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There are a lot of people in this country who would have looked the other way, or even applauded, if the government had rounded up and 'interned' all American Muslims--and/or all American Arabs--after 9/11. Times of hysteria can produce such complete contradictions of basic values, and that is really the core issue: who can claim to be defending the freedom of American citizens by depriving them of their freedom? That's Orwellian in its self-contradiction, and to defend it is ridiculous.
And that's not hindsight. That's just examining our basic values and deciding whether we really believed them, or whether they were/are inconveniences to be discarded as soon as the going gets tough. However, hindsight may fairly inform our evaluation of the justice and intellect of an action. In hindsight, it looks orders of magnitude worse, because we know that:
a) Most Japanese nationals would long since have applied for citizenship, had racist laws not forbidden them from doing so.
b) Most Nikkei, with the strong Japanese cultural strain still present, were painfully eager to demonstrate their loyalty and willingness to support their homeland. Which, for them, was no longer Japan.
c) When you consider how long Japan held out despite being hopelessly out-industried, you have to be impressed with the way the Japanese people could work and fight. The U.S. Navy and Marines may well bear witness. We had a bunch of that on our side, if we would but accept its devotion.
d) The story of the 442nd has already been told here. Despite being treated as they were, those men still wanted to fight for their country, and their valor was proven to any standard one might imagine.
e) Even after the war, only a tiny minority turned their backs on the United States (as I absolutely would have done, had I been gathered up and locked away from my fellow citizens and the joint war effort) and emigrated or returned to Japan. Even then, even after all that, the vast majority of Nikkei chose to stay, rebuild, and succeed. And have succeeded. And from what most who were 'in camp' have told me--because we are talking about my friends here, people I respect--the most important thing was not monetary compensation. The most important thing was an apology, an acknowledgement of wrong done them. And it was forever in coming.
So. We commited a vast national injustice, and in so doing, mutilated ourselves. Brilliant. With thinking like that, it's kind of a wonder we didn't find a way to lose the war.
What all that means: in 2014, to defend this outrage of seventy years past is itself outrageous. It is insulting to a lot of great Americans who deserve respect and fellowship. And I have no respect for anyone who tries to defend that outrage. I couldn't look my friends in the eyes if I didn't speak up.
I am always surprised at how little attention is paid to the Japanese interment camps established in Canada during WWII, where conditions were at least as harsh as those in US camps.
Just because the Japanese happened to be of a different race than majority of Americans it doesn't make any action against the japanese "racially motivated". If the same steps were taken against all Asians in the US: Chinese, Vietnamese etc than you could argue the internment was racially motivated. I haven't heard of any Chinese being interned so no, you can't make it a "racially motivated" action. Nice try.
Wrong.....Japanese and Chinese are not the same race.
It was very racially motivated, as all Japanese were rounded up, and only Japanese. You definitely were not around back then, I was. The U.S. Government was very verbal on those Japs as they called them. The government pitched clear racial hatred, to wind up the country and to get the country into war. I know I was there, and friends of several that I know were put in concentration camps. I stood in our front yard, watch the government come in take my best friend and his extended family away, even though though several young men had gone into the the recruiting office the day after the attack on
Sunday, and volunteered for the U.S. Army to fight for the country and were rejected because they were
Japanese. I was at their home after a sleep over and watched them and how angry they were because those damn Japs had attacked their country. They were third and forth generation American born citizens.
The internment of Italian and German Americans was selective, and nowhere near the scale of that of Japanese Americans - they didn't intern whole families or neighborhoods of them.
If one were to examine how the U.S.A. prosecuted or managed WW2 we would find many errors which cost lives, prolonged the war and wasted sacrifices made at home. It was a sloppy war because that really is how wars are.
There are a lot of people in this country who would have looked the other way, or even applauded, if the government had rounded up and 'interned' all American Muslims--and/or all American Arabs--after 9/11. Times of hysteria can produce such complete contradictions of basic values, and that is really the core issue: who can claim to be defending the freedom of American citizens by depriving them of their freedom? That's Orwellian in its self-contradiction, and to defend it is ridiculous.
And that's not hindsight. That's just examining our basic values and deciding whether we really believed them, or whether they were/are inconveniences to be discarded as soon as the going gets tough. However, hindsight may fairly inform our evaluation of the justice and intellect of an action. In hindsight, it looks orders of magnitude worse, because we know that:
a) Most Japanese nationals would long since have applied for citizenship, had racist laws not forbidden them from doing so.
b) Most Nikkei, with the strong Japanese cultural strain still present, were painfully eager to demonstrate their loyalty and willingness to support their homeland. Which, for them, was no longer Japan.
c) When you consider how long Japan held out despite being hopelessly out-industried, you have to be impressed with the way the Japanese people could work and fight. The U.S. Navy and Marines may well bear witness. We had a bunch of that on our side, if we would but accept its devotion.
d) The story of the 442nd has already been told here. Despite being treated as they were, those men still wanted to fight for their country, and their valor was proven to any standard one might imagine.
e) Even after the war, only a tiny minority turned their backs on the United States (as I absolutely would have done, had I been gathered up and locked away from my fellow citizens and the joint war effort) and emigrated or returned to Japan. Even then, even after all that, the vast majority of Nikkei chose to stay, rebuild, and succeed. And have succeeded. And from what most who were 'in camp' have told me--because we are talking about my friends here, people I respect--the most important thing was not monetary compensation. The most important thing was an apology, an acknowledgement of wrong done them. And it was forever in coming.
So. We commited a vast national injustice, and in so doing, mutilated ourselves. Brilliant. With thinking like that, it's kind of a wonder we didn't find a way to lose the war.
What all that means: in 2014, to defend this outrage of seventy years past is itself outrageous. It is insulting to a lot of great Americans who deserve respect and fellowship. And I have no respect for anyone who tries to defend that outrage. I couldn't look my friends in the eyes if I didn't speak up.
There were a LOT of people who were clamoring for this especially on talk radio. Michelle Malkin wrote a book justifying Japanese internment mostly to justify interning Muslims.
Wrong.....Japanese and Chinese are not the same race.
Of course they are, they are both Asians. People in America love slapping labels and "racist" seems to be one of the favorite as it completely destroys the opponent. But no, Japanese are not a race so you can't talk about racially motivated action while other Asians, such as Chinese were not subjected.
If one were to examine how the U.S.A. prosecuted or managed WW2 we would find many errors which cost lives, prolonged the war and wasted sacrifices made at home. It was a sloppy war because that really is how wars are.
Of course they are, they are both Asians. People in America love slapping labels and "racist" seems to be one of the favorite as it completely destroys the opponent. But no, Japanese are not a race so you can't talk about racially motivated action while other Asians, such as Chinese were not subjected.
You are really trying to play a semantic game of dubious validity. Race is a social construct.
A valid argument would be comparing apples to apples - Japan was an enemy combatant nation vs. that of Germany and Italy. The Germans and Italian Americans weren't interned en masse like the Japanese Americans were. Then you can make a distinction. The point is that the J-As were singled out for disparate treatment.
China was considered a friendly allied nation, so your comment doesn't apply. And if you didn't remember, a lot of racially restrictive laws and regulations applied to the Chinese in America at the time.
What's wrong with Munson though? He was the one commissioned by FDR and the State department. He assembled his report from multiple sources. If conflicting reports did exist, then one would assume that would prove who the people of concern should be within the community.
Munson was a mere businessmen. What exactly made him qualified to conduct his study? Why was he even involved in a security assessment?
Quote:
Originally Posted by NJGOAT
*
Well, the "nationality" of the vast majority was AMERICAN. I would suggest that you look up the definition of race and then you will find that the usage of the terms "race" and "racist" in this context are 100% correct. Here I'll save you the key strokes...
The Japanese race is a subset of the Mongloid race that itself is a subset of the human race. Among people of the Japanese race there are several different ethnicities. If you think I am wrong, read the latest US Census and its options for defining ones race:
The Japanese people (日本人 Nihonjin, Nipponjin?) are an ethnic group native to Japan.[21][22][23][24][25] Japanese make up 98.5% of the total population.[26]
Ethnic group, buddy, not a race. Japanese race was invented by beancounters in DC lol
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