cares, we hate the rich here; it's rather less harmless when you decide that the USSR was the communist ideal and Good, Actually, and that reports of its genocidal oppression are actually lies.

It encourages anti-intellectualism in other areas of scholarship. Deciding based on your own gut that the experts don't know what they're talking about and are either too stupid to realize the truth, or maliciously hiding the truth, is how you get to anti-vaxxers and climate change denial. It is also how you come to discount housing-first solutions for homelessness or the idea that long-term sustained weight loss is both biologically unlikely and health-wise unnecessary for the majority of fat people - because they conflict with what you feel should be true. Believing what you want to be true about history, because you want to believe it, and discounting fact-based corrections because you don't want them to be true, can then bleed over into how you approach other sociological and scientific topics.

How we think about history informs how we think about the present. A lot of people want certain things to be true - this famous person from history was gay or trans, this sexist story was actually feminist in its origin - because we want proof that gay people, trans people, and women deserve to be respected, and this gives evidence to prove we once were and deserve to be. But let me tell you a different story: on Thanksgiving of 2016, I was at a family friend's house and listening to their drunk conservative relative rant, and he told me, confidently, that the Roman Empire fell because they instituted universal healthcare, which was proof that Obama was destroying America. Of course that's nonsense. But projecting what we think is true about the world back onto history, and then using that as recursive proof that that is how the world is... is shoddy scholarship, and gets used for topics you don't agree with just as much as the ones you do. We should not be encouraging this, because our politics should be informed by the truth and material reality, not how we wish the past proved us right.

It frequently reinforces "Good vs. Bad" dichotomies that are at best unhelpful and at worst victim-blaming. A very common thread of historical misinformation on tumblr is about the innocence or benevolence of oppressed groups, slandered by oppressors who were far worse. This very frequently has truth to it - but makes the lies hard to separate out. It often simplifies the narrative, and implies that the reason that colonialism and oppression were bad was because the victims were Good and didn't deserve it... not because colonialism and oppression are bad. You see this sometimes with radical feminist mother goddess Neolithic feminist utopia stuff, but you also see it a lot regarding Native American and African history. I have seen people earnestly argue that Aztecs did not practice human sacrifice, that that was a lie made up by the Spanish to slander them. That is not true. Human sacrifice was part of Aztec, Maya, and many Central American war/religious practices. They are significantly more complex than often presented, and came from a captive-based system of warfare that significantly reduced the number of people who got killed in war compared to European styles of war that primarily killed people on the battlefield rather than taking them captive for sacrifice... but the human sacrifice was real and did happen. This can often come off with the implications of a 'noble savage' or an 'innocent victim' that implies that the bad things the Spanish conquistadors did were bad because the victims were innocent or good. This is a very easy trap to fall into; if the victims were good, they didn't deserve it. Right? This logic is dangerous when you are presented with a person or group who did something bad... you're caught in a bind. Did they deserve their injustice or oppression because they did something bad? This kind of logic drives a lot of transphobia, homophobia, racism, and defenses of Kyle Rittenhouse today. The answer to a colonialist logic of "The Aztecs deserved to be conquered because they did human sacrifice and that's bad" is not "The Aztecs didn't do human sacrifice actually, that's just Spanish propaganda" (which is a lie) it should be "We Americans do human sacrifice all the god damn time with our forever wars in the Middle East, we just don't call it that. We use bullets and bombs rather than obsidian knives but we kill way, way more people in the name of our country. What does that make us? Maybe genocide is not okay regardless of if you think the people are weird and scary." It becomes hard to square your ethics of the Innocent Victim and Lying Perpetrator when you see real, complicated, individual-level and group-level interactions, where no group is made up of members who are all completely pure and good, and they don't deserve to be oppressed anyway.

It makes you an unwitting tool of the oppressor. The favorite, favorite allegation transphobes level at trans people, and conservatives at queer people, is that we're lying to push the Gay Agenda. We're liars or deluded fools. If you say something about queer or trans history that's easy to debunk as false, you have permanently hurt your credibility - and the cause of queer history. It makes you easy to write off as a liar or a deluded fool who needs misinformation to make your case. If you say Louisa May Alcott was trans, that's easy to counter with "there is literally no evidence of that, and lots of evidence that she was fine being a woman," and instantly tanks your credibility going forward, so when you then say James Barry was trans and push back against a novel or biopic that treats James Barry as a woman, you get "you don't know what you're talking about, didn't you say Louisa May Alcott was trans too?" TERFs love to call trans people liars - do not hand them ammunition, not even a single bullet. Make sure you can back up what you say with facts and evidence. This is true of homophobes, of racists, of sexists. Be confident of your facts, and have facts to give to the hopeful and questioning learners who you are relating this story to, or the bigots who you are telling off, because misinformation can only hurt you and your cause.

It makes the queer, female, POC, or other marginalized listeners hurt, sad, and betrayed when something they thought was a reflection of their own experiences turns out not to be real. This is a good response to a performance art piece purporting to tell a real story of gay WWI soldiers, until the author revealed it as fiction. Why would you want to set yourself up for disappointment like that? Why would you want to risk inflicting that disappointment and betrayal on anyone else?

It makes it harder to learn the actual truth.

Historical misinformation has consequences, and those consequences are best avoided - by checking your facts, citing your sources, and taking the time and effort to make sure you are actually telling the truth.

#history #history and the world #misinformation

14K notes · View notes