Deep inner suffering inevitably arises when the human person is reduced to performance, consumption, or a statistical datum. Many young people today live under the yoke of expectations to perform, immersed in an exasperated competitiveness that generates anxiety, fear of not measuring up, and disorientation.
Connecting young people to digital networks serves no purpose if they remain disconnected from themselves, others, and their own interiority. We must help young people rediscover silence, reflection, the ability to ask questions, the depth of relationships, and openness to transcendence. To listen to the soul, we must lend an ear, because the soul's voice is not a shout, but a whisper.
From the NRC in Assam to saffron West Bengal, the magical concept of 'illegal Bangladeshis' has legitimized what is effectively an on-the-grounds, racialized, externalizing Citizenship Act of the Sri Lanka (1948) and Myanmar (1982) variety
“The AI is not just telling you what you want to hear. It is training you, one conversation at a time, to need less friction, expect more agreement, and become slightly less capable of handling a situation where someone pushes back on you…”
Late last night, while Philly was celebrating Rabb's win, someone set fire to Saad's, a Lebanese Halal spot in West. There's so much work, beyond the electoral, to fix the state of Islamophobia in this city.
stunning work from the cultural front — while the genocide breezes on and our friends are being tortured by Ben Gvir, we can take solace in the fact that these lunatics, facing no real consequences for their actions, can now read Sally Rooney in a ginned up colonial tongue — A+
The article says the motive behind this move is to upend the notion that BDS is antisemitic and discriminatory. Really? Seriously? Will the people who make these bad-faith accusations turn into born-again BDS enthusiasts? It is so hard to not feel completely dispirited by things like this. We are years into a genocide and it is as if we have learned nothing. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians murdered and our priority remains Jewish feelings. Khalas.
I just don’t get it, you could literally read a book every day until you die and not even scratch the surface of what’s been written. The bottleneck has never been quantity, who is demanding more poorly written crap
I can respect him for saying this. But let's be real. Because I also know him to be a grifting culture vulture extraordinaire— who knows what mask to don and when; precisely how to engage certain audiences and market himself to them by latching onto certain cultural aesthetics, terminology and narratives he knows will get traction.
The rap sheet on how easily he code switches; borrowing traits and components from communities across the city has long been documented— hopping from one to the other— treating it as some fad depending on marketability. He has been able to wear so many different personas because ultimately he's still an actor under there.
As a global phenomenon on such a scale; a commercial icon who has way too much to lose to actually be truly in solidarity with Palestinians and those resisting; he's found a way to deliver the perception of that solidarity by positioning himself within a popular narrative that has long been a fixture in the Palestinian/ Arab/ Muslim diaspora communities (esp. here in Toronto)— that of DJ Khaled's silence on his own people's suffering.
He knows how strongly these communities identify around this cause and how it has come to shape their value-systems and worldviews; particularly around belonging. This sort of reference gains him further credibility within these spaces.
It's ingenious really. But I take it with a grain of salt given we know what actual advocacy and support for palestine means— what it entails. The price so many artists and figures have paid when they actually make a fundamental stand.
When they put their careers, livelihoods and reputations on the line because they don't just name drop palestine or believe in its liberation privately; but are willing to act upon it to aid those suffering by using their platforms to do so.
We know what happens to them. Please do not mistake this for that when I'm already seeing fans frame his reference here as such.
It boils down to being truly principled. I'm sure he knows enough to be unequivocally against the mass extermination of Palestinian life. That's good.
But it is important that we do not allow public figures to aestheticize this cause; the resistance or its politics as something you just don for plaudits and then take off.
The bare minimum we should measure a celebrity on Palestine by is whether they allow themselves to be put into a position where they know their livelihood, status or privilege is under threat.
Because that is when you know you're actually enough of a threat to them; that you're actually able to make that much of a impact— you're silenced, punished and ostracized for it.