Systemic Racism Is Hard to See Unless You Suffer From It
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference,” once stated the late Auschwitz survivor, Elie Wiesel. “To be in the window and watch people being sent to concentration camps or being attacked in the street and do nothing, that’s being dead…. What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor but the silence of the bystander.”
The dark period in history through which Wiesel had the misfortune of living engendered an entire generation of philosophers whose contemplation of moral questions influence the character of modern society. Those of us living in the 21st century are fortunate, in a strange sense, for the past to have provided horrors at which we can now point and say, with resolute certainty: “Never again.”
But grasping at low hanging fruit is easy. There is another, equally vital lesson to be taken from the events of the past: it serves as a reminder that we always live in the midst of history, and that we are creating tomorrow’s history today. Putting oneself in the shoes of those who came before us allows one to recognize that the present moment differs from what preceded it only in degree and style, rather than principle. The real value of learning history, after all, is that is enables us to understand our own lives…
