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heracrossbugfan999 · 1 day ago

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You Don't Owe People a Perfect Apology

I would like to start this post by saying, that I absolutely 100% recognize, that it is beneficial within our current society, to offer an apology for any situation in which you harm other people or their belongings and/or make any other kind of mistake that could warrant an acknowledgement of said mistake and the consequences it might have caused.

Saying "I'm sorry" is a handy communication tool that basically conveys "I made a mistake, I recognize I made that mistake and I acknowledge that it caused some type of negative consequence and therefore I am saying this out loud to reassure you that I noticed".

Thats all it has to be and its beautiful isn't it? That we have come up with such an easy short way to communicate something, that solves a situation, that just tends to happen every now and then! Or it would be beautiful, if apologies hadn't turned into a literal minefield.

Both offline and online, theres millions of situations a day where people utter the words "I'm sorry". Maybe they accidentally ran into someone, maybe they said something particularly nasty during an argument, or maybe they committed a crime and are currently facing their victim in a courtroom.

The reasons why someone may feel like an apology is warranted will be individual, but theres certain situations in which it is societally expected to offer an apology (people would also say you "owe" that apology to someone in those situations).

And while, as previously mentioned, I can acknowledge that apologizing is a good communication tool that benefits the ways in which we live & interact together, I have really big issues with how apologies are dictated nowadays.

Because your apology is going to be perceived as "insincere" and "worthless" if it doesn't conform to certain standards. Those standards change wildly and are never actually globally applicable, they are deeply deeply individual.

And before you try to tear me apart, I'm not saying that you don't get to have individual standards for an apology. Like god no, PLEASE have individual standards! Please take a deep dive into your brain and explore what you need from someone in order to be able to trust them again & forgive them! Its so so so important to be in tune with your individual emotional needs and its also important, that you surround yourself with people who are capable of meeting those needs.

Now you might ask yourself where my problem with it is then and its right in that first sentence. I have a problem with the fact, that apologies are seen as "insincere" and "worthless" if they do not conform to the standards of the person reading it.

Who are you to determine whether someone is sincere about something they say? Who are you to decide what someones intent behind that apology actually is?

The thing is, that you don't know. You never, ever know. You can't look in their brain, you don't see their thoughts. What you see are learned patterns.

If you've been confronted with people who apologize by explaining their actions in that apology and they all went back on their word, you may start to think, that that is a definitive sign, that someones apology is insincere. Because it feels that way to you and you have spotted the pattern.

And like I said, its so goddamn good, that you figured it out for yourself, that someone putting an explanation in their apology, is what makes you feel like they don't mean it! Thats important info you uncovered about your feelings, but it says nothing about the worth or sincerity of their apology.

Their apology could be 100% sincere and it could have taken them the biggest effort to offer it up and it could still feel lax and insincere to you. Doesn't mean it is, because it simply doesn't work like that. Your feelings towards something do not determine its existence. A flower you feel hate towards, isn't an inherently shitty flower. A color you hate, isn't an inherently disgusting color.

Your feelings towards something are valid and you should have them and you get to have them, but you do not get to decide, that that is now a global rule that applies to everybody and that no one is allowed to like that flower, or that color and be alright with its existence.

What you do get to do, is communicate your feelings. You get to look at that person who apologized to you and you get to say "hey, I appreciate that you apologized! I personally need people to apologize without giving me an explanation, as that makes it feel insincere to me. If you want to stay around me, I'll require that from you in the future, okay?"

If that other person would like to stay around you and/or wants you to accept that apology/potentially forgive them, they'll have to accept your boundaries and wishes and gear those apologies towards your needs as much as they can.

If they do not want to stay around you, or have their apology accepted and/or they are (for whatever reason) simply not able/comfortable with your style of apologies, they get to communicate that and either they get to stand up and leave, or you get to communicate that this is non negotiable for you and then you get to stand up and leave.

But what neither of you gets to do, is call the other person "bad", "an asshole", "insincere" or anything similar to that, simply because they cannot/do not want to meet your individual needs.

Let me repeat that:

You get to have your individual apology needs and wishes. You get to ask for those to be fulfilled. You get to kick people out of your life if they do not.

Other people get to have problems meeting your individual needs and wishes. They get to communicate that. They get to leave too and refuse to offer up an improved apology.

None of that will determine in any way how sincere the apology was to begin with and as long as the apology happened, no one gets to drag the other person down for having a different way of handling it. Person 1 doesn't get to drag Person 2 for refusing to offer a perfect apology and Person 2 doesn't get to drag Person 1 for having & upholding their boundaries.

That is something I deeply believe and I also believe that going against this principle, is something that fuels a lot of online fights and debates.

Theres multiple reasons why someone may not be able to or may not feel comfortable offering up anything beyond their personal style of apology:

• they might have a hard time admitting their fault to begin with and need to do it on their terms

• they may not be able to feel sorry in an emotional way/may lack remorse

• they might still be processing the situation and do not feel comfortable giving details on their thought process until they're done going trough it all

• they may still be feeling a lot of big emotions that are in the way of anything beyond a basic acknowledgement

• they may have never learned to offer up any other way of an apology

• they may not think they are at fault and therefore do not feel alright with doing anything beyond the basic societal expectation

• they may have made had bad experiences with apolgies before and have only been believed if they explain themselves or if they use certain phrases, etc.

• and like...a million other things that are all equally valid

Theres also multiple reasons why someone may need an apology to be specific and cannot handle anyone elses style of apologizing:

• they may have made bad experiences with certain types of apologies

• they may have build a belief construct in which certain requirements need to be fulfilled in order for it to fit

• they may have a fear of abandonment and need to hear certain words/phrases

• they may need to be in control of the situation and dictate whats happening

• they may have learned that there is only one correct style of apologizing and struggle to see validity in other styles

• they may have been brought up around certain values that they need to see reflected in that apology

• and also like a million other equally valid things

Theres reasons why people ask others to correct their apologies and theres reasons why people cannot or do not want to and all that is okay and valid and wouldn't be as much of a problem, if we'd all just communciate and grasp, that we're asking for our personal needs to be met and can just kick people out of our lifes if they do not/cannot.

What we don't get to do, is drag other peoples attempts and villanize them, just because we personally have negative feelings towards them or their apology. Our feelings do not get to determine their reality. They determine our reality.

Trying to enforce rules globally (which especially happens online), that apologies can never contain explanations, that apologies need to always contain "I- statements", that the person has to feel true remorse, that they can only do it in written form, that they need to make you able to comment on it directly, etc. is harmful goddamn bullshit.

As I said, you get to have those as individual requirements and wishes. Those get to be your emotional needs and you get to feel as if an apology is not enough for you and you get to act accordingly in terms of whether you allow that person to be part of your life or not. But you have no business labeling them or their apology as inherently "insincere", "worthless", "bad" or anything like that. Thats not your call to make. Your call is "that apology does not meet my individual needs therefore I'm not accepting it and I'm not allowing that person in my life anymore", but thats it.

And I'm pretty much 90% sure, that most of you have never actually thought about what you're implying when you call apologies "insincere" or drag peoples apologies trough the mud, as if they failed to meet some big global standard. But don't worry, I'll tell you, thats what I'm here for:

• you're insulting their language capabilities & possibly their own cultural ways of offering apologies

• you're judging their ability to feel emotions

• you're blaming them for things they might not have chosen and may not have found a way to deal with

• you're punishing them for not knowing better

• you're publically calling them incapable

• you're reducing them as a person to your expectations and whether they meet them or not

• you're enforcing a standard born out of your individual needs without checking if you're currently trampling over other peoples needs

Its very likely, that you're not doing any of that intentionally! Instead you're probably just hurt and don't have your emotional needs met and thats a valid way to feel, but it does not excuse the harm you are now causing by trying to make everyone conform to what you want, without any regard for them as people.

Truth is, they apologized. They did their societal communication duty. They acknowledged their mistake that way and they made sure you heard them do it. "I'm sorry" / "I apologize" is a complete sentence.

Whether that apology is sincere or not, is only something the person offering it up will know. Their ability to feel or not feel remorse, the way they stated or did not state it, their behavior or lack thereof afterwards, doesn't tell you that for certain.

So could we please stop pretending as if theres this global rule all apologies have to conform to and just acknowledge that we're hurt, because it doesn't meet our own emotional needs and learn to communicate that, instead of pointing at it, screaming "bad!!! :((("? I think we're ready for that, or at least I genuinely hope so, because if I have to see one more post about how an apology was insincere, just because they happened to say "I am sorry it caused you hurt" instead of "I'm sorry I hurt you", I think I'll actually scream.

Long story short:

• "I'm sorry" (or a similar equivalent) is a full sentence and fulfills your societal duty of acknowledging your mistake

• Everyone gets to have individual apology standards and gets to have boundaries as to how far the people around them need to fulfill those, in order to be allowed around them!

• No one gets to try to dictate global apology standards (this whole post is me communicating my feelings about this. not a mannual to act after), because your needs aren't the global standard everyone needs to conform to everywhere. Chances are you're unintentionally insulting others, by trying to enforce that.

• Theres valid reasons for needing "perfect" apologies and valid reasons for refusing them. As long as an apology of any kind was given, no one is the villain/bad person here or needs to be dragged and insulted.

• You will never know the feelings and reasons behind other peoples behaviors and apologies for said behavior. Thinking that you do and that you can determine their sincerity without fail, is baffling to me and if you really could comprehend the complexity of humans like that, you should run for office or be a psychologist cus damn could you save us a lot of trouble.

first posted on my instagram (same @)

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heracrossbugfan999 · 5 days ago

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Palestine Masterlist

Introduction to Palestine:

Decolonize Palestine:

Palestine 101

Rainbow washing

Frequently asked questions

Myths

IMEU (Institute for Middle East Understanding):

Quick Facts - The Palestinian Nakba

The Nakba and Palestinian Refugees

The Gaza Strip

The Palestinian catastrophe (Al-Nakba)

Al-Nakba (documentary)

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (book)

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (book)

Nakba Day: What happened in Palestine in 1948? (Article)

The Nakba did not start or end in 1948 (Article)

Donations and charities:

Al-Shabaka

Electronic Intifada

Adalah Justice Project

IMEU Fundraiser

Medical Aid for Palestinians

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund

Addameer

Muslim Aid

Palestine Red Crescent

Gaza Mutual Aid Patreon

Books:

A New Critical Approach to the History of Palestine

The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge

Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean

The Balfour Declaration: Empire, the Mandate and Resistance in Palestine

Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique

From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem until 1948

Captive Revolution - Palestinian Women’s Anti-Colonial Struggle within the Israeli Prison System

Palestine: A Four Thousand Year History

Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of The Palestinians 1876-1948

The Battle for Justice in Palestine Paperback

Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom

Palestine Rising: How I survived the 1948 Deir Yasin Massacre

The Transformation of Palestine: Essays on the Origin and Development of the Arab-Israeli Conflict

A Land Without a People: Israel, Transfer, and the Palestinians 1949-1996

The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood

A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples

Where Now for Palestine?: The Demise of the Two-State Solution

Terrorist Assemblages - Homonationalism in Queer Times

Militarization and Violence against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle East

The one-state solution: A breakthrough for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock

The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians

Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians

The False Prophets of Peace: Liberal Zionism and the Struggle for Palestine

Ten myths about Israel

Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question

Israel and its Palestinian Citizens - Ethnic Privileges in the Jewish State

Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy

Greater than the Sum of Our Parts: Feminism, Inter/Nationalism, and Palestine

Palestine Hijacked

Palestinian Culture:

Mountain against the Sea: Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture

Palestinian Costume

Traditional Palestinian Costume: Origins and Evolution

Tatreez & Tea: Embroidery and Storytelling in the Palestinian Diaspora

Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing (Oriental Institute Museum Publications)

The Palestinian Table (Authentic Palestinian Recipes)

Falastin: A Cookbook

Palestine on a Plate: Memories from My Mother’s Kitchen

Palestinian Social Customs and Traditions

Palestinian Culture before the Nakba

Tatreez & Tea (Website)

The Traditional Clothing of Palestine

The Palestinian thobe: A creative expression of national identity

Embroidering Identities:A Century of Palestinian Clothing

Palestine Traditional Costumes

Palestine Family

Palestinian Costume

Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, v5: Volume 5: Central and Southwest Asia

Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

Documentaries, Films, and Video Essays:

Jenin, Jenin

Born in Gaza

GAZA

Wedding in Galilee

Omar

5 Broken Cameras

OBAIDA

Indigeneity, Indigenous Liberation, and Settler Colonialism (not entirely about Palestine, but an important watch for indigenous struggles worldwide - including Palestine)

Edward Said - Reflections on Exile and Other Essays

Palestine Remix:

AL NAKBA

Gaza Lives On

Gaza we are coming

Lost cities of Palestine

Stories from the Intifada

Last Shepherds of the Valley

Voices from Gaza

Muhammad Smiry

Najla Shawa

Nour Naim

Wael Al dahdouh

Motaz Azaiza

Ghassan Abu Sitta

Refaat Alareer (murdered by Israel - 12/7/2023. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un)

Plestia Alaqad

Bisan Owda

Ebrahem Ateef

Mohammed Zaanoun

Doaa Mohammad

Hind Khoudary

Palestinian Voices, Organizations, and News

Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS)

Defense for Children in Palestine

Palestine Legal

Palestine Action

Palestine Action US

United Nations relief and works for Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA)

National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

Times of Gaza

Middle East Eye

Middle East Monitor

Mohammed El-Kurd

Muna El-Kurd

Electronic Intifada

Dr. Yara Hawari

Mariam Barghouti

Omar Ghraieb

Steven Salaita

Noura Erakat

The Palestinian Museum N.G.

Palestine Museum US

Artists for Palestine UK

Eye on Palestine

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heracrossbugfan999 · 5 days ago

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Bigger than just a squid game!

The aid trap in Gaza..

After contributing to the martyrdom of more than 600 Palestinian youths by rationing aid and cooperating with the occupation in engineering starvation, the "Criminal Gaza Institution" is now proposing detention camps in exchange for food! This institution has never been concerned with our people; it has always been a tool in the hands of the enemy, and today it is leading us step by step toward displacement from the Strip!

Please don't let me go to the triangle of death for the sake of my children. Share and donate, guys.

I hope everyone will help us so that their goals are not achieved. Please donate to us and participate so that we can obtain the basic necessities of life. Donate and do not hesitate to provide your humanitarian assistance. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to every person who stood by us in these extremely difficult circumstances.

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heracrossbugfan999 · 5 days ago

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@shareeffamily

@shariffamilyy

Story written by @fabricated-pessimist

In Gaza, hundreds of thousands of parents are left speechless as they endure the countless atrocities inflicted upon their children. For many families, they lose their child before they even have the chance to truly know them—their dreams, their aspirations.

The Alamoudi family longed for a child for years. After enduring four grueling rounds of IVF, they were finally blessed with twins. But their joy was short-lived. As the war raged on, their baby, Ahmed, was born with urgent medical needs—holes in his heart requiring immediate surgery. On top of this, he suffers from nerve damage in his eye. Yet his parents are powerless, unable to seek the medical care he desperately needs, forced to watch helplessly as their child’s condition deteriorates by the day.

Imagine being a parent, filled with love and hope, only to realize that your child is being denied the medical attention they deserve because of an inhumane crisis. Ahmed’s father, Sharif, is unable to work overseas due to a herniated disc that causes severe spinal and nerve pain. As of this writing, their campaign has gone without donations for a long time.

We implore you—please, consider donating. Even the cost of a daily coffee could bring this family a moment of peace in their desperate fight to save their child.

You can donate to the Alamoudi family’s GoFundMe campaign [HERE].

This campaign has been vetted by @90-ghost

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heracrossbugfan999 · 5 days ago

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okay so I finished Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) by Harriet Jacobs, and here are my takeaways, because it was AMAZING and I can't believe all US students aren't required to read it in school:

shows how slavery actually worked in nuanced ways i'd never thought much about

example: Jacobs's grandmother would work making goods like crackers and preserves after she was done with her work day (so imagine boiling jars at like 3 a.m.) so that she could sell them in the local market

through this her grandmother actually earned enough money, over many years, to buy herself and earn her freedom

BUT her "mistress" needed to borrow money from her. :)))) Yeah. Seriously. And never paid her back, and there was obviously no legal recourse for your "owner" stealing your life's savings, so all those years of laboring to buy her freedom were just ****ing wasted. like.

But also! Her grandmother met a lot of white women by selling them her homemade goods, and she cultivated so much good will in the community that she was able to essentially peer pressure the family that "owned" her into freeing her when she was elderly (because otherwise her so-called owners' white neighbors would have judged them for being total assholes, which they were)

She was free and lived in her own home, but she had to watch her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren all continue to be enslaved. She tried to buy her family but their "owners" wouldn't allow it.

Enslaved people celebrated Christmas. they feasted, and men went around caroling as a way to ask white people in the community for money.

But Christmas made enslaved people incredibly anxious because New Years was a common time for them to be sold, so mothers giving their children homemade dolls on Christmas might, in just a few days' time, be separated from their children forever

over and over again, families were deliberately ripped apart in just the one community that Harriet Jacobs lived in. so many parents kept from their children. just insane to think of that happening everywhere across the slave states for almost 200 years

Harriet Jacobs was kept from marrying a free Black man she loved because her "owner" wouldn't let her

Jacobs also shows numerous ways slavery made white people powerless

for example: a white politician had some kind of relationship with her outside of marriage, obviously very questionably consensual (she didn't hate him but couldn't have safely said no), and she had 2 children by him--but he wasn't her "master," so her "master" was allowed to legally "own" his children, even though he was an influential and wealthy man and tried for years to buy his children's freedom

she also gives examples of white men raping Black women and, when the Black women gave birth to children who resembled their "masters," the wives of those "masters" would be devastated--like, their husbands were (from their POV) cheating on them, committing violent sexual acts in their own house, and the wives couldn't do anything about it (except take out their anger on the enslaved women who were already rape victims)

just to emphasize: rape was LEGALLY INCENTIVIZED BY US LAW LESS THAN 200 YEARS AGO. It was a legal decision that made children slaves like their mothers were, meaning that a slaveowner who was a serial rapist would "own" more "property" and be better off financially than a man who would not commit rape.

also so many examples of white people promising to free the enslaved but then dying too soon, or marrying a spouse who wouldn't allow it, or going bankrupt and deciding to sell the enslaved person as a last resort instead

A lot of white people who seemed to feel that they would make morally better decisions if not for the fact that they were suffering financially and needed the enslaved to give them some kind of net worth; reminds me of people who buy Shein and other slave-made products because they just "can"t" afford fairly traded stuff

but also there were white people who helped Harriet Jacobs, including a ship captain whose brother was a slavetrader, but he himself felt slavery was wrong, so he agreed to sail Harriet to a free state; later, her white employer did everything she could to help Harriet when Harriet was being hunted by her "owner"

^so clearly the excuse that "people were just racist back then" doesn't hold any water; there were plenty of folks who found it just as insane and wrongminded as we do now

Harriet Jacobs making it to the "free" north and being surprised that she wasn't legally entitled to sit first-class on the train. Again: segregation wasn't this natural thing that seemed normal to people in the 1800s. it was weird and fucked up and it felt weird and fucked up!

Also how valued literacy skills were for the enslaved! Just one example: Harriet Jacobs at one point needed to trick the "slaveowner" who was hunting her into thinking she was in New York, and she used an NYC newspaper to research the names of streets and avenues so that she could send him a letter from a fake New York address

I don't wanna give away the book, because even though it's an autobiography, it has a strangely thrilling plot. But these were some of the points that made a big impression on me.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl also inspired the first novel written by a Black American woman, Frances Harper, who penned Iola Leroy. And Iola Leroy, in turn, helped inspire books by writers like Nella Larsen and Zora Neale Hurston. Harriet Jacob is also credited in Colson Whitehead's acknowledgments page for informing the plot of The Underground Railroad. so this book is a pivotal work in the US literary canon and, again, it's weird that we don't all read it as a matter of course.

(also P.S. it's free on project gutenberg and i personally read it [also free] on the app Serial Reader)

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