We’d like to think that we will someday somehow get past the hatred of those with the insane image in their heads that if you’re not like them – whatever that means – that you have no right to exist.
That seemed to be the thinking of Robert Bowers, who shot and killed 11 people as they worshipped at their synagogue in Pittsburgh Saturday. A man who like a rabid dog walked into their place of worship and attacked them. I don’t understand that kind of hatred.
Racial and religious bias is, unfortunately, alive and well in a country that Europeans fled to in an attempt to escape the religious persecution that some of their descendants are now propagating. A country that seeks to shut out those who want to pray in ways that are different from what some consider the norm – spearheaded by an equally intolerant president.
At auction, I see many horrible representations of items made specifically to denigrate groups of people. I was at an auction a few months ago that featured items from the past that stereotyped folks from African Americans to Jews to Japanese. They were all reminders of a past that that is no longer past but very much in the present.
The suspect Bowers told police officers on the scene that he wanted to kill Jews, that he “doesn’t want any of them to live.” That sounds like a Nazi speaking during World War II, not a person living in a diverse world in 2018.
Here is a sampling of items sold at auction recently. They tell a story that, given last weekend’s shooting, shows we have not progressed far enough. These items are not as openly produced today as before, but we know that in some peoples’ hearts their messages still endure. Many of the auction items focused on African Americans, who were the most stereotyped people of all.
