Oct 7, 2024
#blog
A year ago today, the world was shook. And I still can't put my feelings into words. It's not easy.
But what I do know is that I'm tired.
I'm tired of hearing people online who still cannot wrap their heads around the severity of what's going on here. Yes, there are a lot of bad actors in this mess. That's true. But it just further proves the fact that many of us are wounded. Please just think for that a second. This is a generational trauma that is affecting a much larger group of people than you think, and for much longer than you think. Or are we all just (insert anti-Arab or anti-Muslim (yes the two can but don't always intersect, I hate that I still have to spell it out like this to some people in 2024) stereotype here) to you? Yeah, there's the block button. Goodbye.
I'm tired of seeing memes and jokes about it all. Clickbait thumbnails on YouTube. People who plot alternate history like the Middle East is just your 4D chessboard of friends and enemies (even though it does kinda feel like that sometimes). Even things like Countryballs bother me now. And if you have a platform big enough to share memes, then think about what you're doing and who you're hurting. While I personally don't expect celebrities and high-profile internet people to be politically active nonstop (see the recent discourse on Chappell Roan), I do expect them to not say and do things that are obviously wrong.
I'm tired of universities, including my very own alma mater, doing their absolute best to stop anyone from even thinking about a protest. We see you destroying encampments, banning masks, twisting the truth, getting the cops involved, and ordering military-grade equipment to spy on your students. These past twelve months have done nothing but show the universities' true colors. These are not your free-speech utopias. Authority still looms large. Something about "time and place" rules or whatever. Oh, you can say whatever you want to say, but only if we want you to say it too. The pandemic gave us a warning sign of what universities' intentions really are, and the last twelve months of frustration and protest have proved it. It is still very hard to celebrate my graduation when this is what the school in question does.
I'm tired of... just thinking about it all. Last October, I skipped classes for a week or two when things were peaking. Most of my instructors were cool with it and wished for my safety. In truth, it's never really changed. The hostilities go on and on, the West doesn't care, and we're all expected to just forget about it and move on with our lives. The news will be shared, but honestly I may as well not read the news because it's pretty obvious who will do what and I'll just be more upset. It's very important to educate people and I will continue to do so with the best of my abilities (yes, protesting is hard for disabled folks, you can't ignore that). But at what point does being informed about everything just consume you and make you wish you could just forget about it? Well, here's the thing. We cannot forget. It sticks.
"but but they'll never accept you for your gender identity if you were ther..."
Please just shut up. Two things can be true at the same time. I can want better queer and trans rights in the Middle East but also want a genocide to end. One of those is a higher priority and the topic of discussion right now.
Everything really is a dumpster fire. It's very clear what the aggression is and who the aggressor is, and those with the most power in this world have blood on their hands. It's also easier to see everything with better access to firsthand accounts that official news sources won't pick up on that quickly. And of course, those news sources have their own biases entrenched in them. But hey, media literacy is in the absolute doldrums right now I guess. I've been told to see both sides tto this, but there are no two sides to a genocide.
This took hours to write. Just stop. All of it. Stop the lies. Stop the memes. Stop the profiteering. Stop the selling of arms. JUST STOP KILLING.