Malificandy - Salt, Spite, & Everything Slight

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

I genuinely believe that a lot of the reason that the American left is so ineffectual and self-sabotaging is because of how deeply and unrepentantly calvinist it is.

Dara Horne said it best, "People Love Dead Jews."

Adidas said that choosing Bella Hadid to promote their 1972 Olympics shoes was an “accident” and “completely unintentional” but I really don’t think you can unintentionally fuck up THAT badly.

Why have a 1972 shoe revival in the first place? Why that specific Olympics? If they wanted to sell a 1970s style shoe for the Paris event, they could have chosen Montreal 1976, which would have the added thematic bonus of tying the last French Canadian Olympics to the current French Olympics.

Instead, they chose the one Olympic year in history which is synonymous with the massacre of Israelis by Palestinian terrorists. They chose to revive the shoe in the middle of a massive wave of global antisemitism, following a recent and unprecedented massacre of Israelis by Palestinian terrorists. And they chose promote it using Palestinian-American who is extremely extremely vocal about her anti-Israel hatred, going so far as to frequently post harmful and violent rhetoric and misinformation to her social media accounts.

If that’s truly an unintentional fuckup, then adidas deserves the backlash it’s getting for their sheer incompetence alone. But it really seems to me like they must have done this on purpose. Why choose that Olympics? Why sell them this year? Why her? Any other choice would have made this better. Instead, they fucked up at every turn.

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“Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.” ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estés

I think one of the most important things most goyim don't understand about Judaism is that there's a process for forgiveness, but forgiveness isn't required. And even then, the process of teshuvah requires more than just a simple apology.

It requires that one recognize that they have done something wrong, it requires that one regrets those actions, it requires that one strives to do better, it requires that one changes themselves to be a better person as to not repeat the mistake, it requires one to face the person they have wronged, admit their misdeeds, and declare their intention to do better.

If the offender's apology isn't serious enough, they repeat the same offending deeds, or something else happens where it's clear the apology was not sincere or the offender hasn't taken concrete steps to become a better person, forgiveness isn't required.

And even in the case where the apology is seen as sincere enough, the minimum required amount of forgiveness is "mechilah," which simply forgives a debt (physical or metaphorical) that is owed because of the offending actions. But the crime still exists. The crime is still there.

And EVEN THEN, one is not halachically obligated to offer mechilah. They may be morally obligated to as a sign of good faith, but in no way are they required to.

This is Jewish forgiveness. It is a process that takes time, energy, and trust. Sometimes, it's not granted, but when it is, it's granted because there is faith that the offender will become a better person and not repeat the crimes of their past, at least not intentionally (although that is a whole other topic).

You're such a hypocrite it is truly infuriating. You want people to condemn Hamas attacks on hospitals and kindergartens but your countries attacks on churches, hospitals, ambulances and refugee camps are ok?

Either both of them are bad or both of them are alright.

The way you start this ask makes it clear that you're incapable of hearing me out, so this reply isn't for you. It's for anyone else who might be confused.

Here's the timeline of events:

Oct 7: Over 3,000 terrorists break into Israel and rape, maim, kill and abduct over 1,400 civilians. Among their crimes, these terrorists kill paramedics in their ambulances, and shoot the tires of said ambulances so they can't be used to save lives.

Medical staff and tools targeting isn't widely condemned, nor reported by major news outlets. No outraged posts on Tumblr.

Oct 8: Barzilai hospital takes a direct hit from a Palestinian rocket fired from Gaza.

Hospital targeting isn't widely condemned, nor reported by major news outlets. No outraged posts on Tumblr.

Oct 11: Barzilai hospital takes a second and third direct hit from Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza.

Repeated hospital targeting isn't widely condemned, nor reported by major news outlets. No outraged posts on Tumblr.

Oct 17: Hamas reports an explosion at al Ahli hospital in Gaza, claims 500 people killed, and blames Israel instantly (even though it would be impossible to determine a number of fatalities that high within just 10 minutes of the explosion taking place, or to verify responsibility within that time frame).

Worldwide condemnations of Israel, every major news outlet adds this false Hamas report to their breaking news headlines and push notifications, and Tumblr fills with posts about Israel committing war crimes immediately.

But that very night, it turned out that the rocket was fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist organization. The rocket malfunctioned and hit the al Ahli hospital instead of Israel, and the next day it turned out the hospital wasn't even hit, it was the parking lot, the damage caused didn't fit an Israeli airstrike, and the damage also didn't fit a casualty figure of 500 people. In the following days, every independent check (including from institutes hostile to Israel) confirmed it was a PIJ rocket, not an Israeli airstrike.

No PIJ condemnations, nor reports by any major news outlets. Posts on Tumblr either ignore PIJ's culpability, or continue to insist that Israel is to blame, despite NO credible sources saying definitively so.

I know where the hypocrisy lies.

But the hypocrisy doesn't end there. Because what Israel and Hamas are doing with their own medical facilities is different.

Israel DOES NOT use its ambulances to hide soldiers and to transport weapons. It doesn't place its headquarters under the Barzilai hospital. There are no Israeli fighter jets being launched from its courtyard. That's why the Barzilai hospital maintains its protected status as a forbidden target during fighting. Because it is used strictly for civilian purposes.

In contrast, Hamas placed its headquarters under the Shifa hospital in Gaza. It has used ambulances to transport its armed terrorists. It's done so, because they KNOW that Israel normally doesn't strike medical facilities. Hamas terrorists have said so themselves. Here are two vids, the first about the use of hospitals by Hamas units, the second about the use of ambulances, and in both cases the reason given is that Hamas knows Israel wouldn't strike there:

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)