#Muslim identity | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jewelleria · 1 month

Text

I don’t usually talk about politics on here, if ever. But it’s been almost six months since the conflict in the Middle East flared up again, and I’m finally ready to start. Here are some of my thoughts.

I say ‘flared up’ because this has happened before and it’ll happen again. Because, even though what's currently going on is absolutely unprecedented, those of us who live in this part of the world are used to it. Let that sink in: we are used to this. And we shouldn’t have to be.

But I use that term for another reason: I don't want to accidentally call it the wrong thing lest I come under fire for being a genocidal maniac or a terrorist or a propaganda machine, etc., etc.—so let’s just call it ‘the war’ or ‘the conflict.’ Because that’s what it is. Doesn’t matter which side you’re on, who you love, or who you hate.

This post will, in all likelihood, sit in my drafts forever. If it does get posted, it certainly won’t be on my main, because I'm scared of being harassed (spoiler: she posted it on her main). I hate admitting that, but honestly? I’m fucking terrified.

I also feel like in order for anything I say on here (i.e. the hellscape of the internet) to be taken seriously, I have to somehow prove that a) I’m “educated” enough to talk about the conflict, and b) that my opinion lines up with what has been deemed the correct one. So, tedious and unnecessary though it is, I will tell you about my experience, because I have a feeling most of the people reading this post are not nearly as close to what’s happening as I am.

How do I explain where I live without actually explaining where I live? How do I say “I live in the Red Zone of international conflicts” without saying what I actually think? How do I convey the fear that grips me when I try to decide between saying “I live in Palestine” and “I live in Israel”? I don't really know. But I do know that names are important. I also know that, due to the various clickbaity monikers ascribed to the conflict, it would probably just be easier to point to a map.

I haven't always lived in the Middle East. I've lived in various places along America’s east coast, and traveled all over the world. But in short, I now live somewhere inside the crudely-drawn purple circle.

If you know anything about these borders you probably blanched a bit in sympathy, or maybe condolence. But in truth, it’s a shockingly normal existence. I don't feel like I've lived through the shifting of international relations or a war or anything. I just kind of feel like I did when COVID hit, that dull sameness as I wondered if this would be the only world-altering event to shape my life, or if there would be more.

I've been told that, in order for my brain to process all the horrific details of the past six months, there needs to be some element of cognitive dissonance—that falling into a sort of dissociative mindset is the only way to not go insane under the weight of it all. I think in some ways that’s true. I have been terrifyingly close to bus stop shootings when my commute wasn’t over; I have felt my apartment building shake with the reverberations of a missile strike; I have spent hours in underground shelters waiting for air raid sirens to stop.

But. I have also gone grocery shopping, and skipped class, and stayed up too late watching TV, and fed the cats on the street corner, and cried over a boy, and got myself AirPods just because, and taken out the trash, and done laundry on a delicate cycle, and bought overpriced lattes one too many days a week. I have looked at pretty things and taken out my phone because, despite it all, I still think that life is too short not to freeze the small moments.

So I'd say, all things considered, I live an incredibly privileged life—compared, of course, to those suffering in Gaza—one filled with sunsets and over-sweetened knafeh and every different color of sand. One that allows me to throw myself into a fandom-induced hyperfixation (or, alternatively, escape method) as I sit on the couch and crack open my laptop to write the next chapter of the fic I'm working on.

But there are bits of not-normalness that wheedle their way through the cracks. I pretend these moments are avoidable, even if they’re not.

They look like this: reading the news and seeing another idiotic, careless choice on Netanyahu’s part and groaning into my morning coffee. Watching Palestinian and Jewish children’s needless suffering posted on Instagram reels and feeling helpless. Opening my Tumblr DMs to find a message telling me to exterminate myself for reblogging a post that only seems like it’s about the war if you squint and tilt your head sideways.

These moments look like all the tiny ways I am reminded that I'm living in a post-October seventh world, where hearing a car backfire makes me jump out of my skin and the sound of a suitcase on pavement makes me look up at the sky and search for the war planes. They look like the heavy grief that is, and also isn’t, mine.

Here's the thing, though. I know you’re wondering when the ball will drop and my true opinion will be revealed. I know you’re waiting for me to reveal what demographic I'm a part of so that you, dear reader, can neatly slap a label on my head and sort me into some oversimplified category that lets you continue to think you understand this war.

No one wants to sit and ruminate on the difficult questions, the ones that make you wonder if maybe you’ve been tinkered with by the propaganda machine, if you might need to go back on what you’ve said or change your mind. We all strive for our perception of complicated issues to be a comfortable one.

But I know that no matter what I do, there will always be assumptions. So, while I shudder to reveal this information online, I think that maybe my most significant contribution to this meta-discussion spanning every facet of the internet is this:

I am a Jew.

Or, alternatively, I am: Jewish, יהודית, يَهُودِيٌّ, etc. Point is, I come from Jews. And, like any given person, I am a product of generation after generation of love.

I'm not going to take time to explain my heritage to you, or to prove that before all the expulsions and pogroms, there was an origin point. If you don’t believe that, perhaps it’s less of a factual problem and more of an ‘I don’t give weight to the beliefs of indigenous people’ problem. But, in case you want to spend time uselessly refuting this tiny point in a larger argument, you can inspect the photos below (it’s just a small chunk of my DNA test results). Alternatively, you can remember that interrogating someone in an attempt to make their indigeneity match your arbitrary criteria is generally not seen as good manners.

Now, let’s go back to thathateful message (read: poorly disguised death threat) I received in my Tumblr DMs. I think it was like two or three weeks ago. I had recently gained a new follower whose blog’s primary focus was the fandom I contribute to, so I followed them back. I saw in my notes that they were going through my posts and liking them—as one does when gaining a new mutual. Yippee!

Then they sent me this:

I tried to explain that hate speech is not a way to go about participating in political discourse, but the person had already blocked me immediately after sending that message. Then, assured by the fact that I surely would never see them complaining about me on their blog (because, as I said, they blocked me), they posted a shouting rant accusing me of sympathizing with colonizing settlers and declaring me a “racist Zionist fuck.” Oh, the wonders of incognito tabs.

Where this person drew these conclusions after reading my (reblogged) post about antisemitism…. I'm not actually sure. But I greatly sympathize with them, and hope that they weren’t too personally offended by my desire to not die.

For a while I contemplated this experience in my righteous anger, and tried to figure out a way to message this person. I wanted to explain that a) seeing a post about being Jewish and choosing to harass the creator about Israel is literally the definition of antisemitism and b) that sending a hateful DM and refusing to be held accountable is just childish and immature. But I gave up soon after—because, honestly, I knew it wasn’t worth my effort or energy. And I knew that I wouldn't be able to change their mind.

But I still remember staring at that rather unfortunate meme, accompanied by an all-caps message demanding for me to Free Palestine, and thinking: the post didn’t even have any buzzwords. I remember the swoop of dread and guilt and fear. I remember wondering why this kind of antisemitism felt worse, in that moment, than the kind that leaves bodies in its wake.

I remember thinking, I don’t have the power to free anyone.

I remember thinking, I’m so fucking tired.

And before you tell me that this conflict isn’t about religion—let me ask you some questions. Why is it that Israel is even called Israel? (Here’s why.) Why do Jews even want it? (Here’s why.) But also, if you actually read the charters of Islamist terrorist organizations like ISIS, Hamas, and Hezbollah (among others), they equate the modern state of Israel with the Jewish people, and they use the two entities interchangeably. So of course this conflict is religious. It’s never been anything but that.

But I do wonder, when faced with those who deny this fact: how do I prove, through an endless slew of what-about-isms and victim blaming, that I too am hurting? How do I show that empathy is dialectical, that I can care deeply for Palestinians and Gazans while also grieving my own people?

There's this thing that humans do, when we’re frustrated about politics and need to howl our opinions about it into the void until we feel better. We find like-minded souls, usually our friends and neighbors, and fret about the state of the world to each other until we’ve gone around in a satisfactory amount of circles. But these conversations never truly accomplish anything. They’re just a substitute, a stand-in catharsis, for what we really wish we could do: find someone who embodies the spirit of every Jew-hating internet troll, every ignorant justifier of terrorism, and scream ourselves hoarse at them until we change their mind.

But, of course, minds cannot be changed when they are determined to live in a state of irrational dislike. In Judaism, this way of thinking has a name: שנאת חינם (sinat hinam), or baseless hatred. It's a parasite with no definite cure, and it makes people bend over backwards to justify things like the massacre on October seventh, simply because the blame always needs to be placed on the Jews.

So when a Jew is faced with this unsolvable problem, there is only one response to be had, only one feeling to be felt: anger. And we are angry. Carrying around rage with nowhere to put it is exhausting. It's like a weight at the base of our neck that pushes down on our spine, bending it until we will inevitably snap under the pressure. I’m still waiting to break, even now.

I wish I could explain to someone who needs to hear it that terrorism against Israelis happens every single day here, and that we are never more than one degree of separation away from the brutal slaughter of a friend, lover, parent, sibling. I wish it would be enough to say that the majority of Israelis (which includes Arab-Israeli citizens who have the exact same rights as Jewish-Israelis) wish for peace every day without ever having seen what it looks like.

I wish I could show the world that Israel was founded as a socialist state, that it was built on communal values and born from a cluster of kibbutzim (small farming communities based on collective responsibility), and that what it is now isn’t what its people stand for.

I wish the world could open their eyes to what we Israelis have seen since the beginning: that Hamas is the enemy, Hamas is the one starving Palestinians and denying them aid, Hamas is the one who keeps rejecting ceasefire terms and denying their citizens basic human rights. Hamas is the governing body of Gaza, not Israel. Hamas is responsible for the wellbeing of the Palestinian people. And Hamas are the ones who are more determined to murder Jews—over and over and over again, in the most animalistic ways possible—than to look inwards and see the suffering they’ve inflicted on their own people. I wish it was easier to see that.

But the wishing, the asking how can people be so blind, is never enough. I can never just say, I promise I don't want war.

When I bear witness to this baseless hatred, I think of the victims of October seventh. I think of the women and girls who were raped and then murdered, forever unable to tell their stories. I think of the hostages, trapped underneath Gaza in dark tunnels, wondering if anyone will come for them. I think of Ori Ansbacher, of Ezra Schwartz, of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali, of Lucy, Rina, and Maia Dee, of the Paley boys, of Ari Fuld and of Nachshon Wachsman. I think of all the innocent blood spilled because of terror-fueled hatred and the virus of antisemitism. I think of all the thousands of people who were brutally murdered in Israel, Jews and Muslims and Christians and humans, who will never see peace.

My ties to this land are knotted a thousand times over. Even when I leave, a part of me is left behind, waiting for me to claim it when I return. But when I see the grit it takes to live through this pain, when I see the suffering that paints the world the color of blood, I look to the heavens and I wonder why.

I ask God: is it worth all this? He doesn't answer. So I am the one, in the end, to answer my own question. I say, it has to be.

Feel free to send any genuine, respectful, and clarifying questions you may have to my inbox!

EDIT: just coming on here to say that I'm really touched & grateful for the love on this post. When I wrote it, I felt hopeless; I logged off of Tumblr for Shabbat, dreading the moment I would turn off my phone to find more hate in my inbox. Granted, I did find some, and responding to it was exhausting, but it wasn’t all hate. I read every kind reblog and comment, and the love was so much louder. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 🤍

Source Reading

The Whispered in Gaza Project by The Center for Peace Communications

Why Jews Cannot Stop Shaking Right Now by Dara Horn

Hamas Kidnapped My Father for Refusing to Be Their Puppet by Ala Mohammed Mushtaha

I Hope Someone Somewhere Is Being Kind to My Boy by Rachel Goldberg

The Struggle for Black Freedom Has Nothing to Do with Israel by Coleman Hughes

Israel Can Defend Itself and Uphold Its Values by The New York Times Editorial Board

There Is a Jewish Hope for Palestinian Liberation. It Must Survive by Peter Beinart

The Long Wait of the Hostages’ Families by Ruth Margalit

“By Any Means Necessary”: Hamas, Iran, and the Left by Armin Navabi

When People Tell You Who They Are, Believe Them by Bari Weiss

Hunger in Gaza: Blame Hamas, Not Israel by Yvette Miller

Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever by Anshel Pfeffer

What Palestinians Really Think of Hamas by Amaney A. Jamal and Michael Robbins

The Decolonization Narrative Is Dangerous and False by Simon Sebag Montefiore

Understanding Hamas’s Genocidal Ideology by Bruce Hoffman

The Wisdom of Hamas by Matti Friedman

How the UN Discriminates Against Israel by Dina Rovner

This Muslim Israeli Woman Is the Future of the Middle East by The Free Press

Why Are Feminists Silent on Rape and Murder? by Bari Weiss

511 notes · View notes

melandrops · 5 months

Text

hollywood could never top the casual but meaningful representation that horror fiction podcasts have

#EVERYONE IS GAY #AND ITS CANON TOO #they take the time to address the issues and the internal dialogue #of queer experience #but at the same time #it just is #it's casual #it understands how to present queer people as People #with problems that are both unique and non unique to their identity #and!!!!#there's so much intersectionality #muslim queer people #disabled queer people #you name it they have it #it just means so much to me #the magnus archives #the silt verses

1K notes · View notes

bijoumikhawal · 6 months

Note

hello! i hope it's alright to ask you this but i was wondering if you have any recommendations for books to read or media in general about the history of judaism and jewish communities in egypt, particularly in ottoman and modern egypt?

have a nice day!

it's fine to ask me this! Unfortunately I have to preface this with a disclaimer that a lot of books on Egyptian Jewish history have a Zionist bias. There are antizionist Egyptian Jews, and at the very least ones who have enough national pride that AFAIK they do not publicly hold Zionist beliefs, like those who spoke in the documentary the Jews of Egypt (avaliable on YouTube for free with English subtitles). Others have an anti Egyptian bias- there is a geopolitical tension with Egypt from Antiquity that unfortunately some Jewish people have carried through history even when it was completely irrelevant, so in trying to research interactions between "ancient" Egyptian Jews and Native Egyptians (from the Ptolemaic era into the proto-Coptic and fully Coptic eras) I've unfortunately come across stuff that for me, as an Egyptian, reads like anti miscegenationist ideology, and it is difficult to tell whether this is a view of history being pushed on the past or not. The phrase "Erev Rav" (meaning mixed multitude), which in part refers to Egyptians who left Egypt with Moses and converted to Judaism, is even used as an insult by some.

Since I mentioned that documentary, I'll start by going over more modern sources. Mapping Jewish San Francisco has a playlist of videos of interviews with Egyptian Jews, including both Karaites and Rabbinic Jews iirc (I reblogged some of these awhile ago in my "actually Egyptian tag" tag). This book, the Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, is avaliable for free online, it promises to be a more indepth look at Egyptian Jews in the lead up to modern explusion. I have only read a few sections of it, so I cannot give a full judgment on it. There's this video I watched about preserving Karaite historical sites in Egypt that I remember being interesting. "On the Mediterranian and the Nile edited by Harvey E. Goldman and Matthis Lehmann" is a collection of memiors iirc, as is "the Man in the Sharkskin Suit" (which I've started but not completed), both moreso from a Rabbinic perspective. Karaites also have a few websites discussing themselves in their terms, such as this one.

For the pre-modern but post-Islamic era, the Cairo Geniza is a great resource but in my opinion as a hobby researcher, hard to navigate. It is a large cache of documents from a Cairo synagogue mostly from around the Fatimid era. A significant portion of it is digitized and they occasionally crowd source translation help on their Twitter, and a lot of books and papers use it as a primary source. "The Jews in Medieval Egypt, edited by: Miriam Frenkel" is one in my to read pile. "Benjamin H. Hary - Multiglossia in Judeio-Arabic. With an Edition, Translation, and Grammatical Study of the Cairene Purim Scroll" is a paper I've read discussing the Jewish record of the events commemorated by the Cairo Purim, I got it off either Anna's Archive or libgen. "Mamluks of Jewish Origin in the Mamluk Sultanate by Koby Yosef" is a paper in my to read pile. "Jewish pietism of the Sufi type A particular trend of mysticisme in Medieval Egypt by Mireille Loubet" and "Paul B Fenton- Judaism and Sufism" both discuss the medieval Egyptian Jewish pietist movement.

For "ancient" Egyptian Jews, I find the first chapter of "The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD” by Simon Schama, which covers Elephantine, very interesting (it also flies in the face of claims that Jews did not marry Native Egyptians, though it is from centuries before the era researchers often cover). If you'd like to read don't click this link to a Google doc, that would be VERY naughty. There's very little on the Therapeutae, but for the paper theorizing they may have been influenced by Buddhism (possibly making them an example of Judeo-Buddhist syncretism) look here (their Wikipedia page also has some sources that could be interesting but are not specifically about them). "Taylor, Joan E. - Jewish women philosophers of first-century Alexandria: Philo’s Therapeutae reconsidered" is also a to read.

I haven't found much on the temple of Onias/Tell el Yahudia/Leontopolis in depth, but I have the paper "Meron M. Piotrkowski - Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period" in my to be read pile (which I got off Anna's Archive). I also have some supplemental info from a lecture I attended that I'm willing to privately share.

I also have a document compiling links about the Exodus of Jews from Egypt in the modern era, but I'm cautious about sharing it now because I made it in high school and I've realized it needs better fact checking, because it had some misinfo in it from Zionist publications (specifically about the names of Nazis who fled to Egypt- that did happen, but a bunch of names I saw reported had no evidence of that being the case, and one name was the name of a murdered resistance fighter???)

#cipher talk #I find Leontopolis fascinating because after the first time a bunch of Egyptian Jews built a temple in Egypt a second guy did it #And allegedly had a not terrible scriptural justification! And the temple lasted for THREE EXTRA YEARS after Jerusalem was sacked!#Never let anyone tell you there was only one temple #There's also other stuff but this is what I immediately had #Some books I have I'm pretty sure just aren't good to start with lmao they're about very specific stuff #Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity politics and culture is interesting and includes Egyptian Jews #But it's definitely got a zionist bias. It's mostly essays #I'd definitely recommend reading up on Joseph Cattaui and Murād Farag because they were simply so influential #Even though Farag was a dumbass that wrote the first Arabic defense of Zionism #Ya‘qub Sannu‘ is also fascinating- he spent a lot of his time defending Muslims to European audiences so some people assumed he reverted #He didn't he just took a hard stance on it. Also he got exiled for criticizing the Khedivate #All 3 are in MMEJT iirc

104 notes · View notes

ultfreakme · 3 months

Text

Freeing Palestine is India's fight

I've seen lots of posts about how Western countries and their populations should be concerned for stopping the genocide in Palestine but Indians are involved in this as well.

India has a HUGE Islamophobia problem, from the day India became what it is, this country exists the way it does through conflict regarding religious majorities and it is a problem we must acknowledge.

Collective punishment has often been carried out indiscriminately against Muslims in India- Muslim people's houses in Madhya Pradesh have been demolished without warning. This has also happened in Uttar Pradesh and in 2023, Haryana(300 businesses and homes). These were all normal innocent civilians who had proper legal paperwork showing their purchase and ownership of their home and land, but the police did not care. In many of these instances the police stood by and were involved in demolition and all of these were under BJP-majority and ruled areas. The recent Ram Mandir was built on the demolished land of Babri Masjid(it was built in the 14th century before India as it was even a THING, its destruction & demolition on the claim that it was Ram's birth place is unfair). Hate crimes against Muslims run amok and there are multiple cases of violence against Muslims in India.

PM Modi of the BJP party has been consistent in maintaining positive relations with Benjamin Netanyahu and the occupying force of Israel. A majority of the military equipment for India comes from Israel, and India has constantly been neutral in UN council meetings when decisions regarding Israel are brought up. A spyware called Pegasus, developed by the occupying force of Israel was used to surveil politicians, journalists, activists etc severely breaching right to privacy and threatening freedom of speech.

Worse; India has been using the Israeli strategy of colonizing Palestine with Kashmir. Jammu & Kashmir is a union territory which basically means they are allowed to function independently on most fronts but India has been seeking to integrate J&K into itself and has been extremely hostile to its Muslim citizens and are currently intensifying their occupation efforts. There have been consistent internet and communication blackouts since 2018 and it is STILL ongoing.

India invited Israeli officials to Kashmir to open 'Centers of Excellence' which are supposedly for agricultural innovation but everyone in J&K are concerned and see it as India taking an opportunity to intensify its occupation with Israeli help.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, several Kashmiris told Middle East Eye the Israeli agriculture hubs would deepen India's occupation in the region and accelerate its settler-colonial project. "Earlier, we would draw the parallels between Kashmir and Palestine or India's intimate alliance with Israel. But now they are bringing Israel to the Valley in the form of these institutions - which will be "agro-oriented" in name - but we all know that Israel will physically help India in Kashmir to turn it into a proper Palestine," a Kashmiri academic based in Istanbul told Middle East Eye.

In 2016 Coalition of Civil Society said there are more than 8000 'disappearances' of people in J&K. There are mass graves with over 2000 bodies being found with these unlawful activities being attributed to the Indian Security Forces. That's just scratching the surface of decades of violence and human rights violations enacted by India.

BJP is not shy about its ties to the RSS and promotes Hindutva(I've seen people citing the literal meaning of the word as evidence that it is harmless but the word is a label given to an embraced by extreme right-wing groups who are open about their Islamaphobia. Meaning of the word becomes pointless when actions speak otherwise).

India is an occupying force on J&K, it's suppressing Muslims, demonizing them and further marginalizing them in the name of 'Hinduism'. It buys from Israel and endorses them. As Indians, it is key that we do whatever we can to stop the genocide because we are unwittingly being used to fuel this and are being radicalized to hate on our neighbors, the people we share our land and history with.

Even outside of the ways in which the current government is shamelessly supporting Israel, India's history is rife with colonization. The British had occupied us, forced us into fighting each other, into prioritizing meaningless differences to suppress each other. We were once starved by occupying forces, violated, killed. Our land is also covered in blood shed by colonization.

What are we doing if we don't speak up? If we don't stop this? Do not follow the propaganda conflating extreme right-wing ideologies with the identity of being Indian. Don't buy into the idea that India is "for Hindus", we are so ridiculously diverse, there are 100s of languages and religions in this country.

Free Jammu & Kashmir, free Palestine, stop Islamophobia.

#palestine #free gaza #desiblr #desi tumblr #gaza strip #free palestine #islamphobia #I have no special patriotism for my country but if that's the identity i'm forced into i'm going to stand up for Palestine #I am aware that Kashmiri Hindus have also experienced multiple hate crimes and were forced out and it had been classified as ethnic cleansi #but the fact that happened should only fuel you more to STOP the occupation & violence against muslims in J&K #absolutely nothing justifies genocide- nothing

23 notes · View notes

halalgirlmeg · 4 months

Text

Also I feel like some Muslims heard 'don't mix religion and culture' but like somehow turned that into 'we all should act exactly the same and erase any instance of cultural differences in the name of Islam'

#like calling people's cultural dress haram is not it #same with cultural music #say what you will but music is cultural and taking it away is erasing people's identities #like we're not all arab nor south asian and we shouldn't have to lose our identities bc we're muslim #I really love seeing differences amongst different islamic ethnic groups it's like seeing history #and it's like people being racist misogynistic and homophobic and transphobic in the so called name of islam #when that's the opposite of what you should be doing but policing people's clothes or something #you worried about the wrong thing #random

16 notes · View notes

belle-keys · 11 months

Text

one of the absolute worst unironic takes i've seen on the instawebs is "only people from x background can write main characters from x background" like holy shit how can you possibly politicize literature to this extent?

it's genuinely shocking to me that some people's personal motto when it comes to art and media creation is "only write what you are". with this mindset, writing inherently becomes about social and political identity when it should be about "let's do justice to this character and their background the best we can".

#being from the caribbean which is so defined by métissage is one of the myriad reasons why this is so insane to me #like research write and get feedback when you write things that you aren’t #if your work still sucks after all of that then yeah people should call you out #but the idea that only x can write x is ludicrous and also pathetic #publishing is such a dumpster fire post-tiktok #for anyone new here i’m both muslim and indo-caribbean this isn’t some kinda lowkey internalized racism post btw #books #literature #reader #book blog #media literacy #reading comprehension #books and literature #identity politics #literary criticism #critical reading #woc writers #writing #poc dark academia

51 notes · View notes

ofkilljoysandslytherins · 1 year

Text

The madonna whore complex or in the context of muslim men the hijabi insta-model hypocrisy

#desiblr #desi tag #desi memes #muslim memes #muslim identity #hijabi #muslim #islam #shitposting

4 notes · View notes

coochiequeens · 2 months

Text

He killed a literal baby. And now he wants to sue the state for damages?!

By Anna Slatz February 14, 2024

A trans-identified male currently serving a 55-year sentence for the murder of his infant stepdaughter has launched a lawsuit against the Chaplain at his prison after he was allegedly denied a hijab despite identifying as a Muslim woman. Autumn Cordellioné, previously known as Jonathan C. Richardson, is seeking $150,000 in damages.

As previously reported by Reduxx, Cordellioné was first arrested in 2001 after his 11-month-old stepdaughter died in his care while her mother was at work. The night of the infant’s death, Cordellioné had been visited by friends who later told police that he had been “acting strangely.”

Despite claiming the little girl was inside sleeping, Cordellioné had loud music playing in the home, and his guests noted that he appeared to have a fresh, bleeding tattoo of the child’s name carved into his arm.

Autumn Cordellioné as of August 2023. Photo Courtesy: Indiana Department of Corrections.

Later that night, after his friends left, Cordellioné went to his neighbor and asked him to call 911, claiming the child was unresponsive. When emergency personnel arrived, they were briefly able to resuscitate the girl, but she died shortly after being rushed to the hospital.

Cordellioné was interviewed by police, who noted he was “calm and unemotional” during questioning, and his story about what happened to the baby changed dramatically over the course of the two interviews conducted.

At first, Cordellioné claimed he found the baby unresponsive after doing some household chores. But in the next interview, Cordellioné said the child was being “fussier than usual” and he attempted to throw her up in the air repeatedly in an effort to calm her down. He said her “head bopped forward and back up in a rough type of a manner,” and that the child continued to cry so he proceeded to shake her aggressively in an effort to calm her down.

During a failed appeals hearing, detectives from the case recounted how Cordellioné “physically showed” how he had manhandled the girl, getting up out of his chair and demonstrating the action in a rough manner.

An autopsy subsequently found that the baby had died of asphyxiation by manual strangulation. Cordellioné was booked awaiting a court hearing, and would later tell a prison official “all I know is I killed the little fucking bitch.”

Cordellioné was found guilty and sentenced to 55 years in prison for the horrific crime. He is currently incarcerated at the Branchville Correctional Facility, an institution for male offenders.

Last August, Cordellioné joined forces with the American Civil Liberties Union to sue the Indiana Department of Corrections, citing “discrimination” on the basis of his gender identity. That case is currently in progress.

But Reduxx has now learned that that Cordellioné has also launched a separate suit against the prison’s Chaplain, Tony Gray. Gray has been a Chaplain at the facility since 2014, and volunteered at the institution prior to being offered an official role.

Branchville Chaplain Tony Gray. Photo Source: Indiana Department of Corrections

In the lawsuit, filed on November 3, 2023, Cordellioné accuses Gray of violating his First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment constitutional rights.

According to court records obtained by Reduxx, the incident of complaint took place in May of 2023 after Gray informed Cordellioné that he was not allowed to don a hijab outside of his cell. In response, Cordellioné said: “I wear the hijab in order to cover my head and ears for modesty purposes, as I am an Islamic practicing transwoman.”

At the time, Cordellioné’s registered religion was “Wiccan” and Gray pointed that out, to which Cordellioné replied that he was an “eclectic practitioner who is a member of the Theosophical Society in America.”

The Theosophical Society is headquartered in Chennai, India, and is considered an “esoteric new religious movement.” Founded in 1875, it describes itself as a “unsectarian body of seekers after Truth,” and its practitioners appear to dabble in the philosophy and beliefs of multiple religions simultaneously. One of its founders is Russian mystic Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, who stated in 1889 that “the purpose of establishing the Society was to prepare humanity for the reception of a World Teacher.”

Cordellioné is claiming that his equal protection rights were violated when he was barred from wearing a hijab outside of his cell, noting that male Muslims in the facility are allowed to wear kufis or taqiyah — a short, rounded brimless prayer cap.

“Islamic faith mandates the wearing of a kufi for males … Islamic faith also mandates females of the faith wear hijabs when outside the home and when not amongst men of their family. Tony Gray allows male Muslims to wear their sufis, but denies me, a transwoman, the same privilege.”

From the legal complaint filed by Cordellioné.

Cordellioné also alleges that Gray’s refusal to allow him to wear a hijab violated his eighth amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment. In his argument, Cordellioné claims the he was subjected to “harassment and ridicule” by the Islamic community in his prison because he had not been allowed to wear a hijab.

“[Gray] should be aware, as Chaplain, the stigma and shame that is attributed to Islamic women when they go uncovered and without a hijab,” Cordellioné writes in his complaint. “Women are viewed as whores, tempters of men, and adulterators; by Islamic society both in and out of prison. I have been shunned, made a social pariah, and amongst my own religious community.”

He continues: “Without the support of the Islamic community, I will struggle and likely fail to achieve salvation for by [sic] Mohammed’s teachings a Muslim who knows of the teachings, yet strays from them, will never reach heaven.”

In his stated request for relief, Cordellioné is seeking the ability to wear his hijab in prison, as well as $150,000 in compensation.

Since filing, there has been some back-and-forth with the court surrounding Cordellioné’s financial situation, with the court requesting a nominal initial filing fee of $36.55, but Cordellioné claiming he does not have the money to pay it. If he cannot demonstrate deficiency in the time the court has specified, his case might be dismissed.

#Autumn Cordellioné is Jonathan C. Richardson #Criminals using gender identity to try to look like the victim #Branchville Correctional Facility #American Civil Liberties Union #ACLU defending violent men who claim to be women #Indiana Department of Corrections #Good for the Chaplin for standing up to a guy claiming to be an Islamic practicing transwoman #Theosophical Society in America #A lot of muslim men would not like him wearing a hijab #He wants to identify as a whole tempter of men and an adulteress?#Another guy who fetishizes submissiveness #He claimed to be Wiccan first #He's really trying to check of as many boxes for an oppression Olympics

12 notes · View notes