Tag: racism

Admiring Yourself: The Holocaust, Racism, & Sexism

~ cafebedouin ~ 1 Comment

“…“the present memorial cult that seeks to inflict certain aspects of history and their presumed lessons on our children, with its favorite mantra, ‘Let us remember, so the same thing doesn’t happen again,’ is unconvincing. To be sure, a remembered massacre may serve as a deterrent, but it may also serve as a model for the next massacre” …

Klüger echoed critics of “the Americanization of the Holocaust” and “the end of the Holocaust,” for whom brutal historical reality was displaced by redemptive and enjoyable kitsch. The problem of this oxymoronic “Holocaust aesthetics” became apparent to Klüger after a young woman approached her at a book signing and said, with a smile, “I love the Holocaust.” Klüger was taken aback. She understood that the woman loved not the event itself, but reading about it. “But her naïve and undisguised pleasure brought up the question: Should she love to read about the Holocaust? Should we in any shape or form feel positive and empowered or cathartically purged when we contemplate the extinction of a people? My impulse was to say to this woman: You shouldn’t. Stop reading these books, including mine, if you enjoy them” …

As Klüger’s former colleague Gail Hart reflects, “I think she was a little bit too hard on those who, say, visited Holocaust memorials and Holocaust museums because she said that, you know, they were trying to admire themselves for hating the Nazis.”

—Jonathan Catlin, “Against Redeeming Catastrophe: In Memory of Ruth Klüger.” Journal of the History of Ideas Blog. December 2, 2020.

Yesterday, I was noticing how there were so many “Black Lives Matter” and equivalent posters up in the windows of my wealthier neighbors (fuller disclosure: I have an anti-racism placard in my window too). But, you don’t see these posters in the windows of people of lower classes. Then, this morning I read this bit about Ruth Klüger and it seems her critique of Holocaust aesthetics is just as applicable to the problems of racism, sexism, etc. There’s something about putting people, or groups of people, on pedastals that makes us like ourselves more for liking these groups. Americanization is a fair enough term.

The thing I wonder though is whether this is necessary for human beings to come to grips with the demands of justice. We have to believe what we are doing is right, and it is easier to do if we like those in need of justice. But, is justice only for people we like really justice? Are people likely to pursue learning about injustice if the path offers nothing but pain? Isn’t fear of pain and rejection why there is so much injustice in this life?

Why We Will Lowercase white

~ cafebedouin

“There was clear desire and reason to capitalize Black. Most notably, people who are Black have strong historical and cultural commonalities, even if they are from different parts of the world and even if they now live in different parts of the world. That includes the shared experience of discrimination due solely to the color of one’s skin.

There is, at this time, less support for capitalizing white. White people generally do not share the same history and culture, or the experience of being discriminated against because of skin color

—John Daniszewski, “Why we will lowercase white.” Associated Press. July 20, 2020.

A History of Race and Racism in America

~ cafebedouin

“I’ve selected the most influential books on race and the black experience published in the United States for each decade of the nation’s existence — a history of race through ideas, arranged chronologically on the shelf. (In many cases, I’ve added a complementary work, noted with an asterisk.) Each of these books was either published first in the United States or widely read by Americans. They inspired — and sometimes ended — the fiercest debates of their times: debates over slavery, segregation, mass incarceration. They offered racist explanations for inequities, and antiracist correctives. Some — the poems of Phillis Wheatley, the memoir of Frederick Douglass — stand literature’s test of time. Others have been roundly debunked by science, by data, by human experience. No list can ever be comprehensive, and ‘most influential’ by no means signifies ‘best.’ But I would argue that together, these works tell the history of anti-black racism in the United States as painfully, as eloquently, as disturbingly as words can. In many ways, they also tell its present.”

-Ibram X. Kendi, “A History of Race and Racism in America, in 24 Chapters.” The New York Times. February 22, 2017.

To accompany Ibram X. Kendi’s, “How to be an antiracist.”

White Nationalism in the United States

~ cafebedouin

“Sometimes, in the face of a totalitarian system of thought, and in the absence of a fully articulated alternative world order, conveying unease is the best a narrator can do. Or is it? …

As we now understand, a significant portion of the US population supports a politics of white nationalism…The phrasing varies, but the arguments share a premise: life is deeply
unfair, and by birthright some people will have material comforts and physical safety and some will suffer, and this inequality should be upheld with state-sanctioned paramilitary force.”

—Emily Witt, “Crossing the Border.” London Review of Books. August 15, 2019.

The people who love the idea of the law of the jungle are people that don’t live in one.

Liberatory Education | The Hedgehog Review

~ cafebedouin

“In a psychic context, racial reparations may be less obviously needed, but needed nonetheless, for those of us from white families and communities that practice racial thoughtlessness. We, too, need to study race and racism in order to understand ourselves, because the implicit attitudes about race that we have consciously and unconsciously created and accepted are poisoning us and have imprisoned our minds. We are literally dying from our inability to break free of our prejudice, our unexamined opinions. There are direct correlations to be made between white attitudes about race, lack and fear of education, hopelessness and despair, and addiction. It is just not possible to think freely when you are also desperate to cling to your biases.”

—Leslie W. Lewis, “Liberatory Education.” Hedgehog Review. 21.2 (Summer 2019).

Read this essay. It is absolute fire, and equally applicable to gender, class, sexual orientation, disability and other prejudices.

Domestic War on Terror Is Not the Answer to White Supremacy

~ cafebedouin

“At a time when the American system of government is already being sorely tested by a demagogue and would-be autocrat in the White House, it would be disastrous to grant more power to the Justice Department and the nation’s security services.”

—James Risen, ” To Fight White Supremacist Violence, Let’s Not Repeat the Mistakes of the War on Terror.” The Intercept. August 17, 2019.

Anytime you think the solution to a problem takes the form of “War on X” or “X War”, you probably need to think a little harder about it.

The War on Terror treats a symptom while acting as a catalyst for the underlying disease. Same goes for the “War on Drugs”. The moment marijuana was getting legalized, the criminal elements supplying it went to opiates. Further, one has to wonder how much longer “The Cold War” enabled communism to last by providing a facade the underlying structural problems could hide behind.

Also, this idea of, “At a time when…” is bogus. This kind of testing could happen at any time. If there is some capability you think the next Hitler shouldn’t have as head of government, then you have a good sense of what powers your government shouldn’t have, and you should use that line to have a principled discussion of the powers of state. Should one person be able to start a nuclear war? Should one person be able to start any war, via the War Powers Act? These are conversations that are overdue.