#or dogwhistles that a lot of people don't recognize

[wiisagi-maiingan]

"If you point out subtle but invasive forms of bigotry then maybe YOU'RE the REAL bigot 🤔" I am biting you and I am killing you.

[faggotry-enjoyer]

there is SO MUCH bullshit going on at this university and i want to talk about it on here so bad but it's too specific to do so without coming dangerously close to full on doxxing myself

[creatingblackcharacters]

Do you have any advice/suggestions/requests for non-black members of fandom as far as how to respond to racism in fandom spaces? Obviously we shouldn't be speaking over black voices, but it doesn't seem fair for black members of fandom to have to do all the work of making a fandom space safe and welcoming for themselves.

You are correct! Tbh, these are tips for being a good ally in general:

Amplify Black Voices!

Odds are, whatever manifesto you have in your mind about the injustice of antiblackness in your fandom, a Black fan has already said it multiple times. While I appreciate the sentiment, I must admit I'm salty when I see that people are more supportive of (usually white) voices that discuss my lived experience, over my own voice and my lived experience. What does that really solve? You need to be following Black fans too, that way you're actually in the know when these things are happening.

Don't be a Bystander!

If I'm getting jumped and you (who had the power to help) show up afterwards to say "I really empathized with your pain", I'm not going to think "wow they cared, I'm so grateful". I'm going to think "WOW they really let me get my ass beat!" Same idea with this. That's honestly the most painful part for me; it's not the lone racist themselves, but the hordes of people who back them up, and the rest (some of whom you may even consider a friend) who might disagree but say absolutely nothing.

When you see that a Black peer is being railroaded and you KNOW it's wrong, step tf up! Be willing to say "you're out of pocket for behaving this way, and I will not be supporting you now that I know you're a racist". I will never know you're an ally if you're only an ally in your head! It's the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!!

It's going to be uncomfortable! Stand on it!

If you share that you're against antiblackness in fandom spaces, but next you're reblogging whitewashed art, or an artist known for whitewashed/racist pieces, or still following someone who's made covert/overt antiblack statements, etc. just bc you "enjoy their stuff"... You're not being an ally. Be willing to hold those creators accountable, and when they disappoint you, unfollow them. Be willing to tell your friends, "hey, that person did/said this thing that was anti-black and were unapologetic about it". And if your friends don't care? Now you know who's around you. I'm not saying it's easy, but... Do you stand on business, or would you rather allow racism so that you can stay comfortable? Because your Black peers have to live under this discomfort you're only momentarily experiencing. It's far harder for me to approach these people and hold them accountable. And if I see that you're still kicking it with known antiblack racists... I'm probably not going to assume highly of you, either.

Educate yourself on what these aggressions look like!

You might not know what to look for, and if you don't, you're gonna miss a lot. What is actually antiblackness will often be posited as "drama" or "fandom wank". Or, if they're really trying to sound progressive, it'll reveal itself as dogwhistles in other important topics like queer representation or misogyny (e.g. how white women often claim misogyny when confronted with their racism, or TERFs). That's how it gets swept under the rug. Learn to recognize microaggressions, learn to recognize the signs. It requires work! Listen to and believe your Black peers when they explain what they saw! Bc trust, once you see it... You'll realize there's a lot of it lmao. And that's what many fans are afraid of confronting.

That's what I have for now, if anyone else has anything to offer. 👍🏾 Thanks for asking!

[littleguymart]

hello friends! I'm going to talk a bit about the current events in Gaza, Israel, and Palestine.

I'm doing this not because I'm the most informed (my us-american perspective is going to be distorted) or can speak for anyone else. I'm doing it because I have a lot of followers on here.

I hope that a blog people associate with kindness & comfort saying something can prompt people to reflect & take action.

I want to address this post to folks in the US who struggle with scrupulosity & who get stuck in dread. It's understandable if you're overwhelmed by the amount of information coming out about Israel, Palestine, and Gaza.

The US was established & is perpetuated through genocide, land theft, and continued oppression of indigenous people. This reality is not spoken about by the majority of settlers in the US and contradicts US national identity/myth.

As a result, a lot of Americans (myself included), have been taught not recognize this kind of violence for what it is. This means we are not necessarily skilled at recognizing good-faith reporting from dogwhistles & propaganda & disinformation campaigns.

Our country's myth-- that its genocidal creation was justified-- relies on that kind of ignorance. Even when we can tell the difference, it can feel hopeless to do anything about, or like we as individuals are responsible for its entirety.

I don't have a blanket solution to this. Unlearning this type of thinking is a long process, but it begins with recognizing that violent colonial governments are at work, and doing what we can to stop those processes.

Please call or write an email to your representatives to demand a ceasefire and an end to military aid to the Israeli government, if you're able. Turn out to protests if you're able. Refuse racism, orientalism, and anti-Semitism.

[edenfenixblogs]

I recently received the following message from a (former?) friend of mine:

okay I am being so genuine right now: since you seem to have educated yourself on what is bothering jewish people about the pro-palestine movement, /what/ is it. I genuinely cannot see and have not interacted with any pro-palestine activists that have actively advocated for the murder of jewish people. I have seen Israelis who have justified the breaking of the truce to bomb Palestinians returning to north gaza. Note I said Israelis and not Jews.

I responded by essentially saying that there's a lot there and I'll need some time to compile and articulate.

I mention this in order to ask if you (or any of your followers/any Jewish tumblr users reading this) have anything specific you'd like to point me toward (search keywords/starting points, links, thoughts, interpret however) that's not already on the list of what i'm planning to discuss (included after this paragraph), anything you specifically want me to read, suggestions of where to place emphasis, or any stories or thoughts you'd like me to pass on to him directly.

current tentative list i'm planning on going over with him, in no particular order:

clarification of scope of conversation (specific to non-jewish western left rather than on the ground or from affected groups)

dual loyalty accusations and harrassment of random jews that have nothing to do with medinat israel

taking discussion of antisemitism in bad faith by default

opportunistic use of the issue by more active antisemites, broad failure to to recognize when that's occuring

uncritical sharing of dogwhistles, conspiratorial thinking

outsiders and newcomers attempting to speak on the matter with authority we don't have

neglect of fact-checking and widespread mis- and disinformation

tokenization of antizionist jews and "jews" - jvp in particular i need to look into more

glorification of hamas and disregard for israeli civilians

misuse, misunderstanding, and demonization of zionism

application of western frameworks of colonization when not applicable

binary good guys/bad guys framing, contrarianism, taking "sides"

might talk about bds e.g. the whole boston map thing but not yet confident on this one, need to do a lot more digging

denial of jewish history - focus on denial of eretz israel as the jewish homeland, holocaust inversion, treating absolutely anything but especially those as trivial or "so long ago"

treating or discussing jews and/or israelis as monolithic

double standards and singling out of israel, holding it as inherently more suspect or less legitimate than any other state

@faggotry-enjoyer Oh man! This is such a good ask!!!! I was going to wait until after work to answer, but your list is so good and so thorough that it relieves a lot of the work I’d have to do.

Some stuff I linked overlaps with your list but I wanted to provide links to these points when possible.

Another thing that bothers me in particular about the western leftist movements’ approach to pro-Palestine conversations (and more: I am critiquing their approach to supporting Palestine not their support itself):

The absolute inability for Jews anywhere to even discuss provocation from Hamas, the history of bombs coming into Israel out of Palestine, or any other act of aggression from Hamas. Anytime we try to discuss anything even remotely nuanced or historical we are told “there’s no excuse for genocide” or “I guess you just love killing Palestinian babies” when that’s not what we are saying at all. Or, more often, the assumption that we are flat out lying about Hamas’ tactics and use of human shields and Palestinian civilian suppression and their view of the disposability of Palestinian lives.

The blanket condemnation of Zionism without understanding that it is a complex philosophy with several movements and differing goals.

The complete lack of media literacy.

The specific dismissal of From the River to the Sea as a term stolen from a Palestinian civilians who desire to express hope in a fully free and equal future but people who use it explicitly to call for the death of Jews. And the weaponization of the phrase to make it a death threat to any Jew who points this out.

The lack of specificity in terms line “Free Palestine.” Yes, Palestinians deserve full and equal freedoms and representation in government. This is a wonderful thing that I support with my whole heart. But that doesn’t change the fact that many bad actors and antisemites are hiding within the Free Palestine movement who are specifically manipulating the phrase to imply free Palestine FROM JEWS—both in terms of their presence in the levant at all (which would entail yet another anti-Jewish ethnic cleansing) or simply the murder of the 7 million Jews who exist in Israel. So asking a Jew why they won’t shout “free Palestine!” At the top of their lungs is taken as a sign that western Jews don’t want Palestinian freedom. When actually it’s a refusal to call for their own deaths.

The assumption that western protest tactics are inherently useful in this conflict and the refusal to look to interfaith and intercultural organizations on the ground in I/P who have been doing this longer, better, and more effectively than western groups.

The focus of western efforts on naming one side a victor in this conflict rather than peace for all.

Not understanding how few Jews there are in the world. And relatedly, the dismissal of the fact that the destruction of the modern state of Israel with no solid plan for a shared Palestinian/Israeli solution would mean the loss of sovereignty for half the global Jewish population, which would indeed affect Jews worldwide.

Dismissal of Israeli leftist efforts to oust the Likud and Netanyahu, because it doesn’t fit the narrative of all Israeli Jews being evil.

The sharing of graphic content of 10/7 attacks, dead and injured Palestinian and Israeli children, and calling any victims martyrs without appropriate trigger warning and as a political tactic.

Mocking Jews (yes, even celebrities) who express feeling fearful for their personal safety as antisemitism rises worldwide.

The expulsion of Jews from their non-Jewish communities and friend groups.

Not understanding the magnitude of the Jewish diaspora and its affect on Jewish culture and voice during this conflict.

Other friends and Allies please add on with your own experiences and concerns!

[xxlovelynovaxx]

Fun fact OP and the first reply are both people who are WILDLY transandrophobic (to the point of calling transmascs who talk about their oppression "transandrobros" and similar terms - I think the latter person also uses "transandrodorks" and "transandrophobia truthers" and searching "transandrophobia" on either blog reveals a HUGE amount of strawmanning, biological essentialism, and straight up radi/cal feminism.

And I can't help but think of that one post by @genderkoolaid that's basically responding to posts similar to this one in a slightly different vein that says like "idk, most people who use these terms are [this identity] themselves, why are you asking if they're chill about their own specific identity?" and like lateral aggression IS a thing but also it's weird and honestly exorsexist to single out only the fagdykes and genderfreaks about "are you normal about trans women" like idk why don't binary monogender trans people start being normal about nonbinary and multigender trans people, or even about binary monogender trans men for that matter?

But sure a lot of people who ID as genderfreaks and similar are just fakers doing it for the edginess and not actually real genderfreaks, because innate gender identity is totally predicated on whether or not you are a Good Person and you lose your Gender Privileges if you're transphobic to other people. Guess the OP and first replier aren't actually their gende- OH WAIT THAT'S JUST BASIC MISGENDERING AND BOG STANDARD TRANSPHOBIA BUT Y'ALL ONLY RECOGNIZE IT WHEN IT'S AGAINST "ACCEPTABLE" GENDERS.

(Note: the above is absolutely sarcastic to prove a point. They are their gender and we'll fight anyone who claims otherwise, even while they wouldn't do the same for us.)

Anyway tbh at this point talking only about how people with complex gender identities are just so massively transmisogynistic while not mentioning how 1 the people who are pretending to be anti-establishment while perpetuating transphobia (which is separate from identity terms like fagdyke and genderfreak) while not mentioning how people who are transmisogynistic regardless of identity are not chill about transmascs and EXTREMELY not chill about nonbinary people is almost a dogwhistle in itself.

I mean I say almost, but 90 percent of these people show their entire ass if you search "transandrophobia" or "transmasc" or "nonbinary" or "exorsexism" on their blog, so like...

[bbygirl-obi]

Hello, I just wanted to say I appreciate your detailed and thoughtful response to my reply. I do think I accidentally fell into an ongoing discourse I'm not really familiar with so I'm taking responsibility for that miscommunication/misunderstanding on my part. I in no way ever meant to imply, nor do I believe, that the genocide on the Jedi is anything other than a tragedy. Even if people have faults that never justifies violence. I'm very sorry that was not clear. I don't identify as an anti and I am chill with the Jedi. Lots of things you wrote about are reasons I like the Jedi and SW in general.

Since it seems I've caused harm I don't really see value in me trying to "defend" where I was coming from but I might be wrong, I'm not sure. The interpersonal relationship section of DBT has always been the hardest for me to grasp and I think that's really showing right now. So, sincere apologies again for my miscommunication.

(This ask is in reference to this post)

Hi, thank you so much for reaching out! I was a bit heated when writing that response, so kudos to you for not getting defensive and for hearing me out. I do really appreciate it. I'd love to help you understand a bit more why this hit me so hard, especially since this was unintentional on your part. There are three things that I think are important to understand here. I'll talk about them below.

1. There's kind of always been a worrying amount of racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism that's baked into big parts of the Star Wars fandom. It's unfortunate, but it's there. Many of the women and/or PoC characters/actors have experienced awful slews of online hate throughout the course of the franchise, specifically for being women and/or PoC. Ahsoka, Reva, Rey, Finn, Rose... the list goes on and on. There are also communities of fascists or incels who use the Empire as inspiration porn. These groups do not make up the entirety of this fandom, but they are a very loud part of it. AND their influence extends beyond their circles into the rest of the fandom, in the form of things that other people with privilege do not always register as bigotry.

2. Star Wars is unfortunately one of those fandoms where a lot of the discourse tends to step on the toes of real-life cultures. As I mentioned, the Jedi are based heavily off of Buddhist culture (George Lucas has been very explicit about this), and the targeted genocide is very similar to the real world's Holocaust. The rise of the Empire is pretty directly based off of the rise of Nazi Germany, to the point of the Empire's aesthetic being based off of the Nazis and Palpatine's rise to power directly paralleling Hitler's. Because the real-life connections are both significant and explicit, Star Wars intersects with the real world a lot more than other fictional or sci fi franchises do. There's a greater burden on members of fandom to investigate things before speaking on them as a result.

3. There are a lot of fandom misconceptions about the Jedi, including that they stole children, that they erased cultures, and that they were emotional, unfeeling people with no relationships. There are also a lot of sentiments that the Jedi were at fault for, or deserved, what happened to them (either because it was "balance" or because they created the man who genocided them). Some people arrive at these conclusions because of the racism mentioned in #1 intersecting with the non-white cultural influences mentioned in #2. Some people arrive at these conclusions because they see it elsewhere in fandom (from group #1), and don't recognize the dogwhistles because they aren't familiar with the cultures being trodden upon.

So when someone says the kinds of things you said in your post:

Jedi children are "stolen from their homes and raised devoid of their culture and families"

All Jedi initiation "traumatizes their subjects"

"Attachments are human relationships and…are integral to mental health"

All Jedi "have absolutely nowhere to turn to for comfort"

"The Jedi order is more akin to a cult"

The Jedi "sterilize" and "manipulate" DBT and force their practices upon their members as "the one true way to live"

The Jedi are "about eradicating big emotions"

Their "goal [is] indoctrinating the children they stole"

"Anakin is the direct product of their failure"

Sure, the first thing that jumps out is the misinformation. But since almost everything you're critiquing about the Jedi is something that also exists in Buddhism, you are simultaneously deriding Buddhism as something that is detrimental to mental health, that provides no support network to anyone, that is sterile and emotionless, and that is a form of indoctrination.

The paternalistic idea that Buddhists were victims of backwards, harmful cults, and needed to be "saved" from their own culture by white people, is both old and insidious. These are things that have been said about Buddhism with the intention of painting it as stupid and even harmful, so that white people could justify oppressing both Buddhism as a religion and the PoC cultures who originated and practiced it. This is still used today as a justifier for modern-day forms of racism, but it's also been used for centuries as a justification for the colonization of entire countries.

I've discussed the genocide aspect in my other post, but I'll just reiterate that the sentiment "the Jedi are not to blame for their genocide" cannot coexist with the sentiment "Anakin, the perpetrator of said genocide, is the direct product of the Jedi." The idea from your tags that the Jedi "killed" Anakin is also a tricky one, since the idea that Anakin's death was Vader's creation is a popular fandom trope turned canon with the "you didn't kill Anakin Skywalker, I did" line in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, and to say the Jedi killed Anakin is therefore to say the Jedi created Vader, their genocider.

I guess part of me also wonders why, even if it is true (I think it isn't, but people can and do disagree), it's relevant to bring up under the type of post I made. Take the example of a school shooting. People have died, children have died, a member of their community has betrayed them, and the community is hurt and grieving. Let's say someone makes a post celebrating the community, celebrating how kind and supportive they are to one another. And let's say someone decides to comment below that post saying that the other kids in the school were mean to the shooter. Even if it were true, I hope this example helps illustrate how (1) it comes across as excusing the shooter's actions, and how (2) that sentiment is just so incredibly tone-deaf and victim-blamey. That's kind of how it feels to have someone comment these misinformed things (of racist origin, even if they are not of conscious racist intent) below a post that I made celebrating the practices of a culture that was genocided. It's neither the time nor the place.

And remember what I said in point #3, about how people arrive at these conclusions one of two ways? When I read stuff like this, it's really hard to tell which of the two groups a person falls into. It's hard to tell if the coded racism is simply going unnoticed, or if it's there intentionally. But it's there, regardless. And in my experience, the hidden or unintentional racism can be the most dangerous, because people will often get defensive and gaslight the hell out of you when you try to call it out. Thanks for not doing that, but you're unfortunately the minority.

So when people say these things, I usually have to assume that they are not a safe person. Because like I said: Whether or not the racism was deliberate, it was still there. You might have not originated these ideas, but you were willing to accept them without investigating further, to adopt them as your own, and to spread them further online. I think there's something to unpack there for you. Some great next steps would include doing research into the following topics:

The nuclear family and how it ties to white supremacy and homophobia (this gives context for the institutional aversion to the Jedi's form of community; you can find an article by a Black man about this here)

The American Jewish Committee's resources on identifying subtle or hidden forms of anti-Semitism (this gives context to how seemingly innocuous statements can have very problematic histories; you can find it here)

The phenomenon of "Holocaust Distortion" (a real-life example of how harmful it is to distort facts to place greater blame on the victims of genocide; you can find an article from the Holocaust Remembrance Alliance about it here)

The history of Buddhist groups suffering religious persecution (this gives context for ways in which the religion has been deliberately misrepresented for the purpose of harming Buddhists; Wikipedia is a great place to start, here's an introductory link)

The colonization and oppression of countries with large Buddhist populations (this gives context for the global racism I mentioned; look into the countries of Japan, Cambodia, China, India, Vietnam, etc.)

Though there can also be room for excitement, not just depressing homework, because it seems there's a lot of great stuff about the Jedi (and Buddhism) that you didn't know about, and now you get to learn all about it!

[finelinens]

I'm like late to the party but as someone massively interested in both actual government politics and social politics in general, I think that in terms of politics, tiktok is kind of a hellscape. Like they've already eschewed most forms of theory, with their whole rebuttal just being like "Well I'm not listening to some old guy say stuff when I could be listening to people NOW" and thats fine, sure, but the reason we read theory, especially in progressive circles, is not because "all these authors were right about everything",, its because it is important to learn the history of how things come to be instead of just knowing that they are the way they are and disliking that.

Alot of tiktok is embedded in callout culture, to the people will hear "this person did x" in a vacuum, and wholeheartedly believe it. Almost everything is entirely void of context. If you don't know the dogwhistles, it's extremely easy to fall down any kind of pipeline.

Not to mention you've got stuff like "explaining for the girlies!" where you get this sanitised second or third hand reading of a situation in the simplest terms possible, and that can be some peoples ENTIRE IDEA of a situation.

Anyway just thoughts. Don't post this if u don't wanna

yeahhh dude you said all of this really well, thank you! one of the reasons i enjoy watching hasanabi streams is because, even though i don't always agree with him, i can watch him vet his sources in real time. i've seen way too many instances online where people blindly follow a piece of unverified information, only for it to eventually be disproven. but, as we dream fans would know, the job has already been done at that point. the false information has been spread, and unfortunately many people simply don't care to correct their understanding even when given the opportunity. misinformation and disinformation is so common on the internet, it's absolutely crucial that we all know how to verify information and recognize unverified information before we share it. yet again, it's media literacy baby!!

the term "media literacy" can sound like it's only about fictional media, but it's about all media. we're surrounded by media all day every day, so it's more important than ever to know how to interact with it reasonably. crashcourse actually has a series on media literacy which is really cool! i've enjoyed lots of crashcourse series before and, judging by the preview, this one looks great. if you don't want to watch a 12 video course, this 15 minute ted talk about media literacy and misinfo is great. there are a lot of media literacy ted talks and youtube videos out there since "fake news" became a talking point, so definitely take a look around if you wanna learn more.

[too-spicy-and-too-queer]

In your time in polyam communities, have you found any red flags and/or green flags to watch out for? Any advice particularly for queer folks trying to find an inclusive community?

This is a great question, and a treacherous one. Polyamory is just starting to catch a little bit of mainstream attention with a few celebrities beginning to openly practice it and some mainstream news corporations running articles about it. Polyamory has grown tremendously in the past decade. /r/polyamory has 300000 members, but I highly recommend against going to Reddit for anything relationship or identity related. There are thousands of polyamory communities out there, and some of them are not queer friendly or really aren't trying to be intersectional at all, so here are some things to look out for.

First, look out for the usual problems in online or queer communities. Look out for people using racist, anti-queer, anti-trans, ableist, or anti-kink dogwhistles. Look out for tone-policing, highly insular communities, and gatekeeping. Look out for tokenization and a lack of diversity in the community (if you find a polyamory community that is almost entirely middle-aged white cis men, get out fast).

There are several red flags I've seen in my experience that are more specific to polyamory. A big one is framing polyamory as morally superior to or more evolved than monogamy. Extreme black-and-white moralizing is another red flag, often with people saying a specific style of polyamory is morally superior to others. Evopsych is another huge red flag, this is true just in general life but it seems to be particularly popular in polyamory, so stay away from people who use evopsych to guide their personal decisions or construct a concept of personality theory; it's almost always just repackaged gender essentialism, racism, and eugenics if you actually ask that person to give details on their personal values. A common red flag that I haven't seen outside polyamory is framing jealousy as a character flaw; these folks will use rhetoric like "you have to grow out of jealousy to be polyamorous" or "jealousy is your problem and you should deal with it yourself". A lot of virtue-signaling about emotional intelligence is another red flag.

There are some more subtle red flags to look for in polyamory communities. Examine the prominent polycules you see in that community. Are men setting up a de facto One Penis Policy with their partners? Are folks sabotaging relationships with their metamors? Do people respond poorly to criticism from their partners, or do quieter members of polycules never express criticism at all towards the more outspoken members? Are folks expecting all their partners to have similar boundaries? Are people who are new to polyamory expressing hesitations that aren't being addressed by their more experienced partners? Look especially at how young femme women are treated when they first join the community, do they get a lot of unwanted attention or solicitations? Look at how POC and queer people are treated when they talk about the intersections of their identities with polyamory, do straight white people talk over them?

Here are some green flags in polyamory communities. It's diverse and intersectional. People speak freely and respectfully about their kinks and their identities. Members of the community do not use it as a dating or hookup service and instead treat it like a community for education and support. You see members supporting and emotionally engaging with each other at least as and preferably more often than flirting with each other. Many styles of polyamory and other styles of non-monogamy besides polyamory are recognized as valid and it's seen as an individual choice and a matter of personal exploration. Jealousy is treated as a normal human emotion, and it's not deserving of judgment or blame just like all the other emotions. Folks don't get pedantic or prescriptivist about definitions and terms. Folks accept criticism and admit their failures gracefully, apologize, and change their behavior. Boundaries are respected and understood. Folks are expressive and communicative about their relationships. Metamors have active friendships with each other or at least can carry friendly conversations with each other. Folks talk about going to therapy. Safer sex is an open and frequently discussed topic. And most importantly, you feel good, connected, and witnessed when you express yourself to the community.

Good luck, I've heard so many horror stories about toxic polyamory communities, but I've heard many more stories about people having wonderful experiences. There are lots of good communities out there, and I hope you find some of them.

[zzxid]

obviously the main issue of those "how we went from this (complex 17th century art piece) to this (minimalism, the fountain, etc)" is how it's used a lot as fascist dog whistle to romantize the past.

But going to the discussion, for people who obvs aren't fascist but, don't recognize the dogwhistle and just don't know artists, past on what duchamp's fountain meant and why it's cool it angers people... the idea that people stoped making complex beautiful paintings is really wrong?

like if you study art history, for every artist you complain "a kid could make it" there is also plenty of contemporary artist making the exact kind of art you wanna see.

like, just exist in social media, follow enough artist, and sculptors and and painters doing DaVinci's level of artwork exist? museums will show both.

Like again, a bunch of time it's dogwhistles for people glorify the past so I shouldn't expect too much, but for those genuinely looking for contemporary artists creating complex paintings and esculptures, google is free.

[femkethefaineant]

I recently saw some discussion about sarcastically condoning nazism, so giving everyone the benefit of doubt just this once I'll lay this out slowly, step by step.

The main problem with nazi dogwhistles is that they never say what they mean, and they do this on purpose. Out of context the statements can be puposefully misinterpreted. Repeating them only helps nazis, especially if you do so sarcastically.

Like 'reject modernity embrace tradition' sounds allright on the face of it, sure we should use more wooden utensils and linen clothes, get rid of the plastics. But if you repeat this statement in those specific terms, you become indistinguishable from those who mean 'reject inclusion embrace antisemitism'. You know, from actual nazis.

And remember, embracing it sarcastically is still embracing. If these dogwhistles become actual popular sayings, you have created a pipeline to extremism, whether you intended to or not. Because normalizing their dogwhistles is the first step. They want you to use their phrasing ironically until no one even knows if it's ironic or not. Then when anyone starts believing in tradition, they might seek out the people who made up this phrase in an attempt to seek clarity, thus bringing them into contact with nazis. And recognizing nazis by these phrases will get harder, resulting in both nazis getting into spaces that don't want them and excluding unknowing repeaters, again driving them towards the other excluded people, guess who.

This can be seen more clearly in their other statements, I think. Take for example 'Jews will not replace us'. That's true. They won't replace whatever other groups exist, they're not planning to and no action is required against them because nothing is happening. Yet if you scream it from the rooftops, you still make people think about the great replacement bullshit in relation to Jews and that simply cannot end well. What you think about what you're saying doesn't really matter if you're still saying it regardless. You're still propagating nazism as an ideology worthy of thought and debate (it is not) and showing yourself as one (which as I've already said is not a whole lot better than actually being one.

So by repeating dogwhistles you only spread them, and though they can be reconstructed to sound innocent, they aren't. They lead to hurtful statements being normalised, both hurting the people it originally targeted and leading people into the ideology that spawned them.

Please make fun of nazis in other ways, without doing their dirty work.

[balioc]

Some years ago, before the pandemic, I went to see an amateur production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. One of my friends had a major role, and other friends were involved with various aspects of the production, including (importantly) the staging and choreography.

This is a show in which all the characters are wearing numbered placards around their necks, because...they're spelling bee contestants. (Like this, only the version used in the show didn't have names or school info, just numbers.)

In one big splashy number -- sadly, I don't remember which -- the whole cast was onstage dancing. There were two dance captains who were doing their thing on big pillars amidst everyone else, as though to make extra-sure that all eyes were on them specifically.

The numbers around their necks were "14" and "88." In that order, left to right, if you were facing the stage.

...as I said, I knew the people responsible for the staging, and I knew that the chances that they'd deliberately put a Nazi reference in front of the audience were approximately zero point zero. So I quietly brought this up with them after the show. At which point I learned

a) that they were Not Online Enough even to recognize "1488" as a symbol once it was pointed out to them (I had to explain what it meant),

b) that they'd distributed the number placards at random, and

c) that they were very horrified to learn what they'd "done."

And that's pretty much the end of the story, insofar as there's a story. They took steps to ensure that this wouldn't happen in future performances. As far as I know, no one outside my little knot of friends even noticed.

But I couldn't shake the thought:

If any easily-offended person had noticed, if anyone had taken a picture and shared it around, these poor thespians would be toast. No one would ever believe that it had been a complete accident. It looks too much like the sort of thing that doesn't happen by coincidence...and too much like the kind of secret ideological signal for which people have been trained to look everywhere.

I think about that a lot, whenever I run into discourse concerning "obvious" dogwhistles.

[classicslesbianopinions]

About what you mentioned with Rick Riordan and "Western civilization," yeah that kinda rubs me the wrong way too. I don't think he intended it as a dogwhistle for "Teh White Race™" the way racists tend to do, but it's still a bit uncomfortable. Not just because it could be so easily interpreted as a racist dogwhistle, but because ancient Greece and Rome influenced the entire Mediterranean region and far beyond, not just Europe. (Plus there's continuity with earlier civilizations from the Middle East and North Africa. Which I think Riordan was getting at when he described Egypt as an even earlier source of "Western civilization" in The Kane Chronicles, but that just made shit even weirder.) Honestly, the modern concept of "the West" has tons of eurocentric associations that ancient Greeks and Romans wouldn't have recognized. Sure, they distinguished themselves from rival powers to the east like Persia, but they would've grouped Greek and Roman territory in MENA with themselves, and those regions aren't really considered "Western" nowadays. Plus they didn't feel kinship with everyone in Europe either; they viewed unassimilated Celts and Germans as foreign and uncivilized too.

yeah i don't think it's intentional. but it is still fucked up. like, exactly, the ancient greeks wouldn't have recognized "western civilization." "western civilization" is like... kind of a fake concept anyway, and one that's steeped in white supremacy, whether rick riordan knows it or not.

but like... that's why it's important to really dig into this stuff if you're going to engage with ancient myths at all. like, it's important to research how the myths have been used and misused, and what agendas people have used them for. but unfortunately as with many things if you're privileged and you haven't had your first moment of "hey some of this is pretty fucked up," you might not realize you have to do that. like, that's something i've noticed and experienced as a white person trying not to contribute to the white supremacy in this field.

as far as i'm aware rick riordan is generally well-intentioned, but he does miss the mark a lot (like, he included a more diverse cast in heroes of olympus, but then a lot of people from the characters' cultures pointed out that he based them on stereotypes). but i think like... in the percy jackson books, he just took the rhetoric around "western civilization" for granted without really thinking to dig into it, and that's frustrating. and rereading it's like... worse than i remembered, too, because there's a lot of "the west has done beautiful things" and "we have buildings that look greek because of The West" when honestly we have buildings that look greek in large part because of white supremacy and the way people romanticize this idea of "western civilization." i know there's going to be a tv adaptation and i kind of hope they like... find a new explanation for the gods being in manhattan (or just like. don't. just say the gods jump around a bunch for no reason. who cares why).

(i'm not up to date on what rick riordan's been doing more recently, though. i was just like... into percy jackson in like fifth grade. and i read heroes of olympus when it was coming out too but i was less invested by then. so all my judgments of him are really based in those two series)

[bogkeep]

there's a thing i find very frustrating with the [gestures vaguely] general online sphere, at least the one i am part of. almost every discourse and public discussion will center around the english language, usamerican politics, usamerican history, usamerican identity dynamics, and usamerican experiences. which makes sense considering how much of the western internet population of note is, indeed, usamerican. there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, it's not really anyone can help, but, it can get... overwhelming? discouraging? when one culture seeps its way into the Everything. i understand it's not just One culture, usa/america/the english language is Not A Monolith - but neither is any other culture, or country, or continent, or language.

have you noticed how many vicious internet fights are just about words? who gets to call themselves what, as if any one person gets to be an authority on other people's experiences and identity (my lukewarm take is that they don't). i'm not saying words don't hold power and community and pain. they do! language is such a fundamental part of how we connect, across all this space and through all these barriers. but like, my native languages might not even have an equivalent of whatever word we're fighting about this time around. or if it does, it has entirely different history and connotations. it might not be a word i will ever say aloud in dialogue offline. it makes so many discourses seem pointless and needlessly cruel, especially when it is so completely disconnected to my own lived experience. i understand, i am a guest at the english speaking table and i'm doing my best to pay respects to the hosts, but i'm also chained to the chair and can't really escape it, either.

worst of all is how hard it is to like, speak up about things that don't align with a general usamerican perception of Things. there's a big overlap in problems people have across the world, but due to the world being a vast and diverse space with lots and lots and lots of people, the majority of which are not in fact on tumblr or even twitter, things may be Different. even though usamerican dynamics and history and politics are affecting the rest of the world more and more and the internet makes us more globally connected than ever, it does not mean you can always apply How Things Work In USA to anywhere else. when people say, "things work a little differently here," it does not mean they are avoiding the issue or trying to escape accountability, it might just mean that the usamerican framework of thinking about this issue doesn't match up at all and isn't helping anything. or worse, due to things being Different and the Usamerican Framework being held up as the true arbiter of Problem, many people really may believe We Don't Have That Problem Here (<- is probably sitting on a very bad hideous Problem they can't see because the usamerican part of the internet is completely unaware of it and will never bring it up and if anyone brings it up it will get drowned in the cacophony of Things That Happen Outside America Actually. Do We Need To Care About Them? Oh Shit Caring About Everything In The Entire World Is Actually Very Overwhelming And Way Too Much For One Human To Handle).

i have learnt a lot from being online. i have learnt a lot of valuable perspectives, i have learnt a lot about history and activism i never would have otherwise, i have learnt to recognize dogwhistles and stereotypes that aren't present in my offline surroundings, but are useful to know when interacting with the wider world. but it always always always feels like whatever i read and learn about usa and america it carries much more weight and importance and relevance than... the rest. and every time someone speaks up that maybe usa isn't the protagonist of the world, they get yelled at. i mean, a lot of things get you yelled at online, so that's not special. but it's discouraging to constantly have your experiences downtrodden!

i don't think this is going to change anytime soon. but for anyone who has it in them to do so; try to keep an open mind. no experience is universal, and no experience is exclusive.

[posi-pan]

Can I say, I love the completely oblivious irony of someone having the url/blog title of "fight/fuck transphobia (don't exactly remember) on tumblr.com only to see them making a post bashing mspec lesbians and making an "awareness" post of the lesphobia happening on the Lesbian Fandom Wiki all because it now says "lesbians can be men/like men too!" like.....do these people really not hear themselves. Do they not read the room before opening their mouths? You can't say 'fight/fuck transphobia' and then word for word basically parrot TERF speech, dogwhistles, and rhetoric.

If anything, it makes me, a person who wants little to do with being a woman due to my gender dysphoria, ecstatic to see and hear about this addition to the lesbian wiki page!! Because honestly, I am so down with this new addition - I feel far more included and seen in one of my very first queer identities!! In a way, I think it reignited that same sense of home that I do in queer, pan, and my other labels. It's like visiting your childhood home to see, WHOA!!, it's got like!! A balcony and back porch now!! That is SO cool!

I'm really happy to see these inclusive changes being made, and our history as a community - but also with certain labels - being recognized, respected, and restored (in one way or another)! I think the reason I love it so much is because I'm a highkey Gender Anarchist along the lines of just....bro these are just funky words and boxes we make for ourselves! Let people play dress-up and have fun! It's such a happier and better time for everyone!!

The only downside, I guess, is that it seems so many people in the lesbian and overall sapphic community - hell even the queer community too at times - seem to want these rigid, concrete boxes of roles and what not. It sucks to see that the people who want people such as myself and millions of others to be wiped out have so easily influenced, infiltrated and corrupted the community, and are now overwhelmingly seen as The Norm for the wider community.

It makes me and probably a ton of other individuals happy to see this addition to the Lesbian wiki page, and so it sucks to see people become so aggressive and hateful all because others are finally feeling included and happy. But! I'm still making it a personal note to remain positive about this, and so many other issues going on!

Honestly, blogs like yours have really helped to be voices of reason during all this infighting and drama and what not, and it's such a HUGE breath of fresh air amidst all the smog that's accumulated recently. So, thanks!! A whole bunch! /gen

Alright this got l o n g and rambly and kind of all over the place sdjdncjdsn just had a lot to say, apparently! Hope that's fine djcdjjsajn

it's wild how that fandom wiki page being edited to included historically accurate, inclusive information has caused such a fuss. exclusionists and terfs really have nothing better to do, huh?

(also thank you for saying such nice things, i'm glad the blog has been a nice space during all this hate and exclusion!)

[angeloncewas]

Imagine defending a transphobic author so much that you can't recognize when people are just joking while also revealing how bad that author is at the same time. And not realizing that the actual author has said just as worse things, but seriously and genuinely!

I have a decent amount of sympathy for people who are attached to her franchise because I get it - HP isn't particularly special to me but a lot of HP fics are and that love doesn't just dissipate. But you don't need to be a JKR stannie to be nostalgic for your favorite childhood book series and you don't need to wrap your transphobia in a feminist blanket. If they're not actively malicious then it's sad how stupid they are - JKR is a writer, of course she's not gonna parade around her bigotry in plain and obvious terms. The point of a dogwhistle is that it's subtle. She's gonna largely use measured language and appeal to pathos with her oversharing of what is clearly a lot of personal trauma; learn how to read between the lines, it's English Lit rule #1.