View From a Prairie Home

by Hege Hernfindahl, Columnist

Friday the 27th of January was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day was instituted in 2005 by the United Nations General Assembly to remember the 6 million Jews, two-thirds of the European Jewish population. that were killed by the Nazi Regime under the twisted leadership of Adolf Hitler.

Each Remembrance Day has a theme, to help us narrow the vast historical subject of the Holocaust. One year, the theme was “Justice and Accountability.” Another theme has been “Liberation.” This year’s theme is “Ordinary People.” Ordinary People can turn a blind eye to the bully. They say “boys will be boys.” And call bullying “innocent easing.” But bullying left unchecked can become dangerous. It can lead to genocide like it did in Turkey. Or Cambodia. Or Rwanda. Or Uganda. Or in Nazi occupied Europe.

Last week, our granddaughter, Hanna, acted in a play about the Holocaust. In the play, called “Dark Road” written by Laura Lundgren Smith, the main character was an ordinary teenage girl, Greta, whose parents had been killed and who tried to take care of her younger sister. To earn money she took a job in a concentration camp as a guard. We saw how working with prisoners who were identified by numbers, not names, gradually changed Greta. How she went from a girl just trying to feed her sister and herself to a ruthless killing machine.

Prejudice can do that, which has always scared me. It has so many facets and, if unchecked, can be dangerous to any society. As a teacher of German, I felt we had to learn about our own tendency to pre-judge people before we studied the hard truth about what permitting prejudices to go rampant could do. Our discussions were revealing and of course, since I had planned it that way, we all came up with our (maybe) hidden biases.

Biases come from hidden or overt messages in the society where we feel we belong. It also can be a bonding thing. We can be in our own little, safe clique and bond over how terrible we think those black or gay or old or ill-dressed people are. Then we can feel happy with being accepted and liked.

Now I am learning that bias is actually formed in the amygdala part of the brain. The part that processes fearful and threatening stimuli. To analyze and label people and situations is the brain’s way of speeding up our decision-making process. It is tied to survival. In ancient times, we were safer with our own tribe.

Bias is a continuum from overt extreme prejudice to unconscious bias, which we all have. So, bias is prejudice against or in favor of a certain individual or group. And it is harmful because it is systemic. We do best when we, as humans, can work together and not harm each other with unfounded hate.

To combat bias, we have to start with ourselves. What triggers prejudice in us? Do we judge people for how poor they look or how old they are? Or how their appearance doesn’t really fit our perception of gender? Why does it really bother us how people look? We are all children of God. We can’t help how we look. Maybe we should smile at people who are different rather than judge them? Maybe our smile will even brighten their day.

Learning about the Holocaust taught me that the Nazis even executed handicapped people. Reading has taught me that Norway has the highest percentage of Jews sent to Auschwitz during World War II. Research has taught me that countries with the highest percentage of racial prejudice have a history of colonialism and slavery. The same research also showed me that learning about our sometimes dark history of racism does raise awareness and helps counter systemic bias based on race and other forms of prejudice and hate.