#oppressors

[1five1two]

The oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed.

Simone de Beauvoir

[thelandswemadeofpaper]

Things I should be changed for better in the Essos plot:

A slave revolution and resistence should already exist in most of the cities.

Estabilish better that Daenerys grew up in Essos even if she was born in Dragonstone, her antis are all like 'she is Westerosi, she is a foreign ruler and racist agaist Essosi' and at same time 'she didn’t grew up in Westeros, she has no right to want to rule it'???

Many of those slaves are not Essosi/Ghiscari either??? Some are from Naath, Westerosi, Asshai, Valyrian, Dothraki...

Political Conflicts in Essos Nobility that has nothing to do with slavery, like a sucession crisis, two rivals families feud, a usurpation, a fallen family (why I am thinking of Troy? I just read a deep analisis of the slavement of trojan royal family), crazy harem dynamics (Lynesse Hightower!!!), noble ladies and princess of Essos, even some greek-like heroes and 'demigods', a few wars and battles not involved with Dany or slavery, just like we have in Westeros.

More about the fact Westerosi was already Stolen Land before House Targaryen come, House Stark were colonizers before. Do the Children of the Forest have the right to massacre people with the White Walkers since the land is originally theirs? Can the House Targaryen begin considered Invasors in a already Stolen Land?

Why the Starklings can reclaim Winterfell after their House was usurped but not Daenerys? Because she wasn't raised here her claim is not valid? Her brother Viserys was older then Rickon and was raised as the spare heir in Westerosi culture. Is his claim valid?

Some people are genuine like "Daenerys can't fight Ghiscari/Essos slavery because her ancestors around two hundreds years ago were slavers! That would be hypocrite of her!" Excuse me??? Acknowledge the mistakes your ancestors did and don’t let other people do the same is bad now???

Ghiscari has this whole oppressors-turned oppressed-turned-oppressors-again thats reality break that idea that they were some helpless peaceful victims of the Evil Valyrians

Essos's favored 'superior' culture is probally Ghiscari and Ghiscarized Valyrian culture

I wish we see more of slaves hierarchy, they are more Roman/Ottoman than American, we have teachers and translators that are slaves. Could some of them marry? Get their freedom? Own property? Study? Which ones? I think, since Ghiscari sell even their own people but still consider themselves superior, that Ghiscari-looking slaves are more expensive and more 'domestic' slaves while like...Dothraki or Naath are more towards hard work and sexual slavery? Makes sense history-wise

I watched Magnificent Century, Ibrahim and Hurrem begin both slaves while begin a beloved childhood friend and wife to the Sultan were such complex relationships

[pilloclock]

Our generation spent so much time obsessing over the hunger games and if you were a big fan you probably thought a lot about how you’d be and romanticised being a katniss type and overruling your evil oppressors …. and then when ACTUAL horrific injustices happen in the world you’re silent. You’re ‘on the fence’ or seeing it ‘from both sides’ or you’re ‘not informed enough to have an opinion’ or the worst of all you’re PRO oppressors and Pro colonisers ??????? But you’ve got tickets to go see ballad of songs and snakes and you came out the movie theatre feeling all riled up to be a badass and take on a corrupt government just to support Israel and buy Starbucks …. Huh ??? Make it make sense. You’re either Pro Palestine or you’re okay with genocide.

FREE FREE Palestine 🇵🇸

[sunflower-sunshine1192]

There is no marriage equality until disabled people like myself can get married without losing benefits to survive

[b0bthebuilder35]

[andalus88]

I'm a history buff and this last line is what one of my favorite professors says all the time. I REALLY love this clip.

[blessedarethebinarybreakers]

Hey I don’t mean to further flood your inbox and I know I sent an ask a week or so ago. But in church this morning the sermon was on the 1 John passage about how if you hate your brother or sister you don’t love God, and I just. I bet you can guess which political figure immediately comes to mind. I know we’re supposed to love and pray for and forgive our enemies, and it’s not supposed to be a thing where you only do it if you know you’ll get an apology/changed behavior/etc. But the most positive thing I can say where he’s concerned is if he showed up on my doorstep bleeding and starving I would work past my anger to bind his wounds and feed him cuz that’s what you’re supposed to do for fellow human beings. Other than that I have no love for him (or people like him, really). Just anger and immense disdain. Maybe even hate. What do I do with that??

Hey there, I feel you on this. I can also think of maaany political figures I feel this about lol.

I have an old post delving into what it means to love one's enemy and what forgiveness is (and isn't) that I recommend to you.

I'll start with a TL;DR from that post, and then add some other stuff about working through feelings like anger and hate, and close with some reading recs <3

When we find it desperately difficult to love, or to forgive, we can ask God to feel and be what we find ourselves unable to feel and be.

We can remember Christ's words on the cross about the soldiers crucifying him: he does not say "I forgive them," but asks, "Father, you forgive them, for they know not what they do."

He cannot himself forgive them in that moment — not while they are in the act of torturing and killing him, not while they hold all power over him, not even when his compassion allows him to understand that they do what they do out of ignorance — so he asks God to be that forgiveness for them.

When I struggle to feel love for someone who is doing great harm and seems completely unrepentant of that, I turn to God the way Jesus did: "God, I'm struggling to see the spark of You in them. Please love them the way I can't in this moment."

Next point:

Throughout the Bible, the concepts of love and hate are much more about action than sentiment.

If you feel love for someone, yet don't come to their aid when they need it most, what use was that love to them? Meanwhile, if you fear or disdain someone, yet help them in their direst need, you have acted with love.

Furthermore, when it comes to difficult emotions, the good news is that we are indeed invited to bring all our feelings — anger, disdain, even hate — to God. We can be real about what we're feeling.

Scripture shows us this over and over: There are so many psalms, and passages from the prophets, where someone has been hounded and terrorized enough to wish pain or even death upon the ones who oppress them. In one of the most infamous, Psalm 137, the psalmist even goes so far as to wish that their oppressors' children might be "dashed upon a rock" — that everything Babylon has made them suffer might be enacted on Babylon.

These are not pretty feelings, yet they are preserved in holy poetry, because they are part of the human experience. (And tantamount to understanding them is realizing that those praying such things will happen almost never have the power to enact them. The psalmist who wishes Babylon's soldiers experience what they've put the psalmist's people doesn't have the army, the weapons, the power to actually make that happen. They're just honest about wishing it in a moment of collective trauma and grief.)

In all this, I'm not saying God "wants" us to feel loathing or hate — any thought or feeling that puts us at risk of denying another person's humanity is one we do need to work on; but we do that work by being honest about feeling it, rather than being too ashamed to face it or to share it with God.

No pressure to read any of these of course, but here are texts I'd recommend on these topics:

James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, a brief but rich text in which (among other things) Baldwin grapples with the need to love his oppressor (namely white people) — to affirm their humanity in a way they have denied him. Only in recognizing one another's humanity can we have any hope of something like justice and peace for the generations to come. Baldwin believes this vehemently, but he still acknowledges that it's still not easy, in fact it's one of the hardest things, to love one's oppressors in such a way. .

Cole Arthur Riley's This Here Flesh, another short book rich in meaning. I especially recommend the chapters on lament, rage, justice, and repair for this topic. One thing she discusses is that love is not "niceness," that rage can be righteous, that sometimes the most loving thing we can do is to let a harmful person witness our rage, to call them out. .

The same link from the beginning to that post about what forgiveness is and what it is not

[noosphe-re]

oppressors dwell in darkness darkness in oppressors

—Ahmed Salman