I’m unclear how teaching someone about an unpleasant historical event is perpetuating “racist, sexist, and ageist tropes”?

You don't just pretend bad things don't exist and then have them magically stop happening.

What is being advocated for is control of language. It is UNACCEPTABLE.

Part of me wants to hand out copies of 1984. I fear that some of you would see it as a how to manual.

i don’t think this is a fair comparison to sanitizing racism.

it would be more like if we taught the story of the Nazis from the perspective of Nazism as wrongfully defeated. we certainly do sanitize narratives of history so the victors are the good guys

Well we have two good lessons on how we deal with history.

Germany, and Japan.

One is rather recalcitrant for its actions the other is in abject denial that they even did anything wrong.

Not teaching the ills of the past has an impact.

yeah and both ways are wrong. I have as much in common with the the german nazis as i have with the japanese war crimes with the chinese and i am german.

We should have strived for understanding that racism is to be fought against and not "hey these countries are bad because they lost" If you have seen the horrors what the americans did to the vietnamese or other way around, or the serbs against their neighbors the bosnians, you come to the conclusion every country is shit.

We need to understand as a species that in order to evolve, we need to break out of the violence and dumb wars, over resources. We have so much potential and we are wasting it, because of stupid and greedy people pushing misery and hate. Don't get me started on religion