#which includes associating with a racist

[pink-lemonadefairy]

“i can’t think of anyone more deserving of person of the year than taylor”

think harder.

[scoopsgf]

I'm sorry but it is so obvious Taylor simply doesn't care and I feel like such an idiot for believing she is someone who cares about issues that don't affect her. During the Lover Era, watching the the world's most influential white woman take a stand politically and socially to stand up for marginalised people was so empowering. But now look at her...she's doing shows in Texas and refusing to address the archaic homophobic state laws that threaten Drag Queens and the rest of the gay community. She is just casually dating a racist bigot. It was all a lie. My heart goes out to all the queer, muslim, jewish, POC swifties.

god i feel this. to be fair, i do understand her not talking about hot topic shit at shows purely bc it makes them way more unsafe and puts a target on the show, and also the whole production is pretty much timed down to the second, but she could still post about it or something. i liked to believe that she was just kind of anonymously donating to these causes to help out, but now, w this, idk. im just so let down and unsure about everything. like it’s so easy to write it off as her “messy rebound” phase, and i literally do not care that she’s with someone so quick after her breakup, comments like that are so slut-shamey imo. all i care about is who she’s rebounding with and what that says about her. im just really hoping (as shitty as this is) that it’s just like… she’s not thinking straight, she’s feeling a low sense of self worth (like i wouldn’t wish that on a person but it’s a better alternative to the idea that she purely just doesn’t give a shit), maybe she doesn’t know everything or he’s lied to her about stuff or given her explanations… idk. i mean he’s able to brainwash his fans into liking him so it’s not implausible to think he could brainwash her. even so, you think her team would be on this and informing her about everything and advising her to distance herself from someone who is so clearly problematic and awful. i wish at the very least she and her team would say something, reaffirm her political views, show some obvious support for marginalized groups, just anything so that we know his views aren’t a reflection of her own (but even then… ugh idk i just don’t get how she could be with someone who has the opposite mindset as her ((allegedly)). im just so icked out by her association with him in general and i don’t understand what the hell she’s thinking. very much hoping they break up soon and we can all feel overdramatic about it.

[caruliaa]

ik these memes are like bla bla meme jokes i v obvs am not like. taking them seriouslyy hence why i didnt include the whole post but like. does this (referencing whats highlighted) not feel like. kinda vaugly racist to anyone else. hi.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Amazon illegally interferes with an historic UK warehouse election

I'm in to TARTU, ESTONIA! Overcoming the Enshittocene (Monday, May 8, 6PM, Prima Vista Literary Festival keynote, University of Tartu Library, Struwe 1). AI, copyright and creative workers' labor rights (May 10, 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building, Lossi 3, lobby). A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation (May 10, 3PM, University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037).

Amazon is very good at everything it does, including being very bad at the things it doesn't want to do. Take signing up for Prime: nothing could be simpler. The company has built a greased slide from Prime-curiosity to Prime-confirmed that is the envy of every UX designer.

But unsubscribing from Prime? That's a fucking nightmare. Somehow the company that can easily figure out how to sign up for a service is totally baffled when it comes to making it just as easy to leave. Now, there's two possibilities here: either Amazon's UX competence is a kind of erratic freak tide that sweeps in at unpredictable intervals and hits these unbelievable high-water marks, or the company just doesn't want to let you leave.

To investigate this question, let's consider a parallel: Black Flag's Roach Motel. This is an icon of American design, a little brown cardboard box that is saturated in irresistibly delicious (to cockroaches, at least) pheromones. These powerful scents make it admirably easy for all the roaches in your home to locate your Roach Motel and enter it.

But the interior of the Roach Motel is also coated in a sticky glue. Once roaches enter the motel, their legs and bodies brush up against this glue and become hopeless mired in it. A roach can't leave – not without tearing off its own legs.

It's possible that Black Flag made a mistake here. Maybe they wanted to make it just as easy for a roach to leave as it is to enter. If that seems improbable to you, well, you're right. We don't even have to speculate, we can just refer to Black Flag's slogan for Roach Motel: "Roaches check in, but they don't check out."

It's intentional, and we know that because they told us so.

Back to Amazon and Prime. Was it some oversight that cause the company make it so marvelously painless to sign up for Prime, but such a titanic pain in the ass to leave? Again, no speculation is required, because Amazon's executives exchanged a mountain of internal memos in which this is identified as a deliberate strategy, by which they deliberately chose to trick people into signing up for Prime and then hid the means of leaving Prime. Prime is a Roach Motel: users check in, but they don't check out:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/03/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself/

When it benefits Amazon, they are obsessive – "relentless" (Bezos's original for the company) – about user friendliness. They value ease of use so highly that they even patented "one click checkout" – the incredibly obvious idea that a company that stores your shipping address and credit card could let you buy something with a single click:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Click#Patent

But when it benefits Amazon to place obstacles in our way, they are even more relentless in inventing new forms of fuckery, spiteful little landmines they strew in our path. Just look at how Amazon deals with unionization efforts in its warehouses.

Amazon's relentless union-busting spans a wide diversity of tactics. On the one hand, they cook up media narratives to smear organizers, invoking racist dog-whistles to discredit workers who want a better deal:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/02/amazon-chris-smalls-smart-articulate-leaked-memo

On the other hand, they collude with federal agencies to make workers afraid that their secret ballots will be visible to their bosses, exposing them to retaliation:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/amazon-violated-labor-law-alabama-union-election-labor-official-finds-rcna1582

They hold Cultural Revolution-style forced indoctrination meetings where they illegally threaten workers with punishment for voting in favor of their union:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/business/economy/amazon-union-staten-island-nlrb.html

And they fire Amazon tech workers who express solidarity with warehouse workers:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-fires-tech-employees-workers-criticism-warehouse-climate-policies/

But all this is high-touch, labor-intensive fuckery. Amazon, as we know, loves automation, and so it automates much of its union-busting: for example, it created an employee chat app that refused to deliver any message containing words like "fairness" or "grievance":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/05/doubleplusrelentless/#quackspeak

Amazon also invents implausible corporate fictions that allow it to terminate entire sections of its workforce for trying to unionize, by maintaining the tormented pretense that these workers, who wear Amazon uniforms, drive Amazon trucks, deliver Amazon packages, and are tracked by Amazon down to the movements of their eyeballs, are, in fact, not Amazon employees:

https://www.wired.com/story/his-drivers-unionized-then-amazon-tried-to-terminate-his-contract/

These workers have plenty of cause to want to unionize. Amazon warehouses are sources of grueling torment. Take "megacycling," a ten-hour shift that runs from 1:20AM to 11:50AM that workers are plunged into without warning or the right to refuse. This isn't just a night shift – it's a night shift that makes it impossible to care for your children or maintain any kind of normal life.

Then there's Jeff Bezos's war on his workers' kidneys. Amazon warehouse workers and drivers notoriously have to pee in bottles, because they are monitored by algorithms that dock their pay for taking bathroom breaks. The road to Amazon's warehouse in Coventry, England is littered with sealed bottles of driver piss, defenestrated by drivers before they reach the depot inspection site.

There's so much piss on the side of the Coventry road that the prankster Oobah Butler was able to collect it, decant it into bottles, and market it on Amazon as an energy beverage called "Bitter Lemon Release Energy," where it briefly became Amazon's bestselling energy drink:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/#the-bitterest-lemon

(Butler promises that he didn't actually ship any bottled piss to people who weren't in on the gag – but let's just pause here and note how weird it is that a guy who hates our kidneys as much as Jeff Bezos built and flies a penis-shaped rocket.)

Butler also secretly joined the surge of 1,000 workers that Amazon hired for the Coventry warehouse in advance of a union vote, with the hope of diluting the yes side of that vote and forestall the union. Amazon displayed more of its famously selective competence here, spotting Butler and firing him in short order, while totally failing to notice that he was marketing bottles of driver piss as a bitter lemon drink on Amazon's retail platform.

After a long fight, Amazon's Coventry workers are finally getting their union vote, thanks to the GMB union's hard fought battle at the Central Arbitration Committee:

https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2024/04/26/amazon-warehouse-workers-in-coventry-will-vote-on-trade-union-recognition/

And right on schedule, Amazon has once again discovered its incredible facility for ease-of-use. The company has blanketed its shop floor with radioactively illegal "one click to quit the union" QR codes. When a worker aims their phones at the code and clicks the link, the system auto-generates a letter resigning the worker from their union.

As noted, this is totally illegal. English law bans employers from "making an offer to an employee for the sole or main purpose of inducing workers not to be members of an independent trade union, take part in its activities, or make use of its services."

Now, legal or not, this may strike you as a benign intervention on Amazon's part. Why shouldn't it be easy for workers to choose how they are represented in their workplaces? But the one-click system is only half of Amazon's illegal union-busting: the other half is delivered by its managers, who have cornered workers on the shop floor and ordered them to quit their union, threatening them with workplace retaliation if they don't.

This is in addition to more forced "captive audience" meetings where workers are bombarded with lies about what life in an union shop is like.

Again, the contrast couldn't be more stark. If you want to quit a union, Amazon makes this as easy as joining Prime. But if you want to join a union, Amazon makes that even harder than quitting Prime. Amazon has the same attitude to its workers and its customers: they see us all as a resource to be extracted, and have no qualms about tricking or even intimidating us into doing what's best for Amazon, at the expense of our own interests.

The campaigning law-firm Foxglove is representing five of Amazon's Coventry workers. They're doing the lord's work:

https://www.foxglove.org.uk/2024/05/02/legal-challenge-to-amazon-uks-new-one-click-to-quit-the-union-tool/

All this highlights the increasing divergence between the UK and the US when it comes to labor rights. Under the Biden Administration, @NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo has promulgated a rule that grants a union automatic recognition if the boss does anything to interfere with a union election:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

In other words, if Amazon tries these tactics in the USA now, their union will be immediately recognized. Abruzzo has installed an ultra-sensitive tilt-sensor in America's union elections, and if Bezos or his class allies so much as sneeze in the direction of their workers' democratic rights, they automatically lose.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/06/one-click-to-quit-the-union/#foxglove

Image: Isabela.Zanella (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ballot-box-2.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[fatliberation]

hi, i'm a fat person who is just starting to learn to love and appreciate my body and i'm very new to the fat community and all that.

i was wondering if you could maybe explain the term ob*se and how it is a slur. i've never heard anything about it being a slur before(like i said, i'm very new here) and was wondering if you could tell me the origin and history of the word or mayy provide links to resources about it? i want to know more about fat history and how to support my community but i'm unsure of how to start

Welcome!

Obesity is recognized as a slur by fat communities because it's a stigmatizing term that medicalizes fat bodies, typically in the absence of disease. Aside from the word literally translating to "having eaten oneself fat" in latin, obesity (as a medical diagnosis) straight up doesn't actually exist. The only measure that we have to diagnose people with obesity is the BMI, which has been widely proven to be an ineffective measure of health.

The BMI was created in the 1800s by a statistician named Adolphe Quetelet, who did NOT sudy medicine, to gather statistics of the average height and weight of ONLY white, european, upper-middle class men to assist the government in allocating resources. It was never intended as a measure of individual body fat, build, or health. 

Quetelet is also credited with founding the field of anthropometry, including the racist pseudoscience of phrenology. Quetelet’s l’homme moyen would be used as a measurement of fitness to parent, and as a scientific justification for eugenics.

Studies have observed that about 30% of so-called "normal weight" people are "unhealthy" whereas about 50% of so-called "overweight" people are “healthy”. Thus, using the BMI as an indicator of health results in the misclassification of some 75 million people in the United States alone. "Healthy" lifestyle habits are associated with a significant decrease in mortality regardless of baseline body mass index.  

While epidemiologists use BMI to calculate national "obesity" rates, the distinctions can be arbitrary. In 1998, the National Institutes of Health lowered the overweight threshold from 27.8 to 25—branding roughly 29 million Americans as "overweight" overnight—to match international guidelines. Articles about the "obesity epidemic" often use this pseudo-statistic to create a false fear mongering rate at which the United States is becoming fatter. Critics have also noted that those guidelines were drafted in part by the International Obesity Task Force, whose two principal funders were companies making weight loss drugs. Interesting!!!

So... how can you diagnose a person with a disease (and sell them medications) solely based upon an outdated measure that was never meant to indicate health in the first place? Especially when "obesity” has no proven causative role in the onset of any chronic condition?

There is a reason as to why fatness was declared a disease by the NIH in 1998, and some of it had to do with acknowledging fatness as something that is NOT just about a lack of willpower - but that's a very complicated post for another time. You can learn more about it in the two part series of Maintenance Phase titled The Body Mass Index and The Obesity Epidemic.

Aside from being overtly incorrect as a medical tool, the BMI is used to deny certain medical treatments and gender-affirming care, as well insurance coverage. Employers still often offer bonuses to workers who lower their BMI. Although science recognizes the BMI as deeply flawed, it's going to be tough to get rid of. It has been a long standing and effective tool for the oppression of fat people and the profit of the weight loss industry.

More sources and extra reading material:

How the Use of BMI Fetishizes White Embodiment and Racializes Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings

The Bizarre and Racist History of the BMI by Aubrey Gordon

The Racist and Problematic History of the Body Mass Index by Adele Jackson-Gibson

What's Wrong With The War on Obesity? by Lily O'Hara, et al.

Fearing The Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings

[creature-wizard]

Looks like it's time to talk about starseeds and the New Age movement again.

Since I'm seeing more starseed content being posted, I'm gonna make another post on why the whole starseed thing and the surrounding New Age belief system are... not good.

So for those who don't know, New Age mythology is essentially a hodgepodge of cherrypicked and distorted myths from various cultures, racist pseudohistory, and far right conspiracy theories. To put it very briefly, starseeds are supposedly here to help Earth resist the reptilians, a race of politics-manipulating, war-starting, media-controlling blood-drinking aliens. For those who don't recognize the tropes here, these are basically all antisemitic canards. The reptilian alien myth as most know it today comes from David Icke, who ultimately cribbed a bunch of his material from The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a Russian hoax created to justify violence against Jews. He was also influenced by the work of people like Fritz Springmeier, a hateful crank who based much of his work on other hateful cranks.

(David Icke, by the way, also claims that transgender is an evil reptilian conspiracy. You'll never find just one form of bigotry with these people.)

There are supposedly numerous alien races out there, and one of the most prominent among them are the Pleiadians, AKA Nordics. While modern depictions of the Pleiadians give them more variety in skintone, there's no denying that older Pleiadian mythology basically pictured them as Aryans In Space, even associating them with the swastika.

You see what's going on here? "Good" swastika-loving Aryan aliens versus "evil" Jewish aliens? Sound familiar?

Racism isn't just a tangential part of the starseed myth, either. It lies at its very core. It's inextricably tied in with the ancient astronaut hypothesis, which has a history of racist motivation behind it. The TL;DR is that a bunch of white people couldn't believe that non-white people had built a bunch of things they couldn't figure out how to build themselves (EG, the Great Pyramids), so they proposed that the real builders were anyone from Atlanteans to aliens. (Atlantis, by the way, never existed; it was a literary device created by Plato.)

One supposed purpose of starseeds is to help the world "wake up to the truth," which basically just means "convert people to New Age spirituality." New Age believes that world peace is contingent on a majority of the world being converted to New Age belief, and that resistance against their belief system is ultimately the work of the aforementioned reptilian aliens.

To put it another way, New Agers think they understand other cultures' spiritual traditions better than the actual members of said cultures, and think that anyone who disagrees with them is being manipulated by the conspiracy, or is an agent of the conspiracy. This includes Indigenous cultures which are already endangered from white Christian colonialism.

Essentially, endangered cultures cannot speak up for themselves and resist New Agers' efforts at cultural assimilation without being labeled a problem and an enemy. It's basically white Christian colonialism repackaged as "spiritual, not religious."

Again - if you heard from these people that some ancient text or myth describes extraterrestrial beings visiting our planet for one reason or another, you heard misinformation. They twist and misrepresent literally every myth and text they get their hands on. For example, you may have heard that the vimanas from Hindu traditions were actually alien spacecraft. They were no such thing. Or maybe you heard that the Book of Enoch describes aliens performing genetic experimentation on humans. It literally does not. At best, all of the stories they cite just kind of sound like aliens if you ignore most of their content and pay no attention to their cultural contexts.

The starseed movement preys on alienated people, especially autistic people and people with ADHD. You can look up nearly any list of signs that you're supposedly a starseed, and many of them will align perfectly with characteristics associated with autism and/or ADHD, or that people with these conditions commonly report. Some people within the movement even go so far as to claim that ADHD and autism don't even exist, but were actually made up by the conspiracy as a cover to suppress and control starseeds, which is some yikes-as-hell ableism.

So basically, people are being told that if they have these certain characteristics or symptoms, that means it's their job to spread New Age spirituality to defeat the conspiracy and help others ascend to the fifth density.

And what's the fifth density, you might ask? It's supposedly humanity's next evolutionary level, because New Age is also based on biological misconceptions. Supposedly once everyone's DNA "upgrades," they'll essentially morph into an aetheric form. Supposedly, this is preceded by a number of "ascension symptoms," including depression, headache, gastrointestinal issues, and any number of other symptoms that could indicate almost anything, including stress.

What many of these people don't realize is, this prediction has already failed. Back in the 2000s and 2010s, experiencing "ascension symptoms" was supposed to precede ascension to 5D beginning December 21, 2012. One lady, Denise Le Fay, was convinced that the hair loss she was experiencing in 2008 was an ascension symptom. As we can see by looking her up, she's very much still with us on the 3D plane these days, repeating the same tired old scripts New Agers recycle endlessly.

By the way, everything you near New Agers saying today about old systems being dismantled, dark forces being arrested or kicked off the planet, and new economic systems on the horizon? They've been recycling these scripts for years now. Take a look at this page written back in 2012. You got stuff about the complete dismantling of an enormous network of sinister forces," "the arrest and removal of a world-wide cabal," and a "new economic system."

("Cabal," by the way, is a dogwhistle term for "Jews.")

Furthermore, people in this movement are often encouraged to try and access past life memories through dreams or hypnosis, which makes the whole thing feel even more real to them. But the thing is, you can have incredibly vivid experiences about literally anything you put your mind to - the people in the reality shifting having vivid experiences of living another life in the Harry Potter universe are a great example of this. Just because you have vivid experiences, doesn't mean they have any bearing on anything happening in this reality.

So yeah, the starseed movement and the larger New Age movement are both extremely harmful. They promote racist pseudohistory, medically-irresponsible pseudoscience, conspiracy theories that target numerous marginalized groups, and functionally target aliened people with ADHD and autism to convince them that spreading its beliefs is their job.

[loving-n0t-heyting]

if you want an illustration of the extent to which the anc in south africa has degenerated from its heroic period: for the last 3mo it has, to hold onto power, governed thru a coalition including not just the generically white Democratic Alliance but the inkatha freedom party and freedom front plus. the former is a conservative black party with deep historical ties to the bantustan system and with which the anc was engaged in literal open warfare during the 90s, to the point mandela would use association with them to tar the previously hegemonic and apartheid-based national party(!!); the latter is a far right whiteafrikaner nationalist party to emerge from racist elements of the apartheid-era military during the transition to full political democracy; both parties earned <4% of the vote share in this years elections each. all of this compromise with the remnants of the prior regime to suppress the influence of left-wing parties like the eff and mkp favouring large scale economic redistribution in the most unequal country in the entire world. (of individually owned land, the black supermajority of the populations owns a whopping four percent.) whatever one thinks about either party or its leaders, its hard to argue they are either of them less aligned with the founding spirit of the african natl congress than the ifp or ff+, the heirs to the military and paramilitary factions that made it their business to drown the anc in blood during its foundational struggle

this might seem bleak, but in reality it points a novel way forward for one of the most prominent and distinctive political problems in contemporary south africa, that of so called "load shedding" or (less euphemistically) rolling blackouts by eskom, the state-owned power company responsible for most electricity generation and distribution in the country. simply hook up a rotor between eskoms generators and nelson mandelas grave and soon enough you should have enough power 24/7 to blind any astronauts looking down at the southern tip of the continent

[scoobydoodean]

what is your opinion on people calling dean a heavy misogynist? i don’t agree personally but i feel like you could put my thoughts into better words

First, I have to chuckle a little at "heavy misogynist". Apparently, some people have begun to realize their fave is also guilty of misogyny crimes therefore they focus on making sure all of us know Sam is a light misogynist and Dean is a heavy misogynist. I just find that amusing.

This is a broad topic in a long show, so I won't endeavor to address every conceivable incidence of misogyny in the show I can think of. Instead, I'm going to create a few headings, at least one of which I think most criticism falls under.

Misogyny through the writing team

How Sam's misogyny gets a pass

Purity culture wank and Dean performing for Sam

How Dean actually treats women

Misogyny Through The Writing Team

First, Supernatural in of itself has issues with misogyny—as in, the writers of the show (including female writers) have issues with misogyny which they are happy to put on display semi-frequently. The show started in 2005, during a period of time where casual sexism was absolutely rampant on TV and no one thought anything about it. Female celebrities were regularly mocked and dragged on cable television in a way men simply weren't. They were called bitches and skanks and whores, and even "progressive" voices were inundated with casual misogyny and a fixation on purity culture (that largely applied to women only). Quite simply, I think fandom tends to be far too generous toward the writers, assuming certain things were "flaws" the writers intentionally wrote for the characters.

Put another way, there are some criticisms I prefer to level at the writing team rather than the characters, because what is written plainly reflects their ignorance in the real world rather than any intent to give Sam or Dean or any other character meaningful flaws—much less outright terrible ones that greatly harm their image. I'll give a few examples:

2.17 "Heart" makes me very uncomfortable as I sit here in 2024 and observe how Sam and Madison's romance develops. Me feeling that way does not mean the authorial intent of 2007 Sera Gamble was that I think to myself, "Man Sam comes off as uncomfortably rapey here." Hopelessly bad with women, perhaps—but not creepy.

In season 2, the writers begin to develop a running “joke” that Sam is afraid of not just clowns but also little people. The latter “joke” is (wisely) dropped fairly quickly. I have never criticized Sam for being afraid of little people, and I never will. It is readily apparent to me that this running "joke" reflects the ignorance of the writing team rather than an intent to give Sam meaningful or interesting flaws. Their intent was to use little people as the butt of a joke. I personally find this "joke" distasteful, and the idea of trying to take that and somehow "dunk" on Sam for the bigotry of the writers is more distasteful to me.

This is also how I feel about the running "joke" of a porn magazine and website (BAB) that solely features Asian women, that is put on display on multiple occasions during the show—first in 2.15 "Tall Tales", where the context is Gabriel infecting Sam's laptop with a virus from the website and making him believe Dean is responsible. BAB continues to make "Easter Egg" appearances in the show afterward. While often associated with Dean by fandom, the writers clearly think of BAB as a general, "funny" (it isn't), running gag with no more depth than "haha men like porn funny". An issue is stolen by a sentient teddy bear in 4.08 "Wishful Thinking". An issue is owned by the teenager who swapped bodies with Sam in 5.12 "Swap Meat". The Men of Letters also collected a considerable number of issues (8.17). I simply do not believe the writers thought for a single moment about BAB being a grossly racist gag. They most certainly did not write it as an intentional criticism of Dean from that perspective. It reflects nothing but their ignorance and racism here in the real world, and absolutely SHOULD be criticized from that REAL WORLD impact.

How Sam's misogyny largely gets a pass

One of the things I have not been able to stop noticing on this rewatch is Sam's issues with misogyny, and how often Sam's misogyny comes out in conflicts with Dean... starting from the very first episode of the show. Pretty much any time you get anything that feels like it might be a misogynist Dean or horn dog Dean moment... Sam either just has or is about to follow that up with some misogyny of his own.

In 1.01, right after entering Sam's apartment and meeting Jess, Dean mentions the Smurfs on Jess's shirt. We think to ourselves "Okay. A little misogynist... a little horn-dog Dean." Sam is happy to 1-Up that in two ways. First, Jess voices her intentions to go get dressed. Dean dismisses this, but while doing so, makes it clear he intends to leave the room with Sam, as he'd like to have a private conversation with Sam anyway. Sam objects, walking over to Jess and putting an arm around her, demanding Dean say whatever he needs to say right then and there. Maybe this would feel supportive if Jess wasn't in her underwear and hadn't just made it clear that now that the panic over a possible break-in is over, she'd really like to not be in her underwear in front of a stranger. But nope. By god she needs to stand there so Sam can prove a point about misogynist Dean! Second, Sam immediately (and I think quite erroneously) jumps to imply Dean is trying to cut Jess out of the conversation because she's... a woman? Or... something? He makes a big show of moving over Jess and standing beside her, saying anything Dean has to say, he can say in front of Jess. However, the moment Sam actually understands that Dean is here because John is missing on a hunting trip, he dismisses Jess to speak to Dean alone... because he's lying to her. By painting Dean erroneously with this "The men are talking" bullshit that had nothing to do with anything, Sam sets himself up to be viewed as a misogynist by his own framing of the situation and what it means to leave Jess out of a discussion. He also reveals his own alleged principles as a performative illusion. Despite being his intended life partner, Sam never intends to tell the woman he loves about his past as a hunter (he makes this clear later on the bridge). However, I think because Sam's actions usually co-occur with what gets called out more directly or more immediately recognized as misogyny from Dean (should have gotten him for the Smurf's comment, Sam!) Sam's misogyny often flies under the radar... and he's really... pretty bad.

I spoke here at length about how Sam tends to look down on women who interact with Dean (often before meeting them). There is absolutely an intersection with purity culture here and there's discussion in that thread about that as well, and whether this is a "2000s writers" issue or intentionally written flaws.

In 1.06, Sam cuts Dean off before Dean can accept an offered beer from Rebecca, but then as soon as Sam needs Rebecca out of the room, Sam asks her to not just bring them those beers... but also fix them sandwiches. Rebecca says, "What do you think this is, Hooters?" and Dean mumbles, "I wish" and we somehow lose sight of the fact that Sam literally just asked a woman to make him sandwiches which is possibly the number one misogynist man trope. Sam vaguely suggests Dean is a misogynist in 1.19 for nudging Sam to go on a date with Sarah Blake and possibly get information on the case, because that would be "using" her, but Sam wants to "use" Meg Masters in 1.22 and he wants to "use" Ruby to get what he wants, and when he said getting information from women was "Dean's job", he was also showing he was perfectly willing to use Dean and Sarah—he just doesn't want to get his hands dirty. It also comes to light in 1.19 that this is more about Sam's belief that he has to protect women from him, and Sarah herself ends up calling Sam antiquated for it.

I mentioned before that Sam doesn't plan to ever tell Jess who he is, and he makes the same plans with Amelia. Dean, meanwhile, confides in Cassie (it's what leads to their breakup) as well as Lisa.

I also have to mention... one of the funniest things I see deancrit samgirls in particular dig at time after time after time is Dean calling women "bitches". Never mind that Sam also calls women like Ruby and Bela bitches and calls a woman a bitch in front of Madison. Apparently none of these occurrences count because... *looks at notes* reasons. "Bitch" only counts as misogyny when it's Dean saying it. Also, let's not mention that Sam exclusively uses the word "bitch" to refer to women, while Dean also calls men and creatures bitches at different points so it isn't a gender specific insult for him.

Dean is definitely the "heavy" misogynist here... right? (I guess Sam is a "tall" misogynist instead).

Purity culture wank and Dean performing for Sam

Dean is commonly treated in fandom as if he's some kind of sex pest, and quite blatantly... he isn't one. Women almost always proposition Dean first (thejabberwock has sets on this here and here), but him asking people out also isn't inherently creepy in any way? Co-occurring with Sam's purity culture inundated judgements, we often see fandom's own as well, where Dean is some kind of sex pest because he... likes women? Or... because he has sex with consenting women who also want to have sex with him? Sometimes it's giving purity culture wank, sometimes it's given big radfem energy... but regardless, I sometimes see people talk about Dean like him so much as making eye contact with a woman is a violent sexual threat, and that's just laughable—as is denying the agency and autonomy of consenting women in general.

Even though it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, I'll also add that Dean... doesn't even actually have sex with the frequency that people talk about it? Dean has sex with Cassie—who was a long term partner of his in 1.13. He has sex with an actress in 2.18, and with Doublemint twins in 3.01. He has sex with a waitress 4.05. He plans to have sex with someone in 3.04, but turns her down when he realizes she's a prostitute who's working. This happens again in 10.07. I'm on season 4 of my rewatch and haven't been formally keeping up... but Dean is not actually having a lot of sex? We get implications he's been out partying a few times, and can maybe infer he scored, but we don't actually know.

I'm not a huge fan of performing Dean, in the sense that I think over the years I have seen it wildly overstated far too many times. But I do think Dean sometimes plays a character for Sam especially. Dean tells us this himself in 2.03 "Bloodlust" when confiding in Gordon. He never says so directly when it comes to the sexy sex guy doing sex persona, but his actions reveal him. One can think of plenty of examples of Dean saying horny stuff about women to Sam... but what about his actions?

How Dean actually treats women

Finally, there's how Dean actually treats women... and one would be very hard pressed to prove to me that Dean is sexist toward the women in his life. He's been close friends with multiple women and worked with women on hunts on multiple occasions and never once batted an eye. Jo in 2.06 is sometimes floated as an example, but it's actually discussed within the episode. Dean makes it very clear that he thinks women can do the job just fine. What he has a problem with is Jo's lack of experience and her romanticization of the job (especially during a period where Dean has fallen deeply out of love with the job himself). Everything we see as the series progresses supports Dean's assertion as truth. He's very good friends with Charlie, Jody, and Donna and doesn't go around excluding them on hunts while favoring men. That is not a thing that happens. While he initially tries to talk Claire out of the life (as he does everybody—this is not unique to women—see Adam for example) when she decides to hunt, he supports her regardless. There is nothing uniquely overprotective about how Dean treats women who hunt. End of. Dean has no illusions about traditional gender roles or any of that nonsense, jumping to clean dishes after dinner at Jody's and cooking breakfast for Lisa and Ben. (Our knowledge of Dean and the chores he does for his family already tell us this—but regardless). Even Demon Dean, an entity with no love for anyone and close to zero principles, targeted men who abuse and threaten women, and when Crowley ordered him to kill Lester's wife to fulfill the terms of Lester's demon deal, Demon Dean instead became so deeply annoyed with Lester's hypocrisy (he cheated on his wife first) and his assertion that it's different when men cheat, that he killed him and smiled while doing it.

So anyway, nope—I don't think Dean is a "heavy" misogynist.

[dani-luminae]

I've seen some really hostile posts on my dash tonight so I wanna say something probably unpopular, but I feel like it needs to be laid out.

I want to get that kneejerk defensiveness out of the way and say it: liking the Harry Potter books as a child doesn't make you evil or bad.

These were children's books, made for children. There's a reason these books were immensely popular, spawned at least eleven movies, took over theme parks, etc. They addressed some incredibly relevant themes that all children want to see themselves the heroes of. The characters felt real children who dealt with social rifts as well as the fantastical fight against evil.

The part where it's a problem becomes the following facts that:

1) JKR used plenty of insulting tropes and allusions, including but not limited to antisemitic, transphobic, homophobic, and racist. Refusing to confront these as an adult with better critical thinking skills is where a lot of problems begin. (JKR has refused to discuss/ examine any of these in even a cursory "well I didn't realize/intend that" manner.)

2) the popularity of HP has given JKR a massive platform, which

3) She is actively using to not just spread hate and prejudice but outright Holocaust denial, as well as influencing legislature against transgender people.

4) She considers every single person who is still a fan of Harry Potter to agree with her views. Transphobes especially have latched onto the series.

These are the facts. It's absolutely rancid that the author of such a monumental book series has been radicalized into being such a bigot. The end result is that now this incredibly popular franchise is deeply associated with transphobia and a plethora of other hateful ideas.

You bought some HP merch in the past? Well, it's not like you can take back your money, but what you can do is discard it and find how you can be an ally to trans people in your community. The book/movie series meant a lot to you as a child? I get it, because I was the same, and it might be hard to let go, but it's now playing a part in the real-life harm of thousands of people.

But if you choose to consider all of these facts and continue being a fan of her/HP content, then you are a part of the problem.

Fuck JKR.

[daegu-based-terrorist]

Hi, I want to learn more about DPRK but most of the resources I've come across are those debunking the racist propaganda associated with it and understandably so. Do you have have sites where I can access content (text, news, articles, blogs, photography, videos) from DPRK and learn more about it? You might have already answered this question, in which case could you point me to the post of you answering it? Thank you for your time 💕

Naenara is an offical government website, it includes books, posters, stamps, news stories and other general things coming out of the dprk. KCNA is a news website that is used both actually in the dprk but can also be viewed abroad. Both have English translations. Everyone recommends Pyongyang Times, so I will too. This YouTube channel uploads videos from the dprk and I believe is run by a woman who’s mother was North Korean.

Also if you have the patience to dig through alot of shitposts, memes and yk, general redditisms, the folks on r/movingtonorthkorea can actually provide you with some excellent sources, also if your first language isn’t English they would be the people I’d suggest going to to find non English and non Korean sources. When they aren’t shitposting they actually have very good posts under their “history” and “dprk info” tags. I hate to be recommending a fucking Reddit page but they’ve been at it for years so they’ve built up quite the library.

There is also these master lists I came across ages ago, but whoever put them together is clearly biased against NK so I’d disregard anything on this list without a Chinese or dprk flag next to it.

North Korean university websites list

Tourism websites (ignore the American travel advisory lmao)

News and Media

NGO and gov websites

Cultural and food websites

[baeddel]

on the racist riots in Belfast

i made a post in 2021 titled "dispatch on the unrest in Belfast" (click) trying to provide some local-knowledge context for the sectarian riots in town. i have no such special knowledge to offer this time. it has been, to be honest, shocking to me how many people came to them and how well organized they were. we have seen an increasing prevalence of anti-immigrant racism in the north in recent years; graffiti saying "locals only" (simple meaning: "whites only") on council houses going to market has been reported on since 2014 (click, 2018 click, 2023 click), for example. and in 2022 the PSNI released a report stating that hate crimes of every kind, including racist hate crimes, had reached the highest of any year since they began counting in 2004/5 (click). according to the BBC as of 2014 "on average a racially motivated offence takes place at least once a day" in Belfast (click) and it has only risen since that. but it was obviously not organized at this scale before. my girlfriend remarked that this was the first time Northern Ireland has had a race riot and i think, assuming we treat sectarian riots as something else, that may be true? (the UK-wide 1919 race riots did not seem to affect Ireland from what i could find and anyway were a bit before partition; otherwise they are quite similar to what is happening today).

perhaps no further context is really possible to give; they are race riots and they are happening because of racism. nevertheless i will try and write down some things i've thought about it.

in the 2021 post i talked about the nature of the disorder, where if you looked at the footage mostly people stood on the pavement and watched while the professionals—loyalist paramilitaries—handled the direct action (hijacking and burning busses and such). that is because these demonstrations were organized by the paramilitaries and everyone must obey them. that is not the case here; the crowds attack people of colour and immigrants, their homes or businesses owned by them, wherever they can find them. if they were kicked out of one area they went somewhere else and did it there; or else they did it where they lived as on Sandy Row. so it seems to be genuinely spontaneous and not directed from above.

the paramilitaries claim they did not organize it (the Belfast Telegraph quote what they call a 'senior loyalist' saying "[w]e didn’t start this, we aren’t behind it" click—what a demonstrative article, by the way, the police asking the paramilitaries for help with population control!). they say that about everything, but i think i believe them this time for that reason. it doesn't look paramilitary. i suppose whoever organized it must be taking orders from England. however, we are aware of at least some involvement by paramilitaries. the rightists who travelled up from Ireland were identified by PSNI and Gardaí to be fraternizing with UDA men (click). blueshirts associating with loyalists is not really surprising but i am not sure it has happened before. PSNI also claim there is a "paramilitary element" within the racist riots but are reluctant to say they're behind them (click).

i have talked before about how loyalism has felt a bit of a transition from an armed struggle into something that looks like a popular movement, with demonstrations and direct action becoming the main source of spectacle. it's possible there is a gradual transition towards this point, where paramilitary hierarchy becomes secondary to a spontaneously organized reactionary movement.

it also fits into a pattern that i have talked about before (click, also here), which is that democracy in the north has undergone dramatic changes recently. whereas in the past the national conversation dominated politics, today ordinary issues of civil society are decisive. the DUP lost their monopoly on unionist voters because of how they handled COVID, the border, the cost of living and so forth—problems a normal political party is expected to solve, not a party holding down a sovereignty under siege as they were supposed to be—and that's why SF got the majority. immigration is one such 'normal' political issue, and racist violence breaks out in Belfast in a way that doesn't differ substantially to how it breaks out at the same time in a normal country like England.

speaking of the fracturing of the DUP, i felt that it was significant that we could name, as a precipitating event, the fracturing of the right wing parties in general. in the north of Ireland the DUP lost much of its support, but no single party could replace it; several unionist parties now leech its vote, while moderate unionists vote for Alliance. and in the recent election the Tories lost to Labour, but they also lost many seats to Reform. between SF and Labour we are in an era where for the first time in a long time the UK is governed by center left parties, meanwhile it is unclear what opposition has the mandate of the right-wing voter. this means that for a right wing person electoral party politics looks like an ambiguous, distant and unrewarding terrain of struggle. perhaps that is a background condition as to why racist propagandists have been able to mobilize so many people into joining these events.

something else that struck me as possibly a precipitating event is that for the better part of a year we've had extremely active and persistent organizing around Palestine in the UK, in terms of demonstrations, direct action and even in electoral politics (with several independent candidates who care about Gaza taking seats from Labour in the last election). thus, right-wing racists have seen news about pro-Palestine organizing almost every day for a long time. we know that here in the north when Palestinian flags are flown it isn't long before Israel flags are flown in response. i think it's possible to see the specifically anti-Islamic character of the riots as a kind of counter-revolution or reaction to Palestine.

those were the thoughts i had to share. on Friday 9th (today as i write this) there is a racist demonstration planned, as well as a counter-protest. the counter-protest is backed by NIPSA (a big NI union) as well as the Belfast City Council (! click), so perhaps it will be big. it starts at 4:30pm. stay safe.

[sleepynegress]

*sigh* Featurism...

So, I woke up to this shit on the Twit app and I've only hit on this issue before, but today I'm digging in. Colorism is something that is not addressed often enough, but intersected within that and even more rarely spoken about, is the issue of featurism. The young actress above just got cast as Juliet in the latest big staged prestige production of Romeo and Juliet, opposite Tom Holland. And as usual the blue-checks, everybody else including "black", and even Black regulars are all-in on the cruelty.

...But I want to breakdown a nuance that is too often skipped over when this happens. The two people named with her, give away the featurism game, here; a particularly nasty form of often internalized racism. I guarantee if the young actress looked like this?

She'd definitely still get racist attacks, but the particularly nasty shit I'm seeing attacking her looks wouldn't come. In fact, I could see some people thinking they are defending her with "but she's pretty!" or more specific... "obviously she's mixed" comments. -Something pretty much every Black woman with features that don't align with a narrow perception of blackness hear often (and we'll get to why I specified women in a minute). And don't get it twisted...

These aren't exclusively nor standard white features either (see: the many ethnic features w/in white ethnic groups that also get hit to a lesser and non-racialized degree such as large "hook" and/or Romanesque noses for example, which is definitely about anti-semitism, anti-Romani sentiment, and other disparaged/discriminated against ethnic minorities in Europe) and yes, blue eyes are naturally occurring within non-mixed and dark-skinned Black people due to a mutation called Waardenburg syndrome. But there is a REASON why fetishizing even certain ethnic features within the African continental diaspora has been a thing for a long time...i.e. "the dopest Ethiopian" from the Tribe Called Quest lyric is pictured as this:

and this:

and not this:

...despite them all being Ethiopians of various tribal ethnicities.

A wide-nose, a tighter curl, coil, or zig-zag pattern of hair, fuller lips and often, but not always (because I've given examples above where features "mitigate" skin color) darker skin. Zendaya is grouped with Tracey and Francesca Amewudah-Rivers, despite being both lighter in skin color and having a Black parent and a white parent because her nose isn't what has become the standard surgical look...that too many celebs have. This includes the ones who got so-called "ethnic" work or just a slight 'refinement'. No, her nose is born w/it, made for that good African air, as I call it. Nostrils prominent, nose bridge wide:

I went make-up free as well, because even make-up practices these days, go for that narrowing highlight technique i.e. just below it's subtle.

Sza is a an example of it taken to extremes, even with the Hollywood standard "ethnic" refinement she did get.

The thing is... I don't blame or attack her for that. Because you see above that is just a taste of what happens. Lil' Kim was relentlessly bullied by the men in her life for her ethnic features for her whole life...and that is why she is off-limits to this day for me when it comes to all the work she's had done.

...And this is where I explain why I specified men being mostly exempt. It's because "Blackness" including all the physical features associated with it, is by default masculinized. ...Which is why Idris Elba is considered one of the most handsome men in the world, w/o the caveats that even Lupita Nyong'o often gets. Nobody calls Samuel L. Jackson ugly. He is even idolized and fetishized by a specifically white male gaze for how culturally "Black" he is perceived to be for all the wrong reasons, his signature "motherfucka" for example (and I could go off on a whole other tangent here, but digressing). All this to say... Featurism sucks. It's not talked about enough. Blackness in all variations is Beautiful. Tracy Chapman looking as young she does?? Hell, mark it down to both her dark skin (a natural UV protector) and not messing with her given features (and being a lesbian, men will age you. lol -I got jokes-):

P.S. THANK GOODNESS for Tems and her rising prominence as a beauty as well:

P.P.S. Even Jay-Z the billionaire rapper has had the comments over the years about his lips and nose, hence that lyric in Beyonce's Formation.

[swallowprettybird]

Simverse Magazine welcomes you 🎙️💌

Hello, everyone! I want to share with you an idea I have been working on for some time.

Some of you already know, some of you don't, but I'm coming to you with the intention of creating a kind of magazine about life in the sims - about life in the sims universe and your characters in it.

If you like to play gameplay, tell stories, or create art, or are interested in building, or make lookbooks, this is all about you!

More details below 👇

The magazine will be published in an electronic flipbook format at the end of each month.

To give you a better idea, I've highlighted a few sections:

Fancy look - all about fashion and style, about models and lookbooks. If you are a creator you can offer your cc, or if you like to make lookbooks you can make one for the magazine and I'll mentioned you!

You can also choose how the page with your lookbook will look like or I will do it for you)

examples

Frame code - something similar to the Fancy look, but in this case, cc does not matter - it is creativity and your characters or edits, or any visual experience that comes to the fore.

Maybe it's a portrait, or a rendering, or a game photo. Just send me a picture and I will publish it with you as the author.

examples

Life as it is - all about the life of your sims. If there are any events that happened in your game that you can tell us about, or if your original characters have their own hobbies or adventures, you can tell us about them! I think this can be done in the form of an article. But you can also share your suggestions and we will discuss them.

Time to talk - an interview format in which we will talk to your character and ask a few questions.

Chili pepper news - news about events in the community within the sim universe: challenges, quests, events, anything that unites more than one simmer and their sims. for example: bachelorette show!

It can also be significant events that relate to your game and your universe.

Sleepless town - it's all about rumors, about the game, about its lore and its locals. if you like to explore the game and know a few interesting things or play as the original inhabitants or make makeovers, then this is for you

Time machine - a section created specifically for past eras and simmers playing in decades. Includes all other sections in own way.

Focus - dedicated to real events and the movement associated with them. This is an opportunity to highlight interesting topics or tell about your culture in the form of a sims. Whether in the form of an article or a poster. example: pride month

Comfy space - everything about construction, interiors and lookbooks for build/buy objects.

This is the entire list for now. If you have any thoughts, questions, or suggestions, don't hesitate to ask me about it.

If you have something to share, or have questions or suggestions, please send me a direct message. You can also send a request to my inbox, but please don't hesitate, I'll be happy to see you!

Terms of Use

Please don't claim as your own. I realize that this is not an original idea to make a magazine about sims. But SIMVERSE is really something I work on with interest and love.

Previously @auroragoth has already published a similar magazine before, and we have the same idea of what it could look like.

Thank to her for supporting me! ❤️

DNI: racists, homofobs, terfs and other shit

Please, don't use perma paywalled cc. I want this to be available to every simmer.

[victoriadallonfan]

I don't agree with a lot of Sanderson's politics - and they aren't, in fact, based in Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints doctrine, but rather Utah culture - but it also makes me pretty uncomfortable to hear you badmouthing the church I'm part of?

I badmouth religious organizations in general, Catholic Church included (in which I was raised) because they tend to be overwhelmingly corrupt and abusive towards their own church members (and especially towards people outside of them)

Mormonism in particular is especially bad for how being part of the church requires “tithings” from paychecks plus their treatment of women, minorities, and even men in ways that are almost so explicitly manipulative and cultish that it feels like it comes out of parody.

(For example, I simply declared, “I am no longer catholic” and that was it. Done. You cannot generally do the same in LDS without incredible backlash and slander by its members)

And it’s very obvious when it shows up in fictional books by a lot of Mormon writers, because it’s so conservative that it’s a step or two behind the times.

It’s not as bad as Westeros Westboro Baptist Church or Scientology, but that’s not a high bar to clear.

If your time in the church was different, I’m happy for you, because it means you likely avoided the worst parts of their abuse.

Still, if you have the time, I’d suggest watching these videos (in no particular order):

Why I Left Mormonism - Video covering the creation of the channel “Cults to Consciousness” and her abusive home life under the church

The BITE Model - Simple PowerPoint explaining the reoccurring factors of cults

Ex-Mormon Cast Reacts to Mormon Debates -Cast of ex-Mormon members react to a Mormon debate and highlight various lies and falsehoods presented, as well talk about teachings/history Mormon Church does not want revealed publicly

How the Mormon Church ‘Help Line’ Hid Child Abuse - Exactly what it says. Survivors speak out and the church has done nothing for them or worse.

If you don’t want to watch these videos, if you can’t stomach the testimonies, ask yourself and others these questions:

- How often are you allowed to preach about Heavenly Mother?

- How often do you see women in power within the church, as in, deciding doctrine and not just playing piano or making food for the men?

- How often do you see minorities in power within the church, as in, deciding doctrine or being treated as a token?

- How often does your church talk about the incredibly high suicide rates for children and how it’s associated with its practices?

- How come when a racist, anti-Semitic, misogynistic etc Prophet speaks its “the word of God” and doctrine, but then another Prophet can simply claim it was mere “policy”. Was ‘God’ lying to the prophets? Were the prophets lying about God? How can you trust what is their words and what is God?

- How come the church hid $30 Billion dollars from the public and even its own lower members?

- How come the founder lied about what was on the Egyptian papyrus, claiming it was a translation from God, but people who can actually read Egyptian pointed out he was lying?

- How come you get treated differently for asking these supposedly easy to answer questions?

I do not go after Brandon or you because you happen to be religious. I think belief in a higher power is one’s own choice and prerogative.

I instead care far more about the religious system that is using well-intended people like pawns for goals that pretty much boil down to money and power.

[the-cimmerians]

Imane Khelif, you may remember, is an Algerian boxer, one of two to be attacked during the Olympics as cheaters, as transsexual women, as men, and even as violent criminals — all of which was completely false. The two of them, the other being Lin Yu-Ting of Taiwan, were relentlessly demeaned, mocked, and threatened, based only on how each woman had been — retroactively — excluded from an international competition last year by the International Boxing Association. Famous anti-trans politicians and personalities piled on, with Donald Trump, JD Vance, Megyn Kelly, and JK Rowling being among the most recognizable. Possibly because Rowling singled out Khelif and not Lin, the harassment of Khelif was even worse than Lin faced, and many have been wondering when karma might finally land the author in court.

The answer is … not exactly soon, but that doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. While in the process of winning gold under unprecedented pressure (as Lin did also), Khelif worked with a famous and well-regarded Paris lawyer, Nabil Boudi, to prepare a complaint about the harassment. It was filed on Friday, August 9, actually before the gold medal bout. Although many people in the English speaking world have misinterpreted this as a defamation lawsuit (Variety seems to have corrected the body of its article, but not its headline), in fact it’s a criminal complaint alleging “moral harassment,” and per Le Monde was filed with “the Paris correctional court's National Centre for Combating Online Hate.”

So what is ‘moral harassment’ and what’s next?

Moral harassment is a criminal charge that is typically of lesser severity, on a relative par with stalking laws in the United States. As with stalking, there are more and less serious versions and the penalties can vary, but the most serious can be penalized by up to three years in jail and a fine of up to 45,000 Euros. Most violations carry lesser penalties. It is generally defined as repeated acts that have the object or effect of injuring the rights or dignity of a person, harming their health, or impairing certain other specific activities (like the ability to perform one's job).

The Centre for Combating Online Hate is a subunit of the Central Office for Combating Crimes against Humanity and Hate Crimes (OCLCH) and a recent creation. It is empowered to investigate all acts of moral harassment (amongst other hate crimes and crimes against dignity) against persons within France’s borders, even visitors like Khelif and even when the online perpetrators are unknown or outside of France’s jurisdiction.

A number of prominent people within France participated in the harassment of Khelif, including Eric Zemmour, a far-right racist politician who most recently ran for the Parliament of the European Union with the “far-right Reconquête! party.” Yes, that “Reconquête!” means just what you think it does. Members of Rassemblement National also racked up millions of views for their sexist and cissexist tweets targeting Khelif. All of these figures, and more, could face a civil fine plus forced restitution (which would not prevent Khelif from also suing for defamation) or criminal penalties if prosecuted and convicted.

The scope of the investigation, however, is certain to include the tweets of Rowling and others outside France who participated in what the complaint labeled a campaign of harassment both “massive” and “coordinated.” Speaking to Le Monde, Boudi said,

“The investigation will have to determine who was behind this misogynistic, racist, and sexist campaign, as well as those who fueled this digital lynching.”

French prosecutors have authority to request documents and other evidence from foreign governments, but outside the EU they have no ability to require cooperation, only to request it. (Inside the EU their ability to require cooperation is limited, but not non-existent.) While other European countries often have hate speech and harassment laws that overlap with those of France, speech protections are stronger in the UK than in mainland Europe and even stronger in the US. Criminal prosecution of — just as an example — JK Rowling would be possible but more difficult than a French prosecution of Zemmour and his co-harassers. In the USA, prosecution is right out.

So why bother pursuing evidence against Rowling, Musk, Trump, and Vance?

OCLCH, the office under which the online centre is organized, has as part of its mission the support of victims in their attempt to access justice. As a result of this mandate combined with the scope of France’s law against moral harassment, the prosecution investigative service is empowered to gather evidence relating to the treatment of persons within its borders even when charges can’t be filed. The benefit here is that evidence collected by the government at the government’s expense can then be used by private parties in defamation lawsuits, allowing victims to collect monetary judgements even when the prosecutors choose not to indict or a person using the internet to harass someone in France is beyond the reach of French law.

Boudi, with a background in both criminal and human rights laws, undoubtedly knows this and how to exploit it. While his client has achieved fame in winning a gold medal, it’s unlikely she has the money to pursue defamation claims around the world (and against the world’s richest respondents). While many people in the US may find it shocking that sending a tweet can be made a criminal offense in Europe, the tools that this allows the French government to use to provide equal access to justice for rich and poor will likely be crucial in the certainly forthcoming Khelif lawsuits against Rowling and her ilk in the English speaking world.

Don’t expect that defamation lawsuit too soon, however. Boudi will undoubtedly be working closely with prosecutors to keep on top of all the evidence that they gather and will want to give them time to work before bringing the civil law to bear.

[picthos]

The order and circumstances in which Snape mingled with Slytherin's reserve DEs.

James Potter bullied Snape because he thought Snape liked Lily, and there is a post on the Wizarding World website that includes the quote, "James Potter – the one who tormented Snape for no good reason." Alan Rickman, who heard about Snape's past from Rowling, said in a French interview:

"And with James Potter, his best mate Sirius Black and their partner in crime Lupin spending their time ridiculing him, he shut himself in even more."

Sirius refers to Snape during his school years in the Goblet of Fire as a "dirty, poor weirdo who likes dark magic," but he does not refer to him as a "racist influenced by DE ideology." He only mentions that the friends Snape associated with at Hogwarts were part of a Slytherin gang that later became Death Eaters. However, while discussing Snape's past, Sirius himself was not sure whether Snape really joined the Death Eaters and only speculated. If the Marauders were truly bullying future DE members out of a sense of justice, why are there no stories about them attacking Mulciber and Avery? It’s absurd that Sirius, himself unsure, would bias and bully Snape as if he were destined to become a Death Eater.

Moreover, when Snape expressed a desire to join Slytherin, it wasn’t a debate about racial ideology with James Potter. Their arguments began with childish comments, such as, "(James’s line) Gryffindor, where my parents went, is great," and "If you join Slytherin, I'd rather quit," and "(Snape’s line) If you want to use only force," and "(Sirius’s line) You look pretty dumb too."

The real problem is that the Marauders bullied their classmates for no reason. As Snape suffered from this bullying, he, feeling vulnerable, sought belonging and began associating with Mulciber and Avery from the same house, which eventually led him to connect with future Death Eaters. Did you really think Snape wanted to join the DE from the beginning? While talking with Lily, Snape dreamed of a brighter life in the wizarding world away from his miserable home, a desire described confidently from Harry's perspective. If you consider both Rowling's and Alan Rickman's interviews regarding the bullying Snape endured, you will understand why he associated with those people.

"Alan: He wasn't very sociable either. Snape never had friends. We gradually discover what Snape went through in the past. It seems he didn't have it easy as a teenager..."

"Alan: And with James Potter, his best mate Sirius Black and their partner in crime Lupin spending their time ridiculing him, he shut himself in even more."

"Alan: Lily Potter really tried to be nice with him, but Snape couldn't support her pity."

"J.K. Rowling: Well, that is Snape’s tragedy. Given his time over again, he would not have become a Death Eater, but like many insecure, vulnerable people (like Wormtail), he craved membership of something big and powerful, something impressive. He wanted Lily and he wanted Mulciber too. He never really understood Lily’s aversion; he was so blinded by his attraction to the dark side that he thought she would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater.