PUTNEY — One of my earlier educational memories was the completely-age-inappropriate graphic descriptions of the extermination of millions of Jews and others in World War II by the Nazis and their allies in my Jewish religion class.
The fear and sadness I felt at that time has never gone away, although as a peace and justice activist, I have tried to put those emotions into action. The very idea of a massive genocide in a country as diverse as the United States always felt like one thing I didn't need to worry about. The repeated message of “never again” is something I understood to be a reality.
Now, I am not so sure.
While I watched the horrific scenes of Trump supporters violently ransacking the Capitol building, I spotted the “camp auschwitz: work brings freedom” sweatshirt on one of the violent perpetrators. Later, I saw a photo of another upstanding citizen in a 6MNE shirt - apparently, an acronym for “6 million was not enough.”
My blood really ran cold.
I have been thinking about these images a lot when I hear these calls for “unity.” As a secular, but openly identified, Jew, I understand that these people would prefer to see me dead than have a conversation with me, much less “unify” (whatever that means when it comes to Nazis).
That may sound like an exaggeration, but I don't think it is, and it does not feel like a stretch to visualize these Trump-inspired, heavily armed, evil people wanting to kill off all of us who are not white, right-wing Christians.
They have now even got a couple of openly racist, anti-Semitic, QAnon violent crazies in Congress. Although the competition is fierce, the craziest might be Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has a number of social media posts threatening to kill Democrats.
In the history of the United States, we begin with the mass murder of Native people and the theft of most of the land in the country. We move ahead to the horrors of the slave trade and all the cruelty it entailed to the Jim Crow South and the terrible number of rapes, lynchings, and other unpunished crimes against Black people.
We encounter the Chinese exclusion laws and concentration camps for Japanese citizens.
More recently, we've witnessed Trump's family separation of brown-skinned children from their parents and blocking of all asylum seekers.
In short, this has always been a country dominated by white, European-origin men.
Those of us who do not fit into that niche have never made the rules. However, in my lifetime, I can think of many times when the government murdered people of color, and generally these killings are targeted at individuals.
One example of a large government killing of Black people was the 1985 MOVE bombing in Philadelphia; another, the terrible toll in Tulsa from the race massacre in 1921.
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I have been observing with trepidation over the past 30 years or so the heavy arming of the far right: the growth of militias and hate groups, and the completely insane refusal of the federal government to pass any gun-safety regulations.
I have also been contemplating why these hateful men, and some hateful women, felt the need to have private arsenals. I can only conclude that they are stockpiling these weapons to use them.
So when we see the formerly respected (by some, never me) Republican party keeping completely silent about these invaders to the Capitol - with their Confederate flags, their Jew-hating messages, and their terrible violence, including beating and killing of police officers (imagine if people of color or eco-activists had killed a cop!) - there is only one conclusion to draw.
They support this rhetoric. They support these who have created an identity culture of hate.
And, as the most militant of Republican politicians have repeatedly stated, they believe their voters who want this to be an all white, Christian country. They've said that. It's not an inference.
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What does this mean to those of us who are not white, right-wing Christians?
In the eyes of these Three Percenters, Proud Boys, neo-Nazis, QAnon supporters, we should not be alive. This is where their words and actions take us, and there is no other conclusion to be drawn.
In Vermont, we have just seen another woman of color forced to withdraw from a municipal government position in Hartford due to harassment and worse. This is not the first such incident, and it won't be the last.
This is one of the most left-leaning states in this country, and we can't protect people of color who want to contribute to our society. This is happening in every corner of this country now. Donald Trump has emboldened the most racist and hateful elements, and they are furious that they haven't been able to continue their dominance.
I am scared, but I am not willing to be silent or stop working for a more-just country where people of all colors, religions, sexual identities, and origins live together in peace and can learn from one another. But we will need to stand together and remain strong, understanding that we might be challenged in ways we have never been before.
How many of us have thought, “What would I have done in the face of Hitler's genocide?”
It is time to stand up.