Facing History and What It's Meant to Me: January 2012

Facing History and Ourselves is a course that I feel that everyone should take in their high school career. Not only does it keep alive the memory of the atrocities committed by the Nazi Party and the German people, but it also forces the students to look introspectively at how they act and what they do. Instead of being a bystander and just staying out of situations that seem like they’ll be a little complicated, the course teaches you to intervene, and protect the person being victimized. I have lived in Westborough my entire life, and have therefore never really been forced to look extensively at other races and cultures and their sufferings. I’ve lived in this confined environment where not much other than pop media floods the streets and being exposed to the true harshness of some of the topics that we’ve briefly covered in school was a true eye-opener. Anyone who lives in the suburbs especially, but also everyone everywhere, should be forced to take this class in order to graduate high school. It takes people, well at least it took me, out of that one-track state of mind where you’re just going out for your own and don’t really care who you leave burned out in the trail. This course was life changing, and added an entire different level of perspective into my track of mind. By taking this course I have undoubtedly become more conscience of the power of words and even importantly the power of actions. If you just sit back and let someone be victimized you are sending a specific message to the attacker saying that it’s alright to do that. This course teaches you to stand up and fight against injustice, and if everybody was forced to take it, there would be a significant amount less racism in the world today.

Taking the course Facing History and Ourselves has changed my life in too many ways to count. It has taught me to not only taught me extensively about the Holocaust and how and why it happened, but it has also taught me to be more of a man. Since taking this class I’ve really learned the true impact that words have, and that I need to make it clear when I don’t like something. This doesn’t mean that you should fight countless unnecessary battles, but if something that someone does really bothers you, then you should by all means make that absolutely clear to them. The lessons that are taught through this course are amazingly relevant not only to the class and subject matter, but to everyday life. Since taking this course I’ve had the lessons taught in it relate to at least one or two situations everyday. Not that I encounter many Holocaust-like situations in the least, but there is still a large amount of racism that as a white kid in the suburbs I am subjected to witnessing. This course has taught me to stand up and fight against that instead of just dismissing it as harmless horsing around.

In the beginning of the semester we watched a film called "A Class Divided" about a social experiment that an elementary school teacher produced for her class. In the experiment she told the kids that having brown or blue eyes made you superior or inferior to the other one, and that it was scientifically proven. The day after telling one group they were superior, she took it back, and said that the other was actually superior. This video really influenced me because it showed just how racism spawns. One group feels like they are better than another one, and therefore more privileged. They lash out at the other group because they are fighting for equality even though the "superior" group "knows" that they can never be equal to the lesser class. The suppression by the "superior" group then frustrates the "inferior" group and they lash out, which only further worsens the situation. Through the discovery of this I learned to never put myself higher than others. I can feel smarter than them in certain areas, but I always keep in mind that they are just as significant and intelligent in other areas as I am in my own areas of expertise. I’ve always been disgusted by racism, but after realizing how it forms, I’ve found ways to counteract racism.

I’ve always been disgusted with racism. The fact that people literally hate other people because of physical or religious differences makes me feel sick. As I’ve said before, I’ve seen racism, but never serious racism. It’s always just jokes that sometimes get taken too far; never quite with the serious intention to hurt anymore than any other joke. When we were shown those drawings by an academically accredited scientist that was depicting Jews and blacks as physically different from whites, however, I was very strongly affected. I just didn’t want to see how disgusting the human race was. I wasn’t disgusted because I agreed with the pictures and thought that blacks and Jews were disgusting half-humans, I was disgusted by the fact that those drawings were actually published in a scientific magazine. These drawings really opened my eyes to just how truly ignorant human beings can be and how easily they will buy into stereotypes that put themselves higher than others. After seeing these pictures I’ve always made sure to remember that everyone is the same underneath, and it doesn’t matter what their exterior looks like because underneath everyone is human.

Although there were certain lessons that really opened my eyes as to how racism starts and manifests itself into people’s brains, the lesson that I will truly never forget were the videos taken of the extermination camps in Germany. Seeing just the pure brutality and sheer enormity of the genocide will never leave my psyche. Looking at that just truly made me realize that you can’t just stand by and let things happen just because they aren’t happening to you. The German people didn’t stop the Nazis because they were part of the "superior" group, and since they weren’t being prosecuted, then why stand up and risk being prosecuted. Well after seeing just how far the killing was allowed to go, I realized that you need to stand up, no matter what will happen to you. If you stand up and save somebody’s life, then any retribution that you receive for your actions will be worth it. If more people were willing to sacrifice their own lives for those of others then the Holocaust would have never happened. All that most people need is for someone to take the lead and charge forward for them to follow. If all of the Jews being herded towards the gas chambers all of the sudden decided to revolt and fight back against the Nazis with all of their might, then they would have died, of course, but they would have taken a few of their captors with them instead of just dying in vain. The prisoners didn’t know what was happening to them, but the Kommandos did, and they could have easily started a revolt at any point by simply screaming the truth and creating a panic.

This course has truly shaped the way that I look at humanity. It has helped me realize that even if I think I’m joking around, some jokes have deep roots that can have a much stronger connotation than you intend. I’ve realized through this course that if I see something that offends me, or that I don’t agree with, then I should stand up and make sure it doesn’t happen again. After taking this course I will never let somebody mutter a racial slur in my presence, because even if it’s not aimed towards me, the words still hold a certain power, and by letting them go by unnoticed you almost take that power away from the word in other people’s eyes. When that happens then they will just start throwing it around casually until they really offend somebody one day. I would have never thought of things like that before taking this course, but since I’ve gone through all of the lessons taught in here, my view of the world has changed completely. I am still the same person underneath, but I have an entire new dimension and perspective added to my persona because of this course, and I will hold the lessons that I learned in here close to heart for the rest of my life.

Facing History and What It's Meant to Me

Friday, January 13, 2012

Introduction

What Facing History Has Meant to Me

Works Cited