Re: condemning geographical categories

Problematizing each word and phrase in a sentence can, in the hands of a
creative person, produce a "complex" configuration of sentences that for
some probably represents deep and meaningful prose (maybe even poetry).

For others, who recognize the real terror of racial/ethnic segmentation
cited in the "problematic sentence," the exercise lacks realism, if not a
great deal of sensitivity.

Ordinary understandings of words in a sentence are usually good enough to
communicate historical facts and meaningful interpretations of those facts
(although some have a problem with pairing "historical" with "facts").
After all, the sentence in question is really true. Ordinary Latvians, as
well as Lithuanians and Ukranians, really did beat Jews to death.

When all the verbal barnacles are scrapped off the "textual analysis" of
my sentence it approximates, perhaps unintentionally, an argument I hear a
lot "down here" in the "American South," in the state of "Tennessee":
"Hey, SOME whites oppressed blacks. So don't talk about whites oppressing
blacks or the South oppressing blacks." (I have never had anybody say,
"Actually, the South is not really the South," so it is not a perfect
analogy.)

Of course whites oppressing blacks was never about "whites" harming
"blacks." Instead, it was about whites oppressing blacks, with some
members of the oppressor group actively perpetrating violence, and most of
the rest of the members passively perpetrating violence by failing to stop
the active members. The police play an important role in this by failing
to stop violence against blacks.

"Oh, and of course 'the Jews' were not included among the
'citizens'--otherwise we have a logical problem with the sentence."

Including Jews among citizens of a country presents no logical problems,
even if some citizens beat other citizens. The quoted sentence seeks to
make something of nothing.

However, my sentence carries an important reality: Jews could not be
singled out for systematic violence by dominant ethnic groups unless their
status as members of the national community was diminished. It is usually
the case that to the extent that groups are considered more complete
citizens they are not singled out for group persecution (rather only for
individual persecution for disobedience to the state). Jews, the perennial
European other, was something of a non-citizen, as were (and still are)
blacks in the United States, who have only recently been formally
included, and have never been substantively including in the "domain of
the people."

I would hope we could avoid excessive and needless parsing of words.

Andrew Austin
Knoxville, TN