Thanksgiving Dinner

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Also there is no way the second dude isn’t going. He’s going and hes going to bs and eat and drink beer and belch, no matter who else is going to be there.

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Yeah he thinks it means whatever the fuck the American fat right media says it does.

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Don’t you dare fix that typo.

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Hey buddy! I may be woke. And I may be gay! And… What was the third thing you called me?

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I still haven’t looked into what “woke” actually means, but from what I can tell, it seems to mean anything far-right people don’t like.

Queen HawlSera

It’s weird, in my family the black sheep are the ultra conservatives whereas everyone else leans from Liberal (at the most Right Leaning) to “Let’s burn down a mansion and eat the first non-servant who runs out alive!”

I was kinda glad that the uncle who was “Always trying to be my friend, always hip and cool and with it despite actually being none of those things and instead coming off as an annoying asshole.” basically stopped talking to me or even acknowledging my existence beyond telling his son/my cousin that I was possessed by Demons that made me cut off my dick and that’s why they gotta get the Mexicans outta America before they teach Evolution to white children (Barely an exaggeration), and his son/my cousin was smart enough to basically say “My Dad says you’re evil, but I’m actually going to be somewhat nice although still an annoying little bible thumping shit, because if you’re evil you have all the Satanic Video Games in VR!”

and I said “Well at least you have some level of thinking for yourself, here’s my Occulus (I’m not calling it a Meta), go nuts.”

Lately only my Aunt has been coming to Thanksgiving Dinners while the uncle and cousin have been staying at home, apparently she’s starting to get sick of their Right Wing Christofascist Bullshit.

For the record, she’s Anti-LGBT, Pro-Trump, and believes they eat dogs in Ohio, she’s just sane by comparison to her husband and son.

Like it’s the difference between “Trump’s racist, but at least he’s not a Democrat” Vs. “Trump is literally the Messiah, We’re gonna send the infidels to Christ for Judgement!”, Far Right Vs. QAnon Shit

We’re very civil about it in the hopes that she and hopefully the son too, can break away from her husband’s nonsense.

For the record: My aunt is the one related by blood, not the uncle.

I will say this, I hate Reddit Atheists; the kind that jump on your case for shouting “Oh God!” when you’re scared and worship the Sacred Texts of St. Hitchens. But if every religious person I ever met was like my uncle and his son, I’d totally get why Reddit Atheists are the way they are…

Last time the kid came to Thanksgiving, he was talking to my sister about Jurassic Park… Then during dinner when I was just making conversation, (Everyone eats at the same table, we don’t have a separate “Kid’s Table” sides they were in their late teens anyway) I made the mistake of treating dinosaurs as if they were real and not an elaborate creation of Hollywood.

He kept chanting “The Big Bang is a Faerie Tale, not a theory!” until I “apologized to Jesus for my blasphemy.”

They actually had to take him out of public school and put him in a private Fundie school because he kept failing his classes due to trying to claim most of History and Science didn’t actually exist on his assignments.

I’m deeply worried; one day that guy (He’s an adult now) is going to leave the bubble created for him by his Church and his father, and he will not be even slightly equipped to begin to comprehended the world outside.

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The fact that you’re trying to figure it out is the important part. It’s important to self-reflect and define your ideologies, not by what others have told you to believe, but by what you personally believe.

Also, it’s okay to not take a label. It makes sense to want to identify yourself as an individual before attempting to identify yourself as part of a group.

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Common sense is a thought terminator. It’s just “everyone who’s smart agrees with this”. It’s common sense you shouldn’t inject any aspect of a disease causing pathogen into people. It’s common sense that you can’t burn so much stuff you make the whole sky smoky or permanently warm the planet. It’s common sense that you don’t share an ancestor with an oak tree. Now none of that is true. You should get vaccines, uncontrolled combustion creates smog and contributes to global warming, and all eukaryotic organisms share a common ancestor. But if you phrase things right and say it’s obvious people will agree with your false statements and think people are over educated idiots for being right.

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What makes you think he’ll leave? I know plenty of adults 40+ that are still like the…

Queen HawlSera

Mom and Dad have to die some time…

It may happen when he’s old and grey, rolling outside on his futurstic hover wheelchair wondering why people say it’s the hover-servos that make his chair fly and not Jesus.

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“We” aren’t labeling “them” anything. They literally sided with Neo-Nazis. People carrying swastika flags in support of Trump, and you think “not Nazis” were ok with that? Sorry friend, but no. If someone is okay to march with Nazis, they’re a fucking Nazi.

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I mean, they’re wearing red hats in the second panel. They inferred Trump.

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In left-leaning spaces it means “cognizant of the injustice pervading society”. On the right it means “uppity”.

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Tell me about it, I don’t like my mom’s transphobia. I also don’t like the fact that she likes trump. At least she’s not a Christian Nationalist yet.

My dad is pretty chill at least and I try to be on good terms with him.

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Yeah, seems like “woke” is anything we’re not supposed to approve of this month.

I do find the word “woke” incredibly useful.

The moment the word exits someone’s mouth (as a complaint), I save a ton of energy on how to handle any further information they share (highly suspect).

Edit: I’ve actually discovered some great art and culture by being warned away from it’s “wokeness”, too.

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cognizant of the injustice pervading society

I mean that’s what it means to people on the right also they just think that’s a bad thing.

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They think we’re ignorant of how the world works, condescending, and irrationally judgemental.

Lol. Yep Though in fairness, I am genuinely judging them so fucking hard.

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Yeah that’s definitely going into my vocab now.

Justin

It’s not a nice way to say it, but it is important to distinguish conservatism from the current situation where you have conservatives supporting nazis, planning concentration camps, and planning to pull a Hong Kong-style silencing of the opposition.

It is important to tell conservatives that the guy they voted for has gone off the deep end. For diplomatic reasons, I would probably avoid emotional words and say something along the lines of “we’re concerned that Trump plans to illegally block the democratic party from elections and trans people and immigrants may have to flee the country in the face of workplace discrimination or outright persecution and violence. His politicization of the military could lead to another coup attempt.”

But that’s just part of how you defuse fascism, those are the words you use with both Putin supporters and Trump supporters.

There is no place on earth and no time in history where “guh, inflation” is a reasonable excuse to vote for a nazi.

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She’s my hero in life.

My dad is a loud stubborn alcoholic. Someone who just forces his way into being “right”. Two of my three aunts would just bicker and fight. The third aunt would usually be reading a book, or watching a documentary. She had 3 masters degrees.

From those 4 children my grandma had came 4 different families. With that, meant that back in the 90s, when everybody was still alive, but before the great grandkids came, meant that there could be roughly 40 people in this small condo, which was essentially just one medium sized open plan living room, and a seperate kitchen.

So you’d have my dad barking orders at someone, my aunts fighting amongst themselves. Uncles loudly argueing sports. Grandkids all running around, doing cartwheels, jumping off the couch. Basically a lot of noise and chaos in a very small space.

And then my grandma would very quietly say “Excuse me”.

Whole room stops. Dead silent. Room full of respect. And with a hushed voiced, barely louder than a whipsper she would ask “would someone check on the potatoes? I wouldn’t like them to burn.”

14 people, her kids, grandkids, the uncles, all rush the kitchen, and checking potatoes. Like it only takes one person to do that. I get that. But the uncles are the only people she didn’t have a major part of raising, and even they respect her. Most of them met her when they were older teenagers. So she very much had the whole neighborhood mom thing going on in the 50s/60s.

But just imagine how that works. Room full of chaos comes to a dead silent stop because a woman in her 80s wants to make sure everyone gets a baked potato, and mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes.

Doesn’t matter what she wanted. If gram wanted something, the world stops for her. And I was 40 years old last year when she died. I never once heard her yell. Yet the idea of her needing to is completely foreign to me. Because EVERYONE wanted to make sure her every need was met. Not through fear, but from a place of love and respect. She had taught us life lessions since most of us were born.

That’s why I don’t use past tense. It’s not that she “was” my hero. She IS my hero. Now and forever.