Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (89804)	11/28/2004 10:52:50 AM
From: J. C. Dithers	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

You say in this post you are asking me a question. Note the "a". Your bolded question contains no less than 150 words and five question marks! Moreover it is loaded with "facts not in evidence" as they say in the courts. And you get frustrated with me? As best I can tell, the meat of your question(s) is that you want me (and all others) to acknowledge that the internment was racially motivated. "Racism" appears to be your central point. My answer is that it was not an example or instance of "racism." Here are the reasons: 1. The Japanese and Chinese belong to the same race. Japan was our hated enemy, China was our warmly embraced ally. (No racism). 2. The only people interned were JAs living in the coastal areas of western states, primarily CA. JAs living away from the critical coast region were not interned. JAs, especially the young, lived all over America, many being students in our college and universities. They were not rounded up. JAs were accepted in the Armed Forces. (No racism). 3. About 130,000 JAs in Hawaii were not interned or restricted. (No racism). (If you cannot see why this alone refutes your charge of racist motive, you are beyond my reach of logic). It is wholly apparent that the only Asians interned were a special subset of JAs who happened to live in a narrow band on the West Coast where an invasion by Japan was thought imminent. This area contained an undefended, vulnerable coastline as well as much defense industry that was also vulnerable to sabotage. It was thus deemed prudent, in a war emergency situation, to relocate the subset of JAs to a place where they would pose no threat. Whether these apprehensions were valid or not (in hindsight) is not the point. The point is that the motive was clearly not racial in nature. Our war with Japan was a war between two races. We hated the Japanese for what they had done (rape of Nanking, Pearl Harbor, Bataan Death March, etc.), not because of their skin color. We did not hate the Chinese who had the same skin color (No racism). We distrusted the Japanese for what they had done, not because of their color, and we extended that distrust and suspicion to those of Japanese ancestry because we knew how fanatically loyal the Japanese people were to their Emperor, the living God. Jesse Jackson once said: "If I am walking down a dark street and hear footsteps behind me, I am relieved if I turn around and see that it is a white person." Perhaps you consider JJ to be a "racist." I don't (at least not on that basis). I believe JJ was doing what humankind has always done, which is to generalize from the particular (the particular being the high rate of black street crime in D.C.) In WW 11 Americans felt and thought much the same about the Japanese. I think, E, that you do a disservice to racial justice to look for "racism" in the wrong places. Genuine racism involves hatred of other people for no reason but their race. The internment of the JA subset was in no way such a case. As to the anti-Japanese sentiments which pervaded wartime America, I repeat--Americans hated the Japanese for what they did, not because they had yellow skin. As to the other elements or issues in your compound, complex "question," they boil down to the devil being in the details. Unless you believe that the Relocation Act was a conspiracy at the highest national levels to steal from the JAs, the problem may be that the Act was hastily implemented and lacked proper oversight. This may have allowed unscrupulous individuals to use it as a cover for grand or petty theft. If this was so, then those individuals were wrong and should ultimately have been held accountable in the courts.