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Added 2024-04-30 21:00:26 +0000 UTC
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THE AUTOMATIC THUMBS UP POPUP GRINDS MY GEARS WHEN IM DOING ZOOM THERAPY APTS WITH CLIENTS I DID NOT CONSENT TO THAT FEATURE AND I CANNOT TURN IT OFF GAHHH
CSJ
2024-04-30 23:18:02 +0000 UTCI’m just watching now and you vaping makes me feel normal as someone who vapes - thank for fr
CSJ
2024-04-30 22:54:43 +0000 UTCSorry to drop this here; just wrote some stuff bout that little video you made yesterday and wanted to share my two cents. I was reading this article yesterday I was trying as hard as I could to love my neighbor Jon McWhorter, who's writing on linguistics I really like, but I just couldn't and I thought I'd try and tell you why. A couple paragraphs stuck with me, ones that I found really inscrutable, poorly argued/written, and actively harmful when it came down to it. before the quote I wanna mention he's expressing the views of the protesters over the course of "Decades" and he sums all their thought up (something that is obviously impossible and probably more harmful than he realises) as fighting "against Power structures—here in the form of what they call Colonialism and Genocide—and against whiteness." This, he supposes, is why the Pro-Palestine protesters think that their Jewish friends "should be able to tolerate all of this because they are white." This makes literally no sense. He has somehow made straw men of both sides. The Jewish people in the Columbia community are not a monolith, but even if we assume that all of them are pro-israel zionists that does not mean that they are all equally benefitted by the white supremacist tendencies of our systems of global power. Some of the jews at Columbia are more privileged than others, some are darker than others, some have trust funds invested in the S&P 500, some work pay check to pay check while on financial aid, and others still profit directly from their parents investment in the american weapons manufacturers who benefit from the instability in the Middle East; it is not "because they are white" (which is also a lie. Says a brown Jew ) but because of their intersectional and complicated roles within the white supremacist, colonialist system that we are all involved in that impacts their ability to "tolerate" it. The Jews at Pro-Palestine Seders this Passover, have been posting about the ways in which colonialism and white supremacy harm us all, but importantly, they constantly turn the camera away from themselves (the people in the ivory tower, who are, intentionally or not, served by the colonial, white supremacist, patriarchal hierarchy, and who are authorized by their standing in the upper echelons of it) and remind us constantly to look at Gaza, where those who are harmed by that very same system (on both sides, but not proportionally) are murdered. In the videos of the arrests at columbia, I keep thinking about them screaming "open your eyes" and "look at Gaza" because even in the very purest spectacle of american protest they try desperately to cede the stage toward their goal. The fight against colonial practices, and against the white supremacist undergirdings of the world order, is not something the protesters are using against the imaginary monolithic Jewish community at Columbia, but for the real diverse and heterogenous community of Jews across the world. This is because the Jew has always been that which the white supremacist mythologizes in opposition to (youtu.be/KAFbpWVO-ow?si=lLIIsTqB7iiMVX0J). Liberation from (and fighting against) colonial, white supremacist epistemologies is not a guise, justification, or excuse for protesting against "jews at columbia," it is rather the defining goal towards which the whole institution (and all like it) must lean if it seeks to support and fight for all of its students; this is why the deconstruction of these epistemologies is what radical academics (across literally every department) are doing; and it is also why anti-zionist Jewish students believe that mobilizing against Israeli military power is a means towards securing a less antisemitic future; it's also why affirmative action exists; why we are theorizing critical race theory, as well as critical queer theory; and why disability studies exists, why we have the ADA; or even the Civil Rights Act; and for that matter the 19th amendment (and, as we shall come back to all of the above, were the result of loud bothersome protest). McWhorter apparently gets this though... although I'm not sure he does. He says: "I understand this to a point. Pro-Palestinian rallies and events, of which there have been many here over the years, are not in and of themselves hostile to Jewish students, faculty and staff members. Disagreement will not always be a juice and cookies affair. However, the relentless assault of this current protest — daily, loud, louder, into the night and using ever-angrier rhetoric — is beyond what any people should be expected to bear up under, regardless of their whiteness, privilege or power." He understands that what is happening in Gaza right now is a complicated issue wherein one cannot separate Israeli geo-political power from the colonialist, white supremacist, and antisemetic conditions within which it was formed. But he understands this only "to a point" because... well he doesn't give an answer. This is my primary gripe with this article, because instead of saying why, he just pivots to "jewish students, faculty and staff members" who are supposed as the opposition to Pro-Palestinian movements (A lie which silences the history of Jewish anti-zionist activism all over the world but especially at NYC and at Columbia) so that instead of explaining why he has decided to draw the line on his opposition to white supremacy and colonialist hegemony where he has, he can just say for who he has done so. In this way he can allude to complexity but not push on it; he can claim to see, and to "understand" but isn't required to stand up for that understanding, putatively because of his allegiance to an imaginary monolithic jewish population. Essentially he argues that there is a value judgement that needs to be made; there is, for him, a point at which a protest goes from tasteful and necessary to bothersome and not-worth-it. While he might argue his fierce morality and grasp on American socio-linguistic systems make him especially qualified to judge when and where a protest is warranted; I think that it is his position, qualified, certified, authorised by The NYT, Columbia University, and (through it's recent cahooting w/ the university) the NYPD which gives him the feeling that it is his right to decide what protests are valid and which ones aren't. His final claim that: "changes in moral history and technology can hardly be expected to comfort Jewish students in the here and now. What began as intelligent protest has become, in its uncompromising fury and its ceaselessness, a form of abuse." is not an acceptable argument to me; he launches a limp critique, barely condemning the pro-palestine movement and bringing nothing new to the table to make that critique, doesn't fairly treat the diversity of Jewish thought, doesn't object to (or even mention) the Police violence of shutting down protest, the threat of the national guard, the NYPD, the fact of arrest, the incarceration, the suspension, and thus the eviction from dorms, cancelling of food plans, and university healthcare plans, nor does he think it worth it to mention academic freedom but merely decides to condemn protest itself for being loud and distracting (which is literally the very essence of protest in the first place). The uncompromising fury, the drumbeats, the violence, the ceaselessness are tactical escalations due to the university's willingness to silence this protest by any means necessary. The worst part of this rhetoric is that all it does is work to replicate the status quo; he's not asking for anything new to happen, doesn't have a plan, doesn't want to look at Gaza and the human rights abuses that are taking place there, nor does he mention even the inkling of a reasonable path toward a solution, he just needs us to know that he doesn't like the vibes of students yelling in the courtyard, because it makes some of his other students (those who are ok with the white supremacist colonialist status quo) uncomfortable. The repetition of this rhetoric, as well as touting "jewish students" as the reason for that reiteration is, in my opinion, the true anti-semitism that is on the rise. It’s the type of argument that might lead one to think “if it’s not me that takes the blame, why should I care what the consequences are” this is because the destruction Israel is perpetrating will not be avenged on Israeli leaders like Netanyahu and his wealthy alt-right cronies, but on Jews the world over. The reason there are these awful leaders in israel is because of geo-political insecurity guaranteed by British French and American colonial influence and interest in oil. Follow the money. The state of perpetual war in the middle east is due to colonial investment, and in whose financial interests may devastating a nation for a geo-political foothold lie? American weapons have perpetuated this scourge on humanity and one can look at the origins of modern Zionism to see it, or you can see it in the adoption of the promising trumpian philosophy of just giving a bunch of guns to israel right before they commit war crimes and then telling them to finish what they started. The kind of Zionism we’re working with now is putting all Jews, a storied and heterogeneous and persevering people who live at all levels of diaspora into the gravest possible danger. Why, because Britain and the US kinda wanted the Jews gone anyway. Anti-Semitic policy cannot be built upon it must be fought against, and that fight is just one part of the one fight. The violence Israel is now perpetrating plays into the hands of the most elite of the elite, jew or gentile, and the abolition of that violence benefits everyone else. It is thus that complicity with this violence does not make a neighbour whom I can love, but an obstacle in the collective fight for liberation. My neighbours are all those who fight against systematic oppression at all levels of society and government; and further, we share the same elite enemies who profit off of the instability which that oppression survives on. As it becomes harder and harder to deny that everyone on both sides is mad about the extractive colonialist economic system which dominates the globe today and is entirely unsustainable and only works for the very 1% of the 1%; and it will be because of grassroots organisation and radical deconstruction that there are alternative forms of knowing and being which actively fight, right now they are fighting, the hegemonic epistemologies shoved in our faces by the institutions with the most power. Obviously it’s uncomfortable and trying to be a Jew right now; and that is because there is only one narrative of support for jews which one is legally allowed to have in the eyes of president shafik; and the NYPD (and the US Government). But even from a place of discomfort we are not entitled to believe that silencing protest with police violence will beget anything but further violence. Personally, I wouldn’t fear so much for my safety as a jew if I wasn’t being threatened with suspension, arrest, or the national guard simply for expressing my desire for my institution to divest from Israel’s military industrial complex. So, eyes on Gaza...there is a reason the ones who are being put in zip ties for 7 hours and held in the dark, are the ones who are chanting "look." Pre Post Script: If you haven't seen, because it hasn't been prominent in the NYT: this week mass graves were discovered at both Nasser Hospital and al-Shifa Hospital, the two largest of Gaza's medical facilities which the IDF had held under siege until april 1. On tuesday the senate approved 14 billion in military funding for Israel. I am trying to not be distracted from the real atrocities, and the truly permanent harm, on top of that I'm trying to follow the money. . 🍉 Adam Pepper-Macias P.S. my computer has been doing this really weird thing where it auto-corrects me to british spelling so if you see any S's where there should be Z's or any rampant and useless U's please disregard them; if there is anything Mr.McWhorter and I can agree on it is that this is the last place where enforcing antiquated english orthography matters.
Aurelia
2024-04-30 22:38:04 +0000 UTCwere here
winkwonknation
2024-04-30 22:25:47 +0000 UTCYou still running everyday
Martin Furubu
2024-04-30 22:24:04 +0000 UTCtoot
winkwonknation
2024-04-30 22:23:43 +0000 UTCcan I have a yoot
winkwonknation
2024-04-30 22:23:39 +0000 UTCare U smoking weed
winkwonknation
2024-04-30 22:23:36 +0000 UTChi big Joel hi Henry
winkwonknation
2024-04-30 22:23:23 +0000 UTC
