classy_aardvark

classy_aardvark , 4 months ago

@littleEva @palestine @CalNativeLandscape Ok? there’s still that pesky genocide assistance.

classy_aardvark OP , 4 months ago

@Ronial @palestine I guess what I was getting at was that we’ve used all of those words and nothing has changed.

It feels like it’s because those words have been stripped of their urgency because people (western society by and large) relegate any of the actions that could fall under them to the past.

New words can help shock the conscience of a society.

classy_aardvark OP , 4 months ago

@Ronial @palestine I’m not saying we should relegate any of that to the past. But, vocabulary changes, especially with major societal and political upheaval.

We’ve stopped referring to events as holocausts completely even though prior to WWII it would absolutely have been used to describe what’s happening now. But any reclamation of that word is decades in the future.

classy_aardvark OP , 4 months ago

@Ronial @palestine I suspect that, English being the magpie of a language that it is, it will eventually find a Palestinian word to use for the events that are currently happening.

classy_aardvark OP , 4 months ago

@almaember @palestine And they won’t. Not for years, if ever. It’s far easier to get them to use a new word, than an old one that links the present to the past.

I don’t think any of this is good. Nor do I think any change in what we call it will make any change in US policy.

At this point the news could flat out call it a genocide of holocaust proportions and the US wouldn’t change course.

classy_aardvark OP , 4 months ago

@Ronial @palestine Just want to make sure that you know that I don’t disagree with you about what Israel is doing. I don’t think Israel should even exist.

I’m specifically talking about what words English speakers use to talk about events and what is likely to happen in the future. We’re simply unlikely to see mass political change without a change in language.

It absolutely shouldn’t come to that, but probably will.

classy_aardvark OP , 4 months ago

@nicholas_saunders @Ronial @palestine Since there’s no internationally recognized definition of indigenous, I won’t answer that question. It just descends into an argument of what is or isn’t indigenous.

What I will say is that the people who founded what we now call Israel had no ethical right to do what they did, nor did they care.

I will also say that religion and ancestry are not an excuse for genocide.

classy_aardvark OP , 4 months ago

@daniel_keough @nicholas_saunders @Ronial @palestine I know what you’re trying to get at here. But I’d like to stop you. There are very good reasons to ban the use of DNA tests. It’s especially easy to understand why a place made up of Jewish people would ban their use.

Here’s an article about why the Navajo Nation banned research using their DNA: https://www.history.com/news/why-the-navajo-nation-banned-genetic-research