Putting a George Floyd tribute in a Holocaust memorial center feels like a cultural Kafka trap

In a time when everyone is looking for dumb takes to slam people over, traps are set to do just that. Placing a George Floyd tribute in a Florida Holocaust memorial center is a perfect set-up to paint those who disagree as racist.

There are many descriptions I can use for opening a George Floyd exhibit within the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center in Orlando, none of them good. However, there is a general issue that I find with this scenario beyond any offensiveness. This entire scenario of linking Holocaust to Floyd’s gruesome death comes across like a Kafka trap.

For the uninitiated, a Kafka trap is a question that is asked that does not have a good answer. The goal of this trap is for the person asking the question to get the person being questioned to incriminate themselves. It's a very dirty trick. The situation with the Florida Holocaust Center feels like a similar situation. There is an obvious cultural statement that the political left wants to make, and they want anyone who criticizes it to look bad while they do it.

The purpose of having a George Floyd tribute inside of a Holocaust museum is to compare what happened to Floyd to the brutality of the Nazi regime. To the sensible person, there can be an agreement that George Floyd did not have to die. However, comparing what happened to him to the horrors of Bergen-Belsen or Auschwitz is beyond absurd. The absurdity is why they do it.

Whichever stance you express on this, the trap will be sprung. If you call out the absolute idiocy of this move, the left will smear you as a racist. If you don't, you are complacent in allowing something that makes light of the Holocaust. It’s a dirty trick that is using the dead to try to win political points.

In debate or at any other point, the best way to address a Kafka trap is to point out the absurdity of its existence. In this scenario, it is patently absurd to link anything George Floyd-related to the Holocaust – simply because George Floyd’s killing, however despicable, had nothing to do with it! You can mourn his loss without devaluing a part of history that we should never forget.

What disturbs me about all of this is the cultural aspect of the decision. We are at a point where people are willing to devalue historic tragedies to gain some sort of political victory against their perceived enemies. This sort of tactic is so pathetic I can't feel anything but sorrow for it. In our modern culture, we're getting way too used to standing on people's graves. Now people are looking at ways to use those that have departed this Earth in tragic manners as a cudgel against their fellow man.

Think about it this way. Since George Floyd has died it has been extremely difficult to discuss what actually needs to change to make sure that what happened to him doesn't happen again. The responses have been nothing but extreme, with some trying to focus too much on the character of Floyd and not enough on his rights, and others trying to use him as a reason to abolish police forces. Whenever such things happen, there is an opportunity to look at the scenario and learn from it in a way that can make sure that we progress as a society. Where is the desire to do so? It doesn't exist, and has been replaced with sentiment that parades around the body of George Floyd like a puppet.

I think that it's time for a bit of bipartisan sanity. This Kafka trap needs to be called out by both sides because it's absolutely detestable. If we find ourselves unable to do so, learning from the mistakes that humanity makes will become a thing of the past.

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