In Nazi Germany the extreme nature of the attack on the Jewish people was self-evident. In his book, Mein Kampf or "My Struggle," Adolph Hitler attacked the Jewish people as stated in the opening quote. In hindsight we know where this led. But in all honesty, when seeing human beings attacked in this manner, can we really fail to see where this is going to lead?
The process of painting them as separate is clear. Then if they are separate they can be easily polarized. If they are seen as animals, not even human, then it will be easier to justify their destruction.
In America, to enslave blacks, similar mental gymnastics had to be employed in those early days. And then later in the days of Jim Crow, these oppressive beliefs rose to the level of Supreme Court Jurisprudence.
In the case of Berea College v. The Commonwealth of Kentucky, you had Berea College a private school located in Berea Kentucky where, since the late 1800s blacks and whites had been taught side by side as students. In 1904 the Kentucky legislature passed a statute making it unlawful to "maintain or operate any college, school, or institution where persons of the white and Negro races are both received as pupils for instruction." [i] Shortly after passage of the act, Berea College was indicted under the statute and at trial was found guilty. The college appealed under the First (Freedom of Association) and Fourteenth Amendments. The college lost at the state level and again when it appealed to the United States Supreme Court. [ii]
Obfuscation
However, what is most interesting about the case is the nature of the arguments used. The Supreme Court of Kentucky found that racism was ordained by God. A clear lie that flies directly in the face of our Declaration of Independence. In writing for the Supreme Court of Kentucky Judge O'Rear said:
The separation of the human family into races, distinguished no less by color than by temperament and other qualities, is as certain as anything in nature. Those of us who believe that all of this is divinely ordered have no doubt that there was wisdom in the provision; albeit we are unable to say with assurance why this is so... As a check there is another, an antipathy to other races, which some call race prejudice. This is nature's guard to prevent amalgamation of the races. A disregard of this antipathy to the point of mating between the races is unnatural and begets a resentment in the normal mind...
Obfuscation is the direct effort to confuse. And that is what is going on with Hitler's rhetoric and in the cited cases. Clearly, it is impossible to reconcile Judge O'Rear's words with the Declaration of Independence. These words are an effort to grow a superstructure of belief that appears benign and even "holy" yet allows one race to oppress and subject another: The very thing Americans were trying to escape in the Revolutionary War.
Such beliefs are vile lies. But such beliefs are actively being fomented today. Where? Depending on the day, the "them" could be immigrants, the poor, black people, the LBGTQ community, or sadly and yet again, the Jewish community. This fomentation relies primarily on attack, represents an effort to confuse, and creates conflict whose intent is to dominate and harm. But this vision is false. It lies when claiming to solve problems. Indeed, when it attacks and distorts our basic national belief in our essential humanity, it sows seeds of destruction that threaten our very way of life.
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