The Fiction Treehouse

People killed: around three quarters of a million.

I have never seen another allergy that has been so viscerally hated and mocked by people working in education like nut allergies. I’ve seen fellow teachers cringe that their classroom was the “nut free” classroom that year. Support staff that are trained and willfully don’t follow cross contamination protocol in the lunchroom because it’s too “tedious” or “time-consuming”. Full preschools + childcare centers that refuse to accommodate nut allergies. Schools where the only free lunch is a PB&J. Before/after school programs and summer programs whose food curriculum has nuts and doesn’t provide an alternative activity.

Allergy discrimination is so so insidious and prevalent. It’s happening behind their back and it is everything from the exposure joke to possibly causing someone to go into anaphylaxis from willful ignorance.

I was not downplaying this. The stigma is real, and people are 100% willing to let people with allergies die.

When my mom tried to enroll me in preschool, the school principal refused any basic accommodations like asking everyone to wash their hands after lunch before re-entering the classroom, not bringing straight up peanuts to snack time, etc. There was no such thing as a nut free classroom at the time. The principal told my mom and me (I was 4 at the time and definitely in the room when this happened) “if she’s so sick, she belongs in a bubble, not at school.” THE FUCKING PRINCIPAL! My mom had to threaten legal action under the ADA to get them to comply.

Look, I was on a 504 accommodation plan under the ADA for the entirety of my formative education (elementary thru high school). That’s all 12 years!!! And yet I have had teachers hand me items I’m allergic to as a “reward”. I have had other kids intentionally try to send me into anaphylaxis. One girl in 3rd grade asked me why I “wasn’t dead yet” when she had put on a lotion with almonds in it and then held my hand. I’ve had other parents write letters to the school saying what a terrible inconvenience it was to them to not be able to send their kiddo to school with PB&J, demanding I be Removed to a special education only class if my “needs” were such a “burden” to others. During elementary school “parties” held in the classroom on holidays and for student birthdays, I was always sent to sit out in the hallway or go to the library, because even though parents were only supposed to bring safe foods into the room (they had a list of all my allergies) they never once got it right. Administrators fought me tooth and nail for the right to carry my epi pen and other meds on my person at all times. Why they thought I would start dealing benadryl on the playground, I do not know. At lunch, I was always sat at a specific segregated table labeled the “Nut Free Table” alone because who the fuck is going to sit there with the literally segregated outcast? But ONCE notably I was sat on one side of a line of blue masking tape down the table top with the rest of my class on the other. One side was the NUTS side!!! As if allergens would respect that tape barrier. (Spoiler alert: they do NOT!)

Literally from preschool to my senior year of high school, I was “the peanut kid”. Other parents gave my mom books about how to “cure your child’s food allergies from HOME” by micro dosing with things they are allergic to (please never ever ever even attempt anything like a food challenge with a known allergen outside of the care and supervision of a medical professional, holy shit that’s so dangerous). My mom joined the PTA in my last year of high school so that I could maybe participate in all the senior-focused events like pool parties and breakfast at school on the first Friday of the month. The number of times another parent either (a) decided it wasn’t worth it to care or (b) intentionally brought peanut products to an event to spite either me or my mom??? I literally could not count. It happened constantly.

College was better, but I still occasionally had people BALK when I asked them to please not eat a Nature Valley bar with whole nuts in it right the fuck next to me in lecture, thanks. Work parties and catered lunches were always impossible. A few conferences I went to as an undergrad were SUPPOSED to be nut-free, but always fucked up the catering. At one, they set up snack tables by every exit of the conference auditorium so that when people left after the talk, they all congregated around the exits and opened macadamia nut cookies and granola bars. When I had subsequently had a massive allergic reaction and needed help getting home (I’d walked) after taking like 200mg of benadryl, the staff offered me a stack of napkins and a lukewarm apology.

Food allergy is a disability which touches literally every aspect of a person’s life. Everytime I share with someone new about what it was like growing up with my allergies, they have never heard anything like it in their lives. They’re always like “holy shit, seriously??? People did that??? Kids tried to kill you??? Parents wanted you kicked out of the classroom????” Yeah, man. Yeah. My own brother (who doesn’t have any allergies at all) doesn’t understand why I don’t “eat more adventurously” and why I won’t travel internationally. So, saying it REALLY LOUDLY for people in the back:

…

actually typing out emoticons like XD and :D and :V never should have gone out of fashion and you can pry them out of my cold dead hands okay I know emojis are fun but THEY DON’T CAPTURE THE EMOTION IN THE SAME WAY

so like

:P

^_^

:3

^u^

:/

O.o

0.0

>:/

>_>

Especially alternating to really capture how boggled you are.

O.o

o.O

:3c

>:3c

OF7o

òwó

ú_ù

n_n

owo

oTL

TTwTT

83

8U

>8U

>8Oc

>////<

>////>

(-^_^-)

( 6w6;;;)

( > ^ <;;)

=(^w^)=

\o/

✧⁠◝⁠(⁠⁰⁠▿⁠⁰⁠)⁠◜⁠✧

(⁠ ⁠˘⁠ ⁠³⁠˘⁠)⁠♥

(⁠ ⁠T⁠_⁠T⁠)⁠＼⁠(⁠^⁠-⁠^⁠ ⁠)

ʕ⁠ ⁠º⁠ ⁠ᴥ⁠ ⁠º⁠ʔ

〜⁠(⁠꒪⁠꒳⁠꒪⁠)⁠〜

ʕ⁠ノ⁠•⁠ᴥ⁠•⁠ʔ⁠ノ⁠ ⁠︵⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ

with just a quick little tap

you can pry good old fashioned emoticons from my cold, dead hands

(and even then it’s gonna be a struggle)

This policy isn't compatible with death threats. Period. And let's be clear here:

This is still permitting death threats. The exclusive focus on "twink" speaks volumes, and is very deliberate.

I feel obligated to point out here that (as far as I know) Noah Schnapp's record of Evil Zionism consists of three major events:

Getting publicly upset over the worst violence inflicted on Jews since the Holocaust

Being caught off-guard by a pro-Israel couple who snapped a picture with him before he could react

Releasing a statement calling for the cessation of hostilities and opposing the slaughter of innocent people

None of this exactly screams "bloodthirsty extremist jerking off to the mass slaughter of Palestinians" to me? Like, I get it if you disagree with him politically, that's your prerogative, but calling for his death?? For THIS???? Kind of an overreaction, no?

The implication of @mostbelovedqueer's decision here is that it's okay to spew death threats and hate so long as you staple "Zionist" to the target's name. Um???? As OP pointed out, that is one hell of a choice to make.

And once more, I feel obligated to point something out: antisemites will sometimes use the term "Zionist" as a dog whistle for "Jews." This tradition goes back decades, it's why David Duke coined the word "Zio" in the 90s. YES, there are many, many legitimate criticisms to make of Zionism as a movement, or the Israeli government, or both. That does not stop bad faith actors from using the word maliciously; if anything, it gives them better cover. Because "Zionist" can be abused in this way, it is in EVERYONE'S interest to keep an eye out for its misuse, so we can weed out aforementioned bad faith actors from honest discussion. Let's take another look at the word's usage here, shall we?

I don't see any conversation about, say, the ideological tenets of Zionism, actions taken in the name of Zionism, arguments made by Zionists, or anything else along those lines. What I do see is a person calling for the murder of a young Jewish actor who has made a few middle-of-the-road statements on the topic. Gotta say, that does NOT strike me as someone trying to discuss the flaws of Zionism. It strikes me as, well, someone thirsting for the death of a young Jewish actor. I'll leave it to you to decide what that says about @smugblueenby69. But I will point out that @mostbelovedqueer is apparently okay with that statement.

The complaints about antisemitism did not begin & end with them only calling out one part of a post. The issue is 1) calling out someone for calling someone a twink while ignoring the death threat (objectively a worse thing) in the same post, and 2) making a follow-up post talking about having "an understandable problem with the actor" (for the "crime" of having been deemed a zionist by people on the internet) and still not addressing the death threat. (This list could probably be longer, but this is the crux of my issue.)

"why do you think you are special specifically?"

Words mean jackshit if they aren’t backed by action.

If someone makes a death threat in a space you are moderating, you are responsible for making it clear that death threats are not acceptable. You do this by punishing them explicitly for making a death threat.

This did not happen in the above case. @smugblueenby69 was reprimanded solely for using the word twink in a derogatory manner. The death threat they made, much less the antisemitic tone of their statement, was ignored (please see my earlier post for why this statement should be considered antisemitic, not anti-Zionist). To the contrary, @mostbelovedqueer stated in a follow-up post that the accusation of Zionism was a justifiable reason for hating Noah Schnapp, a Jewish actor. The truthfulness of this accusation. Again, I must point out that Schnapp’s Zionist offenses appear to be making a few middle-of-the-road statements about the conflict (no, I am not including getting ambushed by a couple of propagandists, and neither should you), something many other celebrities have done. Why, then, does only the Jewish actor deserve hatred?

People commonly defend this practise with "But the audience isn't meant to understand!" or "It's inconsequential!", neither of which actually address a) their assumption that the [ideal Anglo] audience wouldn't understand, or, perhaps most crucially in the context of CCs, b) that this is a failure of accessibility. A hearing person who speaks that "foreign" language will know exactly what's being said. A deaf or HoH person – the people CCs are primarily intended for – who speaks or reads that language should therefore have the exact same opportunity to understand. It very much feels to me like an assumption that we deaf and HoH people couldn't possibly understand any language but English, so there's no point in getting those languages transcribed for us. I hope it goes without saying how profoundly audist that sentiment is.

There is also, I think, a profound misunderstanding or ignorance of Deaf culture at play. Which is to say, CCs in English-language media are written with not only the assumption that the audience will be native English speakers, but that all d/Deaf and HoH people speak English as their first language, so all other languages are as supposedly foreign to them as they are for hearing people. But sign languages are their own distinct language. BSL, ASL, ISL, AusLan, NZSL etc ≠ English (and are indeed different from one another), LIS ≠ Italian, JSL ≠ Japanese, and so on. So, if you follow the captioners' logic to its natural extreme, all non-signed dialogue is "foreign" to many d/Deaf and HoH people and should therefore be labelled [speaks foreign language] / [speaks English] / [speaks own language] / etc. – which is, obviously, a terrible idea that perfectly highlights all the biases implicit in closed captioning.