Twitter made the Jewish lady that posted this delete it for “threatening violence.”
Her followers spent the rest of the day tweeting this. Trolls couldn’t keep up.
Coming from someone who studies the Holocaust and the history surrounding it, It is important to remember that Nazis were human, not monsters.
It’s important because if we dehumanize them we create a level of separation between us and them. It’s important because if we create that level of removal, we start ignoring the subtle signs of antisemitism because “Oh, well they’re just a normal human, not a monster, i’m sure it’ll be alright.” It’s important because when we create that level of removal, they come back in waves. It’s important because when you create that level of separation, you get the problems that we have now.
There is a very simple set of brain equations involved when we dehumanize the enemy, and it goes something like this:
“Nazis are monsters” “I would not be friends with a monster”
The CORRECT conclusion is “I cannot be friends with Nazis”
BUT PEOPLE KEEP BELIEVING THE COROLLARY “None of my friends are Nazis” “…even that one guy who keeps posting ‘ironic’ Pepe memes, who never really grew out of his 4Chan /pol/ phase, and who keeps trying to have really intense conversations with me about ‘globalists’. But he’s my friend! I’ve known him forever! He doesn’t REALLY believe any of that stuff. He’s just kind of an asshole, and we love him anyway.”
This is a very bad corollary. It is an extraordinarily dangerous corollary. When we sincerely believe that we would not be friends with bad people, we ignore the signs that our friends are bad people.
(Friendly note: you can replace “Nazi” above with “sexual predator” or “racist” or “abuser”. Same hat, pretty much. There are very real reasons not to dehumanize the enemy, and they have nothing to do with the enemy’s right to humanity, and everything to do with the enemy’s ability to sneak past our lines wearing a nice-person mask.)
I’m reblogging this to my main blog because it is extremely fucking important.
