ehvvy

Maine they/them NB

[occidentalist]

I think if many westerners interrogated their approach to the concept of race they would find that, ultimately, they do subscribe to race science—they do believe that race is a biologically essential characteristic that can be neatly ascribed to everyone—they just disagree with its classical conclusions.

[miss-oranje]

the thing is, im always interested in The Paperwork. whenever The Characters moan and groan about The Paperwork and whenever it's left unspecified what The Paperwork entails i go aw... The Paperwork... u dont deserve this attitude, The Paperwork... im sure you're very interesting and important... this is because i like my job at The Paperwork factory and because i like homework and it's also because The Characters often hold positions of power attained through superhuman abilities and enforced with violence and i know that The Paperwork is there, aspirationally, to document their actions and protect people. from institutional neglect and from The Characters. when The Characters ignore The Paperwork to fuck each other on The Desk i think less of them for it. i do.

[miss-oranje]

i made this post offhandedly, but resentment/dismissal of The Paperwork is a trope from procedural fiction and commercial sff that is really really common in fanworks bc it makes for an easy shorthand when u don't want to research or invent the details of a job, and i do seriously want to ask everyone to get skeptical of it. it functions as part of a broader narrative type of the ultra-talented Maverick, usually law enforcement or pseudo law enforcement (e.g. a monster hunter, a status-quo-enforcing time traveler, a man in black, a moral mercenary, etc.), whose ability to police the boundaries of Civilization ("normal," defined by hegemony, Flawed But Worth Preserving!) and protect a homogenous Public (white, heteronormative, bourgeois, documented, "law-abiding," "innocent," helpless!!) is limited not by his energy or ability, but by forces (small-minded, foolish, persnickety, overcautious, sexless, dull, effeminate!!!) of Overhead, from whence comes... The Paperwork.

The Paperwork might be generated by administrators, journalists, lawyers, judges, civilian oversight committees, the village elders or the intergalactic legislature, depending on the story. and who benefits from us telling each other stories that belittle & villainize those professions while lionizing The Maverick? "if only The Maverick were given unlimited resources, unlimited access, unlimited privacy in his operations, and unlimited use of excessive force, he would be able to protect The Public (and find love! maybe on The Desk)." you see it, right? this is how copaganda will get in your head.

[gothhabiba]

just had the realisation that white ignorance as white innocence has to be shored up and maintained not only through a process of avoidance (avoiding racialised people, or at least personal discussion with them, in your personal life; not reading certain things, &c.) but also through a process of intentional forgetting (if you’ve seen or heard anything acknowledging the extent and nature of racism, forget it right away. next time you are confronted with someone or something that evidences the extent and nature of racism, insist that it is news to you and that “you thought we had gotten rid of that kind of thing”)

[gothhabiba]

if it's not clear—what I mean by "white ignorance as white innocence" is roughly—using professions of ignorance as professions of innocence—ignorance as a state of purity and freedom from the sin and guilt of racism—knowledge as impurity and association with the stain of racism—an avowal of ignorance as the best way to profess personal innocence, and in some cases perhaps the only way—

the best way to keep clean of the stain of racism (which is embarrassing to the self-image and social position of progressive whites) is thus to remain, or pretend to remain, ignorant—people of colour may then be conceptualised as carrying within themselves the stain of knowledge (compare this to the idea of racialised people as unclean in general), which is always at least potentially contaminating—

thus people of colour must be avoided, or their potential for contamination strictly contained and curtailed by certain failsafe measures such as the ones outlined above (know people of colour, but only in situations where they do not discuss racism; if they do discuss racism, immediately express surprise that such a thing "still" exists as a way of professing innocence; rinse and repeat).

I remember on one occasion having a white woman employ the strategy of remembering and insisting upon a state of former innocence, which is not quite "forgetting" but seems similar insofar as the time being purposely called forth was a time of ignorance, and thus innocence: she told us about an occasion a while prior on which someone had confronted her with some little detail of the reality of racism, and recounted how she had then expressed the due surprise and confusion at how racism "doesn't make any sense" (professing ignorance, probably real, of what racism actually does materially in terms of enabling material exploitation) and that she had thought surely we had "taken care of that by now".

[gothhabiba]

the corollary to this is of course the type of white person who expects knowledge to have an apotropaic function when it comes to accusations of, or the self-consciousness of, personal racism—

who collects facts about history, nations, cultures, languages, clothing, the names of various countries and cities and how to pronounce them, and expects the display of this knowledge of specifics to impress the listener with a sense of their cultural knowledge and sensitivity—

who reads the writings of various of-colour and third-world critics and expects them to function the same way, perhaps without applying much of a critical lens to them or connecting them to each other so much as collecting titles and references like individual baubles—perhaps without allowing these writings to influence how they actually treat people of colour in their daily life, perhaps even with an intention to condescendingly "teach" these writings to people of colour.

& I think we can connect both of these patterns in interpersonal behaviour to the colonial relationship to knowledge and maybe to the central idea behind Orientalism, namely that the imperialists' assumption of power to produce knowledge and to decide what is and is not considered 'knowledge' in the first place is prior to, and perhaps more important than, what specific claims they are making about an imperialised people (such that it's possible for something to be Orientalist even if it's "accurate"—many people miss this in criticising depictions of racialised people by colonial powers only insofar as they are "inaccurate" or "homogenised").

in either case ('white ignorance' or 'white knowledge') the function of whiteness is to define reality—to decide what 'knowledge' is, what it consists in and how it ought to be used, what it connotes (i.e., guilt or innocence), who is allowed to hold it (the racialised or third-world subject may never be innocent in the way the white ignorer is, due to their subject position; the racialised of third-world subject may never hold white knowledge, because even if they are well-studied in all of these things, this knowledge will still be held to naturally arise from their subject position)

[txttletale]

i'm confused, what do you mean by 'media literacy is a mostly fake concept'?

i just don't think it's like... useful, or describes something that's meaningfully real. like, the idea of 'media literacy', the ability to read media for its 'correct' meaning -- i don't place value on the ability to 'understand' what the 'author' 'meant'. i think that producing readings is, yknow, an active process that produces meaning, rather than uncovers it, and of course the meanings you can produce through readings depend on the contents of the text but they equally depend on its context, on you and your context... and of course, i think some readings are more productive, more useful, more grounded, or more interesting than others, but i don't think that's a matter of 'literacy'.

and, yknow, the ability to produce these readings is a whole set of different skills, not really one that can be put on a continuum. like yknow it is possible to be very good at like... psychological character analysis, or at producing meaning from vivid visual imagery, and then completely lack the background and understanding needed to produce coherent political-economic readings. it is possible to be extremely well trained in the vernacular of one medium or cultural tradition and lack fluency in another... there is just not one unifying skill that makes you Good at Understanding Media

& especially i think the concept of media literacy often gets deployed to kind of like, ignore or paper over ideology. like people will clown on ben shapiro whenever he says some stupid fucking shit about a movie, but like... y'know, he is misunderstanding the movie on purpose, to come to the political conclusion he wants to? like, his opinions on superman (2025) don't come from him neutrally trying to do Media Analysis in a vacuum, they come from him watching tyhe film through the lens of "what can i say about this on my right-wing talk show". and so on, right, i think the concept of 'media literacy' (and tyhe 'piss on the poor' meme associated with it) is often used to close one's eyes to people's ideological (& sometimes material--shapiro needs to be able to say dumb things about how movies are Bad because of Woke to make money!) investments that underpin their analysis

[txttletale]

that last point in particular rlly applies here like... a huge amount of like Media Literacy Discourse on tumblr dot com is just about this. & ignoring it is silly. like when someone says whatever cartoon is the epitome of revolutionary agitprop, yknow, i don't think it makes sense to attribute that analysis to a lack of some nebulous 'Understanding' skill when it's yknow, just clearly coming from a place of social prestige-seeking by being in the fandom for The Most Progressive Thing. 'good politics make you a good person, the things i like reflect on my politics, i'm a good person, therefore the things i like have good politics' is a mindset that underlies like 99% of these takes and it is silly to act like people somehow stumbled ass-backwards into these self-flattering, motivated readings through their Media Illiteracy

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Hey did y'all ever think about that if doctors blame all fat people's medical issues on them being too fat without proper investigation and then feel justified in neglecting their medical concerns, then statistically more fat people WILL develop and potentially die from serious health issues and it might not actually be because of the fat when everything comes down to it

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Fat people already thought about this obviously, I have it from the fat acceptance movement myself, but apparently this was news to my mom which is why I'm posting it

[infectiouspiss]

kids deserve so much more respect and it turns out that saying that is a great way to locate the horrible people in any community <3

[infectiouspiss]

you'll say something as simple as "no child deserves to be hit" and people will crawl out of the woodwork to explain why they should be allowed to beat a 6 year old for spilling some water

[infectiouspiss]

you'll say "i think it's weird that adults literally have control over when children are allowed to use the bathroom" and up pops a teacher to say that when they're not shouting at the kids they teach, they're trying to stop them from hiding in the bathrooms

you'll say "i think children shouldn't be forced to eat food they hate" and here comes someone who feeds their kids plain rice and boiled chicken (while eating a nicely seasoned stirfry) claiming that it's okay actually and kids shouldn't be allowed to taste things

you'll say "i think kids should have bodily autonomy" and in comes someone who pierced their babies ears before it was even 24 hours old, frothing at the mouth because their kid wanted a haircut and thats somehow an insult

[infectiouspiss]

children are an oppressed class and everyone should be looking back at their own childhoods and making sure they don't ever make a child feel the same way they felt.

[soup-mother]

all in all I take a complete disarmament and non-proliferation stance on boyfriends. Do not use them. Do not create them. Dismantle the ones you have and repurpose their material for peaceful civilian use. This is the only way the world can know peace

[anton--rayne]

also lastly. an ideal society wouldn't need the descriptors of transness or queerness in a way that parallels ours because these are words born against a contradiction against the cisheteropatriarchal order and in an ideal society this order would be abolished

[closet-keys]

It literally makes me feel like I'm losing my mind that almost no one in the global north on here will speak about, or even react to, the fact that the US is literally funding Israeli owned death traps for starving families.

The United States and Israel have made it impossible for all actual aid to enter Gaza. Then, private contractors from the United States created the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), with Israeli support, to "take over" aid distribution. They are preventing aid distribution by all humanitarian groups in Gaza that distribute aid in coordination with the U.N., and replacing them with GHF. These GHF sites are set up in collaboration with Israeli military to lure in starving families and gun them down.

[closet-keys]

Palestinians right here on tumblr have been discussing this for months, but so many people just reblog donation posts without even reading them.

Remember the post recently going around about ICE killing someone in California by throwing him off a roof and forcing all the witnesses to delete their footage (horrifying) where I added sources? that got SO many reactions in tags of "holy fuck" and "how is this happening" and general shock and outrage.

Even with all the reblogs, no one has reacted to my post about the food aid hubs in Gaza. Not even "no one has reacted with outrage," but just... no one has reacted in a way where it's clear they read it and felt or thought anything at all about it. Actually one person did, and it was a genocidal tangent dehumanizing Palestinians.

That's the state of things in the imperial core. Of the people who even pay attention, it's mostly people telling everyone else to tune out.

Hell, the US admits its doing this in our own papers. No one reacts. The US government doesn't need to hide anything cause everyone is willfully avoiding reading what we're doing to Palestine. It's grotesque.

[closet-keys]

Will you still reblog this post if I add links to fundraisers for my friends who are starving to death? Or will every last word blur into "oh this is a post asking for money, and nothing else about it is worth knowing"?

Nader is starving. His campaign is vetted (4). You can donate here. His blog is @abdalsalam2000

Fadel is starving. His campaign is vetted (197). You can donate here. His blog is @fadel-dani

Mahrah is starving. Her campaign is vetted. You can donate here. Her blog is @mahrahpalestine.

Mahmoud is starving. His campaign is vetted. You can donate here. His blog is @palestinian95

Ahmed is starving. His campaign is vetted (198). You can donate here. His blog is @ahmedaldani333

Are you still reading? Can you still see my words now that I've included links where you can donate? Did they disappear?

[ma7moudgaza2]

I'm Mahmoud. I've been appealing to you for two weeks for food, but I haven't received any response. I've lost hope in posting and asking you. I haven't reached my goal, but I only have $250 left. It may be a small amount, but it means a lot to me!! Please, whoever can donate, please do so urgently. Those who can't, please tell their friends about me or share my campaign. Please, please, please.

Fundraiser || PayPal || Vetting 1 || Vetting 2

@g0at0ad @gothhabiba @feluka @raangmanch @appsa

@schoolhater @kiirodora @tiredguyswag @corpsenurse @virovac @sayruq @irhabiya @sar-soor @tsaricides

[ma7moudgaza2]

For 3 days my campaign has not received any donations unfortunately which means no food for at least two days

[hindahoney]

Ask the people who support "armed resistance" for Palestinians to get their "land back" if they would also support Jews doing domestic terrorism to get their homes back in Germany, Poland, Yemen, Iraq, etc. and you will have your answer of what they actually support.

[gladiopsyop]

OP is basically describing the Jewish partisans of the Second World War but talking about it as if it's some unreasonable that nobody should support, Zionist brain rot is crazy.

[sonicguillotine-deactivated2025]

I support the Palestinian resistance and the partisans for the same reason. It is right for the oppressed to rebel.

[gothhabiba]

Every accusation is a confession. Of course anti-Zionists support the right of the oppressed to fight against extermination and expulsion. It's the Zionists who collaborated with Nazis during WW2, hoping to direct settlers to Israel in order to further Palestine genocide. They are the ones who did not want Jews to be able to remain in their homes.

[gothhabiba]

Samar Abu Alwan is very ill and needs medication. She, her husband Mohammed, and her three children Ghina, Qusay, and Saba also need help getting food to eat tomorrow (Thursday, July 10).

You can help via:

Gofundme

or

Venmo: gothhabiba Paypal: paypal.me/Najia Cashapp: $NajiaK

all with note "🍓" or "strawberry"

$76 / $200

[gothhabiba]

🍓 $82 / $200 🍓

[psychotic-gerard]

maybe its because im an asylum seeker but i am of the opinion that even if immigrants and asylum seekers contributed nothing to a nation that nation should not have the right to deport them.

[psychotic-gerard]

"oh now no-one will do these jobs," well i think its bad that we take advantage of immigrants and asylum seekers' desperation to force them into exploitative jobs that the ordinary citizen is entirely unwilling to put up with.

[asneakyfox]

the reason you, a white american, believe that white americans don't have culture is the same reason fish don't believe in water

[asneakyfox]

yes i know you think it's an antiracist statement, that you're saying it's a bad thing white americans don't have culture. but what you're actually saying is that the way white americans live is simply the normal way to live and that "culture" refers only to deviations from that norm

[asneakyfox]

there's real holidays and then there's, you know, cultural holidays. there's regular foods and there's ethnic foods

[asneakyfox]

this is not (just) about "cultural christianity," an idea that gestures at a real thing but the way tumblr talks about it is mostly not useful, i'm talking about stuff much broader than that.

making yourself a ham sandwich with mayo on white bread is a cultural practice just as much as making jollof rice is a cultural practice.

[asneakyfox]

if you feel some kind of yearning as a white american to connect with your Ancestral Culture you can get really into wearing lederhosen or playing bagpipes or whatever. but you could also just learn to understand the way you are living right now as a culture and not some kind of neutral default absence of culture

[gothhabiba]

you're telling me there's a dyke on this radish? 😳

[gothhabiba]

Mohammed just told me that his daughter Saba has meningitis and a dangerously high fever! She urgently needs medical attention, but food is becoming increasingly expensive, and Mohammed doesn't have the funds to pay for it.

You can help this child survive by donating via:

Venmo: gothhabiba Paypal: paypal.me/Najia Cashapp: $NajiaK

all with note "🍓" or "strawberry"

🍓 $85 / $200 🍓

[gothhabiba]

🍰 $145 / $200 🍰

[probablyasocialecologist]

Pro-Palestine activists on electric scooters damage RAF planes and evade capture at UK airbase

Palestine Action said it 'directly intervened to break the chains of oppression'

Pro-Palestine activists have damaged two Royal Air Force (RAF) planes after breaking into the largest airbase in Britain early on Friday morning on electric scooters.  Footage shared by Palestine Action (PA) shows two protesters riding scooters towards the RAF planes on the runway at the Brize Norton airbase, where they used "repurposed fire extinguishers to spray red paint into the turbine engines" and "caused further damage using crowbars". The activists then evaded security and escaped the base. The group announced on its website on Friday that the aibase was targeted because flights leave daily from there "for RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, a base used for military operations in Gaza and across the Middle East". "Red paint, symbolising Palestinian bloodshed, was also sprayed across the runway and a Palestine flag was left on the scene," Palestine Action said. Brize Norton serves as the UK's hub for strategic air transport and refuelling.  The planes the activists damaged were Airbus Voyagers, which carry military cargo and refuel fighter jets and military aircraft. A Palestine Action spokesperson said: "Despite publicly condemning the Israeli government, Britain continues to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US/Israeli fighter jets. "Britain isn’t just complicit, it’s an active participant in the Gaza genocide and war crimes across the Middle East." The spokesperson added: "By decommissioning two military planes, Palestine Action have directly intervened to break the chains of oppression."

[...]

Last month, MEE reported that the UK government blocked Labour MP Kim Johnson from asking about Israeli bombers using the Cyprus airbase.

20 June 2025