The language of hate
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/22/17...ge-of-hate
Mark E Andersen
Sunday April 22, 2018 · 7:30 PM EDT
How do you make one group of people hate another group of people they have never met? You use language to do it. The vast majority of Americans have never met someone who follows Islam.
Yet we constantly see right-wing politicians and pundits warning of Sharia law, or that Islam is a warlike religion by taking carefully selected certain passages out of the Koran out of context, or quoting the most reactionary of Islamic clerics. It is no different than what the Nazis did running up to WWII with people of the Jewish faith.
Newspapers in Germany, above all Der Stürmer (The Attacker), printed cartoons that used antisemitic caricatures to depict Jews. After the Germans began World War II with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazi regime employed propaganda to impress upon German civilians and soldiers that the Jews were not only subhuman, but also dangerous enemies of the German Reich. The regime aimed to elicit support, or at least acquiescence, for policies aimed at removing Jews permanently from areas of German settlement
Make the group you want people to hate different and subhuman through caricatures. We see this again and again through history around the world. In the way African Americans, Irish Americans, Native Americans, Japanese Americans and the list goes on, have been portrayed throughout the history of the United States.
Anti-Irish political cartoon titled "The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things" by Thomas Nast (1840–1902), published in Harper Anti-Irish political cartoon published in Harper’s Weekly on September 2, 1871.
The Irish were portrayed as drunks who were quick to fight, and quicker to be lazy. Even in my youth in the ‘70s and early ‘80s it was not uncommon to see a cartoon produced by Warner Brothers full of racist caricatures—in the case of Jungle Jitters, Black Africans were portrayed as cannibals.
Bugs Bunny even got into the act in this WWII era cartoon; If you can stomach it, the racist diatribes start at 35 seconds. It is a lot easier to fight and kill your enemy if you do not view them as human.
It is now the 21st century, and while many of the racist Looney Tunes are no longer shown on Saturday mornings to the youth of America, what we have today is almost worse. Today, we have an entire “news” network, Fox News, dedicated to promoting dog whistles to the racists of America, and a president who is all too happy to tweet his racism across America.
It did not start with the current White House resident, it has always been a part of America. We saw it with the portrayals and lies about President Obama and his family.
A Harvard-educated constitutional scholar, and he was treated by the right as someone who could not possibly have even been born in the United States. The anonymity provided by the Internet caused many of the racists in America to come out from under their rocks during the Obama presidency and Fox News, Facebook and the social circles that became echo chambers reinforced these awful views.
During Trump’s presidential campaign he said things that would have disqualified any other candidate during any other presidential election. Calling immigrants to our nation drug dealers, rapists and murderers, calling African Americans protesting against racial injustice thugs—these were just ways for him to speak to his racist base without using racially charged words that society as a whole has rejected as acceptable language.
The current White House resident is not a very smart man. The only way he can rally his base is to stir up hate against people they have never met, have never spent time with, and have never broken bread with.
When Hillary Clinton called his supporters deplorables, she was not very far off the mark—but they seem immune from the truth. They do not see the privilege provided just by the color of their skin.
They hate only because someone told them that they should—and then they claim that they do not hate—but memes like this, and the comments associated, prove that they do not see the forest for the trees.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/22/17...ge-of-hate
Mark E Andersen
Sunday April 22, 2018 · 7:30 PM EDT
How do you make one group of people hate another group of people they have never met? You use language to do it. The vast majority of Americans have never met someone who follows Islam.
Yet we constantly see right-wing politicians and pundits warning of Sharia law, or that Islam is a warlike religion by taking carefully selected certain passages out of the Koran out of context, or quoting the most reactionary of Islamic clerics. It is no different than what the Nazis did running up to WWII with people of the Jewish faith.
Newspapers in Germany, above all Der Stürmer (The Attacker), printed cartoons that used antisemitic caricatures to depict Jews. After the Germans began World War II with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazi regime employed propaganda to impress upon German civilians and soldiers that the Jews were not only subhuman, but also dangerous enemies of the German Reich. The regime aimed to elicit support, or at least acquiescence, for policies aimed at removing Jews permanently from areas of German settlement
Make the group you want people to hate different and subhuman through caricatures. We see this again and again through history around the world. In the way African Americans, Irish Americans, Native Americans, Japanese Americans and the list goes on, have been portrayed throughout the history of the United States.
Anti-Irish political cartoon titled "The Usual Irish Way of Doing Things" by Thomas Nast (1840–1902), published in Harper Anti-Irish political cartoon published in Harper’s Weekly on September 2, 1871.
The Irish were portrayed as drunks who were quick to fight, and quicker to be lazy. Even in my youth in the ‘70s and early ‘80s it was not uncommon to see a cartoon produced by Warner Brothers full of racist caricatures—in the case of Jungle Jitters, Black Africans were portrayed as cannibals.
Bugs Bunny even got into the act in this WWII era cartoon; If you can stomach it, the racist diatribes start at 35 seconds. It is a lot easier to fight and kill your enemy if you do not view them as human.
It is now the 21st century, and while many of the racist Looney Tunes are no longer shown on Saturday mornings to the youth of America, what we have today is almost worse. Today, we have an entire “news” network, Fox News, dedicated to promoting dog whistles to the racists of America, and a president who is all too happy to tweet his racism across America.
It did not start with the current White House resident, it has always been a part of America. We saw it with the portrayals and lies about President Obama and his family.
A Harvard-educated constitutional scholar, and he was treated by the right as someone who could not possibly have even been born in the United States. The anonymity provided by the Internet caused many of the racists in America to come out from under their rocks during the Obama presidency and Fox News, Facebook and the social circles that became echo chambers reinforced these awful views.
During Trump’s presidential campaign he said things that would have disqualified any other candidate during any other presidential election. Calling immigrants to our nation drug dealers, rapists and murderers, calling African Americans protesting against racial injustice thugs—these were just ways for him to speak to his racist base without using racially charged words that society as a whole has rejected as acceptable language.
The current White House resident is not a very smart man. The only way he can rally his base is to stir up hate against people they have never met, have never spent time with, and have never broken bread with.
When Hillary Clinton called his supporters deplorables, she was not very far off the mark—but they seem immune from the truth. They do not see the privilege provided just by the color of their skin.
They hate only because someone told them that they should—and then they claim that they do not hate—but memes like this, and the comments associated, prove that they do not see the forest for the trees.
