AED 813 “2: Public Pedagogy of Upstander Art”

Upon beginning this exploration, I had to think about the scenario presented by Linda Stein in her talk from 2016, where a desperate individual begs at your front door for humanity and shelter. Considering the Nazi persecution and threat of death for not just you but your family as well, I cannot be sure I would do the decent or upstanding thing in this instance. What would you do?

I learned all about the Holocaust and read Anne Frank’s diary when I was in fifth grade. At the time, the book was startling and eye opening not only about the past but how brave she would have had to be as only a child. As explained by Dr. Wanda Knight in the sampled meeting recording (7-11-16), it’s essential that we are teaching empathy and to consider what it must feel and be like to be deemed by society as an “other.” The term other takes on so many forms, but for the Jews in World War II it was based in both religion and racial qualities.

Two holocaust heros stood out to me- Ruth Gruber and Hannah Senesh. Ruth refused to be passed off as just a woman and worked her whole life with her tools- her mind, the power of speech, and imagery. Her photographs of the Jewish plight exposed truths and changed history around the world. I love the message that we must “help make peace and to fight injustice with our own tools.” Hannah too was a strong-willed, independent thinker, and her poems and actions have echoed through time. I especially enjoyed Hannah Senesh's “A voice Called” from 1942:

A voice called and I went.

I went because the voice called.

I went in order not to fall.

But at the crossroads I sealed my ears with the white frost and cried,

for what I had lost.

There are a lot of words and images in our world, but we have the power to choose the ones that will shape our world for the better.

When reflecting about my life and my biggest challenges with people who lack empathy and bigoted in their own ways, I think of when I met my now partner, Melaine- an immigrant from Burkina Faso. My family was not accepting of our relationship- specifically my father. I wondered to myself whether he has taught empathy in school or in his blue collar lifestyle. I asked my parents tonight and discovered they didn’t study the Holocaust in their Catholic schooling. This implicates that this history lesson can be an important piece of teaching on how to empathize over difference. In a more racial sense, white people can observe the Holocaust as a bridge to worldwide atrocities to help foster empathy for those who are not white (and often ignored). At the time, I acted as an upstander. When my parents went out of town, I packed, left home, and demanded fair treatment. I protested my father's non-acceptance, and eventually got him to agree to meet my partner a year after. If there were a larger consequence or threat to my life, would I have been as strong-willed?

It’s both painful and angering to know the kind of hateful rhetoric and actions that are still infecting our world. It shocked my city and country when a shooter killed eleven people while they worshiped in The Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill of Pittsburgh. You hear hate online, on the news, on the streets, but you never expect it to happen in a sacred place or so close to where you are from. Our world does have many bullies and mad men that need to be addressed. When Ruth Gruber said, “These are the words of a mad man,” when talking about Hitler, my mind draws parallels to callous and bigoted insults about groups of people that I’ve heard coming from my own government targeted specifically at immigrant and people seeking refuge. As almost everyone living in the United States, my family immigrated here for a better life, and for some reason, I see a lot of people being excluded because they fit the term “other.” My partner has been in immigration proceeding for 5 years with no guarantee he can stay here. My collage provides a look into the kind of message I would like to hear from the political leaders in this country.