I didn't comment on the original post--for one thing I'm not nearly as well versed in historiography as you or many of the commenters, and for another I did get kind of scared off when things went south in comments. But I just wanted to say, here, that this:
it was not meant in such a way at all, it was asked in an honest (and perhaps simplistic) questioning of the way history is told, created, passed along, and developed to a well-educated audience. i asked an emotional question without considering the emotional context, only the academic/intellectual by-product.
was exactly how I read your original post, as an academic question that became emotionally charged. I think you asked a good and a genuine question, and I admire you for it.
And this:
i am just saying, when we forget - purposefully or not - we lose a chance to learn.
is one of the things I love most about you. That you see so much potential for change, so many opportunities to learn.
I really think that your friend girlboymusic needs to think carefully about the antisemitic tendencies to her thought. I think you might want to remember that persecution is not a zero-sum game -- if you really are concerned for the rights of gays and lesbians or of the mentally ill, you might want to consider that complaining about the Jews in the way you do abive is not the best way to go about it.
I was going to engage with your comment in the previous post, but I'm actually so angry right now, and think so poorly of you, that I cannot.
I think you might want to remember that persecution is not a zero-sum game thank you. you answered my question from the initial post - "i don't want to take anything away from the holocaust by looking at the auschwitz album and saying, "those are my people," but am i? de facto
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Look, I understand that you're trying. I would like you to understand that I have literally been in tears over the hateful things I have seen on the internet recently, in fannish circles, and in your previous post.
History owns you. It owns me too. Try to think a little next time.
Actually, antidepressants were a big part of the Columbine shootings. The assertion that the boys had no friends, that they were outcasts, etc were disproved in interviews with students later on. The violent behavior they did show began about a year before the shootings when one boy was prescribed anti-depressant medicationsSeeing how little we know of mental illness, while it is harmful to say that it's an invention (it is, in a way, in the sense that we didn't have mental illness in our human perception until we "discovered" it), it is also harmful to dismiss the abuse and misuse of medications. More and more often, poor diet and lifestyle are found to be the root of mood disorders, which would, in the long run, make medications the root of further complications. We live in a capitalist nation, psychiatry and pharmaceuticals are, sadly, competitive businesses. When you put businesses in charge of a dangerous (and barely understood) product, consumers will get hurt
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So, uh, sorry for the somewhat off-topic rant, but it's not necessarily discriminatory when a person points to anti-depressants as a cause of the Columbine massacre. Actually, it doesn't support the point at all, because they're not even pointing to mental illness as the issue -- they're pointing to the use of a volatile medication by a minor.but the person was using the case to illustrate that all anti-depressants caused violent behavior, that we should not be medicating anyone
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the “rights” of the generally-identifying american jewish population and the “rights” of the other persecuted people in the holocaustYou're very confusing in your discussion. In one sentence, you are talking about American Jewish people, in others, "all" Jewish people
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You're very confusing in your discussion. In one sentence, you are talking about American Jewish people, in others, "all" Jewish people.
i apologize. i meant american jews when i was talking about "rights" - mostly because i have no frame of reference to compare to outside of america. do i think ugandan and ethiopian jews have the same rights as american jews? no. i never meant to express the belief that any group, including the jews, were monolithic - except in the way i referred to the "mentally ill" which is also certainly not a homogeneous category.
and, in a comment to coffeeandink earlier (which, i don't blame you for not going through this whole thing), i said that i think it's possibly dangerous to put levels on horrors, levels on discrimination, because who is to say what is more horrific to one person than to another? what is discriminatory to me might not be to you, and that doesn't make either of our personal experiences less; it doesn't negate anything. IMO. i'm sorry if i gave you the wrong impression.
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it was not meant in such a way at all, it was asked in an honest (and perhaps simplistic) questioning of the way history is told, created, passed along, and developed to a well-educated audience. i asked an emotional question without considering the emotional context, only the academic/intellectual by-product.
was exactly how I read your original post, as an academic question that became emotionally charged. I think you asked a good and a genuine question, and I admire you for it.
And this:
i am just saying, when we forget - purposefully or not - we lose a chance to learn.
is one of the things I love most about you. That you see so much potential for change, so many opportunities to learn.
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This whole paragraph...thank you for saying, really gracefully, what I was trying to say all along. That was absolutely perfect.
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I was going to engage with your comment in the previous post, but I'm actually so angry right now, and think so poorly of you, that I cannot.
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History owns you. It owns me too. Try to think a little next time.
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i apologize. i meant american jews when i was talking about "rights" - mostly because i have no frame of reference to compare to outside of america. do i think ugandan and ethiopian jews have the same rights as american jews? no. i never meant to express the belief that any group, including the jews, were monolithic - except in the way i referred to the "mentally ill" which is also certainly not a homogeneous category.
and, in a comment to coffeeandink earlier (which, i don't blame you for not going through this whole thing), i said that i think it's possibly dangerous to put levels on horrors, levels on discrimination, because who is to say what is more horrific to one person than to another? what is discriminatory to me might not be to you, and that doesn't make either of our personal experiences less; it doesn't negate anything. IMO. i'm sorry if i gave you the wrong impression.
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