Thread by @TheCassieTimes

Chewing on a new blog post, thanks to some recent ugly discourse on FB regarding immigration & the military. From the same source, some months ago, I got asked how I felt about Nazi re-enactors who came to local events. Now I'm chewing on why re-enactments are needed at all. 1/x

Seems to me, taking the losing side is an exercise in selective filtering. How do you play a Nazi without believing they were right? I mean, this is more than just a war game where you pick up a tiny plastic figure and put it on a table-based battlefield to explore strategy. 2/x

We're talking about the full kit: Uniform, weapons, language. Same thing with Confederate soldiers. Same with virtually any war-culture where the winners write the books and the losers have to hope that someone will tell their side, eventually.

So that leads me to wonder... 3/x

If you can justify playing the bad guy, how does your brain allow it? How do you keep "this is what they did" from being "this is what I would do if I was given the opportunity?"

As it happens, I think (but could be wrong) that I am the only "Jew" in this social circle... 4/x

...and that makes me de facto authority on the subject of "what's offensive" to my people. Here's the funny thing: I make for a poor sounding board. I'm a practicing UU, ethnically but not religiously Jewish. I relate because of my heritage, but I wasn't raised in the faith. 5/x

So when I'm asked how I feel about Nazis who re-enact, I come at it from a different angle than most of my more religious tribe members. It's personal because I lost family on both sides of the Front in Germany. Austrians who never made it out. They died in the camps. 6/x

I also lost a Russian-Amercan cousin who fought in the military. Jack Orshansky was a member of the Army Air Force and he was killed in action in 1945, in Germany. His mother was my Great Aunt. He was a first generation anchor baby for the family, who immigrated around 1900. 7/x

Funny, that. Chain migration brought the Orshansky family from Russia to the US, where Jack was born, and then at the tender age of 26 died to help free the Germans from the Nazis.

His brother, Nat, was born in Russia. His cousin, my Grandmother, was born here, in Brooklyn. 8/x

In fact, all of my grandparents were born here. All of them were anchor babies. My father, second generation, served in the Army just after the end of the Korean War. Immigrants. Worthless? Because we come from Europe, but not the part the Nazis in this country value. 9/x

When I hear how awful these DACA people are today, how they're all "illegals" and should go home, I have a problem with that. A big one.

I want to know when your family arrived in this country. Forget about "legal" immigration. Laws change and what was once legal now isn't. 10/x

When you call me out for asking when your family arrived, and you suggest that I'm not serious about this, maybe think about WHY I'm asking the question, because almost certainly I'm not joking. I'm deadly serious. I don't care who you are or how long we've known each other. 11/x

If you haven't thought about when your family came here, if you lack empathy and can't put yourself in the place of these families, many of whom left home for a better life and often just to survive because certain death awaited them otherwise? That's your privilege talking. 12/x

If you can't see how your privilege makes it possible for you to call these people "illegals" or you side with your friends rather than calling THEM out over their privilege? If you think I'm kidding, I don't think you know me well enough. I don't joke about this stuff. 13/x

I never ever thought it was funny. I don't think it's funny now. I'm not amused. I'm angry. I may not practice my faith but I own every inch of this Ashkenazi Jewish skin and I will call you out. If you don't like it, feel free to unfriend me. Unfollow me. Whatever you need. 14/x

And don't EVER ask me again what I think of Nazi re-enactors. Or Confederates. Or anyone else who purports to show "the other side, because someone has to."

If you feel comfortable playing Nazi, I don't want to be near you. Not ever.
If your friends are okay with it? Same. 15/x

Seriously.

16/16