Some people who took part in the attack on the U.S. Capitol wore anti-Semitic clothing and carried racist and white supremacist symbols.
Mary Pat Higgins is the President and CEO of the Dallas Holocaust & Human Rights Museum. She joined KERA's Justin Martin to talk about what this means.
Interview Highlights:
On The Camp Auschwitz Shirt Worn During The Insurrection:
I think like everyone in the country, I watched with shock and horror to see that hate symbols, worn and wielded during the attack on the Capitol, really just proved that anti-Semitism continues to be a major issue in our country and that the museum's mission is as relevant and necessary as ever.
On Other Symbols Like 6MWE And 'Work Brings Freedom':
6MWE; 6 million were not enough. I'm sure most of your listeners know that there were 6 million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust. So that is highly offensive and an inflammatory statement, 6 million wasn't enough.
'Work Brings Freedom' was the sign on the gates of Auschwitz. So very much hearkening and celebrating one of the most horrific death camps that killed over a million Jews during the Holocaust.
On Anti-Semitism In The Country:
There are a couple of recent surveys that your listeners might check out.
The Anti-Defamation league tracks anti-Semitic events every year, and their 2019 survey showed an all time high in anti-Semitic incidents in the US and a 50% increase in assaults in 2019, over 2018.
On Combating Racism And Anti-Semitism:
What I would say to that is that we all have an unconscious bias and the Jewish population around the world is very small, and I think that it's easy to be distrustful of people that are different from us, that we may not understand.
One thing we try to do at the museum is teach about bias or implicit bias. We make snap judgments about people without even knowing it a million times a day. It's the way humans survive, but it also is a very dangerous way to make decisions about how we treat people.
So if we can become aware of those, call them prejudices, but really it's just bias; we tend to navigate to people who are like us and be wary of people who are different. I think understanding that it really can be a solution for all of us going forward.
Mary Pat Higgins is the President and CEO of the Dallas Holocaust & Human Rights museum
Interview highlights were lightly edited for clarity.
Got a tip? Email Justin Martin at Jmartin@kera.org. You can follow Justin on Twitter @MisterJMart.
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