JAPANESE AMERICANS REMEMBER AND CONDEMN THE NEW WAVE OF HATRED

[kpete]

JAPANESE AMERICANS REMEMBER AND CONDEMN THE NEW WAVE OF HATRED

March 9, 2011 at 08:08 (History, Extremism, Intolerance, Activism, Islamophobia, Civil Rights)

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that all ethnic Japanese along the Pacific Coast be sent to one of 10 isolated internment camps in seven states. Of those imprisoned, 62 percent were second- or third-generation Japanese Americans born in the United States. Most lost their property to the government.

Japanese Americans: House hearings on radical Islam ‘sinister’
By David Nakamura

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2011/03/06/GA2011030604292.html

..............

In an interview Sunday on CNN, King noted that U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. “is not saying he’s staying awake at night because of what’s coming from antiabortion demonstrators or coming from environmental extremists or from neo-Nazis. It’s the radicalization right now in the Muslim community.”

But Honda compared King’s position not only to the wartime roundup of the Japanese, but also to the anti-Communist hearings staged by Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.
(Rep. Michael M. Honda (D-Calif.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/08/AR2011030802876.html

“I’ll be damned if I’m going to stay quiet and not say something,” Honda said in an interview this week. “We have to show people that as Americans, we’re not going to put up with this kind of nonsense.”

Although the youngest who were interned are in their late 60s, Japanese Americans remember what it means to be targeted during wartime because of their nationality.

more:
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/japanese-americans-remember-and-condemn-the-new-wave-of-hatred/

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my favorite part.....

During the chaotic days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Basim Elkarra was passing by an Islamic school in Sacramento when he did a double-take: The windows were covered with thousands of origami cranes – peace symbols that had been created and donated by Japanese Americans.
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/japanese-americans-remember-and-condemn-the-new-wave-of-hatred/

kpete: ive visited Manzanar many times - going through the E Sierra,
stark reality....
/Getting_Ready_for_Manzanar_Ownes_Valleyb.GIF

http://questgarden.com/12/37/9/051210192950/

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Great. I was wondering when they would make statements.

The Supreme Court case that "legitimized" the forced evacuations and confinements (read, imprisonments) has not been overturned and can be used again if Congress decided to resurrect a program with another ethnic group.

[AKDavy]

3. Unfortunately, human nature doesn't change

"Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors"

The Few easily manipulate the Many with hatred born of fear born or ignorance. That ignorance is by design.

[NOLALady]

4. Unfortunately,

Japanese Americans aren't the only ones who still remember what it means to be targeted because of their nationality before, during and after wartime.

[SidDithers]

5. FDR did that?...

but I thought he was the epitome of what a progressive is all about?

:shrug:

Sid

[spartan61]

6. Good for Honda!! It is about time that someone speaks up

about King's racism. I'm too young to remember the internment camps for Japanese Americans during WWII, but I do remember reading about them in various history classes. My eyes were really opened to this while reading a fantastic book about it called "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by Jamie Ford. It's a beautiful story but also tells about the horrors of these camps. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to read. The story is told from a young Chinese boy's perspective when his father made him where a name tag that said, "I am Chinese." The book flashes between the WW II years to the 80s.

We all need to become vocal about King's racist investigations of American Muslims.

[damntexdem]

7. Yeah, it reminds me of HUAC.

The well-named House Un-American Activities Committee, which undertook the un-American activities, just as King is doing.

[snappyturtle]

8. About a half hour ago I heard on Faux News, as I was passing

through my mother's tv viewing area, a come on to an upcoming report about why we need hearings on radicalization of Muslim communities! All I could do was wave my arms in mocked terror! We all need to join Honda in speaking out against the fear du jour.

[AsahinaKimi]

9. Rep. Michael M. Honda (D-Calif.)

Honda Sensei, domo arigatou gozaimasu! Kepete thanks for bringing us this story!

[pampango]

10. Hate all caps, but love the post.

Fear of the "other" remains constant. The identity of this "other" evolves over time but never seems to disappear.

[kpete]

18. i agree

it was a cut and paste
too lazy to change it,
oh, kpete is slipping..........

pampango - seriously, thanks for the pic
peace,kp

[Lifelong Protester]

11. I was thinking both HUAC and the Japanese camps...

history, folks, let's not be doomed to repeat our atrocities. Agree?

[xchrom]

12. Recommend

[RainDog]

13. kick n/t

[CrownPrinceBandar]

14. Its really sad that our country seems to be treading this ground again...

We are a nation afraid of our own founding ideals.

[MineralMan]

15. As a Californian, I cannot think of FDR without thinking of what

happened to American citizens of Japanese heritage under his watch. Despite other fine things he did, that single act is so deplorable that it taints his presidency for me irreversibly.

I know people whose parents were part of the internment, and who lost everything due to this action by FDR.

[Vehl]

16. It's always easier to demonize the "other"

FDR did that with the Japanese Americans, McCarthy did the same with the so called "communists" (including the father of America's nuclear bomb) and now the religious fundies...

Sadly there seems to be no shortage of takers for such rabble rousing tactics.

Good work by Congressmen Honda. Go Spartans!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

17. My late brother-in-law had to guard Japanese-Americans in the concentration camps.

He knew some of them from high school and was ashamed to be guarding them. He put in for a transfer for that reason and was transferred to Idaho to guard German and Italian POWs.

[Hannah Bell]

19. kr

[DirkGently]

20. We need a new Enemy to distract us from that sucking sound coming for the middle class.

[Chris_Texas]

21. It's time we ALL speak up

[DeSwiss]

22. K&R n/t

[Starry Messenger]

23. k&r

[pmorlan1]

24. K & R

I'm so tired of those who try to scapegoat others in order to enhance their own careers. I truly hope if there is a hell that there is a special corner there reserved for people like King.

[jwirr]

25. And here is on German American who is glad they are standing up

and I want to stand with them. The Japanese were treated worse than German Americans but we also were "different" regardless if we were siding with Germany or not. Like wise the Irish should understand this kind of labeling. Native Americans have also been set aside as if they were enemies.

These religious inquisitions are not more rational than any of the rest of these experiences. Enough.

[Mybrokenchains]

26. The sadness is palpable...

A country that preaches freedom and equality among people, so easily willing to throw those aside and confine a group of people out of its own fear. That's the real tragedy...
We as a people need to live up to what we're supposed to stand for, we can't spit in the face of our values because we were attacked. That is the time when we should strengthen our resolve, show what enemies we have out there that they can't divide our ideological base through scare tactics.
what we did to the our own citizens of Japanese heritage was a war crime,
and if it ever comes to that with Muslims, it'll be over my dead body and the deaths of freedom and reason.
-A

[ZombieHorde]

27. Thank you for posting this. nt

[gracchorumspes]

28. Recced.

Agreed. If we cannot live up to our ideals as Americans, we should live up to them as decent human beings. History doesn't wash out so easily.

[JeffersonChick]

29. k&r