im so bad at maintaining online friendships!! im sorry to everyone i’ve had a lovely chat with but havent followed up with!! im a very isolating person and i still consider you my friend i promise !!!
I don’t know how to explain to goyim that calling out anti-Semitism is not about hurt feelings or crocodile tears and everything to do with the fear of history repeating itself in the form of angry mobs hellbent on attacking Jewish people.
I don’t know how to explain that I am not calling Jay-Z out because I want to silence Black artists; I’m calling him out because I’m genuinely afraid that his false accusation about Jews owning all the property in America will result in people across the nation blaming Jews for the evils of the world and then inciting pogroms (violent mob attacks) against Jewish people.
I don’t know how to explain that I’m not calling out CDM because I don’t care about the liberation of Palestinians; I’m calling them out because I’m worried that if we allow non-Jews to police our beliefs and define for us what our ancient symbols mean, that it could ultimately lead to any displays of public Jewishness being deemed questionable or offensive, which could eventually end in violence against any Jews who are openly Jewish at public events.
I don’t know how to explain to goyim that nearly every Jewish person in the world either grew up with a relative who had to flee their home in the middle of the night because of this type of violence, or they actually experienced this trauma themselves. I don’t know how to tell them that this is an ingrained trauma in almost every existing Jewish family, and that it has been repeated every few generations across the globe since we entered the Diaspora nearly 2,000 years ago.
I don’t know how to explain that when people say almost the exact types of things that were shouted at my relatives by white Russian nationalists as they burned their villages to the ground that it doesn’t matter if you say you’re a progressive or an anti-racist, or you’re also marginalized in some way, because all I hear are the same words people have said to Jews for centuries before physically assaulting them, and I’m worried you’re going to eventually going to assault me, too.
I don’t know how to explain that if goyim read our history they might understand that we Jews have been used as scapegoats for the world’s evils everywhere on the planet from Lithuania to Ethiopia, and that regardless of our standing in society or our level of assimilation, that it’s always ended with our expulsion or murder or both.
I don’t know how to explain that I’m not trying to be petty or “take up space in the movement,” or draw attention away from other causes, but that I’m only asking for you to examine your words and actions now, while I still hope there’s time to pull out the seeds of anti-Semitism that have been planted, because I am literally afraid that if I don’t, you or somebody like you will ultimately be at my doorstep shouting “It’s their fault! Get them! Kill the Jews!”
I don’t know how to explain that I’m afraid you might believe the vitriol behind your words one day enough to kill me.
This is a message primarily for other gentiles:
With regards to understanding those visceral experiences of knowing the danger behind antisemitism – I’d also add that if you think you’re a non-Jewish person, you could be totally wrong. Two of my closest friends grew up with no inkling of being Jewish. As adults, one found out that her Welsh-sounding last name was deliberately changed (from Cohen) to hide her Jewish ancestry, and another discovered that half of her mother’s family died in the camps and the other half hid all trace of their Jewishness and moved to America posing as a different ethnicity entirely. HER OWN MOTHER doesn’t know this. Both of these things happened during World War II.
And if that doesn’t tell you how legitimately afraid of total destruction Jewish people are, I have no frigging clue what to tell you. And if it doesn’t make you realize that you really have little to no way of knowing if your family is Jewish, and if therefore you should be afraid, for yourself even if you’re too selfish to care about people who know and/or can’t hide that they’re Jewish, I don’t know what to tell you.
And if you think as long as you don’t know, or aren’t practicing Judaism as a religion, or are passing, or aren’t technically Jewish by some standards because you’re only Jewish on your father’s side, or don’t “look Jewish” (read: look like a particular Ashkenazi stereotype) think again. None of that stopped Hitler from going after people. Hell, I’m not Jewish (1% on an ancestry test with zero known familial connection to the culture doesn’t count except to the most extreme antisemites), but people in my family have been targeted for antisemitic hate because they “looked Jewish” to some people. (I still remember the look on my dad’s face when some kid sneered “hey, rabbi!” at him. He was a dark-complexioned white guy with black hair, a long slightly bent nose, and a beard.)
Like, if you think you have no Jewish ancestry, you may be right, but you may be totally wrong – loads of people are from a Jewish family and don’t know it. If you think not being Jewish will save you if you “look stereotypically Jewish” – all it takes is one of the wrong variety of antisemite to be the victim of a hate crime. Some antisemites throw words, others throw grenades, and you can’t control which it will be or what they’ll think of you on the street. If you think not being officially Jewish by some Jewish standards will save you, you don’t understand that antisemites don’t use Jewish rules to figure out who’s Jewish. So even if you think you and people you care about won’t be affected by deadly levels of antisemitism, then you have no idea how antisemitism works. Including that you or people you care about may be of Jewish descent because antisemitism forced your family to choose between death and destroying all trace of their culture even to themselves.
Try to fucking imagine what it would take to make you give up practicing ordinary things from your culture, important things from your culture, all of it, everything that makes you you, just to give your kids a chance at survival. And maybe you’ll have some idea why even supposedly mild antisemitism has knives hiding behind it, and Jewish people can see it even if you can’t. And as I said – don’t ever assume it won’t be you targeted if the shit hits the fan, even if you’re 95% certain you’re not Jewish, because I’ve watched two people learn about a heritage their own families had hidden from them, learn about dozens of dead relatives, and if it can happen to them it could happen to you. And remember – they didn’t choose to lose their culture, that choice was made for them without their knowledge by relatives who didn’t tell them, and that kind of mess has repercussions for generations. I’ve watched the repercussions. Meanwhile other Jewish people either couldn’t or didn’t hide and they and their families paid the ultimate price – for not doing something nobody should ever have to do. And the next person who accidentally finds out their family chose to pass as gentile (and may discover a huge amount of dead relatives whose memories had to be forgotten in order to pass, think about that too, if you judge anyone for refusing to do this to their families) could be you, or anyone you care about. Jewish people come from everyplace in the world and can look like anyone, so you don’t know.
I’m not trying to say you should only care because it could be you. That’s ridiculously selfish. But most people are somewhat selfish or self-centered, so I’m just trying to get you to pay attention if you’re not already. Don’t assume it’s someone else’s problem. Nothing should be “someone else’s problem” to begin with – but nobody can even safely assume that it is. Because antisemites don’t give a shit whether you totally assimilated or not, or whether you just have one Jewish grandparent, or whether there’s a 100% gentile heritage behind a stereotypically Ashkenazi appearance… if they can pin even a shred of Jewishness on you, those things won’t save you, and you can never safely assume they won’t find out. Passing gives you cover, not a guarantee of safety or even survival.
Anyway the LGBT community is for anyone whose identity is outside of the heteronormative rule (heterosexual, heteroromantic and cis, all three of these) and any “older” LGBT person is gonna confirm BECAUSE THEY BUILT THE DAMN COMMUNITY. Try asking them. Ask a 40-50 year old (or older) gay man or lesbian what the community is for. Ask them. Do it though. Learn some of your own history from them, and then come back to me then try and tell me I’m wrong.
You’re wrong.
I’m a 59 year old gay man and I’m telling you in no uncertain terms, You. Are. Wrong.
Here’s a history lesson from someone who both lived it and has read extensively about LGBT issues, as well as being involved in many different organizations. I realized what I was when I was very young. I first came out in the late 60s. I was an activist during the 70s, 80s, and early 90s.
This is long, but history is long. It’s important. I tried to break it down into smaller paragraphs for easier reading. But it’s long. I debated not putting this under a cut, but holy hell it’s long.
If you’re actually interested in WHY you’re wrong, OP, I hope you’ll read it.
“”But to rewrite the history of the LGBT movement/community to say that
“asexuals have always been there”, that it’s “for all
non-heteronormative people”, that “bisexuality has always included
asexuals”, that “bisexuality itself has always been a distinct
‘identity’ from lesbian or gay”, that “trans has never been about sex
rather than gender”, etc. etc. etc.
Also this collection of quotes from older LGBT people (specifically bisexuals who got erased from the main LGBT history’s narrative, as it always happens)
“[A]s a bi trans woman who was there and actually saw aroaces being part of the bi community and putting in the work and dealing with the oppression… The bi community was actively rejecting definitions beyond ‘not gay, not straight’ into the mid-90s, because every definition offered excluded some of its members.” – @wetwareproblem, from this post
“When I grew up, heterosexual/homosexual/bisexual were explicitly not specifically sexual. “It’snot about sex!” was a battlecry. This was emphasized frequently as people would sit there trying to come up with some gotcha that meant that you couldn’t be gay and a virgin at the same time. Or — and this is important: that you couldn’t be queer if you weren’t interested in sex. While it’s not necessarily the same as explicitly affirming asexuality, this was a way in which the asexual experience was made intelligible under the mainstream organization of sexuality.
“There was a lot of rhetoric that emphasized this point. In particular, that the fixation on the sexual part of homo/bi-sexuality was actually a form of heterocentrism in which hets would try to strip queers of the capability for romantic attraction. “Yes, there are problems there. Yes, there’s the privileging of romantic attraction as better and more pure than sexual. And it’s worth talking about.
“But that’s not what I’m getting at right now.What I am getting at, is that in the models I grew up with, among the queers I grew up around, both aro and ace people could qualify as not just bi, but bisexual….
“During a time in which being aro or ace (or aroace) was even less intelligible to the mainstream — or even the mainstream queer community — than it is now, where were the ace and aro bi people? Where did they organize under when trying to deal with monosexism? Where did they vent their frustrations over LG exclusion? Where did they openly talk about their attractions? Who were they fighting alongside? “Bisexuals.
Aside from this, I already replied to this post saying how it enlightened me to reach the actual truth about the ace discourse: it’s pointless, because it’s a discussion on inclusion and exclusion of people in various parts of the world and it’s trying to speak over single LGBT groups’ policies. If you have a problem with your local LGBT group allowing aces to participate, you should bring it to them, not to the internet.
But my initial point still stands. The fact that von–gelmini has his own truth coming from his own experience doesn’t mean that everyone else’s truth is automatically false just because it doesn’t fit your narrative. So no, I wasn’t really being ahistorical. People were there and they remember things differently.
“actually what you’re saying is only half true because wetwareproblem and autismserenity have made up things that say otherwise, ace pride!“
the thing that rly gets me is that all that history was well-documented
if asexuals existed in the community and were involved back then then where are the historical ace pamphlets? their photos? newspaper or magazine clippings? badges? stickers? posters? where are the references to their activism? where are their mentions in the literature?
not a single one. but someone on tumblr said something was true, so it must be true
the thing that rly gets ME is that exclusionists assume that these things don’t exist because they haven’t seen them.
there’s this repeated logical fallacy in the discourse where people assume that because they don’t know of ace-related historical ephemera, or they don’t know of shared experiences aces have with the rest of us, or they don’t know of any examples of ace oppression, those things do not exist.
and then they begin all their arguments at the “these things do not exist” point.
mind you, what i should actually be annoyed by is the fact that no matter what I cite, they’re like U MADE THAT UP like really??? that’s the best you got????
that’s basically an admission that what I gave you DOES destroy your argument and that all you can do is be like “well then it must be fake.”
but anyway
examples of lesbian and gay publications casually referencing asexuals
I have access to it through the San Francisco Public Library; if anyone’s local/school library doesn’t give them access, i’d be happy to share my login, just message me. It’s really easy to search and has amazing stuff.
Here’s a page from a 47-year-old issue of “It Ain’t Me Babe,” which was California’s first feminist newspaper, and then became the first national feminist newspaper. The opening line of this article: “We affirm that all people are sensual, sexual and compassionate beings and shouldn’t be labeled as hetero- homo- bi- or asexual.”
(I mean obviously I disagree with the author, but the point is that they listed “hetero, homo, bi, or asexual” as the four options. (Keep in mind that “homosexual” was the “formal” language at the time, it wasn’t considered a slur; this wasn’t technically a lesbian newspaper, but like off our backs, it basically was one in all but name.))
(OH MY GOD SIDEBAR: I just read more of the piece linked about, about how this was the first feminist underground newspaper, and OFC my old boss, Laura X, was involved in it. she has some “women’s herstory archives” she runs now, by which i think i mean a shed in her backyard BUT ANYWAY that’s a whole nother story)
In 1975, a Eugene, Oregon newspaper called Women’s Press showcased a quote by lesbian Florence Rush, from “The Parable of the Mothers and Daughters,” about women’s rights, which said “this right can be for us all – lesbians, celibates, bisexual, asexual, amazon virgins and heterosexual….” (I’m skipping a bunch of examples that are in the same vein, because why bother giving more similar examples when I could skip to examples of other things on the list?)
…and another one in 1975 Pennsylvania, called Hera, published an article about battered women that lumped lesbian and asexual women together in contrast to straight ones: “For the most part, the herstory of heterosexual women can be summed up in three words: used, abused and abandoned. Not that the destructive male spares the lesbian or the asexual woman when he is set to mate the female.” (Bi erasure, but never mind.)
but where are the people identifying themselves as asexual?
Bristol, apparently; the first classified ad on this 1976 page of Move, a UK publication, seeks a pen pal for a “lonely asexual tv/ts.” (today this would likely say “for a lonely asexual trans woman,” but it was nineteen fucking seventy six).
In this 1977 issue of Feminist Communications, out of San Diego, CA, four women are interviewed about their sexual orientation and how they relate to the lesbian-feminist movement. Two are lesbians, one is bi in a “straight” relationship, and one, Pam, identifies as “self-sexual and not open to a relationship right now.”
I’m not ace, but I know enough to know she’s saying she’s on that spectrum. Later in the interview, she clarifies, “I think labels are really oppressive and I really resent being called straight or bisexual, asexual, non-sexual, or having to deal with a label. I think that really inhibits me as far as relating to people. People see me as one sort of sexuality and they relate to me in that way… Such an emphasis put on who you relate to takes all the fun out of relating to anyone for me.“
The way she describes her experiences is basically, “I’m asexual but I hate labels, and I don’t know if I’m heteromantic or biromantic or lesbian or what honestly.”
ok I need to take a break, but I’ve only gone through 6 years of this stuff and there are another 40 to go.
TL;DR: where is all the LBGTQ+ community ephemera that mentions aces? i don’t know, did you look through any?
Also the LGBT community goes back way further than the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis and the 50s and 60s. It was very strange to hear someone say repeatedly that people needed to familiarize ourselves with history, and then act like that history started so recently and so narrowly.
They were right that the lesbian and gay communities have always included trans people, and the reasons they gave are part of it but not all of it. (I don’t have the words at the moment to explain the many and varied other reasons. But I do wish that more of the modern LGBT community would acknowledge there’s always been huge areas of messy overlap and that this can be a strength rather than always being a weakness or an error in judgement or a form of misgendering.)
Three cats died after their owners used an anti-inflammatory cream used to treat arthritis. The Food and Drug Administration warns to keep drugs away from pets; a tiny bit can be toxic.
Important for spoonies with cats!
Creams with Flurbiprofen are fatal to cats.
Brands that use this chemical (Not a complete list):
Myoflex Traumeel Capzasin
If you have cats, check your pain relieving cream for this, and keep them from ingesting it, please!
Here’s a more thorough article about this, which includes info about other types of pain relief cream + tips for keeping pets safe if you use pain relief cremes of any kind! And here’s another one that talks about other types of topical medications (hydrocortisone, antibiotic ointment, hormone cream, etc.).
I didn’t see a mention anywhere, but most NSAIDs are toxic enough to cats that I would also be very careful with topical Voltaren/diclofenac or ibuprofen. Which seem to be more common than flurbiprofen in the UK, that I know of.
The fundraising has reached its goal. However, I encourage you all to keep donating and spreading awareness for Barbara Kentner and her family. Providing for the costs of travel expenses and financial security for her family will greatly help as she prepares to die.
Make no mistake about this: she has been murdered. There are no two ways about this. I have chosen not to mention the man in these posts because his name does not deserve to be held in the same space as Barbara’s; his name has already been published and is available in articles and in the notes.
His charges have not been rectified to reflect the true nature of the crime, which itself has not yet been identified as a hate crime by police. I do not know if it ever will be.
The Thunder Bay Police Service is known for its lackofaccountability to the indigenous community here in Thunder Bay. Sadly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, incidents of white people throwing objects and yelling racial slurs at walking indigenous people is not uncommon here in this city. It happens on a regular basis, and is the reality for many indigenous people living in urban settings.
The police do not take any of it, in any measure, seriously. Their inaction continues to prove this.
Barbara Kentner has passed on as of this morning, July 4, 2017.
Rest in peace, sister.
Remember her. Put your semaa out and feast dishes if you can, and continue to support the Kentner family as their gofundme is still open. She leaves behind a daughter who will need all of the support she can get.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
You must be logged in to post a comment.