Hello, My name is Bradley Kautenburg, I am writing this in response to one of my friends views of the world. She believes that white people are ignorant, she also believes that white people are the only ones in this world who hate. She along with what she calls Black Empowerment groups believe that hate and ignorance are the defining qualities of the White Race. She has taken to using Guilt tactics to try and make me and other white people guilty about the past of my ethnicity, I will not stand for this and here is why. I am a German-American, My family immigrated to America before WWI, but I am certain that I had relatives who fought on the side of the Axis powers in both world wars, I also have had relatives who fought on the Allied sides as well. Pretty much all threw out my school career the when ever the topic of ancestry came up I would always say Im German (being over 80% German thats the nationality that I identify my ethnicity as). Its no secret that kids can be very cruel, so sometimes I would get asked if I was a Nazi, or if I hated Jews. For a long time it bothered me that that was my Identity in the world was, being a German-American automatically made me guilty of War Crimes in some of my classmates minds. But I am not ashamed of my families history, sure there are some parts that I look back on and have to ask myself why did they do that. But I always come to the same conclusion that I cannot change the past, and it doesnt pay to dwell. We as a society must move forward and stop opening old wounds and start healing. Do I feel bad that a country that I associate with allowed Genocide to happen? Sure I do. Do feel guilty? No. I do not feel and refuse to feel guilt over something that I didnt do. Just as I dont feel guilt over black slavery even though part of my family may have held slaves at one time (most of my family is newer to America, but On my dads side we go back pre-revolution). I couldnt have changed the events that my forefathers put in motion, but I can change the world that I live in and I can effect the here and now, so thats what I intend to do. If I leave the world worse off then I found it then I will feel guilt. My name is Bradley Kautenburg and I am a proud German-America, who refuses to have the guilt of the past, thrust on me. Because that is not who I am, I am not a Nazi or slaveholder. I am just me and it pains me that people associate me and my family with Nazis and Slaveholders I challenge everyone of my friends to post a letter on Facebook. In this letter talk about a personal stereotype that you refuse to tolerate. If we do this that together we might just change the world in a positive way. P.s. Facebook only let me tag 20 people so I tagged the people I know who I thought would take this the most seriously or were a good cross section of people so that more then one group of people were tagged in this post. I look forward to reading some of your letters. Be sure to challenge your friends to write letters too.
Posted on: Sun, 30 Nov 2014 04:33:28 +0000
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