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In reply to the discussion: My parents grew up in Nazi Germany. [View all]BumRushDaShow
(147,141 posts)called that for obvious reasons. Yes it is the SAME place where the infamous Revolutionary War "Battle of Germantown" took place and where several of the mansions from that period still stand (as museums), with signs of that battle still etched on their exteriors. It is also where President George Washington fled during the yellow fever outbreak, taking refuge in a home that would be used as the "White House" at the time, in the early 1790s.
Yet Germantown ALSO became one of the biggest hotbeds for ABOLITIONISTS among the religious sect known as the "Friends" (Quakers)) (a group that founder of Pennsylvania - William Penn - belonged to), but only after many decades of soul-searching.
The London-born Penn went traveling through what is currently Germany, and triggered a significant immigration of the disaffected there, to settle here in PA, forming what would be Germantown, as well as the many communities of the current Amish ( "Pennsylvania (Dutch) Deutsch" ) and Mennonites, etc.
Throughout this country's history, there have been cycles of discovery and illumination, followed by oppression, suppression and purging.
Even the term "Multiculturalism", which was an attempt to resurrect the concept of equal rights after the purge of "Affirmative Action" as a remedy to the horrors of the past that triggered the Civil Rights movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, was itself destroyed, in a historic sense, and that eventually (and quietly) gave rise to a new term - "DEI" (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion).
And now, before our own eyes, THAT is being purged from existence.
The irony of the United States is that you have a portion of those who flee the oppression and fascism from their native countries, to come here to find peace and some kind of acceptance, but who often end up actually reproducing the same sort of oppression that they fled, right here - IF they feel THEY are at the top, because they find they can reap the benefits of it, and will support those who continue to suppress the rest of us.
It's all they knew before coming here and probably thanks to what had to have been some modicum of PTSD from their past, lead them to salve the pain in that manner.
I do appreciate your thoughtful posts and perspectives as that is what makes DU a great place to be!
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