I don’t think most non-Jews understand how disappointed we are in the left right now. How completely abandoned we’ve become. How our contributions to progress for other groups have been erased or disavowed or hidden. How the actual tangible things that Jews have contributed to black rights and civil rights are being ignored. How we’re being told we contribute and have contributed nothing.
How we are being told that the world has been kind to us when it never has. As if my mom didn’t grow up getting called a Kike and getting beat up for being Jewish. How I thought I had friends until I caught them saying “xyz was beautiful until Jews showed up.” How people told me I was pretty “for a Jew.” How I grew up hearing stories about bombs being set off in Israel in buses and markets. How I couldn’t even go two weeks without hearing that and how nobody cared and somehow, every time that happened, the whole world became more hostile to me for some reason.
I just don’t understand. I don’t understand what leftists are doing. Or why. I hate that I have to say—of course, I support a free and self determined Palestine (which I truly do)—in order for you to decide I’m worthy of care and support.
We showed up for you. All of you. And the entire movement is abandoning us at best or targeting us at worst. Celebrating our deaths. Saying we deserved it. How are we supposed to trust you ever again? How are we supposed to feel safe ever again?
A very few select people who are in my life have taken the chance to actually learn about and dismantle their own unconscious antisemitism during this time. And I’m eternally grateful for them. But most people haven’t reached out at all. Most people are still sharing hateful things that could get me hurt and they don’t care. Most people Reblogging my posts are still Jews. Because we are alone. And it sucks. You need to be as loud about antisemitism as you are about Palestine or you’re an antisemite (unless you’re Arab/Muslim/Palestinian—I totally get that these groups are also doing damage control in their own communities just like Jews are).
But we are all in tremendous pain right now.
This moment will pass. And when it does, I will remember how many people let me down. I will remember that when I needed support more than I’ve ever needed it in my life, people fucking vanished. They pretended violence against my people wasn’t happening. They ignored and rewrote the history of Israel to suit their own narratives.
You don’t know what it feels like to be hated this much for opposite things. PoC hate us for being too white. White supremacists hate us for not being white enough. Europeans hate us for being middle eastern. Middle easterners hate us for being western/European. Everyone hates us for being settlers but continually kicks us out of their countries so that we have to settle somewhere else.
I saw a post going around from a Black person who said that the reason he and his fellow black activists go protest for Palestinians instead of fighting antisemitism (as if it’s a binary, which it’s not) is that Jews don’t show up. Muslims and Palestinians do. And honestly? Fuck that guy. Heather Heyer died standing shoulder to shoulder against racism in 2017. [CORRECTION: When I first wrote this post I was under the impression that Heather Heyer was Jewish. I want to correct to avoid spreading misinfo. She was just the first (and incorrect) Jewish civil rights activist I thought of. However there are plenty of other actual Jewish civil rights activists to choose from. If you have reblogged this post from me, please feel free to add a link to the permalink version of this post with my correction to your reblog.]I have devoted substantial time and effort and money that I don’t even get paid a lot of because I don’t get paid a living wage. I have continually reached out to PoC people in my life of all religions to ask how they are doing and what I could be doing to help more—both for them personally and how they would best like me to help their community. I have elevated their voices at every opportunity. And not one person I checked in with has done the same for me or for my community.
And it’s bone chilling. It’s awful. And it’s even worse knowing that when it’s over, people will want to go back to normal. They won’t apologize. They won’t self reflect. They’ll just live their lives, maybe a little more aware of how much they hate us and completely indifferent to the harm they’ve caused us. How disposable they made us feel. And the thing is…it’s not hard for you to know. You just have to ask.
Too many people are cowards. Too many people care about looking good than actually learning something or making the world better. And to those people: you should be ashamed of yourself.
I don’t have any hate in my heart. Truly. Not a drop for any group of people. But I have a tremendous lack of trust that anyone would actually lift a finger to keep me safe.
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Steve feels something hit his legs and clatter to the floor. He doesn't look at whatever hit him; he looks at Eddie, across the room.
"Did you just throw something at me?"
"No," Eddie lies, arm still extended.
Steve rolls his eyes at him, then looks down at the floor, where two drum sticks are laying at his feet. "What-"
"Outside," Eddie says, and he doesn't even wait for Steve to get up before he starts running for the door.
Steve sighs, but he picks up the sticks and follows, admittedly at a slower pace.
Outside is cold as shit. The wind blows Steve a little sideways, but Eddie doesn't seem bothered. He stands, arms out, showing off the open back doors of his van.
The entire back seat is occupied by a drum kit. It's cramped as hell, but Steve thinks there's a little stool wedged in there and just enough room for a person.
"Eddie, what-"
"Tell me if i'm going too far," Eddie says, "but you mentioned wanting to pick up something new, and I figured this might be okay."
Steve doesn't know how to say thank you to that, so he says, "Gareth is gonna kill you."
"Nah," Eddie says with a smile. "I’ve borrowed the set before. He knows where it is."
"I don't know how to play drums."
"Neither do I," Eddie says. "Let's figure it out."
He bows dramatically, prompting Steve to enter the van. He does so with a light shove on Eddie's shoulder.
He almost bangs his head on the roof, but eventually he gets situated in the midst of all the drums.
He's not sure where to start. He ignores his hands shaking.
Because that’s a thing they do now. They shake all the time, anywhere from a little rattle to a tremor so bad he can’t hold anything.
Steve hates it. He balls his hands into fits and takes a deep breath.
"Now, I've never actually played," Eddie says, sitting on the edge of the van floor, facing Steve. "But I’ve watched Gareth enough. Start with the bass drum, the one by your foot."
Steve tentatively steps on the pedal. It makes a soft thud. He does it again and again, starting up a steady beat.
"Good," Eddie says, and his enthusiasm for something so simple is so contagious, Steve can't help but smile. "If you want to use your other foot, you can step on the high hat. It should be to your left.”
Steve keeps his right foot going on the bass and his left starts a dun dun-dun, dun dun-dun on the high hat. He looks at eddie, who's got his eyes closed and is humming something.
Eddie cracks his eyes open. "Sorry, force of habit. Just thinking about a guitar part for this."
Steve laughs. Of course he is.
"You can do whatever with the sticks," Eddie says. "Just do what sounds right. You’re not gonna break the drums, not if you don't try to."
Steve takes a breath and tries.
It's hard, trying to keep everything going at once. He steps off the high hat and focuses on keeping the bass drum going in time with his sticks.
Eddie calls out rhythms for him to try, and Steve does his best to parrot them. His hands are still shaking, but the stutter they make on the drums sounds cool.
It sounds unique. It sounds good.
He definitely isn't holding the sticks right. It doesn't matter.
When he feels brave, he tries out a solo. He just goes, not caring about the rhythms at all, just doing what feels good. It’s loud and he can't think, he just goes and goes and goes until his head is just sticks and cymbals.
When he's done, he's panting for breath, and Eddie is smiling at him like he hung the moon and stars.
"I think you need your own set, Stevie," he says.
Steve thinks so, too.
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it was honestly a little hard writing post-s4 max and not make it the most fucked up depressing thing, not get lost in the trauma and absolute grief she has to work through. to write a story that doesn’t lean into her sheer desperation to stay alive and the heaviness that comes with having the most basest of survival instincts triggered with such helplessness. it was a little hard taking that beautiful wonderful amazing artwork that shines with banter and joy and hope, and not absolutely ruin it with a rightful exploration of angst. so i’m really grateful that y’all see this fic not as me glossing over max’s trauma in favour of silly banter, i’m grateful that y’all see the heartbreak in all those lines and still watch as the hope shines through. a hope that is tentative, a hope that is laced with guilt for feeling hope in the first place. it’s not mere acceptance of this new post-traumatic state of being, and it’s not a crippling display of absolute fucking trauma and angst.
idk i’m just grateful that y’all see this fic for what it wants to be 🤍
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