Hope, I just need a ray of that

Unity in Community

We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization. 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.            

Why are people inclined to stereotype members of different groups?

Why do people risk their lives to help others? Why do some marriages flourish and others fail? How do orderly crowds turn into violent mobs?

           

Much of what social psychologists have learned about human behavior is invaluable (extremely useful, crucial, necessary, indispensable). Social psychological research on such topics as judgment and decision making, social influence and how people function in groups is relevant to many fields (business, public health, social work, education, law and medicine, as well as regular influences on government policy).

            Individual differences are people’s unique and stable patterns of thoughts, feelings, motives, and behaviors. We take cues for appropriate behavior; therefore, situations have the power to determine behavior, and in a STRONG situation, personality and individual differences and obscured. The main situational influences on our behavior are the actions of other people who cause us to be kinder or meaner, smarter or dumber, lazier or more hardworking. We rely on other people for clues about what emotions to feel in various situations and even to define who we are as individuals: The Power of the situation. The presence of others can be real, such as talking to a friend, imagined, such as preparing for a date, or implied, like stopping at a stop sign.

            We are the only species that forms large societies of genetically unrelated individuals in which people divide labor and cooperate for mutual benefit. Citizenship in the United States of America is a lifelong responsibility to the common good of your political community and the world. The common good depends on people taking action. Many people in American history have acted on the responsibilities of citizenship to achieve change. Individual action can inspire whole groups of people to get involved, and people working together is a more powerful and effective way to create change.

           

Some would say the most active citizens are those who devote their lives to the military or to political office. In 1774, George Washington was already a retired soldier and successful plantation owner in the American colonies when he led a meeting to discuss growing problems. That year, his fellow Virginians selected him to represent their colony at the First Continental Congress, a meeting of leaders from across colonies. The next year he would resume his military career, serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army and leading the colonies to defend their independence in the Revolutionary War. Washington then served as he country’s first president, always viewing himself as a public servant.

            In 1845, Frederick Douglass traveled the country and internationally, leading the fight against slavery and assisting various organizations in the fight for abolition. In 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery and began her famous trips back into the South to help family members and other slaves escape through what became known as the Underground Railroad. She risked he life over and over to help others. In 1872, Susan B. Anthony was a prominent woman’s suffrage leader in the later 19^th century, founding two organizations devoted to the cause. In 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; an organization that brought leaders of African American churches together to protest against racial inequality. His message and leadership live on today, memorializing him as one of the greatest activist citizens in American history.

           

Each of these people was a leader and part of a larger movement. They cannot claim sole credit for the effects of their actions, but their responsible citizenship inspired many others and helped create change. Many Americans know that service in an important citizen responsibility. Service is valuable; it is helping other people, being active in your community and contributing to the common good. The possibilities for service are endless. United, we serve to improve community’s ability to meet needs, to bring people together for a worthy cause, to improve quality of life, and to encourage understanding among people from different backgrounds. One person may belong to several communities. The nation’s history is the Foundation for certain values and principles that serve to unite Americans: Equality, Freedom, and Justice.

            In American politics, responsibility for upholding our system of laws and justice is dependent on both the government and the people. The government creates, enforces, and settles disputes over laws and provides order and safety to citizens. The government protects our basic rights; moreover, certain principles prevent the government from abusing people’s rights.

From Hate to Hope: Museum of Tolerance

"In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit." 

- Anne Frank

Upon my arrival to the Museum of Tolerance, I find out that I needed to make reservations to get inside, so I wandered around the city for two hours until I finally entered an experience worth sharing. I learned about the history of the center and their dedicated vision to educate and challenge visitors to understand the Holocaust in a contemporary context and to confront all forms of prejudice and discrimination in our world today.

It all started with Simon Wiesenthal, a Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor who was forced to work as a slave laborer in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, and then dedicated his life to track down fugitive Nazi war criminals so that they could be brought to trial. With a reputation as a storyteller, he became a writer and the author of several memoirs containing tales of the actual event.

With a mission statement dedicated to repair the world one step at a time, the Simon Wiesenthal Center was established in 1977, and the Center’s educational arm became The Museum of Tolerance, which was founded in 1993. The program generates changes by confronting anti-Semitism, hate and terrorism, and it promotes human rights and dignity. It fosters tolerance and understanding through community involvement, educational outreach and social action.

The building is a unique multimedia museum examining racism and prejudice around the world. The museum seems to attract people with troubling pasts. As I enter the center, the sites and the sounds of the city slowly diminish, and the unveiling of the museum quickly grabs my attention. Everybody coming to the museum gets an audio guide experience that enables visitors to seamlessly connect with exhibits throughout the journey in a personal way. I was able to get context about artifacts and themes on interactive screens throughout the exhibit space.

I knew that the Holocaust was a horrific event in Jewish history, one of the largest genocide in which approximately 6 millions Jews were killed by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime, but I also learned that there was an additional 5 million non-Jewish victims of Nazi mass murders, bringing the total to approximately 11 million killings, of which, 2 million were children. These people were thrown out of their houses to live like animals, 10 to 15 person per room, they worked hard slave labor seven days a week and obeyed the Nazis for survival, not knowing if their family members were alive or not, but knowing that they could die next:  People were dying every minute from disease and starvation.

Tibor Rubin is a Holocaust survivor who was awarded a Metal of Honor. He spent 14 months in a concentration camp where his parents, sister and brothers were killed. After the war, he moved to the U.S and joined the US army and he was able to save the lives of over 40 people during the Korean War using his survival skills that he learned during the Holocaust. He remembers his horrible childhood, but his story is courageous.

This center is a leading international Jewish NGO named in memory of the great Nazi hunters. Simon devoted his life to encourage people to learn the lessons from the horrors of World War II and the genocide against the Jewish people so it wouldn’t happen again. Everything that I saw at the museum of tolerance is really built to encourage us to learn from history and also to do some critical thinking and to take personal responsibility for our own actions. The good part about this museum is about contemporary issues, international terrorism, the plight of children around the world, as well as hate crimes right here in the United States. 

The museum is a tribute to The Holocaust Survivors and it is very important that we honor the lives of the families that didn’t survive the concentration camps and that we show respect to the ones that were able to escape. We must remember the past even though sometimes we don’t want to, but to make a difference in the world, we have to learn from previous mistakes.