Here’s the question: Is time to let go of the pain attached to great human tragedies like the Holocaust or the American Slave Trade? Is it too soon? Is it long overdue? 

I heard something startling yesterday. What I heard was a lyric by rapper 50 Cent (pronounced fiddy cent) from his upcoming album. The song is called “Straight to the Bank” and here’s the lyric he “sings”: 

 “…I got more whips than a runaway slave…” 

Whoa. I believe it’s the first time a hip-hop artist has referenced slavery in a cavalier, non-political way. 50 could have been talking about diamonds, furs or weapons, but this time he uses the torturous degradation of the runaway slave to describe how many cars he has.  

50’s lyric choice reminds me of a brilliant, much discussed episode of Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. The episode, entitled “The Survivor,” features a dinner party where Solly, a Holocaust survivor, and Colby, a competitor on CBS’ ‘Survivor’, butt heads over who’s suffered the most indignities as a survivor.  Steven Vider of www.Nextbook.org lays it out this way: 

“Suddenly, a withered man with a glass eye interrupts. “Let me tell you, I was in a concentration camp. You never even suffered one minute in your life compared to what I went through,” says Solly, a friend of Larry’s father. The conversation quickly devolves into a competition:

COLBY: We had very little rations, no snacks.
SOLLY: Snacks, what are you talking snacks? We didn’t eat, sometimes for a week, for a month….
COLBY: Have you even seen the show?
SOLLY: Did you ever see our show? It was called the Holocaust! With civility out the window, each of them shouts, “I’m a survivor!” “I’m a survivor!”  

When I watched this episode, I laughed so hard, my stomach actually hurt by the time the credits rolled. But after, I didn’t know how to feel about having laughed so hard. I’m still conflicted about it. Is it progress when great historical tragedies become punch lines or rhymes about everyday things?  Should “we just let it go”? Would we be better off as a society if we could “just let it go”? 

I don’t have a simple answer. It’s not that it’s too soon, in some ways moving on is long overdue. But, like an actor improvising lines in a scene, you better know the original script before interpreting the scene in an improvisational way. For the most part, I don’t think America has enough understanding of pivotal historic tragedies to make light of them. I don’t think America understands the ferocity of hateful currents and how they can metastasize into horrific tragedy. I’m not saying we should be crying all the time, but let’s lighten up on the jokes and learn something.