Thursday, May 3, 2012

This is Nothing Like the Holocaust

I was walking away from the (awesome) Flux Pavillion and Doctor P set at Coachella when my friend asked me, much to my chagrin, "who did they take that song from?" referencing "I Can't Stop," which had been "taken" from "Who Gon Stop Me" by Jay-Z and Kanye, off of the Watch of Throne album.  Of course, "I Can't Stop" actually predated the rap version but due to its lack of lyrics it was virtually invisible to the public eye.  I explained this to my friend while attempting to stifle any condescension of his electrical-music ignorance, because really who can blame him and I was very happy that my friends had taken the time to come enjoy (and I mean truly enjoy) an EDM set with me.



I actually like the Kanye/Jay-Z version quite a bit and couldn't help myself expecting to hear "This is something like the Holocaust" after every "I Can't Stop" drop.  I relayed this to my friend who astutely commented, "it doesn't seem anything like the Holocaust."  My reaction was something along the lines of "huh", but not with a question mark at the end, more of a "wow, I never even stopped to think about it before," the inflection coming at the beginning of the word and my voice hitting an usually high octave.  I laughed, but a confused and intrigued laugh, and commented that it almost certainly was nothing like the Holocaust, regardless of the rest of the lyrics.  As far as I could recall, there was nothing in the song about widespread systematic genocide and a review of the lyrics a week later would substantiate this belief:


This is something like the Holocaust, millions of our people lost
Bow our heads and pray to the Lord 'til I die I'm-a fucking ball
Now who gon stop me? Who gon stop me huh?

But wait!  There were links on the lyrics, a much-needed explanation appearing when I clicked:

"Ye’s saying that the condition of black people in America is something akin to the Holocaust. He’s being historical: he means the diaspora of people of African descent and how slavery and colonization have killed many people of African descent across the centuries. Further, the levels of crime, death, and murder that negatively impact African Americans has caused the loss of millions of African Americans' lives Although Holocaust analogies are always dicey, American slavery is probably a fair point of comparison, though not the contemporary black experience."

This defintion was provided by the enigmous "Scottie" (don't you tell me enigmous isn't a word, it's damn well going to be today) and helped alleviate my fears that it was indeed Kanye who was inflicting this modern-day Holocaust (words CAN kill).

Now I am all for hyperbole, I use it as often as physically possible (BOOM), but this seems a bit extreme, and borders on ignorance.  The plight of African-Americans in modern society is very much real, but absolutely nothing like the Holocaust.  I would be hard-pressed to find anything to compare to the Holocaust, even among other genocides throughout history.  Off the top of my head I can't think of anything justifiably comparable (a good spot for a history major to make me look ignorant).

I find this particularly interesting because of a debate I just had with another friend of mine, that spurred from watching this video:



I thought this video was absolutely hilarious (apologies to Louis C.K. for my use of hilarious) and while I recognized that the subject could be a bit touchy, didn't find it remotely offensive.  A friend of mine, Paul, a history major, that I shared it with disagreed and a debate ensued.  At this point in time one of the top listed comments was about doing a similar sketch but about the Holocaust, a thought which to me was immediately abhorrent.  To this, he agreed and we got into a discussion as to why there was such a vast discrepancy in the reaction to two things that killed millions of people, one of which arguably had a greater long-term impact on a race (the slave trade).

We came up with several reasons.  For starters, the abolition of slavery occurred, at least in the United States, in the 1850's, so historical distance helped to ease the pain.  Slavery was also accepted among cultures all around the world for thousands and thousands of years, whereas genocides occurred in pockets and "accepted" would never be a term remotely associated with them. Additionally, education concerning slavery focuses more on the implementation of slaves as farm tools and (at least mine) spent disproportionately little time discussing the kidnapping, brutal shipping (minor exception here), and auctioning of slaves.  Paul informed me that during the Transatlantic crossing the sailors would throw slaves overboard in order to maintain a wake of sharks behind the ship, in order to prevent slaves from jumping off on their own accord.  This was shocking to me, not so much in the sense that it happened (amongst a system of absurd cruelty, it shouldn't be hard to expect something like this) but moreso in the sense that how the fuck had I never learned this myself.

I still don't think the two are remotely similar, but just as it is naive to compare the modern conditions of African-Americans to the Holocaust, it is ignorant to consider slavery something of the distant, and somewhat forgiven past.  I'm not saying we should go around apologizing for what our ancestors did nor that we should preach anything aside from modern equality (I am actually a bit of a naysayer of affirmative action, while I understand its role in our society), but we should be aware of the past and the ramifications it has had on African-Americans succeeding in modern society.

And while we're on the subject, can I stop feeling awkward when someone asks me to describe someone and I just want to say "the black guy over there wearing etc?"  He is black just as I am white and it makes it a hell of a lot easier to distinguish who in the world I'm referring to, especially where I have lived.  "Yeah that guy over there wearing the red shirt and the black khakis."  "Oh, you mean the one that looks like Tiger Woods on Sundays?" *Gasp*

And Kayne, if you want to stop being hated by so many people, can you please stop trying to be so ignorant.  Watch the Throne was a good recovery, but let's see if you can produce another good solo album.  College Dropout was awesome, Late Registration was nearly as good, Graduation was my personal favorite.  808 and Heartbreak was offensive to offensive and My Dark Twisted Fantasy was mediocre at best.  You can get away with shit like that if you're not running on stage during Taylor Swift's acceptance speech to tout your boy's girlfriend or spouting ignorance about the Holocaust.  More "Can't Tell Me Nothing," which is now looking like a surprisingly insightful self-description.



I do have to respect Kanye for this as well (for anyone that hasn't seen these, I suggest watching the entire hilarious series):



And lastly I leave you with the original, "I Can't Stop."


7 comments:

  1. Interesting post Brandon, and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation last week. What I would still argue here is that saying the African diaspora is "something like" the Holocaust is probably still more accurate than saying it is "nothing like" the Holocaust, though I think both statements may do more harm than good. Michael Rothberg writes in a book called Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization that what we often see is a form of "competitive" memory where the memory of different events like the ones we are discussing vie for recognition as if it is some sort of zero-sum game. He argues that, in fact, the memory of these events tends to allow for the memory of others. Holocaust memory really emerged on a broad scale in dialogue with decolonization, and further, Holocaust memory has allowed for the articulation of a richer, more complex memory of the African diaspora (as evidenced by our conversation perhaps).

    The other element I remember from our conversation is the idea that perhaps because the Holocaust was more localized, it has been easier to see it as the horrific crime of someone else, and to understand that someone else as ultimate evil. I think that is far more difficult to do with New World slavery, and thus perhaps we don't understand it as such a uniform symbol of pure evil. Also, I think in remembering the Holocaust we perhaps more easily think about the pure destruction of human life, and human lives that had so much promise. With slavery, there was such a systemic dehumanization of Africans that it is possible the crimes go more unnoticed. It is important to realize too that what most of us in the U.S. grew up learning about slavery was restricted to the American South, when in fact this represented a very small section of New World slavery and probably the least brutal as well. Particularly with the slave trade to South America and the West Indies, the architects of the trade were fully cognizant of the likely death of their "products" - people made economic decisions about death rates and getting the best possible return. Owners in the New World often found it far more profitable to discourage reproduction (which would be expensive), knowing that another shipment of slaves would come to replace the over half who died in passage and during the first year of slave labor.

    Again, none of this, obviously, should do anything to diminish what we know and think about the Holocaust. Hopefully we can avoid simplifying either by trying to compare them too much, but perhaps by interrogating both we can learn more about why we might think about them differently now.

    P.S. I'm looking forward to the upcoming day when you'll have to credit me as more than a "history major" :)

    Paul

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  2. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is EASILY his best work (although I'm a bit bias because Bon Iver is featured on at least six of the songs). Late Registration is a close second IMHO, followed by Graduation and College Dropout. While I like 808s the least, I consider it a worthy attempt at trying something new. That album sounds very very 2008, and the lyrics are actually pretty strong. I wouldn't be surprised if those songs get covered by artists in the future, and people gain a new appreciation for them. This was a very scholarly post, Brando; keep it up. But please, please RECKANIZE that Twisted Fantasy is his best work. Nearly flawless.

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    1. To be fair, I have listened to that album far farrrr less than any of the others so it might not be a fair assessment. Kanye lost me a bit with 808s and rap lost me a bit more with the complete shitfest that was the late 2000's. I'll give that album another shot at your behest. Bare in mind I really thought all three of his albums were pretty much equally awesome, I just have a few more songs I LOVE from Graduation and came at a time I wasn't listening to as much radio for it to ruin them for me.

      And I know its you sir, I've seen your blog albeit I can't relate to a lot of it for now, I've enjoyed it ;)

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    2. Bear*

      Fml I couldn't remember which it was.

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  3. Interesting post, Brundon. Unfortunately, history has no shortage of genocides to choose from. Even leaving off ancient and early modern examples, the modern era has seen more than its share. In just the 20th century aside from the Holocaust, there was the Armenian genocide, Pol Pot's Cambodian massacres, Rwanda, and the arguable cases of the Japanese in China in the 30s, Stalin's famines, Bosnia/Kosovo, and Mao's Cultural Revolution.

    None of these have a place in the modern American conscious like the Holocaust. This is probably for a number of reasons, including the large, vibrant American Jewish community (one of the reasons the Armenian genocide has been raised in US consciousness recently is the American-Armenian community). Particularly, the fact that a modern, European, "civilized," industrialized country harnessed science and technology in the most efficient, systematic extermination of human beings in history.

    I think you're right on in mentioning historical distance as a factor that keeps many of us from finding much commonality between the African slave trade and slavery and the Holocaust. There also is the time scale difference; the horror of slavery was diffused over centuries, while the Holocaust's great horrors were wrought in roughly 5 years. And, I hate to be the one to throw this card, but I think there is a racial argument to be made, not just in the case of African slavery, but also for the relatively low profile of other 20th century genocides and mass murders in comparison to the Holocaust. I think here the power of the juxtaposition of the "sameness" of 1920s, 30s, 40s Germany to how America perceives itself (modern, efficient, industrial, advanced, democratic, of European provenance) against the barbarity and scale of the horrors of the Holocaust is a big explanation. It was (and is) much easier on the American psyche to shrug off the atrocity of an "other" in the form of Asians, Africans, or even those peculiar Russian Communists than it was to confront such evil in those who seemed a mirror of our perceptions of ourselves. A number of scholars and journalists have argued that this played a large role in causing the US/European intervention in Bosnia when just a year earlier those same countries had ignored a much more vast atrocity in Rwanda.

    But I suppose it is futile to try to compare monstrosities. I like to think we've progressed beyond such things, but there has been some terrifying work done on how quickly barbarity and unspeakable acts can become normal, commonplace, accepted.

    On another note, how has Zach Galifianakis not starred in all of Kanye's videos?

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  4. Well said Mr. Wool. I think you are exactly right, and I think in a disturbing way your point overlaps with the question of humanizing/dehumanizing both in the reality and the memory of these events.

    Gents, we didn't do this enough in college.

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