My Contribution
Hi. My name is Mary Lazzaretti, I am 22 years old, and I live in the United States. This blog is my attempt at a call to action for my friends, peers, and neighbors. Our reality is so dystopian, that its hard to speak on certain subjects without people doubting you, your information, or your intentions. Truthfully, while most of the time frustrating, this doubt is comforting to me. It expresses a desire to want to hear the truth. I choose to believe that people are good. I choose to believe that when our needs are taken care of, we choose to help others. I believe that competition is blown out of proportion, if not completely artificial. The only way to mitigate this is to work together. Bystanders are bully’s. Inaction is action. If you are choosing to not do anything, you are apart of the problem.
The subject that I want to go over today is the Pyramid of Hate. Commonly referred to as the Pyramid of Genocide.
This image, taken from the Irish Network Against Racism, is the steps society takes that eventually lead us to mass organized killing. This idea is not new, instead, it has been posted and used by several different Holocaust museums and universities to provide a visual progression of prejudice in a society.
Our current administration has made minimal effort to conceal the true intentions behind their work, which has unfortunately made the explanation of this concept incredibly straightforward.
To fully understand the visual, we have to highlight the importance of the shape. I believe the triangle/pyramid was chosen intentionally. The largest and biggest part of the diagram is “Acts of bias,” which non-coincidentally correlates to the amount of people in a society participating. Offensive jokes, insensitive remarks, and non-inclusive language are mer seeds planted. They are non-criminal, thought of as non-serious, and to most people, not a problem. However, it is these statements that make bigots feel comfortable in a crowd. Sure, they start as jokes, until you internalize the stereotypes they’re based off of and grimace when you see Sikhs wearing their turbans, or hear vietnamese women speaking their language.
When a joke goes too far, and somebody from the afflicted group says something about it, they’re met with pushback on the basis that “it’s just dark humor.” This small deflection throws shame onto those who protest, effectively protecting truly hateful people. It is just subtle enough to where it diminishes the credibility of the concerned, and just loud enough for those who listen for the dog whistle. At this tier, people agreeing with the minority group will be called emotional and sensitive in an effort to further discredit opposing behavior. This divide is the fuel.
The second tier is identified by scapegoating, dehumanizing, ridicule, and social avoidance. Humor capitalizes off of differences, which helps segregate social circles. Once nobody around you opposes you, you’re safe to make all your assumptions. Politicians and business executives take genuine concerns people have with their lives and choose a group to blame it on rather than take accountability for their role in creating the issues. By dividing the lowest level, wealthy and powerful people ensure their own success by reducing the numbers in which we organize. Our current administration routinely blames immigrants for just about every issue. Migrants are the scape goat when it comes to violent crime, lack of social security, border security, drug abuse, and a struggling job market. The statistics they use to justify their animosity are taken out of historical context, leading to other-wise well intentioned people voting in representatives who only have their own agenda in mind. Our institution will continue to abuse its role as our protector for as long as we are fighting each other.
As our institution becomes more comfortable, the number of civil violations they commit increases daily. This is the third tier of the pyramid, acts of discrimination.
Discrimination is systemic and used to further weaken anyone who opposes the agenda of the institution. Those in power target education, the work place, and access to necessities. They ban books, get rid of diversity training, close departments and criminalize any opposition. This results in homogenous environments with little to no checks and balances to the ideas that circulate.
It’s important to note that the farther up the pyramid we look, the less individual action is required to do the same amount of harm. While it is the direct result of the aforementioned disillusioned public- this is often the tier that people reject responsibility for. It is crucial that you, as the reader, acknowledge your role in the world around you. Collective effort has to start with individual accountability.
Inevitably, the same ideas used to keep people apart turn into physical violence (Stage 4).
Police brutality, hate crimes, assault, murder, rape.
When bigots feel safe, they feel invincible.
Think of the case of Emmett Till. Think of Maryland’s Kimar Abrego Garcia. Think of Sonya Massey. Think of the Pulse night club shooting. Think of all the missing and murdered indigenous women in the United States and Canada. There is nothing shocking about the United State’s regression. The hate is not new. The ideas are not new. They will continue to escalate until it is too late, and we find ourselves in a full fledged dictatorship. Start organizing. Start doing something. Be outraged, be angry, be violent. Be visible. Be loud. We look back at Jim Crow and wince, we look back at the holocaust in disbelief- don’t look at what’s happening right now and think it will pass. It won’t.
Stage 5, Organized Genocide.
Ethnic cleansing, lynching, mass murder.
If you try and explain away the prison camp in El Salvador, remember that Auschwitz is in Poland. Remember that the Nazis had camps in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Finland, and more. Leopold II committed mass murder not in Belgium but in the Congo. Stop ignoring things because they’re far away. Stop ignoring things because they are complicated. Stop ignoring history and what it can teach us. Please, before more people die.
There is a lot of subjects I briefly touch on without giving full context. This was intentional because if I wrote down every reason for everything that has ever happened, the message would get lost in the details. I will happily go more in depth about anything I touched on, and plan to do some media analysis to prove that these ideas have been around far longer than me. Thank you for listening.
We are stronger together.
