XPost: talk.politics.misc, soc.culture, alt.politics.usa
XPost: alt.history
https://japantoday.com/category/entertainment/'star-trek'-actor-george-takei-is-determined-to-keep-telling-his-japanese-american-story
. . .
Why does nobody tell the story about how Japan was
threatening the lives of family members to coerce
them into acts of espionage/sabotage ??? "Family"
is BIG in Japanese culture ... and such threats were
taken very seriously.
And yes there WAS racism back then - and anyone
who "looked Japanese" was at serious risk, esp on
the west coast. That's how it was then, can't argue
it away. "Japanese" was identifiable, and that could
be a very bad thing.
FDR did the smarter thing. Not the NICE thing, but
"smarter" for the time/place/situation. Note that
his people DID go out of their way to glorify J-A
troops fighting NAZIs in Europe (and they WERE
damned good). He knew he was doing something "not
nice" and actively tried to mitigate. It's likely
why, as soon as the war ended, it was OK to
be Japanese again in the USA. Not as much luck
for "blacks" alas ....
So while Takei has a legit gripe, for that
time and place J-A's really did get a better
deal than if they were left in the general
west-coast population. Of course that view
doesn't attract as much Wokie press or
white-guilt donations .......
I'm old enough to have known a lot of WW2
vets ... and many DID say that if the J-A's
hadn't been taken out of the equation that
mobs would have likely killed them all.
People DO love an excuse to exterminate
any "others" ya know - that goes all the
way back. Read up on the destruction of
Uruk by the Elamites 5000+ years ago, they
killed EVERYBODY who was Not-Them and burnt
the remains. This is somewhere in our wiring,
a sort of reflex, and cannot be ignored.
Just the tiniest excuse ....... and we are
hardly the only species with that reflex.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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