#because we were all victims of colonization

[muminshoom]

Zionists saying that calling Israel an apartheid state is disrespectful to South Africans that experienced Apartheid makes no sense. South African anti-Apartheid activists themselves have been long advocated for a free Palestine. Desmond Tutu himself said that the conditions that Palestinians face is like the apartheid system in South Africa

When countries like South Africa and Ireland, have long been vocal about a free Palestine, it’s because they themselves have also experienced what’s it like to be colonized and occupied. If anything, to act like Palestine isn’t experiencing apartheid is disrespectful to South Africans who experienced apartheid.

[esyra]

Killing 1300+ Jews in barbaric ways does not make you the good guys. Israel retaliating is Hamas’ fault. Hamas surrendering would mean peace. Israel surrendering would have more dead Jews. But i guess that’s the end goal.

No, we're always the barbaric terrorists. Israel is the good guy for killing 9,000+ Gazans the past 25 days, and trapping 1,000+ under the rubble which will definitely turn out dead if they ever get the proper equipment to lift it off them. Israel is the good guy for killing Shireen Abu Akleh. Israel is the good guy for killing Ahmed Erekat. Israel is the good guy for killing Nadim Nuwarah and Mohammed Salameh. Israel is the good guy for opening fire on 2,400 protesters and killing 52. Israel is the good guy for holding over 1,000 Palestinians as "administrative detainees," meaning they are held indefinitely without charges.

In fact, Israel has been the good guy ever since they got the British to help them colonize Palestine and get rid of the Arabs, as they admitted to wanting it themselves. After all, as Winston Churchill said himself, the colonization of Palestine was righteous because as the Red Indians of America, and the black people of Australia, "a stronger race, a higher grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

Palestinians, be it on Gaza or the West Bank, can never retaliate or defend themselves. We're to either die and be violated quietly or we are terrorists which will be gleefully eradicated with the help of every colony-based State in the world. Otherwise, we'll disturb the comfortable privilege your racism and religious intolerance ensures.

When Hamas didn't existed the occupation began and the British violently suppressed anyone who opposed. When Hamas didn't exist the Nakba happened. When Hamas didn't exist the Deir Yassin massacre happened. But, you know, that one's fine because it happened after Israel had made Palestine agree to a peace pact, and they would never act unfairly so the brutal murder of over 100 Palestinians is obviously being misunderstood. Hamas doesn't operate in the West Bank, but they're still expelled from their homes, brutalized and murdered. Since October 7, West Bank had 115 killed, more than 2,000 injured and nearly 1,000 others forcibly displaced from their homes because of violence and intimidation by Israeli forces and settlers. They'll bomb mosques with exit points created to save people from settlers' violence, then claim they were used for terrorism. Proof? They don't need it. They'll bomb first then ask questions later.

Do people who blindly defend Israel do anything other than victimize yourselves? Do you even read any actual Israeli news that said the IDF "shell[ed] houses on their occupants," because they're too incompetent to do anything other than bombing everything? Do you ever wonder why the people Israel swears were burned and beheaded always came from reports from houses absolutely destroyed by what could only be shelling? Do you ever hear testimonies from survivors of the massacre saying IDF shoot at their own civilians? Do you ever read about past al-Qassam attacks and noticed they've never had mass casualties because IDF never responded like this? Do you even know what al-Qassam is or do you live to regurgitate whatever you're fed and being spoon-fed your information?

If Hamas' militia surrenders, Gaza will be wiped out and Gazans — those who are not murdered — will be exiled into Egypt's Sinai. That's the end goal since 1948, and that's what you're defending. But who cares? Arab blood is cheaper and racism is always fashionable.

[the-library-alcove]

The thing--the absolutely frustrating thing--for many Jews is that the Left's ideals say that they should be our allies. We are a long-persecuted minority who were displaced from our homeland by colonizers, who have been the repeated victims of genocides and ethnic cleansing. Biased beliefs against us are common, and we need to be listened to. All of these things are points that Leftists say and idealize as being points they're in support of helping.

But, because antisemitism is foundational to a lot of Western ideologies and beliefs, the biases against Jews and Judaism is deep and unrelenting.

So we need to ask, and ask, and ask...

Will they live up to their ideals, or down to their biases?

[lobselvith8]

Regarding Gaider's "Modern Elves are Partly to blame for their own oppression"

In a conversation with Christina Gonzalez and a few other people on twitter, David Gaider, the former headwriter of Dragon Age, mocked fans of the Dalish. I took issue with his statement and pointed out why people are critical of how he and the other writers handled the Dalish in Dragon Age (while Allan Schumacher of Epic Games had nothing of substance to say in response). The Dalish are nomadic as a consequence of Andrastian societies violently attacking them if they stay too long in one area. The Andrastian Chantry outlawed their religion, making them criminals as a consequence of their faith. Andrastians will threaten the Dalish with violence in an attempt to force conversion to the Andrastian faith. Templars will hunt down the Dalish, and will even torture children. Andrastian elves also suffer from Andrastian oppression as Andrastian humans can massacre all of them, down to the children in an orphanage.

Gaider postulates that one could discuss how the ancient elves were "partly to blame" for their enslavement (let's keep in mind that being slaves is what he's talking about, even though he's careful not to put that into his tweet) or how "modern elves are partly to blame for their own oppression" which is essentially what we are told throughout the whole of Inquisition and the DLCs that accompanied the game (even JoH tries to romanticize the genocidal tyrant Drakon and place all of the blame on the Dales for the elves not trusting the tyrant who was invading their neighbors, forcing conversion, and massacring the people who would not convert - like the peaceful pacifists known as the Daughters of Song).

Inquisition even rectonned previously established lore on the Dalish in order to have characters like Iron Bull denigrate the Dalish. It's a game that will side-step Celene burning thousands of elves alive in Halamshiral while it will demonize the Dalish for wanting to maintain their autonomy from what's essentially a group of colonizers who want to rule over them and force them to convert, and the white Canadian writers (who are from Canada, a place known for its long history of horrific treatment towards Indigenous people) are firmly on the side of those who think that the Dalish (who, as Gaider himself once said at the Dragon Central forums before the release of Origins, were modeled after "Northern Native Americans") are wrong not to subjugate themselves to white Andrastian rulers.

Andrastian elves similarly face hardships because of Andrastian rule. In Ferelden even the efforts of the Night Elves fighting to free the nation from Orlesian rule didn't the elves any greater freedoms once Maric came to power. The Boon of the City Elf faces a number of dire consequences unless the Warden assumes control themselves as the new Bann. Inquisition ignores the plight of the elves of the Dales entirely to focus on a white human noble as the focus of the storyline in the Dales, and you can potentially help chevalier Michel de Chevin (a white man with blonde hair who is part of the chevaliers, a group who murder innocent elves as part of their initiation rite, although this isn't properly addressed in-game) while Briala's role is marginalized in-game despite being the leader of an elven rebellion across Orlais (and she strangely became white despite her in-book description making it clear she's a woman of color, which accompanying artwork confirmed).

Whether you're talking about the slavery of ancient elves or the 'modern' oppression of Andrastian elves and Dalish elves, I don't see how you can blame either the victims of slavery or the victims of racial (and in the case of the Dalish religious) persecution for the oppression they face. And Gaider doesn't seem to understand that at all, which explains the inherent problems with how the plight of the elves is framed within Dragon Age.

[superdillin]

It is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day

And I have some big feelings, as a part of the diaspora. Remembrance Day is an inappropriate title for a time in which Armenians still face genocidal forces. Just last year, Azerbaijan, armed by Turkey, ethnically cleansed over 280,000 Armenians from Artsakh. The illegal colonizer state of Israel, currently in the midst of their 6+ month-long genocide against the Palestinians, has placed the Armenians who call Jerusalem home under threat and siege.

The Armenian struggle and the Palestinian struggle are deeply linked.

In his rise to power, Hitler is quoted to justify his actions against the Jewish, Roma, Queer, Disabled, and other victims of the Holocaust, to say "Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?"

Echoing these chilling words, Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish wrote:

Who Remembers the Armenians? I remember them and I ride the nightmare bus with them each night and my coffee, this morning I'm drinking it with them You, murderer - Who remembers you?

The trauma sustained during a genocide is not limited to the people experiencing it right now. The echoes of that trauma leak forward into the next generations, passed down through survival, and that is so insidious. My grandmother got to live, but did so believing that her parents did not love her, because the trauma they endured prevented them from expressing it. Abuse and unhealthy attachment were passed down because that starving hunger for love and acceptance was passed down. It is so deeply cruel and unfair that our oppressors get to reach through time and hurt our children's children.

We need to band together and stop the present-day abusers, the genocidal monsters that oppress the people of Palestine, Armenia, Congo, and so many others.

We need to uplift art made by those who survived, and by those who are surviving. Art is always targeted by the oppressor to erase cultural identity, to destroy legacy, and to break spirits. Support Palestinian and Armenian poets, and artists, and writers.

If you are one of the many who never learned about the Armenian Genocide, learn today. Ask yourself why people worked so hard not to educate you on this piece of history.

[kelluinox]

Oh are people mad at JKR again and calling out her antisemitism? That's funny. No, it is! It's funny when people suddenly care about antisemitism after these 5 months we've had. It's funny when people who threw a grand ol party on October 7th suddenly care about being antisemitic. It's funny when the people who called the kidnapping and rape and largest massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust justified resistance... suddenly care about the Holocaust. It's funny to hear their "very angry very loud very righteous outrage against antisemitism" when they have:

1) said and done nothing about the hostages being held by Hamas, among which there is a baby and a 4 yo and women being subjected to sexual torture

2) done nothing to pressure the embarrassment called the Red Cross to pass vital medicine to the hostages and actually do its job

3) have gone full Holocaust denial with their denial of the 7th... despite eagerly sharing videos of Shani Louk and Naama Levy and Noa Argamani and the Nova Festival massacre as it was happening, asking Hamas to film their slaughter horizontally and calling victims "hipsters" as the massacre was actually happening

4) called for the murder and expulsion of half the world's jews from the Levant, labeling them all colonizers despite us being indigenous... which is ironic because they certainly don't seem eager to move their own ass and go back to wherever they came from (looking at you Americans, Canadians, Australians - shut the fuck up you hypocritical bitches)

5) attacked, and harassed, and bullied, and even murdered jews all over the world since the 7th. Jewish students were told to hide in the attic from an angry mob, have been unable to walk to class without verbal or physical attacks, have been unable to mourn the biggest massacre of jews since the Holocaust, have had posters of the kidnapped jews that they put up torn down, have had all their attempts at talks about antisemitism and peace derailed and have even been unable to wear their magen david without harassment. Jewish business have been targeted and defaced. And Paul Kessler and Samantha Woll were murdered. Murdered!

6) refused to listen to jews about antisemitism and have eagerly repeated antisemitic conspiracy theories as old as the middle ages like the gullible bigoted little idiots that they are: Jews control the media by distracting Americans from Gaza by using Spotify Wrapped, the Superbowl, and making a Stop Jewish Hate ad (wow do I 'love' it when Americans make fun of their own intelligence by admitting that they're so easily distracted). Jews poison wells - they poison Palestinian land. Jews steal Christian kids and drink their blood - Jews kidnap blond Palestinian children and steal organs from Palestinian corpses. Jews love killing and are bloodthirsty monsters - Jews intentionally target civilians, have killed 0 terrorists whatsoever, and are rubbing their hands in glee watching mass starvation unfold. Oh, and they also do all this on Ramadan because they're evil like that. Beyond that we also have had: Jewish doctors are not to be trusted - straight out Stalin's doctor's plot. And Zionists are racists - straight out of Imperial Russia's Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Wow, congrats on quoting Imperial Russia and the leader of the Soviet Union, fuckers. Though frankly you don't seem embarrassed about that considering your genocidal intifada posters display the hammer and sickle, do you?

7) have ignored literally everything Hamas has done. From the rape and brutal murders and kidnapping (videos of which they published themselves!). To the tunnels. To the theft of aid. To the execution of civilians following humanitarian corridors to safe zones. To using hospitals to hide weaponry, terrorists and hostages. To forcefully keeping civilians in said hospitals even as they try to evacuate, using them as human shields. To shooting at civilians who try to get some aid before it's stolen. To sending 4 yo children to Israeli soldier camps to assess their preparedness. To keeping weapons beneath a child's bed. To enlisting child soldiers. To programming children with Mein Kampf. To launching rockets from next to kindergartens and across the street from a building belonging to the joke we call the UN. To breaking the November ceasefire 15 minutes in because even an hour without killing jews was too difficult for them to accomplish. To separating families despite the hostage deal being that families will not be separated. To branding the Jewish boys they took hostage (sound familiar to you yet?). To forcing child hostages to watch their October 7 videos and threatening to shoot them if they cry. To raping female hostages. To depriving elderly and chronically ill hostages of life saving medicine. To forcibly converting female hostages. To not releasing the Bibas family despite the deal being that all children be returned. To executing hostages and then lying they died in air strikes despite the cause of death being a bullet. To creating sick games where they publish photos of hostages and dare psychopaths on the internet to guess which are dead and which alive. The list goes on and on and on and you lot stick your fingers in your ears every single time and go "lalala not listening".

8) Have supported the Houthis who literally have "a curse upon the jews" in their slogan

9) Have supported Bin Laden

10) Have supported Iran by supporting its proxy - Hamas.

11) Have shamed Ukrainians for trying to remind them that Russia is still attacking them, and told them that they should support Palestine when... Hamas and the Houthis have literally visited Moscow and Iran are Russia's allies. Good job, guys. Good job.

12) Have done everything to exaggerate what's happening, twist the facts and demonize Israel, all the while portraying it as "criticism". A war is suddenly not bad enough on its own - it has to be a genocide to get people to care. Displacement caused by a war is not bad enough - it has to be ethnic cleansing. Israel is suddenly a fascist Nazi state... despite being democratic and Jewish (where have all the people who laughed at Putin for calling Zelensky a nazi despite Zelensky being a jew gone? I wonder). The war in Gaza has to be the worst conflict on Earth, despite there being ongoing genocides in Sudan and China and the goddamn invasion of Ukraine.

And before any of you antisemitic goyim start furiously typing that it is a genocide and I'm a genocide apologist, please do keep in mind that jews know more about genocide than you ever will. And being a Russian jew I will know more about fascism than you ever will. So do us all a favor, shut up and listen to people more educated on the matter than you.

13) Have tried to define Zionism and Judaism and Jewish history to jews. Thanks for the goysplaining, I guess

14) Have mocked released hostages and their testimonies. Falsely claimed that they were not mistreated and actually written fanfics of them falling in love with the terrorists who murdered their families and kidnapped them

15) Have defaced the statue of Amy Winehouse

16) Have made lists of jews. Oh, sorry, "zionists"

17) Have devolved into race science

And to conclude my post, here are just a few photos of the shit goyim have done since october:

[doorhine]

Ok so I wanna talk about the guy we all know and hate, Abijah Fowler, because there are three scenes that do a fantastic job at characterizing him and speaking to the story’s themes.

*SPOILERS BELOW

The Chapel Scene: Fowler’s whole “prayer not prayer” is so interesting because he presents it as a business deal (which says a lot about how individualistic and apathetic he is). And honestly, that speaks really well to the use of christianity in imperialism, colonization and capitalism. If anyone here is familiar with Antoine Fuqua’s version of The Magnificent Seven (which is based on Seven Samurai), Bogue’s speech in the beginning of the film does a similar thing. In the case of Blue Eye Samurai, Fowler basically says, “we’re not friends but these people are ‘godless’ and if things go my way you’ll have a nation of souls to convert.” And I really liked that wording “a nation of souls” because it shows how imperialism and colonization, in the process of stealing other country’s natural resources, are, by design, meant to pose a threat to the entire culture and livelihood of the people that live there in order to do that. And a major way it’s done is through the spread enforcement of the colonizer’s religion over the ones of the people they invade. Which leads me to…

The Finale Monologue to the Shogun: because Fowler literally spells it out how the process of these systems, how white supremacy, is meant to twist and erase the culture and beliefs of those they invade to the point where they conform and assimilate to the invader’s culture and view them as superior. It also creates the idea of a white race in the first place that has its own ethnic and religious hierarchy that determines what the “best” kind of white is. I really liked the detail where he mentions spreading their shame because so much of white culture and its interpretation of christianity, whether or not it was the dominant form in its country of origin before being enforced on others, thrives on shame and enforcing that on other people (just look at the US). Lastly there’s…

The Famine Monologue: Something I really like about Fowler’s character is how he was written to be Irish rather than some posh English guy. It’s a nuance that adds a whole level of depth to his character and role in the story. Ireland was colonized by the English, which Fowler discusses when he mentions the Tudors. One of the ways that colonization was enforced was by replacing catholicism with protestantism. In this scene though, Fowler talks about the intentional famines that killed his parents and sister. It’s a graphic memory that shows how a victim of colonization will sometimes use the same tools used against them, to gain a sense of autonomy and control at the cost of other people’s livelihoods. This is compounded by the fact that Fowler is able to assimilate into the concept of a white race that was created to justify these systems and the oppression/exploitation of people of color that maintained them. Fowler is fictional but there were plenty of Irish people who took part in Britain’s colonization of other people one way or another. You’ll hear elements of Irish vernacular in places like Barbados for a reason to bring up a small example of the consequences of that. On a side note, this is also an interesting video on how the habitual “be” is used in both AAVE and Celtic languages. 

Long story short, Abijah Fowler is a very nuanced and well written villain.

[headspace-hotel]

"Decolonization of Palestine doesn't mean getting rid of israelis or wiping them out..." Yes, I agree

"....and anybody who claims they are afraid of Israelis being removed or wiped out is just saying that because of irrational colonizer guilt" Um. Not only is it totally unnecessary to go there, this is also in very bad taste, right?

"It is silly and paranoid to be afraid that people posting about freeing Palestine are anti-semitic" I don't know about that, there were a lot of anti-semitic people last I checked, and somehow I doubt they all vanished in a puff of smoke after October 7.

Sometimes it seems like in place of a brain, y'all have a control panel with a bunch of light switches each labeled with a name of a different demographic or group of people, and instead of "On/Off" the switches can be set to "Victim" or "Perpetrator." And y'all spend most of your time trying to resolve cognitive dissonance about how you have the switches set up, instead of thinking, "Wait, why do we even have these?"

Personally, I think "People deserve equal rights and to not be discriminated against legally and socially" and "Blowing up mass numbers of little kids is bad" capture the heart of the matter just fine, and I don't think these things are very controversial when it comes right down to it. And whatever answer the people fighting on my dash about questions like "What is the identity of being indigenous to a region derived from" eventually come up with, I don't think that answer is likely to be particularly illuminating into the subject of whether it's all right to blow up little kids.

[secular-jew]

Arab colonialism generally adheres to the same blueprint of land theft, displacement, and genocidal violence. When Islam plants a mosque somewhere, it believes this is conquered land and it's theirs forever, no matter what Temple or Church it builds on top of.

What sets it apart, however, is that it also attempts to project its own abuses onto its victims.

Rather than acknowledge their glaringly obvious 1400-year uber-colonial history, they will invert perceptions of history and reality in an attempt to self-indigenize.

They then usurp the cultures, stories, and legacies of indigenous peoples for themselves (but only the convenient parts - you'll never see Palestinians claim Judas) and disenfranchise the people they stole it from.

They will furiously deny that their ancestors were, in fact, colonizers who conquered their way on land on which they now occupy. Instead, they will frame themselves as native peoples who simply embraced Arab identity/converted to Islam, while the actual indigenous peoples are framed as nothing more than a pathetic band of rejects and cosplayers whose ancestors either never lived on the land to begin with, or were rightfully cast out (or have been cast out for so long that they have lost all right to return).

I can think of few other colonizers that do this. And because this behavior deviates from what we typically understand as "baseline colonialism", it becomes immeasurably harder to identify and more complex to counter.

[girlactionfigure]

ANTISEMITIC BIAS 

Many antisemites don’t consciously dislike Jews. They might even think highly of Jews. For example, they might believe “positive” stereotypes of Jews, such as that Jews are good at business or good with money. They might have Jewish friends. They might like “some” Jews. But they still cause tremendous damage to the Jewish community. 

“Biases” can be defined as “an inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group.”

Unconscious biases are known as implicit biases. We all have implicit biases (whether negative or positive) in the way that we interpret the world around us. Conscious biases (such as, for example, the Nazis outwardly believing that Jews were “the inferior race”) are known as explicit biases.

Because antisemitism is everywhere in our world — in our cultures, our languages, our folklore, our literature, our entertainment, our media, and more — it’s impossible for us not to internalize at least some antisemitic biases. These biases, however, exist on a spectrum: from unconsciously assuming that most Jews are wealthy (implicit bias) to believing the white supremacist conspiracy theory that Jews are enacting a “white genocide” (explicit bias) to everything in between.

Because antisemitism is so old and so deeply embedded into our society and institutions (e.g. religion, language, literature, education, and more), that means that there is a lot of antisemitic bias in our world, most of which you might not even be able to see. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. 

ANTISEMITISM IS A CONSPIRACY ABOUT THE JEWS

Antisemitism can be tricky to spot because it works very differently than every other form of bigotry. While other bigotries see their victims as “inferior,” antisemitism sees Jews as both “inferior” but also “superior” or all-powerful, capable of causing every calamity from wars to natural disasters to diseases to controlling the weather. 

Societies project whatever they dislike most onto the Jews. In the Middle Ages, Jews were Christ-killers. In Nazi Germany and McCarthyist America, Jews were communists. In the Soviet Union, Jews were capitalists. In Nazi Germany and during the rise of the scientific racism period, Jews were the inferior race. To white supremacists, Jews are not white. To left-wing anti-Zionists, Jews are white. For centuries in Europe, Jews were untrustworthy foreigners from Palestine. But today among anti-Zionists, Jews are Europeans colonizing Palestine. We are whatever makes us the perfect scapegoat at any given time. 

It’s no coincidence, then, that antisemitism tends to surge most when societies are in upheaval. After all, the leaders need someone to blame. Examples of this include the Germans’ blaming Jews for Germany’s suffering post-World War I, as well as the rise of the “Deadly Exchange” conspiracy which blames Israel for police brutality in the United States, following George Floyd’s murder. 

Antisemitism moves through conspiracy theories. Most notably, since to the antisemite, Jews are all-powerful, the most prevalent and deeply ingrained antisemitic conspiracies have to do with Jews and wealth and power. In the Middle Ages, for example, Europeans believed that Jews aimed to subvert Christendom. Since the 1920s, antisemitic leaders in the Arab world have rallied their followers behind the conspiracy that Jews intend to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque and usurp Islamic lands. White supremacists — and far left anti-Zionists — today believe the “Zionist Occupied Government” conspiracy, which accuses Jews of controlling and manipulating the American government for their benefit. 

Given the pervasiveness of conspiracies regarding Jews and power, antisemitism is nearly impossible to address without triggering more antisemitism. If an antisemite faces consequences for their actions, antisemites will use this as “proof” that it’s the all-powerful Jews that have imposed these consequences. This makes antisemitism a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

BIGOTRY WON'T ALWAYS BE OBVIOUS TO YOU

Most of us want to do the right thing. The problem is that bigotry — whether antisemitism or something else — doesn’t come with a flashing neon sign that says “this is bigoted! Call it out!” Instead, bigotry persists because entire societies convince themselves that their bigoted worldview is somehow justified. This is especially true of antisemitism. Antisemites throughout history have long persecuted Jews under the guise of seeking justice. 

For instance, since the Middle Ages, Jews have been periodically persecuted on the accusation that they killed a Christian or Muslim child for ritual purposes. In other words, antisemites were seeking “justice” for these children that the Jews allegedly killed. This antisemitic trope is called “blood libel” and has led to the deaths of millions of Jews. It’s safe to say that these murderous antisemites fully believed that they were doing the “right thing.” Some examples of historic blood libels that have resulted in violence against Jews include the William of Norwich blood libel (1144), the Damascus Affair (1840), and the Kielce Pogrom (1946). 

During the Bubonic Plague, Jews were persecuted under the false accusation that they were “poisoning the wells” and sickening the gentile population of Europe. Once again, the persecution of Jews was seen as just.

During the Nuremberg Trials, high-ranking Nazi officers testified that they believed that Jews were a danger to the safety of the German people and the German nation. In other words, they justified their mass extermination of Jew under the guise of “protecting” the people of Germany. 

The list goes on and on. Is it possible that today you too have been made to believe that violence against Jews — Zionists, Israelis — is a just cause? 

THE NAZI FALLACY

A few years ago, the notorious antisemite Shaun King argued with a Holocaust survivor on Twitter. When accused of antisemitism, he retorted, “I can’t be an antisemite. I fight Nazis every day!” But anyone even remotely familiar with antisemitism or Jewish history will know that Nazis were far from the Jews’ only historic oppressors. You don’t have to be a Nazi to be an antisemite. In fact, most antisemites are not Nazis.Not even close. 

Nazism is just one manifestation of antisemitism. It’s a deadly one, certainly, but it’s also far from the only deadly manifestation of antisemitism. Jews have been killed by the thousands — sometimes by the millions — by a multitude of other oppressors. Some, like the Nazis, the KKK, and other white supremacists, are far-right. Others, like the Soviet Union, are far-left. Others are somewhere in the middle, and others oppressed us so long ago that their ideologies long predate the left-right political spectrum as we know it today.

The horrific images of Nazism and the death camps are seared in the world’s collective memory. It’s easy to think that if it doesn’t look like Nazism, if it doesn’t look like Auschwitz, then it’s not actually antisemitism, or perhaps it could be antisemitism, but it’s not serious antisemitism. In reality, though, antisemitism doesn’t go from zero to Auschwitz. Instead, antisemitic tropes, conspiracies, and stereotypes fester and proliferate, operating under new euphemisms and adapting to whatever society they’re in. Many of the same antisemitic conspiracies that drove the Nazis nearly 100 years ago are the exact same conspiracies that are driving “protestors” to violently harass Jews in the streets of New York City today. 

For many years before the gas chambers, antisemitism in Germany, which once was home to the most assimilated, well-integrated Jewish community in the Diaspora, proliferated in university lecture halls, justified and explained away in academic language. It wasn’t deadly yet, but it soon would be. When you dismiss any sort of antisemitic rhetoric because it doesn’t mirror the deadliest days of the Nazi regime, what you are actually doing is that you are contributing to the sort of hostile, conspiratorial environment that eventually made the Holocaust possible in the first place. 

THE GASLIGHTING

Antisemitism and the gaslighting of Jews go hand in hand. If an antisemite faces consequences for their antisemitism, it simply reinforces their antisemitic beliefs. Because antisemitism always places Jews in the role of oppressor, it’s nearly impossible for Jews to seek accountability or justice without being accused of exaggerating, crying wolf, playing the victim, or otherwise having nefarious intentions. 

After the Holocaust, for example, the second in command at the Red Cross, Carl Jacob Burckhardt, decried the Nuremberg Trials, calling them “Jewish revenge.” Others, like the Palestinian newspaper Falastin, did so as well. 

Antisemitic bias oftentimes makes it impossible for some people to see Jews as victims. If an antisemite loses their job for espousing antisemitism, they will then blame the “powerful” Jews — or Zionists, or another euphemism — for taking their job. In that way, they turn the victim into the victimizer. This is a classic gaslighting tactic, which creates a catch-22 and is one of the reasons antisemitism can be so hard to combat. 

For example, in the lead up to the Holocaust, American isolationists of various political persuasions accused Jews sounding the alarm on the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany of trying to instigate a war with the Germans. 

Sometimes we are even accused of provoking or exaggerating antisemitism for our own benefit. There are a number of conspiracies, for example, that the Zionists worked with the Nazis to instigate the Holocaust to justify the creation of a Jewish state. 

An example of the accusation that Jews play the victim is when we are told that we talk about the Holocaust “too much” — contrary to the statistics that demonstrate people are woefully misinformed about the Holocaust — or that we should move on because we “got reparations” (not exactly true, but that’s a different topic). 

Then there are the accusations that we brought antisemitism or antisemitic violence onto ourselves — something that we’ve seen on a grand scale following the Hamas massacre on October 7. 

WHAT YOU CAN DO

(1) Listen to Jews. I don’t mean just listen to your Jewish friends, or to the Jews you personally agree with. I mean listen to the Jewish community as a whole. Jews don’t often agree on much, but at the end of the day, we are a community, and only the Jewish community can fully describe our own experience. 

Don’t listen just to the Jews who validate your views. Listen to the Jews that challenge you. Don’t shut yourself off from learning because it might contradict whatever ideology you follow. Learning is a lifelong process. I promise you you don’t know everything there is to know about antisemitism (I don’t either! I’m always learning). But it’s your responsibility to open yourself up to new information so that you can do better. 

(2) if Jews are telling you something is antisemitic, then your first instinct should never be to distrust us.Can Jews weaponize accusations of antisemitism? Sure. Anyone can weaponize anything. Is it likely that that’s what’s happening? No. Antisemitism worldwide has skyrocketed to the highest levels since the end of the Holocaust. It’s a very real threat taking lives. You should take accusations of antisemitism just as seriously as you take accusations of other bigotries…even if initially you don’t see it. 

(3) I can’t stress this enough: do your best to educate yourself about antisemitic conspiracies, stereotypes, and tropes throughout history. The euphemisms may change — sometimes we’re “globalists,” other times we’re “Zionists” — but the formula remains the same. To be able to spot antisemitism, you have to learn to spot it. I recommend reading my post “The World’s Oldest Hatred” for more. 

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[screamingfromuz]

I finally figured out why the response from the global left made me so angry.

Jewish leftist, including myself, never hesitated to condemn the Israeli government and Israeli citizens for their treatment of Palestinians. for example- I know were I was in Huwara. I was calling out the brutality of the pogrom done by right wings extremeness, criticizing it, calling for punishment of the terrorists, warning that this escalation of violence would do nothing but continue the violence. we did not try and justify it as a neutral response for the murder of two people, no, I knew that this kind of behavior has no excuse.

and we did the same every single time. the Israeli left always knew where it was when the Palestinians were the victims of violence, we often stood right there next to them.

and the leftist of the world loved it. held us up to prove that they are right, "you see? even they agree! free Palestine!"

and we expected the same. we expected that if the horrors will come to us, the global left will support us. We knew that they struggle since Israeli missiles hit while Hamas/Hezbollah/Jihad missiles get intercepted by a system that costs millions to operate. but surely, they kept saying that they would have spoken out if the Jews are in danger, they will stand with us in our grief.

and then came October 7th.

and we were shown once again that we are nothing but a token.

people celebrated the attack, and even those who did notת hesitated to condemn it. It was people being butchered in their own homes, a fucking war crime! all while they were hurling hundreds of missiles at civilian targets! at homes, at playground, at hospitals!

and yet, if it was not celebrating, the global left was silent.

I read a colon by a Danna Frank she described how an Israeli women who study in Yell was shaken and crying the entire day, and no one asked for her well being. Frank herself received messages from friends abroad during that day, and one of them asked after the well being of Palestinian waiters in Ramallah and offered them prayers and not ask after her own fucking sake. Seeds for Peace, that always had what to say at the beginning of any Israeli operation, stayed quiet for days, when they did post something, it was to call against violence from both sides, not even mentioning the massacre. and there are so many more instances.

It hurt so much because it was a betrayal. a prof that we are only cared for when we are either a token or dead.

We stood up again and again and again for the rights of others, against our own deeds, and when it was our people left dead on the ground, the quiet was disturbed only by the sounds of celebration.

We should have known

The Israeli left and the Jewish left stand alone in the global stage.

We now know who are allies are.

[decolonize-the-everything]

I know ppl in the US aren't saying they need a break from the several genocides the USA is abetting while their Thanksgiving turkeys thaw.

I know they aren't about to sit down and be 'grateful' the Turtle Island genocide provided them a place to live while insisting they need to take a mental health break from the genocide that Palestinians are the actual victims of.

And frankly, if Palestinians under occupation can force the entire world to notice their genocide while blackouts of internet and electricity happen then you can share their posts about it from the dinner table.

And in the spirit of the holiday you insist on celebrating: you can be grateful that's your only personal experience with genocide this year.

If you as person in the USA, do not share the same values as the white supremacists forefathers that got you here, then start acting like it.

Stop breathing life into traditions built on oppression. And stop celebrating them the same heartless ways they did. Natives couldn't even vote in every state until 1957, but y'all were having Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is not and was never a holiday that celebrated peace or harmony or equality or appreciation or appreciation. And we all know that's never what it's been about anyway. You know how I know?

Because enslaved people from Africa are who served colonizers their Thanksgiving meals.

Because bringing an end to our ongoing genocide would have been peace and harmony and the USA to this day refuses to do so.

This Thanksgiving I hope every bite goes down like native blood into soil.

Stop celebrating genocide and start standing behind global indigenous liberation so we can create a day to celebrate that instead.

Free Palestine.

Artist Joelle Joyner

[dizzymoods]

During the Troubles, Civil Rights Leaders went to Ireland to learn about the plight of the Irish people and to support their fight against colonialism.

Standing on the success of their nonviolent principles which led to civil liberties here (to whatever degree the CRM was successful) and in their ignorance of the history of Ireland, they tried to get the IRA to adopt nonviolent, peaceful civil disobedience.

At the end of their tour of Belfast, where they learned the history and politics of Irish resistance, all of them come to the conclusion that here violence is necessary. The Irish have exhausted all other means including nonviolent ones. Even if some of the CRM leaders maintained nonviolence as paramount, they understood that certain exceptions must be made because — regardless of if they approve of violence or not — their job is to support colonized people and follow their lead.

There is a lesson here that we should apply to the Palestinian struggle.

I’ve seen people pearl clutch over seeing so many dead Palestinians as part of the colonial violence of the camera. This misses the point of why those images are being shared.

Last decade many Black americans, myself included, talked about the commodification of Black death. videos of state murder plastered on every news channel 24/7, going viral across social media platforms connected to the legacy of lynching postcards and gator bait. We demonstrated that those videos rarely got an indictment and only once a conviction. Many of the families of these victims of police murder made it clear they don’t want the image of their loved one to be of death. The reason why we share Michael Brown’s graduation photo instead of the photo of his corpse is because Lesley McSpadden demanded it. With all this in mind, we understand that in most cases the sharing of those images are antiblack.

The Palestinians do not have that history. The Nakba never happened, despite israelis calling this the second Nakba. genocide joe said 40 israeli babies were beheaded after it was found out that the story was some wingnut footsoldier’s lie, not even official israeli hasbara. It was like 2 weeks ago that genocide joe said the number of murdered Palestinians (at the time around 5,000 Palestinians were martyred — the number is now over 10,000) was a Hamas lie.

Linguistically there is no murdered Palestinian. All the headlines read “x amount of israelis killed and some palestinians died”. visually there is no dead Palestinian. official israeli hasbara is trying to flood social media with videos of patient-actors getting into place in Indonesian medical training programs to “debunk” the countless videos of martyred Palestinians.

The denial of the scale of israel’s genocide of the Palestinians is so bad that reporters in Gaza are holding dead children in front of press cameras because Palestinians do not die and are not murdered.

The profit motive of these images is actually in their absence. not their over saturation like with Black americans. The west needs israel as a destabilizing force in the middle east. The strategy of the western media then is to bury these images, to not give them a second of attention. So logically the Palestinian strategy is to proliferate these images to show just how horrifying israel’s crimes are.

Two things can be true at the same time; what works for you doesn’t necessarily work for me etc.

The other thing i’m seeing are liberal frameworks to understand genocide. Of particular ire is desirability politics. *jujubee voice* just say white supremacy.

Desirability is tertiary at best. israel is genociding Palestinians because they want control over Gaza and the West Bank (and Lebanon too). They are not genociding Palestinians because Palestinians are “undesirable.” They make Palestinians undesirable to justify taking their land. Talking about this psychoanalytic bullshit distracts from the primary reason for the displacement and mass murder of Palestinians: the taking of their land.

~*desirability*~ is just one way that israel tries to justify its crimes. Desirability is a circular logic that can only make sense once you manufacture its premise irl. It means nothing without the material conditions it claims are true. Its super easy to call someone an animal after you put them in a cage. It’s super easy to call a people dirty savages after you restrict their access to water. It’s super easy to call someone violent after you sequester them in small, barely livable spaces and stress them with bombings and check points.

It’s also — there’s a way in which opposition to something reifies the very thing that you oppose. Toni Morrison continues to beat everybody’s ass. What does it do when you see a baby with half a skull and say “this happened because she is undesirable”? Undesirable to whom? Not me.

Palestinians are not so passive as to oppose white supremacy and desirability. The Palestinian people are a proactive people. Palestine is the issue. Palestine has a people. Palestine has an ecology. Palestine has life. Palestine is life. Palestinians fight for life. life can neither exist nor blossom under white supremacy.

Any analysis that does not begin with this is a distraction. And distractions only benefit the colonizers.

[chronicallylatetotheparty]

I think western media has relied on non-human races as shorthand for oppressed groups so much that audiences have been primed to look for that instead of actual imperialist ideology.

One of the criticisms I've repeated about the Dragon Prince is how the writers take the Aesthetics of fantasy imperialism/indigenous people and just switch them without bothering to change anything about their ideology or historical context.

Kenna on TikTok was right when she said that a franchise where the oppressor and oppressed were all the same species makes a better racism allegory.

The fact that the Four Nations were all human added to the themes of imperialism and genocide in ATLA. While on the opposite side of the coin, the Xadians all being different species undermines it.

You can say Fire Nation people were a bunch of imperialists without going into bioessentialism. You CAN'T say humans are a bunch of warmongering monsters without sounding like an eco fascist.

The Sunfire elves textually being the most fantasy racist group is fine because they're elves, therefore oppressed, and the white writers made them superficially based on African-French speakers.

Meanwhile Katolis is "obviously" a Fantasy European Imperialist nation and therefore the oppressor. Never mind that it's had a black, now mixed, ruling family for a thousand years. Or that it's citizens aren't just white.

I remember seeing a post comparing the taboo against Black Magic to Xtian fundamentalism. At first I thought that was a bit much but no. Season six revealed that TDP has a canonical Hierarchy of Beings so that guy was absolutely right.

In Xtian fundamentalism doing something good the "wrong" way is the same as doing something bad.

Save a kingdom from starving? Well you had to kill a rock monster so obviously the right thing to do was let hundreds of thousands of people starve to death. (I've had weirdos go onto my posts and literally say this.)

Break the chains preventing you from saving the people you love? Well it hurt you so the right thing to do was let your friends and loved ones drown I guess.

Your son is dying? Better protect some old man's sense of moral purity than save a child.

All of these actions are not considered bad because they had a negative effect. They're considered bad because they go against the dominant power's desired order.

They're inherently bad because "humans" are inherently bad. Because human ways are not as pure as a direct connection to an Arcanum.

Note: this^ is imperialist ideology.

The idea that a group of people fighting for their survival justifies ethnic cleansing and mass murder is imperialist ideology.

The idea that the scary, blasphemous practices of a people you don't understand makes them dangerous, and therefore justifies you "defending yourself", is imperialist ideology.

The Liberal focus on "cycles of violence" and "both sides are at fault". Instead of on reparations for the people they killed and the homes they destroyed is imperialist ideology.

But Katolis has a pseudo-medieval aesthetic and the elves do not.

I was so angry at the scene where Sol Regem burns Katolis because THIS is the poor helpless dragons the humans "colonized"!? This living air bomber is the "victim" of the big, bad humans? One Archdragon can destroy an entire city single handedly and you expect me to believe the elves and dragons ethnic cleansing of humanity was REASONABLE!?

No. We are past any doubt or rationalization. What Sol Regem did to Katolis was just a small glimpse of what the elves and dragons did during the Human Exile. Just a small glimpse into how imperialist powers treat those that they cannot exploit.

And then demonize them for daring to oppose/question/subvert the imperialist's god(s) given superiority.

[agooddaytoscream]

LONG POST: About the situation in Inner Mongolia, Tuva, Kalmykia and Buryatia:

See this red piece of land here?

It’s almost as big as the actual country of Mongolia right?

…Wanna know why?

IT’S STOLEN LAND.

I am a Mongolian person from Outer Mongolia, it pains me to see my fellow siblings being subjected to a cultural genocide right now in China.

ALMOST NOBODY is talking about this.

Go ahead and search “Inner Mongolia” on any social media platform, see anything loosely related to it being stolen, or the eradication of the Mongolian language and culture in schools by the CCP?

Not much or close to none, right?

Unlike Tibet and Uyghurs, the other two biggest ethnic minorities in China, which have a number of campaigns/gofundmes/articles about the situation, there’s only a few articles about Inner Mongolia.

Do you want to know why you don’t hear about Inner Mongolia? Censorship and oppression.

Remember Tibet? And how China oppresses Tibetan Buddhism as a result, resulting in His Holiness, the Dalai Lama to leave his people’s homeland and reside in India? The biggest religion practiced in Mongolia and Inner Mongolia is Tibetan Buddhism.

I currently cannot find ANY campaigns aiming for a free Inner Mongolia, much less any recognizing what’s going on.

The Mongolic people have been the victims of genocide multiple times.

I’ve heard numerous negative opinions from foreigners online and in real life about the Mongol Empire and how “Mongolians deserve to be oppressed, China is doing them a favor, Traditional Mongolian script is used in Inner Mongolia and has a higher GDP, Outer Mongolia only uses Cyrillic.”

( Mongolia was colonized by the Soviet Union, and subjected to communism, do you know what it feels like for your own family members, brainwashed by communist propaganda during childhood, even now swearing up and down that Russians are superior and everything they do is correct. And when asked whether the innocent Mongolian Buddhist monks deserved to die at the hands of Russians, they said it was deserved?! This is how insane propaganda can get, nobody is immune)

Do you realize how fucked up that is?? To hear so many say your people deserve this??

“Mongolian is our mother language! We are Mongolian until death!” shouted ethnic-Mongolian students in China’s Inner Mongolia, in opposition to a government policy, ending bilingual education. Critics of this policy see it as the latest move in a decades’ long campaign aimed at erasing the Mongolian culture.

- PLEASE READ THESE ARTICLES, they’re not the most recent, but they tell the truth.

Why critics are asking if Inner Mongolia is the next Tibet or Xinjiang This is from 2023.

Inner Mongolia in 'War-Like State' This article is from 2011, however the events that were reported are still happening.

Mongolians in China Face 'Cultural Genocide' as Language, Culture Swept Aside: Group

This article is from 2021. It’s recent enough.

This goes without saying, but xenophobia is also extremely prevalent in China against ethnic minorities.

I highly recommend reading this specific tumblr post. I am also apart of many fandoms surrounding chinese media. OP makes many valid points and I cannot support them enough.

From personal experiences, I have also read about my people and Central Asians being portrayed as brutal, savage, uncivilized barbarians in many Chinese-American novels. It’s heartbreaking.

I despise how the world turns a blind eye to my brothers and sisters suffering, just because the severity of what my people endured is less than other groups, doesn’t mean that we should only focus on helping one minority, support all groups under oppression and colonialism no matter the severity of their situations.

I just found this Youtube video detailing the situation in Inner Mongolia, it’s beautifully done. PLEASE PLEASE WATCH THE FULL VIDEO, Beginning to End.

Why China Doesn’t Want You To Know About This Place.

Not to mention, the countries of Tuva, Buryatia, and Kalmykia are stolen by Russia just like Inner Mongolia. Throughout its history, Russia has seized foreign lands, colonizing indigenous peoples and destroying their national identity.

Note: I am not talking about the Sakha (Yakutia) because I am personally not apart of their community and will not talk over Yakut voices regarding Yakutia such as: https://www.instagram.com/verona.petrova?igsh=MXkyMHY3NDVoZjZxMg==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2iRvYqvu1M/?igsh=MTFucHg5aDdjaDFocA==

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by VERONIKA PETROVA (@verona.petrova)

The Tuvans are a Turkic group with their own language however, they share many cultural aspects with Mongolians. Tuva is the most poverty stricken place in Russia with the lowest standards of living.

The Buryats are an ethnic minority of Siberia whose population of around half a million largely follow a blend of Buddhism and Shamanism.

They are closely related to the Mongols, and the two groups share similar histories, cultures, religious beliefs, and lifestyles.

The Buryat language is considered one of the world’s most endangered languages.

Soldiers from Tuva and Buryatia have the highest casualty rates per 100,000 for Russia in the Ukraine war.

“These are some of Russia’s poorest regions: places where many young men see the army as their only chance to earn a decent living. And it’s these places that are now paying a disproportionately high price as Russian war casualties continue to rise.”

Please see: Free Buryatia Foundation, Buryat Liberation Movement, Mass Deportation and Ethnic cleansing of Kalmykia, The Kalmyk Deportations of 1943. Ukraine war: Tuva and Buryatia pay the highest price, but latest BBC Russian casualty figures show poverty not ethnicity the key factor.

Free Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Kurdistan, Armenia, Haiti, Yemen, Tigray, Syria, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Arakan, Tamil, Eelam, Western Sahara, West Papua, Kashmir, Canary Islands, & everyone undergoing genocide / colonialism.

Spread awareness about the femicides in Kazakhstan:

The Rise of Non-Consensual Bride Kidnapping in Kazakhstan: Developing a Culturally-Informed and Gender-Sensitive Response

Kazakh Activists Urge Authorities To Toughen Punishment For Domestic Violence

Can An Ex-Minister's Arrest In His Wife's Brutal Killing Finally Bring Protections To Kazakh Women?

EurasiaChat: Gender-based violence rears its ugly head again

YOU DON'T NEED TO GO OUT AND PROTEST, SIMPLY REBLOGING, LIKING, SPREADING AWARENESS, AND REPLYING HELPS AS WELL!!!

[thesuntookgoodcareofme]

Been seeing a lot of discussion on rgu and race(and racism) recently which I think it's great. I plan to do a coherent little analisys on it some (not near) time, but for now, there's this thing that has been on my brain since my first watch;

About Akio, that has all control overs Ohtori being a brown man, and Anthy being the sufferer of all oppression not only for being a girl, but also clearly different in the academy for being brown (suffering with what can really be interpreted as racism, because of the constant sexualization, objectification and villifying of her). It's a contrast between the two siblings that has to do i'd say with the inherent links of types of prejudice: misoginy, racism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism go ideologically and systemically hand in hand.

Anthy is a brown girl that endured the thousand swords of humanitys hatred, prejudice. She carries with herself the open wound of all the girls under patriarchy, but not just this, she is vulnerable. A trafficked brown queer teenage girl victim of systemical abuse. And although the anime 'focus' its themes on gender, still, we can clearly pick up on multiple adding interpretations of Anthy as the representation of girls of marginalized groups.

Akio is not vulnerable, as he is an adult, an authority figure, the patriarch (and almost its god, when he paints himself as Dios) of ohtoris system, the academys Headmaster. But he is a brown man that, as we know, is also a marginalized group. And Akio, despite his positions as both teorically Dios and symbolically Lucifer, is also inserted in his own system. He is not the owner of Ohtori, and pardon me if I mix up the titles and positions names i'm vry tired, he's being a substitute to the actual guy, Kanaes father. So, even in this position so high of authority, we can see that even he has to play his own game and fall beneath someone with more power than him. Because that's how hierarchies and patriarchy works. And it makes me remember of when we see his and Anthys backstories:

So now, the part I've been thinking about since ever:

The place where Anthy and Akio stay is a wooden cabin with hay, which is similar to the ones that were built in america in the beggining of colonization. I apologize deeply, but I forgot about the name of the structure and the name of the article that discussed Anthy being brown, but I'll link it if I find it again. Anthy wears this very humble red cloth, that is indubtly more simple than Dios and the peoples clothing. It shows the beggining of ostracization. Dios clothing is white and similar to a tuxedo like the crowd is wearing, and anthys is red just like the rosebride dress.

For me, that seems to show us how the man and woman gender hierarchy is a colonizer idea.

Anthy dresses in a piece of cloth of the same colour of her bridal dress, because her as a brown girl is not a princess, not worth of value, a witch, and only valuable as an man serving object. And Akio, being now categorized as a man, even though he'a a child, dresses in a white tuxedo similar to the ones worn by grooms. He's higher in the hierarchy, but still used. And when Anthy helps her brother herself, despite being the lowest in the worlds hierarchy, the crowd attacks her and it consolidates the system that Akio knows dives fully into, as the master, but also not unharmed; at least from when he was a kid.