1 - Charlotte's question
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.
Robert Burns, Man Was Made to MournOn a warm summer evening in 1941, the Christians in Jedwabne, Poland, herded their Jewish neighbors into a barn, closed the door, and set it on fire. On a rainy day in April 1994 the Catholic Rwandan Hutu parishioners and clergy macheted to death their fellow Catholic Rwandan Tutsi parishioners and clergy. In 1920s America, while White girls were flapping and drinking champagne, the Black girls of Rosewood Florida, Elaine Arkansas, and Tulsa Oklahoma were fleeing for their lives as their homes were torched by angry mobs.
Why? What would possess the perpetrators in Laramie Wyoming to kill a 5′2″ 105 lb. homosexual named Matthew Shepard?
Experts are just beginning to understand the extent and nature of such a mindset. It sounds very strange to most of us because such a mindset wants to kill not only Matt Shepard, but also all homosexuals. Then, under the right conditions, the same mindset would search for those who were sympathetic to gays and kill them as well. In genocide, such mindedness would seek out those with ideas that are too liberal, too effete or artistic – all would be game for the genocidal mind. And when the entire population of homosexuals and their lackeys have been killed, those with the mindset would not rest. New enemies would be created, sought, and destroyed. For them, there is no end to the hate and even a joy in hating.
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- Information
- The Psychology of GenocidePerpetrators, Bystanders, and Rescuers, pp. 16 - 70Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008