Vogue Dissent

For That Laid-Back Ignorance: Yesterday thearcanetheory completely derailed my post which was about...

Mon, 20 May 2013 07:37:43 +0800

For That Laid-Back Ignorance: Yesterday thearcanetheory completely derailed my post which was about...:

casual-isms:

Yesterday thearcanetheory completely derailed my post which was about ant-black racism, because I dared mention the creator was a white Jew. Even though it was very clear from the OP that I was angry his bullshit film and not his Jewish identity. And, she, like all the other pressed people, have…

I missed most of this intersectionality clusterfuck thanks to Shavuot, but it has been all over my dash and in my inbox since. And honestly, I’m very hesitant to respond, because the most important point to make in all this is something that I shouldn’t be the one to say.

Your blog is about being rude as fuck to anti-black people, because somebody damn well should be. My blog is about being rude as fuck to antisemitic people, because somebody damn well should be. But if those two aims are at cross-purposes, then we’ve fucked up—and it’s Black Jews, the people with skin in both games, who suffer most from that.

And neither I as a white Jew(*) nor you as a black Gentile have any right to speak for them, let alone squabble over them like dogs over a fucking bone. Because although both of us have blood ties to Black Jews (yes, Jewishness is an ethnicity), neither of our communities is a safe space for them, and neither of us can claim them as simply “one of my people” with a straight face.

When Black Jews in America enter predominantly white-passing Jewish spaces, their authenticity is questioned or outright denied. They are tokenized. They are subjected to the disdain and hostility many Jews give converts, on the ignorant, racist assumption that all Jews-by-birth are white-passing. They hear anti-black racist statements followed by (if they’re lucky) a “but not you” caveat. Yiddish has an anti-black slur in its dictionary—and yes, some Jews use it. When those same Black Jews enter predominantly Gentile black spaces, they face “race traitor” accusations from Black Power groups, Nation of Islam members, and others who claim that Jews “controlled” the American slave trade. They hear antisemitic slurs and stereotypes. Their experiences and identity are erased and appropriated by groups like the Black Israelites. They are tokenized and used to further conspiracy theories that Ashkenazi Jews are fakes, cheats, and Khazars(^)—even though many Black Jews are Ashkenazi.

Nor is this just an American issue. In Israel, the Beta Israel face forcible birth control, suppression of their cultural practices of Judaism, slurs, ghettoization, and poverty, and de facto immigration quotas. In Ethiopia, the Beta Israel were deprived of their land, labeled “Fal*shas” (literally “garbage”), restricted in their movements and living areas, forcibly converted, and massacred by black Ethiopian Christians.

Black Jews have no safe spaces.

Antisemitism, even against white-passing Jews, hurts Black Jews. Anti-black racism, even against black Gentiles, hurts Black Jews. And because that is the case, both our communities need to (a) work on our goddamned intersectionality issues and (b) stop speaking over (or arguing who has the better “claim” to) Black Jews. Period.

Also, that “Fritz the Cat” movie is fucking disgusting, and Bakshi is undeniably racist scum (he also wrote/directed a film called “Coonskin” which I’m told is every bit as awful as the title suggests…and which Bakshi claims is his “best film”). So fuck him.

And that’s all I have to say about this.

(*) As the blond, blue-eyed, WASP-surnamed, U.S.-based daughter of a white man and a white-coding Ashkenazi woman, I would feel ridiculous calling myself anything other than white. That is, however, a personal call, and I in no way mean to okay the application of the term “white Jew” to any other ethnic Jew. Just so we’re all perfectly clear on that.

(^) The reason Jews tend to react with such outrage to “all the people in the Bible were black” is because nine times out of ten, that statement is made as “evidence” that Ashkenazi Jews aren’t descended from the ancient Hebrews. In truth, some characters in the Bible were absolutely black (Moses’s wife and children, for instance—Aaron and Miriam’s disgust that Moses married “a Cushite woman” is probably the earliest documented instance of intra-Jewish anti-black racism), some were possibly/probably black (Ephraim and Manasseh, the children of Joseph and his Egyptian wife Asenath, would fall in this category, as would Ishmael, Abraham’s son with his Egyptian slave Hagar), and some were absolutely not black, but hardly Northern European either (for instance the patriarchs and matriarchs, all of whom were Sumerian). The fact that “children’s Bibles” and illustrated Bibles nearly always show Biblical characters as white people is whitewashing, ahistorical, and completely fucked up…and yes, Jewish religious school textbooks are VERY guilty of this.

hamdoullahcava: Muhammad Ali on the Vietnam War Draft

Mon, 20 May 2013 07:33:13 +0800

hamdoullahcava:

Muhammad Ali on the Vietnam War Draft

angryasiangirlsunited: reclaimingtheblackpeopletag: reallifedoc...

Mon, 20 May 2013 07:07:30 +0800

angryasiangirlsunited:

reclaimingtheblackpeopletag:

reallifedocumentarian:

May 19th- Celebrating the births of both El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) and Yuri Kochiyama.

Stand together, fight together, build together.

Asian America, stand with Black folks and fight white supremacy and the anti-Blackness that lives in our communities.

To add. To Black America, let’s also stand side by side with Asian folks and fight the anti-Asianness that runs rampant in our communities.

"The way we try to recruit girls into STEM fields is all wrong. We typically compare them to some..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:59:00 +0800

“The way we try to recruit girls into STEM fields is all wrong. We typically compare them to some great woman or someone that has gone before them. We are saying, “Hey, you can be like Madam Curie or Sally Ride.” It is recruiting by intimidation. We need to change that message. We need to recruit by appealing to WHY we need them in STEM. We NEED you to help make the world a better place We NEED you to help discover the cure for cancer. We NEED you because you have the ability to change the course of humanity for the better.”

- Tim Holt on why we still see the number of females in STEM fields fall way behind their male counterparts. Also see how geography paved the way for women in science.

(↬ gender and science)

omg this captures so well one of the reasons why i dropped out of stem. the feeling of inadequacy and that i had nothing to contribute, pounded into my head by my old white male professors…

dhpoco: Heck Yeah! FUCK YEEEEESSSS

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:56:55 +0800

dhpoco:

Heck Yeah!

FUCK YEEEEESSSS

omg YES

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:50:52 +0800

omg YES

arabstateofmind: Sons of Lifta, a short film on the right of...

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:37:52 +0800

arabstateofmind:

Sons of Lifta, a short film on the right of return and the Palestinian village of Lifta. (x)

yagazieemezi: Ali Golzad - Invisible People gods. damn.

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:40:29 +0800

yagazieemezi:

Ali Golzad - Invisible People

gods. damn.

Me on my way to steal your man omg dance moms I CAN’T...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:36:48 +0800

Me on my way to steal your man

omg dance moms I CAN’T not w/ all the improper technique she teaches those girls!

my friend: so why do you still have crushes on white boys? me: …because i hate myself? her:...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:35:44 +0800

my friend: so why do you still have crushes on white boys?

me: …because i hate myself?

her: oh.

me: and it takes years to undo how i’ve been socialized my entire life. i was always told and shown that white was better. boys were also better. so white boys were the best.

her: :c

me: |:

her: :c

me: |:

dynamicafrica: “This is not your dad’s HBO Mandela...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:29:03 +0800

dynamicafrica:

“This is not your dad’s HBO Mandela film…”

reserving all comment ‘til I see this film.

“this is not your dad’s hbo mandela film…”

DYING. D.Y.I.N.G.

sometimes i wish i could crawl in a hole and forget about my past life would be so much easier if i...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:26:51 +0800

sometimes i wish i could crawl in a hole and forget about my past

life would be so much easier if i didn’t have to deal w/ ptsd every single time i interacted w/ someone

sigh

i wish i didn’t feel so crazy sometimes…fucking w/e

fucking w/e

the photo creds say she’s in vivienne westwood, but given...

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:54:42 +0800

the photo creds say she’s in vivienne westwood, but given that she’s the face of dior and been wearing so much dior lately…?

omg middle schoolers are such little douchebags sometimes

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:29:40 +0800

omg middle schoolers are such little douchebags sometimes

"Queerness, to me, is about far more than homosexual attraction. It’s about a willingness to see all..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:28:58 +0800

“Queerness, to me, is about far more than homosexual attraction. It’s about a willingness to see all other taboos broken down. Sure, many of us start on this path when we first feel “same sex” or “same gender” attraction (though what is sex? And what is gender? And does anyone really have the same sex or gender as anyone else?). But queerness doesn’t stop there.
This is a somewhat controversial stance, but to me queer means something completely different than “gay” or “lesbian” or “bisexual.” A queer person is usually someone who has come to a non-binary view of gender, who recognizes the validity of all trans identities, and who, given this understanding of infinite gender possibilities, finds it hard to define their sexuality any longer in a gender-based way. Queer people understand and support non-monogamy even if they do not engage in it themselves. They can grok being asexual or aromantic. (What does sex have to do with love, or love with sex, necessarily?) A queer can view promiscuous (protected) public bathhouse sex with strangers and complete abstinence as equally healthy.
Queers understand that people have different relationships to their bodies. We get what it means to be stone. We know what body dysphoria is about. We understand that not everyone likes to get touched the same way or to get touched at all. We realize that people with disabilities may have different sexual needs, and that people with survivor histories often have sexual triggers. We can negotiate safe and creative ways to be intimate with people with HIV/AIDs and other STIs.
Queers understand the range of power and sensation and the diversity of sexual dynamics. We are tops and bottoms, doms and subs, sadists and masochists and sadomasochists, versatiles and switches. We know what we like and don’t like in bed.
We embrace a wide range of relationship types. We can be partners, lovers, friends with benefits, platonic sweethearts, chosen family. We can have very different dynamics with different people, often all at once. We don’t expect one person to be able to fulfill all our diverse needs, fantasies and ideals indefinitely.
Because our views on relationships, sex, gender, love, bodies, and family are so unconventional, we are of necessity anti-assimilationist. Because under the kyriarchy we suffer, and watch the people we love suffering, we are political. Because we want to survive, we fight. We only want the freedom to be ourselves, love ourselves, love each other, and live together. Because we are routinely denied that, we are pissed.
Queer doesn’t mean “don’t label me,” it means “I am naming myself.” It means “ask me more questions if you’re curious” and in the same breath means “fuck off.””

- Crunk Feminist Collective (via wargasmmm)

menophiliac: girljanitor: innocent-bystanders-inc: nudiemuse: ...

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:33:09 +0800

menophiliac:

girljanitor:

innocent-bystanders-inc:

nudiemuse:

princelesscomic:

girljanitor:

Self Evident Truths

S. Ross Browne

Ummm…I am so VERY into this right now!

But Black people in period or fantasy settings totally makes the stories unreal.

Also holy shit I love these.

How come I don’t run across this stuff regularly?

Because of racism and the retroactive erasure of POC in Medieval Europe. Pretty much the same reason you almost never see these works of art either unless you’re already looking for them:

um yes

like how all the pics showing how beethoven was black are all swept under the rug -____________-

FUCK ME HARRY POTTER ICE CREAM SANDWICHES

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:11:46 +0800

FUCK ME HARRY POTTER ICE CREAM SANDWICHES

FUCK ME BACON

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:10:28 +0800

FUCK ME BACON

FUCK ME TIL I DIE

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:09:39 +0800

FUCK ME TIL I DIE

FUCK ME SO HARD

Sun, 19 May 2013 19:09:03 +0800

FUCK ME SO HARD