‘”Never Again” means one thing and one thing only. And don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.’
I don’t believe in “oppression Olympics.”
Human beings the world over who are persecuted, subjugated, ethnically cleansed, left behind, or targeted for violence in any way — be they innocent children gunned down at an American school or a minority community trampled under the jackboot of a totalitarian regime — deserve our attention, compassion, and aid. We should be able to recognize the legitimate suffering of others without qualifiers or caveats or above all, feeling the need to displace one victim to make room for another.
Which is why I am so disturbed by the coopting of the phrase “Never Again.”
I’m not sure if anyone watched the Oscars — likely not, its ratings hit an all-time low this year, and rightly so. If you did bother to tune in, however, you may have caught the moment when host Jimmy Kimmel rattled off a list of solidarity hashtags and movements like MeToo. But, included in Jimmy’s laundry list — right there at the end — was also a quiet mumble of… what was that I heard?
It was: “Never Again.”
Of course Kimmel was not referring to the Holocaust or present day victims of anti-Semitism. That much was clear the moment he uttered those two inviolable words. No, he recited them as if they had just been coined by March for Our Lives, the political movement currently exploiting the tragic Parkland shooting and appropriating a solemn vow made by and for and to the Jewish people following our genocide.
