[JackdawX]

> Imagine what it is like to be black in a country where just a few generations back you carried at all times in mixed-race race situations the possibility of being assaulted without recourse or lynched, or in present times accused and convicted of a crime you didn't commit or shot on sight for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

> Imagine what it is like to be Jewish and have 85% of your relatives systematically wiped out in living memory.

I think you're taking a devils advocate position here, but this is interesting if true. I'm not sure how the actions of people 60-80 years ago should affect how we view ~20-year-olds today? For example, how is the behaviour of white germans in 1945 related to white americans or british in either 1945 or 2015? I think we were on the opposite side of that war.

As for black lynchings in the american south, again this is a localised issue. But lets say your university is in an area where it happened, how likely is it that someones grandfather was involved in a lynching? Pretty small. But even if they were, should someone today be associated with their grandparents criminal behavior? I don't see how.

[maaku]

These things get carried forward culturally. The modern Jewish experience is very much rooted in the Holocaust, and the fear that it might happen again at any time. The Holocaust was not the first, or even the largest such pogrom -- note that there is a word coined precisely to describe genocide events targeting jews -- it was just the closest to the current generation of jews in western countries. It's hard to explain politics regarding present-day Israel without this context, for example. So yes, many Jews can relate with growing up being told that there were exterminators around every corner and that does have consequences..

Likewise, although I have less personal experience here, even if lynchings were not everyday events or impacted every black American family, the cultural impact carried forward can still be profound.

And yes, I am taking a devil's advocate position. In many cases such as those described in the OP and other comments here political correctness has been taken way, way to far. There is a difference between incitement and a listener's general uncomfort with subject matter. Especially in the context of a university there must be a free exchange of ideas and the ability to have discourse on any subject matter without fear of academic retribution or censorship.

[hnamazon123]

> It's hard to explain politics regarding present-day Israel without this context, for example.

Not really. The Holocaust wasn't a factor in deciding to build a wall along the West Bank. The suicide bombers that would drive from Ramallah to Tel Aviv and blow themselves up in restaurants were.

Europeans and liberals have constructed this narrative that you are espousing. They want to believe that the Holocaust is the key to understanding Israeli policy. This allows them to dismiss Israeli policy decisions in the face of geopolitical events as simply an irrational and tragic response to their cultural trauma.

It's straight up paternalism and it's disgusting.