/futures jan 25 '17
"President-elect Donald Trump is bringing along with him a Senate and Congress dominated by Republican majorities with strong proto-fascist elements. Many people are understandably distraught considering the threats to immigrants, LGBT people, Muslims, women’s reproductive rights, and the implications for poor and marginalized Black communities. Yet while it’s true we are facing an incredibly difficult and dangerous situation, we should not succumb to resignation and despair. History shows us that even the most nefarious and brutal regimes can be successfully defied.
In early 1943 a group of unarmed German women organized what has come to be known as the Rosenstrasse protest. It was Nazi Germany’s only successful protest movement to stop the expulsion and murder of Jewish people, namely their husbands and sons who had been arrested and slated for deportation. The Rosenstrasse protest strongly contradicts those who claim that there was nothing privileged German citizens could have done to stop Nazi atrocities. It reveals to us who live in a much more free and open society that the barriers to defending the threatened and marginalized are mostly in our minds. It also reveals the power that can be unleashed when the personal becomes political.
...the Rosenstrasse protest shows us that effective resistance is born from emotional connections and empathy. To face the machine guns and the threats of one of the most vicious regimes to ever grace the Earth took more than courage, it took an understanding that the endangered person cast as “the other” was in fact not disposable, not murder-able, not inferior, and worth fighting for. We must prioritize and cultivate institutions and social and cultural programs that foster humanism and the recognition of the inherent worth of all people regardless of ethnicity, gender or socio-economic status. Our art, our politics, our praxis, and our activism must foster the development of the kind of empathetic connections that will remove the artificial barriers between “us” and “them”. Once these barriers are removed and apathy defeated, it will be much easier to convince people to make sacrifices for those targeted by state violence."
-excerpt of blog post by Ron Whyte on November 11, 2016
Read full post at: http://www.deepgreenphilly.com/?p=1854
In early 1943 a group of unarmed German women organized what has come to be known as the Rosenstrasse protest. It was Nazi Germany’s only successful protest movement to stop the expulsion and murder of Jewish people, namely their husbands and sons who had been arrested and slated for deportation. The Rosenstrasse protest strongly contradicts those who claim that there was nothing privileged German citizens could have done to stop Nazi atrocities. It reveals to us who live in a much more free and open society that the barriers to defending the threatened and marginalized are mostly in our minds. It also reveals the power that can be unleashed when the personal becomes political.
...the Rosenstrasse protest shows us that effective resistance is born from emotional connections and empathy. To face the machine guns and the threats of one of the most vicious regimes to ever grace the Earth took more than courage, it took an understanding that the endangered person cast as “the other” was in fact not disposable, not murder-able, not inferior, and worth fighting for. We must prioritize and cultivate institutions and social and cultural programs that foster humanism and the recognition of the inherent worth of all people regardless of ethnicity, gender or socio-economic status. Our art, our politics, our praxis, and our activism must foster the development of the kind of empathetic connections that will remove the artificial barriers between “us” and “them”. Once these barriers are removed and apathy defeated, it will be much easier to convince people to make sacrifices for those targeted by state violence."
-excerpt of blog post by Ron Whyte on November 11, 2016
Read full post at: http://www.deepgreenphilly.com/?p=1854