An American tourist in Germany got punched for giving a Nazi salute.
Douchebag American: I’m American! Look at me! I can do what I want! Sieg Heil!
Random German: Fuck this guy. **punch, punch, punch**
Me:
American tourist gives Nazi salute in Germany, is beaten up
BERLIN (AP) — Police say a drunken American man was punched by a passer-by as he gave the stiff-armed Nazi salute multiple times in downtown Dresden.
(cont. AP)
Can you imagine a German in the US being punched because he was waving around a Confederate flag? Of course you can’t. Because he’d just look like Brent from Charleston celebrating his “heritage.” So. Let’s just put a couple of things out here on the table for anyone who’s confused.
The Confederate flag is about hate, not heritage.
Nazi symbolism is so hateful, the country where it was birthed has completely distanced itself from it and refuses to put it on display. The fact that Confederate “heritage” proponents have adopted that imagery alongside their own isn’t an accident. It’s white supremacy.
Anyone trying to distance themselves from that is complicit in the violence. If you are a Southern Heritage Daughters of the Confederation kind of white woman who says “I didn’t adopt the Nazi imagery, I’m just proud of my forefathers” then you’re ignoring the fact that your heritage and Nazi imagery are both rooted in the same violent white supremacy that has repeatedly led to genocide. Your heritage belongs in a museum, not plastered on street signs and given places of prestige in parks.
Winning countries do not erect monuments to the countries they defeated.
The Confederacy committed treason against the United States and then went to war with their former countrymates. The US beat them and won the war. The Confederacy is a country that lost a war and ceased to exist. There aren’t hundreds of monuments to King George III of Great Britain in this country because we beat King George & GB and they have no claims to land here in the United States. If the Confederacy had declared its independence from the US and then won the Civil War – the way the United States declared its independence from England and then won the American Revolution – I promise you there would be no monuments to George Washington in the Confederate States of America.
Alternative histories in entertainment about Nazi Germany are in fact easier to swallow than alternative histories about the Civil War.
Germany has come to terms with its history. I’m not German so I can’t speak to everyday life or the details. But. From the arms-length view that I have over here in the US, there are three major differences between how Germany responded to Nazism and how the US has responded to the Confederacy.
– Germany put Nazis on trial. We had Confederate generals serving in the Senate within two decades of the Civil War.
– Germany has outlawed Nazi symbolism. We just had a riot because white people couldn’t bear to see a statue of Robert E. Lee come down. We have streets, monuments, public buildings, and schools named after the architects of the Confederacy. There’s no Hitler Avenue in Berlin.
– Germany paid reparations to occupied territories and they are still paying reparations to Israel in relation to goods stolen from Jews during the Holocaust. If that’s not owning your history, I don’t know what is.
The Confederacy didn’t actually lose the Civil War the way most countries lose a war. They only lost in the sense that they didn’t succeed in becoming their own nation, but other than the economy, there were no lasting repercussions and the legacy of the Confederacy is clearly alive and well.
So! Let’s just all get on the same page: the US government is complicit in the violence committed on behalf of “Confederate heritage” and they’ve been complicit since the day right after the Civil War. And none of it is going to change anytime soon.
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