• wampus@lemmy.ca
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    22 hours ago

    I don’t think you should be making generalisations about Jews based on the actions of Israel.

    Sure. Our media, most western governments, and Israel put anyone on blast as an antisemite if they question the Zionist regime and their open butchering of civilians and journalists etc. Antisemitism is used as a shield to deflect from Israel’s horrific behaviour. So long as that is the case, I have no personal issue – in an abstract sense for online arguments at least – to equate all jews as potentially supporting those actions. You hear the odd jewish person in the media saying it’s not what Judaism is about, and I’d tend to believe that’s true of the religion, but it’s not the case for most material purposes. Sorta like how there are people who don’t support Trump in America, but that doesn’t mean shit to anyone getting bombed or threatened by America – you gotta accept that the majority of their country voted for this shit, so any American you encounter has at least a 50/50 chance of being a fascist supporter. And the other 50 percent, are apparently cool living with fascists. Same principle. Individually, in regular interactions, you give em the benefit of the doubt until they pull out a maga hat or whatnot – but on aggregate, given how jewish folks are presented as a uniform mass in the media, and how tightly connected they portray jews and israel? I mean, if you met someone from Germany during the Nazi years, you wouldn’t instantly think “He’s prolly a good person! Not all germans are Nazis!” (and it’s true, not all were Nazis – but they all share the blame and stigma of what happened there).

    To your second point, in my view it’s not a deflection, so much as it’s pointing out that there are other communities that have racist elements. Yes, Nazi’s are a well known evil, to westerners, because of what Nazi’s generally did to westerners. Similar historic animosity exists in other cultures between ethnicities that have been purged/genocided. Sikhs with animosity towards Hindus. Palestinians likely don’t look too kindly at Jewish folks. Ukrainians likely aren’t openly welcoming to Russians. Uyghurs and Tibetans may have pretty strong feelings towards Han Chinese. Chinese/Korean folks often still bear resentment towards Japanese people due to the wars – the Japanese did the same shit as the Nazi’s, experimenting on people, torture, the whole shebang. Hitler praised their culture for being so homogenous and pure. Shitty horrific racist genocidal crap isn’t uniquely white.

    Like just recently, we’ve had stories of Hindus killing Sikhs, and of Sikhs killing Hindus. These two ethnic groups have such hatred / racism towards each other, that even once they’ve left their country and come to Canada, they’re still killing each other. If the media wants me to care more about the ‘nazi threat’ in Canada, those Nazi’s really gotta step up their game to catch up to the other racists we’ve got. I mean, racists online dating? Fuckin nerds.

    Idk. The tone of the article feels disproportionate compared to those other racists. It’s a sort of weird white privilege to claim that the white supremacists are the top priority no matter what, even when they just dating – all them other racists aren’t white, and generally aren’t racists towards whites, so they don’t matter as much.

    • m0darn@lemmy.ca
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      16 hours ago

      There are hateful bigots in every community, the conversation is about dating platforms, not communities.

      If a Sikh was saying we should gas the Hindus, he should not be in the Canadian Armed Forces. If there is a dating platform for Sikhs that’s oriented around eliminating Hindus, the members of that platform should not be in the armed forces.

      Sure. Our media, most western governments, and Israel put anyone on blast as an antisemite if they question the Zionist regime and their open butchering of civilians and journalists etc. Antisemitism is used as a shield to deflect from Israel’s horrific behaviour. So long as that is the case, I have no personal issue – in an abstract sense for online arguments at least – to equate all jews as potentially supporting those actions. You hear the odd jewish person in the media saying it’s not what Judaism is about, and I’d tend to believe that’s true of the religion, but it’s not the case for most material purposes. Sorta like how there are people who don’t support Trump in America, but that doesn’t mean shit to anyone getting bombed or threatened by America – you gotta accept that the majority of their country voted for this shit, so any American you encounter has at least a 50/50 chance of being a fascist supporter. And the other 50 percent, are apparently cool living with fascists. Same principle. Individually, in regular interactions, you give em the benefit of the doubt until they pull out a maga hat or whatnot – but on aggregate, given how jewish folks are presented as a uniform mass in the media, and how tightly connected they portray jews and israel? I mean, if you met someone from Germany during the Nazi years, you wouldn’t instantly think “He’s prolly a good person! Not all germans are Nazis!” (and it’s true, not all were Nazis – but they all share the blame and stigma of what happened there).

      There is so much wrong with what you just said. The only thing you said that was true was that [accusations of] antisemitism are used a a shield. It’s like you’re using that one statement to shield against accusations of antisemitism. Can you not see how it is antisemitic to accuse all Jews of supporting genocide (in an abstract sense for online arguments at least)?

      • wampus@lemmy.ca
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        15 hours ago

        I haven’t been on the platform, nor have I been on other racially segregated platforms. I can totally imagine, for example, a Jewish platform allowing people to broadcast pro-Zionist beliefs and narratives, and hateful views towards Palestinians – hell, we see the propaganda split on that front in regular mainstream media even, where the actions of Israel are always ‘good’ and everyone they’re pre-emptively killing are ‘evil’. Likewise I could imagine it socially acceptable for RezFox users to display hateful anti-“colonial” themes and images, given how prevalent it seems in those communities and in the narratives we literally see publicly broadcast without condemnation or reproach.

        I said plainly that generalisations are fine from my perspective in an online/aggregate sense, though I was also clear to state that individually you can’t assume one way or another (though there is more doubt / proof needed potentially, depending on personal trust levels). From my perspective, racism largely boils down to assuming generalised characteristics about a demographic as being inherently part of an individual solely due to their membership in that aggregate. Eg. Go back a few decades, and due to systemic biases/past wrongs, it was true that on aggregate FN people were less educated then other demographics. It’d be perfectly legitimate to point this out, and to say that generally they had lower education. It’d be racist to assume that a specific FN person from that time, was less educated simply because they were FN. Similar story for white people being slavers – go back a few hundred years, and most white civilizations endorsed/participated in slavery. It’d be accurate to say they were slavers, and to view those periods as shameful for all white people on aggregate. It’d be racist to assume that an individual white person (or their family lineage) was pro slavery / slavers, simply because they’re white. Or, for a more light hearted example: it’s fine to say black people generally like watermelon if there’s a stat that shows the majority do, but it’d be racist to assume that an individual black person likes watermelon just because they’re black.

        It’s accurate to say that the media, our government, Israel and many jewish people have actively pursued the equation of “jewish” with “Zionist Israelite”. They’ve stated very openly, and publicly, that they want us ‘outsiders’ to connect the two directly. So I’m respecting their wishes in doing so, when looking at them as an aggregate group. I fully accept and recognise that any Jewish person I meet, may or may not be in support of Israel’s recent/historical actions, and that it’d be wrong to translate that aggregate generalisation down to the personal level. But I see nothing wrong with discussing that religion/group as a cohesive unit, given that it’s what all media sources, our government, and our courts, and a large number of the people it applies to, have basically declared – I’m respecting their wish to have the two be equated. But instead of their preferred elevation/absolution of the Zionist atrocities, I rather frame it as shit smearing the ambivalent who are letting their name shield such atrocities. The way Israel’s conducted itself is deplorable, and it frankly should lower everyone’s opinion of that faith, if that faith is content to allow its name be used synonymously with the Zionist regime’s actions, especially if it’s being used to try and shield atrocities.

        Like Medieval Christian Crusaders sacked towns, murdered a ton of people. People get to know Christianity as a brutal murderous religion. Doesn’t matter if there are a few folks in other counrties that are just peaceful priests, if on aggregate their faiths actions are to murder a shit load of people. You can discuss it as a blood thirsty faith, and one that should be admonished for the violence its spawned (something that’s apparently ongoing to this day, with the USA’s religious-themed war cries in Iran). But it’d be racist to assume that every Christian you met was a murdering crusader, just because the faith’s spawned a shitload of murdering crusaders. And if branches of that faith, in other regions don’t like what’s being done in their groups name? Well, there’s a reason there are so many different kinds of Christians. Like how Anglicans likely don’t want a whole lot to do with the USA-style Evangelicals at present. The head of the Canadian Jewish faith could splinter away from Israel officially, and segregate their teachings from the actions of those Zionists. I’ve not heard of any such motions, so there’s a rationalization/logical reason to treat them as a unified aggregate group: they’re at the very least complicit in the name of their faith being used to support the actions of the Zionist regime.