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Seattle's best known meteorologist, @CliffMass, compared recent Black Lives Matter protests in the city to Kristallnacht, a night of Nazi-incited, state-sanctioned violence against Germany's Jews in 1938.
This is appallingly ignorant and vile comparison needs to be squelched.
This is appallingly ignorant and vile comparison needs to be squelched.
NOTE: I don't think Cliff Mass is antisemitic. (He is actually Jewish according to a 2018 interview he had with Jewish in Magazine.)
I think he makes a dangerously incorrect analogy that fosters soft Holocaust denial and smears Black Lives Matter's protest of racial inequity.
I think he makes a dangerously incorrect analogy that fosters soft Holocaust denial and smears Black Lives Matter's protest of racial inequity.
Mass invites someone to debunk his comparison, so here we go.
Kristallnacht has nothing in common with the Black Lives Matter or George Floyd protests. Any similarities are purely superficial and spurious.
#GeorgeFloydProtests #BlackLivesMatter
Kristallnacht has nothing in common with the Black Lives Matter or George Floyd protests. Any similarities are purely superficial and spurious.
#GeorgeFloydProtests #BlackLivesMatter
Kristallnacht was targeted violence against Jews across Germany (which by that time included Austria and the Sudetenland).
Violence and terror was the point of Kristallnacht. It was not incidental.
It was incited and sanctioned by the Nazi state.
Violence and terror was the point of Kristallnacht. It was not incidental.
It was incited and sanctioned by the Nazi state.
Kristallnacht was an escalation in Nazi Germany's long-term antisemitic persecution. Germany already had passed the Nuremberg laws and other discriminatory laws, driven Jews out of many professions and taken other steps to marginalize and terrorize Germany's Jews.
Kristallnacht was about the state using violent persecution of a minority to unify the "real" Germans. These are fundamental elements of fascism.
Now, let's compare that to the George Floyd protests in Seattle May, June and July.
Now, let's compare that to the George Floyd protests in Seattle May, June and July.
The BLM protests were spontaneous public demonstrations against systemic racial inequity & police brutality. The government didn't incite or sanction them. It violently broke them up.
Kristallnacht was the exact opposite--the state & the majority violently oppressing a minority.
Kristallnacht was the exact opposite--the state & the majority violently oppressing a minority.
The BLM protests are the latest in Black Americans' centuries-long fight against systemic racism. Kristallnacht was the latest in centuries of antisemitism.
BLM protesters want a more inclusive America. BLM means Black lives too, just as much as white lives.
Kristallnacht meant Jewish lives matter less than Aryan lives and was part of narrowing who was a "real" German.
Kristallnacht meant Jewish lives matter less than Aryan lives and was part of narrowing who was a "real" German.
The BLM protests' point was social agitation for racial equity.
Vandalism at the BLM protests was incidental. Violence was limited and almost entirely in response to very Seattle Police's aggressive and violent (i.e. use of force) tactics to break up the demonstrations.
Vandalism at the BLM protests was incidental. Violence was limited and almost entirely in response to very Seattle Police's aggressive and violent (i.e. use of force) tactics to break up the demonstrations.
Seattle Police have been under a federal consent decree for excessive violence against racial minorities.
Let's put things in perspective: On the first day of protests, police uniformly had tear gas, pepper spray, flash bangs, batons, rubber bullets and professionally-designed body armor.
Protesters had no weapons and no protection (except for a handful of ppl w/ gas masks).
Protesters had no weapons and no protection (except for a handful of ppl w/ gas masks).
The BLM protesters want to end systemic racism, including existing policies and laws that foster racial inequity, as well as undoing centuries of explicitly and implicitly racist laws and policies.
Nazi Germany enacted laws and policies against Jews, culminating in the Holocaust.
Nazi Germany enacted laws and policies against Jews, culminating in the Holocaust.
The BLM protests are a result of deep frustration, anger and mourning in America's Black communities. Kristallnacht was paranoid antisemitism by the majority demographic group against a minority. "Real" Germans claimed to be the persecuted victims.
Everyone get it? The two are polar opposites.
By focusing on incidental violence and vandalism, @CliffMass completely marginalizes the point of the BLM protests and makes a perverted, dangerous analogy with Kristallnacht.
By focusing on incidental violence and vandalism, @CliffMass completely marginalizes the point of the BLM protests and makes a perverted, dangerous analogy with Kristallnacht.
Mass' comparison relies on the good protester/bad protester cliche. When Colin Kaepernick knelt, he was demonized. Civil rights demonstrators in the 1950s and 1960s were demonized. As one protester said to me, "Tell us what is the right way to protest."
Civil rights protests and social agitation are supposed to be messy and inconvenient. That is the point. Demonstrators are in the streets b/c they say society and gov't aren't listening to them.
Another protester I interviewed summed it up well:
"You're upset about Starbucks' windows getting broken? Where is your outrage for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor" and the countless other Black Americans, who disproportionately suffer police violence.
"You're upset about Starbucks' windows getting broken? Where is your outrage for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor" and the countless other Black Americans, who disproportionately suffer police violence.
@CliffMass' false analogy of the George Floyd protests to Kristallnacht also downplays the extent and evils of fascism, Nazism and the Holocaust. Already a disturbingly large number of people in America know very little about the Holocaust.
I realized I never referred to Cliff Mass' post. Here is an image of what he wrote:
