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Sophia Babai

@swingingstorm.bsky.social

8.5K followers 130 following 3.1K posts

Author | Activist | Cultural consultant | Somatic creativity coach | Sufi mystic 🇮🇷 🇹🇿 🇮🇳 🇦🇫 🇵🇸 🇦🇿 (my ancestors really got around) Posts about books, human rights, chaos baking, history/poetry/folklore, and other nerd stuff Rep Seth Fishman

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Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · Jul 3

My mom and stepdad are from the same diaspora group as Zohran Mamdani’s dad (same like “my stepdad was kicked out of the same town and knows some of his classmates”) and apparently the New York Times doesn’t understand how diaspora works, so I am going to tell you a little about my mom’s people!

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Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 10m

"We are going to immediately resume starving the entire population of Gaza and furthermore we're the true victims here" LIKE ARE YOU ACTUALLY LISTENING TO THE WORDS COMING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH, ARE YOU AWARE THAT YOU'RE ON CAMERA

Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 12m

It's not difficult for me to wrap my brain around what they're doing. It's evil, but it's straightforward: they want to destroy the Palestinian people and they're furious that they can't. It's the bizarre convoluted series of self-congratulatory self-pitying stories they tell that breaks my brain.

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Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 15m

There's just this complete and total dissolution of cause and effect within the Zionist imagination. If Israel commits massive war crimes, no they didn't, and if they did it was completely necessary self-defense. If a Palestinian person breathes, that's an act of terrorism.

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Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 20m

It actually is insane to look at the sheer number of times Israeli officials have casually announced on international news that they're deliberately depriving EVERY SINGLE PALESTINIAN IN GAZA of food / fuel / medicine / water, and to look at the total lack of consequences they have faced for that.

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Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 27m

Israel out here inventing imagined violations as excuses to deny Palestinians food, fuel, and medicine and meanwhile Israel is ACTUALLY violating the hostage exchange by refusing to release the single highest-profile hostage they agreed to release (Barghouti) and facing zero consequences whatsoever.

Travis @someforeignfield.bsky.social · 1h

As with all previous agreements that Israel is party to, it will lie and claim the other side violated it, and begin massive unilateral violations. Israel has bombed Lebanon thousands of times, killing dozens (including several children who were US citizens) since the Nov 2024 ceasefire.

Drop Site @dropsitenews.com · 1h

🚨In blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement, Israel has announced it will slash agreed aid shipments in half and keep the Rafah crossing closed, after Hamas returned four of the 28 bodies of Israeli captives believed to be in Gaza.

Hamas officials had repeatedly told mediators...

Video below⬇️

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Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 2h

Book good book friend yay

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Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 2h

GOD I remember during the tiny constantly-broken ceasefire of a while back that a friend-of-a-friend was bitching about student protestors and saying "they already have a ceasefire, what are they protesting now??" and meanwhile the borders were completely closed and no food was coming in.

Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 2h

So far TODAY Israel has:

- bombed Gaza City
- bombed Khan Younis
- shot and killed five Palestinians in Gaza City
- refused to open the Rafah border crossing
- announced they would once more block aid

This is what a "ceasefire" with Israel looks like. This is what it has always looked like.

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Reposted by Sophia Babai

Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 1d

The fact that every sad queer leftist I know is not CLAMORING to the theatres to see Kiss of the Spider Woman is major marketing failure. This movie is for us, y’all.

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Reposted by Sophia Babai

Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 1d

Is it “good”? Maybe. Is it “coherent”? Maybe not. Will I be in a glass case of emotion for a solid month? Absolutely.

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Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 17h

Same! Also reading interviews is bringing me so much joy

Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 20h

I hope you enjoy it! It's the first version I've encountered (though I am definitely going to check out the others) and as I understand there are some major differences between the different versions. What did you think of the William Hurt version?

Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 20h

Right?? I was so impressed by both of them but especially Tonatiuh who I'd barely seen before (he had a teeny role in Jane the Virgin but I think it was like one episode) and I hope he gets lead roles in 5000 movies.

Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 20h

They're trying to market this a gritty political thriller intercut with glamorous sequences of Jennifer Lopez playing a technicolor Latina Marylin Monroe but it is in fact a gorgeous gay love story intercut with glamorous sequences of Jennifer Lopez playing a technicolor Latina Marylin Monroe.

Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 20h

Can we manage to lift this movie above its terrible marketing through sheer online enthusiasm, I dunno but I'M SURE GONNA TRY.

Victor Manibo @victormanibo.com · 20h

Am I the exact target audience for Kiss of the Spider Woman—a movie musical about queers, revolutionaries, and old Hollywood? Absolutely. But is it any good? Also yes!

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Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 20h

🥳

Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 20h

Reading which block lists I'm on is honestly so flattering.

Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 20h

My dad had this problem with his first name (added fuckery because he has at various points had three different sets of papers from three different countries which spelled his name three different ways, how is he supposed to work under these conditions.) I hope there's a simple way to resolve it!

Reposted by Sophia Babai

الكسندرا ميراي @lexialex.bsky.social · 22h

This is an amazing thread

Scott Neigh @scottneigh.bsky.social · 13d

83. In a win for the Palestine solidarity movement, the BDS campaign has pushed sports brand Saucony to drop its sponsorship of an Israeli marathon that goes through occupied Palestinian territory. www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-spor... #MovementWins2025

US sports brand Saucony drops sponsorship of Jerusalem Marathon

Saucony has backed the race, which passes through occupied land, for three years, creating official running shoes and promoting Israeli soldiers as brand ambassadors

www.middleeasteye.net

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Reposted by Sophia Babai

الكسندرا ميراي @lexialex.bsky.social · 23h

Keep it going. Get your family and friends to join
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Boycotting Israel has gone mainstream: ‘We’ve never seen such traction before’

After decades of being dismissed as fringe, the boycott call has been taken up by leading figures across arts, sports and politics

www.theguardian.com

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Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 23h

TRULY

Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 1d

I haven’t! Definitely planning to now.

Reposted by Sophia Babai

Amal El-Mohtar @amalelmohtar.com · Mar 19

OK surfacing this to cite sources & give y’all some fun reading if you want! New thread!

Super briefly, in SETTLER COLONIALISM: A THEORETICAL OVERVIEW, I had my mind blown by Veracini’s mapping populations along these axes (pls ignore the highlighting of my search terms)

Screenshot of a four-quadrant chart on page 19 of quoted book. The x axis goes left to right from Indigenous to Exogenous and the y axis goes bottom to top Degraded to Righteous.

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Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 1d

This is a much better way of saying what I was failing to say, thank you! 🙏🏽

Sophia Babai @swingingstorm.bsky.social · 1d

My intent was more “this is evil whether you’re indigenous or not so making it about indigeneity misses the point” but I understand why it reads that way, thank you for pointing that out.