Today's Progressives Using More Extreme Rules on Race Than Nazis Did
My grandfather was a racist. It was a much different time, racism much more prevalent, but still, it was his worst quality. He once made my sister cry hysterically when he learned she was carrying the child of a black man. Grandpa later apologized, and when my nephew arrived, my grandfather warmly welcomed his new, black, great-grandson into the family. Nevertheless, Grandpa was a racist, and we all knew it.
As racist as my own grandfather was, he could never match the otherworldly racism of Senator Warren’s grandparents. Those two were some racist relatives, by God, possibly the most racist whites to ever stroll the dusty streets of Oklahoma.
“Out with that Indian bride of yours!” they shouted.
Donald Herring, Elizabeth’s father, recoiled in horror. “But Mom and Dad,” he argued, “it was her great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great granny.”
“Out with her, we say! Don’t pollute our bloodline with that filth!”
Now that’s some racism! Even my grandpa would have rolled his eyes at the elder Herrings and muttered under his breath, “Damn, you two, give it a rest.”
Likewise, the Nazis, while surely admiring the tenacity of Warren’s grandparents, would have pulled them aside. “Um, look, Herr und Frau Herring,” they’d say quietly, “we’re totally down with your racism, don’t get us wrong, but that’s a bit far back. I mean, come on guys, we’re talking less than one percent.”
See, the Nazis, arguably the most adamant racists to ever stroll the earth, wouldn’t have disqualified Warren from the SS, the most racist wing of their record-setting racist organization. The SS was so enamored with whiteness, in fact, that all applicants had to prove purity all the way back to 1750 or 1800. For officers 1750, and 1800 for your run-of-the-mill, white supremacist enlisted man. Being 1930 or so when National Socialism codified its racial requirements, this only required 130 to 180 years of proven purity, depending upon how much authority one wished to wield in the destruction of humanity.
Warren would have sailed past that requirement. Her Native American ancestor (or Peruvian or Mexican, no one’s really all that certain) walked the earth as “little” as six, or as many as ten, generations ago. We’ll say eight, playing it down the middle.
Now, a typical generation being 25 years, eight generations would give Warren’s ancestors 200 years to filter all that non-Aryan poison (“poison” as defined by Nazis) from her blood and easily qualify her for an officer rank in the SS. This would open countless doors for her in 1930s Nazi Germany, perhaps as many as Native American heritage would open for her in 1990s American academia. At the very worst, a mere six generations would still equal 150 years of diluted poison, again qualifying Warren for an SS career, just not in the officer ranks.
In the Reich, of course, no one was forced to join the SS. Nevertheless, Warren could still live happily in greater Germania without harassment, her blood nowhere near the impurity levels that activated every brownshirt’s spidey sense. After all, a Jew, the bane of the Reich, was defined as having at least three Jewish grandparents. Having two Jewish grandparents merely made a person a Mischling of the first degree, and a single Jewish grandparent made a citizen a Mischling of the second degree.
Even the world champions of racism, possessing the concentration camps to prove it, did not see those small amounts of “dirty” blood as too much dirty blood. First-degree Mischlinge could live and marry other Mischlinge with state permission, and second-degree Mischlinge could live and marry freely, without state permission. Second-degree Mischlinge, even while saddled with one “impure” Jewish grandparent, could still marry Aryans, if you can believe it. How progressive!
See, one Jewish grandparent makes a person 25 percent Jewish. The Nazis didn’t consider 25 percent really Jewish, certainly not Jewish enough to infect Aryans with all that Hebrew witchcraft. More telling, Nazis hoped a second-degree-er would reproduce with an Aryan, further diluting the “poison” down to mere 12.5 percent. Heck, 12.5 percent Jewish blood hardly qualified for a yarmulke! That’s practically full Aryan, for the love of Goebbels, nothing to worry about. So go forth and reproduce, you second-degree Mischlinge! Mazel tov!
Fast forward to 2018 and the modern American left. So obsessed are they with race, so utterly demented by it, that 1/10th of 1 percent of potentially, possibly, unverifiable Native American blood emanating from somewhere in the Western Hemisphere is now “vindication” and “strong evidence” and even “proof” of a person’s Native American claims.
This is very hard to say, but … the Nazis were not as strict on race as the modern American left. Sadly, racial obsession invariably leads to a racial hierarchy, and the American left has already begun the predictable descent from rewarding the top tiers (non-white non-straight non-males), to punishing the bottom-feeder Brett Kavanaughs of the world. This is unfortunate but not surprising. When a group has not only blown past Nazi racial definitions, but left them cringing and crying in the dust, then that group has entered an arena that can be scientifically described as “bonkers.”
“Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken,” said Tyler Durden, antihero of “Fight Club.” Sen. Warren, I couldn’t have said it better myself. Even the racially insane Nazis would consider you white as the driven snow.
Paul Gonzalez is a graduate of the University of Colorado School of Journalism and has spent his life engaged in completely opposite endeavors. He began a software company in 2002 and continues to manage all its operations.
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