Hating White People in America
Knowing the History
If you accept the term “white”, the attack on white people is a fairly common display of prejudice and racism in the United States. Few want the resurgence of such hatred, but the hatred creeps up from time to time, and when white people are being hated, the tolerance for such hatred is strong.
Mere talk about President Lincoln and the Confederacy raises hatred anew without much understanding of the times and places. Academics do not know economics or the impact of Henry Clay of the times, and many will demonize Robert E. Lee without adequate justification. There are reasons for us to have guarded concern over how people judge either, particularly regarding history.
Yes, we want students to learn about the Holocaust, but at times, I fear this will result in broad demonization of German history without any understanding of how Hitler came to power. Germans do not deserve banishment merely because of one horrible leader. People should know who Martin Luther was and the importance of the Gutenberg press as well as Friedrich Schiller, formally Frederich von Schiller. Yet, who was he and why does he matter?
Schiller was a German advocate for individual freedom in the period of the Enlightenment. There was a statue of him at Riverview Park in Omaha over a century ago but because of hatred for the German Kaiser during 1918, mobs tore down his statue and threw it into a ravine (https://omahaexploration.com/2024/09/18/the-german-american-society/ and https://theodore-wheeler.com/2012/09/15/found-schiller-monument/).
Fortunately, years later, it was recovered by the Omaha German American Society which acquired the statue and reinstalled it on their site on 120th Street. Today, the Omaha Pachyderm Lunch group has meetings there. But ironically, you can not read anything about this hatred and recovery of the statue on the German American Society website (https://www.germanamericansociety.org/), let alone a history of the man or a picture of the current statue. The Society once relished the recovery of the statue but now appearently has forgotten what the man it represents. Is this distortion and amnesia the way things will always be with history and education?
So I asked Perplexity for quotes from the man and here are the results:
Friedrich von Schiller, a renowned German poet, playwright, and philosopher, is known for a wide range of influential and memorable quotes. Some of his most famous quotations include:
"Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily."1
"Every true genius is bound to be naive."1
"Keep true to the dreams of thy youth."1
"Live with your century, but do not be its creature."1
"Be noble minded! Our own heart, and not other men's opinions of us, forms our true honor."1
"Dare to err and to dream. Deep meaning often lies in childish play."1
"Man only plays when he is in the fullest sense of the word a human being, and he is only fully a human being when he plays."1
"Grace is the beauty of form under the influence of freedom."1
"Disappointments are to the soul what a thunderstorm is to the air."1
"He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times."2
"Did you think the lion was sleeping because he didn't roar?"12
"The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself."12
"What is not abandoned is never completely lost."2
"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."2
"Pain is short, and joy is eternal."2
"Man is never so authentically himself than when at play."3
"The dignity of mankind is in your hands; protect it! It sinks with you! With you it will ascend."3
"All powerful souls have kindred with each other."3
"God helps the brave."3
"Wouldst thou know thyself, observe the actions of others. Wouldst thou other men know, look thou within thine own heart."2
These quotes reflect Schiller's views on humanity, virtue, creativity, and the spirit of the age, and continue to resonate as timeless reflections on the human condition.