I was reading this article this morning, about Disney cutting ties with PewDiePie, a YouTube star (I’ve never heard of him?) who had included antisemitic content in his videos. This guy has continually claimed that all the antisemitic content he’s produced (which includes statements such as ‘death to all Jews’ and ‘Hitler did absolutely nothing wrong’) is a joke, and that people who are offended simply don’t understand the context, suggesting that it’s ‘laughable’ that he might agree with these viewpoints. So far so unsurprising: we’ve heard all this before.
But at the bottom of the article it points out the response to these videos by the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website, which now describes itself as ‘the number 1 PewDiePie fansite’. The Daily Stormer stated: “He could be doing all this only to cause a stir things up and get free publicity […] Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, since the effect is the same; it normalizes Nazism, and marginalizes our enemies.”
The point is this: if you are making racist or antisemitic jokes, it doesn’t matter if you were only joking, or messing around, or that you would never subscribe to those views; the effect is the same. Regardless of whether you agree with what you are saying, you are emboldening, normalising and legitimising Nazis. You are permitting fascism to take root in our society. Jokes matter. This is where extreme views creep in, take hold and are normalised. Think about what you’re saying: words have power. Stop normalising Nazis.
Some ace kid was like “It’s been so hard for us aces on Tumblr this year I’m so proud of your bravery <3” and apparently that’s their definition of having it rough. Our definition of having it rough? Pulse massacre. Anti trans laws. North Carolina cancelling city discrimination ordinances. Murders of trans women. Avid homophobe and transphobe running as Vice President. All in 2016.
Western popular concepts of Jews that people here take as the extent of our tribe:
The reality:
Boys from the Jewish population of Yemen, which has been around for 2500 hundred years but has been slowly massacred over the past few generations.
The Lemba of South Africa and Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe in particular has a large and VERY long history with their Jewish Community)
The Abayudaya of Uganda, some of the great Jewish musicians
The Beta Israeli of Ethiopia
Igbo Jews of Nigeria
Cochin Jews of India
Baghdadi Jews
Kaifeng Jews of China, who go back to the 7th or 8th century. Unfortunately, during the 20th century much of their culture was almost wiped out and the Kaifeng are currently working to rediscover their Jewish heritage and culture.
Jewish Children in Puerto Rico (Jews have been in Puerto Rico since the 15th century, many fleeing from the Inquisition)
The Beit Shalom Choir in Japan
Kosher comes in all colors, from all over the world, and in a variety cultural groups. We’re a small portion of the human population, but we have EVERYONE. We are all members of this tribe.
Because stereotypes are bullshit.
Boosting because you sure as fuck won’t see this in any Western textbook.
she has the range
