You grow up learning about WWII and you wonder what you would have done if you had been in Germany as the Nazis come to power. Especially if you were a white skinned, blonde-haired, blue-eyed non-Jewish (thus privileged) kid. What would you do to stop the rise to power? What would you do when they started rounding people up and sending them to camps. And later, would you help people escape? Would you flee the country? Would you turn people in? How would you balance fear and your moral compass. Would you break unjust laws? Would you convince yourself that you were just following orders and obeying the law, or would you risk your freedom, your life, your family?
We’re not in the latter stage yet. But we do have concentration camps. The government is rounding up people. The conditions in the camps, even for children, are appalling. What can we do?
Turns out it is hard to do anything.
You try to do more within the system. But it seems like the system doesn’t care. It doesn’t respond.
(So many people give up. They do less. They stop protesting. Things are getting worse, but they don’t realize how much faster things would have gotten worse without those protests, calls, letters, canvassing.)
(note the date on this tweet)
But still, you try to do more within the system. It still seems like the system doesn’t care. It still seems like doesn’t respond to your individual efforts. It only responds to group efforts.
You can’t ignore injustices. You can’t ignore atrocities. Because if you ignore things, if you don’t do things, there is no group.
But it’s not just you. Each person does their bit. It’s the group effort that makes things happen.
You can’t do it alone, but if enough people do it alone, you have a group.
And if the group is large enough, it can’t be ignored.
Do something to fight US concentration camps — make it so we can’t be ignored.
Children’s lives and well-being depend on us speaking out and doing something.