Text 28137, 86 rader
Skriven 2007-04-08 07:05:45 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
     Kommentar till en text av Mimi Gallandt (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Marines
===============
Mimi Gallandt -> John Hull wrote:
 MG> John Hull -> Alan Hess wrote:
 JH>> Alan Hess -> VERN HUMPHREY wrote:
 AH>>> Whilst masticating on <Apr 05 07>, VERN HUMPHREY (1:123/140)
 AH>>> wrote to MIMI GALLANDT:

 VH>>>>>> How many true upper class people do you know?  Or know of?
 VH>>>>>> Who in public life is worthy of being admired?

 MG>>>>> That are still alive? Not many, but Theodor Geisel was a really
 MG>>>>> classy guy a was Joan Kroc. Sadly the classy folks seem to be a
 MG>>>>> dying breed. I imagine th Emily Post was a true class act.

 VH>>>> Did you ever see "Doctor Seuess Goes to War?"  This book is a
 VH>>>> compliation of Geisel's political cartoons before and during
 VH>>>> WWII.  One of them shows an outline of California, with a long
 VH>>>> snaking column of people passing a booth.  The people all have
 VH>>>> leering oriental features. The man in the booth, also with leering
 VH>>>> oriental features, is handing out blocks labeled "TNT."

 VH>>>> This, of course, was in support of putting the Niesi in camps --
 VH>>>> and the sheer racism was breath-taking.

 AH>>> Why should anti-Japanese racism, and support for it, come as a
 JH>> surprise
 AH>>> from a society that was already racist against blacks, as well as
 AH>>> anti-Jewish and anti-almost everyone not white and Christian, and
 MG> even
 AH>>> some who were (like the Irish?)  At least there was a war against
 JH>> Japan
 AH>>> that was the rationale for that racism, wrong as it was to paint all
 AH>>> Japanese-Americans as enemies of the nation.  What was the
 JH>> rationale for
 AH>>> people like Father Coughlin and those that listened to and
 JH>> supported him
 AH>>> to hate Jews?  What was the rationale that made the citizenry
 MG> (voters)
 AH>>> absolutely against raising annual immigration quotas to allow more
 AH>>> people fleeing Hitler, many of whom would have been Jewish, to enter
 AH>>> this country (I don't remember the exact number, but less than
 MG> 150,000
 AH>>> Jews entered the U.S. between 1933 and 1945, despite the fact that
 MG> his
 AH>>> plans for Jews was no secret?  FDR would have committed suicide
 MG> had he
 AH>>> tried to allow more Jews to immigrate here - as I well know, he
 JH>> couldn't
 AH>>> even allow the less than 1,000 Jews on the St. Louis in.)  What was
 JH>> the
 AH>>> reason to hate blacks, and do such things as bar blacks and Jews from
 AH>>> certain neighborhoods?  *adh*

 JH>> Why don't you quit crying.  There isn't a place in the world that
 MG> isn't
 JH>> racist.  We're hardly unique in that respect.

 JH>> The gov't overreacted with the Nicei, but there was a lot of
 JH>> circumstantial evidence that caused that reaction.  Most of those
 MG> people
 JH>> belonged to various Japanese patriotic organizations that supported
 MG> the
 JH>> Japanese government.  Most of them did so out of respect to their
 JH>> ancestors and to tradition, but we didn't understand that at the time.
 JH>> But given that they were as integrated into our society as they
 MG> were, it
 JH>> wouldn't have been prudent to NOT pay close attention to them at least
 JH>> initially.

 MG> I'm not arguing, I'm honestly curious; did we sent German = Americans
 MG> who belong to the Bund on the east coast to camps, too?


No, but they look like us. Plus most of the Germans had been here since long
before WWI.  Huge numbers of German immigrants Anglicized the spelling of their
names (including my mother's grandfather) to appear less German, and thus less
of a threat.  The FBI still kept a weather eye on a lot of Germans of
questionable loyalty though.

The Japanese here were a very insular society.  They kept to themselves, the
older ones in particular, and their culture was completely off the wall to most
Americans.  So, lack of knowledge about their culture, different looks,
different religion - all that created a sense of mistrust that swept across the
country like wildfire.

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