Sometimes healing from religious trauma is looking back and going “HOLY FUCK! YOU SAID WHAT? JESUSSSSS CHRIST! I WAS A CHILD YOU SAID THAT TO, THATS JUST BLATANT HATE! MY GOD” and then hating yourself for ever believing it because you weren’t taught any different and had to on your own time realize that the adults in your life were just casually spouting hate speech with the excuse of religious texts.

And by the way. Feel free to vent in the tags or comments. Just PLEASE, don’t come onto here and try and argue why any points anyone tries to make about things they’ve been through aren’t that bad or should be ignored. Right now this is a safe space for people who have been through religious trauma. Not for people who are happy in their religion and want to convert others.

You have your own spaces. Use them.

I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people.

I keep reflecting to determine if there's something more within me that's causing me to still feel so incredibly sick by it all. Really trying to expose the raw roots of the feeling to see if it stems from some kind of selfishness. And I suppose it does. But to reduce it to just that would also be lying, because it's a combination of poisons down in that soil. It's betrayal and a feeling of isolation amongst a group I thought I once knew, and then that selfish and bitter root grows in like a weed. I can only quietly observe to myself: "ah. this is where the radicalization and rampant nationalism come from. this is why I see it flowering in my family."

It's because I feel my trust breaking all over again each time I forget about it and try to go on with my business. I remember that I still can't mourn publicly without someone educating me on why obviously if I'm mourning, I must have Insert Political Alignment Here. I remember the utter silence and the downright celebration of more civilian deaths because "oh, fuckin Yaya or whatever deserved it after what Israel does."

For the record, Yaya-Or-Whatever didn't deserve it, and I still remember the lead dropping into my stomach upon hearing that from a friend. No one deserves it. No one ever deserves it.

I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people.

Maybe that's a quote leftists recognize, but I realize now that few of them actually stick to it across the board. And I'm admittedly selfish, because I hoped that leftists could at least have a moment to care about my people suffering too before getting back to helping the people who currently need the most help. But instead we got "Yaya-Or-Whatever Deserved It." And I've been laying here for months watching everyone on the left just go back to the usual armchair activism as if they didn't just fucking say that, and when I do bring it up, suddenly I'm the problem for pointing out that it was fucked up.

You won't erase it, fyi. We saw you say it. Some of you said it with your full fucking chest. You were callous and let the antisemites into the bar by openly celebrating Jewish death. Then you pretended we were talking about Palestine when we pointed out your antisemitic actions. You know that's not what we were even pointing to as an example. But it's very convenient for you to pretend we don't know the difference, isn't it?

I don't know. It's just a reminder that most of you are actually all talk and virtue signals. There's no actual substance behind your ideals, you're just adhering to the party line, same as conservatives do. I guess I was naive to think otherwise. It's disingenuous for you to wonder why people leave the leftist movement as a whole and "suddenly" flip sides. You know why, and it's reasons like this - you're just covering it up and pretending it's a totally different, more convenient reason.

Tldr; you're hypocrite ass leftists and fuck you. You should be ashamed of how you acted.

rape is just a thing that may happen during war. we're not saying it didn't happen. it may have occurred. rape is not uncommon in war. it's not a weapon of war, there's no proof it's a pattern of violence against women, it's just something that happens for some reason.

There are palestinians being bombed and killed and all u care about is how YOUR feelings are hurt. The victim complex is insane

history shows that my “feelings” aren’t just “hurt”.

as all of this probably meant literally nothing to you about 3 months ago and will probably mean very little to everyone in about a year, you lack the very basic understanding and knowledge of our history. our people were told to be polite and chill out back in the 1930s when we were told we’re too dirty to walk the sidewalk or have a business. we were told we’re just being hysterical and to say baruch ha’shem that at least they’re not killing us yet. we all know how that one ended in the 1940s (well, i hope you know). y’all using that against us to prove a point of a trend you’ll probably remember nothing about in a few months, is a very dangerous antisemitic disgrace. as these are not the 1930s anymore and i have history to remind me what happens when we let things slide, i won’t let anyone hurt my feelings or say that i simply have a victim’s complex.

Here's the thing about Oct. 7th

Any analysis of the situation that does not acknowledge that the IOF itself is responsible for most of the casualties is incomplete and pretty close to straight up propaganda

I have no love in my heart for Hamas, I agree that it is an extreme fundamentalist religious movement founded on the most radical platform the Palestinian revolution could have had and even as the secularists have taken positions and done work to move the ideology in a less radical direction as they saw that with only Hamas in power they only had one option but to try and change the organization from the inside, that doesn't mean they don't still have extreme views or tactics and nor does it mean that they are not also mistreating the Palestinians in Gaza as any ruling government party mistreats their citizens, remember they only received 44.5% of the vote and then promptly ended free elections there after, not even to mention how many Gazans were under the voting age when that election was held. Their extreme views and tactics for liberation are quite literally why Netenyahu himself funneled money into their operation to ensure that they were the international face of Palestine to make it so that public international opinion would be against them and further destabilize Palestinian liberation attempts

But it has literally been reported by Israel's own media and journalists that the IOF are the ones who shelled Israeli homes which led to those horrific burning deaths of Israeli babies Ben Shapiro won't let the internet forget about, it was reported by the Israeli media itself that the IOF fired at their own citizens fleeing from the music festival, it was reported by Israeli media that the IOF shot and killed hostages with their hands tied behind their backs, and it has been confirmed by Israeli citizens who were taken hostage by Hamas insurgents that the insurgent's main goal seemed to be to keep them alive and relatively safe in order to be taken hostage as leverage for the Palestinian hostages Israel has locked in their prisons while the IOF soldiers and the people who gave them their marching orders were indiscriminate in who they killed, driving tanks through residential areas, shooting citizens, and bombing houses with families, the elderly, and infants inside

This is not to say that Hamas didn't kill anyone, I'm sure they did, but from Israel's own media and their own citizen's reports who were taken hostage we have been told the number of casualties were so high on Oct. 7th because the IOF had absolutely no qualms killing their own people

And nor is this to say that Hamas is some kind of humanitarian freedom fighting militia that will always treat Israelis nice and respectfully, the reason why they've been so nice to their hostages is because they are playing the optics game that Israel won't

They are doing the wartime optics game correctly right now while Israel has all but abandoned it, they are keeping the hostages safe and well looked after so that when held up next to the cruelty and the indiscriminate violence of the Apartheid state (which has over 10,000 Palestinians held hostage in their prisons as of now) they look better in comparison to the international eye, that is the whole point of fighting an asymmetrical war, you have to use asymmetrical tactics, especially in an age where public opinion can mean the difference between life or death

Ultimately, my point here is that the idea that Hamas are the ones who are soley responsible for the massacre of over a thousand Israeli citizens is just false, and that is confirmed by the Israeli media itself. It was the IOF response to the attack that killed so many, Hamas does not have the technology available to them to be able to shell someone's house, the people who crossed the Gazan border were only armed with the guns they could carry in their hands, that doesn't lead to the kind of damage done in these Israeli neighborhoods that we have seen reported on (just check NPR's ig page it's full of videos of the Israeli neighborhoods destroyed after Oct. 7th) but a tank driven by an IOF soldier who has been given the greenlight by his superiors to kill as many Israelis as he deems necessary in the hopes of killing any single Hamas insurgent they can get, definitely will

Innocents died on Oct. 7th, I will never deny that, but most of them didn't meet their end by a Hamas insurgent. They met their end by an Israeli soldier who was supposed to be sent there to protect them and if you don't acknowledge that fact, if you simply say that it was the attack by Hamas that killed so many people then you have not done any research into what actually happened that day and you don't get to use it as some kind of gotcha against the people who support Palestine

"Antisemitism is bad b/c not all Jews are zionists!" is still bad!! Being antisemitic against Jews you don't like makes you an antisemite. No group "deserves" antisemitism b/c you've deemed them unworthy of humanity. Trying to be the arbiter of who is a "good jew" & a "bad jew" makes you an antisemite & an annoying, bad person.

u ever see a mildly iffy post and look at the comments and just think “wow, everyone here is so fucking unpleasant in their own special way”

everyone is wildly primed to have their anger and fear used against them right now, so while you are advocating and protesting, make sure you’re not falling into shit that is going to cause more harm

The genocide in Gaza is horrific. And it is a genocide. The words coming directly from the mouths of those in charge of Israel’s government are those that demonstrate an intent to utterly erase any Palestinian from Gaza, whether through displacement or death.

Do not let people convince you that this is the fault of Jews. Do not let yourself be swayed into conspiracies that Jews control Hollywood, or the government, or are otherwise collectively conspiring to do harm. It’s bullshit. It causes real, measurable harm and fear. It continues to make rising antisemitism worse. And not only does that antisemitism lead to death, it rightfully increases the fear of more horrors happening.

The attack on Oct 7 was also horrific. As is the rising antisemitism around the world. And the fact that there has been almost no space to honor those dead is a tragedy.

Do not be convinced that the only way to protect the Jewish people is to build a State where only one religious or ethnic group is allowed to live freely. Do not be convinced that safety is dependent upon protecting that State at all costs. When one State is allowed to defend itself by any means necessary, any means will be used and any action will be excused. And do not be convinced that all Arabs or Muslims are responsible for those atrocities. Islamophobia is also on the rise and is also causing real, measurable harm and fear.

Your anger and fear will be used to excuse horrors if you let it.

Don’t let it.

People going “ok fine Palestinians aren’t Hamas but then also Israelis aren’t the IOF” or “I support Palestine but Hamas should be peaceful”

Fuck off im being so serious

Israelis aren’t the IOF but they are taking to social media to celebrate the massacres of entire families?

Israelis aren’t the IOF but there is a mandatory conscription??

Israelis aren’t the IOF but there are armed militias in the West Bank attacking, killing, and maiming any Palestinians they see???

The only Israelis I have seen refuse to be complicit in the active genocide their government is committing right now are:

The Orthodox Jewish community that squares up with the police all the time

The protesters irl and on social media that the authorities are threatening to round up and put in Gaza if they don’t stop

We cannot expect and allow an oppressed people to die quietly and we cannot ignore the settler laughing while it happens

nngh ran into more I/p discourse. Why does everybody make it so hard. I read this stuff and can’t tell fact from fiction. At least until I step back and remember 18000 murdered civilians

Every day I'm down in the trenches of JSTOR reading the worst essays you can imagine.

It is really frustrating that the characteristic of Bernard Dowd that has become popularized is literally just the antisemitism his creator wrote him with.

I don’t know how much this part of his character will be brought back in new comics but I really don’t want Tim’s new boyfriend to be antisemitic, so can y’all please learn at least a little bit about antisemitism in conspiracies before writing a new post about Bernard making what is literally just an antisemitic conspiracy theory but with Batman. His creator already wrote him being pretty clearly antisemitic, I really don’t think we need more.

...

guess who’s back at school for the first time in almost a year🧍