The end of the article should have been the beginning.

Vail yanks residency with artist over painting referencing Gaza

The town reached out to Danielle SeeWalker in early January to offer the Lakota painter and muralist a studio and stipend, but backpedaled after residents complained about the politics of one of her paintings after it was posted to her Instagram.

[…]

Three days after the news release hit the town’s website, it was removed and replaced with a statement, emphasizing the fact that her art had turned from focusing on Native Americans to the crisis in Gaza.

“I tried to explain my position, tried to understand more about the community’s concerns, but they just talked over me and ended the call,” SeeWalker said. The call lasted “a minute and a half, tops. And that was probably the most disappointing part of the whole thing,” she said. “The disrespect.”

SeeWalker said she painted “G is for Genocide” in recognition of the parallels between the plight of Native Americans in the U.S. and the crisis in Gaza.

“It’s about erasing a culture, about taking land. Me as an Indigenous person, this is what happened to my ancestors,” SeeWalker said. “The piece is not about taking sides, it’s about humanity, it’s about not destroying a culture and letting people live.”

But she never had a chance to explain that, nor will she. The whole experience has soured her to the residency in Vail. “I was just blindsided. No chance to understand or explain. After that, even if they wanted to offer me a residency, I wouldn’t take it

    • RyanGosling [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Adolf Eichmann was a Nazi. His defense was that he was simply following orders and that his actions weren’t that important in the grander scope of WWII and the holocaust. Essentially a pencil pusher. But as we know, even the stenographers of empire cause great harm and many deserve to be shot.

      The pejorative is used to describe how Nazis aren’t some unique breed of evil and that it can very well be your smiling, friendly neighbor.

    • electric_nan
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      6 months ago

      Some guy (I can’t be bothered to look it up) said something to the effect that 9/11 essentially killed a bunch of “little Eichmann’s”.

    • zed_proclaimer [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      6 months ago

      Nazi stooge who never directly got his hands dirty but did a lot of logistics and behind-the-scenes actions to carry out the holocaust.

      At his trial in Nuremberg his defense was that he was a normal, good guy who was just following orders and going along with his society. He wasn’t unusual, or psychopathic, or evil. Just a dude who did what he was expected to do by his society and kept his mouth shut.

      The defense didn’t work, he was convicted and killed for his role in the holocaust. His name has now become synonymous for low-level cronies who defend evil systems but don’t actually get their hands dirty directly.