1/ I wanna respond to the very thin-in-reason defense of the NYT article that claims pointing out the ordinary nature of the Suburban Nazi is supposed to serve as a warning to readers. I worked at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for a year, and I have some thoughts… (thread)
2/ For several years, there was an exhibit at USHMM called “Some Were Neighbors”. In fact, I think it’s still there. It’s meant to highlight how the Third Reich would not have come about without the complicity of civilians. Ordinary folks. Neighbors.
3/ The genius of the “Some Were Neighbors” exhibit is that it didn’t hold back. It talks about how doctors, lawyers, teachers, police officers—upstanding citizens—directly sold out their Jewish friends and neighbors. Specific stories. Brutal stories. Violence and betrayal.
4/ Throughout the exhibit were examples of real people who may have not worn Nazi armbands but turned-in Jewish folks, often unnecessarily. Some participated in violence. Most participated in discrimination. Just ordinary people behaving ruthlessly.
5/ There was no subtlety about the exhibit. The message was clear: these people are just like you, just like your friends and family, and they viciously bought into Nazi ideals. Their ears and tongues did the bulk of the legwork in rounding up Jewish folks to be exterminated.
6/ Now… I look at the NYT article, and part of me can see what they claim they were trying to do: convince readers that white supremacists are among us. But what it actually does is winking at the reader. An inside joke. A failed attempt at edgy reporting. A pitch to HBO.
7/ It’s pretty obvious to a lot of us that NYT and this reporter prioritized the spectacle and edge of the piece over an obligation to serve the public interest. Sorry, some may feel that’s harsh. But it needs to be said. This feels like entertainment, not education.
8/ I don’t think the reporter and their editor(s) did this with malicious intent. Maybe they read that really great Michiko Kakutani review from last year on “Hitler” by Volker Ullrich, in which she brilliantly reviewed the book while describing Trump without mentioning him.
9/ The problem, of course, is that’s a book review. The brilliance there is Kakutani is doing her job—reviewing the book—while winking at the reader. She can do that as a literary critic. But a reporter is supposed to report. Directly tell the brutal truth.
10/ I read the NYT profile of the Nazi, and I found myself involuntarily having pangs of sympathy. Me. Person who worked at Holocaust Museum. Who knows this subject pretty well. Who gets how propaganda works. What, then, was the reaction of less-informed Americans?
11/ It’s not a stretch to suggest that an article written with such wishy-washy, neutral descriptions of an American Nazi—the guy with cool tats and who is “nice” and well-read and had interracial couples at his wedding—may enable the feeling that Nazis aren’t so bad.
12/ And if your, uh, “reporting” can enable the feeling that Nazis aren’t so bad, maybe it’s really bad reporting, and you're mistaking decent writing skills for your crucial responsibilities as a journalist.
13/ After all, the neighbors—the ordinary citizenry—I mentioned earlier? The upstanding adults with good jobs who were friends and neighbors with Germany’s Jews and sold them out? You know how they got that way to a large extent? They read the papers. /thread
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