www.whyville.net Dec 5, 2002 Weekly Issue


Classifications of the Past

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Classifications of the Past


bettyjoe
Times Writer

This is long, but PLEASE read it, or at least skim through it.

Lately there have been some articles about some issues that I thought were long ago dead. I haven't really been on Whyville too much lately, so I pretty much just come on and read the articles, check my mail and get off again. I don't bother to talk to a lot of people, because, well, they are pretty much starting to bore me. Not that they are boring, but it's always the same thing, about the discrimination against newbies. Yes, that's what I said, discrimination.

In society today, we find it unfair to classify people into certain groups. Yet, for some reason when we come on this website, which is a sort of replica of real life, shouldn't we be able to change all the rules? And somehow we find this discrimination fair, so we keep it... is that what's going on?

Well, I don't see why we do it. Discriminating is classifying people into groups and saying that each of these groups should get a different treatment than the other, all because they don't know as much, or even look different. You know yourself that you wouldn't go up to someone in real life and say, "I'm smarter than you, so you can't talk to me," or, "You're ugly, go away!"

Simply and plainly, why bring it up? Differences are what make us us -- okay, so this may sound a bit on the corny side, but really do you want 6 billion people EXACTLY like you in every way? That makes for no debates, no personality -- everything would become dry and un-entertaining.

Putting people into groups causes disturbances. One of the most famous for this that I can think of is Hitler. Discrimination usually leads to racism as well, but the newbie/oldie discussion hasn't gone this far -- yet. Anyway. My point is, Hilter put people into groups. If you weren't like his "ideal", you had to go to concentration camps. Many people couldn't even see their families again. Millions died. You had to have blonde hair and blue eyes, and be of Hilter's faith, and then he would think about sparing you.

Usually I wouldn't go into the great deal about these camps, but I really want you to see what I am talking about. This quote came from http://205.202.3.9/rogerkyle.html:

    "The first Concentration Camps were established in 1933. By 1939, there were six camps. They were named Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Burherwald,Mauthausen, Flossenburg, and Ravensbruck. Prisoners in these camps were also used for barbaric medical experiments. Most concentration camps were made to kill Jews. It is believed that 18 to 26 million people were killed in them."

What happened was that these people were put into camps. They had to do horrendous slave labour and such. Then, if and when they were chosen to be killed, they had to march to the crematoriums and gas chambers where they would be put to death. An informative site to look at for photos and more information is http://www.remember.org/camps/

    "Among many other speudo-scientific "experiments", SS doctors removed organs from living people, bottled and stored them on shelves in the dissecting room. They skinned prisoners with interesting tattoos and sold them as book covers, gloves, luggage and lamp shades. One physician selected two prisoners with near perfect teeth and used their heads as paperweights on his desk. One questions the motivation of such acts."
    --site above

Now, to the Point. Why bring all this up? We are supposed to learn from the mistakes of the past, but instead here we are trying to find the way of distinguishing between oldies and newbies. Just don't anymore, there is no reason. By weaning at it, we are digging a hole. Unless listened to, History repeats itself.

You may think that it's just a website, but soon you will be taking this out to the rest of the world. Then, as each of us continue to discriminate and fail to understand people different from ourselves, we will have another world war, based on not caring enough to learn about these other people. We will have a new Hitler, more KKK, etc.

Don't let this start... keep the peace. As far as I am concerned, peace is not solved through war -- but through listening to the teachings of the past.

Thanks,
~bettyjoe~

 

 

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