Propaganda

My other unpublished post:

I thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Holocaust museum today. I had been once before, around this time last year and what struck me then, and what resonates today is man's inhumanity to man. The extent to which persons who are found in some way to be different and thereby, deficient is baffling. Throughout this visit and the last, I couldn't help drawing comparisons to the plight of African Americans and Indigenous peoples at the hands of their oppressors. In a way, man's inhumanity to man in general. How atrocities such as these COULD be stopped and SHOULD be stopped, but we how we must first realize that what has gone on, should NOT be simply chalked up to human nature. Things like the Holocaust and oppression of any peoples, forcible removal from their homes and familiar settings don't have to happen. And yet, they have, thus the importance of institutions such as the Holocaust museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture but also the challenge these institutions have in presenting their story, the cultural sensitivity they must have and how they should proceed.

In relation to museums that memorialize tragic events, such as the Holocaust and the September 11th attacks I found the issue of how much too soon to be a very intriguing one. How does one pay homage to the lives that were lost especially when those who knew and loved them are often still dealing with that profound loss each and every day? Or, in the case of United States slavery, when there is ample evidence that persons of native African American origins, those who were born and raised in the U.S., whose foreparents have tangible ties to specific small towns, farms, sharecropping plots or plantations, we know some of our history but can claim no direct descendents and can only claim a history that is only bound together in bits and pieces. Should their pain, and its aftermath, its aftershock be considered any less tragic?  I wish there were some specific narrative that we could pull from to tell a unified clear cut story, but then again, who actually has a clear-cut story to tell? Although  6 million Jewish men, women and children perished, there was no singular narrative. But instead, because these horrible hate crimes against those of Jewish descent, homosexuals and those with physical and mental challenges lived witin the last century it is a much "easier" story to tell. How do we reconcile this, qualify it in a meaningful way and present the story in a respectful manner?