http://braveryandothermyths.tumblr.com/

How could someone who loves you hurt you to the point of no return?

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:38:27 -0400

How could someone who loves you hurt you to the point of no return?

There are so many nuances to “whiteness” and it’s summer and I don’t want to...

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:34:00 -0400

There are so many nuances to “whiteness” and it’s summer and I don’t want to think and explain what I mean by that. I just want to drink my smoothies and get annoyed by my little sister who I have to babysit for 4 months!!!

thechechenka: braveryandothermyths: Guys, I know you want the bombers to be white to get back at...

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:29:35 -0400

thechechenka:

braveryandothermyths:

Guys, I know you want the bombers to be white to get back at the racist remarks made by Americans, but we, Chechens, do not consider ourselves white. Like, at all.

So please stop.

Seriously? Speak for yourself. Every Chechen I know, including myself, considers their self white. Not to get pissy, but what color would you consider yourself if not white? Not that it honestly matters.

Oh God. it’s not about the colour to me. Let’s just leave it at that.

I’m here to share the recipe for this awesome DIY face mask that is pretty common. Mix some...

Wed, 08 May 2013 00:26:05 -0400

I’m here to share the recipe for this awesome DIY face mask that is pretty common. Mix some avocado, honey, and lemon juice. I didn’t really measure how much I added of each of the ingredients, just make sure it’s pasty. I have horribly dehydrated skin and no matter how much water I drink it does not seem to go away (and no, it’s not the products I’m using, because I’m not using anything except sunscreen and coconut oil sometimes. Actually, it’s probably the sunscreen.) I applied the mask twice today since I made a little too much (I still have some left over for tomorrow morning) and my skin is already looking so much more moisturized. And it’s glowing! My pores have almost all cleared up. Noo, it’s not a miracle mask, don’t expect your skin to look perfect, but it does a good job at making it softer and less irritated.

Oh, and leave it on for as long as you want/can. In the morning, I left it on for 2 hours because I had nothing to do. And tonight, I left it on for about 40 minutes.

Don’t waste the whole avocado! Eat it, too. It’s good for you.

This is probably a very unexpected post.

"Muslims face prejudice, but Muslims from the Caucasus face a particular kind of prejudice - the kind..."

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:56:53 -0400

“

Muslims face prejudice, but Muslims from the Caucasus face a particular kind of prejudice - the kind born of ignorance so great it perversely imbues everything with significance. “There is never interpretation, understanding and knowledge when there is no interest,” Edward Said wrote in Covering Islam , and until this week, there was so little interest in and knowledge of the Caucasus that the ambassador of the Czech Republic felt compelled to issue a press release stating that the Czech Republic is not the same as Chechnya.

Knowing nothing of the Tsarnaevs’ motives, and little about Chechens, the American media tore into Wikipedia and came back with stereotypes. The Tsarnaevs were stripped of their 21st century American life and became symbols of a distant land, forever frozen in time. Journalist Eliza Shapiro proclaimed that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was “named after a brutal warlord”, despite the fact that Tamerlan, or Timur, is an ordinary first name in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Her claim is equivalent to saying a child named Nicholas must be named in honour of ruthless Russian tsar Nicholas I - an irony apparently lost on New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who made a similar denouncement on Twitter (to his credit, Kristof quickly retracted the comment).

Other journalists found literary allusions, or rather, illusions. “They were playing the nihilists Arkady and Bazarov in Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons ,” explained scholar Juan Cole, citing an 1862 Russian novel to explain the motives of a criminal whose Twitter account was full of American rap lyrics. One does not recall such use of literary devices to ascertain the motives of less exotic perpetrators, but who knows? Perhaps some ambitious analyst is plumbing the works of Faulkner to shed light on that Mississippi Elvis impersonator who tried to send ricin to Obama.

Still others turned to social media as a gateway to the Chechen soul. Journalist Julia Ioffe - after explaining the Tsarnaevs through Tolstoy, Pushkin, and, of course, Stalin - cites the younger Tsarnaev’s use of the Russian website VKontakte as proof of his inability to assimilate, then ranks the significance of his personal photos.

“The most revealing image of Dzhokhar is not the one of him hugging an African-American friend at his high school graduation, but the one of him sitting at a kitchen table with his arm around a guy his age who appears to be of Central Asian descent,” she writes . “In front of them is a dish plov , a Central Asian dish of rice and meat, and a bottle of Ranch dressing.” Again, it is difficult to imagine a journalist writing with such breathtaking arrogance - why is the Central Asian friend more “revealing” than the African-American one? What, exactly, are they “revealing”? - about the inner life of someone from a more familiar place.

One way to test whether you are reading a reasonable analysis of the Tsarnaev case - and yes, they exist - is to replace the word “Chechen” with another ethnicity. “I could always spot the Chechens in Vienna,” writes journalist Oliver Bulloughs in the New York Times . “They were darker-haired than the Austrians; they dressed more snappily, like 1950s gangsters; they never had anything to do.” Now substitute the word “Jews” for “Chechens”. Minority-hunting in Vienna never ends well .

”

- Sarah Kendzior, “The Wrong Kind Of Causcasian,” Al Jazeera 4/21/13 (via racialicious)

When I was in Saudi for my Hajj, I saw a very strange kind of hostile prejudice for the Muslims from the Caucasus (again, light skin ≠ White), and I learned from my father about the ridiculous, petty reasons for it. I spent most of my evenings around Maghrib prayer with some of the most loving, humble Chechen Muslims.

After the Boston events, not only did Twitter prove the majority knows virtually nothing about the Caucasus, so did Tumblr with its lack of knowledge, biased behavior in addition to “smart” journalists - all of this proved how shallow the understanding of these people was. The very same bias polices and erases identity.

(via mehreenkasana)

Apti loves Chechnya so much and I’m devastated at the...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:11:00 -0400

Apti loves Chechnya so much and I’m devastated at the thought that he can’t return to his homeland.

I know you have no idea what he’s talking about. I’ll do my best to translate his poetry one day.

Maybe every Muslim should get twitter and post funny and “normal” stuff? Just in case.

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 02:01:11 -0400

Maybe every Muslim should get twitter and post funny and “normal” stuff? Just in case.

I’ve seen someone on tumblr comment about how people doubt Dzhokhar’s involvement in the...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 01:57:00 -0400

I’ve seen someone on tumblr comment about how people doubt Dzhokhar’s involvement in the bombings because he’s white. I have to disagree. I believe the reason why people are defending him is because we have essentially “humanized” him through his twitter updates and his friends’ disbelief over what happened. He became just a normal college kid to us, 19 years old, so close to our own age, looking like he just woke up with his messy hair and his love for Nutella. From what I remember, other “terrorists” or murderers did not have this much support from their friends.

His brother, though, does not have much support, since the media portrayed him as a “radical Muslim” and a lot of people who believe they’re guilty think that Tamerlan had a bigger role in the whole Boston event and his younger brother was influenced by him. Once again, proving the point that the colour of Dzhokhar’s skin is not really at play here.

I could go and on, but I have an exam to study for.

My mom after hearing stories of Muslim people being assaulted, just told me “If someone...

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 17:50:08 -0400

My mom after hearing stories of Muslim people being assaulted, just told me “If someone assaults you, don’t do anything. Don’t hit them back.”

That’s sad.

Fail to Flourish: seekiinggrace: i was talking with a friend of mine last night and she...

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 15:06:47 -0400

Fail to Flourish: seekiinggrace: i was talking with a friend of mine last night and she...:

seekiinggrace:

i was talking with a friend of mine last night and she was saying how there’s so many people around her who aren’t practicing Muslim or are non-Muslim and it seems like they have it all. amazing career, great husbands, things just seem so wonderful for them, things that if we…

the reason for your dissatisfaction with your life is because you’re looking for material success, which (the pursuit of material success), proven by many psychologists, does not bring you happiness, and on the contrary, actually lowers your subjective well being. oh, and comparing your achievements with those of others does the same thing, lowers your SWB.

"Most immediately, this [Boston] incident will greatly strengthen the military-security apparat in..."

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:53:29 -0400

“Most immediately, this [Boston] incident will greatly strengthen the military-security apparat in the United States and Russia, helping further demonize Muslims in general for the American apparatchiks and Chechens in particular for the Russians — especially all those opposed to the brutal rule of the Kremlin and its satrap in Chechnya. But every political power structure that feeds on fear — and which ones do not? — will benefit from the crime spree in Boston, whatever its origins. [T]here are deeper contexts to the case — whether these are restricted to the twisting of individual psyches by the greater geopolitical and cultural forces that have done so much pointless violence to us all, and in particular to the direct targets of massive power structures, such as Chechnya or, latterly, the Muslim world at large, or whether there are more specific involvements of military-security apparatchiks in the development of this murderous tragedy. Yet, as already noted, we will almost certainly see none of these deeper contexts explored in the earnest postmortems — by politicians, pundits, academics and self-appointed “experts” of every stripe — in the weeks and months to come.”

- Context and Contact: Exploring Agents of Influence in the Boston Attacks. (via theamericanbear)

Oh, and to top it all, the aunt has been getting threat calls since yesterday.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:21:21 -0400

Oh, and to top it all, the aunt has been getting threat calls since yesterday.

can you elaborate on your mom's visit and what we're being misinformed of?

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:09:18 -0400

I’m sorry, I don’t want to write anything on tumblr or on other social network sites. I’m not sure how safe it is.

yeah, it’s definitely shady.

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:39:58 -0400

yeah, it’s definitely shady.

You said your mother went to speak to the aunt, which says you know the people. Are you sure they are Chechens? They could be Dagestanis that just say they are Chechen, which means there should be no Chechen anything involved in this case.

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 13:47:13 -0400

the mom of the two boys is from Dagestan, the dad is Chechen

مہرین کسانہ: I’ll say three things clearly so that there is no misconstruing:1....

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 13:25:42 -0400

مہرین کسانہ: I’ll say three things clearly so that there is no misconstruing:1....:

mehreenkasana:

I’ll say three things clearly so that there is no misconstruing:

1. White privilege exists.

2. This is about the instant media positioning from “White Caucasian Male” to Indoctrined Chechen Terrorist.

3. Call me a “terrorism apologist”, and I’ll take you as seriously as I take a worm.

Race in…

What is this anon trying to get across? Before we even had the video of the bombers a women as attacked in my city, which is right outside of Boston. A lot of Americans still do and probably will point fingers at Muslims, no matter what their skin tone. Originally people thought that they were just two average american college kids. Until they were identified did anything come out about them being white muslims because they were identified as Chechens. Anon please be clear when you whine.

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 13:10:20 -0400

You dont fit in when you dont wear your hijab. Even without a hijab Im called a terrorist for my skin tone and religion. Innocent Brown and Black Muslim men and women have been assaulted and wrongly accused. A Hindu American has been wrongly fingered as the bomber. Yet you keep crying about how White Muslims arent White. The only reason those two arseholes didnt get arrested initially was because they have white skin.

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 11:56:19 -0400

I don’t know why you think I try to sound like I have it worse than brown/black Muslims do. I’m not one to play these silly games, anon.

I’ve made so many grammatical errors tonight. I should just stop blogging.

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 02:04:28 -0400

I’ve made so many grammatical errors tonight. I should just stop blogging.

A friend of mine said something I haven’t thought of before amidst this chaos. (a rough...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 02:01:00 -0400

A friend of mine said something I haven’t thought of before amidst this chaos.

(a rough translation of his words)

“Russian security services are now justified in front of America for their policy in the Caucasus and in Chechnya itself”

If you don’t know what policy I’m talking about do some research.