Um, no

[yendi]

Hitler quotes in yearbook prompt apology

Compton's father, Steven, said that his son meant no harm in picking the quote. "I guess he didn't seriously consider the source; he was more interested in the quote," he said. "He's a child."

I cry bullshit. He's 18. That's not a fucking child, no matter immature he might be. Congrats, Mr. Compton -- you raised yourself a right little racist there.

Comments

[murnkay.livejournal.com]

He's a rascist because

A) He quoted Mien Kampf at all

B) He picked out some quotes that, qithout having an author attributed to them, a lot of people would agree with

C) Because Hitler was involved at alkl and we should just banish everything with him no matter what ever and ever amen oh my god no don't look you'll go blind.

Because I'm confused here.

[windswept.livejournal.com]

ditto ditto ditto

[crystalrowan.livejournal.com]

I agree - reading the quotes (without knowing the source) I don't see any implied racism.

[dhole.livejournal.com]

I was more struck by the last line of the article:

Northport is located about 47 miles east of New York City.

Because demented writing choices always interest me more than the point the writer is trying to make.

Always.

[silversmoke.livejournal.com]

Here via murnkay, but my first reaction was: I wonder, given the nature of the quotes, if the kids were making a political statement. Notice that neither of the quotes has anything to do with purity, rather, one could be seen as a tongue-in-cheek assesment of our current war on terror:

"Strength lies not in defense, but in attack."

and the other, could be seen as a VERY apt summation of that very war:

"The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."

Given the location of the kids, I'd say you shouldn't rule out the fact that they were trying to see who would nod and say "gee, those are clever quotes", and then they'd spring the source on them. After they were "caught", they might have just lost their steam.

[dr-nebula.livejournal.com]

I was thinking along those same lines - it does have a political ring to it.

The second quote is often *very* true - and we have seen this used many times to great effect. The 'big lie' is a very effective type of propaganda - such as the current jingoism surrounding "weapons of mass destruction".

[trouvera.livejournal.com]

from CNN The quotes were picked by Christopher Koulermos and Philip Compton, both 18. Koulermos' read "Strength lies not in defense, but in attack." Compton chose "The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one."

hmmm, I don't know. While it's certainly unfortunate that they were quotes from Hitler, I don't know that I'd argue with the actual content of the quotes in isolation, at least as far as the current political mentality. I can easily imagine Cheney or Rumsfeld speaking the first, and how much difference is there between the second and the comments not so long ago about 'leaving the reality based community behind' or whatever the exact quote was.

There doesn't seem to be anything about the kids other than that they apologized. I can see this being a case of highly intelligent kids attempting satire and failing spectacularly miserably. Were they trying to make a connection between the contemporary right wing and fascist Germany? Between the gullibility of current American sheep and those in 1930 Germany? Of all the Hitler quotes possible, within and beyond Mein Kampf (and I admit that I haven't read it), it seems that these were selected quite carefully to avoid notice as being particularly offensive other than the souce, which I assume wasn't noted anywhere. I'd also be interested in knowing how the source was identified - did the kids boast to too many people? Did someone somewhere (adult? other student) recognize the quote?

There's a lot of ambiguity here...Which is not to say I condone the action, even if it was intended as political commentary.

[windswept.livejournal.com]

I dunno - the sentiment of that kid's choice is true enough. And it might have been an "in your face" choice rather than a racist one. Seems like a lot of hoopla.

[melvh.livejournal.com]

Not sure I agree with you, yendi.

I agree that being 18, the kid in question isn't a child & probably knew exactly what he was saying and why.

But I don't necessarily agree the quoting Hitler makes you a racist. Even bad men sometimes manage to come up with catchy expressions of ideas. If Christopher Koulermos had said "The best defense is a good offense" instead, would the sentiment be less upsetting? Same concept, different source.

I don't know off the top of my head if there's a paraphrase of Philip Compton's quote out there, though if there is, I expect it likely came out of the mouth of P.T. Barnum.

I think the school over-reacted. There was nothing wrong with what was said. No one seems to be objecting to the content of the quotes, just the source. And if no one made a big deal out of it, I suspect few people would have been able to even identify the source. It's not like Mein Kampf is a required read in this country's grade schools.

Whoever created the mountain from the molehill deserves the smack-down.

[yndy.livejournal.com]

Everyone else has already said it.

I don't believe it was a matter of racism so much as a matter of quoting someone in order to shock - with statements that are actually relevant to the current events in this country.

18 doesn't realize that quoting Hitler is more than quoting someone's words... it's also putting a name out there that stands for so much more than just the words.

Tempest in a Teapot that should've been caught by the Yearbook Advisor.

Then again - we didn't allow 'senior quotes' in ours (back in 1984) for the very reason that it opened the door to stupidity with a permanence.

[jerel.livejournal.com]

Perhaps yendi and I are in the minority here. But I also call BS.

Regardless of whether or not the sentiments of the quote are true--and we've certainly seen the truth of the second one in the recent past--we cannot ignore the connotations that go along with the words, meaning the intention of the "person" behind them. We cannot ignore the fact that these words were written to justify the systematic extermination of an entire people:

--"Strength lies in attack": put through my Hitler-translator, this means "we must get the Jews before they take over."

--"more easily fall victim to a big lie": no one believed the truth of the concentration camps, even as various eyewitnesses carried the truth across Europe. However, people were willing to believe that the Jews were in a place where the Third Reich was being nice to them.

[marlowe1.livejournal.com]

Just because they were put forth as arguments for extermination doesn't mean that they weren't true.

Had Hitler been killed shortly after writing those words, the Holocaust would have been avoided.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

I think Hitler once said "Good morning", does that make those words racist in every context? The "big lie" is an important concept in propaganda, advertising, and politics in the modern era. The origin of that quote, when used as commentary on our current administration gives it extra bite.

I'm withholding judgement until I hear something other than one of the kids parents trying to weasel. If they were aiming for racist, they went both subtle and acadmenic. Not qualities I usually associate with teenage nazis.

"Dude, want to be famous?"

[silme.livejournal.com]

Yearbook quotes are a doorway to lawsuits. I say this as a yearbook adviser who inherited an award-winning yearbook with quotes. I could have killed my predecessor for bringing them in!

I wanted to get rid of them. We lost rating points from both Columbia and National Scholastic Press Associations because of them. They're highly unprofessional (and I advised a very professional book). Oh, and I didn't want my ass on the line for some kid being a kid.

However, it was very difficult; the kids protested, and, and in Boulder, that meant a lot. Therefore, we kept the quotes, but the editors and I went through them with a fine-tooth comb. On the quote forms given to seniors, we always typed that we reserved the right to edit or cut quotes in their entirety. Anything that even rubbed me the wrong way went right to the principal for her (first) or his (later) approval. And I kept their handwritten notes telling me it was okay to publish them.

Oh, and I also required that all quotes include the original authors, be they from song lyrics, novels, history, etc. In that case, they would have had to have written 'Adolf Hitler' next to the quote. It sounds as if this book didn't require kids to attribute the quote to anyone -- they just printed quotes that the editors and adviser probably didn't recognise.

19 years as a yearbook adviser I had -- 17 in Colorado, two in England at an American school.

[dadandgirl.livejournal.com]

I'd nearly guarantee that these kids thought they were being cute - taking a quote from a reviled source and using it here to see if anybody notices. 'Cause when you're eighteen and you've read a few books, you think you're smarter and more literate than the rest of the universe.

[silme.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call that attitude 'cute', though.

[dwivian]

I've gotta go with the masses -- looks like a protest comment against our current government's actions, not a racist point.

[wakingdreaming.livejournal.com]

I don't see any racism in the simple act of quoting Hitler. The quotes made valid points that were also heavy with irony due to their source. I think it would be a fair guess that raising the point of this irony was the students' actual motives, though I don't know for sure.

Steven Compton's "defense" of his son's choice of quotes seems unfortunate and rather idiotic, and I agree that an eighteen year old is not a child, however, we don't even know for sure if this was the father's ONLY statement regarding the incident or if it was just the only comment the media decided to print, for purposes of brevity, spin, or something else.

[ebon-hawk.livejournal.com]

just because it is quoted from Hitler it doesnt make him a racist. i mean ok what Hitler did was indescribably ghastly and unforgivable, but you have to recognize the amount of power that one man had to have the entire world come down on him and lay a royal beatdown .. over the course of 5 years and with the loss of many many lives.

when i read them as 20 yr-old i wouldnt know where they were from and as a indian and canadian citizen who is vehemently against the current US gov't it seems to have a lot of relevant implications to it. and having been an 18y/o kid more than years ago, i can vouch for the mental maturity for myself and 90% of my peers saying that we were total idiots!! had one of us had those quotes u could expect it to be quoted at some point in time.