I've just finished reading Nathan Englander's new novel, "The Ministry of Special Cases." It is raw look in the emotional lives of a family torn apart during the years of the junta in Argentina, when state sponsored kidnappings led to a generation of people who never returned, who were referred to as the disappeared. It was hard to read because I knew it would not, could not, end well. But the depth of the story, Englander's amazing character, Kaddish Poznan, gave the sadness of this story a wildly human face that also captured the story of outsiders of all kinds, not only Jews. And of course, it wasn't only Jews who suffered in the state-sponsored terrorism in Argentina.
As it turned out, in today's New York Times there was a review of a new book, non-fiction, chronicling terror and hate crime in America against a community that is often ignored. The book is called "Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans,” a historical record of hate crimes and the courageous and surprising ways in which the Chinese American community fought back. What struck me was this paragraph:
“How is a writer to make an artful narrative out of tales in which the same miserable events unfold over and over again? ….[the author] finally resorts to assembling, in white type on 35 black pages, what she calls a ‘litany of hate, a topical and chronological register of acts of ethnic cleansing.”
I hate the phrase ethnic cleansing. As though some other group was in fact dirt that needed to be scrubbed out of existence. Apart from that nit pick, the author of this book has rendered an important service to students of American history — yet another example of the ugliness under the official story of our country's history. I don't deny what is great about this country. But just as the Japanese are willfully blind to the ways in which their army used foreign women as sex slaves (not to mention the slaughter at Nanking) we Americans are beyond willfully blind, we are almost entirely ignorant of this history.
In Argentina, this genocidal civil war was state sponsored. In the US, these many hate crimes against the Chinese were often state condoned (in fact, the book gives examples of mobs that included local officials and policemen). Nevertheless, it is essential in both cases that the stories be told, the crimes be recounted.
I was struck months ago by a posting at Republic of T., where a list of hate crimes against LGBT people was being compiled with an eye to human detail and to a level of inclusiveness that is rare in our community. I am even more moved that Terrance himself has taken on the project of making sure these stories are posted to Wikipedia.
I remember about fifteen years ago a poster/art project by the late Felix Gonzalez-Torres called Death By Gun. I saw it at the Whitney. It was a thick pile of posters, and all viewers were encourage to take one and post it somewhere. On the poster were the faces of every American who died the previous year as a victim of a hand gun. In the years since this poster was created of course, nothing has happened to challenge the rule of the NRA. But artists point out the values we hold as opposed to the values we say we
hold. As a society, as individuals, we may say we value life, but this artwork shows otherwise. It shows us as a society part of who we truly are. What we are willing to tolerate. What we are willing to numb ourselves to.
At the same time, it is activist art. Created in anger and hope that it would move people to take action and change things. This is clearly the motivation behind the Hate Crimes Project for Wikipedia. And it is true that a human face on this kind of tragedy moves people. I am sure Matthew Shepard did not want to be the poster boy here. But what made him the poster boy was his age, race, class, looks. That does not take away the horror. It points out that the horror continues in other communities where we choose not to shine a light. Another reason for this project.
When Congress does not pass a Hate Crimes bill it becomes complicit in these crimes. We aren't in Argentina of the 70s. Or Germany of the 40s. There is a difference between state sponsored and state condoned hate. But when the state winks at such crimes, when it suggests that the lives of Jews, Chinese, Blacks, Queers are all worth less (if worth anything at all) it is laying the tracks for worse to come. And its up to us to remain awake, to avoid going numb at all costs, and to remember the humanity of all people in all places and conditions. As we are taught in the Pirke Avot: I may not be able to complete the job, but that does not remove my obligation to continue the work.
It is our work to tell the stories of the fallen, and to do our best to make sure there are no new stories to tell. May all beings be free from suffering.
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