Upworthy
Human Atrocity Doesn’t Start With Violence. It Starts With Prejudice and Propaganda.
Not very many things scare me, but extremism in every form does.
We hear a lot about the extremism of radicalized Islamic groups, and yes, such groups are worrisome. But labeling an entire religious group with more than a billion followers as dangerous because of the heinous actions of its most radical minority element is also extremism and needs to be called out as such.
We hear about child traffickers trying to smuggle children across the border, and yes, those people are worrisome. But making sweeping generalizations about migrants from south of the border and putting asylum seekers into the same category as human traffickers is also extremism and needs to be called out as such.
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By Annie Reneau | 16 May 2019
Howard Watkins
May 30, 2019 at 10:21 pm
Excellent essay. When my wife and I visit several history museums in Austria, the displays basically made the same point. Most Germans were “good” people and not Nazis, but they succumbed to the constant propaganda that Jews were the cause of Germany’s problems, could not be trusted, and not worthy of protection. One of the posters translated into equating Jews with rats.