Back in March, when the #fediverse came together to help save us, we changed our name to “Texas Observer Lives!”
Today, we changed it back to just "Texas Observer" because we need YOUR HELP to survive into 2024! It's up to our readers to preserve the voice of progressive #Texas by joining our fall membership drive.
I have been joking to a couple of friends today who were also redditors that I've been feeling withdrawals from reddit throughout the day. Like I knew I was addicted, I just never thought I was going to have to face the consequences of withdrawals!...
Today, we're beginning to federate a selection of publishers based in Germany and the U.K. We've also introduced @FlipboardDE, a new profile for the Mastodon community in Germany. In the first test, we are partnering with 21 publishers to federate their profiles and Magazines. Follow the profile to see all the stories they are posting on Flipboard, or topically curated Magazines to get coverage on specific areas of interest. Here's a blogpost that explains more.
Make 2024 the year that we stop ceding cultural ground to fascists.
The fash love attaching themselves to cultural and artistic movements and subcultures with the express intention of claiming everything and everyone within those subcultures as their own.
The corollary of this is that we have to support anti-fascists within subcultures that are subject to this.
No, not everyone interested in medieval history is a "deus vult" chanting neo-monarchist who has wet dreams about a new crusade against a Muslim infidel.
Nor is every Crusader Kings or Divinity player out using the Steam forums as a recruiting platform for the alt-right.
Not every neo-pagan is also a neo-Nazi, nor every satanist, heathen, or Asaturar - hell, the Icelandic Ásatrúarfélagið, which should hold some sway in this, repeatedly speaks out against racism within heathenry, in the face of a long and organised project of entryism by the international far right.
Nor is every black metal fan or musician a racist, homophobe or bigot.
And not everyone with either a scholarly or practical interest in ancient Greek philosophy is a mammoth-hunting sexist, crying "men's rights" at the sight of a woman with a voice.
The same goes for enthusiasts of romantic landscape painting, classical sculpture, European architecture, fantasy fiction, goth, furry culture, and LARP.
Fascists specifically want to lay claim to a certain kind of cachet, coolness, cultural validity, rebellion, or edginess.
This list - which could be far longer - comes from my own experience fighting them out of spaces I enjoy being in or am adjacent to.
But more specifically, fascists want everything. Today it's someone's niche tabletop gaming hobby or music subculture, but the end game is that they wish to be the cultural arbiters of what is acceptable, what is decadent, and what art and culture mean.
Fascist works and movements exist within the fields I've named, but their broader project is to devour culture and shit the remnants back out as a bland narrative of white supremacism, stripped of context, diversity, history and deeper meaning.
Do not go along with this.
Do not go along with them.
Support anti-fascists within fields and subcultures subject to far-right entryism, appropriation or activity.
By agreeing to let fascists lay claim to that weird special interest group over there, by dismissing the people in that subculture who're actively fighting them off as apologists, cat's paws or useful idiots, we accept the fascist narrative that they - and only they - get to own and define culture.
Do not take their fucking word for it when they say something belongs to them.
They think the world belongs to them, and they're wrong about that, too.
Attal pique un visuel de LCP sans citer son autrice, Pauline, en alternance, la chaîne lui répond avec un tweet cinglant. L'occasion de partager le portfolio de la courageuse étudiante https://behance.net/paulinelessard. Un exemple par le haut de l'invisibilisation des autrices...
Do people seriously not understand how much gatekeeping there is in the statement "you need to understand the #culture of the #fediverse [before you should be here]"?
The Culture of the Fediverse™ is by design and necessity something that can and should evolve. If it is going to succeed it must evolve.
You can't say "everyone is welcome here" and then turn around and say "but only if you adjust to a set of cultural expectations that no one will explain to you or write down."
Je suis moins effrayé par la blague (discutable) de Guillaume Meurice sur Netanyahou que par l'annulation de l'émission de Charline et de ses acolytes en public à cause de menaces à l'encontre de l'humoriste après son sketch. Le manque de réactions, y compris des artistes, me sidère...
Black Americans who are attempting to trace their roots can get help from the Smithsonian. The institute's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) offers free genealogy sessions, both in person and online, teaching people how to interpret census records, find useful sources of information, and more. Here's more from @Smithsonianmag's Tracy Scott Forson, who got answers about her own family history from an NMAAHC session.
If you have leftover cheese from the holiday season and want to free up some refrigerator space, you may be able to find it a new home in your freezer. Here's Epicurious's guide to what you can freeze, what you can't and how to do it without sacrificing flavor. Tangentially related, but really we're just being nosy: Which country do you think makes the best cheese? Tell us in the comments what's on your dream cheeseboard.
The July/August issue is reaching mailboxes and select newsstands now!
Digital subscribers: Watch your email for your copy, coming later today. Enjoy, and share it with a friend who needs to discover why #TexasNeedsAnObserver!
In 1939, the Dongs, a Chinese American family, could not find a house to rent in Coronado, Calif., because of racially restrictive housing laws. Emma and Gus Thompson, a Black couple, allowed the family to rent and later buy their home. Now, the Dongs have sold that house, and are donating $5 million to Black college students. They are also working to have San Diego State University's Black Resource Center named after Emma and Gus, who was born into slavery in Kentucky. Here's more from NBC News.
There were dozens of Black classical composers in 19th-century New Orleans, but they had few opportunities to present their compositions around the world, and that means their works have been largely forgotten — until recently. Atlas Obscura reports how OperaCréole, founded in 2011 by Black mezzo-sopranos Givonna Joseph and her daughter Aria Mason, is giving life to lost works as "an act of restorative justice."
“We have always been here. We just haven’t always felt safe coming out. But there’s no turning back the clock. We’re going to win our liberation today or tomorrow.”
Indigenous knowledge can be powerful. Back home, the Mwera people were the ones who discovered Giraffatitan, one of the largest sauropods known. They guided German colonists to the Tendaguru fossil site in Lindi, Tanzania (German East Africa at the time) where the Germans described it & promptly claimed it without giving the Mwera people any credit.
Africans discovered dinosaur fossils long before the term 'palaeontology' existed
I just made a donation to the Archive and encourage those who can and care to do the same: all donations until Dec 31st are matched by a generous anonymous donator, so now is the best time to help. It is tax-deductible in the US: https://archive.org/donate
"Contrary to conventional wisdom, human brilliance emerges not from our innate brainpower or raw computational capacities, but from the sharing of information in communities and networks over generations."
Locals in the historic Fort Worth neighborhood were interested in the proposed Juneteenth museum ... but what they really needed was a grocery store, a health clinic and a pharmacy. Architects and civic leaders worked together to make the new site a part of the community.
Why keep the peace this #Thanksgiving? ”Sometimes we have a duty to condemn injustice in close quarters and call #racism by its name,” writes Editor in Chief @gabrielarana.
#culture#books#history#censorship#politics#religion The quote is actually a paraphrase of a passage from a book called The Book of the Dead by P.D. James
• The original passage reads:
You should never trust people who have only one book. It doesn't matter whether it's Marx or Hitler or the Bible; if they have only one book, they're dangerous. And they've probably never read it anyway.
Not everyone realizes how close our democracy is to failing here in the US, yet we are at a make-or-break moment where we can still do something about it 🧵
Fueled by white nationalist doctrines and playbooks, GOP leaders at federal and state levels are encouraging and stoking violence, voter suppression, and treason...
40 years after Marvin Gaye’s death, never-before-heard music has been found in Belgium. How did the tape, which looks like a basic BASF cassette that was common in the 1980s, end up there? And will fans of the singer who's popularity remains strong get to hear what’s on it? BBC News heard a brief, tantalizing sample from the tape. “In a rather eerie moment, the Prince of Motown almost seemed to live again.” https://flip.it/cAcvye #Culture#Entertainment#Music#MarvinGaye#MoTown
OC Any other former redditors feeling grief?
I have been joking to a couple of friends today who were also redditors that I've been feeling withdrawals from reddit throughout the day. Like I knew I was addicted, I just never thought I was going to have to face the consequences of withdrawals!...