How to Do Better

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I CAN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT THE "GOOD GERMANS" in Nazi Germany. The people who knew Hitler was deliberately committing genocide against Jews but who voted for him, anyway. On purpose. 

People say that they were doing what they thought--believed!--was right, but how could they believe that murdering an entire subcategory of humans was the right thing? My thought process in response to this, as a Jewish person, goes like this: 

1. They should've known better
2. I am a Jew and therefore I can't trust people like that because survival, duh
3. They are bad people because they are--at best--complicit in the murder of no fewer than six million people within the course of a few years.

There are obvious flaws within the system of thinking here, but I want to be transparent and honest, because that's the only way forward, here, so bear with me.

When Trump got elected in 2016 and started generalizing Mexicans in similar ways that Hitler generalized Jews, I of course panicked--because guess what? I'm Mexican, too. My friends told me that I was overreacting when I compared modern early Trumpism to early Nazi Germany, but I was genuinely terrified. Sure, I'm White-passing, and I grew up Christian. But would those things save me if push came to shove? When people start using rhetoric that blames an entire category of people, it's us-versus-them. It's fight-versus flight. It's survival thinking--and there's no reasoning with survival thinking.

From @Life Matters at Pexels

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