"Happy holidays" is bullshit Christian normativity.

[Thestatusquo]

I am religiously atheist and culturally jewish. I don't believe in god above, and I certainly don't believe in your little baby jesus. Furthermore, as someone who vividly remembers getting the crap kicked out of him in middle school for being the only jewish kid in the class, I can personally tell anyone who wants to say "it's just being nice! there's nothing wrong with it! it's just PC bullshit." that otherization and the attempted normalization of one religious ideology has real world consequences for real people. It's not just you being nice, it's you actively participating in a system of control that is hurtful and offensive.

When you say happy holidays, what you are actually saying is "I think everyone should be celebrating Christmas right now, and I will make you celebrate it with me with a thinly veiled code word for Christmas."

This is true for two reasons. First, when you wish me happy holidays, you are only demonstrating your ignorance of the fact that the "Holiday" I am supposed to be celebrating ended roughly 2 weeks ago. If someone were to wish you happy holidays on January 9th you would look at them a little funny and wonder what they were talking about. I don't have to do that, because I know what you're actually talking about. You're talking about Christmas. Stop with the patronizing, faux-inclusive bullshit.

The other reason it is true is because Hanukkah is not an important holiday. Like, at all. It is minor as all hell. In terms of important holidays Hanukkah is about as important as boxing day is. To Americans. It just happens to be almost exclusively the only Jewish holiday that Christians know about. It's almost as if this is because they trot it out to act like their Christmas celebrations are somehow secular. They sing 6 Christmas carols and 1 Hanukkah song at the kids "Holiday concert" and they go home in their nice little subaru foresters marveling at how cosmopolitan they all are.

From now on I am going to start wishing Christians "happy holidays" around Yom Kippur and then when they look at me funny explain to them that we're celebrating our important holidays together, so I was wishing them a wonderful St. Andrew's day. Thirty days in advance.

Seriously. Just stop it.

[Thestatusquo]

They see him trollin' they hatin'

Happy festivus, reck.

[Thestatusquo]

Seriously, though.

Happy holidays is bullshit.

[Thestatusquo]

It's really funny! Look at that minority! Isn't he so cute with his anger! Next time someone a person of color tells you about how they are marginalized in society I hope you point and laugh at them and say ""Hey, you need to prove your income to buy this belt." "Fuck you!" yeah I can see you doing this about ten times a day.""

Or better yet, tell them they shouldn't care.

Atheists are literally the "least trusted group in America." I've not gotten promotions before because I didn't believe in god. As I said I used to get the crap beat out of me for my cultural judaism.

You're really going to tell me this stuff doesn't matter? Why do you think its still culturally acceptable?

No, seriously. Stop being a fuck hole for one second.

[Thestatusquo]

also an atheist

the vast vast majority of people who say happy holidays are proooobably just are trying to be polite and/or nice and unless they become a cunt about it if you say something like 'i dont celebrate christmas actually' then they have no ill intent and it's not worth caring about silly minutia of phrasings and greetings.

alternatively,
=3

Ignorance is not an excuse for furthering oppressive social structures. (and while we're on the subject, did you really just use the word "cunt" in a discussion of oppressive language???? Homie... Come on.) If anything, that ignorance is even more reason why discussions like this need to be had.

If you meet people in the street who say this to you, you don't have to be mean about telling them what they did was offensive. But I can and do tell them that it was.

[Thestatusquo]

Junpei is an idiot as always. Everyone move along. Nothing to see here.

Ani, I get that sentiment. The problem is that people can do damaging things even when they're trying to be nice. Making it a cultural imperative to say happy holidays around christmas time normalizes Christianity as a dominant social group, and that is a pretty bad thing. It leads directly to what things like what happened to me frequently when I was a kid. That shit still happens. It's not like antisemitism some how went away. Its still here and well, and reenforcing the Other of Judaism through practices like this directly cause that shit to be normalized. You become not just a Jew, but someone who is different, and if history has shown us anything its that those who are different always become targets. So, no, I don't think its the thought that counts. I think the thought is excusable, but that the person still needs to not contribute to systems of oppression.

[Thestatusquo]

This whole thread:

Member of the minority: When you act this way I feel this way.
Member of the majority: You shouldn't feel that way. Your feelings are illegitimate. I have no idea how your positions feels, because I am not ever subjected to it, but I still feel comfortable telling you to get over it. I don't mean to be offensive!

Tamuz: Uhhhhhh

Me:

http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/07/int ... ly-matter/

[Thestatusquo]

Just reread this thread.

Reminded me of how huge dicks posters on this site can be, especially KK and psyche. So that was sweet.

Just wanted to remind everyone that happy holidays is not more inclusive. Even if that is its aim it is hurtful and causes Jewish people to feel out of place and reinforces otherization.

[Thestatusquo]

Denying someones experience and telling them they shouldn't be offended is being a dick.

I mean, rationalize it however you want. I'm not the person who has to live with it. I would note that I almost completely stayed out of this discussion last year after I raised the issue because of how painful (your posts in particular) it was to have people constantly deny my experience and my emotions. I'm anticipating a similar vacancy from this thread, but this issue is important enough to me to bring it up again.

Shaft.ed: It must be nice to have the only completely sanctioned break from lab work fall on christians religious holiday of choice so as to make celebrating it easier. I wonder what that feels like.

[Thestatusquo]

Glork, go read the posts of literally every jewish person who has posted in this thread. Done? Good. Now fuck off.

My claim is nothing other than "When you use this term it erases me and people like me." The response of "Well, I don't feel that way" is incoherent. Of course you don't. You're not fucking jewish, and the fact that you can't empathize with someone when they tell you that a practice erases them and their culture and that this is painful to them speaks volumes about who you are as a person. That's the very definition of privilege.

[Thestatusquo]

All these responses are completely typical of those in privileged positions.

"Well, I don't agree"
"You should just get over it"
"I am not going to apologize for my culture"
"Your experience is not typical of those within your group, why, I know MANY native americans who are totally ok with the term redskins!"
"But I don't mean it to be offensive!"

All of these things are either silence techniques, which imply that the discourse of those who are not within the privileged group ought to be discounted for various reasons or are coping mechanisms which allows the person to pretend that there isn't a problem.

At the end of this list of excuses, you're hurting people. Both because their experience is silenced and also because you lead to a culture where Judaism is Other (i.e. the reason I got the crap beat out of me on the playground for being jewish growing up). If you can hear someone tell you those things and your response is any of the proceeding, you are an asshole. That's fine, you can be an asshole. I can't stop you. That's the whole point. I do not have any ability to stop you from hurting me and people like me besides telling you that you are doing so and asking you to stop, which is what I am doing.

You are hurting me. You are erasing me. You are hurting and erasing people like me. Please stop.

[Thestatusquo]

And I'm sorry that you missed the point enough to include that last jab.

[Thestatusquo]

Shea, when people say things like this:

If there is proof that this is an issue with the Jewish population as a whole and that my experiences are an outlier, I'm willing to listen.

and you respond just like you did, you lose a lot of respect as someone willing to help people understand your arguments. Why do you insist on being so aggressive towards everyone when often there are people who genuinely want to understand you and your issues?

I'm genuinely sorry that you're part of a minority I know little to nothing about. That being said, I was very aware of Chanukah beginning a couple of days ago so...am I supposed to say Happy Chanukah to you, or will happy holidays be ok because I don't celebrate that particular one? I'm actually curious now how to approach this...

Claiming that people need to be nice to those who are hurting them in order to "earn the right" to not be treated in that manner is a shitty argument. I think you can figure out why on your own.

Glork was being an asshole. I treated him like someone who was being an asshole. His responses paid lip service to listening but instead attacked the position, and doubled down on his idea that if people would just get over themselves and put up with christian normativity then everything would be fine.

With regards to your original question, I don't speak for other people. I would, however, imagine that anyone who does not have any ties to christianity feels at least a little bit Other around christmas time, even if they have internalized it and begun acting like it is "no big deal" because confrontation (as shown by the responses in this thread) is hard.

The problem with happy holidays is at least that its false awareness. It's awareness that exists solely for the purpose of normalizing christmas. Hanukkah as a holiday is about as important as all saints day. The fact that you know about it is that society has decided that its "jew christmas" and has appropriated it for the purpose of faux inclusivity. That is in and of itself the problem. I am not celebrating a holiday now any more than you are during all saints day. Those are roughly equivalent holidays in terms of importance. If you want to be inclusive, give me holiday greetings around the high holidays (actually knowing what the high holidays are would be a start, even!) don't fetishize hannukah. Believe it or not, it means way more to christians than it does to jews. If you want to wish someone Merry Christmas, be honest about it. Just wish them a merry christmas. What actually hurts is that my culture is being shoved into a box of christianity where it does not fit. We are being defined by christmas.

[Thestatusquo]

If you say so, Singer.

[Thestatusquo]

"You're a good minority, psyche. I appreciate how you are not an angry minority. That means you are deserving of less oppression. Good boy."

[Thestatusquo]

Heh, so you thought you were praising a non minority for how they approach social issues.

That is just fucking classic.

[Thestatusquo]

Yeah Shea, I was commending a PERSON for how they approached negative feedback from another PERSON.

Fucking classic, I know!

Yep. It really is. I'm glad you can see that.

[Thestatusquo]

He's referring to your comments to me singer. He is saying that it is unreasonable to shit on the very way a person defines themselves and then be like "oh, if only you were nicer about this I'd be more sympathetic."

[Thestatusquo]

To be fair, I don't think he's referring to you specifically, but rather the general sentiment.

[Thestatusquo]

Your post unfairly and inaccurately takes the impetus for the pain and the violence from the thing that causes it (oppression) and puts it on the reaction (people attempting to put into understandable words why exactly they feel marginalized) and that is so wrong and painful and backwards and ultimately predictable that it actually made me cry for about ten minutes when I read it this morning.

These problems exist whether you name it or not. Whether or not broseidon names gay people as something that he is he is still being discriminated against because he is gay. Is your point really that if we just pretended that the reasons we are oppressed and the people who oppress is do not have commonality we would be better off? Can you not see that this is just flatly untrue? Can you not see that ignoring the things about us that cause discrimination is only an option for those doing the discrimination, because their reality is shaped by their identity in positive ways?

Please for the love of god how can you not see that?

[Thestatusquo]

I think everything quadz just said is true but I would extend it to say that people are more actively -ist than they think they are because they do not understand what it means to be ist. If you call something gay to mean it is bad you are doing more than just "not opposing the status quo," you are actively supporting it and helping define it in a way that is hostile to people who are not straight.

[Thestatusquo]

You are making a decision which is supporting and entrenching oppression. Whether you are aware that you are making that choice is mostly irrelevant.

[Thestatusquo]

I think your whole perspective is flawed Jake because it's filtered through the perspective of blame. I don't want you to feel guilty or bad. Blame is not useful to me. I just want you to stop doing the thing.

In the sense that I'm just trying to hurt less, your intention is irrelevant. I don't care if you meant it or not. I don't care if you feel bad or not. I'm certainly not interested in making anyone feel guilty. I just want people to stop hurting me and people like me.

[Thestatusquo]

In many ways this is in and itself a byproduct of oppression. It is saying "your feelings matter because of how they make me feel" which is not the point at all. I'm not trying to make you feel anything, and how you feel about your actions is not the point. The point isn't how you feel about doing something that oppresses people, the point is understanding the feelings and the situations of those you oppress.

[Thestatusquo]

Sigh. You really think those are the same quadz?

[Thestatusquo]

Oh jeez.

[Thestatusquo]

Oh this is a multi-year old thread. That took me by surprise.

Have you grown out of this opinion yet, TSQ?

I wasn't the one who bumped it, and frankly I wish it hadn't been bumped, but I don't know why you would say something like "have you grown out of this opinion yet" which implies that I was incorrect to start, when I think its pretty obvious that the point I'm making is just obviously true.

Everyone who argued against it either did so by saying that they didn't think it was true because they didn't experience it, and shocker, those people were all christian. Meanwhile, every jew who posted in the thread was like "this is completely true."

I think there's a disconnect in this thread with what I was saying and what people thought I was saying. If you look at the responses early on especially, there was a tendency to attribute anger to me. I.e. that people thought I was getting wished happy holidays and saying "fuck you" in response. I don't think I ever even came close to implying that this is what I was doing. I was rather simply pointing out that happy holidays is not inclusive of religious minorities, even if it is attempting to be, and actually ends up entrenching the idea that this time of year should be special, even when for religious minorities it is not. It's indoctrination of religious minorities into christian culture. If there were no christmas, jews would not wish each other happy holidays at this time of year.

[Thestatusquo]

For the record:

a) Since people seem to not realize this: the jewish new year is not in january either.
b) When someone says merry christmas to me I say it back

[Thestatusquo]

I am saying those wishing people a happy holiday are imposing christian normativity on people and that this is bad for several obvious reasons.

[Thestatusquo]

sigh.

[Thestatusquo]

Psyche flip flops every year on this thread. When he first saw it he attacked it with such winning arguments as "the OP is wrong because he is wrong." Last time he said "i have changed my mind and now almost 100% agree with shea."

This time he's back on attacking it, though vaguely and from the sidelines.

Psyche, be intellectually honest. No one wishes people happy holidays at random times throughout the year, and pointing out that january exists does not change the fact that the argument "but new years!" which pretty much no one means anyway when they say happy holidays at the end of november, is not an argument against the fact that "happy holidays" is just a thinly veiled merry christmas.

[Thestatusquo]

The thing I think most people are missing here is that I woulD prefer merry christmas. At least its honest.

[Thestatusquo]

Also I'm going to just start greeting people with "HAPPY FEAST OF WINTERVEIL, CHAMPION!"

The solution has been found.

[Thestatusquo]

I already say hello at all other times by going "I...greet...you."

[Thestatusquo]

https://vine.co/v/eLt0VKz56B0

[Thestatusquo]

Thats what both me and ap are referencing, though hearthstone not wow proper.

[Thestatusquo]

I want to have a thread called "majiffy tries to place references."

I'm sure hilarity would ensue.

[Thestatusquo]

"Deliberately looking for offense"

Oh.

[Thestatusquo]

I have the feeling that we're all going to lose a lot of respect for someone when this alt is revealed.

[Thestatusquo]

personal attacks are grand.

[Thestatusquo]

this is what happens when you make threads in GD instead of SE.

SE didnt exist when this thread was made.

[Thestatusquo]

i'm gunna lock this thread.

almost everyone who has posted in this thread critically doesn't even understand the argument I'm making and every year some asshole bumps it trying to make fun of me and I have to deal with a whole new wave of assholes who don't understand my argument being aggressively wrong at me.

so, hope everyone enjoyed it.