Anti-Zionism ≠ Anti-Semitism
Opposing the genocidal imperialism of the state of Israel on the Palestinian people is not the same as religious discrimination, and nor is it motivated by it. It’s motivated by the acknowledgment of the fact that Palestinians are in fact people, and are just as deserving of the right to live without persecution as any other person on this planet.
Once U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh had the impertinence to say “American Jews aren’t as pro-Israel as they should be.” Just an addendum to this post, but being Jewish doesn’t mean you will or should innately support Israel.
To be honest, I dislike how often discussions of racism get derailed to explain to people that the dictionary definition is out-of-date and inadequate but I feel it is a conversation we need to have. Racism will always be more complex than a “hatred or intolerance of another race or other races”. It is a set of practices and subconscious behaviors that continuously teaches us to default to white, where “nude” is considered to be beige, and black folks and Hispanics have higher incarceration rates than whites for the similar crimes. By saying this I am not undermining bullying you may have received in grade, middle or high school and I am also not saying people of color cannot be prejudiced against other races themselves. All I am saying is we, as people of color, cannot be racist since we lack the power to full on oppress you. It is truly that simple to grasp.
Happy Endings.
So I am watching the first episodes of Happy Endings and I am still not completely sure what this show is about other than a group of friends being a group of friends, but it sort of makes me smile in some aspects but not enough to make me particular fannish about it. Thing is, I am watching 1.06 Of Mice & Jazz-Kwon Do and I do not know how I should feel about the “gaycist” subplot with Brad and Max. Like, this show has been surprisingly great at addressing heteronormativity and interracial relationships! 1.04 Mein Coming Out was overall sort of endearing! The way they write Brad and Jane’s relationship was not stress me out the least bit! It is a cute series all in all even if the storytelling and ongoing arcs could be improved upon tenfold.
But, you lot, this episode makes a lot of fantastic points but the word “gaycist” makes me wince a lot. Like, Brad’s actions and reasons for setting up Max and a coworker up where bullshit and inherently prejudiced and was dealt with swimmingly but IDK. They did not have Max’s comebacks sit upon “ironic/hipster racism” with his use of stereotypical black dialects and, again, “gaycist” sort of assumes that racism is no longer an issue and America and erases queer minorities—I don’t know. It is sort of nice to see a show address these issues in non after school special sort of way but it could have been better and my thoughts are all over the place. IDK. IDK. It made fantastic points but :’(.
