A good example from my personal story.
When I was a prosecutor, I had a Jewish colleague who was a good guy and attempted to take time to understand the social issues plaguing the certain groups in the U.S.
He hit me up a few years ago and needed help because on his facebook wall, blacks a jewish friends were engaging in intense debate about whether American Slavery or the Holocaust was worse.
I told him, damn that's unfortunate because I hate conversations on "who had it worse."
Then he disappointed me because he said, "I feel you, Dave. I mean, honestly, when you think about the Holocaust, it was kind of overwhelming compared to slavery, though, right?
I was like,
because he unknowingly fed into the same convo. So I had to school him a bit because I couldn't have him out here on some silly shyt.
I told him:
"Alex,
From my own intimate understanding of Judiasm and Jewish people, I know that what allows the Jewish people to survive through a history of anti-semitism and scapegoating was a survival of their core traditions. No matter how many small numbers of jews assimilate into society, there is always a large core of Jews who maintain the traditions that make you a Jew.[He agreed]
Right, so let me ask you, the situation is a person is holding a rifle or blade to your head while your children watch. They give you a choice between 2 options:
1 - You live - but instantaneously, your family is sent through a process that eventually strips them of all knowledge of what it means to be a Jew. If you ask them what is Passover or Rosh Hashanah, they'll be like "Rush where? Passover, pass over a bridge?" [He chuckled at first but then thought about what that would mean for his legacy.
2- You die - but your children and children's children will survive with full knowledge of all you would have instilled in them to be proud to be a Jew.
[Without hesitation, he chose to die so his traditions survive.]
So, I want you to think about my ancestors or the ancestors of Black Americans. Although, PHYSICALLY, they survived, over hundreds of years of rinse and repeat destruction of their original languages, names, skills, confidences and history, the surviving descendants only were able to draw from a past that started on the shores of America as slaves.
So forget about physical pain or numbers dead. We are talking about the tragedy of stripping a people of who they actually ARE.
[Immediately he understood the ramifications of the tragedy of American slavery.
