Lydia @yousiefly Twitter profile

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

Okay but the temptation to make this my new banner is real.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

*Israel bombs Palestinian Christians and occupies Armenian/Coptic/Ethiopian/Greek/Syrian religious sites while erasing our heritages* White evangelicals: But the only way for Christians to safely exist in the MENA is for Israel to exist.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

You know what I’m interested in? What happened to natural hair care in Egypt? Not like Egyptian women adopting European standards of beauty. But like HOW in the world did my mother’s generation completely lose natural hair care. Like fr fr

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Hear me out: a soul food/Egyptian food restaurant with an entree of molokhiya and southern fried chicken. 👀

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Israel is perhaps one of the worst regimes for Christians who speak Arabic, but I suppose the white evangelicals don’t care because the erasure is happening to Orthodox Christians 😃 and we’re heretics anyway ✌🏼

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

I just registered 40 Copts in the span of 48 hours for the vaccine in South Nashville after organizing a mobile clinic in our neighborhood. White people, stop saying “We need to educate them about the vaccine.” That’s BS. Get. The. Vaccine. To. Us.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

Egypt has a lot of “independence days,” which speaks to the process of de- and recolonization of Egypt, but today marks the bloodless, socialist revolution of Egypt, the end of Turkish monarchy and British clutch.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

For the record, dearly beloved, homophobia is a sin. ❤️

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

The way white people will approach me, pick a curl, stretch it, and then release and watch it shrink back and then say, “boing” and then walk away.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

1 year

If building Nissan Stadium years ago “changed the trajectory of Nashville’s economy,” then why can’t the owners use their profits from this great investment to build a new stadium instead of using our tax money?

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Reminds me of the Zora Neale Hurston quote about the silence of pain and the co-option of narrative—“they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

So at the same time that evangelicals are going to support “Christians” (LOL), they’re also purposefully severely harming our bodies, heritages, and futures on our land. In our name.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

My new mission is to make “Yalla y’all” a thing.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Loved loved loved this article—and the fact that it was written in Egypt just feels so surreal that we’re being heard and that the old narratives of who Nashvillians are (& who Egyptians are) will face a reckoning.

Egyptian Streets

@EgyptianStreets

3 years

Elmahaba Center: Uniting Coptic Egyptians in Nashville’s Little Minya Read more:

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Literally stopped at a gas station in Antioch and the owner was blasting Pascha on the station’s speakers, so all these non-Copts were filling up gas listening to the elongated tune of Pascha.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

There are three kinds of Copts today: 1) The heritage-keeper: Blessed feast of Jesus’ entry to Egypt! 2) The COPTIC IDENTITY ABOVE ALL people: Happy Global Coptic Day! Remember we important! 3) the outcast: HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!!!!!!!

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Oh wow look, an Orthobro, in his natural habit, practicing misogyny and white supremacy in one tweet. Fascinatingly, he also has a masculinity complex and needed to justify that he pays his own rent ( #cute ). Someone pay me to do a nature doc on these men.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

It’s really scary that that can happen with enough pressure—we forget who we are, what makes us beautiful, why God made us wonderfully. I don’t think we talk about that enough when we speak about colonialism. Where is our memory of ourselves?

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Did not know that Mother’s Day in Egypt (which is March 21st) has roots in ancient Egyptian celebrations of Isis near the same time (spring equinox)! 🥳

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Just met another undocumented Copt today from Southern Egypt and thought of those Coptic laborers in Libya who were martyred years ago and how we mourn their beheading, but rarely discuss the brutal lives they lived as migrant-workers.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

My mother and her generation of Egyptians (born in the 1950s-1980s) like literally do not know ANYTHING about their own hair. They literally don’t know that curly hair is drier than straight hair, that it doesn’t need to be shampooed as often.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

That’s genuinely scary to me. That colonial era really wiped out generations of memory, so that here I am, showing my MOTHER YouTube videos about basic hair care because she literally had NO idea that curls were meant to be worn proud.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

Is just me or when you watch tv now and the characters are out in public you think, “Omg they forgot their masks,” and then remember....

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

My MOTHER who knows every treatment for every illness, who sews and stitches, who learned to drive a car in the US, who takes a day off to cook proper mahshi, who can recite Quranic suras...does not know what to do with curly hair.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Am I surprised that the “Tennessee Coptic Orthodox Center” that Anba Youssef is starting is led by misogynist men who created fake online profiles to harass me and other Coptic women in Nashville & are anti-Black, anti-Muslim, homophobic men? Nope.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Copts: stop making “pilgrimage” to Jerusalem & “walking in the footsteps of Christ” while funneling your US dollars to Israel & hurting our Palestinian siblings & supporting apartheid.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

To the ESL instructors who teach immigrant-adults and say with their full chests “We teach them how to read”: No, they can read in one language already. You’re teaching them a SECOND language, so that employers/state don’t trample on them.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

We just love the US-Israeli axis against SWANA Christians—of being “pro” Christians while killing everything we have left.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Ew no thank you to Coptic men posting Coptic female saints while not believing Coptic women who are survivors of sexual abuse.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

There are always three kind of Copts: My mom: “Abouna Makary died days after his wife 🥺🥺🥺 that’s love” My dad: “Give me a break. They just both got COVID and died. Don’t make up stories.” My sister: “Who died???”

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

I be sitting and, for free, Coptic conservatives be entertaining me. The latest: Coptic is a Christian language. I hope y’all know Egyptian Muslim extreme conservatives also agree with y’all and agree in order to alienate Christians from Egypt.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

What is happening with Anba Youssef of the Southern Diocese and Elmahaba Center:

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

We glorify people who die brutally, but never pay respect, honor, and give justice to those who live brutally, and that says a lot about our narratives.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

Why I open this app and ONCE A MONTH In a PaNdEmIc there is something about race/Egyptians/Africans/white people/aliens/Pharaohs/Black people.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

I love when Egyptians, across time zones and space and experiences and differences, find something grounding in each other, as @Nazz_Speaks and I did during our conversation weeks ago about Egyptianess, religious politics, radical care. ✊🏼

ADC National

@adc

3 years

Time for another #AAHM highlight! Today's feature is @yousiefly , an Egyptian American from Nashville, TN. Lydia founded Elmahaba Center, a nonprofit organization serving the Coptic & Arabic speaking population of Nashville. We're proud of leaders like Lydia! #ArabAmerican

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

To all the people coming forward with stories of sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, physical abuse, financial abuse with Southern diocese servants: I hear you; I’m here for you; we are stronger than this evil. We will hold them accountable.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Biden on the news on the Tulsa govt: “I pledge to support Black and Brown businesses.” Baba: “Who’s Brown people?” Me: “That’s you, buddy. You Brown.” Baba *snorting*: “Oh, I was not aware.”

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

This tweet is violent. Who are you, colonizer, to use that type of language of authority? Who are you, colonizer, to tell anyone where they belong and what citizenship is? Take off Athanasius from your bio. And stop harassing his descendants. Bye.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Only in Nashville: A white-led, Protestant organization is soliciting donations on FB for Afghani refugees in Nashville (??) and the photo they’re using is of a Coptic elder who, being from Southern Egypt, is veiled, so a white audience would assume is Muslim

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

So FYI just because “they’re from the Middle East” does NOT mean they’re conservative, nor because “you were in the US” are you open-minded. The most radical people I know are not born in the US & the most extremely problematic humans I’ve met are US-born.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

It’s amazing how controversial it is in the US to care about others who are different than you.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

You know what kills a little brain cell of mine? When Copts name their babies “Jasper” or “Kaitlyn” or “Madison.” Jesus did not die for that.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

We started watching The Crown, and all I have to say is: the British should abolish the monarchy. Like yesterday.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

I hate when liberals suddenly have a conscious about welcoming refugees, but didn’t have the conscious to speak about against the war for two decades. A big indictation that it’s not just millionaires/billionaires who profited from this war.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

!!!!! My dad, as a kid, had to take cover in bunkers from Israeli fighter jets when the alarms would sound in Cairo (1960s). Israel literally has done absolutely nothing to protect Christian neighbors.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Let’s talk about how the whole “stop complaining about the ‘church’ and fix it” argument is mad abusive and Coptic men need to find a better way of addressing the toxicity of Coptic religious spaces. A thread:

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

My second fave legal clinic moment was a white volunteer who was eating golash & said, “Wow this is amazing! What is this??” & the other white volunteer goes, “Grape leaves, I think.” When I told my mom this story, she said, “Ya habibi ya ghalbanna.”

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

A Nashville Iraqi Muslim (with Palestinian flags all over his personal FB) runs a side hustle domestic kitchen on FB. Every day he’ll post what he’s cooking & how to call and order. Because it’s St. Mary’s Fast, his dishes today are all fasting.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

1 year

I hope y’all know it’s mad patronizing to assume communities don’t organize against fascism in TN or haven’t been. Just because we’re not at Metro Council meetings speaking English doesn’t mean community members aren’t organizing.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Imma print this and frame this. The good energy from this photo.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Why is her hair straightened Why do we consider reconstructions a science when there are aspects of modern projections unto ancient artwork

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

And in this episode, the Orthobro cannot find anything else to say in defense of his misogyny and white supremacy, so the single brain cell says, “Let me attack this person.” 🧐 Tune in for more, kids.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

I hope Coptic folks are aware that, actually, the greatest living example of communism is the Coptic monastery (thread):

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

You know what’s particularly disturbing about this disgusting tweet? Those Coptic martyrs were working class, just like the thousands of Copts in Nashville are working class and contracted COVID because of Trump’s genocidial incompetency.

Eric Metaxas

@ericmetaxas

4 years

What price are you willing to pay for what you believe in?

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

You know why I’m mad distressed about these conservative Orthobros? I think often of the Parable of the 10 Virgins. All had invitations, knew the Master. All were paragons of idealized virtue, and despite having “nothing wrong with them,” five were told:

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

You know what’s most frustrating about upper class Copts? One minute they’re like “omg the poor Copts of Egypt must donate congress where is you” and the next they’re “eww why the US immigration system favor sa3yda they smell and are backward”

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Lydia

@yousiefly

2 years

Resurrection is liberation. Kol sana wa ento taybeen—may we be free.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

You know. There were elites in Cairo who didn’t want Pope Kyrillos to become Pope because he didnt have a college degree and was seen as, according to conservative Copts on twitter, “unsuccessful” and not “cultured” enough to lead the Church.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

Pro-tip for Coptic men: my account is public. You don’t have to follow me now with your real account after creating a fake account to bash me. I know you’ve run out of ideas to be Abouna’s lap dog and forward what “the radical” is saying, but come on now.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

“Straight black men and white women will always be the weakest links in the struggle for equality because they view equality as achieving status with white men.” -Audre Lorde

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

I think about how Moses said, “Let my people go,” and Pharaoh’s first move was to double the labor of the slaves, and instead of seeing Pharaoh’s evil, the Hebrews attributed their pain to Moses, the deliverer.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

The percentage of Coptic medical students in/from Nashville who have done clinics in low-income neighborhoods in South Nashville: 0% The percentage of Coptic medical students in/from Nashville who have done missionary trips: 100% Hmmmmm 🧐🧐🧐🧐

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Thank you for sharing, friend!! It was such a beautiful day 5 southern Copts receive land in South Nashville and begin plowing with plans to plant molokhaiyya! And actually a story:

Markus

@MarcusZachariah

3 years

As an #immigrants #communityworker I am so proud to see for the first time #newcomer #workingclass #Coptic #immigrants are participating in a #communityfarm in #Nashville . Incredible work by #ElMahabaCenter @yousiefly !

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

And the Coptic 3amos never disappoint ☺️ We got “Trump didn’t want this riot to happen. Obama did.” And another: “They were just protesting election results.” Join me in the next edition of “Racism, Copts, and Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.”

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Also, solidarity to all the Coptic kiddos in the Southern diocese who kept Harry Potter on their shelves after the diocese’s bishop denounced it as witchcraft ✊🏼

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Lydia

@yousiefly

2 years

The racist people I knew grew up are now teachers and nurses and that should tell you a lot about the US academic and the medical fields.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

I cannot even begin to recount how many times white people in academia do this, are wrong, and then just continue with their awful takes.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

My dad over the phone with another Egyptian: “Wait....you could have immigrated to Canada....and you willingly chose the US?????????” Y’all 😂😂😂

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

Imma start squawking at them just so they get the full effect of the zoo they signed up for when they decided to just touch other people without permission.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Welp

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

I be living in Republican Coptic men’s head’s rent free, y’all—they screenshot my tweets and posts and out here like “A RADICALLLLL IN OUR MIDSSSSTTT.” Happy Halloween from yours truly, gentlemen ❤️

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Well well well. A Nashville community leader yesterday posted an ugly post supporting domestic violence because “going to third parties scandalizes our Coptic community” and “women can go to priests” who are notorious for not believing women. 1/

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

Saying “always do what the bishop says” is 1) a cult not a religion and 2) idolatry of an image instead of God. Thank you for coming to my TEDTalk.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

These conservative Copts have not been put in their place for a long time. Stop coming after professionals with bland personal attacks and then Bible verses on your tl about being humble and loving others. Give me a break.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

JOIN US TONIGHT!

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

“Members of Congress have to be vaccinated first due to national security concerns.” Brah. Members of Congress ARE the national security concern.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

You know, I wish we had a radical, practical Christian perspective. Like it’s insane that Christians donate hundreds to churches and don’t tip 20% or don’t pay their employees a living wage or offer them healthcare benefits.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

Coptic people on MLK Day post “Our lives begin to end the day we become silence about things that matter” and “hate does not drive out darkness,” & then when they find out bishops allow pedophilia/isolate survivors, those same Copts can’t be found. 👀

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

The very people you ridicule for abortions are Christ; the very people you tell to get a job are Christ; the very people who are in prison for possession are Christ; the very people you mock and jeer as undocumented are Christ.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

I did not expect many Nashville Copts to post about the alMaadi pedophile in support of his arrest and praising the woman who called him out when literally none of these tantes did the same for Coptic survivors like @SallyZakhari

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Saw a SoundCloud lecture by Anba Youssef entitled “Why does the church not oppose the death penalty?” And I’m very conflicted to listen and get a headache OR listen and outline the aspects of white supremacy. He literally says Bush invading Iraq was okay.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

Sometimes, when talking to conservative Copts, I really think we reading and comprehending two different Bibles. Like where did God say we can criminalize sin? Where did God say governments should control people’s minute life choices?

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

News flash, Coptic men: if you are “smart” enough to say there is targeted violence against Coptic women, but then you deny that Coptic men harm and abuse Coptic women—even in and especially in religious space—you’re part of the problem.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

We out here. Funny enough, we chose the “el” for Elmahaba because one of my Arabic professors always hated how I’d read ال as “el” instead of the fusha “al,” so it be the little things.

Amro Ali

@_amroali

3 years

@yousiefly sue this Berlin store now! 😊

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Take care of yourselves! It’s that time of year! Coptic servants screaming everywhere that Halloween is a Satanic and pagan!

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

So just so I have my facts clear: Bishop Youssef is fundraising, through his nonprofit wing, for Afghani women, but he doesn’t believe or support Coptic women who are survivors of sexual abuse in his church? Right. Make it make sense.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

And here I am scrolling Facebook all day, responding to kol sana wa enty tayeb posts and also looking for “You can protest, but not riot” white supremacist morality posts that we saw in June. I’m waiting, Coptic 3amos, for the hot takes.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

I play Oum Kalthoum playlists while I work, so I can measure the hours. #EgyptianTiming #TimeIsAConstruct

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

I once wrote صباح الفول And I have not been allowed to forget it.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Someone needs to spray me with water every time I get into a convo with a conservative Copt and just tell me “👏🏼 sis 👏🏼 it 👏🏼 is 👏🏼 not 👏🏼 worth 👏🏼 it 👏🏼 their 👏🏼 daddy 👏🏼 issues 👏🏼 ain’t 👏🏼 solvable 👏🏼 with 👏🏼 facts 👏🏼”

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

My last thing: language justice, amigos, is NOT translating ish. Language justice is PAYING interpreters who are not certified because no one needs a white person to tell you your Arabic or Spanish is good. 1/

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

I will start a tiktok just to slam all of them into the cave they came out of. Also leave Mary alone. She’s a good person, for God’s sake, and y’all are Satan’s invention to keep the rest of us tired. Good bye.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

I cannot even begin to stress the level of displacement happening in Nashville. We are prepping our Eid boxes for 20 newcomer families (2 years or less), and they’re literally all over rural Tennessee in isolated pockets, YET they all work in Nashville.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

Unacceptable. It’s patriarchal. It’s demeaning. It’s misogynistic. What a shame to our communities that these two men who made the memes are even called scholars or even given a platform to be hateful.

Ⲣⲁⲫⲁⲏⲗ (Raphael)

@cvltistkid

4 years

This is what happens when misogynistic reactionaries feel threatened by someone whose work is INFINITELY more profound and deserving of respect. Embarrassing.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

This really about to be a Twitter for talking smack about other nonprofits in Nashville. Today, a lawyer in the nonprofit sector told me that she was surprised that not all immigrants speak Spanish. And I kid y’all not. She went to law school.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Copts who are pro Trump, anti-Semitic (“The Jews killed Jesus”) and are hashtagging Save Sheikh Jarrah are........not the people we should retweeting, friends, as examples of liberation for Palestine.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

Okay—we need to recognize our church mothers. Y’all appreciate wayyyyy too much the men who were literate and had libraries and could write. But women contributed greatly to Christianity—St. Irene converted 3000 in a day. St. Demiana advocated for convents.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

3 years

Y’all, I really be bookmarking all these kind messages from people I’ve never met because you have no idea how powerful they are on hard days. Really, your kindness strengthens. ❤️🔥

Amro Ali

@_amroali

3 years

. @yousiefly is one of the wisest young voices I know on Twitter. Highly intelligent, kind hearted & honours her Coptic heritage by pushing social justice. If I was to return to the US, I would prioritise a visit to the Center she runs over DC. Follow her. You’ll learn a lot.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

The brainwashing to assume liberal means unChristian. It’s truly a shame to assume that Anba Youssef saying “Thank you, Trump” for “reopening churches” is not disgustingly unChristian for a bishop to say with communities suffering from his policies.

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Lydia

@yousiefly

4 years

My father, a board member of Elmahaba Center, who was deemed “unChristian” by Anba Youssef for supporting my views on lbgtqi+ peoples and also being pro-choice, received a letter yesterday from St. Barbara COC asking for donations.

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