fandomhigh | 20th Century American History, Friday, March 25, 2016

"I don't know if you heard the radio last Saturday," Steve began, "but I thought Mr. Constantine made a good point about not keeping the grimmer parts of the world from you. So today we're going to watch ~~meta for~~ Schindler's List. I'm warning you in advance that there's parts of it that are gonna be tough to take, but it's very important to remember the real history of our country, not just the spit-shined and media friendly stuff. When we forget how cruel and horrible we can be to fellow humans, it's easy to slip back down into an us versus them mindset, and that's incredibly dangerous."

Guess who'd been reading up on modern politics, again, kids.

"Now this particular camp was in Poland, and so it was eventually liberated by the Russian Army, but the Americans and Brits found plenty of their own coming in from the West. I'm turning the lights off, but leaving the door open, so if you need to leave, go ahead, no questions asked." Steve gave them a sad smile. "Tissues are in the back of the classroom, just in case. Here we go."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh boy.

Ada Miller

Raven Darkholme

Blue Sargent

Alex Mack

Jalian d'Arsennette y ken Selvren

It's not fun, but it's important.

Edited 2016-03-25 12:29 (UTC)

Raven shrank down -- literally, fun with being a shapeshifter -- in her desk as she watched.

She'd heard of the Holocaust, of course. Mostly here and there in this time, rather than in her own. She'd been alive while it was going on, but she'd been tiny and homeless and a bit too busy to follow world news and politics.

And then America had shut up about it for a really long time. Sure, she'd heard about the relocation of displaced Jews and the founding of Israel as a sovereign nation and all that, but as the foster daughter of an obscenely rich family in suburban New York, no one had ever, ever decided to teach her about the details.

She was pretty sure she was going to be sick.

If you're up for it.

Raven raised her hand.

"What the fuck is wrong with people?"

Er.

"Language," Steve said with a gentle smile, "and then...a lot. We can behave honorably, and bravely, and go beyond the limits we think we have. And we can do horrible, horrible things to each other."

"Sorry," Raven said, managing to sound at least a little bit contrite. "But it's not as though it's a very polite subject. And -- why? I mean, when I grew up, everyone was terrified of Russians and communists. But we didn't round them up to starve them to death."

Well, not explicitly, anyway. It wasn't as though the US had handled the Red Scare well.

"From what I've read, a large part of the population either didn't realize these camps were happening, or turned a blind eye to it. Those in charge had spent a lot of effort painting those in the camps as something other than human," Steve said, frowning in thought. "During the Red Scare, I think that it was more...overestimating the enemy. They were the monster under the bed, knowing our every move. This was--" Steve made a face, "--extermination."

"They didn't even talk much about it afterwards," Raven said. "I lived through this time period. Sure, I was little and I had other things I was worrying about it, but you'd think ten years later I'd know more than people sixty years down the line, not less."

Steve nodded. "Why do you think they don't talk about it?"

He had his own theories but wanted to see what Raven came up with.

"Depends, I guess," Raven said at length. "Some people are probably ashamed. Others might be focused more on their own stuff -- the war ended, sure, but it's not like the world was really peaceful, you know? And -- well, I guarantee you way too many of them just didn't care."

"I agree," Steve said quietly. "The stuff with the Russians started pretty quickly, the Nuremburg trials tied everything off neatly and they could pretend that had solved the problem of veering off into genocide. A couple million guys were coming back home and doing their best to suppress their own memories, let alone adding to it with general awfulness." He shrugged. "I think that's why the 1950s so aggressively perfect-seeming. People were working hard to say everything was normal, when it so obviously couldn't have been."

"Well," Raven said. "I mean, I know white people were. But their normal kind of sucked for basically everyone else, too." She scowled. "People are terrible."

"Sometimes," Steve agreed, "but they can surprise you for the better, too."

If you'd rather a one-on-one chat.

Oof, this movie is hard to watch.

20th Century American History, Friday, March 25, 2016

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