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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
pitbolshevik
fairuzfan

If Israel cared so much about its civilians, they wouldn't have advocated for them to live on stolen land across the street from the largest open-air prison in the world, lol

fairuzfan

No for real, why would they pay hundreds of millions of dollars for complete random strangers to live on stolen land across Palestine while saying that it's the only "safe haven" for Jews when the very precedent of its establishment relied on expulsion, murder, and rape? Why would they want that if not for explicitly malicious reasons? I cannot think of anything other than the knowledge that they WANTED to try and replace the Palestinians and providing a cover for events like these.

And why would an Israeli willingly live across from the open air prison? Just why would they even be there, literally watching the seige on Gaza with their own eyes and think "Oh yeah this is a totally natural place to be, I will make my life here" when most Israelis come from around the world. Those Israelis CHOSE to be there, if not when they originally settled, then at this point in time when they were allowed to go anywhere else in the world?

Good to remember Jews are indigenous to that land. They've been living in Levant for thousands of years.

Obviously not the excuse for grabbing homes and land from Palestinians but it needs to be recognized that Israeli have lived there since the dawn of history.

And they CHOSE to be there not only because it's their ancestral land but because they are hated elsewhere, faced genocide elsewhere. How the Arabs of Hamas have literally the genocide of Jews as their goal right now.

fairuzfan

I'd like to respond to this not because I think this is a good point, but in case anyone reading this response above might want me to address the points mentioned.

Firstly, this response is completely irrelevant to the central idea of my post—which points out that Israel had a strategic mission of allowing its civilians near what they considered a security threat, and that Israeli civilians willingly chose to live across the street from one of the most vile human rights abuses of our time—and is a common zionist talking point I've heard literally my entire life.

What's especially odd about this is that this poster admits that there is no excuse for Palestinians to be expelled from their homes and ancestral lands (which I'd like to define a little bit what "ancestral" and "indigenous" means when Palestinians use it vs how other people use it to refer to Israel's claim to the land) but goes on to say that Israelis need to be there because of genocide and hatred elsewhere (note my use of "Israelis" and not "Jews"—there is a fundamental distinction when talking about Israel as a political concept which it inevitably is).

Israel's goal is the complete extermination of Palestinians. If they JUST wanted the land, then they would allow Palestinian Civilians to leave the Gaza Strip when they're carpet bombing them, but they do not. Jews across history have faced genocide and terror, but does that give the Israelis a free pass to do it to the Palestinians? The same Palestinians who have buried thousands of years of ancestors under their olive trees, who have a spiritual tie with the very ground of Palestine itself?

Not only that, but the above poster equates "Israelis" with "Jews," saying that they are one and the same. As I've said earlier, Israel is a political concept at this day and age, not an inevitable truth of the world. There might be an "Israel" mentioned in Jewish tradition, but it is not the same as the political definition as it is today. Israel is a part of a complex political system that relies on colonialism, and all the pre-planned violence that's associated with that, as it's founding principal for establishment.

Truth of the matter is, as a Palestinian, I really don't care about the assertion that "it needs to be recognized that Israeli have lived there since the dawn of history," whether it is true or not. I don't. Because at the end of the day, Palestinians are being raped, murdered, exiled, and tortured physically and mentally because of this claim. And why is that necessary?

I mean, why was it absolutely necessary for Palestinians to suffer for the establishment of a United States affiliated government to lay claim to a land that they have only just settled in? Why is it "antisemetic" to claim that Israel is part of that complex interwoven contemporary history of colonialism when it plays a part in the world's government systems?

My family still has the deeds to their lands from over 75 years ago. They still have the key to their house. I have centuries worth of ancestors buried there. Right now, that little village near Jerusalem is occupied by settlers who have only just settled there within the past 75 years. Not even a full century.

I highly encourage everyone to read up on the socio-political relationship of Palestinians within the world's government, and how they view the world that wishes for their complete extermination.

Warning: some of these links contain severely graphic mentions of rape, murder, and ethnic cleansing. But I think it necessary for non-Palestinians to recognize what the visual actuality of ethnic cleansing is.

rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world

Really good list of resources, @fairuzfan. I always recommend Middle East Eye to people just learning about Palestine and the occupation.

I’d also love to add some that helped me a lot. Many of these are from a Jewish perspective since we definitely have a lot to unlearn, but those led me to more Palestinian sources which I’ll list next.

Jewish anti-Occupation orgs:

Home - JVP
URGENT: Tell Congress to stop fueling violence The U.S. must work to immediately de-escalate to prevent the further loss of life, and not fu
JVP
IfNotNowMovement
IfNotNowMovement
IfNotNowMovement
Breaking the Silence › Testimonies
Breaking the Silence is an organization of veteran soldiers who have served in the Israeli military since the start of the Second Intifada a
Breaking the Silence


Palestinian Resources:

Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU)
The Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) is a non-profit organization that offers journalists facts, analysis, experts, and digita
imeu.org

https://goodshepherdcollective.org


Palestinian activists to follow:

Issa Amro

Mohammed El-Kurd

Noura Erakat

Mariam Barghouti

Omar Barghouti


Places to donate:

Donate | Baitulmaal
Donate | Baitulmaal
baitulmaal.org
Providing medical aid to Palestinians living under occupation and as refugees
For over 30 years, Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) has been reaching out to Palestinian communities, striving to deliver health and medic
map.org.uk
Adalah Justice Project
Adalah Justice Project
Adalah Justice Project


Hope these additions help.

As Marek Edelman, survivor of the Warsaw Uprising, said: To be a Jew means always standing with the oppressed, never the oppressors.” #FreePalestine

jaguarbitez
valarhalla

So, Boris Johnson wrote an essay in which he talked about the Sistine Chapel and then said : “There is nothing like it in Muslim art of that or any age, not just because it is beyond the technical accomplishment of Islamic art, but because it is so theologically offensive to Islam.”

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BITCH

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NOT TO MENTION the fact that the prohibition against direct images in Islam was actually the reason for the development of the incredible advances in higher mathematics of the Islamic Golden Age because they were required to create these structures. The Islamic World basically took the ban on images as a “hold my beer” thing and created an entire artistic culture based on mathematics and architecture where art and science fed into and glorified each other, 700 years before the Italian Renaissance.

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In conclusion

outercorner

i will say that islamic art drove me nuts as a kid because i did not have the math knowledge or capability to create such geometric patterns. it may have been the art of my people but by gOD it was difficult and unnecessarily difficult. however my pride in islamic art is neverending. it was frowned upon to be vain in the house, so artists would deck out the places of worship - but places of worship couldn’t be too garishly decorated, or it might detract from worship! the compromise? calm blues and greens, intricate details hidden into the complex patterns. carefully mapped out and planned patterns that were beyond complex and straight into deliberately confusing and practically impossible to replicate. not only that, but verses from the Quran were hidden along the walls, asking god for blessings and care.

muslim art is stunning and i’ll fight the bitch that says otherwise.

amuseoffyre

Also something underappreciated about the Islamic art is that not only is it geometrically incredible, but the geometry and structure of it has a purpose. In the niches and ceilings, the cascading ornamentation is used for acoustic purposes. In many of the mosques, they are so well laid out and designed that a single person standing on a specific spot can speak/sing/pray and be heard in every single part of the building.

prismatic-bell

I feel like this should be considered under the same heading as “fascists don’t like abstract art.”


Like, that’s a whole thing. If you look at the art favored by dictators and fascists, it’s almost entirely portraits and landscapes. (Nice, serene, pastoral landscapes, though. None of that war-torn realism stuff.) Rarely still-lifes, unless there’s also a person in the picture. It’s literally common enough to be considered a phenomenon. And while Islamic art isn’t abstract in the sense we usually use the word, it certainly does not include portraits or serene pastoral landscapes.

Just, you know. Considering who said this. Something to consider.

juno-96
ubernegro

so yeah that fire in Lahaina, Maui? That was what indigenous activists were trying to prevent. That is why Land Back movements wants indigenous people to be the stewards of the land that was once theirs. Not kick out white people and settlers. But to prevent shit like that where a bunch of tourists/settlers won't destroy the planet in their ruthless pursuit of productivity and profit. So yeah, think on that.

ubernegro

People are asking how was this white people fault?

Power Lines Are Burning the West
Human technology is responsible for more loss from fire than any other cause. But reducing fire’s impact will require changes to how people
The Atlantic

Power lines, in Hawaii they are owned by Blackrock and Vanguard, keep catching on fire because they forget to turn off their shitty electricity. So when they eventually topple over, white people forgot to cut the Guinea grass planted by colonizers 200 years to feed cows which changed Lahaina from a a swampland to the fucking tinderbox that it is today.

Dr. Creighton M. Litton > Research > Invasive Grasses, Wildfire, & Restoration
Dr. Creighton M. Litton > Research > Invasive Grasses, Wildfire, & Restoration
cms.ctahr.hawaii.edu

But hey, grass is grass and no need to mow an invasive species, right colonizers? Oh shit, that global warming that these fucking oil companies spent decades telling us wasn’t real is real and that dried up the land in Maui?

Now motherfuckers are trying to buy land off of the indigenous people in Maui because colonizers just love having part time homes, right?

Rich investors exposed for trying to get Lahaina wildfire victims to sell land
Wildfires have caused an estimated $5bn in damage
The Independent

But yay let’s celebrate the fucking billionaires who own homes in Lahaina because they are donating. Nope, no fucking correlation there right?

Indigenous Hawaiians have been saying how tourism is killing their islands for over a decade yet you fucking assholes keep mentioning how Tourism is the point of Hawaii as if that culture wasn’t just about living instead of living for profit.

They don’t want you there but you fuckheads insist of making it your timeshare goal. So yeah. It’s absolutely settler’s fault that this shit happening.

welldoneheart

My mom pointed out that there was an “official” request for people to come back to Hawaii, specifically Maui (from the Governor) in August.

NPR had a related article, but the people they interviewed were not native, they were people who had moved to Hawaii to profit - a surf instructor who had lived there for 60 years; there are other places to surf, a wealthy landowner with multiple different vacation rentals; a kind of business I actively want to fail because that is exactly the kind of behavior that prices native Hawai’ians out of housing they would otherwise be able to afford. (At least, this is how I am currently understanding Hawaii’s economy.)

So anyways here are statements from native Hawaiians because this isn’t about my perspective, it’s about theirs

NDN Collective Releases Statement on Maui Wildfire Tragedy, Urges Native Hawaiian-led Solutions | NDN Collective
Kanaka (Native Hawaiian) community in Hawaii and Maui grapple with new wave of colonialism and outside interests on the heels of devastating
NDN Collective

The rebuilding effort must center the vision and leadership of Native Hawaiian people, while calling for the termination of any current leaders who have historically supported land dispossession and tourism over the health and well being of Native Hawaiians and residents.

raptured-night

Anonymous asked:

Best Snily AU is where Lily realised that Sev is a literal wizard Nazi much sooner and then goes on to have a great school career without worrying about excusing his xenophobic actions

doodlebat answered:

And you’re why the HP fandom is seen as a toxic space that people should avoid :3 good job

probablybeatrice

I mean I hate to say it but anon isn’t wrong

deathdaydungeon

#reblog#harry potter#i think that the main reason the harry potter fandom is seen as a bit toxic is BECAUSE we excuse people like snape#who deserves to be held accountable for his actions#if people hate on draco malfoy#who was a literal kid btw#then snape deservs much worse

…it’s not often I say this, because I like to try and see all sides of a debate, but you are 100% incorrect.

The reason HP fandom is seen as toxic has nothing to do with how people read a character.  The reason HP fandom is seen as toxic has nothing to do with how some fans enjoy Snape’s character.  The reason HP fandom is seen as toxic has nothing to do with how some fans critique Draco’s character.

The reason HP fandom is seen as toxic is because cowardly people feel the need to go into the ask box of someone who RPs as a character and a ship, and send them anonymous messages against that character/ship.

You can feel however you want about a ship or a character, but the one thing you can control in fandom is your actions.  That is the toxicity which is being referred to.

As for the Draco vs Snape complaint, I think this is bizarre.  The two characters are completely separate in the text; you’re comparing apples and oranges.  Snape’s actions are generally critiqued in the context of the Marauders (his childhood enemies), McGonagall (his teaching peer), and Regulus (the Slytherin peer who some fans find easier to accept as a hero).

Draco rarely factors into any of these discussions because his character is so far removed from Snape - his background and upbringing make it difficult to draw any useful comparisons (Draco’s background seems to be more akin to James’ - albeit with different politics), and the two characters occupy different spaces in the same world (Draco is the young antagonist who espouses Pureblood views and works to thwart Harry; Snape is the adult antagonist who has rejected those Pureblood views and although he appears to be thwarting Harry, he’s actually aiding him).  

And I’m not sure which parts of fandom you’ve been reading, but the fandom on Tumblr doesn’t excuse Snape.  The Snape side of fandom spends its time generally making thoughtful critiques of what he did and why he did it.  Exploring a character’s motivations is not excusing his actions, and wilfully ignoring the circumstances surrounding a character’s behaviour makes for an exceptionally dull fandom.  

raptured-night

The reason the Harry Potter fandom is considered toxic is that some people virtue signal by drawing literal comparisons between fictional characters like Snape and real-world Nazis while ignoring the complicated issue of Snape being both Half-blood and his potential lgbt and Jewish coding because they don’t want to really get into serious critical analysis or make genuine efforts of promoting constructive social discourse, they just want to be “right” and prove to the world how socially aware they are by making simplistic “hot take” posts. 

The reason the Harry Potter fandom is considered toxic is that some people rely on confirmation bias and selective reading preferences to insist on moral absolutes for a character like Snape, who they feel is “safe” to criticize as he was played by a white-cis male in the films and can be interpreted as a white-cis male in the books (Of course, how many people also interpreted Hermione that way before Cursed Child?) despite him being heavily coded using very specific and old English literary language and tropes (I have to wonder if some of the reason for the hyper-fixation on Snape-hate isn’t an extension of his coding and the subconscious prejudices readers have long internalized for certain character tropes, like Jewish coding and “queering of the villain,” which Rowling intended to subvert with Snape only now we see the evidence of it backfiring because the use of the old coding has only alerted readers to the old cues that they should hate the “sallow, hook-nosed, greedy, ambitious” professor with “dark” features and “feminine” hand-writing because he’s supposed to be evil and it’s “safe” to feel that way because a clumsy social justice understanding tells them it’s always okay to hate the white-cis male characters in any circumstance) while also going to bat for and ardently defending how James, Sirius, and Remus “changed” and should be allowed our forgiveness for bullying, attempted murder, and even sexual assault because “they were just kids” as if Snape never was and popped out of the womb a fully fledged evil-bastard adult. Often with the additional, problematic caveat that Snape was “asking” to be maliciously bullied and assaulted and deserved to be made a victim of the Marauders bullying or even the suggestion of his childhood abuse and neglect. 

The reason the Harry Potter fandom is considered toxic is that some fans arbitrarily feel they get to decide who deserves redemption (often from a privileged and narrow perspective of morality that involves a lot of gate-keeping) to the extent they will resort to victim-blaming in defense of their “problematic favs” (i.e. Marauders) and will even unironically stand in defense of Draco (who was a kid in the sense Snape was around the same age Draco was when he joined the Death Eaters, all of 15-17, and who left the Death Eaters by his 20s and spent over a decade following that decision actively working against Voldemort and rejecting his ideology up until his death, which he could easily have avoided if he was only still with the Order because of Lily as, once he learned Harry had to die, he had options for betrayal) and Narcissa (who, like Snape, originally turned against Voldemort only when his actions personally affected her and her family) who also conveniently embody Aryan standards of beauty with their non-Jewish features of blonde hair, blue/light colored eyes. 

More importantly than all that, the primary reason the Harry Potter fandom is considered toxic is because they blatantly ignore lgbt, Jewish, Black, and other POC bloggers who have openly asked that fandom not draw literal comparisons (i.e. there is a difference between an allegory and referring to so-and-so fictional character as if they were literal Nazis and proceeding to accuse members of fandom of being Nazi apologists if they like said fictional character) between fictional characters like Snape and Nazis for said virtue signaling and “got’cha” style hot-takes because it is a problematic equivalence (i.e. Godwin’s Law) and minimizes the very real, non-fictional suffering that many people experience as a result of Nazi ideology and white supremacy.

The reason the Harry Potter fandom is considered toxic is that when some of these bloggers have made this request, some of these fans who use the excuse of moral/social awareness take it upon themselves to anonymously send them hate calling them the N-word and Nazi apologists (yes, they do and I have receipts).

The reason the Harry Potter fandom is considered toxic is that some of these bloggers are also ignoring ace/aro, queer, etc., people who have pointed out to them all the “Snape is MRA/incel/friend zoned” posts are deeply problematic not just because they depend on a heteronormative and heterosexist reading of Snape but because the comparisons to these real-world concepts once again minimalize actual victims of their ideology and lack all nuance. 

The reason the Harry Potter fandom is considered toxic is that some of these same people choose to respond to criticism from ace/aro, queer, etc., people by misgendering them, using gendered slurs, or otherwise. Often anonymously or, when called out, either doubling-down or trying to back-track and claim it was all harmless memes and jokes.

The reason the Harry Potter fandom is considered toxic is that some people are using social justice “buzzwords” for shock and “got’cha” moments without considering the impact the misuse of those “buzzwords” may have on the actual people they might apply too. The very term “Snape apologist” implies that someone’s preference for a fictional character makes them equivalent to real apologists in our society. Some people in fandom are actively and uncritically accusing potential victims of bullying, abuse, racism, etc., or just people in general (some of whom may contribute more to promoting social justice in their communities than the cowards harassing them anonymously ever have) of being “apologists” on the basis of whether or not they reblog gifs of Snape or pro-Snape content and fanart and that is toxic and unacceptable. It also minimizes the issue of what being an apologist is and the systemic impact it has on people who are victims of assault, discrimination, “isms,” etc. 

The reason the Harry Potter fandom is considered toxic is that some people in the fandom are actively stalking pro-Snape bloggers, learning their triggers and details about them, and sending them targeted anonymous hate to “punish” them and drive them out of the fandom.

I reiterate the reason the Harry Potter fandom is considered toxic is that some people, under the “excuse” of activism and superior morality justify what essentially amounts to cyber-harassment, stalking, and worse (I don’t have the receipts for this one and people in the Snapedom may correct me if I’m wrong but I distinctly recall it coming up in conversation a Snape blogger was bullied so maliciously she eventually harmed herself?).

In short, the reason the Harry Potter fandom is considered toxic is that a vocal minority in the fandom with such a hyper-simplistic grasp on morality and social justice and a reading comprehension to match has apparently read a series intended for a YA audience still managed to miss some of they key points and proceeded to make problematic asses out of themselves for likes, follows, and to be part of the group-think/mob mentality that insists a performative outrage and assaulting people over their fictional preferences is the “right” and only “justifiable” response and that by harassing, bullying, and attacking people in fandom they are winning purity points for themselves and somehow contributing to genuine social justice activism and causes rather than making a mockery of it. 

You hate a fictional character? That’s perfectly fine. Hate that character. However, when you step outside of, “I don’t like this character for x, y, z” reasons into, “No one is allowed to feel differently about this character than me or they’re x, y, z and deserve abuse and harassment” you have crossed into toxic territory. When you take time to go to the blogs of fans of a character solely to harass them you have crossed into toxic and abusive territory. You are actively choosing to be harmful to real people over your own impression and interpretations of a fictional character. 

That. Is. Toxic.

I have a deep dislike of Anne Rice as an author, I find her work derivative and her prose lacking and her response towards her fans along with what I feel to be an over-inflated opinion of the “originality” and depth of her writing sours me to her (the only good thing I have to say about Anne Rice’s works is it gave us Aaliyah as the Queen of the Damned for one brief shining moment). I also have a lot of criticism on hand for Stephenie Meyers (who once said she majored in English because she liked to read and thought it would be an easy A, needless to say as someone with degree(s) in literary criticism and theory, I’m not the only person in my field or literary prof. to have a not-so-kind opinion of that) and her Twilight series, and E.L. James who wrote what I feel was glorified rape in the guise of a BDSM relationship. 

Do you know what I don’t do? I don’t go out of my way to create hate blogs specifically to post hate into the general tags (and even some “pro” tags) for the fans of Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer, or E.L. James to see. I don’t go to the fans of these authors and leave them anonymous hate, stalk them maliciously, accuse them of being an apologist for x, y, or z or anything else. I don’t spend my time on this site actively seeking out content I do not like (in fact I even black-list pro-content for things I hate and anti-content for things I love so I can avoid having to constantly see it) solely to bully the people who do and if I do ever have a negative comment to make I tag it “anti” out of respect for those who may want to black-list it. These are all reasonable and rational responses to something I dislike or even have very strong feelings towards.

Some fans are approaching fandom and fiction like a religious Crusade and you are sincerely going out of your way to seek out content you dislike just to bully the people who do under some warped delusion that you’re “converting” sinners or fighting some just war when all you are really doing is making yourself and others miserable. It’s toxic to them, toxic to you, and it’s toxic to fandom. 

Hate what you hate. We all do. Just don’t allow your personal preferences to become your justification for cyber-harassment. If you feel so strongly about something it provokes such a negative response, black-list it. The point of fandom is to enjoy the experience and you’re making it so that it’s a negative and unhealthy place for you and everyone else involved. Just be honest with yourself, if you hate a character that is okay but you’re never going to convert everyone to your way of thinking because we all have different perspectives and lived-experience. This hypocrisy, vitriol, and antagonism in the Harry Potter fandom regarding Snape and his fans are all highly toxic and it’s toxic for all of the reasons I’ve highlighted above and more —it needs to stop. 

excellent arguments and excellent words used will have to save some of these lexicons into my memory for future use
raptured-night
kendallroy

idk who needs to hear this but when your english teacher asks you to explain why an author chose to use a specific metaphor or literary device, it’s not because you won’t be able to function in real-world society without the essential knowledge of gatsby’s green light or whatever, it’s because that process develops your abilities to parse a text for meaning and fill in gaps in information by yourself, and if you’re wondering what happens when you DON’T develop an adult level of reading comprehension, look no further than the dizzying array of examples right here on tumblr dot com

kendallroy

this post went from 600 to 2400 notes in the time it took me to write 3 emails. i’m already terrified for what’s going to happen in there

kendallroy

k but also, as an addendum, the reason we study literary analysis is because everything an author writes has meaning, whether it was intentional or not, and their biases and agendas are often reflected in their choice of language and literary devices and so forth! and that ties directly into being able to identify, for example, the racist and antisemitic dogwhistles often employed by the right wing, or the subconscious word choices that can unintentionally illustrate someone’s bias or blind spot. LANGUAGE HAS WEIGHT AND MEANING! the way we communicate is a reflection of our inner selves, and that’s true regardless of whether it’s a short story or a novel or a blog post or a tweet. instead of taking a piece of writing at face value and stopping there, assuming that there is no deeper meaning or thought behind the words on the page, ask yourself these two questions instead:

1. what is the author trying to say?
2. what does the author maybe not realize they’re saying?

because the most interesting reading of any piece of literature, imho, usually occupies the space in between those questions.

icescrabblerjerky

Analyzing text is literally a life skill, y’all.

golvio

Also:

3. What are you, personally, bringing to your analysis of the art?

Art is, fundamentally, a dialogue between artist and audience. You’re going to have a very different take on the work if:

  • You have an intense emotional reaction to the work because it hits a bit too close to home/there’s other stuff going on in your life that you somehow connect to this work.
  • Your own personal context either lets you in on a shared experience with an author who has something in common with you/gives you a totally different perspective because the writer’s identity is totally different from yours. Did the author get certain things wrong? Is the author writing about something you’ve never personally experienced before?

A couple of things you should ask yourself before dropping that hot take:

  • Are there particular biases or beliefs that are blocking your ability to analyze the work accurately? Is your interpretation based more on your initial gut reaction to the story and characters than what’s actually in the text? Can you collect and provide evidence from within the text to back up your own interpretation beyond just how it made you feel in that particular moment?
  • Is this your own opinion of the text, or are you unwittingly mirroring the opinion of someone else whose analysis you saw before getting into the text yourself?
  • Do you recognize your own interpretation is unique to you and that others might see the same artwork differently? If other people disagree with you, do you understand why they disagree with you?

Analyzing the work, trying to guess the author’s intent, and backing up your arguments with evidence from the text are essential skills. However, recognizing your own role as audience and that you’re not necessarily a passive, unbiased observer is important if you want to take the next step towards more nuanced analysis and criticism.

Something a lot of the half-baked takes that everyone makes fun of have in common is that they say a lot more about the critic than the work itself, so that self-awareness can help you avoid falling into that trap. There’s no such thing as a totally objective critic, but recognizing and owning that your experience is subjective can lead to much more meaningful critiques of art because you can more clearly explain why a piece made you feel the way it did without pretending your take is The One True Take.

douglysium
kendallroy

idk who needs to hear this but when your english teacher asks you to explain why an author chose to use a specific metaphor or literary device, it’s not because you won’t be able to function in real-world society without the essential knowledge of gatsby’s green light or whatever, it’s because that process develops your abilities to parse a text for meaning and fill in gaps in information by yourself, and if you’re wondering what happens when you DON’T develop an adult level of reading comprehension, look no further than the dizzying array of examples right here on tumblr dot com

kendallroy

this post went from 600 to 2400 notes in the time it took me to write 3 emails. i’m already terrified for what’s going to happen in there

kendallroy

k but also, as an addendum, the reason we study literary analysis is because everything an author writes has meaning, whether it was intentional or not, and their biases and agendas are often reflected in their choice of language and literary devices and so forth! and that ties directly into being able to identify, for example, the racist and antisemitic dogwhistles often employed by the right wing, or the subconscious word choices that can unintentionally illustrate someone’s bias or blind spot. LANGUAGE HAS WEIGHT AND MEANING! the way we communicate is a reflection of our inner selves, and that’s true regardless of whether it’s a short story or a novel or a blog post or a tweet. instead of taking a piece of writing at face value and stopping there, assuming that there is no deeper meaning or thought behind the words on the page, ask yourself these two questions instead:

1. what is the author trying to say?
2. what does the author maybe not realize they’re saying?

because the most interesting reading of any piece of literature, imho, usually occupies the space in between those questions.

rainydaydecaf

Okay sure, but if this is the case, then why couldn’t the teachers just let me pick my own books to read and analyze? All of those “classic” books we were assigned were so mindnumbingly boring (and dangerously depressing for a teen who was already sad most days), and I didn’t understand half the time what the teacher wanted me to learn, so I barely skimmed the reading and BS’d my way through my essays because I didn’t see the point. “The teacher says [this thing] symbolizes [this idea], so I guess that’s the right answer” was my whole high school existence. If they had just let me read and analyze MY OWN BOOKS, I would have had a much easier time grasping this. The only thing school taught me was how to ace a multiple choice test even when I didn’t bother to study the material.

kendallroy

idk, maybe if you actually developed that reading comprehension i speak of you’d understand why everyone else in the world makes fun of people who say things like “i’m a grown adult and i still think it’s very unfair that my teachers made me read books with literary and cultural value,” but don’t worry, i bet there’s just as much literary merit in good omens fanfiction

theappleismightierthanthesarah

Hi high school English teacher here. Canon is just another form of systematically oppressive BS; I mean let’s think about it - who determines what is and isn’t canon? I personally have always hated most of it and have often let students choose their own books to analyze, especially when I have struggling readers. How are they gonna learn how to do the skill without being handheld without the motivation to try on their own?


Did this post NOT start with the idea that the point is to learn how to parse out layers of meaning? You can sure as fuck do that with fanfic or contemporary books or whatever you want. Where’s that long post of deep quotes from fanfic and videogames when you need it?

The only value I see in studying the canon is understanding what other people knew and referenced and you don’t need that to do what this post is talking about.

kendallroy

yeah, no, i’m not buying this argument. i’m pretty critical of the canon but the solution isn’t to throw the whole thing out, it’s to broaden our parameters for which works are deemed culturally significant, diversify the canon, and teach it in ways that challenge the traditional interpretations. but lit written before the 21st century has value in and of itself, even beyond the practical applications i mentioned in this post. 

first of all, “understanding what other people knew and referenced” is a fundamental part of media literacy that does directly impact your ability to recognize bias, stereotypes, and other devices that reinforce structural oppression. even a basic understanding of literary traditions in the western canon will make you a more informed and enlightened media consumer in 2020, because those traditions inform everything that gets made today, including fanfic and video games. understanding the context in which modern media exists is ESSENTIAL to understanding both authorial intent and authorial bias. to use an easy example, most kids don’t pick up on the antisemitic overtones of the gringotts goblins in harry potter because they’re kids and they have no context of the historical portrayal of jews as money-handlers - that’s why we still teach the merchant of venice and the canterbury tales and oliver twist, to build up that historical context for those specific themes and imagery. contemporary media is rife with offensive stereotypes dating back hundreds of years, but audiences will continue to passively consume them if they don’t actually know that they’re stereotypes. 

secondly, understanding the timeline of literary movements and genres help us understand shifts in cultural values over the years, because at its core, writing is just one of the ways humans make sense of the world around us. studying history teaches you what happened, and studying literature teaches you how people reacted to it. similarly, movements and genres develop in response to each other as well as the world around them. contemporary writers don’t just invent completely new ideas out of nowhere; they’re building on established traditions, and being able to draw those connections heightens the experience of reading contemporary lit. historical context informs the themes and literary devices and themes and narrative structures an individual author chooses to tell their story just as much as their own personal experiences and beliefs and position in their culture’s power structure.

there is no such thing as a book that exists in a vacuum. the genre of climate fiction is for the most part a 21st century development that has grown out of sci-fi and speculative fiction that reflects our contemporary fears and anxieties about climate change, but it has roots in how the romantics reacted to the uncertainty of industrialization and modernity by emphasizing the terrifying power of the natural world. it also builds on themes of exploitation and subjugation common in feminist literature and the postcolonial movement. contemporary american climate fiction specifically exists within the context of our history of slavery and genocide and the manifest destiny doctrine, as well as the severe economic inequality we live with today, and you see those elements embedded throughout the genre’s landscape, both in form and content. and so when you pick up n.k. jemisin’s the fifth season or chelsea bieker’s godshot or tochi onyebuchi’s war girls, you’re reading a book that would not exist if it were not for the last 250 years of social upheaval and industrialization and colonialism and technological advancement and all the other books that were written along the way, and being able to recognize all those contributing factors makes reading a much, much richer experience in the end.

and frankly, fiction sparks empathy in ways that textbooks can’t, even the books we typically think of as dusty old white man “classics.” i wasn’t psyched about reading all quiet on the western front in high school, because wwi was boring from my 15-year-old southern california perspective (i vividly remember characterizing it as “just a bunch of guys in trenches and the assassination of archduke franz ferdinand”), but i came away from it with a visceral sense of horror, understanding how young those guys in trenches were and how much psychological damage they were left with after the war. some books belong in the canon because, taught effectively, they force students to step outside of their own perspectives and experience the world from the subjective perspective of someone in a time and place they’ll never experience. our schools typically teach history from an objective perspective, but students, especially teenagers, need the subjective. they need a human connection, not just statistics. the value of night, the bluest eye, and the grapes of wrath, among others, doesn’t just come from the quality of their prose, but from their effectiveness at making that connection. that’s why the canon has expanded so much over the past several decades! we need a much larger canon, not a smaller one!

i mean, otherwise, what’s the point of studying the arts and humanities at all? any quote can sound deep out of context. the goal is not simply to be able to analyze a quote, it’s to be able to place that quote in the context of the source text, and then place that source in the context of the rest of that moment or movement in literature, and then place that literary moment in the context of its historical period, and then to finally place that period in the context of the whole history of the world, and do it all with moral clarity and empathy for the oppressed. because that is going to be the framework through which you view every political, economic, philosophical, and moral choice you make for the rest of your life. 

we already live in a world where kids grow up being told that “the classics” are dense and boring and irrelevant, and i’m sure that most students, if given the choice to skip them altogether and only read fun, easy, popular stuff, they would! but that doesn’t mean it’s good for them. you don’t grow if you aren’t being challenged. and because students come in already primed to think the most of these books are stupid and pointless, the onus is on teachers to make them engaging through whatever framework meets the needs of their classroom. english teachers need to give students the tools to challenge narratives that reinforce oppression by actively teaching books from an oppositional viewpoint, even if it means openly saying “you know why we’re reading this? because it’s offensive and it sucks.” help them find the throughlines that connect to kill a mockingbird to their eyes were watching god to the hate u give, or lord of the flies and 1984 and the handmaid’s tale and the hunger games. make discussions and assignments about proving an understanding, not just regurgitating information. there’s a clear middle ground between teaching goethe to fourth graders and never challenging students to read outside of their comfort zone at all. 

look, harold bloom is dead and there’s no reason to only teach the books he considered the canon, but also, “the canon” isn’t just one dead white man’s static creation. it’s a dynamic, collective concept that is evolving along with our values as a culture. some texts lose relevance over time, others gain it. understanding the world in 2020 requires a much different reading list than it did in the 18th and 19th centuries. i don’t think anyone outside of the most conservative people in academia would advocate for a closed canon that doesn’t continuously expand to include voices that have historically been excluded from the literary establishment, or perspectives that challenge the views ingrained in us by oppressive power structures. but that’s significantly different from just saying “the concept of a canon is oppressive so we shouldn’t have one at all.” sometimes we just read books because they’re important and they teach us something valuable that will make us smarter and more empathetic and better at calling bullshit. i don’t really know what else to say, man.

douglysium

To add on to this one thing I’ve seen lately is people basically saying “not every story needs to teach a moral lesson” as a way to argue there is no point in analyzing certain points of a work. Look, when you are making art it doesn’t need to be deep, teach a lesson, or even have much of a point but no matter what you do it IS going to say something about either you or the world around you. Art does not exist in a vacuum and someone actively chooses to make choices regarding it. If your story has a good guy and a bad guy then let me ask you what defines a good person and a bad person? What does it mean to be good or evil? If neither of them are supposed to be good people then you are still at least saying that something about them makes them bad people or showing what you think good is not. Are they just supposed to be flawed nuanced people? Then you have to show what could be considered a flaw. Even if there’s just a single image of a person looking cool then comes the question of why would the audience or author find this cool and what does it mean to be cool? Is this cool because it shows a level of complexity and intelligence or is it cool because the person depicted is physically strong. If that is the case do people or the culture often see being physically strong as a good trait or impressive to have and is the author by extension saying they admire people who are strong to some degree or another, etc. Just because a story is simple or you didn’t make it with the active intent of conveying a message doesn’t mean it says nothing about anything by virtue of the fact that it is either directly or indirectly based on something.

The truth is if we actually did see art that was supposedly not based on anything or existed in the metaphorical vacuum people think it does it would probably usually seem completely nonsensical. A simple example of this would be say breathing. Why do characters in most stories breathe? Because we breathe. The concept of a character breathing does not exist in a vacuum because it is informed by the real world it didn’t just spring out of the ether. Because of this usually if a character doesn’t breathe it’s to set them apart in some way in most narratives. Maybe they are a robot or construct?

Some people also have a sort of “you can never criticize anything from the past because it was a product of it’s time.” However, this always rubbed me the wrong way because I feel like it’s possible to be empathetic or understanding of the time frame or why people did something while still arguing that it ultimately wasn’t that choice. It’s like the common phrase “Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” Sometimes it’s important to point out that something is racist or sexist and that it might be a flaw with the work if only so we can learn from the mistakes of the past and try to do better. The reason I like critiquing stuff isn’t to tear people down but to better myself as an artist and help me think about how I approach my own work. I have the benefit of NOT being born in those times so I feel like it only makes sense to try to take full advantage of that and hindsight to do better moving forward.

oodlenoodleroodle
autistic-prince-cinderella-deac

"The Brothers Grimm were important contributors to popular cultural European literature" and "The Brothers Grimm were violently antisemitic and misogynistic" are two facts that can and should coexist with each other.

lethal-liability

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oodlenoodleroodle

As a European cultural heritage sector worker: Europeans need to understand how antisemitism and misogyny (and other shit) are big parts of European cultural heritage. Being proud of your culture doesn't have to and shouldn't include ignoring the bad parts of it. And it is okay and incredibly necessary to cut the bad parts out.

purplesaline
theygender

I've said this before but like. As a young butch who had the good fortune of being raised around older butch lesbians I will forever be dumbfounded that the popular perception most people have of butches is apparently "skinny 20-something with short hair and biceps." I mean don't get me wrong, I partially fit that stereotype myself. But I have never considered that to be the norm. All of the butch lesbians I grew up around were in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and built like a fucking freight train. And I don't just mean they had aesthetically sculpted muscles. True muscle strength requires body fat to support it (think bodybuilder vs strongman) and the lesbian community has historically celebrated the things that straight society finds "unattractive" about women's bodies anyways. The pinnacle of butchness has always specifically included fat mascs in my opinion, and it boggles my mind that when a lot of people think of the word "butch" they're thinking of like, Ruby Rose in OITNB and not a 40 year old lesbian with a dad bod who could carry all three of her kids at once if she felt like it

purplesaline

^^^^

Yeah like, RR would more accurately be dubbed a Baby Dyke back in my day (and I'm really not all THAT old geez), while who we considered to be Butch women were synonymous with the label Bull Dyke. They tended to be larger women, as OP describes.

Example wise, think Big Boo from OITNB, Jo De Luca from A League of Their Own, and Bertie from A League of Their Own (while the character was Trans rather than Butch their aesthetic is very similar to that of a lot of Butch Women).

Butch and Baby Dyke is a similar dichotomy to that of Bear and Cub.

And while I don’t think there's anything wrong with labels evolving to be more inclusive, I think it's really important to remember, and celebrate, the folks who that label was originally meant for.

I blame the media for not including more Butch characters! Fucking cowards.

And yes, there's always more nuance to this sort of stuff, but this is a general Intro to Butch 101