My great uncle Charles was an officer in the Army during WW II. He was one of the first to enter Auschwitz after the fighting and helped free the prisoners held captive there. He met his wife in that camp. My Aunt Irma was a German Jew, who was found barely alive after the aggression's had ended. Barely 5 feet tall and weighing less than 70 lbs. Eisenhower was so disgusted and repulsed by the conditions in these camps and the conditions of those who had survived, he forced town’s people to tour the camps they denied even knowing about. They had ignored the stench of death and smoke from burning bodies, while shopping, going to church, and celebrating Christmas and Easter. They ignored the bodies left in ditches and used the slave labor to enrich their own families. They plead ignorance to Hitler’s treatment of his Prisoner, while seeing, smelling and using that free labor to enrich their lives. "We didn’t know!" "We never saw it" and "What could we do?" were the cries from those who "chose" to ignore the visible atrocities.
It was so horrible, Eisenhower order millions of photos and films to be taken to memorialize the heinousness of the conditions and physical miseries the Jewish POWs' had been forced to endure for years upon years of operations. Many of these camps were just steps outside of these villages and towns and cities. Yet "no one knew". Eisenhower didn’t "buy" their excuses and claims, and neither did the rest of the world. We told them" Ignorance is NO excuse".
As my uncle entered the camp, the stench in the air, the acrid aroma of rotting and dying corpses gagged him. It was a smell that had grown stronger as he got closer, mile after mile. Till the time of his death, he wondered how when they entered Auschwitz, anyone could possibly have been found alive. How anyone could have survived the horrible conditions inside. How No one in any of the surrounding towns and cities could NOT have known the conditions as they were so close to the misery. How any human could do this to another human and sleep at night, let alone attend church and pray with their children. Yet here it was, just yards from churches and stores and schools. The smoke stacks spitting the acrid pork scented human flesh daily from its oven smoke stacks for miles around. Ditches filled with the rotting corpses of the dead, and dying. Yet they swore "they never knew about any of it"
Aunt Irma was treated like his princess by Uncle Charles. Yet she never gained weight. She had physical problems that presented daily till she died many years later. But he tried to give her the best life he could. He loved her fully and without resentment. She loved him with all her soul. But no matter how hard he tried, he could never undo what the Nazi and German Regime had done to her. Her will to live, to survive had been unbroken. She had survived. Hitler and the Nazis and the German people who ignored the camps, crippled her body, destroyed her youth and killed her family, but she had survived.
Now jump ahead 80 years. America; the land that gave Eisenhower his morality and will for Justice to prevail, was gone. We elected a racist who had many similar views and beliefs as Hitler and the Nazis, as President. He believes "white people" are somehow "better" than other colors and races. He believes in Eugenics and John Birch dogma. That God is a fat white man and Jesus was his white son. He believes white racist are good people and Blacks are genetically inclined to be lazy and violent. That they are inherently inclined to violence. A President who wants to "white up" America. That ignorantly believes somehow, this prejudice will somehow make us "great" again. He believed anyone not his color or ethnicity, inferior and somehow less qualified to lead or guide. Beliefs and principles that had guided his whole adult life in his actions and substance. He used religion very similar to the way Hitler did. Hitler tried to justify his hatred of Jews as biblically correct by claiming the "Jews had murdered Jesus" forgetting Jesus himself WAS a Jew and believing they deserved our hate, scorn and condemnation. He even tried to get the Popes' permission to carry out his "war on the Jewish people”. That way his brutality would be deemed permissible as Christian and somehow justifiable.
Trump idolized Hitler. He kept copies of Hitler’s speeches and an English version of Mien Kamph beside his bed to read nightly. He learned from what he saw as Hitler’s perceived mistakes to be a better racist. He demanded complete loyalty and adulation from those around him. He used religion as a tool and some minority Ministers to justify his attempts at ethnic cleansing. Having Black faith leaders justify his racism biblically, somehow lessened his war on Color he thought, to the rest of the world. He could use them to twist the Bible to somehow justify his racist beliefs and dogma. To somehow justify it through twisted misinterpretations of scriptures. To give the appearance of Moral Authority, while removing the protections that insured equality for all peoples, regardless of national origin, religion, race, sex or ethnicity.
Sadly, many of these "faith based" leaders openly back his plans and ideas as Biblically sound and somehow justifiably moral, misquoting scripture and taking them out of context they were used in, even to the point of harming their own races and ethnicities.
They choose to forget America is an experiment. An idea. A belief that encompassed all peoples and races. That it depends on our diversities to grow and strngthen us. That excepting the weaker, inferior, less qualified people whose personal tragedies had brought them to our shores, actually gave us our strength, moral fiber and power. That their contributions made us grow. That their frailties gave us our power and strength and caused us to lead the world. That together we grow and prevail in a world often torn apart by wars over what name we call God or what our heritage was. Immigrants who came here by choice, or even by force (slavery) led the ways in science, medicine, business, the arts and mathematics. They made us stronger. Most weren’t white either. From Medicine to space flight, we grew because of the contributions and blending of ideas and thoughts of a multi diverse culture coming together for the benefit of the whole.
Now, we are attempting to go backwards. We imprison nonwhites in "detainment camps" for "deportation" to their Countries of origin. We gather those who we deem "illegal" even if they were promised freedom, to be shipped back to where they fled from. We have Senators like Tom Cotton call Children raised in our country, and brought here against their wills as children; Illegal aliens" who should be sent back as they’re here illegally. They speak, many of them, only English, Know only American History and beliefs, have only American friends and ideals and American lives. Many own businesses, doctorates and college degrees, and have wives and Children. Many are doctors and lawyers and scientist. Many have served proudly in our military and died defending our values and beliefs. BUT they’re not white, were not BORN in America, so THEY MUST BE EXILED to countries they have never known or even been to.
White Supremacy, no matter how ignorant it actually is, is experiencing a rebirth in our once great nation and regardless of what they profess, is being championed by the Republican Party. Einstein once said "The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything"
Thomas Jefferson said “The greatest danger to our American freedoms is a Government that ignores the Constitution..." Plato once said "Your silence gives Consent." Even Ronald Reagan said "There is no security, no safety, in the appeasement of evil."
Frederic Bastiat said "When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that Authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
Finally FDR said "Human Kindness has never weakened the stamina or Softened the Fiber of a free people. A Nation does not have to be Cruel to be tough,"
The sad part is yesterday Trump signed a proclamation for MLK day. But no one remembered Martin Luther King said “He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
We fail our Country, Our peoples, our very ideals, when we allow racism to flourish under the guise of Patriotism or Nationalism. Discriminating against those who are of a different color or ethnicity or national origin based on misconceived perceptions about their points of origins is not just racism, but un-American and evil. It is our duty as Americans to point this out, stand up against it and force ourselves to be heard. Otherwise, People of America will become what Trump refers to as a "Shithole" Nation and it will take decades to undo the damage his comments and actions have caused. We are becoming the "Third world" nation we fought, bled and died to keep from becoming. By Republicans choosing to ignore and respond to Trumps comments, they passively accept it. By not "recalling it" they okay it. By refusing to comment, they justify it. Not all republicans are racist, but all racist are Republican. If I’m wrong, Speak up and speak out. If I’m right, continue to defend his actions or just remain silent.. It’s in your hands. I suggest so called evangelic do the same. After all Christ ran the money changers out of his father’s house, he didn’t welcome them with open arms and a smile.