Bill’s Christmas message illustrates why the Buchenwald issue is so important.
At least as I understand him, Bill was born into Christian family. His mom later became Jewish and Bill married my sister. Despite all else I am so happy that they have found love.
Bill also writes about his pride in being in Charleston, South Carolina and is very, very angry for me when I write about the racism in that state, as if it were my fault. I will never forget his reaction to the massacre of the nine church goers in Charleston. That event happened a few weeks after a cop in Bill’s town shot a black man in the back. Rather than shock at what happened near his own home, Bill was proud that his town fired the cop and that his state eventually took down the bedamned rebel flag from its place on the state grounds. He seemingly could not see my horror that the rebel flag was till being honored and my disgust with the failure of the Jewish community to show up when the thing was finally lowered.
So is he evil? I do not think so. Rather Bill is one of those white folks who have never understood how to be proud of the good without demonizing everyone else. My answer to this sort of pride is responsibility. I doubt that anyone like Bill will ever understand that the lesson of Buchenwald is that it gives us a legacy to right what is wrong , an idea celebrated in Judaism as Teshuvah.
So, on Xmas day this is what Bill wrote:
Bill Quick
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Your post
http://handbill.us/?p=65191
concerns Holocaust denial. You know very well that none of your family has ever denied the Holocaust, and you should never have added tags associating them with deniers:
William Quick, Hugh Schwartz, Janet Lyn, Stephanie Quick
Please remove them immediately.
Thank you.