Rather than engage in the complexity and nuance required to discover what was being—and should be—fought for, the documentary decided to end by highlighting once again what—and who—should be fought against.
I disagree with this assertion: "if we are to prevent future Holocausts from happening, we must start seeing each other as more than just people we oppose". What we must start doing is refusing to accept the obliteration of the distinction between two events that have nothing to do with each other. The Holocaust is not "like" any of the events portrayed in the montage at the end the film. It was sui generis. To draw a comparison of it to anything else diminishes the crime and soils the memory of those who perished.
I understand where you're coming from when you talk about soiling their memory, but doesn't putting the Holocaust in a separate, untouchable, unrelatable category undermine the message behind "Never Forget"? The Holocaust was a product of forces inherent in human nature that were manipulated by evil people to an absolutely appalling level, but it wasn't new. If we can't recognize the pattern (and sadly, even if we can), similar things will happen again. It seems like the greatest honor to the victims is to be vigilant of this evil tendency in ourselves and human society.
I was addressing the author’s and apparently Burns’ equivalence of these events, alleged to tell us something about the Holocaust:
“magazine covers featuring anti-immigrant rhetoric; pictures of anti-Muslim graffiti; a brief news clip of Charleston mass-shooter along with the headline “Hatred towards blacks, Hispanics, Jews”; a protest sign that read “Build the wall, nice and tall” along with audio of Donald Trump saying “My first hour in office, those people are gone”; a Fox News clip about replacement theory; videos and images from the Charlottesville protest and riot and the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue; and finally, footage from the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol” all of which, in my view, reflect a loathing of Donald Trump and deployment of the Holocaust in pursuit of that loathing.
If Burns had referred to Armenia, the Holodomor, Cambodia, or Rwanda as examples of crimes against humanity comparable in some misguided sense to the Holocaust at least he would have an argument. Instead, he directs his hatred, as so many on the left do, toward America.
And I beg to differ. The deployment of industrial technology to wipe out 6 million in short order while keeping meticulous records of what they were doing was "new".
And BTW, replacement theory was first advanced by the UN in 2000, not Fox news.
I think it's important to remember that Ken Burns is first and foremost a film maker. His grasp of history has always been somewhat shaky, and underscores how frequently journalists and filmmakers are confused with historians in the public mind. Burns seems especially unaware of the dangers of both race essentialism (and identity essentialism, which is gaining momentum these days) and othering, both of which played directly into what the Nazis were able to do and the relative ease with which they were able to do it. When people are defined only by labels (based on race or self-proclaimed identity) it becomes very easy to marginalize and dehumanize those outside a particular label, and equally easy to blame every problem under the sun on those same labeled groups. Burns of course also chose to ignore events that didn't fit into his particular political message, which diminishes his claim to be any sort of historian. We should be wary of anyone claiming to be "on the right side of history"...history has no sides. Only those spinning it have sides.
Unfortunately, professional historians are often just as partisan and unreliable as Burns in their commentary on current events and their attempts to lecture us on the supposed lessons of history.
Some certainly are, but they don't often get the "pass" people like Burns and Hannah-Jones do. Far too many journalists are being mistaken for historians these days. At least within the historical community there can be room for debate grounded in actual sources. Journalists all too often don't feel constrained by simple things like accuracy and source attribution.
The same is also increasingly true these days when it comes to science and medicine. Case in point Dr Fauci yesterday proclaimed he is not "political."
Over the decades, I have watched many Ken Burns films and I see Burns as one of our most skillful American filmmakers. However, I also consider Burns to be a partisan propagandist. This film, about America and the Holocaust is not the first of his to take a political side and to make generalized condemnations of conservatives and the working class.
Ken Burn’s career-long client, the institution that broadcasts his documentaries, has been Public Television. In the past, I have made large donations to PBS. Over time, I have come to recognize that, in representing their coverage of history as being objective, neither Burns nor PBS are being truthful or fair and I do not believe that they are acting in good faith.
Today, I prefer to make my charitable donation to people and institutions, without a partisan agenda, institutions such as F.A.I.R. and F.I.R.E..
This is a good point. As long as Burns works for PBS, he'll be expected to promote an interpretation of historical events through a partisan, progressive lens. For instance, I can't imagine Burns producing an objective documentary about the history of transgender medicine that highlights the immutable realities of human biology -- at least not one that would be aired on PBS.
Or even better; can you imagine a documentary on the last 10 years worth of deceit and utter destruction that has come from the left and their allies in the media/social media, academia, Hollywood, and now corporate America; including overlays of BLM riots, Antifa thuggery, and the growing anti white racism in our schools and workplaces flowing from CRT and DEI programs. Or how about an entire documentary on the lie that was Ferguson or on BLM's false narrative against police that has left them impotent and that has left us all, including blacks, much less safe. Or how about a mini documentary on the "truth" behind the "mass incarceration" lie, truth that includes a comprehensive statistical layout of group crime rates and how those rates align themselves with incarceration rates. Or a full documentary on how the Democrat Party and their allies have curtailed "free speech" in a way that imperials us all, with overlays of screaming campus mobs blocking access to and shouting down speakers. The list is endless and I could go on. God Bless ALL Americans!
And speaking of "the lie that was Ferguson," that documentary has already been made, and it's outstanding. If you haven't seen "What Killed Michael Brown?" it's available on Amazon for a few dollars and is well worth the price. It was made by black conservative scholar and author, Shelby Steele, and his filmmaker son, Eli. It covers a lot of ground historically and politically, and in its own quiet way, pulls no punches.
Yes, I'm a great admirer of Shelby Steele. I frequently encourage people to listen to his speech or read his book on How WHITE GUILT is Destroying the Promise of the Civil Rights Movement. Any conversation about the current leftist takeover of our institutions must include a discussion about the interplay between race baiters and white guilt. Steele says that since the 60's, black leaders have been devoted almost exclusively to the manipulation of white guilt instead of focusing on the family and education as the road to success. "When all you do is manipulate white guilt, you are stuck. Nothing is available to you but anger and protests and you have to make sure that the white man knows you're angry, and that he's intimidated and scared of you; because if he feels you're not angry he won't give you anything. He won't feel the need to dissociate; and the manipulation of this white guilt has hurt blacks by making them dependent." Steele opines that black culture (and the media et al) honors and elevates angry, protesting, race baiting militant blacks (like Al Sharpton) while denigrating blacks who advocate self sufficiency (Steele), by calling them sellouts and Uncle Toms. Says Steele: "We've got it all backwards because when you rely on the fact that another group of people (whites) has lost its moral authority and say that's my chance and opportunity, now all I have to do is keep working them, then you don't overcome, you begin to decline. And so now because we live in a society that acts guilty towards us all the time, and doesn't feel that it has the moral authority to ever ask anything OF US, we get policies that injure more profoundly than our oppression did." Thank you Beeswax for the documentary recommendation.
Steele's perspective, which you briefly quote here, is fully fleshed out in the documentary. It's uncanny, really, what a textbook case the Michael Brown incident is. Using a historical analysis, Steele demonstrates the long-term devastating effects of white guilt on the black community of Ferguson, Missouri. We see a poor but thriving post-Civil War community of independent, hard-working black people with intact families and equity in their own homes, lose literally everything they had achieved through the imposition of white liberal social policies designed to "help" them (i.e., assuage white guilt). It's brutal to watch, but the historical record is irrefutable.
I'm an old white person who was raised by my left-wing parents to oppose racism, a perspective I've retained all my life. What has changed is that I now see left-wing principles as utopian, tribal, and designed to wreak mayhem. I had to get over my own tribal aversion to the term "conservative," which at the end of the day is just a word, and focus on the pragmatism and humanism of independent black thought coming from outside the woke bubble. Steele is an inspiring example; there are many others.
You express my sentiments perfectly and perhaps better than I'm capable of. My parents were Kennedy Democrats and I saw my father changing a bit when he voted for Reagan. Of course my four liberal sisters (now extreme and angry leftists) began to paint him into the same "you're a racist" box that I see happening today and that happened to me when I dared to challenge the cult playbook. I was a special education teacher for 13 years and then a Chicago Public Defender for the next 30 years and worked feverishly to help all of my diverse student and client populations. I voted Democrat 90% of the time, voted for Obama twice, but began to speak out against him and the Party when they began to manufacture narratives, practice cancel culture tactics, and support attacks on free speech. Thereafter, neither my voting record nor my life's work would prevent my own blood from slandering me as (surprise surprise) a "racist," when I dared to stray from the Party playbook. Yes, cancel culture had come for me in the cruelest way but rather than silence me as intended, this event only served to further motivate me to continue speaking out against these hateful, destructive and divisive forces. God Bless All Americans.
I was kind of disgusted by Ken Burns’ attitude about one side having all the good guys. I no longer respect him after months of vilification of the white working class as racist monsters. Then add in everyone who did not wish one of our “free” corporate, liability-free vaccines. The left was calling for banning anyone who did not bend the knee to Pharma on the shot that doesn’t even stop transmission. Thousands lost their jobs and were denied organ transplants etc. He is now just another uninformed bully in my book.
It is easy to talk about the Holocaust as a very dark chapter of history. Burns fails to see any parallels, however, with our last two years when citizens cheered their neighbors being fired and banned from restaurants, and obediently presented their “vaccine cards” to show they took a shot that didn’t even prevent transmission. (Moronic but also incipient fascist). Oh but Democrats are soooo good, Burns attests with his biased montage. Even Michael Moore called the vaccinated “the good people.” Other prominent Dems wanted unvaccinated people banned from hospitals. Noam Chomsky called for them to be expelled from society altogether. Burns was probably cheering him on. What a dope! He is pathetic as this type of dividing and stigmatizing marked the beginning of Nazi Germany. The novel, liability-free shots were apparently right for every single person in the country. I have never heard of any medical treatment with that profile.
It's actually been going on well before this. I think in some respects it's dangerous to frame it in this way. Better examples, in my view, lie in the realm of political violence. In the immediate postwar era (World War I) up through 1931 or so, the Weimar government always felt the Left presented the greater political threat and focused their efforts in that direction. Even prominent Social Democrats within the Berlin police establishment viewed the German Communist Party as a greater threat to peace and stability than the National Socialists. We see to some extent a mirror image of that now, with things like the CHAZ disappearing in the rear view mirror. The Weimar government missed the salient fact that political violence is political violence regardless of the rhetoric it's wrapped in.
Cancelling people based on identity reasons (be it an artificial racial construct or some kind of gender-based criteria) was happening well before COVID. All COVID did was add another reason to cancel and vilify.
Political violence has been a hallmark of the left in the US for a couple of decades. It is hilarious to earth thr handwringing over Twitter by people who cheerfully ignored explicit open death threats against their political opponents as long as they controlled the forum.
People need to read “They thought they were free.” A very large portion of Nazi and Fascist supporters believed that privately allowing that some went too far exonerated them of “excess,” never acknowledging that their own core positions were evil.
Well said, Gabriel. I have made the same point to people with whom I have discussed the documentary. I would add another related point: the film incorrectly throws antisemitism under an umbrella of white supremacy. I do not want to digress into a discussion of how that terminology is used today, as that is well beyond the scope of the article, but antisemitism is decidedly not white supremacy. It has been perpetrated by people of all races, ethnicities and nationalities since the dawn of time. Yes, white nationalist groups are antisemitic, but they, unfortunately, are far from the only ones. Putting antisemitism under the white supremacy banner also has the effect of suggesting it is only coming from those on the political right, when we have ample evidence of it on left as well. In other words, exactly what Burns did with his clip selection for his reel.
Gabriel, thanks for writing this. Hate is hate . There is no good hate v bad hate. Burns decided to demonize and stereotype. We need to treat all persons as individuals and we should not shield those who happen to look like or think like we do when they are violent or use hate filled language that can easily lead to violence.
This is correct with regard to Burn's buying into the current polarized us-them view of our political conflicts. It is outrageous that Burns uses (and misuses) the divisions in our society now as analogs of Hitler's obsessions. They are not.
But I believe Ron Radosh has a better analysis of the flaws in Burns' take on the US response to the Holocaust
Radosh's focus is on Burns failure to deal fully and honestly with the criticisms of FDR for his refusal to do more to help the Jews. Burns is a reliable liberal New Dealer and his demonizing of the American right has the effect of diverting not simply from all of our common humanity (as this piece correctly sees) but diverting from the failures of the left. FDR's role is a legitimate matter for debate, it's not settled one way or the other. But Burns avoids a good deal of the case against FDR on this. And in his ending's focus on the right, he is also avoiding the far more disturbing forms of antisemitism on the left these days -- among some elements of Black political culture, in our universities a la the BDS campaign, Ilhan Omar, etc.
I admit to finding Burns views on this disturbing for another reason. I posted the following in response to Radosh, and I will add it in here. In case anyone has an interest.
"My wife and I are just finishing up for the second time watching the Burns' documentary series Country Music. I consider it perhaps his best work (at least next to his Civil War series). Country Music is a magnificent depiction of the way that form of American music encapsulates the amazing assimilative power of this society and its capacity to promote cultural sharing across all class, racial, ethnic, generational, and geographic dividing lines. That is, it completely undercuts the crabbed nonsense on the left now about intersectional hierarchies, the overwhelmingly systemic nature of racism, the evils of cultural appropriation, etc. It fully examines the role of racism and class bigotry in its story, but its central and positive theme is its celebration of America's strengths. Hence, I was saddened greatly to see Burns now indulging in the most superficial form of polarized demonization of half the nation that has become all too prevalent across the board in America today."
Burns burned out on this documentary - the first part on the Holocaust was fascinating - so much footage that I had never seen before. But what a catastrophe the ending was - to equate the Holocaust with contemporary migration issues is just so wrong - really wrong. What a mistake.
One final comment. This is what I chiefly object to in this article. The author writes:
“ Rather than engage in the complexity and nuance required to discover what was being—and should be—fought for, the documentary decided to end by highlighting once again what—and who—should be fought against. The focus was on human evil rather than humanity; vanquishing monsters rather than converting or preventing them; getting rid of problems instead of focusing on solutions.”
Yes. After three episodes of watching the horrors of the Holocaust, the proper response is to see Hitler and the Nazis as evil. This is not a matter of trying to talk to your neighbors who may have different philosophies or partisanships. This is a matter of dealing with humans who relinquished their humanity and became monsters. And such evil exists today.
There are times when FAIR’s philosophy of arguing peacefully is woefully naive and inappropriate to the situation. For the author of this article to come away with this criticism of an important film about the darkest days of history misses the mark and comes across as a petty and grasping attempt to champion and apply FAIR’s approach of nonconfrontational “argument” to situations that are beyond it. It is dangerous to be so caught up in any doctrine that so blinds or narrows one’s perspective.
I am frankly disheartened that FAIR should have chosen to publish this, but of course I defend its right to do so. I am disheartened because Ken Burns produced a powerful and moving documentary which I would hope would be met with gratitude from this organization. Instead, we find picayune harping. Burns is one of the good guys. Criticize artistic decisions that don’t work, but for god’s sake look at the bigger picture and give gratitude.
If this dismissal of Burns’ epic achievement and the dismissive and nasty comments that followed are shared by the leadership or greater membership of FAIR, I fear it is an organization to which I should not belong.
Reality check: Half the country? Really? Their kids and grandkids too? Including the blacks and Latinos who voted for Trump in both elections, increasing their numbers in 2020? They’re evil? Nazis? People who want to see their countrymen carted away and murdered? You sure about that?
I’m incredulous that an intelligent person could believe something so dehumanizing and reductive. This false notion will get us nowhere as a country, and Burns did us no favors by tacking on his dog whistle “all Republicans are Nazis” montage. It’s a view that adds to hate rather than diminishing it. I’m not a Trump voter and could never be, but I know people who are, and I can say with 100% certainty that there is not a nazi among them. They feel as strongly about their political views as you do about yours, and they can articulate why. They’re not stupid or morally bankrupt. Like all of us, they weigh the good and the not so good, and decide accordingly. I disagree with them on many things, but not all…and they tend to express more patriotism than Democrats do, which is not such a bad thing…is it?
One final comment. This is what I chiefly object to in this article. The author writes:
“ Rather than engage in the complexity and nuance required to discover what was being—and should be—fought for, the documentary decided to end by highlighting once again what—and who—should be fought against. The focus was on human evil rather than humanity; vanquishing monsters rather than converting or preventing them; getting rid of problems instead of focusing on solutions.”
Yes. After three episodes of watching the horrors of the Holocaust, the proper response is to see Hitler and the Nazis as evil. This is not a matter of trying to talk to your neighbors who may have different philosophies or partisanships. This is a matter of dealing with humans who relinquished their humanity and became monsters. And such evil exists today.
There are times when FAIR’s philosophy of arguing peacefully is woefully naive and inappropriate to the situation. For the author of this article to come away with this criticism of an important film about the darkest days of history misses the mark and comes across as a petty and grasping attempt to champion and apply FAIR’s approach of nonconfrontational “argument” to situations that are beyond it. It is dangerous to be so caught up in any doctrine that so blinds or narrows one’s perspective.
I am frankly disheartened that FAIR should have chosen to publish this, but of course I defend its right to do so. I am disheartened because Ken Burns produced a powerful and moving documentary which I would hope would be met with gratitude from this organization. Instead, we find picayune harping. Burns is one of the good guys. Criticize artistic decisions that don’t work, but for god’s sake look at the bigger picture and give gratitude.
If this dismissal of Burns’ epic achievement and the dismissive and nasty comments that followed are shared by the leadership or greater membership of FAIR, I fear it is an organization to which I should not belong.
"It’s not enough to remember and warn of all the bad ideas and behaviors we are fighting against. We must be clear in what—and who—we’re fighting for."
Amen. And the traditional American values (freedom, rights, ...) will do fine as a starting point.
One further point: when will Burns do documentaries on the American left/socialists/communists and their support of and work for (e.g. as spies) Stalin?
I'd also be interested to see Burns (or someone like him) attempt a documentary about the crimes of Stalin or an examination of Mao. Stalin would be especially interesting, as much of what "Uncle Joe" was doing went on in roughly the same time period as what Hitler was doing.
The onus is not on me to engage in lengthy rebuttals and debate in this text forum. For what are you supposed to be grateful?! The damned film, of course!
And just why should we be grateful for the film? It wasn't something he gifted us out of the goodness of his heart. It was a product, just like any other. This logic suggests we should also be grateful for the next installment of some Marvel super-hero franchise movie.
Is it necessary to be this mincing, bowing, scraping and namby-pamby in criticizing a hate-mongering propaganda campaign worthy of Goebbels because Ken Burns directed it? He is their Leni Riefenstahl but it’s okay because it’s got good audio quality?
I disagree with this assertion: "if we are to prevent future Holocausts from happening, we must start seeing each other as more than just people we oppose". What we must start doing is refusing to accept the obliteration of the distinction between two events that have nothing to do with each other. The Holocaust is not "like" any of the events portrayed in the montage at the end the film. It was sui generis. To draw a comparison of it to anything else diminishes the crime and soils the memory of those who perished.
I understand where you're coming from when you talk about soiling their memory, but doesn't putting the Holocaust in a separate, untouchable, unrelatable category undermine the message behind "Never Forget"? The Holocaust was a product of forces inherent in human nature that were manipulated by evil people to an absolutely appalling level, but it wasn't new. If we can't recognize the pattern (and sadly, even if we can), similar things will happen again. It seems like the greatest honor to the victims is to be vigilant of this evil tendency in ourselves and human society.
I was addressing the author’s and apparently Burns’ equivalence of these events, alleged to tell us something about the Holocaust:
“magazine covers featuring anti-immigrant rhetoric; pictures of anti-Muslim graffiti; a brief news clip of Charleston mass-shooter along with the headline “Hatred towards blacks, Hispanics, Jews”; a protest sign that read “Build the wall, nice and tall” along with audio of Donald Trump saying “My first hour in office, those people are gone”; a Fox News clip about replacement theory; videos and images from the Charlottesville protest and riot and the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue; and finally, footage from the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol” all of which, in my view, reflect a loathing of Donald Trump and deployment of the Holocaust in pursuit of that loathing.
If Burns had referred to Armenia, the Holodomor, Cambodia, or Rwanda as examples of crimes against humanity comparable in some misguided sense to the Holocaust at least he would have an argument. Instead, he directs his hatred, as so many on the left do, toward America.
And I beg to differ. The deployment of industrial technology to wipe out 6 million in short order while keeping meticulous records of what they were doing was "new".
And BTW, replacement theory was first advanced by the UN in 2000, not Fox news.
Thanks for being one of the few objective and reasoning voices here.
Agreed
I think it's important to remember that Ken Burns is first and foremost a film maker. His grasp of history has always been somewhat shaky, and underscores how frequently journalists and filmmakers are confused with historians in the public mind. Burns seems especially unaware of the dangers of both race essentialism (and identity essentialism, which is gaining momentum these days) and othering, both of which played directly into what the Nazis were able to do and the relative ease with which they were able to do it. When people are defined only by labels (based on race or self-proclaimed identity) it becomes very easy to marginalize and dehumanize those outside a particular label, and equally easy to blame every problem under the sun on those same labeled groups. Burns of course also chose to ignore events that didn't fit into his particular political message, which diminishes his claim to be any sort of historian. We should be wary of anyone claiming to be "on the right side of history"...history has no sides. Only those spinning it have sides.
Intellectual honesty and consistency are not values of Ken Burns
Agreed. Over the years he's gone from accomplished documentarian - to a self-important, narcissistic scold.
Unfortunately, professional historians are often just as partisan and unreliable as Burns in their commentary on current events and their attempts to lecture us on the supposed lessons of history.
Some certainly are, but they don't often get the "pass" people like Burns and Hannah-Jones do. Far too many journalists are being mistaken for historians these days. At least within the historical community there can be room for debate grounded in actual sources. Journalists all too often don't feel constrained by simple things like accuracy and source attribution.
The same is also increasingly true these days when it comes to science and medicine. Case in point Dr Fauci yesterday proclaimed he is not "political."
Historian Michael Beschloss went completely bonkers and apocalyptic this past election season. Totally bonkers.
Another example is Timothy Snyder, a very capable historian of Eastern Europe who detects Hitler in Trump’s every brain fart.
Over the decades, I have watched many Ken Burns films and I see Burns as one of our most skillful American filmmakers. However, I also consider Burns to be a partisan propagandist. This film, about America and the Holocaust is not the first of his to take a political side and to make generalized condemnations of conservatives and the working class.
Ken Burn’s career-long client, the institution that broadcasts his documentaries, has been Public Television. In the past, I have made large donations to PBS. Over time, I have come to recognize that, in representing their coverage of history as being objective, neither Burns nor PBS are being truthful or fair and I do not believe that they are acting in good faith.
Today, I prefer to make my charitable donation to people and institutions, without a partisan agenda, institutions such as F.A.I.R. and F.I.R.E..
This is a good point. As long as Burns works for PBS, he'll be expected to promote an interpretation of historical events through a partisan, progressive lens. For instance, I can't imagine Burns producing an objective documentary about the history of transgender medicine that highlights the immutable realities of human biology -- at least not one that would be aired on PBS.
Or even better; can you imagine a documentary on the last 10 years worth of deceit and utter destruction that has come from the left and their allies in the media/social media, academia, Hollywood, and now corporate America; including overlays of BLM riots, Antifa thuggery, and the growing anti white racism in our schools and workplaces flowing from CRT and DEI programs. Or how about an entire documentary on the lie that was Ferguson or on BLM's false narrative against police that has left them impotent and that has left us all, including blacks, much less safe. Or how about a mini documentary on the "truth" behind the "mass incarceration" lie, truth that includes a comprehensive statistical layout of group crime rates and how those rates align themselves with incarceration rates. Or a full documentary on how the Democrat Party and their allies have curtailed "free speech" in a way that imperials us all, with overlays of screaming campus mobs blocking access to and shouting down speakers. The list is endless and I could go on. God Bless ALL Americans!
And speaking of "the lie that was Ferguson," that documentary has already been made, and it's outstanding. If you haven't seen "What Killed Michael Brown?" it's available on Amazon for a few dollars and is well worth the price. It was made by black conservative scholar and author, Shelby Steele, and his filmmaker son, Eli. It covers a lot of ground historically and politically, and in its own quiet way, pulls no punches.
Yes, I'm a great admirer of Shelby Steele. I frequently encourage people to listen to his speech or read his book on How WHITE GUILT is Destroying the Promise of the Civil Rights Movement. Any conversation about the current leftist takeover of our institutions must include a discussion about the interplay between race baiters and white guilt. Steele says that since the 60's, black leaders have been devoted almost exclusively to the manipulation of white guilt instead of focusing on the family and education as the road to success. "When all you do is manipulate white guilt, you are stuck. Nothing is available to you but anger and protests and you have to make sure that the white man knows you're angry, and that he's intimidated and scared of you; because if he feels you're not angry he won't give you anything. He won't feel the need to dissociate; and the manipulation of this white guilt has hurt blacks by making them dependent." Steele opines that black culture (and the media et al) honors and elevates angry, protesting, race baiting militant blacks (like Al Sharpton) while denigrating blacks who advocate self sufficiency (Steele), by calling them sellouts and Uncle Toms. Says Steele: "We've got it all backwards because when you rely on the fact that another group of people (whites) has lost its moral authority and say that's my chance and opportunity, now all I have to do is keep working them, then you don't overcome, you begin to decline. And so now because we live in a society that acts guilty towards us all the time, and doesn't feel that it has the moral authority to ever ask anything OF US, we get policies that injure more profoundly than our oppression did." Thank you Beeswax for the documentary recommendation.
Steele's perspective, which you briefly quote here, is fully fleshed out in the documentary. It's uncanny, really, what a textbook case the Michael Brown incident is. Using a historical analysis, Steele demonstrates the long-term devastating effects of white guilt on the black community of Ferguson, Missouri. We see a poor but thriving post-Civil War community of independent, hard-working black people with intact families and equity in their own homes, lose literally everything they had achieved through the imposition of white liberal social policies designed to "help" them (i.e., assuage white guilt). It's brutal to watch, but the historical record is irrefutable.
I'm an old white person who was raised by my left-wing parents to oppose racism, a perspective I've retained all my life. What has changed is that I now see left-wing principles as utopian, tribal, and designed to wreak mayhem. I had to get over my own tribal aversion to the term "conservative," which at the end of the day is just a word, and focus on the pragmatism and humanism of independent black thought coming from outside the woke bubble. Steele is an inspiring example; there are many others.
You express my sentiments perfectly and perhaps better than I'm capable of. My parents were Kennedy Democrats and I saw my father changing a bit when he voted for Reagan. Of course my four liberal sisters (now extreme and angry leftists) began to paint him into the same "you're a racist" box that I see happening today and that happened to me when I dared to challenge the cult playbook. I was a special education teacher for 13 years and then a Chicago Public Defender for the next 30 years and worked feverishly to help all of my diverse student and client populations. I voted Democrat 90% of the time, voted for Obama twice, but began to speak out against him and the Party when they began to manufacture narratives, practice cancel culture tactics, and support attacks on free speech. Thereafter, neither my voting record nor my life's work would prevent my own blood from slandering me as (surprise surprise) a "racist," when I dared to stray from the Party playbook. Yes, cancel culture had come for me in the cruelest way but rather than silence me as intended, this event only served to further motivate me to continue speaking out against these hateful, destructive and divisive forces. God Bless All Americans.
Ken Riefenstahl Burns
I was kind of disgusted by Ken Burns’ attitude about one side having all the good guys. I no longer respect him after months of vilification of the white working class as racist monsters. Then add in everyone who did not wish one of our “free” corporate, liability-free vaccines. The left was calling for banning anyone who did not bend the knee to Pharma on the shot that doesn’t even stop transmission. Thousands lost their jobs and were denied organ transplants etc. He is now just another uninformed bully in my book.
It is easy to talk about the Holocaust as a very dark chapter of history. Burns fails to see any parallels, however, with our last two years when citizens cheered their neighbors being fired and banned from restaurants, and obediently presented their “vaccine cards” to show they took a shot that didn’t even prevent transmission. (Moronic but also incipient fascist). Oh but Democrats are soooo good, Burns attests with his biased montage. Even Michael Moore called the vaccinated “the good people.” Other prominent Dems wanted unvaccinated people banned from hospitals. Noam Chomsky called for them to be expelled from society altogether. Burns was probably cheering him on. What a dope! He is pathetic as this type of dividing and stigmatizing marked the beginning of Nazi Germany. The novel, liability-free shots were apparently right for every single person in the country. I have never heard of any medical treatment with that profile.
It's actually been going on well before this. I think in some respects it's dangerous to frame it in this way. Better examples, in my view, lie in the realm of political violence. In the immediate postwar era (World War I) up through 1931 or so, the Weimar government always felt the Left presented the greater political threat and focused their efforts in that direction. Even prominent Social Democrats within the Berlin police establishment viewed the German Communist Party as a greater threat to peace and stability than the National Socialists. We see to some extent a mirror image of that now, with things like the CHAZ disappearing in the rear view mirror. The Weimar government missed the salient fact that political violence is political violence regardless of the rhetoric it's wrapped in.
Cancelling people based on identity reasons (be it an artificial racial construct or some kind of gender-based criteria) was happening well before COVID. All COVID did was add another reason to cancel and vilify.
Political violence has been a hallmark of the left in the US for a couple of decades. It is hilarious to earth thr handwringing over Twitter by people who cheerfully ignored explicit open death threats against their political opponents as long as they controlled the forum.
People need to read “They thought they were free.” A very large portion of Nazi and Fascist supporters believed that privately allowing that some went too far exonerated them of “excess,” never acknowledging that their own core positions were evil.
Well said, Gabriel. I have made the same point to people with whom I have discussed the documentary. I would add another related point: the film incorrectly throws antisemitism under an umbrella of white supremacy. I do not want to digress into a discussion of how that terminology is used today, as that is well beyond the scope of the article, but antisemitism is decidedly not white supremacy. It has been perpetrated by people of all races, ethnicities and nationalities since the dawn of time. Yes, white nationalist groups are antisemitic, but they, unfortunately, are far from the only ones. Putting antisemitism under the white supremacy banner also has the effect of suggesting it is only coming from those on the political right, when we have ample evidence of it on left as well. In other words, exactly what Burns did with his clip selection for his reel.
Gabriel, thanks for writing this. Hate is hate . There is no good hate v bad hate. Burns decided to demonize and stereotype. We need to treat all persons as individuals and we should not shield those who happen to look like or think like we do when they are violent or use hate filled language that can easily lead to violence.
This is correct with regard to Burn's buying into the current polarized us-them view of our political conflicts. It is outrageous that Burns uses (and misuses) the divisions in our society now as analogs of Hitler's obsessions. They are not.
But I believe Ron Radosh has a better analysis of the flaws in Burns' take on the US response to the Holocaust
https://quillette.com/2022/10/27/fdr-and-the-hol.ocaust/
Jonathan Tobin has a similarly focused critique
https://www.commentary.org/articles/jonathan-tobin/ken-burns-holocaust-documentary/
Radosh's focus is on Burns failure to deal fully and honestly with the criticisms of FDR for his refusal to do more to help the Jews. Burns is a reliable liberal New Dealer and his demonizing of the American right has the effect of diverting not simply from all of our common humanity (as this piece correctly sees) but diverting from the failures of the left. FDR's role is a legitimate matter for debate, it's not settled one way or the other. But Burns avoids a good deal of the case against FDR on this. And in his ending's focus on the right, he is also avoiding the far more disturbing forms of antisemitism on the left these days -- among some elements of Black political culture, in our universities a la the BDS campaign, Ilhan Omar, etc.
I admit to finding Burns views on this disturbing for another reason. I posted the following in response to Radosh, and I will add it in here. In case anyone has an interest.
"My wife and I are just finishing up for the second time watching the Burns' documentary series Country Music. I consider it perhaps his best work (at least next to his Civil War series). Country Music is a magnificent depiction of the way that form of American music encapsulates the amazing assimilative power of this society and its capacity to promote cultural sharing across all class, racial, ethnic, generational, and geographic dividing lines. That is, it completely undercuts the crabbed nonsense on the left now about intersectional hierarchies, the overwhelmingly systemic nature of racism, the evils of cultural appropriation, etc. It fully examines the role of racism and class bigotry in its story, but its central and positive theme is its celebration of America's strengths. Hence, I was saddened greatly to see Burns now indulging in the most superficial form of polarized demonization of half the nation that has become all too prevalent across the board in America today."
Burns burned out on this documentary - the first part on the Holocaust was fascinating - so much footage that I had never seen before. But what a catastrophe the ending was - to equate the Holocaust with contemporary migration issues is just so wrong - really wrong. What a mistake.
FDR should have at least bombed the rail tracks into the camps. He did not.
The NYT buried the story until the very end.
One final comment. This is what I chiefly object to in this article. The author writes:
“ Rather than engage in the complexity and nuance required to discover what was being—and should be—fought for, the documentary decided to end by highlighting once again what—and who—should be fought against. The focus was on human evil rather than humanity; vanquishing monsters rather than converting or preventing them; getting rid of problems instead of focusing on solutions.”
Yes. After three episodes of watching the horrors of the Holocaust, the proper response is to see Hitler and the Nazis as evil. This is not a matter of trying to talk to your neighbors who may have different philosophies or partisanships. This is a matter of dealing with humans who relinquished their humanity and became monsters. And such evil exists today.
There are times when FAIR’s philosophy of arguing peacefully is woefully naive and inappropriate to the situation. For the author of this article to come away with this criticism of an important film about the darkest days of history misses the mark and comes across as a petty and grasping attempt to champion and apply FAIR’s approach of nonconfrontational “argument” to situations that are beyond it. It is dangerous to be so caught up in any doctrine that so blinds or narrows one’s perspective.
I am frankly disheartened that FAIR should have chosen to publish this, but of course I defend its right to do so. I am disheartened because Ken Burns produced a powerful and moving documentary which I would hope would be met with gratitude from this organization. Instead, we find picayune harping. Burns is one of the good guys. Criticize artistic decisions that don’t work, but for god’s sake look at the bigger picture and give gratitude.
If this dismissal of Burns’ epic achievement and the dismissive and nasty comments that followed are shared by the leadership or greater membership of FAIR, I fear it is an organization to which I should not belong.
"While of course we must oppose all the hateful beliefs which Burns underscores in his closing montage..."
Recognizing that half the country doesn't oppose these things is the first step.
Reality check: Half the country? Really? Their kids and grandkids too? Including the blacks and Latinos who voted for Trump in both elections, increasing their numbers in 2020? They’re evil? Nazis? People who want to see their countrymen carted away and murdered? You sure about that?
I’m incredulous that an intelligent person could believe something so dehumanizing and reductive. This false notion will get us nowhere as a country, and Burns did us no favors by tacking on his dog whistle “all Republicans are Nazis” montage. It’s a view that adds to hate rather than diminishing it. I’m not a Trump voter and could never be, but I know people who are, and I can say with 100% certainty that there is not a nazi among them. They feel as strongly about their political views as you do about yours, and they can articulate why. They’re not stupid or morally bankrupt. Like all of us, they weigh the good and the not so good, and decide accordingly. I disagree with them on many things, but not all…and they tend to express more patriotism than Democrats do, which is not such a bad thing…is it?
One final comment. This is what I chiefly object to in this article. The author writes:
“ Rather than engage in the complexity and nuance required to discover what was being—and should be—fought for, the documentary decided to end by highlighting once again what—and who—should be fought against. The focus was on human evil rather than humanity; vanquishing monsters rather than converting or preventing them; getting rid of problems instead of focusing on solutions.”
Yes. After three episodes of watching the horrors of the Holocaust, the proper response is to see Hitler and the Nazis as evil. This is not a matter of trying to talk to your neighbors who may have different philosophies or partisanships. This is a matter of dealing with humans who relinquished their humanity and became monsters. And such evil exists today.
There are times when FAIR’s philosophy of arguing peacefully is woefully naive and inappropriate to the situation. For the author of this article to come away with this criticism of an important film about the darkest days of history misses the mark and comes across as a petty and grasping attempt to champion and apply FAIR’s approach of nonconfrontational “argument” to situations that are beyond it. It is dangerous to be so caught up in any doctrine that so blinds or narrows one’s perspective.
I am frankly disheartened that FAIR should have chosen to publish this, but of course I defend its right to do so. I am disheartened because Ken Burns produced a powerful and moving documentary which I would hope would be met with gratitude from this organization. Instead, we find picayune harping. Burns is one of the good guys. Criticize artistic decisions that don’t work, but for god’s sake look at the bigger picture and give gratitude.
If this dismissal of Burns’ epic achievement and the dismissive and nasty comments that followed are shared by the leadership or greater membership of FAIR, I fear it is an organization to which I should not belong.
"It’s not enough to remember and warn of all the bad ideas and behaviors we are fighting against. We must be clear in what—and who—we’re fighting for."
Amen. And the traditional American values (freedom, rights, ...) will do fine as a starting point.
One further point: when will Burns do documentaries on the American left/socialists/communists and their support of and work for (e.g. as spies) Stalin?
I'd also be interested to see Burns (or someone like him) attempt a documentary about the crimes of Stalin or an examination of Mao. Stalin would be especially interesting, as much of what "Uncle Joe" was doing went on in roughly the same time period as what Hitler was doing.
The onus is not on me to engage in lengthy rebuttals and debate in this text forum. For what are you supposed to be grateful?! The damned film, of course!
And just why should we be grateful for the film? It wasn't something he gifted us out of the goodness of his heart. It was a product, just like any other. This logic suggests we should also be grateful for the next installment of some Marvel super-hero franchise movie.
Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Utterly pointless to engage with this toxicity. You’ve really shown yourself up here.
Then stop spamming.
Is it necessary to be this mincing, bowing, scraping and namby-pamby in criticizing a hate-mongering propaganda campaign worthy of Goebbels because Ken Burns directed it? He is their Leni Riefenstahl but it’s okay because it’s got good audio quality?