The Falcon's Pen is Sharp And Quick

GOOD

DESTROY THEIR LIVES

Let me be clear, as much as I want to just respond CRY MORE, BABIES I object to the use of the word ‘doxxing’ in this case.

I have BEEN doxxed. I have been stalked online. I have had people go through my journals and my pictures to try to identify me for malicious purposes. I have had people search me on court websites to try to find the charges I filed against an ex when he stole from me, for the purposes of trying to humiliate me about an online roleplaying game. (No, really.) I’ve had people try to match up pictures of the flowers outside my synagogue and the building in the background with pictures of synagogues in the Philly area to try to fuck with my life.

So I know the kind of gut-clenching, cold down the back of your neck, hands-shaking fear that comes with being doxxed. I do. It’s happened to me more than once. It will probably happen to me again, because I’m a loud fat queer femme Jewish disabled activist, and boy does that piss people off.

But let me be clear: I was existing as a person that someone else didn’t like in those cases. I was existing as queer, I was existing as ‘someone I don’t like on a game.’ I was not showing up in public, carrying a torch, and advocating for the massacre of millions of people. When you show up in public carrying a torch, you are not being doxxed.

You are being IDENTIFIED.

^^^THIS.

Following two weeks of controversy and criticism surrounding SlutWalk Chicago’s announcement that Zionist displays would not be allowed at the August 12 event, organizers are retracting their statement, and welcoming all participants who wish to protest rape culture and patriarchy. Following a meeting meant to solidify the message of SlutWalk Chicago, an organizer, Red, told Haaretz that the event is welcoming to everyone, including those carrying Jewish or Zionist symbols, and added that the collective needs to make amends to the Jewish community for its previous statements. “We are not banning any symbols or any kind of ethnic or heritage flags,” Red said, explaining SlutWalk Chicago’s new policy. “Those are welcome, everyone is welcome to express themselves as they see fit at SlutWalk. And we encourage people to bring signs and symbols that represent fighting sexism, patriarchy, rape culture, and that takes a lot of different forms for different people, and we support them in how they decide to show up for SlutWalk.” On July 16, SlutWalk Chicago announced that it will ban Zionist Symbols from upcoming events. “We still stand behind @DykeMarchChi’s decision to remove the Zionist contingent from their event, [and] we won’t allow Zionist displays at ours,” read the official statement on Twitter, referring to an incident in June when three women were asked to leave the Chicago Dyke March for carrying rainbow flags with the Star of David. When asked about protection for Jewish participants, SlutWalk also tweeted that “all participants will be well protected, so [people] making Zionist or any other similarly nationalist, imperialist displays will be ejected.” Red said on Friday that these statements shouldn’t have been made. “That came out of a very rash tweet that we sent out, that we are banning Zionist symbols that we should not have sent out, as a result of a particular social media team responding very urgently, without talking to the collective,” they said.

According to Red, SlutWalk has since reached out to the Jewish and Muslim communities in Chicago to show that the event is inclusive and offers a safe space to all participants. On Thursday, the organizers of SlutWalk held a meeting to “solidify their message” and discuss how to better listen to the two communities while remaining an “anti-imperialistic, anti-war feminist group.“ “As a feminist person myself, I feel very strongly about Palestinian liberation and radical Jewish resistance,” Red said. “I care very deeply about those concerns, but I do think that at SlutWalk Chicago we have some apologizing to do around the confusion with some of our tweets.” Following the controversy at the Chicago Dyke March in June, a conversation erupted around what constitutes a Zionist symbol. Prominent voices in the American Jewish community have argued that the Star of David is a Jewish symbol, not a Zionist symbol. The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement condemning the Chicago Dyke March. “It is outrageous that while celebrating LGBTQ pride, Jewish participants carrying a rainbow Star of David flag were asked to leave the Chicago Dyke March. The community of LGBTQ supporters is diverse and that is part of its tremendous strength,” said ADL CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt. “Both the act and the explanation were anti-Semitic, plain and simple.” According to its new policy, SlutWalk Chicago will not only allow participants to display the Star of David, but also won’t ban other symbols widely seen as Zionist. Asked if someone would be banned from SlutWalk Chicago for bringing an Israeli flag, Red said firmly that they would not be. “No one would be asked to leave,“ they said. “The only time people were asked to leave in the past, or check their behaviors, was if they became hostile to physically or verbally abusive towards other participants”. SlutWalk Chicago prides itself on being one of the oldest continuous events of its kind in the U.S. In the past, the event attracted far-right Christian and men’s rights protesters. Last year, anti-abortion activists tried to touch participants at the march. Over the past two weeks, following the tweets about banning Zionist symbols,the organizers have been receiving death threats. “We have received death threats, rape threats, racist and sexist threats, it has been truly overwhelming,” Red said. “Because of all the online harassment, we were afraid to address the legitimate concerns from people who were not attacking us, who were just trying to understand what was happening, and I think that got lost in the shuffle,“ Red said. “That is something we are incredibly apologetic for and we want to be accountable for, we should have done better.” Many in the Jewish community have accused both the Dyke March and SlutWalk Chicago of anti-Semitism, and Red agrees that there is validity to the criticism. “I think the concerns of a community that has faced persecution are valid concerns. If I was a part of an ethnic or faith community that has faced persecution and perceived that there is going to be banning or some hate of the people I belong to I would be rightfully angry as well. I do think that there were a lot of people online who were attacking us as a collective who were conflating their identity as Jewish people completely with Zionism and vice versa. And I know that to not be true because I have worked with radical Jewish people in Chicago for some time who do not believe that and see their Jewish faith as not a party of the Zionist project. So there are lots of different people that we needed to address and we didn’t.“ In recent months, the American left has grappled with the question of whether Zionism can be a part of progressive movements. Women’s March Organizer and prominent Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour has famously said that Zionism and Feminism cannot go together. While the willingness to accept anti-Zionist Jews at a radical feminist event may be expected, the statement that Zionist Jews will not be banned from the SlutWalk is not trivial. Asked whether Zionist Jews truly have a place at SlutWalk Chicago, Red said: “I think the SlutWalk is a movement against rape culture, slut shaming, homophobia, a movement that is trying to fundamentally change the way we are looking at sexual violence in our world. As a non-binary fem who is anti-Zionist myself, my body can be violated just as the body who is a Zionist can be violated. And so I think we all have a much expressed cause of ending rape culture and violence against people’s bodies.” “However, I would have to say, and this is me personally speaking,” Red added, “I think we have to acknowledge that when there are occupying forces in certain areas, and subjugation of people we have to look to people who are being marginalized and oppressed in every society and acknowledge that their bodies and minds and families deserve rights and protection and liberation.“ “I don’t think I myself can become a free person unless black folks in America or people in Palestine are free. So I would urge people who might have a limited conception of what our project is to really expand how they see the fight against rape culture, because I do think that we have to look at the folks who are most marginalized, and we have to center their voices.”

still wouldn’t GO.

i mean there is still so much very wrong that is in here, just still some antisemitism and other comments that make me very very uncomfortable

there is still a lack of understanding what zionism is on a fundamental level and why jews are zionists 

i wouldn’t go personally   

Yeah there’s still this underlying antisemitism and simplistic view of the I/P conflict that I kind of want to break down in a separate post when my brain isn’t feeling so weird. Like the implication that antiblack racism and Palestinean oppression work in the same way. Or, y'know, the assumption that she, as a non-Palestinean goy, has any right to an opinion on the conflict at all, much less Zionism.

Like, it’s a good start (goyim have forced me to lower my standards considerably for this sort of thing), but this still screams ‘not safe’ to me. She obviously has no idea what she’s talking about and is entirely uneducated on the intricacies of the situation (I barely know anything and I still understand more of the nuance than she does) and she still has the gall to insert her opinion on it like she has any involvement in it at all. And if she’s the spokesperson they sent out for this? It doesn’t bode well for the rest of them.

I’m rambling but basically yeah this doesn’t cut it is what I’m saying, they need to educate themselves, unlearn their antisemitism, and stay in their lane.

If they’re still calling Jewish religious symbols “Zionist symbols” they aren’t sorry for anything and just want everyone to quit hassling them for Super Fucking Up.

Honestly, at this point, I’ll take any pseudo-apology I can get.

I’m just repeating what people further up-post have already said, but-

I’m really uncomfortable with how much, in order to express a “we’re totally not antisemitic!” statement, Red nonetheless has to reaffirm how antizionist she is and how much she hopes Zionist Jews will consider the humanity of Palestinians.

Like we don’t already do that. Like so many of us aren’t actively opposed to what Israel is doing, and believe in- and work towards- a two-state solution that does not oppress Palestinians, and gives them the land and life they desire, but also does not obliterate the existence of a Jewish homeland. Like believing Israel’s existence is important and valuable and necessary means you must be fully supporting the current Israeli government.

I am tired of the assumption that it’s all-or-nothing, that if I believe my people deserve one place not to be in danger because of religion, I must be willfully ignorant and/or actively cruel. I am tired of the belief that it’s not enough to condemn oppressive behavior towards other groups; if I’m not passionately supporting aggression towards my own marginalized community, I don’t care enough about human rights to be considered a feminist.

And I’m furious that despite all this, I’m incredibly grateful they gave an apology at all, because I’m so used to people just doubling down.

shocker

No one told me Michael W. Twitty, a fantastic Black Jewish chef and food historian, has a book coming out in August, and it looks amazing. So I’m sharing this important to your life information in case you, too, would like to look at history and race relations through the lens of food. 

Continue Reading.

🚨 Citizen science opportunity!

Abortion isn’t the lesser of two evils–it is a just and good thing. So says Reverend Katherine Ragsdale:

Let’s be very clear about this: when a woman finds herself pregnant due to violence and chooses an abortion, it is the violence that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.

When a woman finds that the fetus she is carrying has anomalies incompatible with life, that it will not live and that she requires an abortion — often a late-term abortion — to protect her life, her health, or her fertility, it is the shattering of her hopes and dreams for that pregnancy that is the tragedy; the abortion is a blessing.

When a woman wants a child but can’t afford one because she hasn’t the education necessary for a sustainable job, or access to health care, or day care, or adequate food, it is the abysmal priorities of our nation, the lack of social supports, the absence of justice that are the tragedies; the abortion is a blessing.

And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion — there is not a tragedy in sight — only blessing. The ability to enjoy God’s good gift of sexuality without compromising one’s education, life’s work, or ability to put to use God’s gifts and call is simply blessing.

These are the two things I want you, please, to remember — abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done. Abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.

What really impresses me about Ragsdale is this bit:

The idea that abortion kills a child, she contends, reflects parental hopes and dreams for the child-to-be, not the reality of what the zygote or fetus actually is. (It is, in her words, “proleptic,” a theological term for anticipated realities that come to be treated as extant in the here and now.) When pro-choice forces signal their partial acceptance of the abortion-as-child-murder idea, says Ragsdale — which they do when they speak of the “tragedy” of abortion — they may be motivated by political concerns, or by a desire to be respectful and conciliatory. But in the process, they’re ceding precious intellectual ground to abortion opponents, and backing themselves into a tactical corner: how, after all, can you effectively defend something for which you’re simultaneously apologizing?

What’s more, they’re also increasing the likelihood that women who do choose to have abortions will spend their lives tormented by needless guilt. “I suppose it’s possible for an intelligent, faithful person to still believe that there’s no moral difference between a zygote and a baby,” Ragsdale allows. “But there’s no reason for most of us to believe that. And I don’t.”

…”If you want a baby,” says Ragsdale, “and you’ve decorated the nursery, and bought the toys, and named the baby — and then they discover the baby’s organs are growing outside the body, and not only will the baby not survive, but the woman will be torn up trying to deliver it — there’s a tragedy. But the tragedy isn’t the abortion — the tragedy is that you needed one.

I know this won’t convince the hardcore anti-abortionists, but it refreshing to see someone refusing to cede the moral high ground.

I can’t think of a better day for this message.

thEY CALLED IT SWAMP

Gotta drain that SWAMP

Hey, tumblr!

A LOT of Pitch fans voted on our pitch to Hulu to pick up Timeless, allowing us to reach over 100 supporters in a mere 36 hours, and now that we’ve been renewed (!!!) I think it’d be nice if we helped them get their show back!

If you find a few seconds in your day (and have a Hulu account), please vote for Hulu to pick up Pitch using the link above! 

Still cannot believe this happened. We are the little fandom that could, and I’m so proud and blessed to be a part of such a fandom. You guys are the best and I love literally every single one of you. <3 

Reblog vote

@mindykahling @pitch-source @pitchstreetteam @ladyinredfics @bawsanity @lawson-bawson-baker @pitchgifs @thebookjumper @almondblossomme

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Please keep voting & commenting Pitches

Is this a good sign? @pitchstreetteam @mikeginsanity @darlinginmyway @mindykahling @oddlyfamiliar @gosselaars  @magicinhermadness @pitch-source @aromeofonesown @kalichica12 @ginnymike

This is incredible!!!

From the article:

On this National Teachers Day, reflect on your practice or the practice of a colleague as it applies to how students of color are treated at your school/organization.

I don’t know if you heard or not, but Puerto Rico filed for bankruptcy… like… the whole island… and now they’re closing all these schools.  

Brainwashing, punishing, and incarcerating students is not the answer. The answer of fixing a problem is to get to the root of the problem and correcting it first. Here is a quote from this story that gets to the root: “education advocates and legal experts say poor achievement stems from racist and punitive policies disguised as character development “

For a second I was, like, ‘WTF is “Character Development?” I mean, I KNEW it had to be code with some OTHER meaning. Just wasn’t sure what. Guess I shoulda’ known it would be some kinda racist bullshit. Racists with the subtlety to slide on by, unnoticed, are RARE in this Admin. And this bitch is FAR too full of her own Wealthy Righteousness to be anything BUT blatant.

Please help find Lauren – she’s 11 years old.

She’s been found! YAY! https://twitter.com/DCPoliceDept/status/854696497459458051