#And use it to justify racism and many other isms

[bijoumikhawal]

I was reading your tags on that reblogging and good lord the complex discussion of Dhimmi (or related statuses) in the Islamic world gets so simplified on this site for god knows what reason—in that post I was writing about the Jews of Ibb I was going to mention how it was common place particularly in North Yemen for specific tribes to adopt pacts with the local Jews as “neighbors” and hence intimate members of the community who were protected by the local tribal law and consequently why Jews and Muslims had virtually the same dialects of Arabic in any given area; but that’s a complex matter I don’t think people would readily engage with because most of what’s said about Jews in Yemen is particular to urban Jewish communities who were directly in contact with as you mentioned, the ebb and flow of both anti-Semitic and pluralistic leaders at any given time. Like in specific the Zaydi Imamate always went back and forth on the matter within Sa‘dah, despite their control of neighboring tribal areas being hardly tangible at best and those local tribes (such as in Razih for instance) being rather tolerant of the local Jewish communities prior to the introduction of Saudi Wahhabism in the late 20th century.

It’s such a complex topic, and it’s so necessary to engage with. I just wanted to thank you for mentioning that really.

!! Yeah, there's a tendency to flatten it into one extreme or the other (and to act like the experiences of one group given Dhimmi status are the same as another group). Like, dhimmitude itself is a complex political concept because it's protected status, but it's nature as (to an extent, which at times was greater or lesser as you point out) a segregated status can lead into very harmful policies, which gets into Copts and cultural genocide (dhimmitude on its own, from my understanding, didn't have that impact, but when combined with other laws and cultural/religious/political forces, it can be very hard to read about policies that fell under Dhimmi related laws and not think about the broader impact had on our language and culture, and how conversion is used as a weapon against Coptic women in particular even today).

But situations were it doesn't, in fact, separate the community, tend to be ignored if not outright considered false. In some rural communities in Egypt there would be a very limited distinction between Copts and Muslims- in part, often because everyone there knew for a fact that the Muslim fellahin had been Coptic fellahin until a few generations back (a situation that gets generalized to all of Egypt and used as a rhetorical cudgel in really stupid ways against Copts on the assumption that genetics is the main or only factor in who is or is not Indigenous). This is also true in Judaism, for its own different can of worms about the way (in my experience) a certain type of white Jewish man will have anxiety regarding race mixing and project it onto the past and in situations where that makes no sense, and for political reasons to cast the diaspora as a unique site of misery.

[bowtiepastabitch]

Heaven's Not Homophobic in Good Omens, and Why That's Important

I need to preface this with, I am not trying to start a fight or argument and won't tolerate any homophobic or bad faith arguments in response to this. Cool? Cool.

This is in large part inspired by this ask from Neil's blog, which sparked some discourse that I don't want to get involved in but that brought up some analytic questions for me.

He goes on to reblog a question asking about Uriel's taunt specifically, clarifying that "boyfriend in the dark glasses" can just as easily be read/translated from angelic as girlfriend or bosom buddy. The idea is that an angel and a demon "fraternizing" is seriously looked down upon, not that heaven is homophobic. And that's super important.

We see homophobia in both the book and show, of course. Aziraphale is very queer-coded, intentionally and explicitly so, and we see the reaction of other humans to that several times. Sergeant Shadwell, for example, and the kid in the book that calls him the f-slur when he's doing magic at Warlock's birthday party. These are, however, individual human reactions to his coding as a gay man.

I am, personally, not a fan of heaven redemption theories for the show; no hate for people who want that it's just not something I'm interested in. I don't believe that heaven is good with bad leadership, or that God Herself remains as a paragon of virtue. To me, that's not in line with the themes and messages of the show. It's important, however, that heaven doesn't reflect human vices. Heaven can be nasty and selfish and apathetic in its own right without ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or racism. This matters for two reasons.

Firstly, we don't need the -isms and -phobias to be evil or at least ethically impure. In a world where we spend so much time fighting against prejudice and bigotry, our impulse is to see that reflected in characters whose motivations we distrust or who we're intended to dislike. While it's true that that's often the big bad evil in our daily lives, it can really cheapen the malice in fictional evil from a storytelling standpoint. A villain motivated by racism or as an allegory for homophobia can be incredibly compelling, but not every bad guy can be the physical representation of an -ism. Art reflects the reality in which it's crafted, but the complexity of human nature and the evil it's capable of can't be simplified to a dni list.

Secondly, and I think more importantly, is that for Good Omens specifically, this places the responsibility for homophobia on humanity. If you're in this fandom, there's like a 98% chance you've been hurt by religion in some way. For a lot of us, that includes religious homophobia and hate, so it makes sense to want to project that onto the 'religious' structure of Good Omens. It's a story that is, in many ways, about religious trauma and abuse. However, if heaven itself held homophobic values, it would canonize in-universe the idea that heaven and religion itself are responsible for all humanity's -isms and -phobias and absolve humans of any responsibility. Much like Crowley emphasizes repeatedly that the wicked cruelty he takes responsibility for is entirely human-made, we have to accept that heaven can't take the blame for this. To make heaven, the religious authority, homophobic would simply justify religious bigotry from humans. By taking the blame for religious extremism and hatred away from heaven and the religious structure, Good Omens makes it clear that the nastiness of humanity is uniquely and specially human and forces the individual to take responsibility rather than the system. Hell isn't responsible for the Spanish Inquisition, which by the way was religiously motivated if you didn't know, and heaven isn't responsible for Ronald Reagan.

This idea is perhaps more strongly and explicitly expressed in the Good Omens novel, in the scene where Aziraphale briefly possesses a televangelist on live TV. It's comedic, yes, but also serves to demonstrate that human concepts of the apocalypse and religious fervor are deeply incorrect (in gomens universe canon) and condemn exploitation of faith practices. Pratchett and Gaiman weave a great deal of complexity into the way religion and religious values are portrayed in the book, especially in the emphasis on heaven and hell being essentially the same. They're interested in the concept of what it means to be uniquely and unabashedly human, the good and the bad, and part of that is forcing each individual person to bear the brunt of responsibility for their own actions rather than passing it off onto a greater religious authority.

Additionally, from a fan perspective, there's something refreshing about a very queer story where homophobia isn't the primary (or even a side) conflict. The primary narrative of Good Omens isn't that these two man-shaped-beings are gay, it's that they're an angel and a demon. The tension in their romantic arc arises entirely from the larger conflict of heaven and hell, and things like gender and sexuality don't really matter at all. Yes, homophobia and transphobia are very real, present issues in our everyday lives, but they don't have to be central to every story we tell. There's something really soothing about Crowley and Aziraphale being so queer-coded and so clearly enamored with each other without constantly being bombarded with homophobia and hate. It's incredible to see a disabled angel whose use of a mobility aid makes no difference in their role and to see angels and demons using they/them pronouns without being questioned or misgendered. It's all accepted and normalized, and that's the kind of representation that we as queer people deserve.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

I read Nietzsche years ago, but now - because we've come to live in a woke world, and wokeness, as Nietzsche himself would doubtless have pointed out, is so palpably derived from Christianity - he seems infinitely more shocking than he did.

- Tom Holland, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind

Holland’s point is a simple one, our sense of ourselves - our Western identity - is derived less from Greek or Roman origins than from Christianity. Our language, our morality, our ethics, our sense of right and wrong, our sense of justice and so and so forth are all nourished from Christian roots. In our Western society, the language with which we debate secularism, atheism, human rights, or any other controversial subject are knowingly or unknowingly shaped by a uniquely Christian ethical world view.

It’s hard not to see a similarity to wokism (or wokeism or woke-ism, hmmm)), which contends that society is grotesquely unjust and, in fact, white supremacist. Those with power are privileged and perpetuate systemic racism, while those who are indigent and/or without social status are noble victims of the oppressive order. In the woke narrative, though, god has been replaced by the secular justice of the anti-racist crusader. Their efforts, not the intervention of a deity, is what will usher in an era of justice, overturning the corrupt world now inhabit. Although the puzzle Nietzsche sought to solve in “Genealogy of Morals” was not, of course, the origin and rise of wokism, his analysis of the triumph of Christianity is illuminating and quite useful. According to Nietzsche, the weak were bitterly envious of the powerful, but incapable of actually conquering them physically. Therefore, they created the conception of a deferred justice, one in which the wrongs of the world would be righted and turned the concept of “bad” into “evil.” They were not actually weak and impotent, but noble and oppressed. And the powerful were not righteous and aristocratic, but brutal, evil, and exploitative. We see here the basic narrative of apocalypticism and the basic outline of a psychological explanation for its appeal. People who have low status, whatever the cause, are generally reluctant to confess that they deserve their lowly position in society. And they will be attracted to narratives that claim that, in fact, they are not lowly because of they deserve to be, but rather because of some fundamental corruption in the universe, some deviation from the “right.” Wokism, like other apocalyptic narratives (e.g., some extremist strands of Judaism and Christianity, communism), thus attracts people who are or were low in status because it explains that they would/should be more elevated. But, Wokism, like Christianity after the imperial Constantine, is also an elite phenomenon. And this is where Nietzsche’s analysis, I think, sputters. Many hyper-educated people are also attracted to and ardently articulate and defend the doctrines of wokism. Surely, they aren’t bitter about their lack of status?

Instead, I think they are attracted to wokism for two reasons: One, because it functions as as a status system to distinguish educated elites from hoi polloi and two, because, like other religions, is provides a powerful justification for distinctions in status. It’s an elite form of virtue signalling. Status disparities cause tension in society. This, in fact, is the chief observation behind the appeal of apocalypticism for those low in prestige: It satisfies their grievances by suggesting that they will, in a just world, be elevated over the corrupt who now have status. Therefore, those who have status need to justify it to others and perhaps especially if they are egalitarians to themselves. Wokism serves this function by suggesting that their status is cosmically just because it is congruent with their righteousness. This happy thought also likely soothes their own vexatious reflections on the massive disparities between hoi polloi and themselves. No reason to feel guilty if status is earned through spiritual purity. Like any good ideology, wokism appeals to multiple factions in society at the same time. It appeals to those who have low status because it contends that the poor, the lowly, the “last” are actually noble victims of an intolerable evil. And when the just world of the future arrives, those who are now last will indeed be first. And it appeals to educated elites because it provides a rich signaling vocabulary that they can use to distinguish themselves from relatively uneducated whites while also justifying their status to others and to themselves.

Wokism, therefore, is both a philosophy of ressentiment and an elitist apologetic. No wonder it has proliferated so rapidly amongst the misguided middle classes intellectualised on emotion and grievance over reason and experience, truth and history.

[servicetopkaradanvers]

I'm not sure if this is exactly the right place to say this, but I don't know if there is. And you're a smart person and critical thinker who has talked about this before. If this is totally weird, you can just delete it ofc. I've never properly watched Supergirl but I started reading fanfic around the time my mental health got real bad so it was a comfort thing I didn't bring too much thought to. I really identify with Lena and in the past, part of me has understood her actions-

and I know that they're wrong. The anti-alien rhetoric is obviously an allegory for racism or homophobia. She's violated people's basic human rights. And I'm scared that I'm a bad person because sometimes, I kind of get it. Which is insane because i'm a lesbian enby of color, i mean i get targeted by most of the -ist/ism actions. And I'm also too tired to think about things critically all the time. Supercorp was my comfort fic, content thing-

I knew it was problematic (the whole James thing makes me sick to my stomach, scared and sad) but I didn't know that Lena as a character was written that way. The metaphors never really clicked in my head because I never thought about it, but now I feel absolutely horrible about myself because I like and identify with Lena. I'm not really sure how to move on from here- I'm just tired. I wish there could be just one thing, one piece of media that wasn't prejudiced (granted sg is not the place to go if you want decent rep and the like) and all of those things I said earlier. Its just me somehow trying to justify how I felt and empathized with something I shouldn't have. So yeah, sorry that was really long. I hope you have a lovely day- sorry for the spam

FIRST of all, you’re fine, babe! Both in sending me this and in enjoying The Bad Media. That’s my thesis here: You’re fine. With this in mind, let’s unpack this big ol suitcase:

We’re living in a fandom moment where more than ever before, we’re thinking about the ideas we consume in fiction and how they may or may not affect us. This is a net positive! Fiction is not reality, but it undeniably impacts it, so for this and many other reasons, we should always think critically about what resonates with us and why. Does this mean dissecting every facet of something to find all the ways it might fall in line with oppressive power structures? Absolutely not.

You, as an individual, do not owe anyone an explanation for why you enjoy anything. Period. How you relate to a given character or why you like them is nobody's business but your own.

Supergirl, as a piece of media, is singularly awful in its lackluster lipservice to progressivism while simultaneously refusing to deliver any progressive themes. Socially and politically, it is a useless liberal wet dream. Kara is an immigrant from a dead culture working as the muscle for a secret FBI offshoot with zero accountability for all of the other aliens in diaspora she has rounded up and dumped into a cell without trial. Alex is allegedly a lesbian, but the key points of her endgame relationship are constantly deemed not important enough to get screen time, which is made even more absurd when examined from the angle that this series is marketed directly toward LGBT people. An embarrassing percentage of villains on this show are women of color, which is particularly loud when there are only 2 women in the main cast who aren't white. And "main" is extremely generous, given that Kelly is just there to Give Advice Good and everything M'gann says and does is as dry as toast.

My point here is that the whole show is rotted to its roots, and whatever quietly libertarian or even fascism-enabling bullshit they push onto Lena in a given week is par for the crusty, shitty course. Kara deciding that she's ok with the alien detection device because "there are bad aliens" is a lovely (read: awful) microcosm of why this show sucks so fucking hard. "People are entitled to their opinions" is for debates on whether pineapple goes on pizza, not for whether we should casually out, endanger, and disenfranchise our [insert minority metaphor here] because some of them are mean.

But what I would love for this fandom to wrap its head around, and what I hope you understand, anon, is that just because it happens on the show, doesn't mean we have to give a rat's ass about it. What the hell is The Canon, anyway? Especially in the case for Supergirl, which can't even get its own continuity right. Especially for an IP that has been rebooted dozens of times before and will be rebooted again in the future. We can just decide that Lena realized the horrible injustices she enabled through her position of power. We can even decide that they just didn't happen at all! This is all fake. It's not set in stone. Who came up with it, anyway? A network with a list of buzzwords they want included and a couple of D-tier showrunners cranking down caffeine to meet an absurdly tight deadline. It's not special. I can guarantee that you care about it infinitely more than they do, and you haven't even watched the damn show.

On a more personal level, people who are hurt, depressed, or traumatized have always and will always look for themselves in fiction. Myself included! And despite what lofty platitudes there may be on the matter, suffering does not make us kind. It does not make us better. Sometimes it's just suffering. Often it pulls us further from who we are meant to be. Often it just makes us "worse."

Trauma has made Lena emotionally brittle. A lifetime of manipulation and abuse has taught her to compartmentalize herself and lock her feelings behind a maze of doors. When she does let love in, she accepts it so wild and vulnerable that she can't see the red flags behind the rosy lenses. She latches so hard onto people she deems virtuous that she holds them to a standard none could fulfill. Her pain has to go somewhere, so it oozes out of her, into Non Nocere, into the post-reveal rift. She's a powder keg, and Kara spent 4 years shoveling more gunpowder onto the pile while holding the match between her teeth.

And despite these fatal flaws that make perfect sense through the eyes of Lena's trauma, she is so full of love. Like Kara, her suffering did not make her kind. She is kind in spite of her suffering. These are the characters we are drawn to when we're hurting. Lena’s trauma is an inextricable part of her, but it is not all of her, and neither are her mistakes.

There truly is not and never will be a piece of media that is absolutely innocent of the harmful structures thrust upon us by society, because we ourselves also participate in that society whether we are critical of it or not, whether we strive to change it or not. I'm flawed. You're flawed. Bettering ourselves is not a journey toward an ultimate destination of perfection. It is a garden we nurture in an endless labor of love because the joy that comes from seeing it flourish and change vastly outweighs the work we put into it and the weeds popping up around its unkempt edges. This is a lesson Lena herself could probably stand to internalize. Probably with lots and lots of therapy. Lots. And lots.

So, to circle back to the start of this? You're fine. You recognized the logic in a traumatized character's mistakes because our own gravest errors more often than not stem from the ways we have been harmed in the past. It's what makes Lena (or, at the very least, the many adaptations of Lena that exist in this fandom) a good character. She is, to her core, characterized proof that a crumbling foundation and poisonous soil do not define us. Which is why watching her heal and grow and learn a healthier kind of love is so, so wonderful.

In closing, I think it's worth mentioning that being critical of media does not mean that we stop enjoying the parts of it we like. There is a lot of gold to be pulled from the steaming pile of shit that is CW Supergirl, and that's why we're all here in the first place. So I really hope you can continue to enjoy it in whatever way makes you smile <3

[pro-birth]

I feel like my fellow pro-lifers need to be reminded of something.

Some women who get abortions genuinely believe on some level that it’s not a real human in there.

Some women who get abortions cling to the dehumanization of the unborn so as to avoid the trauma and heartache it would cause.

Some women who get abortions know that it is killing a human being, their own offspring. Perhaps they don’t think that it causes them pain and appeal to the “better to die than suffer” mantra.

Some women who get abortions did not want them, and were coerced/pressured to in order to survive their abuse, trafficking, sexist job/campus, etc.

Some women who get abortions are lied to about what abortion is and how it works, and do not learn of it until it actually happens.

Some women who get abortions have had them before, and have become so numb to the pain of it as a trauma response that they get another one just to cope with the hardships they face.

Some women who get abortions use cognitive dissonance to justify and cope with their abortions so as to not think about what they have done, such as mourning miscarriages of wanted babies but claiming other women’s abortions are not losses.

Some women who get abortions know that it is killing a human being, they don’t care, and maybe they even rely on bigotry such as sexism or racism to justify it.

Some women who get abortions become loud and proud about it in an angry, vindictive way to project their anger and hatred into others so as to avoid guilt and suffering.

Notice how unique each woman’s experience is. Some are victims, some are victims who know better but are psychologically not in a good place, some are fully aware of what they do and don’t care, causing their own suffering and causing suffering in turn. Post-abortive psychology and reactions are so diverse because the driving social and individual forces behind them are also diverse. Abortion is clearly a human rights violation as it kills an unborn class of human beings, but the reasons people get them and how and why they react to them the way they do is more complicated.

So stop acting like sexism, classism, racism, or other isms do not play a part in it. Not all post-abortive women are victims, neither are they all villains. But abortion itself is clearly causing them pain and suffering due to the pain and suffering they cause to the unborn. We need to stop falling into the trap that says all women are guilty if they have an abortion. Many are actually not fully informed, supported, or actively involved with the death of their child, and I refuse to curse and belittle those women just because a minority of them are evil people who happily and knowingly kill the unborn. Make abortion illegal and unthinkable, but stop thinking that taking away compassion for both woman and child will get us there.

[brightlotusmoon]

From a comment thread in my ADHD group about the reality of ADHD as a disorder.

-

"Education needs reform for this and many other reasons, which will make learning easier for most, but will not “eliminate” ADHD.

Part of the problem is that this framing removes protections from those of us who need labels and accommodation in order to manage our lives."

...

"While I understand what this author was going for, this article is clearly written by a neurotypical who’s never grappled with day to day living as a Neurodiverse human.

Yes, many of our struggles exist because we live in a society that thrives on high production value at the lowest cost.

Yes there are studies showing our brains have evolved in a manner unsuited to our current living condition.

But at the end of the day it is still a disorder and it needs to be labeled and recognized as one. When we try to trim the edges of a complex issue and say “it’s about dealing with adversity” al you’ve done is give people the green light to say we simply don’t know how to cope with stress and that’s some how our fault.

You can’t boil down the complex spectrum of mental health like this because it somehow makes you feel better sorry.

All this article will accomplish is giving NT’s further permission to dismiss our struggles and push us further and further away from getting the proper treatment we need.

Again, this is a complex issue that can’t be boiled down into a 1000 word article. The reason you see less cases in Finland vs the US is because of so many factors like socialized medicine, advanced and well funded education infrastructure, an economy that isn’t stuck in late stage capitalism propaganda.

The reason you see more cases being diagnosed is because more and more people feel comfortable discussing mental health, because we are slowly moving away from the outdated diagnosing models that assume only boys can get ADHD, and in America especially we are dealing with generations that have increased trauma like 9/11, the crash of 2008, housing crisis after housing crisis, Covid, economic inflation without proper wages. The burn out is astronomical and no one wants to properly deal with that.

So it’s incredibly unfair for this author to sit there and say “it’s a simple matter of not being able to deal with adversity” and assume that’s going to somehow fix us."

...

"My concern for this study is that it will be used to justify and reinforce the ableist notion to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and then it will make not overcoming "adversity" as a personal failing.

I also take issue with the position that we can reform individual systems (i.e education) to mitigate mental disorders. IMO, reform is just a bandaid and it doesn't address the base causes of trauma/adversity which are things like poverty and economic instability, hunger, domestic violence rooted in patriarchal masculinity/homophobia/transphobia, state violence (i.e. police killings, child migrant detention, etc.), and imperialism/war.

The article mentions ADHD as an adaption to ancestral adversity, though it doesn't mention the research on epigenetics that point to trauma being passed intergenerationally through biological/genetic changes in offspring.

I'm curious to read the full study. I feel it has some good ideas, but I caution putting too much weight into one study as presented in Forbes."

...

"I only skimmed the first two paragraphs thus far. Lessee - PTSD might be a response to adversity - um, no sh*t Sherlock! And quite often yes depression and other conditions are as well. That part of why trauma-informed care has become such a significant thing in psychotherapy circles. Then it says ADHD may be from our ancestral environment but doesn’t match the way we live today - uh that means it’s not adaptive and is creating a problem. That’s also why treatment is more than just medication which is what they are focused on. They also said something about despite medication the prevalence of depression hasn’t decreased. I didn’t see how they made that determination but - um, people have to continue to see their treating providers and have the diagnosis if they are going to continue to receive the treatment. Yes it might be in remission, but for some only as long as the medication is being taken (and I’ll say that’s more likely if someone doesn’t receive therapy - I’m a bit biased in this regard 🙂) … I also doubt physicians or clinicians are changing the diagnoses. Heck, I went through a difficult breakup and requested medication - I later saw the doctor ”diagnosed” Major Depression - uh, no, and that diagnosis still shows up. Other thoughts too, I could (and probably should really write an article of my own). I also saw they make reference to polyvagal theory, an important relatively concept in understanding and informing how we treat clients - again beyond medication alone.

Social reform, sure we need it. I’m assuming this reform is to address things like poverty, systemic racism, etc. It’s cyclical: systemic stuff contributes to physical and mental conditions/disorders/diseases. I’m all for less trauma and all the various -isms.

BUT one issue does not negate the existence of the other. That there is an adversity aspect doesn’t rule out the biological aspect. “Yes AND” not “yes but”.

And now I’ll get back to what I was doing before I got sidetracked by seeing this... 😃 (And read the rest of the article later - so great to have such a big reaction to something I barely read! Oy…)"

-

[blogforenvironmentalethics]

All Animals Are Not Equal— Nor Should They Be

In “All Animals Are Equal,” Peter Singer draws attention to the speciesist ideas which he argues virtually all human beings possess. While speciesism (a term defined as the prevailing idea that human beings are superior to other species) is incredibly common, it is rarely, if ever, discussed. In calling attention to this issue, Singer makes an argument for animal liberation from the oppressive structures of speciesism. The center of this argument is what Singer claims to be the basic principle of equality. This basic principle is an “equality of consideration” (Singer 27). It is important to note that, according to Singer, “equal consideration for different beings may lead to different treatment and different rights” (27). Essentially, while animals are deserving of equal consideration, that doesn’t mean that animals should be entitled to all human rights. 

In service of his argument for equality of consideration for animals, Singer draws bold parallels to other -isms, most notably racism and sexism (although, in his arguments against sentience and intelligence as determinants for equal consideration, he also delves briefly into ableism). At times, Singer even goes so far as to quote what he considers to be speciesist viewpoints and ask his readers to “substitute the term ‘white’ for every occurrence of ‘men’ and ‘black’ for every occurrence of ‘dog’” (Singer 37). Of course, the resulting passage is revolting, racist, and ethically unacceptable. And so, Singer’s readers must ask themselves: why is it acceptable to think and to speak about animals in this horrible way? Essentially, Singer justifies these parallels by arguing that the capacity to suffer is what qualifies one for equal consideration. Animals— at least most higher animals— do possess this capacity to suffer. Therefore, animals are deserving of equal consideration. Yet this equal consideration is rarely given to animals, because of how easily humans distance themselves from animals and “fall victim to a prevailing ideology” (37) of human supremacy over nonhuman members of the animal kingdom.

 The case for animal liberation is not a foreign concept to me. I know many individuals who elect to live a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle out of care and respect for the lives and wellbeing of animals. At first, I found Singer’s argument to be quite compelling. His claim about equal consideration leading to differential treatment made sense to me. Yet, as I read further, I found Singer’s following arguments less and less convincing. While I agree that there is great value in combatting animal cruelty, Singer’s arguments eventually progressed from uncompelling to simply off-putting. My greatest grievance with Singer’s claims is that his direct parallels between speciesism and racism seem, to me, to do more to belittle the pervasive and dehumanizing issue of racism than to promote anti-speciesism. I understand the reasons why Singer draws these parallels— he aims to compel his readers to think carefully about their speciesist views by drawing attention to what he sees as hypocrisy. As a reader, however, I find these parallels neither compelling nor appropriate. I wonder if Singer would have made the same -ism parallels if he had written “All Animals Are Equal'' more recently. 

Not only do I think that Singer’s argument still works without the direct parallels to racism, I believe his argument would be stronger without them. The strength of Singer’s philosophy is not in his outlandish comparisons. What gives strength to Singer’s argument is his idea to use the capacity for suffering as the qualifier for equal consideration. He makes it clear why sentience and intelligence are not appropriate determinants of deservedness for that equality, and I think that the ability to suffer is an as-close-to-exhaustive-as-possible identifier for who (and what) is deserving of our equal consideration. On its own, recognition of the ability of higher animals to experience suffering is sufficient to back Singer’s argument without comparing speciesism to racism.

I can’t help but wonder, though, whether we are always able to identify when an animal is suffering, let alone if it is able to. Sometimes the suffering of animals is obvious, but other times it isn’t. So even if the capacity to suffer is the perfect determinant of deservedness for equal consideration, it may not always be practical in action. Why are we, as humans, so sure of our ability to detect the suffering of animals? Why do we claim to know them so well? Additionally, Singer failed to convince me of the value in the concept of equal consideration itself. Consideration is a good thing, sure, but it isn’t action. Consideration is not change; it’s just an idea. It’s kindness, but only in a hypothetical sense. I cannot help but wonder: if equal consideration need not lead to equal treatment and equal rights, what do we accomplish by giving animals equal consideration? If I, in the words of David Foster Wallace, “consider the lobster,” and still decide to consume the lobster, has any good been done?

Word Count: 815

[katribou]

Maybe its not supposed to be a racism allegory. It still works for the story and worldbuilding. Just like Beastars, where attempts to compare it to real life won't work since the problems the characters face are really specific to their own society and their own nature, so the story wouldn't make sense if you replaced them with humans. But if the allegory really was the author's intent, then you're right and it was poorly done.

alright. i want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but there is a bit of ignorance to what you say. so i’ll be as thorough as possible about my thoughts.

authorial intent is really powerless when it comes to what a piece of media says or does. if a piece of media harms, but the author did not mean it to harm, does that make the harm any more less? 

content creators and content consumers alike are likely familiar (and if not, should be) with the notion of ‘death of the author.’ from tvtropes’ summary of the concept:

Death of the Author is a concept from mid-20th Century literary criticism; it holds that an author's intentions and biographical facts (the author's politics, religion, etc) should hold no special weight in determining an interpretation of their writing. This is usually understood as meaning that a writer's views about their own work are no more or less valid than the interpretations of any given reader. Intentions are one thing. What was actually accomplished might be something very different. The logic behind the concept is fairly simple: Books are meant to be read, not written, so the ways readers interpret them are as important and "real" as the author's intention. [...]

Bottom line: A) when discussing a fictional work with others, don't expect "Author intended this to be X; therefore, it is X" to be the end of or your entire argument; it's universally expected that interpretations of fiction must at least be backed up with evidence from within the work itself and B) don't try to get out of analyzing a work by treating "ask the author what X means" as the only or even best way to find out what X means — you must search for an answer yourself, young seeker. Writing is the author's job; analyzing the work and drawing conclusions based on it is your job — if the author just gave away the answers every time, where would the fun be in that?

>interpretations of fiction must at least be backed up with evidence from within the work itself. okay, fine. so i argue brand new animal is a racism allegory. let’s look within the show to find evidence of this.

from episode 9: “But Nazuna wants to give a glimmer of hope and dreams to the beastmen who’ve been persecuted and suffered for so long.”

'the beastmen who have been persecuted.’ what exactly does that mean? persecution as defined in mac’s dictionary function (which cites new oxfords english dictionary): hostility and ill-treatment, especially because of race or political or religious beliefs. 

the beastmen are not oppressed because of who they believe in, so not of religious beliefs or political beliefs, with the exception of believing they deserve rights, which plays into... that they are persecuted for race.

i dont really think i need to back up that statement, but for the sake of a sound argument, this is from episode 1.

it’s clear that this human dude has a distaste for michiru here because of what she is, a beastman, which is essentially what she is, her race. hence racial persecution, or, racism.

in your own words, “attempts to compare it to real life won't work since the problems the characters face are really specific to their own society and their own nature, so the story wouldn't make sense if you replaced them with humans.”

is the above exchange really so displaced from real life? this kind of thing really does happen; being targeted and even beat up simply for existing as you are is not something that is so specific to only the world of bna. 

sure you may argue that replacing humans into the whole story would not make sense and well sure, yes. it is indeed a work of fiction so it won’t be a perfect replication of the human experience. but there is enough situations like the above to argue it mirrors racial prejudice in real life.

the evidence is there, so with the philosophy of “death of the author,” it is arguable this piece of media exists as a racial allegory, whether or not trigger wrote it to be that way. if they somehow did not have real race/minority relations in mind when writing this, which i would find very hard to believe, than it has still become bigger than them. because people who face racism will relate to scenarios such as beastmen being the target of hate crimes like the above, and nothing the authors meant to do really changes that feeling.

when such a scenario as above is set up in the very first episode to give you a picture of what this persecuted group experiences, while simultaneously likening itself to what minorities in real life experience, the treatment in following episodes of said group will reflect back as commentary on real life groups whether or not the authors intended that.

in bna’s case it’s rather damaging with implying this minority group is prone to rage and destruction because of their nature or dna:

episode 9: “Beastmen are easily influenced by their emotions. When their frustration builds up, the slightest thing sends them into a fury, causing confusion.”

episode 10: “The stress from multiple species invading your habitat accumulates subconsciously. In that situation if there is a powerful mental shock, the enrage switch in beast [dna] is set off, and their fight instincts take over.”

this is where you may argue in your own words “the story wouldn't make sense if you replaced them with humans.” which, yes that is true, but again this is fiction. the dynamic they establish in that first episode with beastmen being persecuted by humans is one founded in real race relations so the show at large becomes a vehicle to which it addresses race relations.

ep 10: “They’re [the drug vaccine that cures beastmen of being animals] made to subdue beastmen who have turned savage.”

goodness this almost becomes about eugenics! which is another movement founded on racism and other -isms!

the word “savage” generally refers to wild, violent unconfined animals, which, fine, i suppose, after all these ARE animal people in the show. but the show has established this animal people group as a targeted victim minority. historically in real life, the word “savage” has been a label used to describe many persecuted groups, like indigenous peoples or african americans, in a way to dehumanize them by comparing them to animals and force the idea that they are uncivilized while making the people in power feel more justified about their rough treatment of the targeted group.

i suppose arguably they are using the word “savage” to describe animals as the word originally was intended, but after establishing the framework of these animals as being persecuted peoples, do you understand the implications? are they basically saying yes, targeted minorites, are savage? admittedly i will say that that idea is a big jump, but even if you stick to the world of the show, basically this establishes that everyone is at the mercy of their genes turning them bad... not a great message.

i kind of went beyond the scope of what you addressed in your message, but wanted to show an example of how i think it is very important to consider how a piece of media can very easily become bigger than its creators, and that you cannot hide behind authorial intent saying otherwise when media expresses potentially damaging ideas. 

to reiterate the line from tvtropes: Intentions are one thing. What was actually accomplished might be something very different.

[izukukuzi]

you know, i respect people who want bkg to be redemmed bc we all have our own opinions and stuff. but to me??? i want him OUT of the narrative, nothing he will ever do (just looking at what we have till now, almost 300 chaps) will be enough,nothing will happen so yeah, to me he is iredemable. is it me selfprojecting years of cruelty i had to deal with with bothableism and racism? maybe but in a word qith quirks where people can be pink red or black with no problem

(2/4) what sets you aside is your quirk. or lack of it since without it you aint even a person, and bakugou spent 10 years and MORE ruining the equivalent of a disabled child while showing how privileged he was, he is rich, has a powerful quirk, can hurt anyone and get away with it, he has both parents, he is everything izuku isnt AND yet we have to sympathize with him rather than the victim??? i dont get it.i know a lot of people want him to be redeemed but i dont understand why he has to become friends

(3/4) like if someone told me be friends with the person who ruined your youth and selfworth and just straight up made your life hell im just gonna be really, astonished and he didnt get better, it is just the narrative accommodating him, because he is like pretty much the same as the start. and something that i dont get is why people try justifying him while hating mineta,they are the same age so lets just admit that yall care about appearence rather than actual characters and flaws

(4/4) sorry i ranted dhf hdbhjcsd but like. im just tired and your inbox is one of the few places that make me feel understood ?? ;-; sorry, and love u!!! have a nice day honey bee

first, I want to address your last point, nonnie. neveeeeeer apologize for sharing your thoughts with me!!! to be honest, I became more vocal about my feelings towards bakugou because I imagined that others felt that way too, or similarly enough, and I wanted to make space for us all to comfortably talk about it. the fact that that’s working, even for one person at all, makes me feel good!!! so no apologies, and no worries babes (and I love you toooooooooo!!)

now, onward to the stuff:

you bring up a lot of points that i probably don’t have all the depth to explore in their entirety, but yes to all that ^^^^^

as you mentioned at the start, there are variations in opinions, which is how things work. the beauty of it is that everyone can take what they want out of the show/character(s) and every interpretation (within reason hdebfdbnjd) is valid. soooooooo if you’re someone who has dealt with real life discrimination of some sort (like racism, ableism, sexism, along with the other -isms) I think it’s beyond fair to not only identify with izuku, but to raise issue with bakugou and his actions. I mean, even if you haven’t felt those struggles, seeing and then calling out a character’s shitty behavior is not... a bad thing?? even for bakugou, even at the start of his “redemption.” being wary of his growth makes sense, especially when it took us over two-hundred chapters to get where we are currently.

that then leads me into the responses to the responses to bakugou dbedhd I haven’t really had the chance to speak to many people who are put off by my stance on bk, but I can sort of guess that some people grow defensive on his behalf because 1) they feel the need to justify the fact that they like him, or 2) they identify with him, maybe in a way that I, or you nonnie, identify with izuku, so they take criticism geared towards him as something personal (and as I said, this is me guessing. I don’t know shit about shit so please no one take offense or anything). and you know, when thinking about that, I believe:

you don’t have to justify liking a character, even when they’re “bad.” I know there’s lots of shiggy stans around and I would never ask any of them to justify enjoying his character (though I will continuously joke on yall for calling him attractive lmao). people criticize shig’s actions and how he operates in the plot, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still like him. the same goes for bakugou

me, in this case, disliking a character that you see parts of yourself in does not mean I have any ill feelings towards you as a person. for example, I love izuku! I think I was in the tags of someone else’s post early this morning talking about how I connect with him as a black person and how I love his storyline because parts of it make me feel seen. so like, all that in mind, there’s a decent amount of people, both in and out of the fandom, who haaaaaaaaaaate izuku. there’s a number of reasons why, and while I don’t agree with that stance, obviously, I know that people’s feelings about him do not also reflect onto me as a person because their perception of him has nothing to do with me. the same line of reasoning can, and probably should, be applied to bakugou. 

and so with all of that being said... that’s what I think is (part of) what’s going on. now, as someone who doesn’t care for his character, and being shit-talked for not caring too much for his character, I am still frustrated by it. plenty of people have already talked about the importance of holding bk accountable, and it’s okay if we get that in canon and it 1) changes how you feel about bk (because honestly, that’s what I want. I want to see him do good enough by izu and his past mistakes to like him... or tolerate him better duebndnwd), 2) it doesn’t change how you feel, or 3) it makes you dislike him more. all of these are valid reactions. what I do hope for is that people are understanding of how others feel, regardless of how it shoves against your own/the fandom’s general opinion, because they’re allowed to feel differently. 

people are allowed to problematize problematic behavior, they’re allowed to enjoy a character despite said problematic beahvior, and these things can (and should) coexist.   

okay but all this bullshit is basically me saying you’re valid anon and anti-bakugou fans/bakugou haters/whatever deserve more rights eubfudwnjndjw

[bookandcover]

The September/October book for our family Anti-Racism Book Club, A Terrible Thing to Waste is a poignant and urgent examination of environmental racism in America. Environmental racism refers to all the ways that environmental circumstances—from climate change to environmental toxins to pollution and air quality—disproportionately negatively impact BIPOC in America. I didn’t know anything about this topic before reading this book, yet this concept seems so obvious, so essential, that I was shocked and horrified that this wasn’t something I’d read or thought about before. 

The book begins with an examination of the “IQ gap” in America, a scientifically-proven difference between the average IQ of white and Black Americans (somewhere between 10 and 15 IQ points, depending on the study). Studies showing this gap have long been used to justify racism in many forms, supported by an understanding of intelligence (measured by IQ) as something inherently innate, and not something dramatically impacted by our environments. Washington explains that IQ is, of course, an imperfect measurement and a strange over-simplification of what intelligence actually is. But it is not a meaningless measurement. IQ has been shown to correlate strongly to academic success, employment and career development, and long-term income and financial stability. The environments in which these kinds of successes occur are, of course, charged with systemic racism, classism, sexism, and ableism—some of the same -isms that make IQ a strange way to measure intelligence. But, Washington argues, that given the correlation between IQ and these measurements of success, IQ seems a worthwhile thing to discuss, especially when there is such a large gap in average IQ between white and Black Americans. The focus should be on closing this gap, while simultaneously understanding that IQ is not reflective of innate intelligence, but something shaped by environmental factors. The notable racial point difference is due to these different environmental factors for different races. And this is a difference we ought to care about, not only from a moral standpoint, but also from a practical one, as this difference lowers America’s overall IQ, while high overall IQs have allowed countries to compete in the global market. 

Washington provides a variety of evidence to show two key things: 1) that environmental factors (focusing on measurable and quantifiable toxins and pollutants as environmental factors) directly impact IQ, and 2) that the most significant variable indicating likelihood of exposure to environmental toxins is race not class. This first area of focus provides the parameters for Washington’s book. There are, of course, numerous aspects of our environments that shape us, and that shape our IQ more narrowly. The impact of exposure to toxins is well-studied and it’s a cut-and-dry correlation, as the presence of lead, asbestosis, and other toxins have dramatic impacts on humans and human development. The physical impacts—cancer, sickness, death—might be the first impacts that jump to mind when we think of the impact of toxins in living environments. But their impacts on intelligence, IQ, memory, learning and retention, speech, and other types of mental facilities are also well-documented. The second point is an equally important premise of this book, and the one that probably requires the most work on the part of the author to debunk many Americans’ current thinking about the relationship between race and class. I think that many Americans would assume exposure to environmental toxins correlates to poverty—if you live in an impoverished area, you’re more likely to be exposed to toxins. We assume that houses that are new, that are clean, that are pricey, are safe. We assume neighborhoods that we classify according to similar marks of economic prosperity are safe. 

I believe that many Americans would assume that, if there’s a racial aspect to environmental justice, it’s due to the fact that a higher percentage of Black Americans, and other BIPOC in America, live in poverty. Washington, however, demonstrates that Black Americans and white Americans, with the same income and an income that places them in the middle class and NOT in poverty, have notably different rates of exposure to environmental toxins. Black Americans with household incomes around 50K a year are exposed to toxins at the same rate as white Americans of the poorest demographic (households with incomes less than 10K a year). Waste dumping sites, power plants, chemical treatment facilities, manufacturing plants that emit airborne pollutants—these are all far more likely to be built and placed within communities of color. The communities that border any type of plant or facility likely to release environmental toxins—called fence-line communities—are overwhelmingly communities of color, and not the communities inhabited by even the poorest white Americans. 

The data and studies that support these facts revealed something to me that intuitively made sense. I assume that, when cases of acute environmental toxicity impact white communities, even the poorest ones, there is likely a higher level—with a distinctly alarmed tone—of media coverage, than when BIPOC communities are impacted. It also makes sense that, while acute cases like those in Flint, Michigan spark widespread media coverage, it’s the quiet and more pervasive impacts of environmental toxicity that are systematically hurting Black Americans. For example, lead poisoning often occurs at low levels of lead intake that don’t reveal immediate, physical affects. But lead poisoning has a dramatic impact on IQ. Washington demonstrates how the continued presence of lead paint in living environments—when it has been shown that exposure to lead AT ANY CONCENTRATION LEVEL is harmful—is the responsibility, and failure, of business that put profitability above human lives. The use of lead paint in houses has only been entirely restricted since 1978 (Congress banned its use in residential structures constructed by/with the federal government in 1971), and therefore it still exists in houses built before this date. While landlords are asked to bear responsibility for lead paint testing, they far too often do not, knowing they’ll still be able to rent untested apartments at low prices. And testing and repainting costs do drive up rents, making the cheapest and least safe options the ones that some renters need to select. 

Washington puts the onus for this terrible situation onto the companies that used lead paint, even before it was thoroughly tested and long after it was shown to be harmful. She points out how even the idea of a toxicity gradient and “safe levels” of toxins prioritizes the unethical practices of businesses over the lives of humans, when no level of these toxins is safe in most cases. All toxic exposure impacts us. Washington shows that the US government has historically held, and continues to hold, an “innocent until proven guilty” mindset when it comes to artificial products and chemicals—in food, in living spaces, in household cleaners, in everyday products. Companies can use what they want until something is proven to be harmful, and the bar for proof is high. The gradual reduction of lead paint usage until it was entirely stopped supports this argument. Even after lead paint was banned, the companies who had used it held no responsibility, letting the shock waves of this poisoning continue for decades through BIPOC communities while well-meaning landlords and individual families struggled to remove lead from their environments. 

This book has a comprehensive approach, which I very much appreciated. Washington covers a variety of types of environmental factors that disproportionately impact BIPOC communities in America. She shows how deep these problems run. These are problems that are linked to class, but not accounted for solely by class. These are problems that are connected to the relationship between businesses and ethics, but are not explained solely by the lack of accountability for businesses that are placing environmental toxins directly into living environments. Washington covers the significantly higher risk to babies and toddlers from environmental toxins that shape developing bodies and brains in lifelong ways. She covers air pollution, water pollution and how it impacts communities that rely on subsistence fishing, she covers toxins in living spaces and in baby foods, she covers the impact of locations of toxic waste dumping sites. She ends the book with a call to arms: a list of ways that readers can help work toward reducing these impacts in their own communities and holding businesses accountable. 

I was familiar with the expression “a mind is a terrible thing to waste,” but I didn’t know the origin of this phrase until my dad directed me to the series of PSAs run by the United Negro College Fund in the 1970s. These PSAs popularized this phrase. Therefore, this phrase, although in widespread use, has in its origins a clear link to race and to the value of the minds of Black Americans: minds which are wasted without equitable access to educational opportunities, but also wasted from the very beginning of some lives through repeated exposure to a variety of environmental toxins. This book’s examination of environmental racism shows how pervasive these issues are and how deeply these issues are tied to the chemical and product development systems that are given priority over human lives, as well as the deep racism apparent in the lesser value placed on the minds and bodies of Black Americans. 

[Note: I write these posts for myself as a way to process what I’ve read, but I put them on the internet and, therefore, into the world. If you read something here that you would like to discuss or correct, I would love it if you would feel comfortable reaching out to me. I cannot promise I’m not ignorant and short-sighted...I can promise that I want to listen.]

[jordynsportfolio]

about me

(selfie is at the bottom of this post)

Hi there! Welcome to my *professionally* crafted Final Portfolio for ENGL 1120. My name is Jordyn, my pronouns are she/her and I’m a 20-year-old Linguistics major at the University of New Mexico with a minor in Journalism, and my favorite color is yellow. In case you don’t know and would like to know, Linguistics is basically the science of language. I am bilingual (English and German), so I am very interested in language, sociolinguistics, and how they shape our societies. My minor in journalism comes from my love of writing, something I am still chasing and trying to feel fully again. I enjoy telling stories, and I feel as though telling real stories in their full truth is something our world needs very desperately right now. The past four years have both scared and inspired me to step up and get involved in what’s going on in the world, and I want to contribute to the change we need.

My hobbies in life are numerous, and I could probably say that everything is interesting to me. I tend to bounce around with interests a lot because I think it’s exciting and useful to know a little bit of everything. However, my main interests are listening to music, play video games, and I enjoy cooking/baking. My guilty pleasure is definitely online shopping, because there’s no dopamine rush quite like getting a package in the mailbox or at my front door. Pure euphoria, if you ask me. To expand on my hobbies and interests, here are some of my favorite things: My favorite band is The Neighbourhood (The NBHD). Their music is so amazing and I don’t think they have ever, or will ever, release a bad song. My favorite album from The NBHD is called Wiped Out!, I highly suggest you give it a listen if you like indie rock/pop. As for video games (By the way, I am a loyal PlayStation player, you won’t find any Xboxes here), I am currently playing through Persona 5 and replaying Horizon: Zero Dawn, which are both easily some of my favorite games. Both equally as headache inducing but super fun nonetheless. As for baking and cooking, the past year or so I have become really devoted to it, and it’s probably the hobby I do the most. Fun fact but kind of sad fact: I tend to get over-stimulated very easily, so sometimes it hard for me to do certain activities, but I have found that cooking dinner for my family or trying a new baking recipe has helped me stimulate my brain in a way that isn’t overwhelming. It has taught me to problem solve in a way that doesn’t spike my anxiety, and honestly, I am very thankful for it. My favorite recipes to make right now are my (in)famous vegan chocolate cake (my parents get triggered that there are no eggs in it) and my Mushroom Orzo dish (my parents actually like this one).

When it comes to writing, I actually really enjoy it. Creative writing, at least. It used to be a large hobby of mine, and I used to do it quite frequently. I have some writings of mine published sporadically around the internet actually (you will never find them so do not seek them out). However, as I’ve gotten older and as I’ve had to adapt to more academic writing styles, I think I lost my love for it in a way. There used to be something so magical about writing to me. Perhaps it was my way to escape for a while into some fictional reality I created, or maybe I felt at ease when I could translate my thoughts and feelings into words I could never verbally express correctly. However, in this class, I feel as though my love for writing resurfaced a bit, because I felt very interested and invested in my topics and found creative ways to write my writing assignments. One of my favorite things about writing is how certain usages of sentence structure and diction can suck the reader into another headspace, and doing so in academic writing ensures the reader will come out of it with all the information fully absorbed. For a while, that didn’t seem possible through academic writing, such as lengthy essays and presentations, but the past year or so I’ve begun to strengthen my academic writing. Strengthening my skills has helped me get closer and closer to my goal of achieving transformative writing.

The standout part of this course to me personally was our unit on propaganda. Obviously, I understood propaganda and what its intentions are beforehand, but doing my paper on the Jim Crow era in terms of propaganda opened my eyes to the fact that propaganda really is everywhere in our histories, societies, and everyday lives. I think the connotation of propaganda is always tied to war times, because the majority of propaganda discussed is from eras of war, and is never really discusses—at least in my school settings—other forms in depth. I even fell victim to thinking that way. But seeing the ways in which propaganda, which usually manipulates and traps its audiences, it’s kind of frightening that it had managed to wedge itself so tightly into our world. It definitely altered my world view doing this project, but it was also extremely insightful. But I will admit, it is rather scary to see how much of propaganda pertains to the -isms our society claims to be against. So much of propaganda is blatantly racist, sexist, and xenophobic, and while there are many cases where they are pointed out and criticized, there is a whole lot of other things that fly under the radar. Even with COVID this year, propaganda about the virus has antagonized China and people of Asian descent. Hate crimes rose significantly after this propaganda hit America really hard, and it angers me that we have allowed people to think that their racism is justified or okay.

[evilelitest2]

"because a lot of folks on this site for example are buying into conservative mindsets even as they battle conservatives" Can you elaborate on this a bit more? It is interesting.

Ok so you know how in the build up to the American Civil War a lot of white Northerners were fiercely opposed to slavery but were still extremely racist in terms of their world view, they basically were right for the wrong reasons.  A lot of leftists here seem to doing the same thing, they oppose conservatism but don’t actually doubt many of the core principles of conservatism.  This is especially obvious when looking at tactics or methods 

1) Accepting Right wing Framing of Issues.  @randomshoes actually made this observation to me, but I’m going to steal it for this post here

Basically when the Right frames an issue, its often this massively simplistic binary narrative like “Capitalism good, Communism bad” or “The West is totally a real thing and it is good and anything on western is bad” or “Christianity=good, nonchristain=bad”  And so many leftists, rather than challenging the binary just accept it but invert it.  So I see people being like “Lets downplay the crimes of Joseph Stalin” rather than “actually making it capitalism vs. communism is a massively simplistic way of viewing extremely complicated political movements that emerged over centuries”.  Or people going on to these extremely nasty anti Christian movements rather than just accepting 

The most extreme version of this is that I sometimes see leftists support literal conservatives because they happen to be opposed to Westernization, like I see leftists justifying ISIS or even Japanese Ultra Nationalist.  

2) The desire for everything bad to be traced back to a single unified source.  If you ever have the misfortune to watch Right wing News like I do, their world view is one where everything they don’t like from socialism to Islamic fundamentalism to Crime to Hollywood to racial minorities  are all one mass that they just call “enemies” ussually led by George Soros or some other antisemitic stereotype.  Because a core part of rightist thought process is an embrace of intellectual simplicity and rejection of complexity.  They like nice simple narratives with clear bad guys and good guys and where they don’t have to imagine things in a more nuanced or complicated manner.   

So it is super infuriating when the left buys into it

Both me and @randomshoes have met leftist who honest to god believe that there is some council of rich white men who are sitting around table being like “ok so the 15th meeting of the Oppressors meeting has met, what are some new ways we can make the world shittier for black people?”  There is no secret cabal of oppressors out there, there are systems, that is why its called “systemic oppression”.  There are people who want to spread or take advantage of that oppression (see entries, Koch Brothers, Donald Trump, the Entire Republican Party) but the systems go beyond just the right.  For that matter, they go beyond capitalism itself in many ways. 

To use one concrete example, so many people at my college were 100% convinced that capitalism invented patriarchy and racism which like....no, capitalism doesn’t exist until the 17th century (ish) while racism goes back to like...all of recorded history.  Even if we specifically mean “racism based on skin color” well that was invented by the Spanish in their conquest of the Americas and Spain was very much not a capitalist power.  Meanwhile patriarchy like...have you studied the ancient greeks.

I could go on through literally dozens of examples of this, but the left can be just as guilty as “all of my problems can be traced to one issue” as the right, though unlike the right at least the left has real actual problems.  

3) Utter lack of Nuance.  Again if you spend time on right wing media, you notice that they tend towards dramatic demononization vs. idealizing of public figures.  Anybody in their circle is good, and those that aren’t are pure evil.    because again....complex thinking is literally antithetical to right wing thinking.  It would be really really nice if the left could avoid this...but nope.  

This can be the sort of Moral Cholesterol thing that I’ve talked about before (and thank you @archpaladin for coining that term), where people are like “oh i morally agree with this movie therefore it is good” or the inverse which is just the most simplistic way you can possibly view art.  Or it can be how certain elements of the left views historical figures.  

You see this the most with equivocation, I have met leftists being like “oh the US interment camps are equatable to the Rape of Nanking” which like...no....one is bad one is far far worse.  

I could write a whole series of post on this one its 

4) Embrace of Conspiracy Theories, Pseudo History, Pseudo Science etc

The Right thrives on conspiracy theories, because again...facts don’t care about feelings but I get really testy when I see the left embracing these tactics as well. Again, the right is worse at this, I’m not equivocating, but lets remember Anti Vaxxers were a left wing bullshit theory. Actually the entire “new Age” movement is rife with grifters, conspiracy theorists, and associated bullshit.  

I mean on tumblr you will see posts talking about how China really discovered American (nope), how Beethoven was African (nope), how a Jewish lobby controls Washington (ugg) or 

I mean just a few days ago, a classmate of mine was claiming that Christianity invented patriarchy and mentioned the example of “like with overthrowing cleopatra” which like....nooo on every possible level

This goes from annoying to outright sinister when you take into account that some leftists are willing to serve as apologists for certain horrific regimes, like I keep finding Mao apologists on this site.  

5) Mob tactics.  Again, the Right is so much worse about this since they deliberately artificially create mobs for the purpose of mass harassment (cough Gamergate cough) but the left is pretty guilty of this as well, I refer to you that entire contra points fiasco as one example.  

6) Not Checking Sources.  I swear to god, if I could get everybody on tumblr to change just one thing about their behavior it would be

.....to get ride of the nazis...

but somewhere on the list would be this public service announcement 

IF YOU SEE SOMETHING CLAIMED ON TUMBLR.....DOUBLE CHECK IT FIRST

the amount of times i see people just spreading utter bullshit that was just posted on this site which a basic google search could stop is just...ugg

7) Nostalgic.  I see a lot of leftists engaging in primordial ism, romanticism and “appeals to nature fallacies.  Again you will find a lot of leftists indulging in “oh things were better before modernity” nonsense

8) Fetishistic of violence, especially revolutionary violence, ignoring the consequences that tend to emerge from that.  Still better than the right obviously

9) Finally dehumanization.  This one i’m a bit understanding of, after all the Alt Right are basically evil, and the Republican are a death c ult at this point, but even so quite a few elements of the left are just a bit too gleeful.  And the thing about that militant mindset is that while it might be directed against bad people at first, it quickly can get corrupted.

Take RadFems for example, a group who I’ve always thought were a great example of anti intellectualism, militancy and violence from the start, with their almost Manichean attitude towards men.  The thing is that this approach didn’t really hurt any men ,not really but it was this “with us or against us attitude” that lead many of them to go on to become TERFS.  

This “the enemy must be destroyed” attitude is like a poison which sort of consumed yourself in it, and leads to hurting those who can’t fight back.  

In Short, the left frustrates me when it behaves like the right, who are utterly awful at their core. 

[savegraduation]

“But being a minor is only temporary!”

On the old Fourth Turning forum one day, a teacher who called herself TeacherOfMillies ("Millie" being a diminutive of "Millennial" popular on the board) started a thread in which she wrote about telling her son that he needs to "respect adults". Adina, a Millennial on the board, accused her of ageism. TeacherofMillies' response was:

Adina: Recognizing that minors have different capacities from adults and therefore do not deserve the same rights cannot be put in the same category as racism or sexism. A minority group is a group (such as sex, race or religion) whose membership is normally permanent. People who are born black stay black for life. Adolescence is not permanent. There is no discrimination here.

Then there was the old Pagan message board at AOL, where Brocéliande, a Joneser Wiccan with a 12-year-old son, told me that teens were not a minority group, because a minority group was by definition permanent, with the implied reasoning that discrimination on the basis of age was therefore acceptable.

It happens again and again when youth rights is brought up. Someone will bring up the -isms: sexism, racism, classism, ableism, and by extension, ageism. Someone will then bring up Murray and Herrnstein's The Bell Curve or other ostensibly scientific claims that some demographic groups are statistically more likely than others to be wise or have a higher IQ. Someone might say, "Statistics show that Asians are, on the average, worse drivers", or "Simon Baron-Cohen showed that men are better than women at systemizing tasks and women are better than men at empathizing tasks", or even, turning the tables, "Statistically, women are less likely than men to start wars; does this mean we should deny all men the right to positions of world leaders, even the gentler men, so the world will be safe from the risk of blowing ourselves up?" And then she or he will ask, "If it's not right to deny freedoms to deserving ethnic minorities, or deserving women, or deserving men, just because a large number of other people in their demographic aren't qualified -- it would be discrimination -- why is it OK to deny a mature 17-year-old the right to vote or drink just because some other people her/his age are immature?" And then some defender of the anti-YR position will fumble to defend it by arguing, "Being a minor is only temporary, so age is different from race, gender, or religion!"

Before I go any further into rebutting this argument, let's play this on an honest ground with our terms here. I prefer the term "demographic group" to "minority group". A group does not have to be a minority group to be discriminated against. Males are not a minority group, and the draft discriminates against males. Blacks are not a minority group in South Africa, where only 10% of the population is White, and apartheid discriminated against the Black majority. But males and Black South Africans are demographic groups, and prejudicial treatment against them is discrimination. Discrimination simply means treating someone wrongly differently because of her or his demographic group. And no one can argue with the fact that teens are a demographic group (as are seniors, for what it's worth!) When you say "minority group", you're really saying "demographic group that has traditionally been at a social disadvantage in the society/civilization in question" (in this case, the United States, or the West). So it's not "minority group", but "demographic group" that's the relevant concept here.

The first problem with this argument is that the impermanence of being a minor ("An American who was born Black could never wake up one day and be White all of a sudden!"), while making this different from other forms of discrimination, is not really relevant to the issue of whether discrimination is justified. One can pull up interesting differences when comparing two things, but just because those differences exist, it does not necessarily follow that said differences are relevant to right and wrong. For example, one might argue that in England, committing murder with a knife is different from committing murder with a gun because knives are legal to own in England, just not to use for murder, whereas guns are outright illegal to so much as possess. While this as a fact in and of itself is true, is this difference in any way germane to whether an Englishman killing someone with a knife is morally acceptable, or whether it should be legal to murder someone with a knife in England? Exactly how does the temporariness of membership in a group make discrimination defensible? I don't think that if that person became White one day and was finally allowed to vote because of it in the pre-1860's world, he or she would forgive and forget all the needless discrimination in the past!

Secondly, being mistreated during one's teen-age years will stay with a person for life. Your world does not become a clean slate again once you reach the legal age to do something; rather, the pain of discrimination from the past carries on.

A butterfly that flaps its wings when you are 13 will still have the ripple effect going when you are 40. For example, if 15-year-old Rachel's parents restrict her from taking the courses that competitive colleges like by refusing to sign her course selection form until it is whittled down to the dumbed-down classes that satisfy their anti-intellectualism, Rachel will have a very hard time getting into the colleges she wants by the time she's applying for colleges her senior year. As an adult, her opportunities will be limited against her will because of the choices her parents made for her against her will as a teen-ager.

In 2016, a 16-year-old boy named Gary Ruot was diagnosed with Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), an ocular disease that causes rapid degeneration and ultimately leads to blindness. The only hope for Ruot was a treatment called gene therapy, for which GenSight Biologics was running a trial for the treatment of LHON. However, the FDA had only approved the gene therapy LHON trial for patients over 18. By the time Ruot would turn 18, it would be too late, and he would be blind. Ruot's relative, Avery Wilson, posted a petition on Change.org, demanding the FDA lower the age for this trial to 16. Less than three months later, the FDA did the right thing and lowered the age for the trial, and Gary Ruot was saved. But what if the FDA had not reduced the age to 16? By the time Ruot was 18, he would be blind, and it would be too late for the gene therapy to save him. He could turn 21, 25, 30, 50, 75, and 100, and he would still be blind.

And what if your parents take you to get a circumcision before you are old enough to legally say no to an operation? Your foreskin isn't going to magically grow back once you reach the age of medical consent (which, in the U.S. varies depending on your jurisdiction, from 15 in Oregon to 19 in Alabama). Judging by the arguments ageists use against 12-year-old boys being allowed to say no to circumcision, you’d think they were convinced a boy’s foreskin will magically regenerate on his eighteenth birthday! Similarly, we're now hearing news stories about teens who live in states where under18s may not get vaccinated without their parents' permission researching vaccination on the Internet and often driving (or, if under 16, being driven by a friend) into states where minors do not need parental permission to be vaccinated. If some teen's Christian Scientist parents say no to a vaccination, and then s/he is exposed to the bacterium Bordetella pertussis or the rubella virus at 16, and catches pertussis or rubella, the teen will most likely die before her/his eighteenth birthday of a preventable disease -- are you seriously then going to defend this with the "But being a minor is only temporary!" argument?

The emotional enscarment that comes from being hurt by age-discriminatory laws will also last for the rest of one's life. If someone goes through a gulag school where he is subject to waterboarding, electroshock therapy, straitjacketing, and sensory deprivation, he may eventually be out of it as an adult, but by then the damage will be done. He will suffer the trauma for the rest of his life. Survivors of conversion therapy may be past conversion therapy, but by now they're 8.9 times as likely as their peers to consider suicide. Since I was 6, I suffered from a mental disorder called logaesthesia, where I taste words and have the sensations of swallowing them. The words I don't like I have to "purge" out by scraping my nails against my groin and then "vomiting" them up by carrying my nails over my abdomen, chest and throat. All the "socialization" I received in high school, all the being forced to do things, all the fascist comments that my behavior was "inappropriate" or "socially unacceptable", haunt me to this very day. I'm 39 now. Every day I still think back weekly to run-ins with authoritarian teachers that happened during my school years over both logaesthesia and other conflicts that came up. I have flashbacks, I bite myself, I slam my fist against my head, and punch my abdomen as if slicing open a watermelon, I yell. If I had only been given the chance to stop going to school, to live away from my parents, to move to Berkeley, I may have been able to get away from it before too much damage was done.

People who have been arrested under status laws may feel the effects of the arrest for the rest of their lives. Many employers would not hire a 30-year-old if they dug in his records and found he had been arrested for underage drinking at age 19. In California, where Proposition 21 eliminated the automatic sealment of one's juvenile record upon reaching 18, a conviction for breaking a city's curfew law at age 15 could put off potential employers. And the social stigma will attach to the arrested ex-minor from many people who know, firsthand or secondhand, about the arrest.

And what if you die during your teens? Then your adolescence will indeed become permanent. If you die before age 18, you will never have the chance to vote for or against a president. If you abided by the law stating no one is to drink alcohol until his or her twenty-first birthday, then you got drafted and went to war rather than dodging the draft, and got killed in war at the age of 20, you would die without ever having the chance to try alcohol. You think a belated "sorry" is going to make that OK?

The choices adults make for minors may even last beyond their terrene life and carry beyond the grave. For example, a recently deceased 17-year-old may have his organs harvested for donation against his consent. Or imagine that Blebdahism is the one true religion, that God is a Blebdahist and believes anyone who betrays Blebdahism is sentenced to Hell. But one young person who believes in Blebdahism deep down in his heart may have parents who are Sporgalists. In the United States, the parents may, by law, force their child to practice Sporgalism even though it is wrong, which would thereby condemn not only the parents, but also their child, to Hell for refusing to practice the rituals of Blebdahism. Since no one knows God's exact sentiments, one could not promise children that God would understand if they betrayed their religion only because they were forced; it could very well be that God thinks conforming to parental force is no excuse for not following Blebdahism, even for part of one's life, and still refuses to let those youth into Heaven, regardless. Of course, it may very well be that God understands people who betray their religion because of coercion by authority, that several religious paths lead to "Heaven", or even that Heaven does not really exist . . . but what if those aren't the case? Or suppose, arguendo, that God does let people into Heaven who practiced Sporgalism as minors but converted to Blebdahism as adults, but not people who were still practicing Sporgalism when they died. What if the child of Sporgalist parents who wants to practice Blebdahism gets hit by a truck at age 15? She'll never get another chance at practicing Blebdahism, and will be stuck spending an eternity in Hell. And the Blebdahist child of Sporgalist parents will probably be buried, in accordance with her parents' wishes, in a Sporgalist cemetery, where her body will lie forever . . . and ever . . . and ever.

Thirdly, lost time is never found again. Everyone only has a finite time to live -- at least until human life extension technology is invented, and we don't know how soon that will be. If the first 18 years of a 90-year life are spent in chains, that's one whole fifth of your life -- lost forever. Say a girl named Danielle wants to wear dreadlocks starting at the time she begins high school in September of 2016, at the age of 14 years and 6 months, but her school clamps down and forbids her to wear dreadlocks because they are against the dress code. Danielle graduates in June of 2020 at the age of 18 years and 3 months. She is then free to wear dreadlocks, until she dies the day after her eightieth birthday. She got 61 years and 9 months to wear her dreadlocks, but if her high school hadn't disallowed them it would have been 65 years and 6 months of her life. God is not going to magically add 3 years and 9 months to her life, allowing her to live to 83.75, to make up for the years she could have spent dreadlocked but was wrongly denied the right to.

An election only comes once. A person born in 1980 would not get to vote until 1998, and the thousands of decisions voted on in 1996 and 1997 did not have that person's say. He may get to vote on 1998 propositions  or in the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020 elections, but it is already too late for him to vote in the Clinton-Dole election of 1996, which is lost forever in the annals of history. For any of the bad decisions of voters leading up to the current day, there’s a possibility it could have been avoided being passed had more young people, those who were 16 and 17, been allowed to vote.

Fourthly, ethnicity is the platonic prototype of a demographic variable and racism of discrimination, and every other demographic variable about humans has something about it that makes it different from race and unique from other demographic variables.

Take gender and sexism, for instance. Gender is a universally recognized trait; the gender someone is assigned at birth would be the same across the world in more than 99% of cases. Someone's race may be labeled as Mulatto or Mestizo or Black in Cuba but Hispanic in the United States. In one society, having sex with another person of your gender automatically makes you gay, whereas in another society, it is viewed as natural to experiment even if you are straight, and a third society may have no concept of "sexual orientation” whatsoever. The legal ages for things differ from country to country. Someone with epilepsy is viewed as disabled in modern countries but as having special, supernatural powers in the Hmong culture, and what is seen as ADD in the context on one culture is "normal" in a traditional nomadic culture. But everywhere around the world, someone with a penis and testicles is assigned male at birth and someone with a vagina and ovaries is assigned female at birth. (Defining someone by their karyotype -- XX vs. XY vs. various trisomies and polysomies like Klinefelter's syndrome --  is a twentieth and twenty-first century development, and even then, fewer than 1% of births are ambiguous or "intersex" when external genitalia, gonads, and chromosomes are taken into account.) Some people turn out trans, and there are some special gender categories, such as the berdaches/Two-spirit people in Native American cultures or the Thai kathoey, or ladyboys, in some cultures, but even then the person's biological sex is still acknowledged. Even in the relatively trans-friendly United States, the Selective Service system still has laws on the books requiring transfemales to register but denying transmales registry, because gender assigned at birth is so hardwired into the law. In 2002, in the case of In re Estate of Gardiner, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that a man and a transwoman could not marry, because the transwoman was male before the law and Kansas did not recognize same-sex marriages at the time.

Religion and religious discrimination are unique because unlike other demographic variables, people choose their religion. No one chooses to be male, or Chinese, or gay, or 23 years old, or disabled (unless they deliberately stab their eyes out or jump off a height to make themselves paraplegic). But people have control over what religion they practice, and this makes religion different.

Sexual orientation and homophobia are different because sexual orientation revolves around certain behaviors, and behaviors that certain factions and individuals believe are immoral at that. No one gets arrested for the mere condition of being African-American, or female, or teen-age. No one believes that blind people will burn in Hell. But many nations still have sodomy laws on the books making gay sex illegal (this included several U.S. states as late as 2003). Many churches teach that LGBT people will burn in Hell after they die. There are no controversial behaviors that are defining of Blackness, or defining of womanhood, or defining of adolescence. But sexual orientation is about what someone does just as much as what she or he is.

Disability and ableism are different because a disability can render someone by definition unable to do something. An example would be paraplegics being unable to do work that requires you to walk on feet. Men are generally stronger than women, but there are amazonian women and plenty of weak men. Stating that 20-year-olds are too immature to drink but 21-year-olds are mature enough to drink is a loose generalization. Some psychologists, most notably the White Charles Murray and the Jewish Richard J. Herrnstein, in The Bell Curve, make claims that average IQ of African-Americans is lower than that of Whites, which is in turn lower than the average IQ of Asians. There are disputes as to whether these statistics come from culturally biased IQ tests written by upper-middle-class White males, and many people believe there is no difference in intelligence among ethnic groups at all. Others believe that different ethnic groups and different genders have different tendencies towards strengths and weaknesses, such as Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen's theory of female empathizing and male systemizing. Whether the Bell Curve statistics are legitimate or not, though, no one can deny you find bright people and dim people -- even a few autistic savants with extremely lopsided abilities -- in all racial/ethnic groups. But blind people driving? This form of discrimination based on disability is recognized as "bona fide discrimination", and actually is legal in certain cases in many jurisdictions across the world. On the other hand, forbidding an epileptic to become a lawyer or refusing to let someone with cerebral palsy into your cake shop would most certainly not be bona fide discrimination, and pointing out this way disability is different from other demographic variables would not be an acceptable argument.

Socioeconomic class and classism are different because class is mutable (yes, possibly temporary!) in some societies but not in others. If you live in present-day Nashville or Los Angeles, you can rise to the top echelons just by being a great singer or actor. If you lived in Edwardian England, on the other hand, being a prole pretty much meant you were stuck being a prole, all your lower-class ways and mannerisms hard-wired into your identity. Rising in social class was very difficult.

Every rights movement has its own hurdles to overcome, and people who shout, "But this is different!" cause every rights movement to have to start at square one. A good example is Martin Luther King's niece, Alveda King, who fights against the gay rights movement and argues that homosexuality flies in the face of "family values" and therefore cannot be compared to the Civil Rights movement. Youth rights, like women's rights, LGBT rights, disability rights, and civil rights for ethnic and religious minorities, are human rights, and human rights supporters today don't say that being free from anti-Islamic discrimination isn't a human right because people choose their religion, or that being free from sexism isn't a human right because sex is a biological reality instead of just a social construct.

Finally, the transience of temporary pain or damage has never excused hurting people. As someone on the forum for National Youth Rights Association (NYRA) once wrote about people you argue that discrimination against teens is acceptable because minority is temporary: "Someone should give them a hard punch in the face. After all, it will only hurt for a little while". Damage can be temporary (even though damage caused by ageism is NOT always temporary), such as the 7-year-old who gives his baby sister a bad haircut, knowing it will grow back. But, as Martin Luther King famously stated in 1963 in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, "Justice too long delayed is justice denied". Perhaps no infliction of suffering should be illegal because life itself is only temporary, and therefore all of a person's suffering will one day come to an end?

"But!", you say, "What about the definition? You can't deny that a minority group is a permanent group, like female, or Chinese, or lower-class, or Hindu, and therefore teens are not a minority group!"

Putting aside the "minority group" vs. "demographic group" issue, the problem is this: what you've got here is an ad hoc definition. It's what logicians call the definist fallacy. Let's look at the definition of "minority" (definition 3a) in Merriam Webster's Webster's Unabridged: "A part of a population differing from others in some characteristics and often subjected to differential treatment". No mention of the membership in that group being permanent. Next, Wiktionary defines "minority group" as: "A group that forms only a small part of the population, whether it be for ethnic or other reasons". Still no mention of being permanent. Finally, for something different, let's look at the Collins COBUILD dictionary's definition (definition 2): "A minority is a group of people of the same race, culture, or religion who live in a place where most of the people around them are of a different race, culture, or religion". This excludes age, but this definition is so narrow that it also excludes such undisputed minorities as lesbians, transgender people, and the blind! Does that mean the U.S. government should feel free to round up gay people or people with bipolar disorder, since they're not protected by the definition of "minority group"?

As a matter of fact, some published, professional authors have referred to youth as a minority group. In 1971, Edward Sagarin edited a book titled The Other Minorities, which consisted of essays concerning the minority status of non-ethnic minorities: there are essays on women, gays, teens, the elderly, the disabled, criminals, and even intellectuals as minority groups. From pages 95 to 107 is Edgar Z. Friedenberg's essay "The Image of the Adolescent Minority". In it, Friedenberg writes: "In the most formal sense, then, the adolescent is one of our second-class citizens. But the informal aspects of minority status are also imputed to him. The 'teen-ager', like the Latin or Negro, is seen as joyous, playful, lazy, and irresponsible, with brutality lurking just below the surface and ready to break out into violence. All these groups are seen as childish and excitable, imprudent and improvident, sexually aggressive, and dangerous, but possessed of superb and sustained power to satisfy sexual demands. West Side Story is not much like Romeo and Juliet, but it is a great deal like Porgy and Bess." Friedenberg recognizes how facile stereotypes of teen-agers are about as respectful as the old "minstrel show" stereotype of African-Americans.

"But!", you object, "I'm just saying teens aren't a minority group!" Then if the question of whether teens are a minority group isn’t relevant to whether anti-youth discrimination is acceptable (and it isn't, given all the other problems with the "temporariness" argument), then why are you even bringing it up?

Teens are a (very often) oppressed demographic group. Discrimination against teens is still discrimination. The fact that unless you die before your twenty-first birthday you will not be underage forever does not justify your parents dictating what high school courses you will take, or you being denied the rights to medical consent, or you getting arrested for breaking curfew or underage drinking, or you being denied the vote at 16. So please don't use this argument.

[neverwatchedonepiece]

563-564: "A Shocking Fact! the True Identity of Hordy!" and "Back to Zero! Earnest Wishes for Luffy!"

...

I’m guessing this is what all the caught-up OP fans have been waiting for this entire arc.

Here’s the verdict: I really liked the “Nothing” twist. Oda was brave to create a realistic villain like Hordy Jones. And he is probably one of the most realistic OP villains. I get why people hated it. But I know people like this guy and I think other OP fans who come from a background where there are real, engrained systemic, centuries-old problems (racism, sectarianism, whatever -ism plagues your town), they will see Hordy Jones and his goons in all the downtrodden, bitter, brainwashed poor people who had nothing to cling to but the past and a manufactured sense of social superiority.

But I’ll go into that later. There were a couple of happy Strawhat scenes. Can’t ignore them, so will dive back into the serious Hordy stuff later.

Leave It All to the Strawhats

Just have to give a brief thumbs up for the return of Sane Sanji. Or at least the Sanji I like best: the one who is smart, sarcastic and smoking. Loved that scene with the Sea Bonze guy when he did a Moria and inflated to a large size. “How do you like my size?” Sea Bonze guy boasted.

“Kraken’s bigger,” Sanji said bluntly.

“OH YEAH, HOW ‘BOUT NOW?”

“Still bigger.”

At this rate, Sanji won’t have to lift another finger. The Sea Bonze guy will keep inflating, take out more and more of his own team, and Sanji can sit back, smoke and enjoy the view.

Chopper’s little moment with Zoro was great too. I’ve always thought Zoro and Chopper have this weird, special kind of understanding. They were paired up in Strong World and, I have no evidence to base this on so tell me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember Zoro ever ragging on Chopper like he sometimes does with the other Strawhats. (It’s almost like he knows Chopper’s a sensitive, kind, little soul so he wants to protect him? The other Strawhats can take the banter, so he goes for it.) 

Whatever the case, Chopper busted out his Heavy Point and went toe-to-toe with the strongest of the Fishmen Goons. Zoro turned and joked, “Hey, Chopper! That was the form that gave you the most human look, but now you look more monster-like.” It’s nice that Zoro can joke like that with Chopper. He knows Chopper was sensitive about his humanity. It was almost like Zoro was saying, “Hey, that form’s strong. Are you okay with the look?”

But Chopper’s self-esteem has rocketed since he joined the Strawhats. “I wanted to look like a human because I wanted friends. Now I want to be a monster who helps Luffy!”

Chopper really has accepted himself. Excuse me while I dab my eyes with this tissue.

Also, Zoro is making short work of Drunk Sword Fish Guy. “Bring the strongest swordsman on Fishman Island,” he said. “You’re not even strong enough to kill my boredom.”

Hospital treatment needed for that burn.

And I just have to say that scene with Robin freeing the human pirate slaves was spectacular. The little moment between her and Jimbei (”I cannot refuse the request of a handsome man”), her spinning the situation to prevent grudges against innocent Fishmen (”You can thank Jimbei for asking me to free you”) and that Cuerpo Fleurs: Double Clutch move...

It was beautiful. ;_; I only wish she had used it on Spandam. The only thing better than one clutch is two. But that Hammond guy had it coming, so I’m not complaining.

And speaking of slave-taking racist scumbags...

It Always Starts Small

I definitely liked the “Nothing” twist. 

It was a shock at first. Must admit that. I kind of stared at the screen and laughed for a moment before what Fukaboshi said sank in.

“Hordy is a monster brought to life by our environment. The New Fishman Pirates are monsters created by an ancient grudge. A grudge born from our ancestors in the shadow of Fishman Island. They fear the grudge will be forgotten, their anger against humans dispelled. That’s why they are so impatient. They want humans to be evil so they can justify their crusade. They just want to see bloodshed. They don’t even want peace for Fishmen. Their hatred is not rooted in experience or true beliefs. They have no substance. They are completely empty.”

It might seem a cop out. Mundane. Motiveless. But that’s the thing. Hordy does have a motive: his empty hatred drives him.

And the sad thing is, I totally get what Oda’s trying to do here. Kind of wish I didn’t, but I do. I know people like Hordy. I’ve mentioned this before here, but where I live, sectarianism is a thing. Two branches of the same bloody religion have divided my part of the planet for centuries. There’s a horrible history of repression and terrorism on both sides. Now there are segregated schools and whichever football team you support outs you as “on a side”. Even your name and where you work can mark you. If you visit FB pages dedicated to the city, you won’t have to look far for sectarian posts. Dive into the football teams and, oh boy, you are in for a real treat! 

The thing is, the people who are most virulently into this crap are often (but not always) the poorest, most downtrodden people in society. Scrape the bottom and there you will find them. There’s a lot of poverty where I live (relative compared to the rest of the world, of course). Grinding poverty means you don’t have much going for you. All you have to feel superior is your football team and your religion. (And these people actually have very little knowledge on the tenets of their respective religions, by the way. Same goes for social history. Ask them anything and they’ll get angry because they know they know nothing.) All they know is: the other side is BAD. Why? Because dad said so, and his dad said so, and so did his. They cling desperately to empty hatred.

Hordy Jones and his goons are like that. Though they’re even worse. At least the sectarian folk from my city have actually met each other in the streets after a game and have beaten the crap out of each other face to face. Hordy has never met a single human in his life.

“What did humans do to you?”

“Nothing.”

He straight up admitted it. 

I loved the way Oda revealed how Hordy acquired his toxic prejudice. Because it was realistic.

Lynchings

It started small. Drip feeding the hatred. Every inch of Fishman District, that poverty-stricken, lawless place where there was nothing to do but hate. Every week another attack. Every week another kidnapping. Every once and a while a hero comes along, dying a martyr’s death (one was lauded for burning down the Human Shoppe. Probably a small business run by Fishmen, but what does that matter?) As a kid, Little Hordy loved heroes.

Then a Big Hero came along. Arlong. He liked to sit the little kiddies down and tell them tales of humans. Drip feed that poison in their ears. I guess this is what Otohime was trying to counteract. (Now that scene when she scolded the Fishmen who were about to lynch St Myosgard is really put in perspective.)

“This is a crusade! Ages ago, the filth we call humans envied the chosen and gifted Fishmen. They decided to persecute us. They were everywhere, like maggots.  Humans used the only advantage they had: numbers. They drove us down to the sea floor. Never forget our grudge against the humans. Humans know and fear that their reckoning day will come, and that’s when we’ll make them pay!”

The worst, most insidious statement was this: “Never forget our history. Feel the disappointment of the dead. Take over their resentment. Hold a grudge against humans.”

That line: “feel the disappointment of the dead”... that’s evil. Proper emotional blackmail. These people died with hatred festering in their hearts. Honour the glorious dead. Damn... I feel sorry for Fisher Tiger being used in this way.

Hordy was so twisted by the poison poured in his ear on all sides that he couldn’t even listen to a story young Hatchi told about Rayleigh. He was a human but he was different. Rayleigh never made a face when he looked at Hatchi. “I don’t like your story, Hatchi,” Hordy said. “It makes me sick.”

When Tiger was killed by Marines, Hordy’s gang, swilling beer in a pub, concluded he wasn’t the chosen hero. Someone had to step up to take his place.

Then - and I could hardly believe this was in a kid’s show - it went all KKK. Torchlit lynchings of Fishmen who had helped humans in some way (one poor guy donated blood). The Royal Family were obviously traitors. They wanted to forgive humans. Jimbei was a traitor too. He had joined the Shichibukai. 

“This country needs a hero,” Hordy Jones concluded. And he decided that he would be that “hero”. So he pulled the trigger on Otohime and stoked the fire of hatred against humans. The contrast between the funeral scenes and Hordy’s gang laughing it up at the pub was infuriating but effective.

Then, ten years later, it was time for their revenge. “This is a crusade. Prepare to kill as many humans as you can before your own death. We are devoting our lives to this vengeance.”

I wonder if Hordy will be willing to sacrifice his own life for his ideals? Or is that only for other people? 

Push the Reset Button

You know what else I liked? Fukaboshi’s reaction to the realisation of where Hordy Jones had come from.

It was what Otohime had realised years ago, but maybe never had the chance to discuss it with her kids.

“I don’t know when, but we lost contact with Fishman District. They’ve become something like an isolated, dark side of Fishman Island. We pretended not to see the twisted hatred building up in that lawless ditch in the deep water. I filled mother’s shoes, I collected signatures, but it was only superficial. I thought I was making progress. It was too late! People like them are the ones my mother feared the most. We should have fought with ourselves first. We should have fought our own feelings towards humans. Mother was killed by the grudge growing on Fishman Island. Maybe she knew it. But a part of me held that resentment and hated humans for killing my mother. Dead people take their regret to the grave, so  grudge is an illusion the living create and they alone cultivate it. Because I hated humans, I overlooked the resentment in Fishman District. When I finally noticed, it had become too powerful and beyond control.”

See, this is why I respect Fukaboshi a lot. He admits he had a part to play in the mess. Granted, I think he is justified, in a sad way. For ten years, he grew up believing a human had shot his mother dead. Despite that, he carried on her dream. But the whole Fishman District being a lawless, broken place that was ignored is interesting. If you leave a place to rot and don’t do anything about it, the people there will become poor and downtrodden. It is really easy to radicalise people who have nothing to lose. What the Royal Family should have done was double down on Otohime’s efforts to include Fishman District, to alleviate the poverty and lawlessness. Maybe that would have helped. Maybe.

His solution to the problem? It was pretty radical, actually.

“If nothing is done, Fishman Island will destroy itself through hatred of humans! We don’t need the past! Reset our history to zero. Wipe out those phantoms who shut the island away from the sun. Bring Fishman Island back to zero!

That’s also pretty radical. I guess Fukaboshi thinks there’s so much necrotic, gangrenous flesh poisoning Fishman Island that it’ll be best to just amputate the diseased limbs than let it spread any further. It’s sad that it’s come to that point, but I guess the hate is too strong.

Luckily, Fukaboshi and Shirahoshi have a Luffy who doesn’t give a crap about the past. “As long as you let me handle it my way, don’t worry,” Luffy assured. “Our minds were made up when we arrived at the plaza with Jimbei. We won’t let anyone harm Fishman Island. Leave it all up to us, Brother-Hoshi. We’re friends, right?”

I dunno, but I get the funniest feeling that this particular, rubbery human has made a lasting impression on Fukaboshi. ;)

Be honest. It’s how you’d want to go too.

[secretlyatargaryen]

@leavingwestcovina it really convinces me that you are asking me for an explanation in good faith when you block me, but here’s my reply anyway.

Girl, you do know that idiot is an ableist slur or is your defense of ableism selective? 👀

“No YOU” is not a great argument, and policing people’s words in order to do a “gotcha” is itself pretty fucking ableist. We’re talking about a word that has a specific connotation for this specific character, and there is a difference.

I’ve already admitted that fans have used ableist slurs against Tyrion before, but this is not the context. If you want to argue that intentionality is irrelevant, please be my guest, but if you’re arguing that they’re intentionally calling him a monster because of their ableism, your projecting meaning simply to be argumentative.

Yes, I am saying that the context is irrelevent. I already told you not to use that word and the context NOW is that you are continuing to spout this bullshit at me, which DOES speak to bad intention.

Be more specific…do not use it in reference to marginalized groups. Many people on the show are called monsters all of the time. Would people calling Cersei be an example of sexism, now??? You may have a point, but you’re poorly explaining it.

I don’t actually owe you an explanation. But since you seem to truly not understand, no, calling Cersei a monster is not sexist. Using the word “monster” about Tyrion is ableist because it is a word that has specifically been used to demonize him because of his disability and justify abusing him. Calling Cersei “cunt” or “bitch” is sexist because it’s a word that links her sex with her morality or worth as a person. Calling Tyrion “monster” when it is a word that has been used to dehumanize him from birth is ableist, regardless of whether you are trying to criticize Tyrion’s actions or morality.

I’ve seen you purposely misunderstand the point with three different people, which includes myself. I literally said that I do not care that Tyrion killed his father, my original point, which is also in the post, is that Dany gets judged for being unflinching as her abuser is killed, yet Tyrion receives no blowback nor is he called a bad person. It’s about the hypocrisy between Dany and Tyrion when it comes to morality and isn’t centered around his height. You’re making it about height doesn’t mean it is about that. Who said “poor Tywin???” If Dany not reacting to her abuser brothers death is a seed that shows her madness, then what does Tyrion killing his abusive father and taunting him say?

You’re making a point that doesn’t need to be made and preaching to the choir, in order to defend other people’s ableism. Have I ever, EVER said that Dany was wrong for killing her abuser? I’ve made quite the opposite argument, actually, many times. This is a point that does not need to be made, and it definitely doesn’t need to be thrown at me to defend other people’s ableism.

Tyrion DOES receive blowback and is called a bad person for killing Tywin. Just in the past few days he has received a lot of it, but I’ve been in this fandom for years and he’s ALWAYS gotten that shit, just like Dany has. Just because YOU haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

I’ve also talked quite a bit about how I hate the “madness” narrative and what the show has done to Dany. I don’t know what you are trying to accomplish here by trying to argue at me that I should be blaming Tyrion instead, other than spreading around more victim blaming, ableist, nasty bullshit. If you see a pile of shit, do you think “oh, I think I will roll in this so that everyone I meet can experience this pile of shit!” What’s the point here? This makes YOU look hypocritical because right now, in this thread, I am not the one being a hypocrite. YOU ARE.

And just because YOU don’t think it’s about his height doesn’t mean that it isn’t. That is what you are failing to understand, and what I have tried to explain to you. For Tyrion, everything is about his height because that is his reality, and because other people have made it about his height. You do not get to decide what is and isn’t “about that” and that is a highly offensive thing to say, to any marginalized person. For me, personally, this discussion is about my disability because that is my lived reality. You do not get to tell me that it’s not. You do not get to tell me that I’m making it up or overreacting, things that many, MANY bigots say when trying to invalidate sexism, racism, or any ism.

Perhaps you need to stop speaking with your inability to see beyond your own poor points. I made a contrast between Dany and Tyrion to highlight the hypocrisy between two ABUSE victims and how the fans and series paints their reactions to their abusers deaths. You’re adding a lot of meaning where there is none to make a shitty argument. My argument isn’t that Tyrion is wrong for killing his abuser or taunting him, it’s: if Dany is “mad” for not giving a shit that her abuser died, then so is Tyrion. If Tyrion is seen as right for what he did, then so is Dany. You cannot condemn one and validate the other.

When did I condemn Dany? I made the original post saying how stupid it was that Tyrion tried to argue that her killing slaves was a condemnation. Y’all reacted by trying to condemn Tyrion. “You cannot condemn one and then validate the other.” You’re right, and what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. You should take your own advice.

I personally haven’t called him a monster

But you defended people who did. You hopped on this post to tell me that I was actually making up ableism.

but in the many points I’ve listed, I’ve mentioned the other shit he did that has nothing to do with advice. Are you overlooking him killing Shae, which is an act of misogyny and he killed a sex worker as well. Yikes. You think that’s justifiable? What about him using wildfire? What about him finding out about Jon’s true parentage and telling Varys, which he should’ve known better than to do? What about him using his power to free Jaime? What about because of him telling Varys Jon’s true parentage, it mostly resulted in Rhaegal and Missandei getting killed? His bad advice led to not only terrible loses for Dany, it undermined her position. Then, to make matters worse, he paints everything Dany did in the worst light and convinced her lover to kill her. The problem for you isn’t that Tyrion is being called to task for his own shitty behavior, the problem is is that you don’t want anyone to. I do believe you feel passionately about the monster word, but you conveniently ignore everything else to push the idea that hies only getting criticized for being short. It’s a bad faith argument.

I didn’t excuse anything he did that he should be blamed for. I didn’t address them because that literally does not matter in this argument. Calling him a monster would still be disgusting and ableist regardless of what Tyrion did wrong. Because you’re specifically using a word that is not about his morality, it’s about his dwarfism. The word does not exist in a vacuum and you cannot divorce it from how it is used to justify dehumanizing and abusing him by characters in the story. You just can’t, and that would be true regardless of what he does.

I told people not to use that word and you came at me telling me I was making up ableism. THAT is a bad faith argument. Your trying to accuse me of “hypocrisy” and blame Tyrion for trying to save innocents is a bad faith argument. I literally never blamed Dany for anything. The show wrote her as becoming an evil tyrant in the last minute and that was stupid and shitty and offensive, but now YOU are trying to flip the narrative to blame a character who did something entirely heroic and THAT is a bad faith argument. And then you tried really hard to tell me that it’s unfair of me to tell you not to call a disabled character a monster and that I’m making up ableism, which makes your argument seem EXTREMELY in bad faith.

Criticize the narrative all you want, but don’t tell me that Tyrion is to blame for “bad advice” or for trying to save innocents and DEFINITELY do not tell me that I’m making up ableism or that I’m not allowed to be angry about people using ableist slurs and that ableism doesn’t exist because you haven’t seen it.

[azuremallone]

Evidence appears to support a criminal conspiracy between Julie Swetnick and Mr. Avenatti.

And all other allegations were found to be unverifiable or patent lies.

I don't know how many more shoes could drop. You'd think the Democrat party was an octopus with tap shoes and a top hat, holding a baton while dancing in a three ring circus that's on fire. I'm fearful of a popcorn shortage. I stopped eating popcorn and switched to celery, carrots and broccoli with peanut butter and ranch dip. Much healthier.

BUT, OH MY GOD!

Not only can Avenatti get disbarred, he could go to Federal prison! He just lost a multi-million dollar case against a former partner. It also throws a cold bath of water on the stalled Stormy Daniels storyline. It even crushes the DNC.

Meanwhile, the current storyline by Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters and the hard liberal left, is that the Republicans are Nazis; it's the tired lie of antisemitism, racism, hatreds against anything and everything pure and beautiful in the world... and yet Obama's riff is that Republicans are fearmongering. And frankly, only idiots, the ignorant, and the people who don't bother to see past their own isms, believe it.

You have to be certain that yes, there are bad people. Yes, there are many who have hated for many reasons. The people with so much hate in their hearts, they:

Yell at people they hate

Destroy private property if they don't get their way

Assault and batter people they hate

Justify their hate with dogma

Demonize those they hate, to dehumanize them before others, to convince them it's true

Harass the people they hate in public

Ridicule those they hate with single-sided, black and white arguments

Threaten the lives and families of the targets of their hatred

Seek to destroy the lives of their targets of hate

They promote intolerance of anything against their views

They're called Liberal Extremists.

Essentially, any extremism is inherently the issue that leads to this behavior. In the 50s, this was very prominent in Americans against people of different skin colors, women, Jews... but it had been that way for a few hundred years or more. Not everyone felt that way.

If you put on red glasses and looked at the world, everything is red. To a historian, you know that there were many people more so uncomfortable but used to segregation, thinking that any of their friends and family may disagree and attack them, that they kept their heads down and didn't speak up. We know this, because it's a pattern.

Just like we're aware that only a few cops are bad, it's simply probably that a percentage are bad. I forget my earlier math last year, but it's roughly 1 cop per 50 people, but 1 in 23 are cops (current and former). Don't hold me to that, but stay with me here. 1:50, and roughly 2.5 million officers to police 450 million people (including children, elderly, military, public and civil service, retired, infants, and the infirm). So even if 1 in 25 cops are bad, just for the sake of argument, that's not more than 100,000 bad apples spread across 50 states and major metropolitan areas. Best part, is that statistics don't account for clustering and chain of command versus blindly following orders, or just plain incompetence or errors in judgment, lapses of thought. Police officers are only human. They make mistakes too.

In the same, I'm sure there are some people on both sides, Democrat and Republican, who are bad apples. I'm sure there are socialists who like capitalism, who are Christian, but think socialist political structures following a purge of the wealthy elitists would make America better, while contemplating whether to wear the Louboutin with the white Chantel cardigan, or the black shirt from etsy with the feminist empowerment word "Vagina" in real silver glitter for their next vlog from West Hollywood. Just as I'm sure there's a neo-Nazi skinhead wearing a MAGA hat, beating off to a poster of President Trump from the 80s, imagining he's sodomizing a Central American caravan man, waving an American flag and shooting his load across the room.

That doesn't mean everyone of a particular group is like that!

They're called stereotypes. They're applied to larger groups of people to generalize and paint everyone within using the same brushstroke. Some generalities have to be true in order for the less likely to be equally true. That's flawed logic, but it makes for great political soundbites.

Just saying, haters gotta hate...