The Lie: “Kwanzaa is an inclusive holiday with African roots.”
The Truth: it’s the sinister creation of a militant black Marxist separatist movement designed to de-Christianize black families and drive a wedge between black and white Americans.
1. “Kwanzaa wasn’t created to replace Christmas.”
IT. LITERALLY. WAS.
Kwanzaa’s creator, Ron Karenga: “(The goal is to) give Blacks an alternative to the existing holiday… rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant (white) society.”
2. Karenga believed that Christianity- and therefore Christmas- were for white people and a tool to oppress black families.
He intentionally had Kwanzaa designated the day after Christmas and co-opted religious iconography- like the menorah.
As a history teacher, I strongly feel that it is not only acceptable to question the historical narrative surrounding the Holocaust, but a historian’s duty.
However, a good historian is also compelled to begin his inquiry with genuine curiosity and intellectual honesty. To not set out with a predetermined conclusion that he guides him to selectively pick evidence in order to construct a specific narrative, or to create a disingenuous aura of skepticism.
His conclusions must be informed by the overwhelming weight of historical evidence, and informed, with respect, to the multitude of historians that have thoroughly argued with ample empirical citation a compelling case for the truth.
Above all, he must have the courage to ask himself if he has the impartiality to accept whatever truth emerges from a fair and rigorous examination of the historical evidence.
A wise historian puts himself under the microscope to a greater degree than any subject he studies, for he is acutely aware of the emotional prejudices that can lead him to construct an ahistorical narrative; one that serves political goals rather than epistemological ones.
The truth of the matter today is that the overwhelming majority of influencers have not just happened to become interested in studying and questioning the Holocaust out of intellectual altruism.
No, for most, they understand that the historical narrative surrounding the Holocaust serves three important purposes for Jews:
1. The Holocaust drives empathy toward understanding and accepting the Jewish minority in the modern world.
2. The historical weight of the Holocaust strongly stigmatizes modern antisemitism.
3. The Holocaust continues to serve as a justification for an argument of the necessity of a strong Jewish state.
A rational person understands these three ways the Holocaust is used while also, regardless of their feelings about any using an historical event to advance these particular purposes, accepting the historical truth about the Holocaust.
For example, you can have a dialectical understanding that opposing foreign aid to Israel and accepting the historical truth of the Holocaust are not in opposition to each other. One can hold both of these beliefs at the same time without contradiction.
While there are some who feel that accepting the historical truth of the Holocaust would compromise their positions on the politics of the Israeli state, I am probably being too generous.
I would argue that a majority of the “Holocaust Questioners” are simply psychologically unable to reconcile their overwhelming loathing for the Jewish people with the historical truth concerning the Holocaust. Their personal prejudices have overwhelmed their capacity for reason.
They have constructed a complicated belief paradigm concerning the Jewish people and their ills, and to these “righteous defenders of the West against Jewish sedition,” their sense of identity and purpose is so strongly anchored to this belief paradigm that they are compelled to destroy any empathetic cognitive dissonance that may arrive from the truth about the Holocaust by deconstructing the truth.
We call this ahistorical revisionism, and it’s built on half-truths, fallacious concisions drawn from sloppy analyses, and all too often, intellectual dishonesty.
The worst of the “Holocaust Questioners,” in my opinion, are not those that are driven by animosity towards the Jews, but those that are advancing Holocaust denial solely as a means to expand their social media influence, become relevant, and continue to grift.
These people represent the worst of humanity: the amoral psychopaths who, with no conscience, will advance a narrative solely to satiate their narcissistic desires for social exhalation.
In my mind, the “Holocaust Questioners” who engage in historical revisionism in order to construct a narrative that advances your politics are no different than the Nicole Hahah Jones’ of the world (1619 Project) that use history as a way to advance grievance politics (which is what antisemitism ultimately is) or a weapon to bludgeon their political opponents.
You’ll probably see a good number of people in the comments “just asking questions.” Floating some salacious tidbit (“can you explain X?!”) to undermine what I believe was a rational argument.
Whether it is worth engaging with these individuals? You’ll have to assess their intellectual honesty and motivations.
1/ I closed my Patreon account and asked all my patrons to support @ChoooCole at donorbox.org/chloe-cole. I will also support her and ask you to do the same.
At 15, America failed Chloe by allowing these Hippocratic Oath Breakers to experiment on her. As if she hasn't suffered
2/ enough, she has courageously decided to put herself in harm's way to spare other children the pain she had to endure. She is becoming the advocate she needed when she was 15.
She will need our support; the Church of Transdisfiguration will not forgive her.
When I blasphemed
3/ against my profession, the attacks, ostracization, and pressure of that fight drove me into some dark places... I was 35/36... Chloe is 18; however, with our support, she will discover her strength, as did I.
Thank you for helping me when I needed it; now it's Chloe's turn.