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Activity
 Instructions
 Come to the front of the class. Half of the class should stand on
one side of the line, the other half should stand on the other
side. Students should be facing each other.
 As the characteristics are read, stand on the line only if it
applies to you.
 What is the point of this activity?
Discuss!
• What would society be like people were
discriminated against based on these categories?
• What if, for example, people who could not touch
their toes were deemed less intelligent than those
who could?
• Or if people with long fingernails were prohibited
from owning property? Would it be fair? Would
there be any justification?
• How do these categories relate to marked differences
in today’s society? What is seen as the
norm/difference?
Systematic
Discrimination and Genocide
HSB4M – CHALLENGE AND CHANGE IN
SOCIETY
Put on your thinking caps!
 American educator Peggy McIntosh has coined the
phrase “an invisible weightless knapsack of
special provisions, maps, passports,
codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank
checks.”
 What does this mean?
 What could this refer to?
 Article: Unpacking the
Knapsack
What Causes Hate?
• What causes hate? Reasons? Justifications?
• We often find it difficult to understand the level of
hatred directed at certain people or cultural groups
in society
In December 1989, a Montreal man gunned down 14 female
students at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal
– In 1998, White Texans dragged a black
– man to his death behind their pickup truck
– The World Trade Centre was attacked
by terrorists killing more than 3000 people
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Four Characteristics of Hate Crimes
• The hatred is intense and impersonal
– The hatred is not directed at individuals but is instead directed
at unknown people, or people who represented the group the
person hates
• The hatred is based on prejudice and power
– Stereotypes can harden into feelings of prejudice which can
then lead to discriminatory actions
– Usually the perpetrators of these actions have some power or
authority over their victims – strength of numbers, surprise
etc.
Characteristics continued...
• The Hatred is directed at scapegoats for other
frustrations
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Allport suggests that frustration and the difficulties of life may
be found at the centre of intense hatred toward out-groups (ie.
Affirmative action)
People singled out for these hostilities are called scapegoats
Usually these scapegoats are easily identifiable minority
groups that people in power can lay blame and act out their
aggressions on them
Characteristics continued...
 Genocide is an expression of national hatred
 The greatest excesses of hatred directed against minority
scapegoats are those that are carried out by order as national
policy
 Adolf Hitler ranted about his hatred for Jews in his book Mein
Kampf while he was incarcerated
 In his book he blamed the Jews for all the failures in his own
life
Genocide
 "genocide“: the systematic extermination of a
nationality or group
 Combines Greek “geno” meaning “race” or “tribe”
with the Latin “cide” from “cadere” meaning
“killing”
 This term was coined by
Raphael Lemkin as a
direct result of the Holocaust.
Characteristics of Genocide
• Genocide, as defined by the United Nations in 1948,
means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,
ethnic, racial, or religious group, including:
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Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the
group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the
group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
Pyramid of Hate
The Holocaust
• the annihilation of the Jews and other groups of
people of Europe under the Nazi regime during
World War II
• 11 million people exterminated, 6 million Jews
• Shot, starved, gassed, burned, worked to death
• Stripped of rights, segregated,
put into concentration camps,
exterminated
• “life unworthy of life”
The Holocaust: Factors of Hate
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Stripped of German citizenship
Banned from German schools/universities
Forced to carry ID cards
Jewish synagogues destroyed
Forbidden marriages between Jews and Aryans
Possessions were confiscated
Heads shaved, arms tattooed
Men, women, children were separated
Inhumane medical experiments
International Response
• National governments and world leaders have been
criticized for their failure to take action which could
have saved millions
• Pope Pius XII did not publicly speak out against the
murder of the Jews during the Holocaust
–
the Vatican did take some action to save many Jews in Italy
from deportation by sheltering several hundred Jews in the
catacombs of St. Peter's Basilica
• International Committee of the Red Cross did little
to save Jews
–
Suggested that by aiding Jewish prisoners would harm its
ability to save other Allied POW’s, threat to Switzerland
The Rwandan Genocide
 Mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's
Tutsis by the Hutu dominated government
 Lasted approximately 100 days
 Estimated death toll ranged between 500,000 and
1,000,000
The Rwandan Genocide: Factors of Hate
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given ID cards which specified an ethnic group
lighter coloured Rwandans were Tutsi – minority
darker skinned Rwandans were Hutu – majority
Tutsi men, women, children were separated
Sometimes forced to be Hutu slaves
Tutsi women were often referred to as "gypsies" and frequently
fell victim to sexual violence
Hutu civilians were instructed to kill their Tutsi neighbours or
be killed
International Response
• The U.S. government was reluctant to involve itself in the
"local conflict" in Rwanda and refused to label the
killings as "genocide”
• Clinton stated that he believes if he had sent 5,000 U.S.
peacekeepers, more than 500,000 lives could have been
saved
• The U.S. refused to jam extremist radio broadcasts
inciting the killing, citing costs and concern with
international law
• U.S. officials knew exactly who was leading the genocide,
and actually spoke with those leaders to urge an end to
the violence but did not follow up with concrete action
Spotlight
The Promises of the UN
• When the Genocide Convention was passed by the
United Nations in 1948, the world said, "Never again."
• The promise the United Nations made was broken, as
genocides and other forms of mass murder killed 170
million people, more than all the international wars of
the twentieth century combined
Activity: Spotlight and Case Study
• The Armenian Genocide
• The Darfur Genocide
• The Apartheid in South Africa
Activity
 Read the case study you have been assigned
 Pull out characteristics from the Pyramid of Hate
that are relevant within the case study
 Highlight the characteristics!
 Meet with your group- discuss! 
 Debrief

Class discussion regarding genocide, human rights,
acknowledging “us” versus “them”
History Repeats Itself
 Consider the widely held belief that it is important to
learn from the mistakes of the past in order to ensure
we don’t repeat them. Why didn’t the lessons learned
from the World War II Holocaust (over 50 years ago)
prevent the Rwandan genocide (15 years ago) or the
current genocide occurring in Darfur?
“Us” versus “Them”
 Why is it easier to look at
examples of genocide in
other countries than
atrocities occurring in
own backyard (i.e.,
human rights violations
against Aboriginal
groups in Canada)?
Making a Difference
 Why is there guilt associated with genocides like
Rwanda?
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i.e., think of all the countries, including Canada, that knew
what was happening
Is there a way that this generation of youth can make a
difference?