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Shadytail's Musings

@shadytail / shadytail.tumblr.com

Mostly ADHD. Some fandom. Occasional politics. A few hobbies.
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AOC on religious freedom

Official transcript (also p. 49-50 of the pdf):

“I am experiencing this hearing and I am struggling whether I respond or launch into this question as a legislator or from the perspective of a woman of faith because I cannot--it is very difficult to sit here and listen to arguments in the long history of this country of using Scripture and weaponizing and abusing Scripture to justify bigotry.

White supremacists have done it. Those who justified slavery did it. Those who fought against integration did it, and we are seeing it today.

Sometimes, especially in this body, I feel as though if Christ himself walked through these doors and said what he said thousands of years ago, that we should love our neighbor and our enemy, that we should welcome the stranger, fight for the least of us, that it is easier for a rich man--it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into a kingdom of Heaven, he would be maligned as a radical and rejected from these doors.

I know, and it is part of my faith, that all people are holy, and all people are sacred, unconditionally, and that is what makes faith sometimes--that is what prompts us to transform because it is unconditional.

It is not about that it is up to us to love parts of people. We love all people. There is nothing holy about rejecting medical care of people, no matter who they are, on the grounds of what their identity is.

There is nothing holy about turning someone away from a hospital. There is nothing holy about rejecting a child from a family. There is nothing holy about writing discrimination into the law and I am tired of communities being of faith being weaponized and being mischaracterized because the only time religious freedom is invoked is in the name of bigotry and discrimination.

I am tired of it. My faith commands me to treat Mr. Minton as holy because he is sacred. Because his life is sacred. Because you are not to be denied anything that I am entitled to. That we are equal in the eyes of the law and we are equal in my faith in the eyes of the world.

So, I just have to get that out ahead of time because it is deeply disturbing, not just what is happening here but what this administration is advancing is the idea that religion and faith is about exclusion.

It is not up to us. It is not up to us to deny medical care. It is up to us to feed the hungry, to clothe the poor, to protect children, and to love all people as ourselves.”

#politics#faith#future reference#she said it#Youtube
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Reblogged geeko-sapiens
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mango-habanero-autism-deactivat

If you’re genuinely interested in learning more about settler colonialism and answering questions like “wait what does land back look like?” “What can I do?” and “What are the contexts informing this and why do Indigenous people reject being part of the US/Canada?” there are free syllabi online which can answer these questions (they will not answer it directly, the point is to get you to think for yourself and ask more questions that can lead you to thinking more deeply about this and how you can personally take action towards better practices of solidarity) 

Here’s the Standing Rock Syllabus: 

https://nycstandswithstandingrock.wordpress.com/standingrocksyllabus/

Allyship and Solidarity Guidelines of Unsettling America:

https://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/allyship/

Towards Decolonization and Settler Responsibility:

https://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/2016/10/04/towards-decolonization-and-settler-responsibility-reflections-on-a-decade-of-indigenous-solidarity-organizing/

Sample Syllabi of the DEcolonization Resource Collection:

https://nationalhistorycenter.org/decolonization-resource-collection-sample-syllabi/

Further Readings:

https://decolonization.wordpress.com/decolonization-readings/

These are limited resources that mainly deal with North America and English-speaking countries, because that’s the context I am coming from. If you have resources from other regions and other languages, I welcome them here, or anything from your local context. 

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effectiveresistance
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Reblogged
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Anonymous asked:

Hey Sam! Since it's currently AO3 donation time, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on it? I'm asking because you've written RPF and it's one of many "anti-AO3/anti-AO3 donations" people's favourite things to bring up when they're complaining about AO3 getting so many donations that it continuously obtains an excess of its donation goal whenever donation time rolls around? (Wow, how many times can I say "donation" in an ask?) Sorry if this question bothers you! I don't mean to offend or annoy.

Hey anon! Sorry it took a while to get to this, I don't even know if the drive is still going on, but the question came in while I was traveling and I didn't really have the time for stuff that wasn't travel-related. In any case, let's dig in! (I am not offended, no worries.)

So really there are two issues here and as much as some people who are critical of AO3 want to conflate them, they are different. While some criticism of AO3 may be valid, rhetoric against AO3 tends to misinterpret both in separate ways.

First there's the issue of what AO3 hosts -- RPF, yes, but more broadly, varied content that some people find distasteful or think should be illegal, which is a misunderstanding of the purpose of the archive and more broadly a dangerous attitude towards the concept of freedom of expression.

Second, there's the issue of AO3 generally outpacing its fundraising goals while not allowing monetization, which is a misunderstanding of the legal status of AO3 and to an extent a misunderstanding of philanthropy as a whole.

The longer I watch debates about content go on, the more I come to the conclusion that I was fortunate to have a teacher who really wanted to instill in us an understanding of free speech not as a policy but as an ongoing dialogue. It's not only that freedom of expression "protects you from the government, not the Justin" as the meme goes, but also that freedom of expression is not a static thing. It's an ongoing process of identifying what we find harmful in society and what we want to do about it.

Should the freedom to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater be restricted? Should the freedom to yell slurs at drag performers? Should the freedom to teach prepubescent kids about gender, sexuality, and/or safe sex? Should the freedom to wear a leather puppy hood at Pride? Who gets to say, and why?

I was nine when my teacher did a unit on freedom of speech and the intersection of "harm prevention" and "censorship", which is (and should be) a discussion, not a set of ironclad rules. This ambiguity has thus been with me for over thirty years, and I'm comfortable with the ambiguity, with the process; I'm not sure a lot of people critical of AO3's content truly are. Perhaps some can't be, especially those affected by hate speech, but RPF is not hate speech. It's just fiction. Or is fiction "just fiction"? This is a question society as a whole is grappling with, although fandom seems to be a little out ahead of society in terms of how explicitly we discuss it.

The idea that prose can incite violence or cause harm is both valid to examine (witness the rise of fascism on the radio in the 20s, on Facebook and Twitter in the past ten years; they're very similar processes) and a very slippery slope. Because again: who decides what harm is, and what causes it, and what we do about it? Our values align us with certain beliefs, but those are only our values, not universal truths. So AO3 is part of the ongoing question of harm and benefit both to society and individuals.

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Money quote:

“Despite what you’ve read, the reason “we” can’t monetize our fanfics on AO3 has nothing to do with the site being the product of volunteer handiwork or AO3 having it in their terms of service or it being considered gauche by some to do so; it’s because 

IT’S ILLEGAL.

I cannot say this loudly enough: It is against the law for a nonprofit to be used by its staff, volunteers, or beneficiaries to earn direct profit from the services provided by the nonprofit.

You can be paid to work at one, but you cannot side-hustle by selling your handmade friendship bracelets for personal gain on the nonprofit’s website. If the nonprofit knowingly allows monetization of its services, it can lose nonprofit status, be fined, be hit with back taxes, and a lot of other unpleasant bullshit can go down, including prosecution of those involved for fraud. If you put a ko-fi link on your fanfic, you are breaking the law, and if AO3 allows it, they are too.”

#Ao3#Fandom#Didn’t know that even beneficiaries aren’t allowed to profit from a 503(c)#Copperbadge does fundraising for a living#so he would know#otw
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Reblogged
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playing a new game where i talk about fandom using words that belong on corporate powerpoint slides like:

✨ we have to align our headcanons to authentically reflect our strategic mission and meet quarterly margin objectives ✨

sorry to everyone who understood that

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as per my last 5+1,

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Hello team, 

With all due respect, I cross-checked your references with Kakashi from accounting, and the error in your fics was statistically significant. Every fic published in our “Enemies to Lovers” tag after the most recent episode’s air date needs to be updated and reviewed due to new policies issued by the author. 

Please re-aquaint yourself with the source material before next week’s meeting and prepare to discuss the changes. 

Cheers!

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you guys are really good at this game

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I understand that you and your team would prefer project AO3 to adhere to your specific set of standards. However, this particular space is targeting a well-defined, well-identified segment and I'm afraid your requirements are out of scope at the moment.

I'm more than happy to provide a POC for you and your team to start writing userstories, so you can draft a separate project that specifically caters to your needs. It should be easy work to get it up and running, considering that, by the tone of your last communication, I assume you've secured funding and prioritization for this item.

All the best, let me know if you need anything else!

Thank you.

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