“When we look at Auschwitz we see the end of the process. It’s important to remember that the Holocaust actually did not start from gas chambers. This hatred gradually developed from words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanisation & escalating violence.”
Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau
Song: Do Better by Nappy Roots
Article: Confronting and Fighting Horror: On David Livingstone Smith’s “On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It” by Linda Roland Danil
Inspiration for evil by David Livingstone Smith
Thought: This post is in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day (Jan 27), the memory of more than six million Jews systematically murdered and for my Jewish friends who still suffer discrimination today. Your faith is beautiful.
There’s been a lot in the news and social media about what makes children (and frankly their parents) uncomfortable these days. We are seeing curriculum and books be banned from schools – topics like gender identity, slavery, racism, the Holocaust, sexual health, sexism, and consent. The word that is commonly used is uncomfortable. It’s supposed to be fucking uncomfortable.
Trevor Noah said this week (paraphrased) that if we don’t teach how we got to the Holocaust, then it becomes a group of people who just got free pajamas and went to camp. Likewise, if we don’t teach about the horrors of slavery, then it becomes laborers working in fields for food, lodging and economics (saying nothing of the color of their skin). If we don’t teach about systemic racism, then it’s easy to say “all lives matter” while watching black children be murdered. If we don’t teach about the torture of Matthew Shepard, then it becomes just a bunch of guys messing around that got out of hand. If we don’t teach why half our population doesn’t have equitable access to health care, then we make laws that result in women suffering and dying. If we don’t teach about consent with horrific examples, then we silence the victim and the abuser goes on committing harm.
The problem with turning away from being uncomfortable means that the history you shy from becomes the new future you create. Do better and be uncomfortable.