Name's Silver. She/Her. an archive of recs for Yugioh fanfics that contains Revolutionshipping. Currently into: Fruits Basket & Hades. I reblog things I like & whatever strikes my mood. Avatar is by moonmistix.
one of my absolute favorite conversations i have with random gentiles goes like this:
me: i face a lot of harassment and weirdness when i wear a kippah and star of david in public.
gentile: ok but u could just not wear them.
me: i mean yeah but i do.
gentile: but u could just not wear them and then ppl wouldn’t harass u and be weird to u.
me: yeah maybe but i do wear them.
gentile: but u have the option not to.
me: correct. but i choose the option to wear them.
gentile: but if u didn’t wear them then no one would know.
me: sure. but i do wear them.
and it goes round and round and round in a circle for like 20 minutes bc goyim cannot comprehend why i would not want to just shut up and assimilate.
anyway here’s ur reminder that telling ppl who are being oppressed or discriminated against to just hide whatever it is that people are targeting them for is contributing to said oppression and discrimination. forced assimilation is violence, and telling people “just don’t do/wear/say x thing that’s a core part of your identity” makes you complicit in that violence, if not actively a part of it.
I couldn’t disagree with that last line more. It might be more subtle than overt physical assault, but it very much is an active part of the cultural violence. Not complicit, not tacit endorsement, that is being an active agent of oppression.
did you not read the last phrase of the last line?
i mean I agree but also maybe you could have explained why you wanted to keep wearing these things. like it almost feels like your both missing the point
like responding to this post with “u should just explain to gentiles why it’s important for u to wear culturally significant items” is literally what i’m talking abt. gentiles don’t need to understand why i wear a kippah and star of david in order to condemn the antisemitism i face when people see that i wear those things. you are still putting the onus on marginalized people to explain to people why we don’t deserve to be harassed for refusing to assimilate. the entire point of the post is to get gentiles past the initial “problem solving” response of “remove the thing that’s making you a target” and progress to the stage of “stand up to the people who are targeting you because of those things.” the point is to get people to stop seeing our existence as a problem to solve.
Basic rules for analysing fiction, an incomprehensive list jotted down in a hurry:
The protagonist isn’t always right
The protagonist isn’t always good
The protagonist isn’t always written to be relatable or likeable
The narrator isn’t always right
The narrator isn’t always good
The narrator isn’t always telling the truth
The narrator isn’t always the author
The protagonist’s moral compass, the narrator’s moral compass and the author’s moral compass are three entirely different things that only occasionally overlap
Pay attention to what characters do and not just what they say
Pay special attention when what the characters do is at odds with what they say
A lot of the time the curtains are blue for a reason. If they aren’t, you should read better books
One more:
12. The antagonist isn’t always telling the truth
So many times I have seen people apparently just … forget that it’s possible for fictional characters to be (a) mistaken or (b) lying, and say things like “we know this to be true because [character] said so here” (or, worse, “this fact is canon because [character] said it”).
The antagonist isn’t always telling the truth, the protagonist isn’t always telling the truth, the secondary and minor characters aren’t always telling the truth, the narrator may be telling the truth but if the narrator is also a character in the story then don’t count on it.
