Tag: charlottesville

What are people thinking when they spew hate? Are they all true believers? What’s more, how does someone get that way?

My mother, a retired Holocaust studies scholar, recently reminded her Facebook friends of something my grandmother used to say: “It could happen here.” By “it,” of course, she meant another Holocaust.

Jim Downard remembers H. G. Well's warnings from 1935. Will we choose decency and dignity, or a bleak, hate-filled future?

We talk about the white supremacy that was evident in Charlottesville. White supremacy is real. It's not just a few angry white guys, it's the systemic racism embedded in our country. There are more whites than people of color in seats of authority and power, even in regional areas where whites are the minority. That is just flat wrong! We cannot continue to speak over our black and brown siblings in Christ.

You lived through a Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Bigots re-enacted the German night marches complete with torches and chants calling for the death of Jews and other non-whites. What are you doing now?