People saying that Alligator Auschwitz is the first US concentration camp forgot about our shameful legacy with Japanese Americans during WW2. I taught my kids about it with the wonderful "They Called Us Enemy" by @georgetakei.bsky.social. A powerful read. Examine the history they want to repeat.
They didn’t just forget. They don’t teach it.
they also forget our shameful legacy of forced marches of Native Americans to concentration camps, excuse me "reservations" of uninhabitable lands where millions died of starvation as US "civilized" society slaughtered their food supply. 10 MILLION DIED, 2/3s of the population. More than hitler.
I doubt they "forgot". Too many are too young and too ignorant to have even learned this fact. There was an internment camp not far from where I live. It is a desolate dry area..If you're not from here you prolly wouldn't even know it was there.
Florida Manzanar.
A small matter of millions of Black people deprived of their humanity. Kept in original US concentration camps politely called “plantations.” After 11 years of Reconstruction new name was “sharecropping.” Poor whites want to continue the practice now - not realizing they are the next victims.
Or more precisely STILL the victims, with the politicians using race to make them feel they were not being treated just as bad as Blacks.
Those camps in AZ were bad.
I can't imagine how terrible it would be in that heat, or the heat of the Everglades and the humidity and mosquitoes. It's cruelty for the sake of cruelty.
The cruelty is always the point with the GOP...
Just ordered the book for our granddaughters to read!!
That's cool! I'm about to read his latest book.
People have forgotten…the Japanese Americans were held in prison camps, in areas so inhospitable, buildings totally dilapidated…Manzanar, Tule Lake, Heart Mountain…the list goes on! The many of the young Japanese men joined the 442nd, all Japanese unit of the US Army. As a child when I learned of
this cruelty I was so ashamed of my country. I told my mom it was Hitler did! Our wonderful Japanese American neighbors, who were like Aunt & Uncle to me, had been interned. He joined the 442 and fought in Italy. How can we let this happen again?
Great read ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This book grabbed my soul & made me think about things the US tried/tries to hide. We try to "act" like the nation is so perfect.... we never have been & we're drifting back into evil, hateful territory again.
Ignoring our history is the surest way to repeat atrocities. Warts and all, we all need to understand and learn our history. How else can we do better? The GOP says the truth is unamerican.
Well, they, the Republicans, have underfunded education for decades now…most schools don’t require Civics any longer and I’m not certain how much actual history is taught, on top of that MAGATs want to whitewash what is taught, making it pretty & perfect! THE GOP IS UN-AMERICAN!!!
War creates injustice. The innocent people having nothing to do with political stances are always in the way of greed. Greed is the modern stimulus to use expensive, designed, precise weapons of war for sale to use for the next argument over oil.
Forgot, or were never taught?
Make no mistake, that chapter in our history was gruesome but the first US concentration camps were today's Native American reservations.
True.
Apparently, we have not learned our lesson the first time… We truly have become a very stupid nation.
I read this book yesterday... So powerful. In an age where information is so widely available, I never imagined we'd repeat this tragic course of events.
Misinformation is even more widely available, and the Republican machine has spent decades stamping out curiosity and intellectualism. Subsistence living also doesn't leave much time for enrichment. They played the long game.
Alligator Auschwitz is torture porn for sick twisted right-wing maga. trump, stephen miller, & maga need to be brought before an international tribunal.
RefuseFascism.org Join us and let's remove these fascists from power through sustained, coordinated, peaceful protests in every city and town
The plantations of the South were concentration camps.
It's trumps death camp
There is another book written about the Japanese internment in America called “The Colonel and the Pacifist “ It exposes little known aspects of WWII history www.amazon.com/Colonel-Paci...
I will take my kids to Manzanar, Ca this week.
If only Americans spent as much time trying to stamp out racism, helping the poor, and remembering that we are all the descendants of immigrants here unless we're Native American, we might become good again, even though we'll probably never be great.
Also forgetting about Indian schools, and slave quarters.
Some of us weren’t taught that part of the story in school. Thanks for the recommendation!
It is not alligator auschwitz. It is auschwitz.
There are more sites to visit across the country. Nothing brings it across like a visit to a former camp. Great book. I also got it for my daughter.
I haven't visited a site. I really should.
Ft Amache opened in our state recently. I need to go there before Trump nixes it.
No it isn't the first but there was a war with Japan that they used to justify the cruelty. There is no justification or possible excuse for the shameful and horrifying occurrence in Florida.
Yes! The graphic novel format made it so impactful. No room for rose colored glasses in this story. @georgetakei.bsky.social has so bravely told his story in music and art. Thank god for people like him to speak truth to power about the travesty of our past.
There are so many examples of this kind of cruelty in our society’s history, we can never place ourselves on any kind of pedestal. Before the Japanese “internment” camp there were the indigenous (Indian) reservations. How about the slave labor plantations? Where we go from here is the question.
And it goes even further back to Andersonville… quite the history we have here in the U.S.
There is still one in Nevada. It's near Quartzsite.
This makes me so sad I can't hit "like". I have friends who were born or spent time there.
Also Indian reservations were used as concentration camps.
Still are.
I live and teach on a rez and I agree 😔
Thank you! Too many do not know this.
To experience that and see it come around again is utterly unimaginable to me. 🥺
A shameful episode of our nation’s history that must never be forgotten.
Exactly!!!!
You are absolutely right!
The new concentration camps don't allow suitcases with belongings.
History is so fucking repetitive
Don't forget about the reservation system either...
Here is a list of GOP House members (h/t @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social) who should be targeted with calls about the MAGA Murder Budget ASAP. Script included. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
People are stupid! What about, plantations, reservations, Cuba, Haiti, Guatemala, and now El Salvador.
My gf is Japanese :(
rohwer.astate.edu