Good morning,
PROGRESS THROUGH PARTNERSHIP
If one visits Yad Vashem, there is a major exhibit regarding the “righteous gentiles.” It documents and celebrates the meaningful work and significant risk undertaken by non-Jews during the Holocaust. I have thought about this often.
There is a quotation (the attribution of which I can’t locate) that says, “when one is drowning, one doesn’t check to see the color of the hand reaching to save you.” I suppose the corollary to this observation is that it is not important in the moment to determine who might have pushed you into the water in the first place—it matters for now only that you get out.
There were righteous Germans who hid the Jews at great personal risk, the Japanese consul in Shanghai, who processed many visas to help Jews escape, and many white Americans who rallied against Jim Crow and fought for passage of civil rights legislation. History is replete other deeds of bravery and humanity in the name of raising human dignity and saving lives.
That said, in the complex jockeying to tell, retell, and assign responsibility in connection with America’s fraught relationship with race and racism, there is a movement to deny acknowledge the work of people not of color in advancing civil rights. It seems that the “oppressor race” cannot be as seen as having a role in the accomplishments of the Civil Rights movement and other societal advances.
I read that To Kill a Mockingbird recently was banned by a Washington State school district’s required reading list. One reason it is subject of banishment is the use of the N-word (which, of course, is not glorified, but used because it was in the vernacular of the time and it showed the ignorance and hatred of those uttering that word). The book also is subject to derision because it furthers the notion of the “white savior.” I am at a loss for why this is wrong. The story, after all, is about how a single lawyer stood against the majority of the populace in a predominantly white town, whose good citizens already had condemned a Black man who was accused of rape. Atticus Finch is a fictional character of great import, whose singular act of bravery served generations of students (myself included) as worthy of admiration and replication. Why is the idea that a white man can help Black men so unacceptable to some segment of our intellectual and political elites. This type of perspective—that it is only those who oppressed who solve their own problems that caused the makers of the film Selma to “whitewash” from the historical record the white leaders, including Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who stood arm-in-arm with Black marchers.
Why is there such a reluctance to accept that white people can be among the heroes of the Civil Rights movement, or that the lawyer standing up to racism in a small southern town is a white lawyer? I would argue that, just as the “righteous gentiles” are lauded at Yad Vashem for their contributions, we need to build upon and celebrate the partnership between Black people and their white friends in tackling the causes and effects of racism in America.
One of the great founding myths of America is that of American individualism, which is laudable up to a point. But we need not always “go it alone.” We are part of a community and, as a larger national community, we can work together to solve our problems. We should be partners in repairing the world. After all, we have responsibility and agency for ourselves and we share responsibility for each other.
LEARNING ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST
I still have a hard time believing that Maus, a Pulitzer prize winning graphic novel employing cats and mice, as the Nazis and the Jews, respectively, also is a book subject to banning by some school districts and libraries. This book tells the very personal story of the author’s family provides a more approachable manner of addressing the horrors of the holocaust—not merely as a monstrous machine of extermination—but through the experiences and traumas of this family. I can’t really imagine a more sensitive, kid-friendly and sensitive way to learn about the Holocaust. Should we erase from our schools any descriptions or images of the Holocaust or slavery, because little Johnny might be forever scarred?
In the meantime, I look forward to Ken Burns’s new documentary, “The U.S. and the Holocaust.”
REVERSE ENGINEERING WITH BANNED BOOKS
Here’s an idea for school districts that want their students to read banned books. Have them read one of the books (I’d recommend Huck Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird). Then have them discuss the book with their parent(s), sharing reasons why it might have been banned, write an essay about the experience, and make the case for whether or not it should be part of the required reading list.
JUSTICE FOR INSURRECTIONISTS, POLITICAL THEATRE AND INDIFFERENCE TO SUFFERING
Last week Ron DiSantis decided, in a craven display of political theatre, funded sending two planeloads full of Central American immigrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard. The audacity of this man—deciding to reach into a state not his own to deposit them, as if they were merely a bag of refuse, into a red state enclave, also in a state not his own—is reprehensible. The indiscriminate use of real people, including children, for political gain, misleading these people who had traveled—many by foot—untold miles to be in this country is depraved. And this fellow wants to be president…
While the January 6th Committee continues its work, without Republican support, ex-president Trump was on a radio show last week stating that he would give a “full pardon and a full apology” to those who marched on the Capitol. An apology? For what? Really…
The good news this week, of course, is that for the first time in a long time, a poll has disclosed that there has been a meaningful increase in the number of Republicans who identify more with Republican values than they do with Donald Trump.
Have a good day,
Glenn
From the archives:
I've read every one of those books in the stack, except Lord of the Flies. Dont know how I missed that in high school. It is beyond me how Mockingbird and Huck FInn can be banned. American classics. Or any of the others, actually. Not sure what offensive material awaits young readers in Slaughter House Five. I haven't read it in so long.
My 11th grade English teacher assigned some great novels. He had a wonderful Georgia accent. He'd point to a paperback and say "This is a classic. Says so right on the cover!"