The upper parliament by XH
gojo week on twitter - day 5 - souvenirs
Qian Kun - Fang Yi: Heaven Gaia Spring/Summer 2022
“Why do you look so terrible? Why did you get so skinny?“
“I don’t think you’re in a spot to say that I look terrible?”
In honor of TCF coming back from its hiatus: Lee Soo Hyuk and Kim Rok Soo’s reunion from chapter 582 :’DD
NOBODY KNOWS ∘ 誰も知らない 2004, dir. Hirokazu Koreeda
i've said this before but it bears repeating: a concerning amount of information circulating on this website about islam directed towards non-muslims comes from conservative sources and paints a very specific and narrow image of an extremely diverse religion. outsiders have this fictitious understanding of a monolithic islam, and somehow it is always the most dogmatic and overzealous and inflexible version of religion they can think of.
the reality of things is that like with all organized religion, there are muslims who are very strict in their practices and interpretations, and there are people who were born in muslim families and are influenced by islamic culture but are not religious, and there is a whole spectrum of beliefs in between these two extremes. this isn't even touching on the matter of different sects and ethno-cultural divergences.
i don't like making direct comparisons, but this is the language most anglophone westerners understand: if all the information about christianity you received was from evangelicals, you would have an incredibly biased conception of the daily life and beliefs of the average christian. you would also have an extremely problematic understanding of christian dogma - and i do mean problematic here as in something that causes problems, something that has harmful consequences. i understand and appreciate that people are usually walking on eggshells when handling issues of marginalized and stigmatized religions, but let's be bluntly open for a second: all organized religions have extremist ideological currents whose tenets directly contradict core progressive and liberatory ideas. accepting those tenets as valid and respectable in the name of battling bigotry is counterproductive and reverberates badly first and foremost on minorities.
the uncritical propagation of conservative (and sometimes straight up fundamentalist) conceptions of islam among non-muslims, especially in fandom/creative spaces that are concerned with political correctness and a genuine will for accurate and respectful representation, feeds a vicious cycle of insidious islamophobia: supposedly progressive depictions of muslims confirm the previously internalized bias that all muslims are indeed Like This, and said bias is what makes people swallow literal wahhabi propaganda without blinking in the first place, rinse and repeat.
this point of this post is not to embolden white people to start commenting on intra-community issues; rather it is a plea for people to be a little bit more critical, a little bit more analytically active in their consumption of information. may i suggest, accessorily, interacting with muslims in other contexts than just uhhh "learning". none of my white friends pull this shit, mostly because they have hung out with us enough to internalize the notion that we are... human beings, with a vast array of political and spiritual beliefs.
Antonio Reinhard - https://antoniowisesa.tumblr.com - https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/reinhard - https://www.facebook.com/antonio%20reinhard%20wisesa - https://society6.com/antoniowisesa - https://www.pinterest.es/afarw - https://www.instagram.com/antonioreinhard
The children were going to die.
Mohamed Bzeek knew that. But in his more than two decades as a foster father, he took them in anyway — the sickest of the sick in Los Angeles County’s sprawling foster care system.
He has buried about 10 children. Some died in his arms.
Now, Bzeek spends long days and sleepless nights caring for a bedridden 6-year-old foster girl with a rare brain defect. She’s blind and deaf. She has daily seizures. Her arms and legs are paralyzed.
Bzeek, a quiet, devout Libyan-born Muslim who lives in Azusa, just wants her to know she’s not alone in this life.
“I know she can’t hear, can’t see, but I always talk to her,” he said. “I’m always holding her, playing with her, touching her. … She has feelings. She has a soul. She’s a human being.”
He’s the only one that would take a child who would possibly not make it.— Melissa Testerman, Department of Children and Family Services intake coordinator
Of the 35,000 children monitored by the county’s Department of Children and Family Services, there are about 600 children at any given time who fall under the care of the department’s Medical Case Management Services, which serves those with the most severe medical needs, said Rosella Yousef, an assistant regional administrator for the unit.
There is a dire need for foster parents to care for such children.