arokill

[arokill]

you know, and another thing. bigotry isn’t all about feelings, there is material benefit to oppressing people. women are oppressed because there is material benefit to having a domestic sex servant who will do your laundry for you, chattel slavery existed (and continues to exist) because there is material benefit to having a labor force you don’t have to pay. native peoples all over the world have been and continue to be murdered and brutally oppressed because colonial powers wanted to steal their shit! some people are really in it for the money, and you can’t reason with those people. you can only stop them

[arokill]

girls I know this isn’t at the top of the concerns list but you’re gonna want to stop eating commercially produced meat real soon

[arokill]

trans people on tumblr celebrating an absolutely rabid zionist being elected to congress simply because she is a trans woman and then utterly shouting down anyone who mentions it is incredibly fucking embarassing.

genuinely losing my faith at an exponential rate in a lot of the people on this website which sucks because i thought it was the last bastion of online progressive principles. and now i'm realizing it's kind of just woke reddit.

[arokill]

answering a couple questions i got on this post since i realized ppl genuinely wanna know:

tl;dr:

israel lets very, very little aid get into gaza. even the UN can't get in as much as they want to. funding individual families, gazan led initiatives, and mutual aid collectives operating out of gaza ensures gazans can provide for themselves and pay for the extremely expensive aid that is available.

with all the civil infrastructure destroyed by israel, the situation on the ground has devolved into unrestricted capitalism, driving up the price of aid (that should be free!). this makes it more urgent for people to have funding for daily survival.

the post linked above has examples of how donating to individual families can help a lot. if you want to help more than one family at a time, there are many gazan-led initiatives focusing on rebuilding their infrastructure and distributing aid fairly that are worth donating to instead of large charities that already get the majority of donations.

as i mentioned in the last post: @/careforgaza on twitter is a nonprofit started by gazans, it's been endorsed by multiple palestinian journalists.

the sameer project is a collective organized by diaspora palestinians offering emergency shelter to gazans.

ele elna elak is a project aiming to bring water, food, shelter, etc. to gazans and has been promoted by bisan owda.

and the municipality of gaza itself is fundraising to rebuild water infrastructure.

all of these organizations are active inside gaza right now and are being run by gazans. if anyone knows of other gazan-led mutual aid projects, nonprofits or charities feel free to link them in the notes! hope this helped!

long answers under the cut!

if you wanna donate to a charity that's absolutely fine, but the thing is most charities (and even the UN!) are unable to make it into gaza in the first place, leaving aid rotting at the egyptian side of the border or subject to israeli settler attacks

not to mention, charities and nonprofits also maintain a paternalistic colonial relationship with the indigenous people they are trying to help, determining what aid they need for them instead of returning power to them and letting them make their own choices

i'm not here to say that one option is better than the other, just that they achieve different things and are equally legitimate. there's an attitude among people who question the legitimacy of these gofundme campaigns that somehow the people promoting them are telling them not to donate to charities. nobody is stopping you from donating to charities. we are just asking that you do not dehumanize the very real gazans in your inbox just because their method of asking for aid is more direct and risky.

unfortunately that's exactly what has happened. because israel destroyed all of gaza's more formalized infrastructure, it seems that organized crime and rampant inflation has taken its place. aid is supposed to be free, but in order to save for evacuation or the cost of living, people have started selling them at an inflated price. and aid that is truly free attracts intense, large crowds that are dangerous to navigate.

this was posted on abc a few days ago

it's pure, unrestrained capitalism. i've had multiple palestinians describe this situation to me confidence. that's why everything's so expensive now. why people have to rent out tiny plots of land for their tents to sit on, why my friend @siraj2024 still has to buy tarps to cover the broken windows of the overpriced bombed out apartment he rented, and why a bag of flour can cost a thousand bucks in the north.

even before israel closed and then bombed the rafah crossing, the egyptian hala travel agency was only allowing people to cross the border if they paid a hefty $5000 USD per adult / $2500 USD per child bribe. it denies doing this, but the hundreds of stories from palestinians say otherwise.

with regard to the economy, here in america we saw something similar happen in the wake of hurricane helene and milton. the podcaster margaret killjoy describes how she saw dual economies rise after asheville was fully cut off from the rest of the country - some people offered each other supplies for free in a sort of mutual aid honor system, and some people required payment when they lent supplies because they themselves needed to buy stuff for their families. these dual economies exist in gaza too. and this means they all still need money to survive.

[arokill]

Is she genuinely losing?! How are the democrats so good at losing

[arokill]

the most depressing part is that it's not even kamala's stance on genocide that is costing her the elections. i wish it were. it's people genuinely shifting for trump. but it's the pro-palestine movement that's going to get the blame for it.

[arokill]

yo hey US people who sent in absentee ballots, they are tossing mail-in ballots for no reason. i just had to call my county board of elections and demand a cure for my ballot because north carolina didn't send out any notices of issues with ballots, and the issues are fake. if you voted by mail-in make sure your ballot was actually counted

[arokill]

please donate to jehad if you can !!!!! the goal is only 15,000 cad and he's already got 8.4k so it's extremely possible to reach this goal

and don't forget your clicks for palestine

[arokill]

❗️Nevada voters - this is going to sound weird, but PICK UP YOUR PHONE if an unknown number calls.

**Lots of signatures on ballots are not matching and your ballot may need to be fixed.

TLDR; yes, signature matching is an antiquated way to verify ballots but it is still being used. Reportedly thousands of ballots here need to be cured. Answer the phone!

[arokill]

Check your ballots and tell your people to check theirs. There is a process to fix errors (usually signatures not matching; common with younger voters who tend to sign their ballots nicer than their driver’s license or whatever form they signed to register)

[arokill]

Nearly 14,000 mail ballots in Nevada have signature issues

Officials urge residents to use online tool to check if ballot was accepted

The total number of ballots — 13,906 — needing curing include 6,383 from registered nonpartisan or other voters, 4,026 from Democrats and 3,497 from Republicans.

The deadline for voters to cure their ballots is 5 p.m. Nov. 12, officials said. Ballots can be cured here.

The main issue they're having with young voters is that Nevada allows for voter registration through the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the "signatures" are digital (the licensee types it into a form), so their hand-written signatures on their ballots don't match the KEYSTROKES that serve as signatures on their license.

It would be hilarious if it weren't so fucking infuriating.

[arokill]

Do you play daily NY Times games like Wordle, Connections, Spelling Bee, or Strands? The NYT Tech Guild workers who make those games possible are currently ON STRIKE and asking you to not cross the digital picket line.

Spread the word! For other ways to help, you can also contribute to their strike fund here.

[arokill]

answering a couple questions i got on this post since i realized ppl genuinely wanna know:

tl;dr:

israel lets very, very little aid get into gaza. even the UN can't get in as much as they want to. funding individual families, gazan led initiatives, and mutual aid collectives operating out of gaza ensures gazans can provide for themselves and pay for the extremely expensive aid that is available.

with all the civil infrastructure destroyed by israel, the situation on the ground has devolved into unrestricted capitalism, driving up the price of aid (that should be free!). this makes it more urgent for people to have funding for daily survival.

the post linked above has examples of how donating to individual families can help a lot. if you want to help more than one family at a time, there are many gazan-led initiatives focusing on rebuilding their infrastructure and distributing aid fairly that are worth donating to instead of large charities that already get the majority of donations.

as i mentioned in the last post: @/careforgaza on twitter is a nonprofit started by gazans, it's been endorsed by multiple palestinian journalists.

the sameer project is a collective organized by diaspora palestinians offering emergency shelter to gazans.

ele elna elak is a project aiming to bring water, food, shelter, etc. to gazans and has been promoted by bisan owda.

and the municipality of gaza itself is fundraising to rebuild water infrastructure.

all of these organizations are active inside gaza right now and are being run by gazans. if anyone knows of other gazan-led mutual aid projects, nonprofits or charities feel free to link them in the notes! hope this helped!

long answers under the cut!

if you wanna donate to a charity that's absolutely fine, but the thing is most charities (and even the UN!) are unable to make it into gaza in the first place, leaving aid rotting at the egyptian side of the border or subject to israeli settler attacks

not to mention, charities and nonprofits also maintain a paternalistic colonial relationship with the indigenous people they are trying to help, determining what aid they need for them instead of returning power to them and letting them make their own choices

i'm not here to say that one option is better than the other, just that they achieve different things and are equally legitimate. there's an attitude among people who question the legitimacy of these gofundme campaigns that somehow the people promoting them are telling them not to donate to charities. nobody is stopping you from donating to charities. we are just asking that you do not dehumanize the very real gazans in your inbox just because their method of asking for aid is more direct and risky.

unfortunately that's exactly what has happened. because israel destroyed all of gaza's more formalized infrastructure, it seems that organized crime and rampant inflation has taken its place. aid is supposed to be free, but in order to save for evacuation or the cost of living, people have started selling them at an inflated price. and aid that is truly free attracts intense, large crowds that are dangerous to navigate.

this was posted on abc a few days ago

it's pure, unrestrained capitalism. i've had multiple palestinians describe this situation to me confidence. that's why everything's so expensive now. why people have to rent out tiny plots of land for their tents to sit on, why my friend @siraj2024 still has to buy tarps to cover the broken windows of the overpriced bombed out apartment he rented, and why a bag of flour can cost a thousand bucks in the north.

even before israel closed and then bombed the rafah crossing, the egyptian hala travel agency was only allowing people to cross the border if they paid a hefty $5000 USD per adult / $2500 USD per child bribe. it denies doing this, but the hundreds of stories from palestinians say otherwise.

with regard to the economy, here in america we saw something similar happen in the wake of hurricane helene and milton. the podcaster margaret killjoy describes how she saw dual economies rise after asheville was fully cut off from the rest of the country - some people offered each other supplies for free in a sort of mutual aid honor system, and some people required payment when they lent supplies because they themselves needed to buy stuff for their families. these dual economies exist in gaza too. and this means they all still need money to survive.

[arokill]

Haven't figured out a politic way to word this but before saying someone/thing "makes you uncomfortable" please ask yourself this important question: is it any of your fucking business

[arokill]

Dont @ me but if ur a white content creator u should probably examine your brown characters (especially the darker skinned ones) and see if u aren’t following a certain trend of making them all aggressive, violent, surly or otherwise outwardly angry

[arokill]

Twitch is gonna start kinda censoring queer people and it would be really helpful if you could read the next few sentences and then also go to a link and click the word vote.

They're implementing a new rule where if you discuss "sensitive social issues" at all you have to flag your streams as such, these issues include things like war and political unrest but also any lgbtq topics (once again our existence is political).

Essentially a streamer will have to choose between never ever mentioning anything queer (or even just discussing their own life if they're queer themselves) or flagging every stream with "sensitive social issues" and scaring away 90% of viewers.

If you have a twitch account you can go here and log in and click vote. They do listen. Please vote.

[arokill]

every time I make a post about racism, white people can't seem to resist making about them

I get this in real life too, and it's absolutely infuriating

people of colour talking about racism is not an invitation to divert the conversation to how bad things are for you, a white person, due to other aspects of your identity

it's not that you're incapable of experiencing oppression and discrimination. it's that racism functions in a way that is different from homophobia/ableism/transphobia, etc.

and people of colour are constantly being talked over when we try to explain our experiences, and it says something that you can't listen to us talk about racism without making yourself the center of attention

it speaks to your discomfort with the topic, your unwillingness to acknowledge that you can be the oppressor. I know you don't want to hear it, but you fucking need to!!

you cannot be anti-racist if you are always twisting conversations about racism to be about your experiences

you might think that you're trying to relate to our experiences, but what you're actually doing is distancing yourself from your privilege to avoid accountability

so the next time a person of colour talks about racism in your presence, or you see a post about it online, please resist the urge to make it about you

some of the most egregious examples I've experienced:

"I can relate to that because, as a vegan-"

#this but about homophobia #queer things

"I totally get this because I'm neurodivergent"

"this happens to me all the time but for being trans, and it's even worse because-"