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Luke O'Neil
@lukeoneil47.bsky.social
12.5k followers835 following8.1k posts
LOlukeoneil47.bsky.social

"I don’t know what language it’s possible to use with people who will never see you as human. Who will always hear an animal braying when you speak." themarkaz.org/a-year-of-wa...

No, the problem isn’t with language. It’s that some of us are so deliberately dehumanized that no description of the barbaric manner of our suffering or deaths could suffice to prove our humanity. In fact, the greater the barbarism, the more insistent the gleeful assertion that we deserved it. The West seeks to preserve the image of its own humanity at the complete erasure of ours. How can they be guilty of murder when those they kill are merely “terrorists” or “human animals”? In fact, not only are they not guilty of murder, they are heroes, cleansing the world.

I don’t know what language it’s possible to use with people who will never see you as human. Who will always hear an animal braying when you speak. Aware that we will be misinterpreted, we too try to translate ourselves for the West in every sense of the word in order to make our suffering intelligible. We speak to them in their languages. We say: imagine this was your city. Imagine these were your children. For we cannot sim
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NWsonourable.bsky.social

This brings me profound sadness. I wish it wasn’t like this, but it is. It’s been like this for so long, and I for one have seen it. I remembered after 9/11 I was asked if I spoke the “terrorist language” and my jaw dropped. What can I say to prove I’m human?

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Tthereisnodog.bsky.social

jeezus the accuracy of this analogy

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Luke O'Neil
@lukeoneil47.bsky.social
12.5k followers835 following8.1k posts