The Trashiest of Trash Cats @alleychat - Tumblr Blog

Hi! I've read most of your Spideytorch tag and every post where you've mentioned Homecoming, and I've gotta ask, why do you think Peter Parker should be Jewish? I've seen people claim he comes across that way before because he'd used Yiddish words, but never specifically because of his guilt complex. Like, I'm a Jew (an Israeli one) and I've always thought religious guilt was a Christian thing. And wouldn't making Peter Jewish now retcon the bits where he was protestant?

It’s not that I think Peter should be Jewish so much as that I think the character is Jewish, in that he was conceived specifically as a Jewish character at a time where that couldn’t be addressed on the page, much the same way Ben Grimm was intended by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby to be Jewish. It wasn’t until Fantastic Four v3 #56, in 2002, that Ben was ever declared on-page Jewish, even though it was clear long before this point to anyone with the tools to recognize it. The same is true for Peter Parker – we just haven’t hit our Fantastic Four v3 #56. Andrew Garfield, who is Jewish on his father’s side, notably recognized it and decided to play the character as Jewish, which is a big reason why, to me, this is the only film version of the character that strikes me as an honest representation of Peter Parker.

Look at it this way: even if we leave out the fact that Stan Lee was raised Jewish and any speculation on what personal influences a Jewish man living in New York at that time might have brought when creating a superhero character designed to be easy to relate to, who had problems Just Like You, there’s the location to account for. New York is a heavily Jewish and heavily Jewish-influenced area in general, but Peter’s not just from New York City – he’s from Forest Hills, Queens, a historically Jewish neighborhood. (Since you mentioned my Homecoming posts, I don’t think it’s a coincidence they moved him out of Forest Hills, with the writers citing the area as “too old-fashioned.”) To compare him to Ben Grimm again, Ben also hailed from a famously Jewish neighborhood long before the character was ever addressed as Jewish on page, even though, you know, he obviously was. Ben, like Peter, also has a distinctly New York Jewish speech pattern, albeit a different one from Peter’s, accounting for their differently Jewish backgrounds.

While I would normally personally view the use of Yiddish as something of a grey area – the Marvel universe being centered around New York and populated by characters who commonly have fast-paced, banter-y dialogue style, I would expect most of them to have picked up a phrase or two – but it’s the frequency and the skill with which Peter deploys Yiddish in his snappy, aggressive New York banter, coupled with his place of birth and a thousand other things. If Clint Barton throws around an oy vey or a fakakta, I’m like, yeah, that boy’s watched some Seinfeld, huh. When Peter Parker does it, it feels different to me.

In addition to the Yiddish, 616 Peter also references lesser known Jewish holidays:

How many non-Jewish guys would casually drop Shavuos? Or call it, as an Ashkenazi man from Forest Hills is likely to, Shavuos instead of Shavuot? If Peter isn’t Jewish, then I’d be raising a touchy eyebrow at him so casually throwing around mentions of a faith that isn’t his.

But Brian Michael Bendis wrote this. And Brian Michael Bendis knows Spider-Man is Jewish.

When asked about Peter’s tendency to litter his speech with Yiddish in Spider-Men, Bendis flatly replied “he’s Jewish.” When asked if Peter Parker was Jewish in Ultimate Marvel, he replied that every Peter Parker is Jewish. I’ve spoken before about my own personal issues with taking social media statements from writers in multiple creator, non creator-owned properties as hard canon facts, but Bendis is so incredibly prolific that I have to break my rule a little for him. At the very least, given that he wrote all of Ultimate Spider-Man, I think it must be conceded that Ultimate Peter Parker is Jewish. (Every Peter Parker is Jewish.)

Regarding the concept of guilt, I literally have an e-mail from Chabad labeled “How to Manage Jewish Guilt” sitting in my inbox right now, so this might be an American-Israeli Jewish cultural difference –Jewish guilt is very much considered a thing here. Catholic guilt is a thing too, but it’s a different flavor of guilt. (I’m Jewish on my mother’s side and my father was raised Catholic, plus one of my great aunts is a nun – so I’m pretty familiar with both breeds.) There are a lot of articles online detailing the difference between the feeling, but Peter’s version of guilt imho lines up exactly to Jewish guilt, and not to a Christian form. Jewish guilt is responsibility, even if it’s a whacked out neurotic overblown explosion of it. There’s also a thing I get annoyed with in fandom quite often, which is this very Christian desire to “absolve” Peter of his guilt, this “oh if only he could work through this, he wouldn’t feel so responsible, he’d let other people help,” etc, and like, let’s leave the guilt aside for a moment, but from my own Jewish perspective, that sense of responsibility isn’t something that should be resolved. He should feel responsible. It’s good that he feels responsible. We should all feel responsible. Look at what happens when people don’t. Peter Parker’s ethical code is rooted in Judaism. You don’t get to absolve that.

I’ve mentioned before that one of the things I find interesting about Peter Parker is how for a street level superhero, he’s seriously overpowered. Seriously! He’s super strong! Fast enough to dodge a bullet! He heals much faster than a normal man! He has a freaking danger sense! (As a Jewish person in America, I wish I had a danger sense.) What more can you ask for? You can ask for the one superpower the spider didn’t give him: Peter Parker’s super freaking smart. If there are two Jewish super powers, they’re survival (Spider-Man always gets back up) and intelligence. And it’s not just that Peter’s smart, he strives for education. It’s important to him. (I’m not saying that these things can’t exist and be important to non-Jewish characters, of course, but I am saying there is a cultural slant, especially, again, accounting for where Peter comes from.) There’s so much I keep thinking of tackling here: the secret keeping, his spy parents who were framed as traitors by the Red Skull, the stereotype of the weak Jewish intellectual and Peter’s aggressive defiance of that, coupled with people’s desire to strip that out of the character – all of those things feed into the character’s Jewishness.

As for retconning Peter being protestant – see, the thing is, it doesn’t like, matter. It’s not like retconning the religion of a character like Matt Murdock or Nightcrawler, where an integral piece of the lens through which they view the world would have to be altered. Christianity has never informed Peter’s character in any notable way. Okay, so we see him celebrating Christmas at home with his family – that’s not uncommon in America. My family does that. To label Peter Parker Protestant isn’t to have that religion inform the character, which ideally a religion or lack of one should do; it’s a label put in place to say “see, look, it’s okay, he isn’t Jewish.” Because he is Jewish. Marvel, the company, who is concerned with sales and popularity overall, just doesn’t want to admit it, because they’ve built up this concept of Spider-Man as the most relatable character. And if he is the most relatable character in the world, to the most people in the world, then he can’t be Jewish. (Except that he is.)

It’s not that I would even want Peter to be more religious than he is in canon, which isn’t very. As someone with a complicated relationship with my own spirituality, I don’t mind that he doesn’t seem, as a Jew Marvel won’t admit is a Jew, to be particularly observant. I would like of course to see him in temple for the High Holidays, or simply celebrating Hanukkah with Ben Grimm and Kitty Pryde in a Marvel holiday special, but if he continued on the exact way he was – a guy who talks to and argues with God, a distinctly Jewish trait, and that seems to be the end of the story – I’d be okay with that. I would just like it done with honesty, and bravery, and truthful storytelling.

Bottom line, these days I hear a lot of talk about how Peter as a white male nerd doesn’t resonate with readers anymore because he’s supposed to be the underdog, and nerd culture is no longer synonymous with that. To which I say: Peter Parker never belonged to the nerds. He always belonged to the Jews.

skitpost

the likelihood that a goy would say “shavuos” instead of “shavuot”, or even talk about shavuot at all, is…very small. op is a fucking genius

unintentionalgenius

Also I don’t know when this was answered but Peter Parker is very much seen breaking a glass at his wedding (which is a Jewish wedding ritual) in Into the Spiderverse so case closed imo.

traincat

Yeah, this was a pre-Into the Spider-Verse ask, and it’s one of the many reasons that movie thrilled me so much was because it was so amazing to see that the creators of that film got it and that they cared enough to represent Peter B Parker’s marriage through that Jewish tradition. (There’s also iirc an interview they did somewhere where they refer to Peter as “a Jewish kid from Queens.”) It’s really nice to have such a groundbreaking movie that also took the time to point out that hey, Peter Parker is Jewish. Hopefully one day the comics will also follow suit.

mysharona1987

But Micheal Shannon sums it up.

#I regret I have but one queue to give

i-restuff

TRAILER!!!!!!!

bellybuttonblue-deactivated2021

sentientcitizen

Here’s the opposite story, though. With apologies because I don’t have the book in front of me, so I may get some details wrong, but I read this “Irena’s Children“ by Tilar J. Mazzeo.

Irena lived in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation, and dedicated her life to rescuing Jewish children from the Ghetto, and her story is complicated in a lot of ways but - well, this story isn’t actually about Irena, per se.

It’s about a bus driver.

It’s about a day when she’s traveling across town by bus with a very young Jewish child, and partway to their destination the child looks up and asks a question - in Yiddish. and the whole bus goes quiet, because everyone knows what that means. And Irena thinks, okay, we’re going to die here today.

And she’s running through her options - all of them bad - and suddenly the bus stops, and the bus driver announces that there’s been a mechanical failure and the bus needs to return to the depot immediately. Everyone off, please.

And she stands and goes to get off the bus and the driver says - not you two. Sit down. So she sits down as everyone else leaves, because, well, what else is she going to do? the options are all still bad, at this point.

and when the bus is empty the bus driver says,

“Where do you need to go?”

And then he drives them as close to their destination as he can, and lets them off, and drives away. And Irena lives, and the kid lives, and they never cross paths again.

So a janitor got three people killed, and a bus driver saved two lives - not to mention all the other lives indirectly saved because Irena was able to continue her work.

I think about that almost every day now, to be honest.

We can’t all be Irena. I couldn’t be Irena. She was in a unique place with very specific skills and connections that let her do what she did. I am just one mentally ill librarian. I can’t be her. But - I can be the bus driver. Or I could be the janitor. Because it doesn’t matter what your job is. It doesn’t matter who you are. In a world like this, every single one of us has the opportunity to do massive harm or massive good. We can save lives or end them.

And that’s scary. but it’s also very comforting? at least for me. Because at the end of the day it means this: no matter of how small and helpless and unimportant you feel, you’re never powerless in the face of great evil.

You can choose to be the bus driver.

athingofvikings

I have another story from the Holocaust.

Two, actually.

One is long, and one is brief.

The first story is about my grandfather.

He was a slave in a Krups munitions factory in a Nazi concentration camp in Częstochowa, Poland.

He was also a smuggler. If I did not have multiple corroborating witnesses to the sheer ludicrious balls that he had, I would dismiss the stories as exaggeration. But he was a food smuggler–he would buy some kind of sugar from the Polish day workers coming into the factory, make candy out of them, sell the candy back to the workers at a profit, and buy food with the proceeds–which he then proceeded to share with the other slaves, free of charge. Without him, they would have starved to death, but an extra hundred calories a day made a difference enough to keep them alive.

But that’s not the story.

The story is what happened in Spring of 1945.

My grandfather could hear the guns of the Russian Army off in the distance, and he and the other captives in the camp figured that they would be liberated any day now.

And then a truck packed full with preteen Jewish children who had just been captured comes into the work camp instead of the extermination camp up the road. Because the Nazis were so fixated on their hatred of Jews that they diverted war resources to hunting us down even as they were losing.

So it’s pandemonium. They’re unloading the truck of the kids, the guards are yelling at the driver, the kids are milling about not knowing what’s going on…

And my grandfather sees one boy who looked a little older, a little more mature, and figured that this one he can save. It’s just a few days until the Russians arrive, after all.

So he tells the boy to come with him.

And the rest… got loaded back onto the truck and off they went to the gas chambers.

But it wasn’t a couple of days.

It was six weeks.

Stalin personally ordered the Army to slow their advance and told the Polish Resistance to rise up, and that the Russians would support them with food and weapons.

So they rose up… and were slaughtered. Because they got nothing from the Russians. Stalin knew that anyone who would be resisting the Nazis would be resisting him next, and it was an elegant way to weaken Poland before he took it.

Meanwhile, my grandfather is hiding a fourteen year old boy in a NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP.

The risks they took to hide him… they would hold him up over empty shoes sewn to long pants at the evening roll call so that he would look taller. They smuggled food to him… If they had been caught… I have nightmares of what would have been done to them.

Finally, one night, they are all locked in their barracks as the Nazis evacuated the camp and the Russians were coming in, with the Nazis using the camp for cover for their escape.

And in the chaos…

My grandfather lost track of the boy.

Twenty-two years later, he tells this story to my father when my father is 12, and has demanded to know something, be told something concrete.

So he doesn’t know what happened to the boy. Did he live? Did he die? Did he find his mother and sisters?

He doesn’t know.

Six months later, my grandmother is planning my father’s bar mitzvah. Not as a religious obligation, but as a 200 foot tall flaming middle finger to the Third Reich. You are gone, and WE ARE STILL HERE.

So she plugs into what my father called the “Camp Network”–the trombonist in the band was on a death march with an uncle, the florist was in a work camp with a friend, etc. And she’s asking, “I need a photographer, who is good?”

“You want Joe Brown, up in Queens,” she’s told.

So she invites him down to talk terms at their house in Brooklyn, which is quite a haul in NYC.

And the first question one Holocaust survivor asks another is, “Where were you?” Because maybe you know someone, maybe you can tell what happened.

“I was in Częstochowa,” he says.

“You were in Częstochowa? My husband Teddy was in Częstochowa!”

“I didn’t know a Teddy Baum.”

“Oh, everyone knew Teddy.”

“I didn’t know a Teddy Baum!”

“When he gets home, you’ll see. Everyone there knew Teddy.” Because he was smuggling in the food that kept them all alive.

So the thing is, you live in the US for 20 years, you forget that your name was not “Teddy Baum” but “Tuvyas Bumps.”

And when my grandfather got home from work…

…sitting there at his kitchen table…

…was the boy he had saved.

…

(I’m not crying…)

That’s the first story.

The second story is that of my grandfather’s brother.

It is short.

He collaborated with the Nazis to save his own skin. He let my grandfather’s first wife and son starve to death in the ghetto and informed on people who tried to escape or resist. My grandfather said that “Good people went up the chimney and he stayed behind.”

Two brothers.

One saved over a hundred lives.

The other betrayed his own flesh and blood to save his own skin.

Your choices define you.

Whoever destroys a single life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed the whole world, and whoever saves a single life is considered by Scripture to have saved the whole world.– Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5

#I regret I have but one queue to give

jelicatessen

the end of all things

“What’s it going to take,“ he asks, “for you to believe that I want to help you because I love you?”

[follows on from the truth and the lies (aka ia56a–>d); part iii of what we say (and what we don’t). spoilers for Through the Moon.]

** This work contains mature content. Both characters have been aged up by a couple of years but if it’s not your cup of tea, the start and end of this content is marked by the centre-aligned, bold xx’s so that you can skip that part if you wish. Thanks for your co-operation!**

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26857384

alleychat

the-ladyguinevere

Please stop making posts discouraging people from voting, especially if you don't live in the US. This isn't your fight, and you seem to think it doesn't matter who wins to you anyway. Let those of us who won't survive another Trump term deal with it. Hi. Me. Anarchist and socialist ideals are cool and all, but I won't get to be a part of them because I'll be fucking dead. This is not an exaggeration. I am 26 and I expect to be dead in 2-3 years if Trump wins. If Biden wins not only will I survive, but I will have the energy to fight his old racist ass on every awful thing he does.

the-ladyguinevere

Hey guess what: Trump has plans to eliminate Disability next year. He has the authority to do it by the method he is choosing.

Biden plans to expand Disability, increasing the amount you receive as well as granting ACTUAL MARRIAGE EQUALITY FOR DISABLED PEOPLE

I had to call off my engagement so that I can apply for Disability, but if Trump wins it won't even matter because Disability won't exist this time next year.

The idea that there is no difference between Trump and Biden is co-morbid with apathy for your disabled comrades. If Trump wins, I will probably lose access to my medications and be forced to work so my family can survive. The problem is that literally any job can and will kill me. I don't expect to make it halfway through 2023 if Trump wins the election. And that's just me. How many thousands or tens of thousands or more are in my situation? How many hundreds of thousands are WORSE OFF than I am?

Vote blue so there is a politician in office who we can actually fight on his bullshit. Don't stop protesting. Don't stop calling and writing. Push for the end of gerrymandering and the electoral college. But make sure your Disabled friends and loved ones are there to see the future you're trying to create.

qunari

every little fucking difference between biden and trump matters. you can compare every other issue they are the same in all you want - but the flat out REFUSAL of leftists to acknowledge the people who will not survive another trump term shows how expendable we are to y'all too, and as a disabled person, how am i supposed to see the left as any better than the right if they're both willing to let me die because yalls politics only are self serving? OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES ARE AT STAKE THAN YOUR OWN. if you truly think biden won't make a change for you with his presidency, or that trump can't make it any worse for you than it already is, maybe even just PRETEND to give a shit for other people in different situatuons.

I've seen a lot of "well biden is just as sexist/racist as trump so it doesn't matter" but I'll tell you right now that every disabled woman and disabled poc who needs disability to survive fucking matters and will be saved with a biden term, and NOT another trump term.

we fucking matter.

naamahdarling

Yeah, these little "no we have to tear it down and buld up from the ashes" shits are ableist as fuck.

I AM your ashes, you utter fucking assholes. I am your collateral damage. Show some fucking consideration to the people who will be IMMEDIATELY fucked by your "let it burn" "but I hate Biden" mentality.

capricorn-0mnikorn

I wrote this on another post, but I’m gonna say it again:

The system we have now is a cruel and painful cage. And I wish to be free of it. I agree that the system needs to be dismantled. But for many people (especially the Disabled) that cage is also our life support -- generating the oxygen we need to breathe, and the food we need to eat. Burn down the cage, and you burn me alive inside it.

(The system needs to be dismantled. But it needs to be dismantled like a game of Jenga: slowly and carefully).

To the young socialists and anarchists who are calling to burn it all down:

I know you’re frustrated. I know you’re tired. I know you want change for the better today.

But remember: the whole point of anarchism and socialism is to do away with hierarchies and authoritarianism. If you’re willing to let the most vulnerable people on margins be sacrificed for the sake of the purity of your ideology, than how are you any different from the authoritarians you want to lead to the guillotine?

#I regret I have but one queue to give

raayllum

(if time is money then) i’ll spend it all for you

summary: Runaan and Rayla’s parents are de-coined. Now it’s time to adjust to how the world and their daughter has changed, including her relationship with one particular human. co-written by me and @thosefiveadoraburrs

tag list: @friendlywolfgirl, @smalltreenergy, @corrie-eliza, @jellyjay, @loverofcomicsandcartoons, @from-shattered-stars, @kikithefox231, @rayllurn @artfulstar, @eskpistone, and @janaikam. if i forgot anyone or someone wants to be added, just let me know!

a/n: have some pre wedding fluff

length: 7.3k

CHAPTER TWENTY: the last page of your first book

With two days before the wedding, no one was getting much sleep, Tiadrin pushing herself out of bed about an hour before sunrise, and a few more to go before everyone came over for breakfast. She let out a yawn and rolled her shoulders back, wondering how she’d ever gotten used to waking up this early. Five years ago wasn’t that long ago. Or maybe age just felt different when some years were stolen from you.

She pulled a thin robe on over her pajamas, the less-than-pleasant thought drifting as soon as it came. It was something new she and Lain and been learning from their therapist, to acknowledge uncomfortable thoughts and feel them before letting them go. It wasn’t quite in her nature, but it was getting easier with practice.

Her steps were light and slow as she went down the stairs, her senses a little more awake when she heard shuffling. Lain hadn’t been in bed when she’d woken up—maybe he had gotten a head start on breakfast?—when she turned the corner into their living room and saw him hanging up some framed sketches. Tiadrin thought they were some new ones from Callum, at first, before she came to her husband’s side and saw them in closer detail. She bit back a grin when she saw the shaky lines, the shapes that weren’t quite proportional, one of them resembling Ezran’s little glow toad, looking more like a potato with sticks stuck in it than any animal.

“Rayla brought over some of Callum’s old sketches,” Lain said as they both stepped back to look at their handiwork. “They both agreed it was only fair, since…” He gestured to the lopsided wood carvings on the adjacent shelf, and Tiadrin let out a snort.

“It’s a sweet sort of competition,” she agreed.

read the rest on ao3

mikkeneko

concept: a death god that is actually surprisingly supportive and on the side of the good guys, supporting actions and promoting policies that will lead to the kingdom growing and thriving instead of being destroyed, because the more the kingdom grows, the more people there are, and the more people there are the more people will eventually die, and when you’re an immortal god of death, you know there’s no need to rush. you’ll get them all in the end

mikkeneko

i like how the responses on this post are cleanly split between “hey this is a great story idea i love it” and “this is absolutely terrifying”

honourablejester

Yes. A Death that is kind, and patient, and inevitable.

A Death that need not fight against you, that will often fight for you, because why not? It will gather you home eventually. Why not enjoy you first?

A Death that treasures those who fight it most ardently. That loves healers and defenders and survivalists and necromancers and mad scientists and immortal gods. That lets them pour everything they are into fighting it, denying it, adoring every desperate scrap of strength and will and brilliance and raw determination poured out against it. That catches you when your strength is done and all your will and brilliance run out, that gathers you close beneath a warm, dark cloak, and whispers well done, oh child, you were magnificent, well done.

A Death who will not seek to hasten an inevitable end, who will chastise those who seek to hasten it for others in Death’s stead, who will slowly and patiently plot and sow and siphon away from the great monsters of the world. Because who are they to hasten Death’s domain, who are they to deny Death its time and its place, who are they to cut short these vital glories that illuminate it so? Who are they to presume upon its will, that is so much larger and so much longer than theirs?

Who are they to call, and presume that Death, of all beings, should obey?

A Death that is not a hunter but a gatherer, who is always and eternal, who loves you, and can afford to wait. A Death who will fight for you and defend you, who will place its hand upon those who would speed you to its embrace, who has no need to rush you, only to greet you when you call.

A Death who is kind.

And patient.

And, before all and above all,

inevitable.

bella-gunn

Beautiful

flying-butter

There is a reason they wield a scythe, not a sword. They harvest what is ripe, not take what is still strong.

lokeanrampant

I think I have reblogged this before, but that last comment makes it worth reblogging again.

inthenameofsephiroth

Barbara Gordon AKA Batgirl in Gotham Knights, 2021.

theanartist

Did liberals collectively forget that Hilary won the popular vote the moment that fact stopped being rhetorically useful to them

theanartist

"Look where sitting on your hands got us last election" what in the god damn fuck are you talking about

somethingaboutsomethingelse

"If you don't vote for Blue Team than that's a vote for the Red Team" oh, is that how it happened the last time?

therealklt

Yes, that's how it happened. It's because we don't go by the popular vote, we go by a little thing you might've heard called the electoral college.

Trump won Michigan by .3 percent, Wisconsin by 1 percent. Pennsylvania by 1.2 percent. Florida by 1.2 percent. North Carolina by 3.8 percent. And Arizona by 3.9 percent. That's a total of a paltry 491,719 votes. Just four hundred and ninety two thousand votes. And those are only the states that were razor thin in margin.

Yet over 100 million eligible voters didn't vote at all, and 5 million voters voted third party. That's 105 MILLION people who could have made the difference. 492k goes into 105 million 23 times. 492k goes into 5 million, the number of those who voted third party, 10 times. Ten god damn times. That's how many fucking people that is.

If just some of those states had gone to Clinton, she would have won. But they didn't, and it's because millions of people decided voting at all was too much trouble, or they decided that wasting their vote in a protest of ideology was more important than actual human lives.

It's really just that simple.

im-the-punk-who

Okay I wanna piggy back off of the previous reply to show y’all something real quick. I live in New York state, in The City(yes, that one). One of those ‘my vote will never matter because the state always goes blue!’ states.

Here’s the map of the results for New York state in the 2016 presidential election:

Now I know you’re thinking - holy shit balls that’s a lot of red!

And you’re fucking goddamn right it is! Trump had 36% of the vote in New York in 2016. For reference, although that’s about the percentage that usually goes to the republican candidate, here are the maps for 2008 and 2012 respectively:

Before I get into the main part of this post, wanna know WHY all those areas that were blue in 2008 and 2012 were suddenly red in 2016? In 2008 and 2012, Independents got less than 2% of the total votes. In 2016? Almost 6%. Not a big difference in the grand scheme, but this is a really great example of how even a small number can make a huge difference.

Now, see that teeny, tiny, area of dark blue down at the bottom? That’s New York City. New York City is literally the only reason New York State always goes blue. This ONE FUCKING CITY is the reason people are so sure that New York - which holds 29 electoral votes - will never, ever, go to a republican. And under normal circumstances, while that doesn’t make me comfortable, it does hold a certain amount of weight. It’s also why in the 2016 election I voted in my home county of Schoharie - one of those nice bright red areas up north.

Except here’s the thing about 2020. New York City is fucking empty.

24,000 people died of coronavirus in New York City alone this summer.

An additional estimated 500,000 - no you are not reading that number wrong - have either moved out or been evicted. I work as a dog walker, and a full 60% of my client base has left the city and told me they are not planning to come back. They’ve left for places like Connecticut(7 electoral votes), or Massachusetts(11), or Vermont(3) or Florida or Texas or - you get my point. Now that they have been unemployed for six+ months, and the eviction freeze has been lifted, a shit ton of people are being forced to leave, and people with kids are also abandoning the city for somewhere less populated.

And even further? No one I know has received their requested mail-in ballots yet. No one. Not a single person. The virus is still active(and yeah, we’re down to <1% infection rate, but schools are about to open back up so :) ) Voting takes place in schools. it is likely many people will not be able to risk voting in person - especially if we see an uptick in cases as kids return. Which means if their mail in ballots don’t arrive in time, they may not be able to vote at all.

Hilary had around 4.5 million votes from New York - 2 million of those came from NYC and the surrounding boroughs. She won the popular vote in this state by 1.8 million votes.

Now, yes, a small number of the people who have left NYC are also Trump Voters. Something like 15% of NYC’s vote went to Trump. But a much higher percentage are democratic - and committedly democratic - votes. Healthcare workers suffered disproportionately from CV deaths. Startups, Small business owners, College and recent college grads, Theatre workers? They’re all gone.

New York State can, honestly, no longer be counted on to go blue no matter who abstains from voting or who votes third party because of the toll the virus has taken on the city. We really do need every single person who is able to vote, to do so. Not because it’s fun, or it makes you happy. Not because you believe 100% in the american democratic system. Because the people you - yes - you, the abstainers - have counted on to uphold your few, dwindling democratic freedoms, can no longer be counted on to do so alone.

Gerrymandering sucks. The electoral college needs to be abolished. But it is specifically because those things are still in place that you need to vote if you are able. We absolutely should be fighting the system. But we cannot abandon it to let it fall to ruin and leave the people affected by that fallout to die because of it while we gather our strength. And yes. People will die. If this summer has taught us anything, let it be that elections fucking matter and in the coming years, our leadership absolutely has the ability to determine how many of us survive.

TL;DR: If you have the ability to vote please fucking use it. This is not a normal election year, and the safeguards that have been in place are no longer to be relied upon.

We haven’t forgotten how 2016 went down - when we say vote it’s because we remember how much of a difference a very small number of people could have made, and we know that this year, that difference is even more important.

kylenesusan

VOTE!!

jewishzevran

This thread is a few years old but it bears repeating. I’m tired of being treated as if I am invisible. Listen to Jewish voices when we talk about fascism. I am begging you.

swan2swan

Also, hey, you know how that white kid killed two people last night?

Well, he shot one person, then ran because the crowd charged him because he’d just murdered someone, then he killed another person, and the right’s calling that “self-defense” and spreading videos about that (watch videos with caution, everyone)…

…but remember that this is just another step. This is going to happen again. Right-wingers are going to go out there with their guns and threaten protesters, and protesters are going to protect their own, and at some point, someone’s going to pull a trigger…and it’s possible that both sides will start pulling triggers.

Pretty sure that actually happened in Texas a few weeks back, but the point is, it’s going to happen time and again.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?

1. If you go to a protest, you ABSOLUTELY LISTEN TO THE LEADERS OF THE PROTEST. They will provide instructions on formation, procedures, and protocol. If the leaders make you feel unsafe, feel free to leave.

2. If you show up to a protest late (you see them marching past your apartment, you decide to join them, you learn about it right before it starts and go out to join it, you’re at work and need to finish your shift…), talk to someone who was already there and find out the instructions. Your best targets are people who are hanging out on the perimeter–probably people with bicycles (that was the case at the protest I went to). Bicycles make good shields, so bikers are the ones who can easily perform the role of cavalry and protect the center (and I meant that literally, 100% literally).

3. Do not engage with outsiders, policemen, or agitators if you are not in a leadership role in the protest. This is absolutely essential. The last thing a well-organized protest needs is some Hero popping off and giving the police justification to use force–and you don’t want to push some trigger-happy fascist into using his weapon. Furthermore, if you perform things too aggressively–like that restaurant thing, apparently?–opposing media forums can use your actions to discredit the entire protest.

4. Most of these are for white people’s benefit. I don’t think I need to be telling black people how to protest or resist.

5. Be. Prepared. To. Run. I’ve seen people with their dogs, their kids in strollers…that’s fine and all, but as we’re seeing these days, protests are serious. This is not that pink-hatted “let’s all walk around Washington on a Saturday” afternoon social anymore. This is an actual, bona-fide resistance movement. That means there are people out there who can, and will, hurt you. You wear shoes that you can run in. You don’t take pictures of people you don’t know. You bring water. You bring a snack. Bring goggles if you have to. Try to keep it peaceful, don’t go out ready to fight (unless you are in an actual, genuine hot zone), but remember: it can go wrong.

6. Never leave a protest alone. I know I said this whole thing is for white people, and we all know that we’re at marginally less risk than non-white civilians, but the principle remains because we don’t know how long this advantage will be one that we possess and we need to fall into the habit right now. Furthermore, when you leave, clear it with someone in a leadership or escort role and make sure that you leave in a non-threatening group, especially if you’re heading toward police officers (and with kettling, that could be any direction of escape).

DISCLAIMER: I can count the number of protests I’ve been to on one hand. I’m still very much a novice. Most of what I am relaying here is information that I have learned by following people on the internet and listening to basic instructions at protests, along with my own observations. There are many more people out there with more expertise and experience in these matters than me. If you want to be a shield-bearer, go for it. If you want to throw rocks, that’s not on me, and maybe we’re at that point, but remember: this is not, and has never been, a game or a recreational activity. Protests are serious business. They’re for adults, but unfortunately, kids step up and take roles in them, too.

If anyone has additions, corrections, or rebuttals that they want to make, feel free. I’m learning.

#I regret I have but one queue to give