Why is the Holocaust taught more than Slavery?
The USA has a history of highlighting faults of other countries while ignoring its own. As a black American, I was taught a page worth of slavery from history books. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I watched Roots, the series. After watching the series I felt regressed, angered with the thirst to learn more about slavery. I watched biographies on YouTube of the older enslaved and their relatives. I read about heinous events the slaves endured that history books would never touch because the truth to this day is never acknowledged. No one will ever understand the evil and demonic acts and gruesome atrocities of slavery. The holocaust, also a great tragedy occurred in Germany. The Jewish people fled all over the world to escape persecution. Those that didn’t travel became victims of the holocaust, very well documented. I grew up reading about Anne Frank, a staple in western literature. I can remember as a high school student multiple pages in our history books and projects about Anne frank and the documented events of the holocaust. I remember reading the Anne frank book crying while reading her journal entries up until she was taken from her annex along with her family. I couldn’t imagine how she felt, how scared she was. A child, like me.
As I got older, reading independently I felt brave. I no longer relied on what I was told via catered learning because after reading about Anne frank through multiple instances of media, I too felt that black history deserved that same acknowledgment. Upon reading, I found so many books that were dedicated to the western white perspective and the black reality. Upon reading both, I found so many conflicting aspects between the two that could not be denied. Firstly, the white western perspective of the time, defended and almost complained about how slavery wasn’t bad because they benefited and “housed” them. To them it wasn’t a factor of morality, ownership equaled them as a god and the slaves willing servants. Separately, when I read up and watched biographies of the former enslaved and their descendants you could feel the sadness as they expressed memories of life outside with minimal protection from elements, fear of family separation, overall inhumane treatment on USA soil where for them justice didn’t exist. These stories need to be told. The ugliness of history needs to be acknowledged or we are due to repeat. If we don’t address the hatred that that the USA soil is built on then who are we?
Whereas Jewish people have been vindicated of their experience and acknowledged publicly, black people are denied of their own experiences, generation after generation with the argument being that their ancestors are no longer alive. That argument is based in western selective vulnerability, a destructive generational gaslight. If the holocaust and its survivors generations past are just as relevant today from a total different country- why is USA history of slavery not as relevant and discussed as openly?