Hello!

The Tzedakah box of my childhood home still lives on a shelf, perpetually filling with coins. I remember many from my time growing up: ironic piggy bank ones, ones made of ornate filigree, those made of classic tin, ones created by community members to raise money for insulin — Tzedakah is a mainstay of Jewish life because we recognize that Tzedakah is life affirming work.

People often ask, what’s the difference between Tzedakah and charity? Charity is a choice; one often made out of pity. Tzedakah is a moral imperative. An easily recognizable definition of a Mitzvah: it is both a commandment and a good deed.

Taking care of one another is required of us.

If you want to the TV show the Good Place, you might have seen Jewish philosophy spoken to you when Chidi gave his speech, “What do we owe to each other?” His work is based on that of TM Scanlon, an ethical philosopher who has a book by the same question. Fictional Chidi comes to the conclusion, “to put it simply: we are not in this alone.”

Tzedakah is physical manifestation of the idea that we owe to each other care, love, and humanity. While this post focuses on monetary aspects, they also aspects like hiring another person, teaching, training, entering into partnerships.

It is our duty to care for one another and expect nothing in return, for it is our duty.

As such, you can go to link in my bio to find literal life saving opportunities. We are so close to reaching the goals of these 3 families.

Blackwashing and Whitewashing.. aren't the same thing. The latter is racism and has so much history with the oppression of people of color.

LINKS & RESOURCES:

Free Ebooks for a Free Palestine!

Verso Books: Solidarity with Palestine: Free Resources and Further Reading

Free Palestine! A Reading List

Books for a Free Palestine

Google Drive of Palestinian Poetry made by @firstfullmoon

Palestinian poems series by @fiercynn

40 books to understand Palestine

FICTION:

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

Salt Houses by Hala Alyan

Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh

The Things We See in the Light by Amal Awad

A Woman Is No Man by Etaf Rum

Secrets Under the Olive Tree by Nevien Shaabneh

Trees for the Absentees by Ahlam Bsharat

The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah

Mother Country by Etaf Rum

The Sea Cloak and other stories by Nayrouz Qarmout

The Parisian by Isabella Hammad

My First and Only Love by Sahar Khalifeh

Velvet by Huzama Habayeb

Haifa Fragments by Khulud Khamis

NON - FICTION:

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi

On Palestine By Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappe and Frank Barat

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe

Ten Myths About Israel by Ilan Pappe

Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire by Jehad Abusalim (Editor), Jennifer Bing (Editor), Mike Merryman-Lotze (Editor)

Except for Palestine The Limits of Progressive Politics by Marc Lamont Hill, Mitchell Plitnick

Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians by Noam Chomsky

Where the Line Is Drawn by Raja Shehadeh

Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza by Mosab Abu Toha

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights by Omar Barghouti

Palestine: A Socialist Introduction [edited] by Sumaya Awad and Brian Bean

From the River to the Sea [edited] by Sai Englert, Michal Schatz and Rosie Warren

Palestine Speaks [edited] by Mateo Hoke and Cate Malek

The Punishment of Gaza by Gideon Levy

The Question of Palestine by Edward W. Said

I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti

Shell Houses by Rasha Abdulhadi

Born Palestinian, Born Black by Suheir Hammad

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood by Ibtisam Barakat

Orientalism by Edward W. Said

Gaza Writes Back by Refaat Alareer

Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd

Ever Since I Did Not Die by Ramy Al-Asheq

As a resident black person, people seem unable to describe our features without being dated, intentionally/unintentionally disrespectful, or just comparing us to food lol

So, here's a list of things if you wanna describe black features without diving into food or outdated terms.

Some of these are just what I use, so if you don't like them that's okay! These are just some that make me happy when I hear them.

For hair like this

I usually describe it as fluffy, cloud-like, and puffy.

Personally, big or poofy never made me feel the best, but I guess it depends on the context. You tell me.

To describe it's shape or form, I say framed or surrounded his/her/their face. I think of it like a flower almost.

For skin, I'm light skinned (fair or whatever you wanna call it) and I usually just say tan because I don't think my skin tone is much different than a white person.

But for darker skin tones, I love describing darker skin tones with the sunset because look at this

It's gorgeous and I love seeing how the sunset outlines darker skintones 😄

Usually I describe it by saying their skin absorbed the light/sunset

Skin with an orange glow

Skin soft like the night

Shimmering skin (I know, I know, get your Twilight jokes out already)

Another thing that doesn't have to do with writing per say, but has to do with something I'm seeing a lot on the internet and that's a lack of diversity with black hairstyles, skin tones, and designs.

I'm a learning artist, so I can't do exactly what I want to, but here's my attempts at drawing something I think is realistic to afrostyles ^-^

There was probably more I wanted to say, but my brain is melting as always. Hopefully, this helped you a bit though. Feel free to share any ways you all describe black characters. I'm always wanting to learn more ways since I don't like using the same things over and over.

“Tour Guides”

First and foremost I would like to specify there will be mistakes in this rant as English is my third language and I am also Romani so obviously this gives me grounds to speak on this matter

Onto the rant I will start this by saying no matter how the Romani person appears - Roma are not white no matter how white passing a Romani person may look. Romani is also not specifically a race it is an ethnic group which depending on the subgroup can vary but most Roma simply consider ourself brown or will forego that and just state that they’re Romani

In this fandom there are a lot of misguided beliefs that dick Grayson is drawn “wrong” or that he is “white washed” in comics or fan arts which has resulted in harassment to people who haven’t done anything wrong

Roma don’t have a “look” there are millions of Roma world wide who look vastly different - there will never be a specific wrong way to draw dick Grayson because there is no right way to look Romani.

There are blond haired blue eyes entirely Roma just as there are dark skinned textured hair Roma

This leads me to: why do Romani people have such varying looks?

Romani people come from India and left India roughly 1,000 years ago and then settled all over the world but most of which went to Europe - where you will find the most variant subgroups of Roma.

European Roma faced slavery and attempts of ethnic cleansing for almost 5 centuries in which women were raped and Roma were killed - then almost 100 years later the holocaust happened which was the largest on scale genocide and ethnic cleansing of Roma there was.

This caused overtime majority of Western and northern European Roma to become paler and more white passing while today Roma from Far Eastern and southern Europe usually tend to be darker skinned

During American slavery it wasn’t just Africans who were taken forcefully to America but also Roma who had settled in Africa - along with Europe sending European settled Roma to America for the same purpose.

In the modern day Romani descendants of that are darker skinned as opposed to European Roma being lighter skinned

Of course - tragedies don’t dictate how Roma will look in the modern day, you can imagine when your ethnic group and your community has stayed in one place for hundreds of years you will at least start to look a little of like the people of the place you are.

Roma don’t throw people out of their community for not looking “Romani enough” white passing Roma are considered light skinned Roma and darker skinned Roma are considered dark skinned Roma - we are all Romani and we all belong to our Romani communities.

Claiming a Romani character or person doesn’t look right or is white blatantly ignores the tragedies Roma faced which caused communities of Roma to look the way they do - there is no such thing as not looking right as Roma and the level of how Romani you are is not dictated by the colour of your skin.

And while we never know what subgroup of Roma dick Grayson it is safe to assume he is romanichal (subgroup of Roma from the uk and other English speaking countries) of course until dc ever specifies otherwise.

His subgroup isn’t important but it could shed light on the struggles his community faced in the current and in the past.

Dick Grayson’s Romani identity isn’t decided by his skin it is decided by who he is and who he is is Rrom.

I could go into more intricate detail of Romani culture which is seemingly always butchered in fandom (especially in relation to language) but I will save that for another post

I've mentioned before how deeply traumatic that word is for many of us. It carries a stigma that exists just as strongly as it did when we were featured in circus freakshows (which I've seen billboards for in my lifetime), because that's where people know us from and there hasn't been a movement to change that. We're still portrayed in media as freaks and villains, using our appearance to shock you. You're supposed to see us as evil, abusive, manipulative, and never worthy of redemption, because they don't expect for you to see those characters as human. If you can't think of any examples, check out the TV tropes article for Albinos are freaks.

I've experienced endless bullying and harassment, adults calling me disgusting and a freak, physical violence, and had my sunglasses and hat taken on multiple occasions (both are necessary for me to be able to see outside, essentially blinding me and leaving me downtown somewhere). I've been discriminated against so many times I can no longer remember each detail. This is what albino means to me: being subhuman.

I will never see albino as a positive word, even when people mean well. Getting people to care about us is like pulling teeth; I'm not saying this is a slur and you're a bad person if you ever say it. I'm asking for some common respect, and for you to learn about us before you talk about us and make your OCs based on more than just looks.

There's a lot more I could cover but ultimately I'd really like the word albino to fade out of our lexicon. I don't really care what you call animals, although albinistic is the scientific term.