Today I saw a post about Kristallnacht, on the feed of a Facebook friend. She quoted something from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which I thought was incisive, about the slippery workings of racism in general and genocide in particular. The quote reminded me of a poem I wrote in 2019 – which I’m sharing with you as a gift, below. Here’s the quote, followed by my poem:
“On the night of November 9, 1938, violent anti-Jewish demonstrations broke out across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Nazi officials depicted the riots as justified reactions to the assassination of German foreign official Ernst vom Rath, who had been shot two days earlier by Herschel Grynszpan, a 17-year old Polish Jew distraught over the deportation of his family from Germany.”
Racism Is not racism
When it’s justified
Which is how we end up with
Genocide
Which in your eyes
Is simply eliminating the scourge
That deserves to die
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Feel free to share this post with your followers – in particular, those who may need a little schooling about their own tendency to justify racist ideology and action, in the name of some purportedly noble quest.
©2019 by Loolwa Khazzoom. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be copied without author’s permission.
Photo by Moriel O’Connor