There are times to play the race card, I suppose. And there are times to keep your mouth shut.

Like when it comes to demeaning the Holocaust.

Birmingham City Councilwoman Sheila Tyson - who once labeled the city's refusal to pay for her junket to Alaska as "apartheid" - on Tuesday went one further.

In discussing a proposal for the city to chip in on a privately funded Holocaust memorial downtown, she said this:

"Dead is dead."

About the Holocaust.

"Isn't it still for dead people," Tyson said. "It is for dead people. Aren't the people they are memorializing deceased?"

Tyson was ticked because she had previously wanted to give city money to Shadow Lawn Cemetery, an old African-American cemetery that had fallen into disrepair. If it can give to a Holocaust memorial, why not Shadow Lawn?

"What's the difference?" she demanded. "Aren't the people they are memorializing deceased?"

You had to feel for city lawyer Thomas Bentley, whose parents are buried in Shadow Lawn, as he tried to explain the difference to Tyson.

He sighed. And paused.

"I'm not sure I have the vocabulary or explanatory power to indicate the distinction although it's clear to me from a legal standpoint that there is a distinction," he said. He went on to say Shadow Lawn is a private entity, while the Holocaust memorial is an expression of the city's remembrance.

It wasn't good enough for Tyson, who at various times - all incorrectly -- called Shadow Lawn the oldest cemetery in the state, the nation and the world. The land for the cemetery was purchased in the late 1800s, and it was used as a cemetery in the 1930s.

"This is the oldest cemetery in the nation, it dates back to World War I," she said.

But it's not even the oldest cemetery in Birmingham. Oak Hill is years older.

"This is the oldest cemetery in the world," Tyson said.

Unless you count everyone everywhere who died before the 1930s.

"If this isn't a tourist attraction I want to know what is. President Obama's wife's great, great granddaddy is buried out there."

That, at least, is true. Shadow Lawn is a worthy cause, with history of its own. Carpenter Dolphus Shields, great-great grandfather of Michelle Obama, was buried there in 1950.

Tyson said later she is not opposed to the Holocaust memorial. She said she simply does not understand why the city is legally allowed to fund one and not the other.

"What's the difference," Tyson said in the meeting. "I see the difference. I know the difference but I will leave it right there."

That's when Councilwoman Lashunda Scales jumped in.

"I know the difference," Scales said. "The difference is the haves and have nots."

The Birmingham Holocaust Education Center plans to raise about $500,000 to build the park, alongside a 9/11 memorial near McWane Center in downtown Birmingham. Birmingham's contribution would be to remove existing structures, at a cost of $45,500.

The council on Tuesday ultimately decided to table the issue for a week until questions are answered for Tyson and other council members.

Rebecca Dobrinski, executive director of the Holocaust center, said she is eager to help answer them. She said she was "surprised and disappointed" about the misunderstandings.

The garden is not just about dead people, she said. It will have an educational component as well as honoring victims of the Holocaust with Birmingham ties.

"It is meant to teach the community of the consequences of prejudice and hate," she said. "That is the lesson of the Holocaust. Our goal is to teach the lessons of the Holocaust ... so that we do not go down that slippery slope of hate again."

It is the whole point. To remember not just who died because of bigotry, but how they died. It is to warn of the cost of faded memory and ignorance, to retell what happens when tyrants and demagogues come to power.

Never forget.

It appears Birmingham needs to remember.