A nice story on Huffington Post today about an eight-year-old boy who saw a purple swastika on an advertisement and decided to do something about it.
Before...
He went home and made a pink heart and wrote, “Choose Peace” on it. Then he posted it on the ad, covering up most of the swastika. Nice job, kid. And nice job, Mom.
After
What do the words ‘booty’ and ‘holocaust’ have in common? Both have been replaced in the bible to better reflect their meanings.
According to an article in the Huffington Post, the word ‘booty’ today has sexual connotations (as in ‘booty call’) and has thus been changed in the bible to ‘spoils of war,’ which was its original meaning.
The Post explains: “The word ‘holocaust,’ which for most people refers to the World War II genocide of Jews, was changed to ‘burned offerings,’ which clarifies the original, positive idea of making offerings to God.”
There are many words whose meanings change over time, and booty and holocaust are just two recent examples. Holocaust, however, is one of those words that seems like it can never go back to beginning with a lower case ‘h’. Over the past 60 or so years it’s gone from noun to proper noun and it’s difficult to imagine it otherwise.
An article on JewishMag.com says, “The word holocaust was not created to specifically describe the death of Jews in World War II, but within forty years of that event taking place, the word holocaust has become synonymous with the evil deeds of the Nazis . . . Because our society has molded such a horrific event with the word holocaust, we are now compelled to react strongly to said word. We would not react at all to that same word if it did not have these implications and meanings.”
The word holocaust comes from the Greek holocaustros, which means ‘burnt whole’.
Here’s the definition as it appears in Webster’s:
1: a sacrifice consumed by fire
2: a thorough destruction involving extensive loss of life especially through fire <a nuclear holocaust>
3a often capitalized: the mass slaughter of European civilians and especially Jews by the Nazis during World War II — usually used with the
b: a mass slaughter of people; especially : GENOCIDE
For those of you who dig root words, it comes from Late Latin holocaustum and the Greek word holokauston. It’s first known use is from the 13th century.
Credit: Pat Bagley
Facebook has an ethics problem. It denounces hate speech but not Holocaust denial. Isn’t antisemitism at the very root of Holocaust denial?
Facebook doesn’t think so. In fact, its spokesperson, Simon Axton, says, “We recognize people’s right to be factually wrong about historical events.” Wonder if he was able to say that with a straight face.
Holohoax, a Facebook page with 58 active members, describes its mission as “Putting some sense into the Holocaust story.” Lovely. There’s also, I Deny the Holocaust, which has 42 “likes,” and its very own t-shirt. (See below).
From Facebook's "I Deny the Holocaust"
The Anti-Defamation League, Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance, and a whole host of other global organizations, have repeatedly asked Facebook to remove the offensive pages. Unfortunately the pages remain.
In an email to MSNBC last month, Andrew Noyes, Facebook’s public policy communications manager, wrote:
“We have spent considerable time internally discussing the issues of Holocaust denial and have come to the conclusion that the mere statement of denying the Holocaust is not a violation of our terms.
“We think that there is a meaningful difference between advocating violence against a group of people and expressing an opinion on a policy, set of beliefs, or historical event — even if that opinion is factually wrong, or is outrageous or offensive to most people.”
Noyes also mentions that although many employees at Facebook have personal connections to the Holocaust, “We believe in Facebook’s mission that giving people tools to make the world more open is a better way to combat ignorance or deception than censorship, though we recognize that others may disagree.”
In other words, “let’s agree to disagree,” one of the most frustrating argument-enders of all time. That one never feels like a period at the end of a sentence to me but rather this: #@*!%#*.
I’ll end with something a tad more lighthearted. Per Lloyd Grove of The Daily Beast, “TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, who noted that while Facebook was meticulously removing photos of breast-feeding women, it was allowing the proliferation of Holocaust-denial pages. His mordant headline: ‘Jew Haters Welcome At Facebook, As Long As They Aren’t Lactating.’”
I spurted milk out of my mouth while reading that this morning at breakfast. And no I’m not lactating. It was from my bowl of shredded oats.
