TO THE EDITOR:
The article titled “A Case Against Soviet Memes” brings up an issue that is rarely thought about. It comes to the conclusion that these memes that the “educated left” is sharing leads to a normalization of the “romanticization of the USSR” during this strange period of time where Russia is viewed as jeopardizing American democracy.
This argument is relevant to the current situation between the United States and Russia, but it shows more of a political standpoint than a moral standpoint against the memes. Nazi memes are counted as “dark humor” and are for the vast majority socially unacceptable, whereas Soviet memes are viewed as a satirical way to poke fun at Russia. Portraying Soviet memes as acceptable whereas Nazi memes are unacceptable is outright denying history.
I view this dissonance as an effect of our lack of education about the USSR. In middle school, we are taught about the horrors of the Holocaust in World War II. However, even the top North Carolinian public schools do not teach about the deportations, mass executions, and concentration camps that Stalin was responsible for. It is estimated that around 20 million people were killed by Stalin in the time span of a decade, and I would not have known that much about it if my own family weren’t some of the people that were deported and murdered. I believe that people should at least educate themselves on the background behind these sort of memes before posting or sharing.
Ieva Juzumaite
First-year
Pharmacy
