thicccsapphic

[thicccsapphic]

"I’m personally a Holocaust survivor as an infant, I barely survived.

My grandparents were killed in Aushwitz and most of my extended family were killed.

I became a Zionist; this dream of the Jewish people resurrected in their historical homeland and the barbed wire of Aushwitz being replaced by the boundaries of a Jewish state with a powerful army…and then I found out that it wasn’t exactly like that, that in order to make this Jewish dream a reality we had to visit a nightmare on the local population.

There’s no way you could have ever created a Jewish state without oppressing and expelling the local population. Jewish Israeli historians have shown without a doubt that the expulsion of Palestinians was persistent, pervasive, cruel, murderous and with deliberate intent - that’s what’s called the 'Nakba' in Arabic; the 'disaster' or the 'catastrophe'.

There’s a law that you cannot deny the Holocaust, but in Israel you’re not allowed to mention the Nakba, even though it’s at the very basis of the foundation of Israel.

I visited the Occupied Territories (West Bank) during the first intifada. I cried every day for two weeks at what I saw; the brutality of the occupation, the petty harassment, the murderousness of it, the cutting down of Palestinian olive groves, the denial of water rights, the humiliations...and this went on, and now it’s much worse than it was then. It’s the longest ethnic cleansing operation in the 20th and 21st century.

I could land in Tel Aviv tomorrow and demand citizenship but my Palestinian friend in Vancouver, who was born in Jerusalem, can’t even visit! So then you have these miserable people packed into this, horrible…people call it an 'outdoor prison', which is what it is. You don’t have to support Hamas policies to stand up for Palestinian rights, that’s a complete falsity.

You think the worse thing you can say about Hamas, multiply it by a thousand times, and it still will not meet the Israeli repression and killing and dispossession of Palestinians.

And 'anybody who criticises Israel is an anti-Semite' is simply an egregious attempt to intimidate good non-Jews who are willing to stand up for what is true."

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An incomplete guide to how to talk to young children (3-5 years old):

- Do not assume they understand your instructions the first time. They will ask you the same question three times. Answer it the same way, patiently. They will get it eventually.

- Children will ask strings of “why” questions. They’re not trying to be annoying; they don’t have a lot of the context older people have. Answer until you can’t, then admit you don’t know and ask them a question back. They’ll get distracted for the moment, and trust that you take their questions seriously.

- If you need a kid to do something, give a reason, but don’t give up at “I don’t want to”. If they don’t listen, it’s okay to say “I explained why, and I still need you to do it.” Be calm, and firm. Usually, kids will listen the second or third time.

- If a kid doesn’t listen to an instruction repeatedly, there’s probably something in the way. Ask them why they’re not *without accusing them*, and they’ll tell you what’s going on most of the time. Common reasons: I’m scared, I don’t know how, I miss my parent/sibling, I’m tired, I’m angry/frustrated/sad, I need help. Address the roadblock and help find a compromise that works for the both of you.

- Threats are only as good as you can enforce them. If you threaten them with a countdown, you need a consequence to back it up that is appropriate to the request. For example: “I need you to stay in your chair. I’m going to count to five. If I get to five, and you’re not sitting in your seat with your feet on the floor, I am writing down that you were not listening during snack time on your behavior report.” Keep in mind that these threats only work if the consequence is at the right level; too harsh, and they’ll get overwhelmed and shut down, but too light, and they won’t see it as a consequence. A kid who doesn’t care what their behavior report says won’t worry about a bad report as a consequence.

- Never scream at a child. Never hit them. Never continuously escalate consequences until they do what you say. These behaviors cause a child to panic, and their fear response will prevent them from doing what you want them to, as well as make them more distrusting of you in the future. It’s not just cruel, it is actively counterintuitive to correcting their behavior.

- Make a point to notice and compliment/reward good behavior, especially with kids you are biased to view as “rude” or “badly behaved”. Kids take the views of adults seriously, and if they feel as though they can’t redeem themselves in your eyes, they won’t waste energy trying. Complimenting good behavior when you see it will encourage them to repeat good behaviors to earn your praise. In addition, if there’s other children nearby, they will also mimic the complimented behavior to earn the same praise. Give it.

- Kids want to feel heard. If they want to show or tell you “something cool”, and you have a few moments, watch/listen and compliment them *regardless of if you get it or not*. If you don’t have time, say “That sounds really cool! Can you tell me after we do [insert thing]?” This tells them that you care while still making sure they do what they need to.

- Kids can be downright frustrating sometimes, especially when they need to do something and they just *won’t*. Recognize when you’re getting angry, and learn to stop talking before you direct that anger at them. Take some deep breaths, remind yourself that this too shall pass, and try a different approach.

- Always understand why you’re asking a child to do something. Not only does this help you tell them why they need to, it helps you find replacement behaviors if they can’t/won’t do it. For example: “I need you to lay down and try to sleep, because your friends are sleeping and what you’re doing right now is waking them up. If you can’t sleep after trying for a while, we can work together to find you a quiet activity that you can do at your cot.”

- Don’t expect from a child what you wouldn’t expect from yourself. Could you stand laying still and staring at the ceiling for an hour when you’re not tired? No? Don’t ask a kid to do it. Could you stand staying out in the cold for an hour without a jacket? No? Don’t ask a kid to do it. Could you stand someone yelling at you without feeling angry? No? Don’t ask a kid to do it. Even if you think you could do it, consider if you could do it with the same limitations this child has. Could you do it without the emotional regulation and impulse control you’ve developed as an adult? Could you do it without the inference skills you’ve learned after years of social interactions? Could you do it when you felt angry, tired, overwhelmed, hungry, thirsty, desperately needing to pee with no bathroom nearby? If not, don’t ask a child to do it.

- Don’t react to potty words, insults, or offensive language. Don’t laugh, and don’t act upset. Use the same tone you would if someone said something innocuous, and correct them in that tone. “We don’t say that; that’s a hurtful thing to say to someone.” Or “That’s not funny. Let’s talk about something else.”

- Kids don’t (and should not) have a sense of sexual innuendo or puberty. A four year old doesn’t understand that reaching up to hug you and touching your breasts in the process is gross. A five year old doesn’t understand that “why aren’t you a mommy?” or “why does your face have red dots on it” are weird questions to ask random people. Enforce boundaries without delving into details. “Don’t touch me there; that makes me uncomfortable” and “That’s just how it works sometimes” can be used to great effect. Importantly, don’t act angry or use a tone that indicates they did something wrong; this will seem to them like you’re arbitrarily angry.

- Kids at this age don’t have a strong sense of cognitive empathy or predicting the future. The idea that actions have consequences beyond the immediate result is a very, very new concept to them. Be prepared to explain the obvious of “why can’t I bite her when she makes me mad?”, “why can’t I steal his toy when he stole mine?”, and “why do I have to do what you tell me when I don’t want to?”

- Give explicit instructions. “Stop that” isn’t likely to be understood by a four year old. “Stop throwing the toys; please put them in the bucket gently” is far easier for a kid to follow.

[thicccsapphic]

I truly don't have any words about what's happening in Ohio right now. I want to post something like I usually do. Give vocabulary, etc, whatnot. It's important, it's so important. But I don't have words. What could I possibly say about the level of devastation that has happened, is happening, will happen in the future? This is worse than the BP spill. And I don't know how to respond to that with anything other than a shocked numbness.

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there's a new harry potter video game coming out. jkr was not involved, but that doesn't mean we should stop criticising her, or that we should stop criticising the game. we do, however, need to be precise.

it is very important to me to criticise jkr, but also to be accurate about what she did and didn't do or say. for instance, she did not say hermione was black all along; she said she approved casting a black actor to play her. (this one is conjecture but) she didn't retcon dumbledore being gay; that was basically the first 'revelation' post-septalogy of something that hadn't been mentioned, literally years before she started obviously retconning stuff in to fill in the gaps or address fan questions or out of boredom or whatever. she didn't write about a race of big-nosed bankers; she wrote about a short, 'swarthy', oppressed-and-yet-also-unfairly-powerful, not-permitted-to-do-jobs-other-than-finance-but-then-resented-for-being-involved-in-finance, stereotypically 'bloodthirsty' race that speaks a 'guttural' language and is believed by prominent equality activists to not need allies because they're 'clever' enough to defend themselves and probably also align themselves with the fascists who hate them. (this stuff is a mixture of antisemitic conspiracy theories/stereotypes & actual legit things that have happened to jews, but a lot of people aren't informed enough about antisemitism to recognise that.) the filmmakers took all that in and went 'ah, yes, clearly this is the nose tribe™, let's put that in our character design.' she didn't randomly invent a single jewish character when confronted about the lack of jewish people; there is literally photographic evidence of anthony goldstein being a character from the very beginning, plus he is in the books, albeit not mentioned to be jewish. she didn't say there was a magen david on the floor of gringotts bank; the filmmakers chose to use a building that had that floor pattern as their set for gringotts, which is super fucked up. she didn't write one single irish character who wants to drink alcohol from a young age and blows things up all the time; that was a single joke that the filmmakers decided to turn into a years-long running gag.

she did create a world where you're supposed to be against bigotry, and yet the reasons behind the bigotry are actually objectively true. werewolves are objectively dangerous and lycanthropy is objectively harmful to the sufferer. trolls and giants are violent and fundamentally lack the mental capacity to understand why violence is bad. goblins do control the economy and hoard their literal and metaphorical wealth. house-elves want to remain enslaved despite the abuse they suffer. the list goes on.

i genuinely think this came primarily from ignorance. she had a bunch of unchecked prejudices, and like many self-proclaimed allies, did not pay enough attention to oppressed groups to understand what they actually need from allies. (for instance, based on things she's declared publicly, she honestly believes she is an ally to jews.) she naïvely believed herself to be progressive and open-minded, and when it was explained to her that this was not the case, it made her uncomfortable and she rejected the information instead of taking it in.

this is speculative, but i also don't think that she was secretly a massive transphobe all along. the progress of her transphobia is pretty clearly identifiable as a process of radicalisation as she doubled down and learned new rhetoric to justify her pre-existing prejudices. it is indeed disgusting, and she has actively contributed to the persecution of trans people both in the uk and in other countries.

people who defend her believe that people who criticise her are spreading misinformation. don't confirm that belief for them. the things she actually has said and done are bad enough.

[thicccsapphic]

when youre tired on public transit and start thinking "let me rest my eyes a bit" thats the devil talking

[thicccsapphic]

On Tuesday morning, Donald Trump released an anti-transgender tirade of a speech on his social media website Truth Social, outlining a genocidal plan against all transgender existence in the United States. Everyone on the right from mainstream Republicans to hardcore neo-Nazis are celebrating the video while Democrats and legacy news media outlets have so far largely ignored it. “So this is what we are up against,” tweeted legislative researcher and pro-transgender activist Erin Reed. She continues, “a national transgender ban in 2024. This is what they are planning. DeSantis is practicing this through executive actions in Florida. Trump is openly saying he will do the same.” This is unambiguously genocidal territory. Holocaust museums have warned that this rising anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric mirrors the hate that led up to the rise of Nazi Germany.

[thicccsapphic]

The thing society as a whole doesn’t understand about nature is that absolutely nothing is just a worm or just a bug or just a plain little fish that does nothing but swim around and eat until it dies. Every single animal has a complicated life and habits. Minnows make nests out of pebbles. Slugs have courtship rituals. Fruit flies have territorial battles and when they can’t get laid they become alcoholics all in those few days that they even exist on earth. Just the functions of the different body parts of a dust mite can fill a lecture and we still don’t completely understand everything about its life habits or its biochemistry.

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this would fix me

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lets out a single pitious whimper but doesn't elaborate

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i love you USPS I love you NASA i love you taxpayer funded services that actually contribute positively to society i love you libraries i love you public transport

[thicccsapphic]

i think a lot about how in the past women/afab people disguised themselves as men and lived for years undetected (in all-male workplaces!!) because it really drives home the point that there is so much natural variation in human bodies that would enable somebody to believably do this. like not only is it natural for men to be very short but it's also natural for them to have high voices, it's natural for women to be tall, built, and masculine, and the fact that people in the past just rolled with it like "he has dainty hands and that's none of my business" gives me some type of jealousy. people have gotten way too comfortable deciding what traits are normal for what sex. i think we all need to mind our business more.

[thicccsapphic]

Starting twin peaks

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So someone pointed out to me recently that in a few years, maybe a few decades, the history of the us during covid is probably going to get twisted. The fact that we all had to make and wear cloth masks is going to be hailed as a symbol of how we “"came together as a nation”“” or whatever the fuck propaganda spin they try to put on it.

So I just want to say, for the record, the time of the corona virus pandemic was not a time when america came together.

This was a time when people hoarded toilet paper and sanitizing supplies either for themselves or to sell at absurd prices to the desperate people who didn’t get to the store soon enough during the shortages

This was a time when scared parents were sending their kids to finish school in the spring in plastic trash bags because they couldn’t think of any other way to possibly keep their families safe

This was a time when grocery store and retail and service workers were forced to keep working whether they wanted to risk their health or not because they couldn’t make rent otherwise and the people with enough privilege to have remote jobs tried to repay them with applause instead of fair wages

This was a time when nurses had the hold the hands of multiple dying people every day as their families watched their loved ones die over a video call because the hospital couldn’t risk having visitors

This was a time when city governments had to handle so many eviction hearings that they rented out convention centers and called in the national guard instead of doing a rent freeze to stop predatory landlords

This was a time when racism and police brutality were so unbearably horrible that people protested in the streets for months even though there was a god damn pandemic that our federal government wasn’t doing shit to stop and the cops were so mad that they were being asked to stop beating up black people that they were beating up everyone

This was a time when schools being forced to reopen in the fall or lose their federal funding had to draft templates for letters if a teacher or a staff person or a fucking child died from exposure to corona at school

This was a time when the president of the United states demanded that the cdc stop releasing data about all the people who were dying because of the warnings he ignored for months were making him look bad

This was a time when some state governments didn’t mandate masks and forced businesses to reopen because they didn’t want to pay unemployment to people trying to stay safe at home anymore

This was a time when Jeff Bezos was on track to be a fucking trillionare because everyone was ordering things on amazon instead of going to the store and the people he worked to death to get it didn’t see a single cent of it

This was a time when instead of providing homeless people with housing, we painted boxes on the ground to show homeless people how far away the had to be on the street to maintain social distancing

We did not come together to make cloth masks. Cloth masks represent nothing less than the absolute and utter failure of a nation’s government to inform and protect its citizens

This was not a time when we came together. This was a time when we survived, and not all of us made it.

This was a time when people casually talked about how many human lives the economy was worth without considering the evil that had just come out of their mouths.

This was a time when thousands of us died for profit and the ego of a cheating narcissists con man who scammed his way into the white house

This was a time that we survived. Most of us tried to do the right thing, stay home, limit trips to the store and socializing, wear a mask. And still, so many of us were lost. Thousands every day.

But that wasn’t a good enough reason for some people, for those among us who were too selfish to recognize the responsibilities we have toward one another as human beings.

This was not a time that we came together

This was a time that we survived

Not all of us made it

And those of us who did survive will never forget the evil we saw daily in our politicians and those around us

[thicccsapphic]

merry christmas eve to this post only

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A particularly nasty side to antisemitism — it’s been part of Ye’s message recently though it is by no means unique to him — is this implication that they’re just the ones saying out loud what the rest of us are thinking. And I just want to say, unequivocally, fuck you. You don’t get to claim me. You don’t get to use me as a bullet against people I care about. It’s not what I think, and I’m confident it’s not what any of my friends think because if I wasn’t confident, they wouldn’t be my friends. I’m not silently agreeing with you — I’m VOCALLY disagreeing with you. Your beliefs are pathetic. Go fuck yourself.

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