Posted on 08/09/2005 5:39:43 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
A leading Holocaust Studies institute wants entertainers Harry Belafonte, Dick Gregory, and Woody Allen to retract their recent statements comparing the Bush administration, Israelis, and black conservatives to Nazis.
As Cybercast News Service reported, Belafonte over the weekend used a Hitler analogy when asked what impact prominent blacks such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had on the Bush administration's relations with minorities.
"Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich. Color does not necessarily denote quality, content or value," Belafonte said in an exclusive interview with Cybercast News Service.
That's incorrect, said Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which describes itself as a research and education institute focusing on America's response to the Holocaust.
"Some entertainers simply don't know much about history," said Medoff. "The fact is that there were no Jews in Hitler's hierarchy; the policies of America and Israel are not similar to those of Hitler; and African-American conservatives are not comparable to Nazis."
The Wyman Institute (located at Gratz College in suburban Philadelphia) is urging the three entertainers to publicly retract their "inaccurate and hurtful" remarks about Hitler and the Holocaust.
"Such analogies pollute public discourse by trivializing the brutal horrors committed by the Nazis," Medoff said.
"Hitler was a maniacal dictator whose regime systematically annihilated six million Jews, and launched a world war that caused the deaths of more than forty million people. How can any reasonable person put Hitler and the Nazis in the same sentence as American or Israeli leaders, or black conservatives?"
Comedian Dick Gregory, also interviewed by Cybercast News Service, said that African-American conservatives "have a right to exist, but why would I want to walk around with a swastika on my shirt after the way Hitler done messed it up?"
Earlier this summer, comedian and filmmaker Woody Allen told the German magazine Der Spiegel: "The history of the world is like, he kills me, I kill him -- only with different cosmetics and different castings: so in 2001 some fanatics killed some Americans, and now some Americans are killing some Iraqis. And in my childhood, some Nazis killed Jews. And now, some Jewish people and some Palestinians are killing each other." (Der Spiegel, June 20, 2005)
They have. I saw Gregory do that on Hannity & Colmes last night.
Personally, I wish the media would just ignore these guys. Their opinions are not worth airing.
They won't bother to respond. In their twisted minds, they know all, everyone else is wrong and due to their status as "celebrities" all are to bow down to their great intellect.
After all, don't ya know a person who once sang a hit song, made a hit movie and acted the part of a fictional character knows more than the rest of the planet.
I rather doubt it.
What did he say to defend his argument? Let me guess, his years of being an actor somehow made him an expert in world history?
The university of Hollywood cesspool is full of these "fellows".
First of all Dick Gregory is not a comedian.
Second of all, you don't "urge" traitors to retract their statements and apologize. You demand it.
I'm thinking hell will freeze over before these buffoons apologize. I don't understand why the press gives these idiots and people like them any air time at all, that's half the problem, if the press had a collective brain they would ignore all of hollywood, period.
I wonder Mr. B can cite any examples... except of course for Hitler himself who always had his own self-doubts.
shh dont let the facts get in the way of a left wing rant
If I had the resources, I'd send all of Hollywood a basic western civ textbook and a dictionary.
As one radio personality correctly diagnosis it, "liberalism is a mental disorder" and these nuts demonstrate it.
The more these wackos spew their hatred, the more the democratic party dwindles in oblivion. They still don't get it that rational people can't support an irrational party.
Question is, when will the Republicans start getting back on track and actually start limiting Government? I think I know the answer to my question. NEVER. Maybe the Republicans should just create a new motto. "Republicans! The NEW Democrat Party for the 21st Century"
Understatement of the decade.
Celebrities never cease to amaze me.
Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich.
If so, they were probably over-paid entertainers.
These pukes are as entertaining as a dose of the clap and dumber than a box of rocks.
Obviously, they're just a bunch of anti-Semites.
TS
(how do you guys like it?)
A bunch of has-been's living in their self righteous little worlds.
Dick Gregory already tried to defend his statements, but found himself digging even deeper in to a racist hole as he retorted something like 'I don't need no white boy tellin me what to think' to the reporter.
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