”[Denmark] is the only case we know of in which the Nazis met with open native resistance, [and] the result seems to have been that those exposed to it changed their minds. They themselves apparently no longer looked upon the extermination of a whole people as a matter of course. They had met resistance based on principle, and their ‘toughness’ had melted like butter in the sun; they had even been able to show a few timid beginnings of genuine courage.
That the ideal of ‘toughness’…was nothing but a myth of self-deception, concealing a ruthless desire for conformity at any price, was clearly revealed at the Nuremberg Trials, where the defendants accused and betrayed each other and assured the world that they ‘had always been against it’–or claimed, as Eichmann was to do, that their best qualities had been ‘abused’ by their superiors. (In Jerusalem, he accused ‘those in power’ of having abused his ‘obedience.’) …The atmosphere had changed, and although most of them must have known that they were doomed, not a single one of them had the guts to defend the Nazi ideology.”
Hannah Arendt, “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.”
I want everyone to go read that link about Danish resistance, please, because it’s a very good example of what to emphasize:
Denmark burned their lists of Jewish Danish citizens so that the Nazis couldn’t take it, and they burned their entire Navy so the Nazis couldn’t use it.
People will make all sorts of holocaust comparisons but as soon as something happens to the jews, like for example, antisemitic vandalism and graffiti on the anniversary of kristallnacht, they’re conspicuously silent.
Hey guys it doesn’t matter whether or not you think trump is like hitler a much better consideration and comparison is whether you are going to be like the people who didn’t do anything when their neighbours were being rounded up.
Instead of shifting all the blame onto one person and thus absolving yourself of guilt.
Including voting, vote against trump is a good start.
This is the third time I’ve seen this today and I LOVE IT! This this this!.
The dude behind this just posted an update (on twitter and maybe other places I dunno) and it’s still great!
And with the above mentioned update:
Reblogging. I love this guy. And he is from my hometown. Hamburg citizens rule! (Obviously, we do not call ourselves “Hamburgers”)
It doesn’t matter whether it’s ‘not literal’ or ‘for effect’ or done with a fucking hashtag this comparison still trivialises the deaths of millions of people due to genocide.
It is not your place to make this comparison if you are not Jewish or Romani.
Hitler and the holocaust are not an abstract concept.
i’ve probably phrased that too vaguely and worried you – for that post specifically it was the camp badges, though other stuff too like you see the lines of numbers used ‘for effect’. Not explicitally nazi symbolism – that’s kind of a different problem, and would be more scary
but this freaks me out in a ‘oh one of my art posts got notes I’ll just check them, yep totally wanted to think about the holocaust right now thats not at all traumatic’ way basically.
Ok so apparently in America using the word « race » is normal but in France it isn’t and i’m going to try to tell you why.
So the notion of race was created in France in the 18th century. It was used to classify all the subdivisions of mankind according to some biologic differences (described in…
The first time I saw an American TV Show without dubs (about the time I entered French high school at almost 15 nine years ago), and heard the phrase “an individual of the [caucasian/black/asian] race”, I was convinced it was racist.
Because acknowledging that there is “races“ within the human race (see what i did there?) in French is racist (again, ethymology is important) because even putting different kinds of humans in different boxes because they have a certain genetic trait that makes them produce more or less melanin is WRONG. Later a French-American friend showed me her passport where there was litterally a “race” field on (which said “mixed” in her case).
This is strictly forbidden in France because of the post WWII legacy: this kind of taxonomy when used on an administrative level can lead to dire, dire consequences for any ethnic group that is one day both in the category “minority” and “scapegoat”.
Everytime a new law was trying to pass that would collect, and list anyone by any criteria, there was a huge outcry in France because it would remind us of how Jews were treated during WWII.
Now that the Godwin Gods have been appeased, I can conclude with what is my opinin and no one else’s (for now…):
To me, even using this kind of word, the word “race” which is the root of the word “racism” that we’re supposed to fight, is strange and foreign and offensive.
I grew to accept it because as a Frenchwoman who learned to speak French before speaking any other language, I can’t change English. It is your prerogative to make it grow in a direction or another and being offended because a word in a language that is foreign to me is wrong, because as a foreigner I do not know the actual context and history of this word.
It would be cultural appropriation to try to change it to suit my needs, something which is a capital crime on Tumblr, so I guess it’s not something you do in the US…
SEE? I RESPECT YOUR LANGUAGE AND CULTURE BY TRYING TO UNDERSTAND IT IN ITS CONTEXT OR AT LEAST ASSUMING THERE IS ONE!
Thanks to both of you.
That’s something I thought about this night. Our differences of langage and culture. I remember seeing this post about Raven (we all know Raven). She was telling that she wasn’t an afro-american girl, she was an american girl.
And people were offended by that! I didn’t understand at first. Then I learned how America especially were considering their roots, their “races” (I don’t like saying that neither) etc etc… I learned why people were offended. In france people would have congratulated her.
And I’m not talking about white people (it’s also really weird for us to talk about “white people” because it’s separating people in function of the color of their skin and of course we cannot do that), I’m talking about everyone, black people in first! I saw it in another post, and it was true: what is more important for us, is that we are french.
"Je suis français avant tout!” (“above everything I’m french”) that’s what you can heard if you dare talking about race to a POC person generally following by a “Comme toi!” (“like you” and I agree because it means we’re equal, because of the law, they’re french so they’re under this law too).
I think it’s a different way of thinking than in America (if I’m wrong, tell me of course). It’s not better, it’s not worse. Racism still exists for both of our countries. But it’s the way we’re thinking in France.
The ‘using the word race a lot makes you sound like a neonazi’ thing and dividing people into races implies there’s a ranking system going on (particularly with ‘the whatever race’ wording) applies to a lot of europe in my experience to greater or lesser degrees in various countries. But in general white french people seem to be more aware of this than white british people, to an extent at least (particularly than white british people who’ve picked up how to talk about racism from americanised contexts like tumblr – who seem to start using the word race with less discomfort comparatively)
britain mostly deals with this by using ethnicity for most things, like forms will ask for your ethnicity etc, thats absolutely just dividing into very similar categories as you would if you were saying race and calling it something different (hence terms like white british its kind of a hybrid system almost?) because ethnicity is seen as a more neutral word? that doesnt have the implied superiority inferiority connotations that race does. but from what you’ve said even that wouldn’t be a thing in france? and certainly not a census question
So I think its not necessarily an english-language thing? but maybe an american english thing, more so at least. I would say here using the word race and saying groups are races is becoming more normal mostly because of american influence (partly also because shared language) and because there isn’t the same legacy of occupation during ww2 so its an easier foundation to shake perhaps – people being grouped into races never went well before is an idea that exists but possibly less prominantly. It’d be interesting to know if american influence for this has less of an effect in france because of those two things? I imagine it does
thats possibly partly to do with france being not brilliant at acknowledging nazi collaboration and other crimes under the vichy government? (“what happened to” is incredibly passive, being reminded of what you did to jewish and roma people is what you dont like). Whereas britian was never occupied so doesnt have that same relationship to the holocaust (equally bad at acknowledging the whole not taking refugees and/or sending them to internment camps thing though it just has different impacts today than the french experience)
Some will have you believe that simply moving frequently, or wearing boho-esque clothing will make you a “gypsy”. I have read countless websites about Pagan “gypsy” magic, and articles on how to dress “gypsy”. I’m here to tell you; you’re doing it wrong!
So, you want to be a “gypsy”? Well, you can’t. Not only are you not a “gypsy”, but you can never become a “gypsy”.
This little word, “gypsy”, makes my skin crawl. It causes aches in my heart and beats at my soul. I die a little inside everytime I must say or write the word.
“Gypsy” is a racial slur. It is tantamount to the “N” word.
Like the “N” word, “gypsy” was created by people who believed we were sub-human and enslaved us. “Gypsies” were slaves?
Yes!
These “gypsies” you speak of are actually people who belong to the Romani ethnicity. We are an ethnic minority with no nation, no homeland. We trace our ancestry back to Rajasthan in India and parts of what is now Pakistan. This is not speculative. There is no more question as to where “gypsies” came from. This has been proven through extensive DNA and linguistic studies.
You cannot be “gypsy”. You cannot wake up one day, start moving around, and call yourself a “gypsy”. How many people say they want to be African American, or Asian? They don’t. It’s an impossibility.
White female youth pay large sums of money to dress “gypsy”, or what they call boho. Well, Bohemia is a region of the Czech Republic. You cannot be Bohemian either, unless of course you are Czech. There is also a huge problem with equating Boho to “gypsy”.
The Czech people murdered us.
“Vi man sas ek bari familiya, Murdadas la e kali legiya.”
"I once had a big family, but the Black Legions murdered them.”
That is a line from our anthem. We may not have a nation, but we have an anthem and a flag. “Gypsy” people have been so greatly oppressed in the Czech Republic that this line made it into our anthem. The Black Legions were a military unit that opreated in the Czech Republic during World War Two. They are responsible for killing nearly ninety-percent of the “gypsy” populations in parts of the Czech Republic.
Not only have you offended me by trying to dress “gypsy”, but calling yourself a “boho-gypsy” just tore my heart into one million pieces.
Before you ask and I have to answer; yes. Yes. Yes, I had family in the Czech Republic and Hungary during World War Two. Yes, they died in concentration camps like Auschwitz and Lety.
We are Romani. We call ourselves Romani. We are the Romani people.
You cannot be “gypsy”. The only way you are “gypsy” is if you are from the Romani ethnic population. Perhaps in your next life you can be born to Romani parents and be “gypsy”, but not in this one. No, you simply cannot.
Why would you want to?
Why would anyone on Earth want to belong to the most oppressed and persecuted race of people on this planet?
I don’t have a choice. I cannot scrub my “gypsy” off. I cannot simply wake up and decide I no longer want to be “gypsy”. It’s my ethnicity.
There are similar words used in Central and Eastern Europe to describe us. They are akin to “gypsy”:
Zigeuner, Czigany, Tigane, Tsigane, etc..
I dare you go to Central and Eastern Europe and utter these words to a “gypsy”. I triple dog dare you. See how much they like their “gypsy” word.
It means slave. Tsigane means slave. Zigeuner means slave. Czigany means slave.
There is a similar word in every single European language of this region. They all mean slave.
Like “gypsy”, words similar to tsigane have been used as a means of oppression. Maybe I can put this into persepctive.
In America, we do the same thing with the “N” word. Not me, personally, but I have heard it from countless Americans. Someone is “N” word rich, that car is “N” word rigged, don’t act like an “N” word.
The same is done with “gypsy” and “tsigane” in Europe. Don’t act ”gypsy” with me, it looks like “gypsies” live here, that’s such a “gypsy” thing.
Does it make sense now?
Please stop trying to be us. We are not flattered. What truly flatters Romani “gypsy” people is when others try to learn about our true culture. Please don’t argue with us & tell us that you know all about “gypsies” because you belly dance, read Tarot cards, or move a lot. If you really knew so much about “gypsies”, you would afford us the respect of not calling us a racial slur. You would know that there is no such thing as “gypsy” magic, that we are not dirty people who do not bathe, that we do not all steal, and that we have a beautiful culture.
No, you cannot be “gypsy”. Maybe in your next lifetime.
Why non-Romani people should NEVER EVER use the word g*psy.
reblogging for the white pagans who tried to argue this point with me.
Followers who have names including the word g*psy: please, read and consider this. I see you there following me. If you’re thinking, huh, is Lunar talking to me? YES, I am.
People have been arguing about this since at least 2002, and the triangle’s creator David Jay has pointed out other issueswithit as well. Here, have a post that lays out both sides of the debate clearly.
I’d rather not get involved in this argument, except to point out there are actually several differentasexualtriangles, and I’ve only ever seen the first one get criticized. That triangle is also associated with AVEN, and I don’t see it as often on Tumblr and in other asexual communities.
Personally, I don’t like the triangle because it reminds me of a pelvis and pubic area. I dunno, maybe I’m just seeing weird things nobody else sees, but it makes me uncomfortable enough not to use it.
I acctually have less problems with the aven/asexual triangle than the pink because it doesn’t claim to be based on a holocaust symbol, especaily considering why the tringle was used in the first place. And other than for remembrance I’m not keen on the use and reclaimation of symbols used by the nazis.
Its worth remembering that the inverted triangle shape itself is reminisent of all holocaust victims not just queer ones. Queer people do not have sole claimant over the triangle as a holocaust symbol. Or you know a shape, as its basic geometery and no ones telling people they can’t use triangles.
Given that there is no critisism of lgbt who wouldn’t have been persecuted under the nazi’s using the pink triangle and also no critisism of the use of the black triangle by queer women from within the queer community it’s incredibly suspicious to me that there is critisim of the use of a triangle by asexual people, even if it was based off the pink (which it isn’t anyway)
You don’t get to use the deaths of millions of people as a retorical tool ever, but certainly not at the expense of another marginalised group. And you don’t get to claim a connection to holocaust victims only when it suits your personal agenda against someone else, especailly if the history you are envoking otherwise has no effect on your life.
fearlessstateofmind backup 