I dunno, she got all snotty eliter-than-thou about putting down Dr. Seuss of all people and I just lost my patience.
EVERYBODY was racist against the Japanese in WWII, except the Japanese. They were invading everywhere they could reach and trying to take over the world for fuck sake. Propaganda cartoons were the normal.
True, but most anti-Nazi propaganda wasn't racist against Germans. All the stuff about "huns" and such dates to the First World War. That said, I don't hold it against Geisel, as he was young and impressionable, there was a war on, and he more than made up for it with his later work.
Bull. If your cheap ass school district bought the cheapest ass slop in a passive aggressive middle finger towards the Obama's, that's hardly her fault.
Does that make it better? You weren't at war with the race, but with a country, and the inability to distinguish the two was not least instrumental to the internment of innocent Japanese Americans.
To be honest the food isn't great. Instead of having four things on the plate there are two plus milk. Most of our kids take the food, (because we tell them they have to) then they don't eat any and dump the whole plate in the trashcan. It's sad, and I hate it. I'm also in a 100% poverty school so you can tell how bad they think it is. Also for the most part I eat the food...><
Did I say it made it better? I was explaining, not excusing. Our modern sensibilities mean fuckall to the way things were in 1944.
Remember I had a letter in "The National Review" where I stated my enjoyment of "The Lorax" due to the presence of the Super Axe Whacker. National Review headlined my letter as "missing the point and loving it".
This was a pretty dumb move by the librarian. Melania wasn't really doing anything controversial with donating these books. This was Dr. Seuss, not a copy of Mein Kampf. This was a very positive move by Melania, and was essentially a non-story fluff piece until the librarian made it a big deal, and now the librarian looks like an idiot on a national level.
See, that does sound as if you are excusing it. Not imprisoning people without due process isn't a sensibility that came along sometime between 1944 and today, and racism in general was very much at the heart of the conflict in World War Two.
Most of them weren't even US citizens. Yes, they were barred from citizenship because tge US had laws banning Asians from becoming citizens but the fact remains that legally they were citizens of an enemy power the US was at war with. What do you think Germany or the UK did to each other's citizens who were still in their country the day after war was declared? Now, there were people like George Tekai (how ever you spell it) who were citizens because they were born in the US but most of them were legally minors at the time and the thought was it was best to keep minor children with their parents.
See, @Forbin, that's the danger: It sounds very much as if 'other people were racist too' is presented as a defence of racism. In this case, for some reason 'we were racist to non-American Japanese' is also presented as defence for being racist to Japanese Americans, but that might just be @Dinner.
Attempting to explain the historical background for the legal case is not racism, dipshit. It is explaining the historical context in which events occured. Now, just being knowledgable about the event is "racist"? Seriously, get your head out of your ass. This was the legal justification agreed with by the supreme court. Hell, I even pointed out the racial basis for excluding Asians from naturalization but you ignored that because it didn't fit your stupid little narrative.
Ok, I stand corrected. The vast majority of the adults were not citizens. Yes, they were blocked from naturalization for racist reasons (the so called gentlemen's agreement during the Teddy Roosevelt administration) but the legal justification accepted by the SCotUS was that they were Japanese citizens and it was routine to intern enemy nationals during war time. Some native born adults were included if they lived in effected areas (specifically the west coast but excluding Hawaii) but the majority of the citizens were minors (children of noncitizens) and it was ruled minor children should stay with their parents. Yes, racism was involved and that was wrong but there was a sound legal excuse which was accepted by the courts. There was also a hysteria following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor where it was found one dentist of Japanese origin had given sensative information (weather info, location and types of ships in harbor, etc...) to Japanese intelligence though he later claimed he was just being polite and didn't understand he was talking to Japanese intelligence.
The majority were in fact US citizens. Regardless of their citizenship, it was an immoral and un-American thing to imprison 100,000+ people without trial. It was less a matter of suspecting them of working with the enemy, and more about racist white farmers cutting out the competition--the Japanese were predominantly farmers on the West coast. This resentment had been brewing for decades, and WWII provided the perfect excuse to act.
And the other 40 percent were for all practical purposes barred by law from becoming citizens. Strangely, the distrust of those Japs didn't extend to military service and other war efforts. Can't stay in your town, but they can take a billet for Uncle Sam. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sound legal excuse my ass. So why weren't Germans targeted during either war? As was pointed out earlier, America was more or less over bashing all "huns," despite that fact that were not for them there wouldn't have been a war to begin with. Kilometers O'Brien's reason makes far more sense.
This. A good number of Germans legally changed to more Anglican names after WWI as well, so buy the time the children of that era were adults, they had lost their accents too.
Yeah. One branch of my family went from the nice German bakery next door Albrecht's in London to Albrights during WWI and never looked back.
Legally they were citizens so no legal excuse. Also German last names are the single most common in the country do it would be impossible to do.
