Amaya Holliday

Nazi Punching Seminar Reflection

September 5, 2017

During the seminar, Henry referred to the NPR interview, A Reformed White Supremacist

Speaks Out About Charlottesville. He agreed with Piccolini on the solution to solving white

supremacy is by making a way for white supremacists to humanize minorities. Henry said, If

you punch them you are not giving them a reason to change people. I agree because if we are

violent towards white supremacist, their bodys natural instinct will take over and they will want

to physically defend themselves. Henrys comment helped me understand what Piccolini was

saying in the NPR interview more because during the seminar my opinion changed many times

on how we should treat to racists. Additionally, I was surprised how most of the class agreed

they would not punch a Nazi. Even though I was proud of how our class agreed violent acts

towards anyone are unacceptable, I would have loved more diversity in the conversation. Next

seminar, I might encourage myself and others to play devils advocate, to bring more

perspectives to the conversion.

Violence is not the solution to any problem. Lately, the media has been examining the question

is it ethical to punch a Nazi? This was the result of the punching of a white supremacist speaker

at Trumps inauguration. I personally do not agree with white supremacists views on race, yet I

would never punch someone without a cause, of course, with the exception of self-defense. In

a VICE article, We Asked an Ethicist if it is Okay to Punch a Nazi, VICE asked Richard Cohen,

an ethicist and he responded, We don't want a society that encourages thuggish behavior,

where if someone has politics different from yours, you get to beat them up. If everyone went
around punching people who dont share the same political and ideological beliefs as they do,

there would be mass chaos. Our country was founded with the idea everyone could openly

express their credence.

Additionally, if we punch Nazis, this will not change their ideas. According to Christian Picciolini,

in his interview, A Reformed White Supremacist Speaks Out on Charlottesville's, by NPR, he

said, when they (white supremacists) receive compassion from the people they least deserve

it from, when they least deserve it, that, to me, is the most transformative process. Instead of

meeting their violence with more violence, we should lead by example by showing them

compassion. Someone who is racist is not going to be persuaded when the person he is racist

against is trying to harm them, that is justifying their beliefs. Moreover, everyone in America has

the right to their free speech and that does not mean you have to agree with them, but everyone

deserves the right to their own opinion without being met by force, as long as they are not

harming another. If we want to transform racist perspectives in this world, we need to stop trying

to fight them physically and instead try to work through understanding and compassion toward

greater unity.

I believe I deserve an A on my Seminar Reflection. My writing exceeds in all areas of the rubric.

My work is organized into paragraphs that flow. I used transition words to introduce new topics

in order to make my idea not sound choppy. All my ideas were thought out and I considered the

white supremacists viewpoint when I was constructing my response to the guiding question. I

used evidence in every paragraph to add more legitimacy to my ideas. Additionally, I cited all

my evidence properly, and I even asked for Ashleys help to make sure I was correctly citing.

Furthermore, I used a wide variety of simple, compound, and complex sentences throughout my
writing. This is demonstrated by using the compound-complex sentence, I personally do not

agree with white supremacists views on race, yet I would never punch someone without a

cause, of course, with the exception of self-defense. Moreover, my area of growth is with

editing and grammatical errors, even after reading over my work, I tend to miss many mistakes

(additional information in my 504). I feel I still deserve an A in the area because I read over it

many times, had my dad read it, and used Grammarly. Lastly, one of the strengths I offered in

my reflection was using powerful words like when I used the word credence (written in the last

sentence of the second paragraph) to emphasize my arguments.