On the Vanishing Cabinet in Harry Potter

Vanishing Cabinet

“We forced him headfirst into that Vanishing Cabinet on the first floor.”

The Vanishing Cabinet and its pair are among the many magical objects in the world of Harry Potter. They are well enough described in the series that I do not need to introduced. Where were they located, though? We know that one was in Borgin & Burkes, and eventually even the least observant of us are forced to acknowledge that one is at Hogwarts. But where in Hogwarts? Was it always in the Room of Requirement?

Dreams, by Dumbledore

After Siruis Black entered the castle in search of Peter-Pettigrew-cum-Scabbers and Dumbledore had relegated the students to the Great Hall to sleep, Snape entered into conversation with him.Eventually, the following line passed Dumbledore's lips: "In dreams we enter a world that is entirely our own. Let them swim in the deepest oceans or glide over the highest cloud." I overlaid that quote on the ceiling of the Great Hall, which that night was emblazoned more with galaxies than mere stars. Click the image to see it better.

I Have HAD It

I have HAD it. You all can STOP with your sexist, racist, homophobic, and all other bullshit NOW.

Ok, so listen to me. I am so done with everyone's bigotry the past month.

In the middle of the night between Saturday 11 June and Sunday 12 June 2016, a man carrying an assault-style weapon entered a gay nightclub whilst a Latino Night celebration was taking place and let fly a barrage of weapons-grade bullets that, by dawn's early light Sunday morning, left 49 people there dead and another 53 wounded.‡ By 8:30 am Sunday morning, someone had already demanded of me that I issue a condemnation of the violence.

‡ You really need to be aware that certain acts of violence like, oh, say, THE GENOCIDE OF NATIVE AMERICAN NATIONS paved the way for the kind of violence that was the Orlando mass shooting. I am not even asking you to understand this. Just know it and get used to it and get over it.

I am a Muslim. The attacker's name had been released: Omar Mateen. Apparently, that is all that is necessary for people to line up demanding that I and all other Muslims condemn the violence. I am not writing today to "condemn the violence." I am actually writing today to tell you why that and every other attitude with which I have dealt over the past month is a godforsaken heaping bowlful of bloviating shitgibbons.* I am also here to tell you to take your lazy ass to Goggle and look up [muslims condemn terrorism]. It's ok. I will still be here when you get back.

That first demand on me to condemn the violence came from someone with a certain amount of political power. The next person to make such a demand of me did not have political power. However, lack of power was made up for by strength of language. Several days later (after that Sunday), a misogynist slur was levelled against me, an AAVE phrase was appropriated, and I was told to address ISIS. Inexplicably, Muslims -particularly converts - jumped into the melee, asserting I-Cannot-Remember-What-Kind of white supremacist bullshit because I blocked their white asses. We were in a liberal space, for God's sake. Where do you get Muslims acting like that in liberal spaces?? Then someone else with whom I was talking told me that I was making this to be about race.

Let me pause briefly to allow you a moment to remember what event was being celebrated at the night club on that night, and who featured among the victims. If you can't figure that out, then I point you back to the rock out from under which you crawled, because that place is obviously where you have been Karmically intended to remain.


Awwww hell. I'll help you out.

Now consider how, given that I am white, it must be for People of Colour. You don't need much of an imagination to pull this off. The media has been covering the extent of the hurt incurred by the LatinX Queer community.

Ahhhhhhh, yes. The media.

LGBTQIA Muslims were drawn into a media circus that lasted for a full month. It continues, actually. We have all been faced with continuing, endless streams of Islamophobia. Journalists asking the stupidest damned things. Making our leaders wait for two hours after our scheduled arrival time while they exhausted their list of cishet white guests, only to spend mere minutes with us at the very end of the day. We were expected to condemn the violence, in some cases. In the comments sections, we were expected to condemn the violence; AND we were to shut up about the racism that these white supremacists were dishing out to us on account of the fact that if we lived in Muslim countries, we would be tossed off buildings or some sh*t. I am white - imagine how it was for Queer Muslims of Colour. Throw in a 4 am - 9:30 pm fast on top of that.

Then the Muslims discovered us. Sure, there were very kind displays of kindness and solidarity. At first, I wondered where they were coming from and why. By now, though, I am just so exhausted that I will take any measure of kindness that we Queer Muslims get, as long as it is sincere. So the rest of the Muslims discovered us. They all kindly decided to inform us that we were hell-bound sinners engaging in acts such as were not seen before the days of the People of Lot or whatever. Scripture quotes. Religious texts. Rulings. YOUTUBES, because we Queer Muslims JUST LOVE getting screamed at as someone with a beard as long as a football field spits all kinds of Arabic words at us, RIGHT?



Then other violent attacks began to just POUR OUT onto Muslim-dominated countries from Somalia to Iraq to Saudi Arabia. Let us also remember that violent post-Brexit white supremacist attacks on everyone from Poles to Pakistanis have been taking place in England. Then violent white supremacists began attacking Muslims in the States. Again. After limply condemning the attack on Istanbul (because, you know, some Westerners were killed in that one), we Muslims and our global sufferings were quickly ignored. No profile photo changes for us. No Facebook safety check-ins. No thoughtful memes. Not a word, of course, about the Muslims and mosques being attacked in the States or in England. This is what the racialisation of Muslims looks like: your presumably brown bodies matter naught next to our very valuable white skins. We cannot be bothered to mourn you.

And the following needs your immediate attention, so in caps we go: THE WAY FOR THIS KIND OF WHITE SUPREMACIST RACIALISATION OF MUSLIMS WAS PAVED BY CENTURIES UPON CENTURIES OF WHITES DECIDING THAT BLACK LIVES DO NOT MATTER. And for proof of that, I will point directly at that very loud voice in your head shouting back at me: "All Lives Matter!" The fact that you felt the need to counter an implicit declaration that Black Lives Matter with your appropriated refrain is proof that deep down, you don't actually think that All Lives Matter, because your beginning premise was that Black Lives do not Matter and how dare anyone assert that they do.

I hope that that changes, and I call on you to listen to your better angels in order to achieve that change.

Finally, just to sweeten the deal, an Imam in Ireland decided to extend a gracious invitation to Irish LGBT persons for an iftar, because it was wrong to kills us gays en masse like that back in June. Except that it wasn't such a gracious invitation. For more on how Dr Umar Al-Qadri thinks that we gays are depraved sinners and how he thinks it just WONDERFUL that he is also a GRACIOUS HOST towards infidels and idolaters, click this. Of course, when we Queer Muslims the planet over called him on his bullcrap, he cried victim, asked why we were being so ungrateful to his obviously warm welcome, and ran away by deleting his original post and blocking us in swaths. The Irish Times ensured that he didn't get very far with this (click this, back there).

By then, of course, hetero Muslims had re-discovered us and were reminding us that our proper place was in hell, whilst whites were once again reminding us that were it not for their white supremacist gracious hosting of us, we would be hung, burnt alive, dropped off buildings - heck, maybe all of that and more - were it not for white hospitality towards us.

Thanks for the poison in the iftar. So thoughtful of you.

Umar, honey, grab the clover nectar, please! We've just run out!

If you haven't caught on yet to the fact that graciously hosting us whilst calling us depraved sinners is on par with graciously hosting us whilst asserting the primacy of your white skin over our inherent savage ways are RATHER THE SAME THING, well, here I am telling it to you like it is.

Oh, and by the way, this has been Ramadan. You know, Ramadan... Ok, I will paint you a final picture, then.

Aww crap 2 photos of food. No balance.

* Thank you, Scotland.

LGBTQ Muslim Retreat: Excitement and a Blissful Release

This is the first time that I am excited. No, it is not the first time that I have ever been excited in my life. It is, though, the first time in three years that I have remembered some old tree friends of mine, thought of human friends who had become a second family for me, and talked with new friends - and got excited about mixing all of them together in one wild week-end.

In a few short months, I hope to attend the LGBTQ Muslim Retreat for my third year. Each of the two times that I have attended so far, I have brought back with me so much that is priceless. I fell in love with a whole new "family" of trees. I am indeed a tree-lover. *smile* I met people whom I had only known online. Some became for me an instant new family. I learned so much - about me, about others, about religion, about the world around me.

Retreat provides approximately three days of scheduled and spontaneous opportunities to explore Islam and our various ways of interacting with ourselves and Islam. In some cases, our physical health and mental health are explored. Various folk discuss the Qur'an, Islamic history, religious diversity. Some of us discuss relationships and sex. Others play card games. Others yet have wild discussions that we daren't have back at home. We have the chance to participate in congregational worship in a way that, for many of us, is a blissful release from the tight strictures to which we have been bound back home.

Have you read the Harry Potter books? Have you watched the movies? Believe me when I say that, for me, stepping onto the bus or van in Detroit is like stepping onto the Hogwarts Express (I live in Michigan). The hair on the arms rises in goosebumps. Sleep is pushed away by excitement. Knowing that others are on similar trips around the world, realising that already, we are sharing similar experiences, is thrilling.

Of course, at some point one's bottomside does get sore and sleep feels like that long-lost lover whom one misses so much that one could cry. But what does it matter when we are on our way to a place that is as magickal as Hogwarts - right?

The LGBTQ Muslim Retreat is, above all, a place where we can be precisely who we are, in all of our myriad shades and hues. And this is what makes Retreat so important. You see, many of us come from situations in which we cannot be ourselves. Shoving ourselves into tight, dark boxes - this goes beyond a mere closet - can become fatal. These precious few days in which we can be wholly ourselves, unquestioned, is sometimes a thin dividing line between surviving that stress or not surviving. For others among us, it is essential to our mental or emotional health in other ways. In fact, some of us derive benefits from Retreat that have nothing to do with the intersection of our religion and sexuality.

I invite you now to action. Whether you are an LGBTQ Muslim or not, you have something to offer. To my siblings in religion/culture who are LGBTQ, I invite you to this Retreat which, for me, has been magickal. Sign up, even if you are unsure that you can afford to (apply for a scholarship here). To my Allies who are not Muslim or who are straight/cisgender, I invite you to support us all. If you know a Retreater, communicate your support to that person. If you pray, do pray for us. In addition, if you are able, I invite you to donate to the Retreat so that those of us who cannot afford the costs can attend, anyway. Anything that you can do or give is so welcome, so needed, so appreciated.

Thank you.

Always

OMG. I get it. Sev uses the phrase "always" BECAUSE LILY USED IT.
‪#‎HarryPotter‬