>>> <EmaChissit at cs.com> 04/26/99 11:12AM >>>
Mark Rickling, indicating an astoundingly low comprehension level asks:
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Charles: No. I think Mark is right on. It is you who doesn't understand.
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Firstly, history has demonstrated that Nazism wasn't just about targeting Jews, but also about Catholics, Communisits, gypsies. How ignorant for anyone here to assume that contemporary forms of Nazism *must* and only *must* be about racism which is then magically defined as hatred, oppression, slurs, bigotry against people of color and Jews. Very interesting how race is essentialized in this kind of talk. Utterly astounding. This is what I hear you say, because they wore Nazi symbols and admired Hitler, then obviously they were racists and hated blacks and Hispanics and, I guess, Jews, though no mention has been made of that.
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Charles: Obviously, it is you who is profoundly and dangerously ignorant of history and logic. Yes there is a definite connection historically between racism and nazism. Logically, the fact that the Nazis killed others did not mean that they were not racists.
The NEO- nazis can't erase that HISTORICAL fact. But even on the neo-Nazis, organizations such as the Center for Democratic Renewal, Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League, et al.Russ Bellant have been investigating neo-Nazi groups for many years and they contradict your claims that neo-Nazis are not racist.
Because SOME recent people have decided to use Nazi insignia while claiming not to be racist merely attests to their dangerous stupidity. Their suspect "non-racism" doesn't exonerate or dilute the dangerous classical nazi racism of many others who use the insignia and admire Hitler.
Your complaint about "essentializing" is actually a rather funny self-critique of post-modernist non-essentialist nonsense. It demonstrates how ridiculous that form of thinking can be.
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Let me just remind you that Nazism or Neo-Nazism does rest on what can be called racism in so far as it's an attempt to cleanse the world of groups seen as threatening to the purity of the honored and valorized group.
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Charles: You remind us ? I think you are pretty confused.
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Your reasoning here is dangerous. It demonstrates a complete ignorance of history. If we've learned anything, then we should have learned by now that racism operates in such a way as to socially construct certain groups as if they were a separate race that has identifiable physical and social characteristics. However, there is no necessary connection as Angela demonstrates when she speaks of "genticizing" white trash and rednecks in the film Gummo. The truly scary thing is, some of you on this very list stereotype rednecks and yahoos and don't even see how you do it or see the problem with it.
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Charles: Anybody who says calling Nazis racists is an essentializing error should not be saying someone else is completely ignorant of history or reasoning dangerously. We have learned a lot of things, but one of them IS NOT that social construction analysis means that Nazism is not racism.
One of the dangers of the current period is that post modernist claptrap is so confusing the minds of many on the left that the left, such as it is, is unable to lead anti-racist struggles.
What are we coming to when someone can with a straight face call someone else historically ignorant for connecting Nazism and Hitler with racism , in a LEFT forum ?
Charles Brown