contested terrain

Jews, Whiteness, the Shoah and Public Sympathy

On the blog “People of Color Organize!” there is a new post, “The Little Known History of Germany’s Genocidal Second Reich in Africa!” The short post expresses anger over the silence about these crimes in comparison to the public knowledge of the genocide of the Jews. The author writes, “I mean how many times have we heard about the horrors and brutality of Germany’s Third Reich, how they methodically set out to exterminate the Jewish race,” but how little is known about the German genocide against Africans. The author continues, “In short, The Nazis took their avarice way too far when they started to exterminate ‘white people.’”
The author does note the fact that the atrocities against Jews were actually regarded with indifference amongst some of the Allied Forces, saying, “not that the Allied Forces could have really cared less about the Jews that were being exterminated.” And furthermore that what got the Allies in the war was the intention to prevent the Germans’ desire for global domination, writing “remember Germany was vying for total supremacy of the world, and was threatening The Allied Forces power.”
But the author then strongly contradicts these statements arguing:
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Tea Party Protests, White Populism, Healthcare Bill

[Update Below]

I recently linked to the short article “Tea Party Protests and the White Working-Class” by Andrew Epstein, which attempts to “begin a discussion” about “populism, race and class.” Epstein relies on a story about a retired social worker who joins the tea party protests, as an example of working-class individuals that are involved in the movement, to inquire into “the dynamics of class and race that contribute to populist movements and ultimately cedes large swaths of the American working class to the racial chauvinism that has historically served to limit its transformative power.”

Epstein thoughtfully critiques the way the New York Times portrays the link between having one´s house foreclosed on and joining the conservative movement. He writes: “The New York Times, itself so muddled in ruling class ideology, presents the transition as if it were a natural occurrence: of course someone foreclosed on by a big bank would embrace a conservative ideology which ultimately favors the power of the banks.”
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