“That’s what America is about,” Carson said. “A land of dreams and opportunity. There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less. But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land.”
-- Dr. Ben Carson, former Housing and Urban Development secretary; March 2017
So, let me ask: did/do you view
that as a "nothingburger"?
You really are not understanding the situation
at all. Are you Jewish? If so, then why doesn't this concern you? If not, then why do you
persist on being dismissive of what is and isn't important in regard to the history of the Jewish people rather than listening to Jewish voices?
So the problem is that some 19th Century antisemites classified Jews as another race, and Whoopi Goldberg initially refused to validate that classification of the Jewish people that way because in her experience race was mostly based on skin tone?
It isn't she "refused to validate", she
incorrectly, ahistorically claimed the Holocaust was
not about race. It was; as has been pointed out NUMEROUS times in the past few days. Have you read those responses? Articles?
From a historical sense, you can say that the Nazi's thought of the Jews as a race, and that is part of what motivated the Holocaust. But I fail to see why validating the racial classifications of the Nazis is important today.
AAARGH! Again, it is not about "validating"
their view, but understanding it
was their view. The situation is problematic because it was WRONG. Her remarks were hurtful and historically INACCURATE. If you care about preserving history and teaching history correctly, such as making sure history isn't "whitewashed", such as claiming slaves were or were like immigrants, then the same
should hold true when the history of the Jews is involved and not relegated to a dismissive, "this is a nothingburger." Just because it wasn't full on Nazi, it doesn't mean it should be addressed, corrected, and further education should take place. When little "nothings" are overlooked, ignored, or dismissed, they have a way of snowballing into something larger and more unyielding.
I mean, who decided is a group of people is a race or an ethnic group? Does the group decide? And who in that group decides? I tend to favor academic consensus based on some sort of definition, but that is just me.
Did you know, there WAS some academic consensus, in that time (and before), that declared Jews a separate race? So, why are you not "favoring" it as you claim? Sure, in 2022 that classification is no longer valid, but then, the period under discussion, it was, therefore it is germane to the topic.
Also, calling the Holocaust, "white on white crime" is dismissive of the true heinous nature of the Holocaust and was tacky as hell.
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