Jon Stewart sticking the knife in to JKR over "Jewish" goblins

[WandaWomblesaurus73]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10368289/Jon-Stewart-accuses-JK-Rowling-anti-Semitism-Harry-Potter.html

Ffs

@Viviennemary

She is her own worst enemy. Always got to stick her oar because shes rich and such a vip. Her opinion is worth no more than anyone else's. I find her a totally irritating pain in the neck know-all. Books are great though.

"Her opinion" that men are not women is worth more than the opposing lie.

@NitroNine

Lots of people on Twitter do the online equivalent of Talking Rubbish Very Authoritatively. And it’s rubbish that sounds - if you don’t know anything about the topic - as if it might be true; they often claim to have studied whatever it is (almost always they have a doctorate); & they will shout down not only disagreement but any questions or requests for more information that fall outside the story they have prepared to tell.

Antisemitic goblins has a weird time-bending quality to it: lots of posting pictures of Nazi propaganda to “prove” that depictions of goblins are antisemitic. No engagement with Goblins Came First. Also a complete ignorance of actual Medieval antisemitism, such as the expulsion of the Jews from England; the trend for accusing Jews of poisoning water supplies; & forcing Jewish people to wear pointed hats to distinguish them from the Christian population.

Yes. "Time-bending quality" is precisely how it feels.

I also think there's a strange political reaction going on whereby real antisemites have initially read the Gringotts goblins as antisemitic tropes because of a mix of stupidity and malevolence, so to be anti-anti-Semitic, one then needs to rail against this portrayal to signal opposition.

None of this process actually engages with the subject of whether or not these portrayal actually are intentionally or accidentally anti-Semitic.

The way that twitter cancel culture is evolving is beginning to remind me of political scandals like the Dreyfuss Affair.

NitroNine
Lots of people on Twitter do the online equivalent of Talking Rubbish Very Authoritatively. And it’s rubbish that sounds - if you don’t know anything about the topic - as if itmightbe true; they often claim to have studied whatever it is (almost always they have a doctorate); & they will shout down not only disagreement but any questions or requests for more information that fall outside the story they have prepared to tell.

Too true, I remember a Tweeter insisting their UK Local Authority swimming pool only had a mixed sex changing room and that everybody, man, woman, child had no option but to use it, it had always been designed that way etc. Then an other user posted up the actual plans of the pool which had women's, men's and a family changing area, single sex toilets etc.

@SolasAnla

NitroNine Lots of people on Twitter do the online equivalent of Talking Rubbish Very Authoritatively. And it’s rubbish that sounds - if you don’t know anything about the topic - as if itmightbe true; they often claim to have studied whatever it is (almost always they have a doctorate); & they will shout down not only disagreement but any questions or requests for more information that fall outside the story they have prepared to tell.

Too true, I remember a Tweeter insisting their UK Local Authority swimming pool only had a mixed sex changing room and that everybody, man, woman, child had no option but to use it, it had always been designed that way etc. Then an other user posted up the actual plans of the pool which had women's, men's and a family changing area, single sex toilets etc.

I once saw a "Queer Historian" (American,of course) state that trans people were the first victims of the Holocaust. They got taken to task by a German Historian, who said he had only ever seen this stated by Americans.

I heard a report on the BBC of the mass murder carried out at Babi Yar and heading the list of the groups targeted and murdered were gay people. It felt like a rewriting of history to support a greater truth: that gay people were also targeted by the Nazis. Although the motives for the rewriting might be positive, it made me very uncomfortable.

I also think there's a strange political reaction going on whereby real antisemites have initially read the Gringotts goblins as antisemitic tropes because of a mix of stupidity and malevolence, so to be anti-anti-Semitic, one then needs to rail against this portrayal to signal opposition.

Non-Jews and anti-Semites deciding they have the authority to define what anti-Semitism is.

Sounds familiar?

NB I am not drawing any parallel between non-Jews and anti-Semites, nor claiming that all of one=all of the other.

@nauticant

I heard a report on the BBC of the mass murder carried out at Babi Yar and heading the list of the groups targeted and murdered were gay people. It felt like a rewriting of history to support a greater truth: that gay people were also targeted by the Nazis. Although the motives for the rewriting might be positive, it made me very uncomfortable.

Like the stonewall riots were started by a transwoman There's no doubt that the Nazis targeted gay men, but one can't help wondering just how many were sent to be murdered at Babi Yar.

So many were killed in that atrocity that it's inevitable some of them were gay. However, using that reasoning, it would have made sense to have included heterosexuals in the list of targeted groups. That would have rightly caused outrage.

Don't rewrite history. Even when you think you're doing it for what you think are good reasons. Imagine bad people doing the same.

So many were killed in that atrocity that it's inevitable some of them were gay.

But they were not selected for murder because they were gay. Being gay in this case was as irrelevant as being left-handed.

There's no doubt that the Nazis targeted gay men, but one can't help wondering just how many were sent to be murdered at Babi Yar

Not sure what you mean? "Wondering" in the sense of it being worthwhile? Or "wondering" in the sense of what relevance does it have in the context of Babi Yar to analyse this?

Statistically the victims at Babi Yar must have included people with physical and mental health disabilities who were also specifically targeted by the Nazis but also not relevant there.

"wondering" in the sense of what relevance does it have in the context of Babi Yar to analyse this?

Of course there would have been gay people present at Babi Yar, both among the victims and among the perpetrators. Their presence would have been purely coincidental. Emphasising their presence over the actual targets of this atrocity is deeply offensive appropriation of a group's suffering in order to promote an ideology.

Wondering, also, in the cynical way one does when presented with TRA 'most stigmatised', 'most vulnerable', 'most traumatised' narratives.

I specialise in narrative theory and allegory, and I've never come across this idea at all. In fact, it goes against what we know about how folklore and mythology forms, which tends to be a processing of collective historical memories of superceded cultures and peoples into the realm of the supernatural

Can I just reiterate HOW MUCH I FUCKING LOVE THE WOMEN ON MUMSNET

As you were

I think it's important not to underestimate the number of gay people killed in the holocaust. When the Nazis came to power they enforced existing laws against homosexuality (which weren't really enforced in the Weimar Republic) very fiercely. The other factor was that many of the people imprisoned or murdered were in multiple categories as far as the Nazis were concerned - eg a Jewish communist or a gay 'degenerate artist'. Gender and sexual identity were also much more blurred at that time - think of the number of people who cross dressed.

There is a difference between rewriting history to make a particular point and the vital process of questioning dominant versions of history to uncover (or rediscover) particular aspects. One reason why gay and transgender victims of the Nazis (or Soviet Communism) during WW2 were under estimated in the past is that homosexuality was illegal in other countries too. A gay British historian would not have been funded to write about the subject or found a publisher in 1950s Britain.

I know this isn't the topic of this thread but I did want to write this reading some of the posts about gay and transgender persecution.

One reason why gay and transgender victims of the Nazis (or Soviet Communism) during WW2 were under estimated in the past is that homosexuality was illegal in other countries too.

The Nazis' obsessively meticulous record-keeping ensured that we do know when, where, how, and in what numbers gay people were singled out for persecution.

Bab Yar was not one of them. Appropriating the massacres at Babi Yar to further an untrue narrative is disgraceful.

@Packingsoapandwater, your post is really interesting. There also similar creatures in places that would never have seen Jewish people — like puckwudgies and muki in America pre-date European colonisation I think.

More of a beautiful=good and ugly=evil trope than anything else I think?

I haven't been able to find the BBC website mentioned by Nauticant so I don't want to come across as an apologist for something I haven't even read.

Everyone agrees that the number of victims at Babi Yar is an under estimate and that they were overwhelmingly Jewish. The site was also used to kill people from psychiatric hospitals and gypsies. However, because of the attempts to cover up the massacre by the Nazis and then the Soviet Union it's harder to quantify which groups were killed and in what numbers as accurately as we can for people killed in concentration camps.

I'm just saying that transgender is an evolving identity. There must have been been people who were victims of the holocaust who would have called themselves transgender had they been alive today. Nobody should over estimate the number of gay and transgender people killed by the Nazis but equally there are reasons why they might be under counted.

The Holocaust was the killing, on an industrial scale, of the Jews of Europe.

Yes, there were many other victims of the Nazis but the primary reason for structures and processes of the Holocaust, one might say the only reason, was to rid Europe of Jews.

I do think that narratives that want to centre other groups are a really vile piece of anti-Semitism beside which writing about some goblins (because our cultural folk tradition has these goblin thingies in it) doesn't even register.

Talk about fucking irony.

I'll try to clarify my earlier posts. In a BBC programme about the mass murder at Babi Yar, and about how that echoes down into present day Ukraine, the reporter chose to create a list of targeted groups according to present day sensibilities of an oppression hierarchy rather than be informed by what actually happened over 29-30 September 1941. Rewriting history like this is bad no matter how kind you are trying to be.

I took an earlier post to this thread and by adding to it derailed this thread. If I contribute again I'll try to rerail the thread.

Jon Stewart was the victim of Newsweek - here he is casting scorn on their article accusing him of accusing JK Rowling of anti-semitism. It is worth a watch, and maybe you want to delete the other thread, and all the comments about him - he looks like a good guy.
twitter.com/jonstewart/status/1478791577573199875

[quote AgeOfReason99]Jon Stewart was the victim of Newsweek - here he is casting scorn on their article accusing him of accusing JK Rowling of anti-semitism. It is worth a watch, and maybe you want to delete the other thread, and all the comments about him - he looks like a good guy.
twitter.com/jonstewart/status/1478791577573199875[/quote]
That's been linked to and discussed way upthread, you know.

@nettie434

I haven't been able to find the BBC website mentioned by Nauticant so I don't want to come across as an apologist for something I haven't even read.

Everyone agrees that the number of victims at Babi Yar is an under estimate and that they were overwhelmingly Jewish. The site was also used to kill people from psychiatric hospitals and gypsies. However, because of the attempts to cover up the massacre by the Nazis and then the Soviet Union it's harder to quantify which groups were killed and in what numbers as accurately as we can for people killed in concentration camps.

I'm just saying that transgender is an evolving identity. There must have been been people who were victims of the holocaust who would have called themselves transgender had they been alive today. Nobody should over estimate the number of gay and transgender people killed by the Nazis but equally there are reasons why they might be under counted.

Yes but the point is that their being trans was coincidental, not the reason they were killed.

HP is hugely popular and of course has issues. It is totally fine the criticise it and yes I read the goblin criticism (and more) prior to the TRA stuff.

There is this thing called fandom were teens (mostly girls) and some adults who have no life obsess over their fave media online. It used to be mainly tumbler. Basically they would fall into camps much like football fans. If you were a big Twilight fan (for example) HP fans may attack you for liking nonsense and point to issues with the series like unhealthy relationships. Twilight fans would hit back with problems with HP ie goblins. It predates the trans things by a decade at least.

Just to be clear, in the Radio 4 programme I heard, gay people were put first in the list of the victim groups at Babi Yar. Trans people weren't mentioned. I was simply stating my discomfort with rewriting history for ideological/political purposes, whatever those are. The precedents for that are awful.

Interesting to see the reaction today now Jon Stewart has defended Joe Rogan. Once again, a thoughtful and reasonable take that has people going nuts.

Charlotte Clymer among those crying "was he always like this and we just didn't see it?"

Literal violence, I'm sure.

Good grief. Was he always thoughtful and reasonable? Yeah, probably.

Russell Brand has done a good video on Joe Rogan. I think he's spot on. (Never used to like this guy but he seems to have grown up a lot.)