Yeah yeah I wrote a thread. SO. In 2011, I was lucky enough to get to travel to Berlin and Munich with a friend. I had never been to Germany, and although I felt a little silly about it because of the year, as a Jewish woman, I was scared of going. 1/

I was worried that somehow, under all of our noses, the rampant anti-Semitism I had learned about in school would still be present. I was triggered by the German language itself, having mostly heard it screamed from balconies by Hitler and not spoken gently by citizens. 2/

My experience in Germany was, in a word, wonderful. It was emotional, of course. But not in the way I expected. 3/

I expected to see small Nazi flags hanging on walls of local businesses or pasted onto the bumpers of cars. I expected to see statues of Hitler and Himmler and Eichmann on street corners they had frequented or spoken at. 4/

I expected Germany to treat their country’s shameful history the way we treat ours. By flaunting it to the public in the name of “preservation” and “education.” 5/

In Germany, they preserved concentration camps like museums, which allowed me to viscerally connect with the horrific experiences my people had suffered there. 6/

In Germany, they educated pedestrians by placing public memorials for the Holocaust everywhere they possibly could, in the form of statues, sculptures, and installations. 7/

While in Germany, I never felt threatened because I was a Jewish person. In fact, I felt a consistent sense of respect for the Jewish people as a whole. 8/

Had I seen what I had expected, had Germany treated the Holocaust the way the US treats slavery and the confederacy, I would have panicked. I would have wept and I would have gotten on a train and left. 9/

I would have been able to do that because I was on vacation. Because I am a privileged white woman who had to travel across the world to potentially be confronted by some of her people’s worst experienced history. 10/

Black people have to see reminders of slavery and the people who fought to keep slavery every single day. They see confederate flags in shops and on cars, they see statues on street corners and memes on Facebook. 11/

ALL OF THIS WHILE THEY ALSO HAVE TO SEE THEIR BROTHERS AND SISTERS GETTING MURDERED FUCKING CONSTANTLY. 12/

I do not share this story to equate my experiences with those of Black people in America. They are not comparable. They are not the same. I am a straight white lady and I will never fully know or understand what Black people in America experience every day. 13/

But I do think of my trip to Germany every time someone balks at the idea of tearing down a statue of a confederate soldier and every time someone whines about how they can’t hang their confederate flag at work. 14/

The pain, the anguish, the fear, and the distress these items cause are so much more powerful than the “education” people are claiming they provide. They are evil, evil items and they exist to remind Black people that they should not ever feel safe in their own country. 15/

We need to tear down the fucking statues. We need to burn the fucking confederate flags. It is not history you racist monsters are clinging to, it is power, and conflating the two in order to serve your bullshit white supremacist narrative is unconscionable. 16/

Black Lives Matter and Black people deserve to feel safe. Destroying these relics of American hatred is one small step we can take to help them feel that way. 17/17