It is 3:30 a.m. in the morning and I would much rather be sleeping. However, I recently came across the ACB thread imitation of “First they came,” commonly attributed to Martin Nemöller, but in the context of the recent news our campus has received regarding Beta. Response #2 is as follows: “i don’t like this. turning holocaust references into jokes is just a bit insensitive, don’t you think?”
Now, I take issue with this for what I consider to be a fairly good reason. I am insulted because Response #2 could not comprehend that this is not a statement about Jewish people or Nazis. This is a statement about all of us. Political apathy? It did not only happen in Germany. It happens everywhere else in the world today. The insult in this spoof lies not in the fact that there is jest made of an event of the past. The insult lies in the insensitivity towards the oppression in the world today. The statement of “First they came” does not resonate because it is about Jews; it resonates because it remains relevant. And oppression is not exclusive, and it is selfish of us to think of it as such.
Moving right along, Response #4 reads “STAND UP FOR YOUR GODDAMN RIGHTS.” I suppose, now, I no longer need to wonder the things I excessively wonder. Such as: where you were when my rights were undermined? Where were you when they took me away? Where was this uproar then?
Where were you when they eroticized my body and fed my culture to jokesters? Where were you when they told me that I probably didn’t deserve to be here because of my ethnic identity? Would you have ever noticed my absence anyway?
One day, when the winds have changed and the administration has found a new concern, and when all images of me have been distorted and laughed at, and my body lies beaten and burned and rotting in a ditch, you will be glad that you have preserved your right to party.
Yang is of the Class of 2013.
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