They're not yours Tully.
Feb. 1st, 2022 08:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootWelp, I need to be patient, so as not to start a flame war, so here I go, blood-letting in this place where few see.
On a friends wall, talking about Maus;
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10104207475622342&set=a.734883261312
And here comes someone's response to the above:
TLDR. This touched a nerve.
Too long to read, too long to comment on, surely?
I guess thats a point of view thing - to me the story of the Holocaust isnt a "deeply Jewish story" - its a Othering tale.
Were you there? Were your parents or grandparents there? Who are you to decide on what the Holocaust is or isn't about?
Because I'd personally not have made it as far as the Holocaust proper - I'd likely have been done away with in the practice rounds. Mengele and friends were cutting open disabled folk to see how we worked long before the mass rounding up of the Undesirables.
Ah, so you would not only have been specially mistreated, you'd have been specially mistreated first.
And if I somehow survived the 'useless mouths' stage, they'd still have me as a bi trans witch.
You could hide your bi-ness, your trans-ness, your witch-ness. Very hard to hide your Jewish ancestry at this time.
If I was super lucky, someone would have smuggled me out. At that point, am I really going to care whether their holy day is saturday or sunday? or is it rather Jews, and witches, and blacks, and LGBT, and gypsies, and Commies, and intellectuals, and conciencious objectors, and women who can't have babies and... have I missed anyone? - versus the Nazis.
But it didn't happen to you, and what might have happened to you is an extrapolation. I may have Jewish ancestry, so it might have happened to me, it also might not have happened to me, and when all is said and done, it did not happen to me. Or you. Our job is to listen with respect to those who actually did undergo the reality of this horror, to put ourselves to one side and hear what is being said, see what is being shown without intruding or projecting our own issues on to it. Your words aren't empathy, they're a demand to be included among the suffering, grabbing at other people's traumas as if such things can be added to a shopping basket of martyrdom. Fester has the right answer to this: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/61a4a069-318c-4711-80bc-dc64d1e75764
"the people doing the sad things looked like them and attended the churches of their denominations" But this isnt true - their women didnt have beards and wear trousers, and their churches had been practicing burning us Other People for centuries.
Oh do fuck off. No really. Do not try to make the Holocaust about your suffering, some generic 'Othering' horror in which you play your part because you feel so very different. This isn't about you. Repeat; This Isn't About You.
Keep the stories -
Thanks. I am sure that the Jewish population will applaud this generosity.
but dont teach that "the Holocaust was Germans gassing Jews"
Are you seriously telling Jewish people how they should recount their family histories? Are you seriously suggesting the Holocaust shouldn't be taught in ways that don't include you?
but that the Holocaust is really important because it was civilised seeming people like you and me, h
urting people who were mostly just like us, for stupid reasons. It can't become just history, but must be a warning.
Believe me, leaving you out of it won't make it any less of a warning.
And if this makes me a bastard, I am an unashamed bastard. The only reason I am not calling out this Wounded Narcissism is because it's all happening on a friend's wall. Another friend, who is cool and clever, has made better puncture points. But man, sometimes being polite is so hard!
On a friends wall, talking about Maus;
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10104207475622342&set=a.734883261312
And here comes someone's response to the above:
TLDR. This touched a nerve.
Too long to read, too long to comment on, surely?
I guess thats a point of view thing - to me the story of the Holocaust isnt a "deeply Jewish story" - its a Othering tale.
Were you there? Were your parents or grandparents there? Who are you to decide on what the Holocaust is or isn't about?
Because I'd personally not have made it as far as the Holocaust proper - I'd likely have been done away with in the practice rounds. Mengele and friends were cutting open disabled folk to see how we worked long before the mass rounding up of the Undesirables.
Ah, so you would not only have been specially mistreated, you'd have been specially mistreated first.
And if I somehow survived the 'useless mouths' stage, they'd still have me as a bi trans witch.
You could hide your bi-ness, your trans-ness, your witch-ness. Very hard to hide your Jewish ancestry at this time.
If I was super lucky, someone would have smuggled me out. At that point, am I really going to care whether their holy day is saturday or sunday? or is it rather Jews, and witches, and blacks, and LGBT, and gypsies, and Commies, and intellectuals, and conciencious objectors, and women who can't have babies and... have I missed anyone? - versus the Nazis.
But it didn't happen to you, and what might have happened to you is an extrapolation. I may have Jewish ancestry, so it might have happened to me, it also might not have happened to me, and when all is said and done, it did not happen to me. Or you. Our job is to listen with respect to those who actually did undergo the reality of this horror, to put ourselves to one side and hear what is being said, see what is being shown without intruding or projecting our own issues on to it. Your words aren't empathy, they're a demand to be included among the suffering, grabbing at other people's traumas as if such things can be added to a shopping basket of martyrdom. Fester has the right answer to this: https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/61a4a069-318c-4711-80bc-dc64d1e75764
"the people doing the sad things looked like them and attended the churches of their denominations" But this isnt true - their women didnt have beards and wear trousers, and their churches had been practicing burning us Other People for centuries.
Oh do fuck off. No really. Do not try to make the Holocaust about your suffering, some generic 'Othering' horror in which you play your part because you feel so very different. This isn't about you. Repeat; This Isn't About You.
Keep the stories -
Thanks. I am sure that the Jewish population will applaud this generosity.
but dont teach that "the Holocaust was Germans gassing Jews"
Are you seriously telling Jewish people how they should recount their family histories? Are you seriously suggesting the Holocaust shouldn't be taught in ways that don't include you?
but that the Holocaust is really important because it was civilised seeming people like you and me, h
urting people who were mostly just like us, for stupid reasons. It can't become just history, but must be a warning.
Believe me, leaving you out of it won't make it any less of a warning.
And if this makes me a bastard, I am an unashamed bastard. The only reason I am not calling out this Wounded Narcissism is because it's all happening on a friend's wall. Another friend, who is cool and clever, has made better puncture points. But man, sometimes being polite is so hard!
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no subject
Date: 2022-02-01 11:36 am (UTC)Your friend’s friend is not doing themselves any favours.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-02 09:06 am (UTC)As to my friend's friend, too right.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-01 01:16 pm (UTC)I guess thats a point of view thing - to me the story of slavery isnt a "deeply Black story" - its a Othering tale... Because I'd personally not have made it as far as the cotton fields - I'd likely have been done away with on the auction block. Massa and Aunt Sally weren't buying disabled folk...
This is the friend of a friend?
Then you did right to hold your tongue.
But, man oh man. I'd like to crawl inside your computer and bitch-slap this person.
And also, of course, this person's "disabled" knowledge of grammar is like chalk squeaking on a blackboard.
no subject
Date: 2022-02-02 08:53 am (UTC)I find it hard to express how disgusting I find this Princess Look-At-Me nonsense. Presumably they have felt tremendously ignored/overlooked/neglected and the result has been this clamour for badges of specialness. But honestly, my every instinct is that they just need a hard slap.