recently I’ve been thinking even more about the responsibility we have - and one that we must challenge ourselves to enact - regarding how we curate these little online spaces. especially those of us who are interested in culture, heritage, and folklore which isn’t only very easy to warp and steal by white supremacists, but one that has some very deeply rooted issues already.
I don’t think I need to tell anyone who has any contact with Polish folklore that a lot of it is disgustingly and terrifyingly antisemitic. not because it’s been warped into this recently - but because the oral tradition of many places has been basing many of its stories and beliefs on terrible antisemitic narrative. sometimes it’s insidious and you need to be already aware of some notions, while often it’s very blunt and shameless.
and then it becomes a very difficult question, for me personally at least, when I make, let’s say, a list of these or those beliefs. should I mention the ugly, horrible parts - would this honesty help? would this transparency serve any good purpose here online? doubts and all, ignoring and omitting it feels very wrong, too, especially taking into account the utterly scary modern Polish trend to claim we’ve never been antisemitic... while we might be among the worst of the worst.
on one hand, I’d love for these parts of folklore to fully die, to be buried and forgotten. modern scum clings to these bits as proof and justification and I’d love to limit their access to these notions fully. but then, in order to condemn something and fight it, we cannot bury it, can we? but is it my decision and is tumblr a place for it...? how to approach it when this is not academic - and even hardly political - space, but just a blog?
apologies. perhaps this is just rambling that makes very little sense, but there’s a lot going on in my head recently and I need to bounce it off something, even if it’s online silence.
