Teaching Against Binaries: Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust in the Culture of Rhetorical Reversals

Abstract

As I highlighted in the last chapter, the type of critical teaching I am advocating has recently come under attack by what can be called a “rhetorical reversal.” We now live in a cultural climate where teachers who examine intolerance are called intolerant, where victims of prejudice are often seen as victimizers, and where perpetrators of prejudice are represented as victims. These reversals have been fueled by a concerted political attempt to downsize the demonized welfare state and to cut taxes for the wealthiest people in the United States. Within this political context, in order for the most powerful people to claim that they are the ones who really need tax breaks and special subsidies, the most dominant groups in our country have had to claim their own victim status.¹ Furthermore, the main way that these tax cuts have been rationalized is by attacking the “welfare state” and the perceived special treatment of minorities in America. In this reversed world, minorities are represented rhetorically as victimizing the majority by making the wealthy pay for welfare programs. Here we see how one of the central problems of basing one’s identity on a victim status is that it opens up the possibility for a rhetorical role reversal where the victimizer claims to be the victim, and the victims are seen as the victimizers.