Ian Howarth
Jul 23, 2017 · 2 min read

We here in Canada hear and see what is happening everywhere in the U.S., usually, of course, not the best of news that comes out of our major trading partner’s cities and countrysides. As a man of a certain age, I have been following black oppression since the civil rights movement picked up steam in the early-to-mid ‘60s and beyond. I have taught a bit of it to my students while a high school teacher. many Canadians welcomed and celebrated the election of Barack Obama. And subsequently many of us mourn the current administration and it regressive leader. But as some writers before you, Eve, have tried, evoking elements of the Holocaust to make an analogy puts your arguments on shaky ground. The possible or anticipated “occupation” or separation of the city of Chicago by authorities to control it and remedy its problems by any means necessary can never — and will never — compare to what happened to the Warsaw Ghetto during WW II.

Starting in 1942, 400,000 Jews were fenced in and imprisoned by the Nazis. More than a quarter of a million were deported to death camps like Treblinka and close to another 100,000 starved to death or died from hunger-related diseases, virtually wiping out the Jewish citizens of Warsaw.

Do we think this could happen to Chicago or any other racially troubled city in the U.S.? I think not, but this rhetoric seems to have been put on the front burner by President Trump during his election campaign. The political air travelling north across the 49th parallel seems particularly foul since last November