As Goes ‘Nazis’ So Goes ‘Racists’?
Years ago I threw my lot in with those who argued we shouldn’t get into the Hitler argument. Now here we are, at it again. It’s a problem Joe took up in his quote of the day on Tuesday. In that same vein, Leonard Pitts devotes his column today to a history lesson about Nazis:
it was Nazis who shoved sand down a boy’s throat until he died, who tossed candies to Jewish children as they sank to their deaths in a sand pit, who threw babies from a hospital window and competed to see how many of those “little Jews” could be caught on a bayonet, who injected a cement-like fluid into women’s uteruses to see what would happen, who stomped a pregnant woman to death, who once snatched a woman’s baby from her arms and, in the words of an eyewitness, “tore him as one would tear a rag.”
That’s who the Nazis were, ladies and gentlemen … those obscenities plus six million more. They were the triumph of ideology over reason and even over humanity, the demonization of racial, religious and political difference, the objectification of the vulnerable other. And the authors of a mass murder that staggers imagination, still.
You would think, then, that where they are invoked to draw a parallel or make a point, it would be done with a respect for the incalculable evil the Nazis represent. You would think people would tread carefully, not because of the potential insult to a given politician (they are big boys and girls) but because to do otherwise profanes the profound and renders trivial that which ought to be held sacred by anyone who regards himself as a truly human being.
But in modern America, unfortunately, rhetoric often starts over the top and goes up from there. So fine, George W. Bush is “a smirking chimp.” Fine, Barack Obama is “a Chicago thug.” We have a Constitution, after all, and it says we can say whatever we want. It doesn’t say it has to be intelligent.
And yes, you are even protected if you liken Obama or Bush to Hitler. Yet every time I hear that, it makes me cringe for what it says about our collective propensity for historical amnesia and our retarded capacity for reverence. Once upon a lifetime ago, six million people with DNA, names and faces just like you and I, were butchered with gleeful sadism and mechanistic dispatch. “Six million people.”
You and I may no longer respect one another, but is it asking too much that we still respect them?
So, some of you may be asking, as goes Nazis so goes Racists? Because the other day I put up a post that I knew deep down was inflammatory. In it I essentially called those who opposed healthcare insurance reform racists.
Unfortunately, to this minute I have not had time to read all the ruckus it caused. And, in fact, I believe the particular history of this country, a history that included slavery and racism, North and South, does still impact our beliefs. And through those beliefs, I believe it does still impact our policy choices. Finally, I believe that slavery has given us a level of income inequality that remains stubbornly in place.
But does anything going down today come anywhere near even the least of the sins written, enacted and enforced by law in the Jim Crow South? Do I think the worst of the gun-toting town-hall protesters bears even the remotest of resemblances to those lynch mobs, North and South, that once inflicted horrific violence across this country?
Most definitely, I do not. And the comparison to those who suffered under that violent regime does them no respect. Instead, I know that playing the race card, as I arguably did the other day, makes race relations measurably worse.
This I wrote in May of 2008 and re-posted just last month:
[In discussing his book, The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse, Richard Thompson Ford] argues that we should think of racism not as a crime, like murder, where we have to find bad people and fix them, but rather as a social problem that we can come together to work on and fix, “kind of like air pollution.”
He disputes the notion that Americans don’t like to talk about race. He says we talk about race obsessively, just not very productively. “Every few weeks there’s a race scandal, but we don’t talk about the real problems and we don’t talk about real solutions.” Instead we talk about phony scandals generated by people paid to be offensive (stand-up comics, cable news pundits and radio jocks). And the problem is this distorts our understanding of race and distracts us from the real issues we could be addressing.
Ford sees a good news/bad news story about race relations in a world of “racism without racists.”
I haven’t quoted this from Melissa Harris-Lacewell here before. She has many good things to say, things I believe we all should listen to, but my favorite of her observations is that you can’t use a hammer on a screw:
“What I’m suggesting is we are experiencing a new form of racial inequality. We could think of Jim Crow as a nail. And the protest against Jim Crow were a hammer. And a hammer is an extremely effective tool when you’re dealing with a nail. Contemporary racial inequality is structural. It’s undercover. It is connected with also with sort of black achievement which is also going on at the same time. Contemporary racial inequality is a screw, and if you take a hammer and start pounding on a screw, you just end up with a mess which means we have to live with the fact that a new generation is going to have to innovate a screwdriver to deal with the new problem. And that screwdriver might not look anything like the hammer. And we can’t keep yelling at them to use a hammer for a new problem.”
So what would a re-imagined Civil Rights movement look like? I don’t know. I look to the Millennials to come up with that answer. I hope they can learn from our mistakes.
I do know that more equal societies almost always do better. And that equality of opportunity is not, in my view, equality for all. Because inequality of circumstance makes genuinely equal opportunity impossible.
I’ll have more to say on that in future posts. In the meantime, I’ll try to better practice what I preach.
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39 Responses to “As Goes ‘Nazis’ So Goes ‘Racists’?”
I don't know that this problem will ever completely go away while there are still people who believe in 'keep hate alive'.
The fact that 'Nazi' is overused does not mean there are no Nazis. The fact that 'racist' is overused does not mean there are no racists.
We should call things what they are. So sometimes 'racist' is simply accurate.
I've always felt that those people who are compelled to make comparisons of modern day American leaders (or thier parties) with either Hitler or Nazis could only be suffering from extreme ignorance. The history lesson from Leonard Pitts illustrates this beyond a doubt. Anyone who makes those kinds of comparisons should be considered not serious, not credible, and not worthy of attention. As for racism, I believe it is a more insidious and continuing problem, although not to the extent it once was. Are there people who have genuine and honest issues with Obama's policies who are not racist? Of course there are, and I believe most of his detractors fall into that category. Are there people who simply cannot abide the thought of a black president? I believe there are, and I also hope they are in the extreme minority, but I'm pretty sure they don't go out of their way to advertise the fact either.
A local congressman held a townhall last night and the front row was filled with skinheads complete with swastika tatoos. When asked why they were there protesting they replied: “because there is a black president”. Yes, there are Nazis but you won't find them in the Obama administration.
Ron, this came up (white supremacists) in another thread, and I said that I hadn't heard of them showing up yet at the town halls. That's appalling!
Where was this event? Is there a link?
Joe, I have been waiting for someone to write a post like this. And I hadn't seen the Leonard Pitts piece; I'm glad you brought it to our attention. Both Pitts, in writing this piece, and you in linking to it and commenting on it, have made the essential point that no one else on the Internet has made, as far as I am aware. Alll those examples Pitts provides, of what it was that the Nazis did, is stuff I already knew, because of my family history and all the reading I have done on this subject. But most people today — even, sad to say, many Jews — have no idea, no clue, not the tiniest notion, of what they are comparing politicians they don't like to Hitler or the Nazis. It's so offensive that it goes beyond offensiveness. It's monstrous.
People need to understand that they may not know what they thing they know about the meaning or nature of any given historical event. People need to educate themselves before they speak.
Regarding your analogy to the word “racist” and how it's used today, I think it's very well-taken. I feel that especially strongly now, having recently finished reading a book called The Making of a Lynching Culture, by William D. Carrigan. It's a study of lynchings and other acts of extreme violence — white-on-white as well as white-on-black, white-on-Native American, and white-on-Mexican (immigrants) — during the time span 1836-1916.
The word “racist” may still be appropriate today, but as Lacewell-Harris says, it describes a very different set of societal realities, which cannot even being to be compared to the horrors that were encompassed by that word before the final, say, 30 years of the 20th century.
If anyone wants to know what many Americans were capable of doing 75 or 100 years ago and more, just google “Jesse Washington Texas 1916.” Actually, just the name “Jesse Washington” is probably sufficient.
The Germans are no more prone to atrocities than the rest of humanity. What made the Hutus Slaughter the Tutsis? Same race, same ethnicity, just a different tribe. What made the Japanese slaughter the Chinese? Stalin and Pol Pot their own people? (We will have to stop at just the twentieth century or I’ll run out of computer memory}. What made the Germans into Nazis was patriotism and the justification of anything in the name of patriotism. That’s what makes it so easily repeatable and thus dangerous, but the right wing simply don’t get it. Then there is something worse, God. Anything in the name of God because you cannot die. You just live forever under the loving protection of the God that you gave your earthly life for. God and Country, uhrah.
I believe that the right wing propaganda rhetoric in this country is becoming dangerous and that the Republican party is enabling, even cultivating, future violence.
The event was in Vancouver, WA and was held by congressman Brian Baird.
Thanks, Ron. Unfortunately, I've been googling like a mad thing, looking for the story about the skinheads in the front row, etc., but can't find anything. A link would be great.
I heard it on the radio this morning from multiple sources that were there. I too was unable to find a link from the media but the media here is a bit limited and even in a blue area leans to the right.
How did that happen? Baird said that he was going to “phone it in” instead of going to townhalls anymore.
Baird said he's using the new system because he fears his political opponents may be planning “an ambush” to disrupt his meetings, using methods Baird compared to Nazism.
“What we're seeing right now is close to Brown Shirt tactics,” Baird, D-Vancouver, said in a phone interview. “I mean that very seriously.”
http://www.columbian.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?…
Unless he just changed his mind in the last week I'm a bit confused. Add that to the fact that he said it might happen and the very next time these “skinheads” show up. Well, you got to wonder.
FT, no one here said the Germans were more prone to atrocities than the rest of humanity. Nobody said that. Nobody implied it, either.
You, and the first two commenters, utterly missed the point of what Pitts, and Joe Windish, wrote. It just went totally right past you. It's astonishing. I've wanted someone to say these things (what Pitt and Joe said) for so long, and now that it's been said, people still don't get it.
kathykattenburg–
It's a drifty article with multiple assertions. Begins with Nazis and ends with hammers pounding screws as a loose analogy to correcting racism perceptions. If there is a single point, please let me know.
I was not defending Germans or anybody for that matter. I was pointing out that history proves that it is humanity that slaughters humanity for various reasons, with no race being above another in the “humane” department. Quite unlike your “white against everything” racism bias.
JSpencer, The photo is from Douglas A. Blackmon's book, Slavery by Another Name – The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. It won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. The photo links to my post here:
http://themoderatevoice.com/29683/pulitzer-awar…
I just find it more than duplicitous that after years of Bush=Hitler, NOW everyone on the Left and in the press is finding such comparisons offensive.
It is not that they are OK now because they were done to Bush then; it is I refuse to believe the crocodile tears. It is just more Left-press water carrying for their Fallen Savior.
Joe — thank you for this post. Much of “the ruckus” the other day ran right past the fact that it was actually yours post that ultimately caused the full re-write of my initial thinking.
I agree. Playing the race card (or the Nazi card) has a number of unhelpful consequences that often bounce back on the player. The words used still retain their original meaning and describe events and realities that do not resemble today, and simultaneously diminish the original horror / reality and skew the current frame.
You said: “…equality of opportunity is not, in my view, equality for all. Because inequality of circumstance makes genuinely equal opportunity impossible.”
This is where I see room for much more productive dialogue.
Also — MReynolds, commenting early in the thread, is correct to say “The fact that 'Nazi' is overused does not mean there are no Nazis. The fact that 'racist' is overused does not mean there are no racists.”
That reminded me immediately of “just because you're paranoid doesn't mean nobody's out to get you.” — a statement that is also true, but hardly lends credibility to the person who relies on it.
AustinRoth–
You do have a point. I for one never really saw Hitler as a symbol characterizing President G.W. Bush. For me it was more like Lou Costello. Then again, Democrats didn’t wear guns to Town Hall meetings either. So I may have to reconsider the Hitler thing.
Undoubtedly, this country was impacted by racism – not just towards blacks, but Native Americans (who are still called “Indians” by many), Asians, and Hispanics. And, no matter how much we like to believe we are better than our ancestors, many of those attitudes are deeply ingrained.
But I hesitate to endorse the idea that income inequality remains with us because of slavery. After all, it would leave unexplained the poverty found in whites, Hispanics, and Asians. It also fails to account for the horrible conditions under which many Native Americans continue to live.
Racism and the lingering effects of slavery are intertwined, but they are not the same. The migration of blacks from the south to escape slavery, for example, explain why large community of blacks exist in many northern states. But it does not explain why those communities remain impoverished. That is due to a larger form of racism, some of it confined to the past (such as when Frederick Douglas was hired at a fifth of what a white man made), some of it not (such as when we see that blacks still, as a group, earn less than whites, even when controls for job duties are employed).
A lot of it is also simple classism that is never identified as such in our so-called classless society. Even as Jim Crow laws elevated the poorest white person as being somehow better than any black person, those laws also worked to disenfranchise and impoverish those poor whites. By convincing poor whites that their fortunes were more closely tied to those of the wealthy, generations of “white trash” (like my family) have been led by the nose to endorse policies that hurt them.
It's a drifty article with multiple assertions. Begins with Nazis and ends with hammers pounding screws as a loose analogy to correcting racism perceptions. If there is a single point, please let me know.
“Multiple assertions” can be confusing, I understand, but there *is* a unifying point. I don't know if that meets your definition of “single point.” Nevertheless, there *is* a unifying point, and that point is crystal clear. That you can't grasp it does not mean that unifying point is not there, obvious, and crystal clear.
AR,
There *were* some people who equated Bush with Hitler via signs in crowds and that sort of thing, but I do not recall any multimillionaire insanely famous media pundits equating Bush with Hitler — maybe because there weren't any. Nor do I recall dozens of highly publicized political events attended and led by Republican lawmakers, who were there to take questions on a major piece of legislation, at which constituents and other members of the public shouted “Heil, Hitler!” or carried signs calling Pres. Bush a Nazi or called for his assassination or came with assault weapons strapped to their bodies.
Were there individuals during the Bush admin who equated Bush with Hitler, or his policies with Nazi policies? Certainly. Were such individuals tacitly and sometimes openly supported by media pundits and lawmakers? NO. Did such individuals appear at almost every single public meeting held by lawmakers to promote or explain Bush's policies? NO.
Kathy -
I have to again disagree with you. Unfortunately, I am traveling to Miami right now, and am between flights, and will be tied up all weekend, so I won't have time to chase down the NUMEROUS links of Bush = Hitler at mainstream events (attended by Democratic officials and lawmakers); the NUMEROUS Death to Bush memes and signs and songs and plays (along with death to Cheney). Hopefully one of the other posters who do not view the Bush years through such distorted lenses such as your can save me the trouble, and before this thread goes stale.
But it definitely was not just individuals – it was coordinated, repeated, mass-emailed, and supported throughout the Democratic ranks high and low. How ridiculously disingenuous of you to even try that Big Lie tactic on this topic. I cannot believe that even you believe yourself on this one.
Joe, thanks for the information. It is appreciated. – Joe
While the ignorant or dishonest instinctively want to suppress and disparage all references to Hitler or the Nazis other than those directed at conservatives or Republicans (while failing to practice fully what they preach about their “Godwin's law” silliness as well such as removing all references to and material about these subjects from all literature in existence, say), those of us who aren't defective in that way can use (not necessarily Politically Correct, against the Right) references to Hitler and the Nazis where they fit.
There was nothing wrong with my earlier reference this year to Hitler when saying Obama was launching attacks on several fronts (issues) at once without securing a single one before proceeding to the next.
There also is nothing wrong about my identifying (predictable) SEIU brown-shirt behavior in St. Louis.
“How ridiculously disingenuous of you to even try that Big Lie tactic on this topic. I cannot believe that even you believe yourself on this one.”
She is one of the few militant fringists who is desperate to see the awful health care initiative succeed.
There's a lot of subtety to this post, and I greatly appreciate that, Joe. There's a definite problem with the term “racist”, maybe not always as used, but as perceived. It's a word that shuts down conversation because so few people actually believe they're “racists”; it's become a dirty word that can only be responded to with a “no I'm not!” sort of reaction.
I like the idea of “racism without racists”. It puts the focus on specific actions instead of something wrong with a person's soul that made them perform those actions. As suggested in one of the quoted articles, perhaps we can think of racism as a societal problem that needs working on. With that view, when we see racist actions in ourselves, instead the knee-jerk reaction of “I'm not a racist!” that is so common, perhaps we can look at what we've done (even if subtle), apologize, and move on with a greater understanding of how to be less racist in the future. Coming from the view of labeling people as racists, people who know they are good people will be unable to see themselves as having done or said something from a place of racial priviledge because of the roadblock of that label “racist”.
” perhaps we can look at what we've done (even if subtle), apologize, and move on with a greater understanding of how to be less racist in the future”
So many of us were taught from the beginning to do this (in addition to exercising logical and moral review of our other actions and the thoughts which have underlain or moved them). We're also aware of the Civil Rights movement and how things used to be before the revolution in these affairs. We're the last people who should be accused wrongly as well as falsely of racism, especially when no such racism exists (which dishonest people say actually still exists when it doesn't exists, merely as “code” [sic]). This is similar in a way to other self-hatred or nihilistic drives or urges we have inherited from the mid to late 1960s when wrong lessons were learned and liberalism became radicalized. This includes a “need” that the USA and the West feel “guilty” about its successes and feel especially wrong about over-hyped things it has done wrong that routinely have been surpassed by misdeeds elsewhere (when not a case of dishonest accusations of misdeeds). We've paid for it ever since.
Obama lost approval among the public not only when he wrongly (and arrogantly) agitated on behalf of the lunatic climate legislation pushed by crazier Dems in Congress earlier this year, then he lost more approval after misspeaking publicly about the Gates affair (which was overblown, should never have been made into nation-wide news in the first place or a subject at a Presidential news conference) and insulting better people by saying the public at large is racist and in need of “teaching” (indoctrination with nonsense, for pathological bogus “guilt” reasons!); he has only made things worse by taking among the most strident or forceful (i.e., the worst) position favoring the current defect-ridden health care effort.
He only debases himself by attacking the opposition (the _mainstream_) and appealing pathetically as follows:
“These are all fabrications that have been put out there in order to discourage people from meeting what I consider to be a core ethical and moral obligation: that is that we look out for one another, that I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper. In the wealthiest nation on earth right now, we are neglecting to live up to that call.”
DLS, I can only imagine you are under the impression that frequency of posting and frequency of words will somehow translate your opinions into a more coherent and more convincing position. Good luck with that novel approach.
“So many of us were taught from the beginning to do this”
Is it that you've forgotten the lessons of your youth, or that you don't consider yourself among the “so many” who were taught? Because your ability to deny that your opinions come from a place of racial priviledge is still very much intact.
AR, “I just find it more than duplicitous that after years of Bush=Hitler, NOW everyone on the Left and in the press is finding such comparisons offensive… “
There goes AR again painting with a broad brush and now with a “Well they did it too!” hue.
it was coordinated, repeated, mass-emailed, and supported throughout the Democratic ranks high and low.
LOL, AR. I will await “the NUMEROUS links of Bush = Hitler at mainstream events (attended by Democratic officials and lawmakers); the NUMEROUS Death to Bush memes and signs and songs and plays (along with death to Cheney)” from you or one of your fellow travelers who are not traveling.
Bravo Joe.
I appreciate your willingness to be turn introspective and be honest. More importantly I know you do as well. This is a sign of character, we all fall down from time to time, it happens, as long as we can pick ourselves back up, it will be ok.
I didn't do a 'well they did it too'. I did a 'they did it, but it was OK to the Left when they did it.'
Too nuanced for you, I guess.
I guess my response was too nuanced for you. it was wrong when the “Left” did it and there where plenty of us who said so even here in TMV. You continue to paint everyone you disagree with by the fringe elements. I don't see anyone here claiming your a birther or deather or whatever the cat-call is this week.
You may actually get more people to agree with you if you don't stand there and insult them.
I called no one out by name, nor accused anyone in particular. I did make the general comment, which is absolutely true, that there was no real uproar from the Left during the Bush years about how morally wrong it was to use Nazi/Hitler comparisons.
I also said, correctly, there as just as much, if not more, of it coming form the Left then as the Right now.
And my gentle 'nuanced' comment is going to ruffle your feather so much, perhaps you shouldn't hang around political blogs. I mean, really, that was hardly an attack or an insult. It was just a reference to the meme the Left use to LOVE throwing around about their grasp of nuance as compared to the Right, nothing more.
You painted with such a broad brush you didn't have to call anyone out by name.
“And [if] my gentle 'nuanced' comment is going to ruffle your feather so much…”
No feathers were raised here, I'm telling you that there are many topics where many of us are basically aligned than not yet your inflammatory language pushes support away. But don't let me stop you.
Hmmm.
Yes, well, I guess as compared to Kathy Kattenburg, Michael Stickings, et. al., I do express my opinions strongly. I will try to keep my comments to the level of civility they demonstrate.
Oh. Wait. That won't really work, will it?
Which is why there are plenty of their comments/posts that I can't agree with in their tone or content.
So really now, you are using the “They did it too” defense?
OK, I have time now. here you go.
http://semiskimmed.net/bushhitler.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8AdSHKywEU
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/15574…
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2009/08/stunn…
http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=yd…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpxmYvlLKXo
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=621
http://brain-terminal.com/posts/2009/08/20/hitl…
AR,
An impressive collection. Thanks for following through.
Much of what's in these links are claims without any real documentation, or that at best are disputed. Some of them might be true, but it's hard to know without researching each one of them. These are not anchored in one relatively specific time and place. Some of them are comments from foreigners (like Harold Pinter). Doesn't make his comment any less outrageous, but he's Harold Pinter, a British playwright, not Rush Limbaugh or John Boehner.
The link to the photos of participants in various demonstrations was the most credible, at least in terms of the specific demonstrators. One doesn't know of course whether this was one demonstrator out of thousands, or whether this was at all representative of the event as a whole, BUT — that said — just talking about those particular, specific people, the messages they had on signs and banners, etc., were disgusting. Stomach-turning. I have been to many anti-war demonstrations, and I know there are people like that, and as far as I'm concerned they're total hypocrites (in addition to being vile and disgusting). You cannot claim to be against war, against violence, against killing, and hold up signs saying that Bush (or anyone) should be killed. That's just revoltingly wrong.
That said, in the demonstrations I've been to, people like that were almost always a tiny minority of the overall crowd. Plus, you did not have the governor of Texas egging them on and encouraging them.
Finally, I don't get any sense from this collection about the response at the time from the media and other public figures. And it wasn't just one period in time, even roughly. It seems to me a bit of a stretch, and not terribly reasonable, to compare such a vast collection of disparate, unconnected events, quotes, claims, etc. — with no evidence that they were *not* criticized and/or condemned at the time, in the dozens and dozens and dozens of places and contexts they happened — to what Republican leaders in Congress and famous media pundits are saying in a relatively short period of time (one or two months) in the context of a specific legislative proposal.
kathy -
I threw them together in 5 minutes. I am on vacation visiting my brother and family in Miami. The fact I could throw together such a list of links, totally cohesive or not, so quickly is proof enough, in my mind, that I made my point. It was going on for years.
And let's be clear. I am NOT saying it is OK now because it was done then. I am saying the Left, as a whole, in the form of the sudden realization of how truly offensive it is to use Nazi and Hitler comparisons is willfully whitewashing their own actions, and that that is a very common behavioral trait of theirs, IMHO.