this is how the Nazi dehumanization of Jews began. Rules and laws were put into effect that removed Jews from public office and certain professions. The rules and regulations got stricter and tighter, step by step until Jews lost jobs, housing, medical care and could not go in public without open attacks on them. They were forbidden to use public transportation, attend public schools, go to colleges or teach.

We know how far it went.

Trump must be stopped before it gets that bad here.

We studied the Civil Rights Movement in history class. It was brutal and so many died - I also watched "Eyes on the Prize" which shocked me to my core. I grew up in a fairly diverse community and had Black classmates and teachers. I agree that this needs to be stopped, this country fought a devastating war over this 165 years ago and we need to embrace the lessons learned then and from the Civil Rights Movement so this never happens again.

It’s so disappointing for me, when I think back over all the history classes and reading and reports and - well, you know. It’s actually not merely disappointing, but also rather infuriating for me. THIS is how “far” we’ve supposedly come in our 250 years of America? Sheesh.

And I live in New York!

It was not yet history when I was in school. It was current events, happening in real time.

I lived in a diverse community, too. There were Black students at my junior and senior high, as well as some recent immigrants and some foreign exchange students.

Neighborhoods in the North were segregated by custom, not law. But there were 4 public high schools and 3 parochial high schools. The distribution of Black neighborhoods meant that all of the public high schools were integrated. Racism certainly existed, but there were also friendships between Black and White students. That led to a foolish mistake that I made in the summer of 1966 when I was 16.

I spent that summer on an island off the coast of SC. My brother was stationed there in the Navy but was away in Savannah for ship repairs and only got home every other weekend. My SIL felt overwhelmed with a 2 month old baby and a 14 month old toddler, so I was there to help out and keep her company.

My brother and SIL had a small bungalow in an all White military community on the island. There was a separate Black community on the other side of the island. There was one general store where both Blacks and Whites shopped. In between the 2 communities and the store the area was rural.

One day I was walking to the store about a mile away. Halfway there I saw a young Black kid around my age walking down a dirt road that led to the blacktop road that I was on. We both reached the point where the roads met at the same time. He turned onto the blacktop road headed in the direction of the store.

It seemed rude to me if I didn't speak. So I said, "Hi" and walked beside him since we were going the same way. He quickly said, "I can tell by the way you talk that you are not from around here so you don't know how to act. I don't know what you are doing here, but I am not interested in any Yankee activism. I want to keep my neck. Black men and White women here do not walk together or speak to each other. So you walk behind me and don't say another word to me."

Then he took a couple steps ahead of me and never looked back.

I felt like an idiot. I had seen the dogs and hoses on TV at home in Erie. But I had forgotten where I was and how dangerous it could be for races to interact in SC. I realized that he wanted to be in front of me so it would not look like he was following or stalking me.

There was nobody else on the road so we had not been seen. But if we had, it could have been disastrous.

This is very scary. It’s been scary for a long time but Rachel has a way of telling you things that you knew already but really didn’t know. Now she gives you the numbers. And the statistics. And the results of what’s going on.

This man is a Hitler. I just toured the Churchhill War Rooms yesterday. When I got to the section where it was going over some of what Churchill said about Hitler before the war— I was struck by a simple statement he had made about the signing of the Munich declaration— something to the effect that the more you gave Hitlet the more he would take. That proved to be horribly true.

That defines Trump in a nutshell. The more you concede to him the more he takes.

Truly frightening times.

from the Native Americans on reservations in the US and Canada.

Life was brutal in the US for non Whites. Blacks were lynched for "infractions" of social rules or for no reason at all. Public spaces were segregated by law in some states. Native American populations had been decimated by conquest wars and confined to reservations. Their children were taken away from them and placed in boarding schools where they were punished harshly for speaking their own language. They were taught to hate their own cultures, forcibly converted to Christianity, and given new names. There was no oversight so physical and sexusl abuse were common. Food and medicine were inadequate.

Japanese Americans were put into detainment camps after Pearl Harbor.

Brutal as all those situations were, the German camps were worse.

But with the current American fascists, it could get as bad as Nazi Germany if we don't stop them before it gets worse. Let Minneapolis be an inspiration for peaceful resistance.