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[mollya]

When I was growing up and learning about the Holocaust in a Jewish context, this is one of the things that was stressed: the Jews of Germany were assimilated into German society, as much as Jews are assimilated in the U.S. today. My European history is not good enough to verify that the assimilations were equivalent, but it's true that the Jews of

Comments

[wearemany]

And yes to all of this. I was happy but heartbroken every time I had to say that we weren't going to wait a day, an hour longer than we had to - because we still didn't trust it not to be snatched away. We still don't, of course.

[mollya]

It's an entirely new state of being for the idea of civil rights. We always thought that once a group of people had them, their existence was immutable. But now we know: civil rights can be take away by the state, and the Supreme Court has not said otherwise.

[wearemany]

yes, this was very much how i was taught about the holocaust also (along the basic assumption that some people would definitely hate me just for who i was). but i'd probably also include in this idea of rights being revoked putting japanese-american citizens in internment camps.

[mollya]

I think of internment as being a violation of an existing habeas corpus right, rather than the government saying, there was a right to habeas corpus but now there isn't. In the years after 9/11, I saw some joint Arab/Japanese community events as a was to draw parallels between easily visually identifiable people who have their rights violated. I saw at least one joint mosque/Buddhist church trip to visit an internment camp and I think your friend and mine George Takei has been vocal on this point as well.