She/they, adult, trans, dyke kike. Mostly reblogs. Occasional own posts. Lots of antisemitism discussion. Social justice oriented reblogs. Fandom things sometimes too. Occasional NSFW reblogs Pfp art is from the blog bob-artist Minors please don’t follow, you will be softblocked
Jewish Theory and Antisemitism Education Resources Post
Okay. It’s no secret about how disappointed I’ve been about the unwillingness others seem to have to learn about jewish issues and fight for jewish liberation. So, I’m compiling a list of valuable resources on the topic. I won’t personally agree with everything every resource says, but I will be including various conflicting opinions which I think are valuable to hear from and learn. Things which can give better understanding to outsiders about what we face and can tell them how to better advocate on our behalf. As this grows I may add sections and categories for types resources but for now it’s just a list. Will edit to add more over time. Those interested can submit resources they feel will be helpful in my asks, and I’ll read and consider them when I get time. List under the cut.
(You can find my old pinned post about the antisemitism within the pro-palestine movement here, if anyone is looking for it.)
I used to have the second resource as the first one, because I think it is a vital introductory resource, but I’m now putting this one ahead of it. “The Epistemic Dimension of Antisemitism” by David Schraub. This paper discusses the devaluing of Jewish experience and perspective and examines why our voices are systemically discounted. It is dense, and it may refer to some aspects of antisemitism to which you are unfamiliar if this is your first time engaging with the subject. However, I still recommend reading it first because it gives you context and motivation to check your biases at the door when moving forward. If there are parts which do not make sense without context, read the next resource and come back to this one to revisit what you did not understand.
Next up is “The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere” by April Rosenblum. This pamphlet on antisemitism in leftist spaces goes over the bare minimum you need to know and do to be an effective ally to the jewish community and the jewish people in your lives. This is essential reading to begin to understand antisemitism and your role in fighting it as a goy (non-jew). Originally listed first to its exceptional usefulness as a introductory resource, I moved it one down the list in the hopes that the paper above will prime readers to be more receptive to Jewish thought on Jewish issues.
Now, I’d like to introduce people to “Skin the Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism” by Eric K. Ward. In this article Eric Ward discusses his experiences as a Black man who’s spent his life studying white nationalism and the lens this has given him on antisemitism as a load bearing element of the white nationalist ideological framework. It was written less than 6 months into the first trump presidency and so it is very much reflective of that time, but it contains invaluable insights. Last year (2024) he wrote a follow up to the original which reflects the many meaningful escalations which have occurred since the original. However, as they cover different content and experiences, I highly recommend reading both pieces.
Now, the article which inspired me to make this post. “White Jews: An Intersectional Approach” by David Schruab discusses how an intersectional approach between Whiteness and Jewishness is needed to properly understand the dynamics by which White Jews experience marginalization. It’s long, but well worth the read. For intracommunity reasons I recommend my fellow Jews give this a read too.
Additionally, in “The Baggage of Whiteness,” Schraub goes over how the strange intersection that White Jews experience affects the way Israel and Zionism are discussed. One of the most useful analyses I found from that article is a solid explanation for the interest white non-Jews have in clinging so fervently to their antisemitism on this subject. I group this together with the previous article as it provides important context for this one. While the second is comprehensible without the first, you will need at least a passable understanding of the weird ways in which White Jews experience race. If this is not a familiar subject for you then you probably won’t understand this piece, and I would recommend reading the other one first.
There will be others to add, but this is what I have for now. This post will be pinned for easy finding.
I fear many of us are forgetting that trans men belong to Men (the gender) but not Men (the sociopolitical class) and I think thats an important distinction
I fear many of us are forgetting that trans men belong to Men (the gender) but not Men (the sociopolitical class) and I think thats an important distinction
going over to my minimalist girlfriend’s house and she apologizes profusely for the mess and there’s just a single perfect, fresh pea on the floor of her living room
i deserve a medal for this post. not because i was particularly funny but because i survived an onslaught of nearly one hundred gimmick blogs in the wake of this post popping off, and the fact that i didn’t try to track any of them down and snuff them out with my bare hands is a testament to my immeasurable strength and should be rewarded. at one point i had “the official letter h” add on to this post. you wanna know that blog’s gimmick? the really funny and original and worthwhile gimmick the official letter h blog had? yep you guessed it they just gave me the god damned letter H and then fucked off. only jesus knows the suffering i endured over that harsh winter, and he wept for me
pretty incredible that google went from this bountiful source of information to just trotting out blatant factual inaccuracies every time you try to use it. i do not use she/her pronouns. GREAT JOB AI
its funny because when i first posted about my non-dysphoric trans way i was VERY hesitant because its complex and nuanced and i was worried people would take it out of context and flatten it into something incorrect. turns out the people were fine. MACHINES on the other hand cant figure it out
to explain again and help the broken AI machine and then i wont have to talk about it anymore: my preferred pronouns are he/him. my real pronouns are she/her. i prefer to use the wrong pronouns
the reason i do this is because i am not dysphoric and dont need every conversation i have to revolve around gender and my spiritual beliefs about gender. i love my male body even if it does not match my soul. it is a VERY COOL SECOND PLACE and i am pumped as heck on it
if we are talkin just use he/him. ASSUME AWAY. just dont put it on any technical documents or labelers because it is technically incorrect. dont put anything on those. i had a book delayed two weeks because of this once. ANYWAY hopefully the computer will have an easier time with this
“The LEGO Movie was my favorite movie of 2014, but it strikes me that the main character was male, because I feel like in our current culture, he HAD to be. The whole point of Emmett is that he’s the most boring average person in the world. It’s impossible to imagine a female character playing that role, because according to our pop culture, if she’s female she’s already SOMEthing, because she’s not male. The baseline is male. The average person is male. You can see this all over but it’s weirdly prevalent in children’s entertainment. Why are almost all of the muppets dudes, except for Miss Piggy, who’s a parody of femininity? Why do all of the Despicable Me minions, genderless blobs, have boy names? I love the story (which I read on Wikipedia) that when the director of The Brave Little Toaster cast a woman to play the toaster, one of the guys on the crew was so mad he stormed out of the room. Because he thought the toaster was a man. A TOASTER. The character is a toaster. I try to think about that when writing new characters— is there anything inherently gendered about what this character is doing? Or is it a toaster?”
— Bojack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg commenting on how weird gendered defaults in entertainment are, and why we should think twice about them. Excerpted from this longer original post.
(via 360degreesasthecrowflies)
Now that Nationals is over, I'm back to reading black fantasy again. Starting with the Fifth Season by NK Jemisin- I'm about 1/4 of the way through.
I find myself drawn to Damaya the most of any of the characters thus far. Schaffa I wanted to like, but, uh, well, he's just given me a reason to pause that thought. The others I'm sort of here and there on, but we'll see. I'm enjoying the world building and how we're circling something without directly putting a finger on it, though, and I'm interested to see where this is going. I do tend to really like the kids in these kinds of stories, because often they represent an innocence and idealistic viewpoint in an otherwise dangerous or even brutal world.
I'm now halfway thru and I'm ngl, the whole thing about the kids and the nodes is... rough. Alabaster's little psychotic break as he talks about [redacted] with Syen, Damaya's realization that she is a little fish swimming with sharks, and Essun's shock at Hoa's display were all very well timed.
I'm finding Jemisin to be a very competent author who can control a narrative with a tight leash when she wants to, and also can let the characters explore themselves a bit before ushering them back on track.
There is a point during the prologue where she says none of the people or settings she's mentioned within the prologue really matter for this story- a lie, if I've ever read one, but one that you can quickly see through if you can spot that this is an author who writes well enough to not just throw you a bunch of shit that doesn't matter just to introduce her world building.
I am understanding why people have described her as "if Tolkien were black"- she really feels just that good at building a living, breathing world and letting you explore it while keeping you on the path she wants you to stroll. It doesn't surprise me that she's also written a few commentaries on the flaws of Tolkien's works, one of which I have already mentioned on this blog being that if I suddenly appeared in Gondor right now I would be killed on sight without hesitation for the crime of existing with brown skin. I can also see her trying very hard to dodge that particular flaw in her own writing while still selling a story as an elaborate fantasy trilogy in a world that continues to exist even after you close the book.
Tolkien wrote what became known as high fantasy, and Jemisin's book so far feels much less disconnected from our own world than that, but as far as the skill of the author is concerned... if you want something that's as well written as his, and you want black-focused fantasy, for sure I think Jemisin is worth the read so far. Just, as always, mind the trigger warnings.
Now that Nationals is over, I'm back to reading black fantasy again. Starting with the Fifth Season by NK Jemisin- I'm about 1/4 of the way through.
I find myself drawn to Damaya the most of any of the characters thus far. Schaffa I wanted to like, but, uh, well, he's just given me a reason to pause that thought. The others I'm sort of here and there on, but we'll see. I'm enjoying the world building and how we're circling something without directly putting a finger on it, though, and I'm interested to see where this is going. I do tend to really like the kids in these kinds of stories, because often they represent an innocence and idealistic viewpoint in an otherwise dangerous or even brutal world.
I'm now halfway thru and I'm ngl, the whole thing about the kids and the nodes is... rough. Alabaster's little psychotic break as he talks about [redacted] with Syen, Damaya's realization that she is a little fish swimming with sharks, and Essun's shock at Hoa's display were all very well timed.
I'm finding Jemisin to be a very competent author who can control a narrative with a tight leash when she wants to, and also can let the characters explore themselves a bit before ushering them back on track.
There is a point during the prologue where she says none of the people or settings she's mentioned within the prologue really matter for this story- a lie, if I've ever read one, but one that you can quickly see through if you can spot that this is an author who writes well enough to not just throw you a bunch of shit that doesn't matter just to introduce her world building.
I am understanding why people have described her as "if Tolkien were black"- she really feels just that good at building a living, breathing world and letting you explore it while keeping you on the path she wants you to stroll. It doesn't surprise me that she's also written a few commentaries on the flaws of Tolkien's works, one of which I have already mentioned on this blog being that if I suddenly appeared in Gondor right now I would be killed on sight without hesitation for the crime of existing with brown skin. I can also see her trying very hard to dodge that particular flaw in her own writing while still selling a story as an elaborate fantasy trilogy in a world that continues to exist even after you close the book.
Tolkien wrote what became known as high fantasy, and Jemisin's book so far feels much less disconnected from our own world than that, but as far as the skill of the author is concerned... if you want something that's as well written as his, and you want black-focused fantasy, for sure I think Jemisin is worth the read so far. Just, as always, mind the trigger warnings.
Now that Nationals is over, I'm back to reading black fantasy again. Starting with the Fifth Season by NK Jemisin- I'm about 1/4 of the way through.
I find myself drawn to Damaya the most of any of the characters thus far. Schaffa I wanted to like, but, uh, well, he's just given me a reason to pause that thought. The others I'm sort of here and there on, but we'll see. I'm enjoying the world building and how we're circling something without directly putting a finger on it, though, and I'm interested to see where this is going. I do tend to really like the kids in these kinds of stories, because often they represent an innocence and idealistic viewpoint in an otherwise dangerous or even brutal world.
I'm now halfway thru and I'm ngl, the whole thing about the kids and the nodes is... rough. Alabaster's little psychotic break as he talks about [redacted] with Syen, Damaya's realization that she is a little fish swimming with sharks, and Essun's shock at Hoa's display were all very well timed.
I'm finding Jemisin to be a very competent author who can control a narrative with a tight leash when she wants to, and also can let the characters explore themselves a bit before ushering them back on track.
There is a point during the prologue where she says none of the people or settings she's mentioned within the prologue really matter for this story- a lie, if I've ever read one, but one that you can quickly see through if you can spot that this is an author who writes well enough to not just throw you a bunch of shit that doesn't matter just to introduce her world building.
I am understanding why people have described her as "if Tolkien were black"- she really feels just that good at building a living, breathing world and letting you explore it while keeping you on the path she wants you to stroll. It doesn't surprise me that she's also written a few commentaries on the flaws of Tolkien's works, one of which I have already mentioned on this blog being that if I suddenly appeared in Gondor right now I would be killed on sight without hesitation for the crime of existing with brown skin. I can also see her trying very hard to dodge that particular flaw in her own writing while still selling a story as an elaborate fantasy trilogy in a world that continues to exist even after you close the book.
Tolkien wrote what became known as high fantasy, and Jemisin's book so far feels much less disconnected from our own world than that, but as far as the skill of the author is concerned... if you want something that's as well written as his, and you want black-focused fantasy, for sure I think Jemisin is worth the read so far. Just, as always, mind the trigger warnings.
I wish all the “religion is inherently bad” people who go on to describe issues exclusive to Christianity would understand that their idea of Christianity being analogous to all religion is a very glaring sign that they are still steeped in the Christian hegemony they seem to reject so vehemently
My math prof puts this on the instruction page of all his exams
[ID: screenshot of black text on white background saying “an exam is just another means of communication between you and me to help me understand what you have learned so that I can provide you with guidance on how to improve. It is not a measure on your worth as a person nor your intelligence or aptitude as a student. Just give this your best try. END ID]
Special shoutout to all the queer, intersex, and trans het folks. Sorry for all the “it’s illegal to be straight this month” jokes you’ll have to endure. Y’all are still very much part of the community.
