Obscanity: You'll know it when you see it

Applying to Law School? Please Reconsider! | Lawyerist.

Um, yeah. Agree. 100%.

Thanksgiving: the American Sukkot ?

So you can stop calling Sukkot “the Jewish Thanksgiving” now…

“Let his days be few… Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.” | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

The prayer death squads are at it again…

Last Night’s Colbert Report | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

Oh Stephen Colbert. You are Teh Awesum.

Many unanswered questions in killing of youth — baltimoresun.com.

This happened a week ago. Where’s the national media coverage? Where’s the outrage???

YouTube – Buffy vs Edward: Twilight Remixed — [original version].

Huge Military Slaughter — But First A “Shout Out” to Obama’s Bud « NewsReal Blog.

Wow…. I mean, I know that conservatives are extremely dishonest in their reporting of events, but this is just so blatant I can’t believe anybody is falling for it.

Try looking at these remarks in their original context and then see if you can identify all the things that are wrong with the story as reported by Horowitz.

Pentagon Confirms It Sought To Build A ‘Gay Bomb’ – cbs3.com.

Great! What an awesome use of our tax dollars. Let’s drop it over Salt Lake City!

On the Hill, Protesters Chant ‘Kill the Bill’ – Prescriptions Blog – NYTimes.com.

It’s a generally older crowd, many in their 50s and 60s, predominantly, white, and many self-identified as Christians.

…

Many said they feared cuts to the Medicare program for Americans 65 and over. Many described themselves as conservative and opposed to higher taxes.

“We support our country and we’re patriots,” Ms. Garloch said. “And I don’t want my health care to be changed.”

Aaaaand there you have it, folks. That’s what this is really about: White folks – Sarah Palin’s “Rill Ameerikans” – who are terrified that they might actually have to SHARE their government-provided health insurance with people who “aren’t” predominately white, self-identified as Christians: in other words, people they don’t believe are “patriots.” CLASSIC.

“Keep your government hands off my Medicare!”

The 10 Weirdest, Grossest Ingredients in Processed Food | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.

Canadian folk singer killed by coyotes, park official says – CNN.com.

Crazy!

Government Denies Stealing Baby, Provides Evidence | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper.

Okay… try this one on for size. The woman says herself that she has no peripheral vision by the time her panic attack hits full-force. But she also CLEARLY suffers from a pretty bad anxiety disorder. So I’m thinking that being put in a tiny security cell doesn’t do wonders for her state of mind, particularly when she has only 45 minutes ’til her flight takes off. Wouldn’t that be the logical time for her peripheral vision to start cutting out? By the time they’re patting her down next to the security carrel, isn’t it entirely possible that she *perceives* her son as being out of her sight simply because she is already well on her way to a panic attack?

Hulu – 30 Days: Immigration – Watch the full episode now..

I really enjoy this show so far. This is an interesting episode… what strikes me is this guy’s failure to recognize 1) his privilege in having been *able* to come here legally because his dad was lucky enough to have an American employer, and 2) how much harder it is to come here legally now, especially coming from Mexico. I’m sure there’s more he didn’t recognize that I didn’t recognize myself… I do wonder how this would have played out differently (for better or for worse) if Spurlock had chosen a minuteman with a different personal history, e.g. somebody who was not a 1st or 2nd generation immigrant himself, or somebody who only spoke English. I’m sure there were choices made for logistical purposes, but still, they kind of focused on the political, “come here legally” angle and didn’t really talk about the racism behind the policies that prevent that from happening.

Everything Is Terrible!: YOU AND GOD MAKE A CUTE COUPLE.

Aha! Adam and God, not Adam and Eve! Adam and God, not Adam and Eve! (Steve is SO pissed, BTW. He totally knew Adam was cheating on him… but srsly, how can you compete with freakin’ GOD?)

So like… is God bisexual or what?

Hulu – 30 Days: Same Sex Parenting – Watch the full episode now..

This is a few years old, but I think it reflects the same doe-eyed innocence expressed to the LGBT community by the Mormon Church after they bought Prop 8 – that whole “I don’t hate you and I don’t understand why you’re mad at me; it’s just a difference of opinion, not a personal attack. Can’t we just agree to disagree and hug now?” sentiment. But it is personal. When it comes to people’s families, there simply is no separating the political from the personal. Your political opinion about the “idea” of my family is a personal moral judgment on my family.

That is the one point that the two men failed to make, and the point I think the woman also failed to comprehend: there is no such thing as the “global idea” of LGBT adoption. There are only families – parents and children.

When she casts a vote against the “global idea” of LGBT adoption, what she’s saying is, “Dear couple who just opened their home to me for a month: I understand that you are great parents, that your children are happy, and that you’re just trying to live your life and do what’s best for your family, but I would prefer that the state remove these children from your home, even if the alternative is to place them in group homes with bars on the windows until they age out of the system and are left to fend for themselves, because that is preferable to where they are now. I don’t base this on anything I’ve seen in front of me, or anything that’s based in actual interaction with families or people. It’s just a gut feeling that tells me I’m right.” Or in other words, “I respect you, but please sit back while I tear your family apart.” There is no “global idea.” There are only families.

“I’m not racist, but you’re black! Black, black, BLACK!” | The Bilerico Project.

I am so goddamned sick of people assigning whiteness to Jews. What the hell? Have these people ever been Jewish in a room full of white people? You know you’re not white – and more importantly, SO DO THEY.

No, we don’t know what it’s like to be African-American. No, we don’t know what it’s like to be Chicano/a. No, we don’t know what it’s like to be Asian/Pacific Islander. But YES, we know what it’s like to be Something Other Than White. We know what it’s like for people to attribute the actions of individuals to our entire community. We know what it’s like for the mainstream to form obnoxious stereotypes and caricatures of our perceived physical features, cultural traditions, sexuality, gender expression, and personality traits. We know what it’s like to have people make assumptions about our trustworthiness and morality based on our ethnicity. We know what it’s like to carry the collective burden and psychological damage of surviving generations of persecution and genocide and, simultaneously, to have people tell us, “It wasn’t that bad,” or “You weren’t even there,” or, “It was so long ago – will you just get over it already?”

We know what it’s like to lose our languages, some of us because our parents so desired assimilation that they refused to teach it to us, and some of us because our children resist learning it. We know what it’s like to have people scream racial epithets at our children from passing cars. We know what it’s like for our neighbors to regard us by our identity first and our personality second, and to whip out the epithets the minute they get mad at us for something personal. We know what it’s like to feel completely alienated from the K-12 curriculum because let’s face it, that’s not OUR literature or history – except maybe for a couple of lessons when we get to learn how much more it sucked to be us in the past. We know what it’s like to have people tell us we’re playing a race card, crying wolf, or being overly sensitive if we dare to mention examples of racism against us. We know what it’s like to be pressured into observing mainstream national celebrations which serve as stark reminders of our own persecution throughout the years. We know what it’s like for people to question our patriotism and loyalty to this country because we “come from somewhere else,” even if we’ve been here for generations.

Many of us knew what a bomb threat was before we knew what sex was, and experienced the former a decade before the latter. We know what it’s like to dread the slightest bit of conflict – be it international conflict or domestic economic turmoil – because our schools, community centers and places of worship will inevitably either receive said bomb threats or be shot up by racist wingnuts who don’t give a shit if they shoot adults or toddlers, because we’re all the same to them. We know what it’s like to be blamed.

So maybe we don’t know what it’s like to be you – but you don’t know what it’s like to be us, either.

That said…

I think we need to acknowledge that many of us – particularly Ashkenazim, but some Sephardim too – can ‘pass’ as white, particularly in large urban areas. However, 1) not all of us can pass; 2) our ability to pass depends on the presence of people who *don’t* look white; and 3) our passing depends on our willingness to be silent about who we are – a Semitic people who may happen to have white features mixed into our gene pool as a result of centuries of rape and violence. Intermarriage and conversion have become factors in the last couple of generations, but for most white-looking Jews, it’s mostly gonna be about rape and pogroms. Where did you think we came up with matrilineal descent, anyway?

This puts us in an awkward position; to people of color, we’re “white Europeans,” but to white Europeans, we’re Jews – we weren’t white OR European in Europe, so why would we be white AND European here? Case in point: I had my grandfather tested via one of those ancestral DNA companies. It doesn’t matter how long our family spent in eastern Europe. His DNA – that of his father’s father’s father – still carries the stamp of the Mediterranean / Fertile Crescent. We’re JEWS no matter how you spin it.

Now, don’t get me wrong – many of us absolutely are privileged by our skin color, to the extent that we are willing to shut our mouths and accept that privilege without dissenting about the way that privilege is distributed or withheld. And there are some complex issues within the Jewish community, e.g. confusion about – or more often suspicion of – black Jews, and also color-based tension and social/economic inequality between Ashkenazim and Sephardim. But more than anything else, I think a lot of this conflict and complexity is the result of 1) the “passability” of Ashkenazim, and therefore 2) Ashkenazi Jews being willing to take on this mantle of whiteness as though it belongs to us. There are definitely some Jews who self-identify as white, Jews who are happy to play the white role for the sake of keeping the privilege they get from their light skin and from relying on the oppression of people of color to distract white people from their own difference. Call me crazy, but I think that’s irresponsible – and yes, RACIST. We owe it to ourselves not to accept it.

If nothing else, it is a horrible insult to those millions of Jews who perished in the Holocaust precisely because they weren’t white. And this is not to say, “Let’s resist whiteness because the Nazis were white.” That’s not what I mean here. It’s deeper than that – I’m asking, what is the prize here? What is the lesson to be learned from the Holocaust – that Jews should fight to achieve whiteness? Maybe that’s one component of the endless turmoil in Israel – the faction of right-wing extremists who believe that our prize for enduring the Holocaust is the right to be Just Like Them – not Nazis, per se, but people who assert their privilege at the expense of others’ well-being. That’s a huge generalization that misses the complexities of Zionism, Jewish nationalism, but I think it’s still a legitimate observation.

So again I ask, have we truly won anything when all we can say is, “At long last, we Jews are granted access to whiteness, so long as we also succumb to assimilation and agree to participate in the perpetuation of alleged white superiority”? Is that a prize worth winning? It’s not one that I want. Shouldn’t we have our eye on the real prize, a society where we can acknowledge people’s different ancestral roots and heritages without assigning supremacy to one group over others? Do we have to live in a melting pot, or can we aim to live in a giant stew where we can layer flavors and spices without losing our own shape and texture?

Interracial Couple Denied Marriage License By Louisiana Justice Of The Peace.

What he really should be doing is refusing to marry homo sapiens couples, because studies show that most homo sapiens marriages do not last long. But then if he married ONE homo sapiens couple, he would have to marry ALL of them, because otherwise he’d be treating them unfairly…

Hate Crime Suspect’s Bud: Blame the Victim | News | Advocate.com.

It isn’t every day that you get a taste of such sweet, delicious irony.

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