Jane Coaston Profile picture
Aug 22, 2019 9 tweets 2 min read Read on X
Few things infuriate me more than the “we can’t judge historical figures based on what we think now” canard, particularly in relation to racism and anti-Semitism — both of which people around the world and in the United States have been fighting for centuries.
Let’s take our old friend Henry Ford, for example, the only American mentioned fondly by Hitler in “Mein Kampf.” (Granted, mentioned only twice).
In 1920, thousands of Jewish Americans and others were so repulsed by Ford’s anti-Semitism (particularly the publication of a version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by Ford’s newspaper) that the Anti-Defamation League released a pamphlet condemning it.
Not only that, 100 “eminent Americans” signed on to “The Perils of Racial Prejudice” to condemn the release of “The International Jew” (which was how the Protocols were repackaged). books.google.com/books/about/Th…
Among those eminent Americans were W.E.B. Du Bois, William Jennings Bryan, and even WOODROW WILSON, a giant racist, who STILL thought that Ford had gone too dang far.
Ford was even sued for libel against Jewish Americans, in the case Sapiro v. Ford. dalnet.lib.mi.us/henryford/docs…
Here’s a lengthy paper on Nazism and Henry Ford (and on the relationship between Fordism and fascism): ghi-dc.org/fileadmin/user…
By the way, that ADL pamphlet is fantastic reading.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Jane Coaston

Jane Coaston Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @janecoaston

Aug 14, 2023
This child was raped by an adult and the police response is basically “wow, sounds crazy”
Like the entire argument certain people made against someone being able to have an abortion in cases like this one was “well how would we be able to punish her rapist” and it turns out they just … don’t
From 1996 (with a big “hey that’s rape!” sign) spokesman.com/stories/1996/a…
Image
Read 7 tweets
Jul 10, 2023
Funnily enough the 1945 Nazi film “Kolberg” (a fictionalized account of the Napoleonic Wars) actually did use frontline Nazi troops because Joseph Goebbels was an evil moron
Again, they were doing this during like, the Invasion of Normandy.
These dorks pulled 5,000 troops out of the Eastern Front to appear in a film that got released two weeks before the city that it premiered in was liberated by the Allies
Read 7 tweets
May 8, 2023
okay the “why aren’t these kids hornier” thing is getting out of hand nationalreview.com/corner/parents…
The person who wrote this graduated from high school in 2012.
If you graduated from high school after the release of “SexyBack” you cannot sound like you long for a return to an imagined 1957, these are the rules
Read 4 tweets
May 2, 2023
My oldhead uncle lied about his age to enlist in the Korean War and his obituary described his entire experience of the 1960s and 1970s — during which time he lived in San Francisco — as follows. Image
Literally every story he told I had to be ushered out of the room for. He ruled.
Seriously. He was great. Image
Read 4 tweets
Feb 2, 2023
"We would like some police reform please" "I hear you, here's some SEO MLK quotes on some cop cars"
1.) people ask "can i have some police reform"
2.) powerful people are like "no but here's some shit wrapped in kente cloth and a white lady is here to yell at you about something"
3.) now people are mad about the shit wrapped in kente cloth and there's no police reform
(diversity training is not police reform)
Read 7 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(