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"Nazis Are Very Nice, Polite People," She Said.
An awkward conversation brings about an uncomfortable truth.
Let's zip back to a long time ago, back before Trump was elected. At this point in American history, it was clear that there were way too many people who were way too comfortable using racial slurs and gender slurs. Yet, we weren't quite at Trump time.
I still wondered how Germany got to the point where Nazis were in control. After all, when Hitler rose to power, the Nazi party was only like, what, a third of the office or something?
Well, a friend of mine explained something quite uncomfortable to hear. She said, "You see, most Nazis are very nice people."
Excuse me, what?
When people think of Nazis, they think of people who committed atrocities that were absolutely shocking to the modern world. You might as well say that these people crawled out of hell because of how horrible they are.
But, there's a flipside to this: the people who were doing most of the atrocities were actually a small percentage of Germany. Those people are horrible, but what many people don't want to admit is the sheer number of Germans who were complicit.
You know how we often say that if there are six people sitting with a Nazi, there are seven Nazis at a table? Well, if you look at what that really means, that tends to mean that a lot of the nice, sweet old people living in Germany actually were Nazis.
They knew. They still voted for Hitler anyway, thinking that if they weren't at the end of the gun, they aren't guilty for what the government did. Even so, many of those old folks profited off Nazi greed.
There is a very deep, very pervasive social pressure to shut up and not ruffle feathers.
The pressure is real, and I can think of two examples that prove how easy it is to fall to that pressure.
Have you ever been at a dinner table with a person who was sucked into QAnon or right-wing politics? That one uncle who just doesn't ever shut up, and keeps turning the conversation to inane subjects?
I think we have all been there, especially during Thanksgiving. You quickly learn that arguing back can make that moron turn purple and start screaming until dinner is ruined. Or worse, it could even come to blows.
So, you sit there, try to ignore him, smile and nod, and eat quietly. Oftentimes, it's because your parents or the host practically begged you to shut up.
Or, maybe you were at a concert and you see some Nazi Skins waltz up into the place. You glare, but you stay silent. You ask security, but security shrugs and says they aren't hurting anyone and they paid.
You want to see the concert, so you stay — even though the venue clearly doesn't mind Nazi Skins showing up with those red laces. You don't want to cause a scene or get your face beaten in, so you say nothing.
You see, at this point, you're not doing anything wrong, per se. But, you're not doing anything right. You're polite. You're uncomfortably quiet about it. You don't want to cause problems, but the truth is, you're causing a bigger problem by not saying anything.
And yet, society pressures us to shut up because it's the polite, nice way to kick the can further down the road.
In the examples above, you can reasonably feel like you're still a nice person — because you're being nice.
Nice means you don't ruffle feathers or impose. Nice means you stay quiet so that the night doesn't end in a beatdown or a riot. Nice means you stay in your lane and try to make things pleasant. Nice is polite.
The problem with "nice" is that it normalizes accepting "not nice." And that emboldens the type of people who were gleeful about shoving Jews into a gas chamber, because they realize you're too nice to actually say anything.
And nice hopes that if you're nice to mean people, that the bad, controlling, fashie people will leave you alone. Hint: they don't return the favor. Niceness is often the same as weakness to people who yearn to hate and harm.
Nice is manipulative and self-serving. Nice is cowardly, because when you're nice, you're kowtowing to people who are going to hurt others so long as they don't hurt you. Nice seems innocent, until you turn around and realized you played yourself by not standing up for others.
Nice is useless when it comes to actually protecting your rights. Nice is insincere. Nice is the type of thing you call a person who smiles and is polite, but you know you can't trust because you don't know what they're saying.
The world needs way less nice people, because nice is what allows genocide to happen. Most Nazis are nice and they want you to be nice too. Stop being nice, start speaking up and getting angry.
Be the "rude" and "intolerant" person who tells the Nazis to get out the bar. Be the person who tells the dinner host that the fascist across the table is pissing you off, and that you're done.
Why? Because rude and brash and mean is what Nazis are afraid of.
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