So today in my undergraduate summer history class I taught about the Nazis who came to the US

[Comfortably_Numb]

in the 1930s, because they regarded the South’s Jim Crow laws as the world’s best example of accomplishing the “legal” racial marginalization of “undesirables.” I am in Texas. Fuck you Fascist Texans-Abbott, Patrick, Paxton, and the rest of you!

[SheilaAnn]

1. You're a brave soul, God bless. n/t

[Comfortably_Numb]

2. So kind of you! I have younger, more vulnerable colleagues

who have changed their class content to head off the storm that comes when you teach snowflake students things that they do not want to hear. I weep for the future. As for me, I’m old enough to retire so I am less constrained. And I have a private retirement account so there’s that.

[SheilaAnn]

3. Good for you and happy retirement when the time comes. n/t

[Buckeye_Democrat]

4. Uncle Tom's Cabin was a favorite book of Hitler...

... and other Nazis over there.

They believed it justified their dominance over groups they viewed as "inferior".

https://theconversation.com/germanys-strange-nostalgia-for-the-antebellum-american-south-157304

[Comfortably_Numb]

5. Hitler sent 47 of his reich lawyers over here to study our stained history.

[TimeToGo]

6. But?

It was anti slavery and written by a member of a prominent abolitionist family. What did Hitler think it meant?

[Buckeye_Democrat]

8. The link goes into how it became distorted over time. nt

[Comfortably_Numb]

9. Critics complained that the black characters in the book were portrayed in racist

and stereotypical terms.

[TimeToGo]

13. Well that's true to a degree but it is def anti slavery

[Comfortably_Numb]

14. No question.

[Hekate]

19. Critics from which century? In its time it was a powerful indictment against slavery...

… not just the US, but around the world. President Lincoln, on being introduced to Harriet Beecher Stowe, is said to have remarked to her, “So you’re the little lady whose book started this great war…”

Whatever criticisms we may have in the 21st century, however we may cringe at the long-suffering piety of Uncle Tom or fail to be moved by the travails of Little Eva crossing the ice floes — in the 19th century the portrayal of the suffering of slaves, the callousness of their owners, and the brutality of Simon Legree pounded home the lesson of this stain on our country to people in the non-slave states who were not already abolitionists and gave strength to the impassioned arguments of those who were already abolitionists.

People around the world were moved. Plays based on the book were performed — one such appears in The King and I / aka Anna and the King of Siam.

But enough. I simply believe in historical and cultural context, and not denigrating and dismissing literary works that don’t pass muster in today’s world in every aspect.

[IbogaProject]

7. After WW2 too

A a few hundred thousand came after the war from the Natzis came w our government's blessing to restock the Republican deep bench as well as the stated purpose to fight communism.

[TheRickles]

10. Can you recommend a good article on this topic? Thanks.

[Comfortably_Numb]

11. A good book is James Q Whitman's Hitler's American Model:

The United States and the making of Nazi Race Law. I will hunt up my syllabus for an article.

[Comfortably_Numb]

12. The Atlantic, November 2017

What America Taught the Nazis.

[TheRickles]

15. Thanks, it looks great!

Here's the link: //https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-america-taught-the-nazis/540630/

[Comfortably_Numb]

16. Glad to help!

[Evolve Dammit]

17. Speaking truth is always right. "Always make sure you can take your conscience to work." Salute.

[appmanga]

18. Texas would never like its young people to know...

...German POWs had access to Officers' Clubs on many military bases while black officers didn't.

[Hekate]

20. Good for you

In every respect