#antisematism

just because someone is a part of a minority does NOT mean they owe it to be active in activism. they dont have to know every bill to pass through congress and every major youtuber whose speaking out against their minority. they dont have to read the news every day and fact check everything and have strong opinions. this doesnt just apply to teenagers but adults, too. no one owes anyone activism.

if someone wants to focus on the positive, they are not failing a comunity and they are not the reason that people are able to get away with hate crimes.

yes, we owe it to some degree to try to protect and be educated about minority struggles,but too many people worry that theyre not good enough or enough of an activist becasue they dont want to do the reserch or work. it is a huge factor in minority stress!

if someone doesnt like or reblog or post something about antiracism or transphobia or gay rights or jewish rights or ableism doesnt mean they dont care or that theyre a bad person.

At this point, I'll do my best to cut him out of my musical and mental space, but what I also want to do is know how best to help the people he and others have been attacking in a way that's meaningful. What is your personal take on this issue, and how should we best move forward from it?

You need not answer if you don't feel comfortable doing so. Just know I'm thinking of you today and I wish you peace and protection. Thanks for your attention! 💚🐢💚

I can call out Iran's human rights violations without being islamaphobic, in the same way I can call out Israel's war crimes without being antisemetic.

The Israeli government has irrevocably tied any criticism to antisematism even when it really really isn't. And all it does is weaken actual calls of antisemitism when people are being bigots. It's given bigots one hell of a foothold for talking shit, because Netanyahu agrees - talking about Israel is antisemetic! So if that antisematism is correct, then maybe other antisemetic nonsense is too!

Which is bullshit. Bigotry is always nonsense.

So the wave of antisematism online is growing and the Israeli government keeps telling its supporters "see? They never liked the Jews, this was always a problem, you need Israel to be a safe haven from them".

And it's 100% cult tactics. It's like those American churches who make harmful claims and then claim that criticising them is anti-christian, which fuels even more backlash and then use that to tell their followers that the outside world is scary and only the church loves you. I hope I'm articulating this right, it just feels so insidious.

oh, where to even BEGIN with this shit omg

i also used to be an avid fan of his when i was in middle school years ago but had grown out of him by the time that all of this started. now, the chronology of all of this is a little foggy because this has been going on for a good few years. You heard me: YEARS, and its still happening.

Now, i think the first incident that really started to reveal his antisemitic views was when he payed these two men, men who don’t understand english well if at all, to hold up a sign that said “Death to all Jews”. These were poor men trying to make a living making signs, usually saying things like “I love you!” or “Happy Birthday (Name here)” Innocent shit. Then he goes and pays these guys to write heinous shit. They have no idea what they’re writing and he took advantage of that fact. From what i understand, these guys lost their ability to make money this was because no one will hire them.

Ok. Fine. Maybe its a one-off, extremely tasteless “joke” He apologized and he wont do it again right? Wrong.

Next, during a “heated gamer moment” he flings out the n-word. Maybe its just me, but i dont think a white guys should so easily and without hesitation, use that slur. Call me controversial or whatever, but its not ok. He had claimed that he jsut wasn’t used to streaming and not being able to edit out anything he may say. Implaying he says this often? And just edits out the incriminating bits. Hm.

In my short bought of googling to make sure i have all my details correct, ive also found that he joked about Demi Lovato’s struggle with drugs and also repeatedly harassed a female twitch streamer over her choice in clothing and called her anti-woman slurs. Hm! Interesting.

After this, theres the oh so wonderful Battle with T-series. “Subscribe to Pewdiepie” Ring a bell? Yeah, thats the phrase that the New Zealand shooter said before killing 50. Goddamn. People. Now, he did tweet his disgust about this, but thats about it. Remember how whenever school shootings happen, all the gun-nuts go “my thoughts and prayers to the victims” while polishing their very own collection of firearms. This man is in no way short of money. How about donating? How about becoming extemely vocal against the alt-right, denouncing them and their support? Oh yeah, its because hes a fucking racist. 

Supporting neo-nazis on youtube, following several facists on twitter, being a fan of Ben Shapiro, a normal fucking person doesn’t do this SHIT. If he really wanted to prove he’s not a racist, he would actively be against it.

He isn’t just an average person, this man is an INFLUENCE with literal millions of people at his disposal. What he does matters on a cosmic scale. His “jokes” and support of alt-right beliefs, intentionally or unintentionally is directly influencing his fanbase of mostly children. Kids dont know better, they just wanna be like their idol. He needs to be aware of his influence and change his goddamn behavior or be ostracized as the nazi-sympathizer he is

Has Pres. Obama *ever* named a single Palestinian killed by Israeli occupation forces? http://ift.tt/1mD1rMg (via @WhiteHouse)

— Ben White (@benabyad) June 30, 2014

This tweet was retweeted into my timeline. I took offence but didn’t engage with the author or the retweeter because no mind was ever changed on Twitter. What once was a service to tell people what you were having lunch has become a service to further confirmation bias and justify outrage.

I took offence because three teenage boys were kidnapped and murdered and I don’t believe an expression of sympathy should ever be used for political points.

I took offence because there is, deep within this tweet (so deep that the author could easily argue plausible deniability), a sense of antisemitism. There is the suggestion that Israel gets different treatment not because of its strategic position as a diplomatic ally in a troubled region or because of the scientific and technological advances it has given the world, but because it is controlled by Jews.

I live in a secular world where I continue to face the argument that criticising Israel or declaring oneself to be “anti-zionist” is not the same as being an anti-semite. Semantically this argument is correct. People should have the right to disagree with the zionist philosophy and they should have the right to question the actions of any government. I wish the world were as straight-forward as that.

I feel no affinity to Israel as a country. I have family there and they are lovely people. Many people I grew up with moved there. I visited Israel when I was 15 years old and, while I understood its importance in my heritage, I didn’t love it in the way that I love Melbourne or New York.

Yet when I see a tweet like the one above, I am offended because it brings with it a hatred of Jews that smells vaguely of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a text that breeds hatred of Jews through the false argument that as a people we control governments, media, banks, etcetera.

As simple evidence we only need to see the replies that the tweet received:

@benabyad @WhiteHouse definitely not, he wouldn't want to bite the hand that controls him.

— Adrian Cassidy (@butcharoo81) June 30, 2014

@benabyad @WhiteHouse its no secret Jews select USA presidents.. Obama the puppet

— Ivan IslamicState (@IvanBeers) June 30, 2014

There are more.

The ease with which we can broadcast our opinion or rebroadcast someone else’s has removed the time required to think about what we are actually saying and the impact that may have.

What happened to three teenagers in Israel is a tragedy for their families, their friends and the people in the area who may discover acts of terrorism around the corner. Our society differentiates between terrorist and military acts. The USA’s society does too. There are also laws around what governments can and cannot do within the bounds of military acts and there is protocol on how other countries’ governments should react when one country’s military acts outside of those laws.

It is very rare for USA’s President Obama to name other nations’ dead civilians in any situation, but he has expressed condolences to Palestinian people after actions by the Israeli military:

We also express our deepest condolences for the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza yesterday. We stress the importance of calm and urge all parties to do everything in their power to prevent further violence and civilian casualties.

From the Office of the Press Secretary of the White House

The teenagers found murdered in Israel also held American citizenship, so it’s possible he saw a cultural difference there.

But it doesn’t matter. This blog post isn’t going to change anyone’s mind. The way people think about death, politics and discourse has not changed for hundreds of years. We keep hoping for a better future but do humans actually have the capacity to make it happen? Probably not as long as we keep avoiding debate by hiding behind a 140 character limit.