I just read Bad Art Friend & I don't have any desire to comment on the specifics of the story or to defend/criticize either woman. However, I have seen some comments arguing kidney donors shouldn't brag about their donations & PLEASE don't let that be the message you take away
Again, I don't really care about this story. I care about KIDNEYS. Our country uses diseased donors & living donors, the latter being moved by altruism. We need MORE people to give their kidneys. A major way to get more people to give is for them to talk about their donation.
Sometimes we might find this irritating! "They only gave a kidney so they could feel good about themselves." Well, "kidney donation will make you feel good about yourself" is one way to get people to donate.
The National Kidney Donation Organization: "Be Someone's Gift of Life"
Altruism models depend on people actually talking about what inspired them to be altruistic. Sometimes altruism arises spontaneously in a human but, at other times, they need to hear, "This is how great it is to be altruistic!" Most people donate after hearing others' stories.
Donors are encouraged by organizations to do things like put these bumper stickers on their cars. "Be a Hero." "Share Your Spare" "Save A Life." Etc. If we didn't use this kind of messaging even fewer people would give kidneys and we need MANY MORE KIDNEYS.
And, again, if you find all of this irritating, but why does that matter as long as it has the good outcome of saving more lives? Maybe if MORE people bragged about donations on their cars, fewer people would have to be using their own cars to beg for kidneys.
The National Kidney Foundation WANTS people to share their stories!
Again, I am NOT commenting on the behavior of either woman in the story. I am talking about the responses to the story that say people should just be quiet about their altruistic behavior. No, they shouldn't be. It's one of the only ways we get more kidneys
Also, it is extremely important to encourage live non-directed donation. Deceased donor kidneys just aren't as good. And directed donation can place unintended pressure on families & friends. A non-direct donation from a stranger can remove pressure on someone else.
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I do not like sweeping people's concerns, fears, or pain under the rug. I do not like gaslighting people. If a significant number of people from a minority or otherwise vulnerable population express concerns, fears, or pain, I believe it is wrong to pretend they are not speaking
Perhaps, after hearing people from a group express their concerns, fears, or pain, you will enter all of this differently into your political calculus than I do. That is a more honorable step than not listening at all. If you are intellectually honest about it.
And not listening at all is still less gross than pretending people are not speaking. I do not like this mass act of gaslighting. It disgusts me on a very deep level. I am speaking, here, of American Jews who are expressing concerns, fears, or pain.
The comparisons between any modern protest movement we've seen & the Civil Rights Movement are simply inaccurate. The inaccuracy is beyond frustrating b/c it contributes to an erasure of history. An erasure of the nature of the movement itself. Here are notes from CORE, 1963
The purpose of the movement was to show the world the apartheid state. Nonviolence was a "philosophy" re: right/wrong, but it was also, perhaps more importantly, a tactic w/in a broader strategy. "You will be peaceful. And you will be beaten. And then the world will see."
Members would gather together & study the violence others had experienced. They would then carry out that violence against each other. In order to train themselves, they would hit each other, spit on each other, call each other the n-word. They practiced singing through it.
Here's what I think.
-We have never paid as much attention to any war as we have the Israel/Gaza war. Even our "own" wars.
-Israel has consistently been framed as the primary agent in this defensive war, with malicious (genocidal) intent against Palestinians
-Why?
-Just the fact that we pay more attention to this war should be illuminating.
Why.
Does it require more attention than the Syrian Civil War, Sudan, Ukraine, etc?
Why.
I'm going to tell you what the end of my thought process is, re: the "why"
It's because of Jews. Or, rather, not because of Jews but because of fucking gentile bullshit re: Jews.
I did know that, in fact. And now I know something else: You are wildly unqualified to make any comments on this topic. The depth of the ignorance that you proudly display as "knowledge" is so freaking profound that I don't think you even know what antisemitism is.
If you don't know that
-"Jewish" refers to an ethnicity, as well as a religion
-Western antisemitism has, for over a century (at least, maybe longer) been primarily an anti-ethnic phenomenon
&
-Being Christian hasn't saved ethnic Jews before
Please get out of the conversation.
I would laugh if this weren't so serious. These are profound errors. Is this where they're going now? "He was Christian so it wasn't antisemitic?" I cannot stress how profoundly ignorant that point is about what "Jewish" means & what "antisemitism" means.
Yes. I would count myself as having been sane about Israel pre-10/7, vis à vis other people, as well as careful about my conscious bias. After 10/7, I realized I--& other Westerners--were subject to greater bias than we knew & this bias can be linked to decades of propaganda.
This doesn't mean I approve of Netanyahu's conduct in war or his war-planning. It just means I did not view Israel w/ clarity of thought, nor did I understand its history vis à vis Palestine at all. And I would consider myself well-educated in history.
I'll firmly argue that this type of bias is not only unjust towards Israelis, but unjust towards Palestinians. Many have been indoctrinated by the very same propaganda that has intentionally held Palestinian people as a permanent refugee population to be exploited symbolically.
This is important. It also jogged my memory. I didn't always know this history. I only learned about it last year. I learned about it precisely bc I suspected, from my experience on this website, that Russia was exploiting & amplifying antisemitism, as well as divisions over I/P
Let me correct myself, before continuing. I said I "suspected" RU was exploiting & amplifying antisemitism. That is incorrect. I actually *knew* this was happening. It was documented. What I "suspected" was that it was *also* happening on this site.
So the chain of evidence & inference is important in the service of "theory-building" or "truth-seeking" or whatever we call it. I knew what Russian strategies were. I had experienced Russian interference online before (2016, etc). I felt I was experiencing the same re: I/P.