About ten days ago, I wrote a seriesofposts regarding the difficulties Jews and people of other minority faiths encounter in western society when it comes to having our holidays respected and recognized. I got a lot of feedback from Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Jains, etc. echoing my sentiments (some of which was absolutely heartbreaking), and I have additionally seen a variety of otherposts on the matter that underline my point. When reading all of the notes and comments relevant to these posts, I noticed a very similar theme reappearing time after time:
“I didn’t take off for X holiday because I’m not that religious, but the scheduling was very inconvenient for my more observant friend or family member.”
Indeed, I had previously quoted former MLB player Gabe Kapler, who once made the justification to play baseball on Yom Kippur by saying:
“I am not really a practicing Jew. It would be selfish to be a practicing Jew on only one day.”
It would seem that many people have been led to believe that observing a Jewish or Muslim or Hindu holiday is cheating unless you are sincerely devout.
Well, I have a special message for those people:
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO NON-CHRISTIAN SECULAR OBSERVANCES
This is important, so I’m going to say it again:
YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO NON-CHRISTIAN SECULAR OBSERVANCES
Think of all the times you have been chided by secular Christian friends for not celebrating Christmas.
“It’s not really even a religious holiday anymore,” people will tell you. “It’s just a nice time for families to get together and celebrate.”
Well, guess what? So is Rosh Hashanah. So is Eid. So is Diwali.
A secular Jew might not want to go to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to fly home for Rosh Hashanah dinner to be with their family.
A non-practicing Muslim may have lost interest in regular religious practices, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still look forward to Eid celebrations.
A lapsed Hindu can still have fond memories of celebrating Diwali as a youth, and want to continue on with their family traditions.
There is no written rule that says only people from Christian backgrounds can be non-religious and still celebrate their cultural holidays. There is no law that says only Christmas and Easter can be boiled down to family dinners and fun festivities.
BEING A SECULAR PERSON FROM A MINORITY FAITH DOES NOT INVALIDATE YOUR RIGHT TO YOUR OWN CULTURAL BACKGROUND.
It doesn’t matter if you haven’t prayed in years or don’t believe in God. If you want a day off for your holiday, take it. No matter what, it’s still yours.
With the Jewish High Holidays coming up, I thought it would be a good time to reblog this.
If the mean people in our lives were crappy 100% of the time, it would be easy to leave them. We would shrink from becoming friends with them or jump aboard the nope rocket in the early stages of trouble, and we would feel only relief when they are gone from our lives.
The problem is that very few people are evil all the time. They don’t wear villain costumes purchased at ForeverEvil. They don’t laugh maniacally and stroke their evil goatees while monologuing about their evil plans. They appear in our lives as People-Who-Would-Be-Awesome-Except-For-That-One-Glaring-Problem. They have potential to be awesome, and sometimes they are awesome, and they make us feel awesome, so we relax and let out that breath we’ve been holding in, and then BAM! They show their mean side, and we do a ton of mental work trying to reconcile the mean stuff with the awesome stuff.
Breaking up brings relief, as you lose the constant mental labor of managing the relationship AND the stress of being constantly disappointed and hurt, but it also brings grief. Shitty people who forget your birthday and give little backhanded compliments and gossip about your secrets sometimes give really good hugs, or presents, or are your favorite people to get drunk and watch figure-skating with, or were the sole witness to an important time in your life. The good times were real.
I cannot express how much of a lightbulb moment it was when I realized people did not have to be unilaterally awful in order for you not to want to be in a relationship with them
I always find it amazing how you have the choice to either live out loud – that is, to live as someone who is unapologetically disabled, and talks about it like it’s as normal as every part of your life – or to live without ever speaking about your disabilities publicly. And if you do one, then you’re ‘attention-seeking,’ as if activism works by sitting down quietly, and if you do the other…
… well, that’s what ableists love, isn’t it? When we sit quietly, never talking about how ableism affects us, and how it makes our lives difficult? That would be so simple, wouldn’t it? So easy. Then they don’t have to deal with it.
I’ll take being an obnoxious bitch who lives loudly and proudly as a disabled punk over rolling over and showing belly to ableists who’d like me to fade in the corner and never bother them to change a thing about how society’s ingrained ableism fucks over the largest minority in the US.
And if you’re wondering: the same shit goes for being queer, for being non-binary, for all of it. I’m tired of being told that existing as I am is ‘shoving it in people’s faces.’ If you have a problem being reminded to not be an ableist or not misgender a trans person, well, uh, that’s not something wrong with me, is it?
Words typed in black ink on textured off-white paper.
coming to terms with and accepting your illnesses is good and healthy it does not mean you’re “giving in” or “letting them win”
also: there are no medals for getting off your meds, stopping therapy or no longer needing regular appointments.
You are not weak for needing ongoing treatment. Accepting your condition and getting the help you need is HARD but it’s a massive achievement and you should be proud. You got this.
– i’m socially exhausted
– i don’t have the time right now
– i don’t know how to reply
– i have a bad memory and got distracted
– i’m having a depressive episode and don’t have the energy to socialise
not reasons i haven’t replied back:
– i’m ignoring you just because
– i hate you
– i’m fed up with you
– i don’t want to be your friend anymore
how insidious to make young girls buy hundreds of dollars worth of makeup, to force them to read up on its theory, to make them practice it for hours in order to escape mockery, to make them feel safe only when performing this hyper femininity, and then to even have the audacity to package it in feminist language so that they firmly believe it sets them free.
who called you out on your sloppy wings
I know you probably think you’re really witty, but I just want you to know that you, and all the other people who made that joke, prove my point exactly.
This is why I have an issue with feminists shouting “let women wear make-up”. Like, not only is it expected to wear make-up, but it’s encouraged and the younger the better (cute pinkish lipstick for pre-teen girls, cute and sparkly eyeshadow for pre-teens again)
Whenever I see a post about girls to “LET THEM WEAR MAKE-UP”, well… there’s nothing stopping them or you, really. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Society pushes you to wear make up and have the most perfect make-up skills ever. And if it takes you 15 minutes for a full contour, shade, highlight, you’re praised.
Seriously, girls get more shit for not wearing make-up.
If you want to fight for the right to wear make-up, please shift to “MEN ARE ALLOWED TO WEAR MAKE-UP”. Also, please fight for the right for girls and women to not wear make-up.
Because for each post of you fighting for girls to have the right to wear make-up because it’s feminist and it will free them, there are ten companies behind your back who wrinkle their hand cause you’re doing the job for them.
I get asked at least once a week why I don’t “just try wearing makeup. It’s super simple you can even learn how on youtube!” I don’t want to.
I don’t like makeup.
I don’t want to wear it.
Or buy it.
Or have anything to do with it.
If you tell me I could use it to cover up my acne, or my red face, and it will feel empowering™ to be able to ‘choose how i look’ you’re a fucking douche and not a feminist at all.
women who wear makeup statistically make more money at the same jobs and skill level as women who don’t. women who wear makeup to interviews are more likely to be hired than women who don’t. women who perform adequate femininity in court are more likely to be acquitted or given the minimum sentence. one of the things taken into consideration by psychiatry and psychology about women seeking treatment is whether they’re wearing makeup – because women who wear makeup are seen as more likely to be sane and/or “responding appropriately.” not even getting into how much so-called “feminist” language on social media is couched in otherizing women who don’t want to, or can’t, put time and money into performing hyperfemininity “for themselves! to feel brave! to show you’re tough! :))))) be beautiful because you’re worth being objectified, girl!”
when women are literally systematically and personally punished for NOT spending time and money on makeup, you absolutely cannot pretend that makeup, as an industry and element of culture, is feminist. no one’s eyeliner is ever going to be sharp enough to slay the patriarchy. seriously.
Start your elementary schools at about 7:45. That leaves morning routines for younger students in the parents field. That’s the first wave. Middle school can start at 8:30 to 9:00, older kids starting that adolescent shift. Starting about then also puts both school groups off at about 4:40 Pm. High school students can then have a morning that starts about 9:45-10:15 AM, and that means they get to maximize their sleep schedules, and that ALSO means that younger students are in school by the time their older schoolmates are on the road. That also means that buses are not on the road for most city rush hours.
High school students can then do after-school activities indoors, where the rooms are already lit, or outdoors at fields that are already lit. Since lord KNOWS most schools with a sports program will have big lights for their fields, and the art classrooms will be dumpster diving.
Everyone always wants to talk about Hook or Pan. Everyone always wants to debate which one is good and which is evil – who we’re supposed to follow and who we aren’t. The Peter Pan mythos has pretty much shrunk down to nothing but Hook and Pan (Hook, SyFy’s Neverland, Pan, OUAT, etc). Occasionally Tinkerbell factors in (Hook, Disney’s Tinkerbell, OUAT, etc). There’s one character, however, that always gets sidelined – which is puzzling since they are the main character of both the play and the book. That character is, of course, Wendy Darling.
Peter Pan is Wendy’s coming of age story. Wendy who decides to run away from home. Wendy who realizes that she must grow up – and that there’s no shame in that. Wendy who sees Peter as deficient and sees Hook as empty and decides that, no, she doesn’t want to be a part of that. Wendy gets the adventure she’s always wanted and she turns away because she realizes that it’s lacking. She’s the only one who truly sees the hollowness of being young forever. Barrie even says “You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than other girls.”
People always debate on who the hero is. When they learn that Peter could be horrid they assume it has to be Hook. Of course, the answer is that neither of them are the hero. Wendy is the hero of the story. You’re not supposed to be like Peter, who kept every good and bad aspects of being a child and can’t tell right from wrong. You’re not supposed to be Hook, either. He let go of everything childish and loving about him and became bitter and evil. They’re both the extreme ends of the scale. You’re supposed to fall in the middle, to hold onto the things about childhood that make it beautiful – the wonder, the imagination, the innocence – while still growing up and learning morality and responsibility. You’re not supposed to be Hook. You’re not supposed to be Peter Pan.
Meaning of the letter “A” when appearing in LGBT[…]+ acronyms:
Asexual: 95.4% of respondents, 1936 total
Aromantic: 80.7% of respondents, 1639 total
Agender: 66.7% of respondents, 1353 total
Ally: 13.9% of respondents, 282 total.
I’m just posting this here for my aces and aros who are feeling down on themselves and defeated tonight. Remember that nine out of ten people support you and that the current loudest voices are not those of the majority.
There's a Mirror on the Wall 