Is America a racist nation?

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Typical Lax Dad
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

Post by Typical Lax Dad »

Farfromgeneva wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:52 pm
Typical Lax Dad wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:42 pm
Farfromgeneva wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:30 pm
Typical Lax Dad wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:39 pm
DMac wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 6:32 pm To deny that racism didn't play a part in the decision to drop the bomb is to deny reality (not your words, I know) isn't saying that racism isn't a possibility, it is saying it's absolutely at least a part of the reason.
You guys are hell bent on making it a racism issue. Would we have done the same to Germany? I'm bettin' we would have. Then again I don't put much stock in your racism claims for being much of the reason, if any. Both the Japanese and Germans were the enemy, both equal opportunity targets, particularly inasmuch as both were hell bent on killing as many Americans as they could and by whatever means did the job. Lot of Americans might well have been hollering in the streets, "Hell yeah, those rotten phukn krauts killed both of my brothers, drop two more on 'em" too.
It’s a hypothetical. I “believe” we would have given the Germans a few more days before dropping the second….instead of supposedly moving up the time table. We went into Iraq on a fraud. That wasn’t too long ago. I can’t put much past this country….based on its track record…but anything is possible.

How many civilians deaths did we suffer? Besides the 98 at Pearl Harbor?
The n***a tried to kill my fatherr!

On the Germans during/post WW2, there’s a good fiction show on Showtime about them in LA in the 1930s called Penny Dreadful, City of Angels - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_D ... _of_Angels
He had aluminum tubes!!! I remember the original Penny Dreadful. I liked it.
Pray to god you don’t drop that!
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Typical Lax Dad
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

Post by Typical Lax Dad »

Farfromgeneva wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:53 pm
Typical Lax Dad wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:44 pm
DMac wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 7:42 pm I would have guessed/bet the number of American deaths was much higher than that (not that that number isn't plenty high enough) but that's not the issue here. Japan poked the bear and paid a huge price for that. Look to their leaders to point fingers, not ours. We did what we thought we had to do, end of story.
Who said they didn’t? I was just asking a question….end of story? Folks have been writing about it for 75 years. They must not know that you said its the “end of story”.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/1 ... 0212444876

Folks should have been told to wrap it up!!

Maybe best is when Scarface does it to the judge!
You better wrap that gavel up B!
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DMac
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

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No, TLD, you're twisting and distorting here. The discussion has been about racism and its influence, or not, on the decision to drop the bombs. My end of story comment is not about the death and destruction caused by the bombs, but that the decision to drop the bombs was based on an enemy who was killing our people. End of story. I've said it was ugly and inhumane but that's what you get with war. It'll be talked about for another 75 years too, but who they won't talk to about it are any of the GIs who were in the foxholes worn to a pulp and fearing for their lives. It might be quite a different conversation (about the decision to drop the bombs) if those were the people discussing it.
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

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DMac wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 8:05 pm No, TLD, you're twisting and distorting here. The discussion has been about racism and its influence, or not, on the decision to drop the bombs. My end of story comment is not about the death and destruction caused by the bombs, but that the decision to drop the bombs was based on an enemy who was killing our people. End of story. I've said it was ugly and inhumane but that's what you get with war. It'll be talked about for another 75 years too, but who they won't talk to about it are any of the GIs who were in the foxholes worn to a pulp and fearing for their lives. It might be quite a different conversation (about the decision to drop the bombs) if those were the people discussing it.
GI’s don’t make the decisions. They take the orders. Politicians made that call. My father in law was on a bomber by the way. He was only there because he couldn’t get a decent job in Boston. He was stationed in Japan. My father was in the air force for the same reason. He was stationed in Germany for a time. Go figure.

Prompt and Utter Destruction, Third Edition: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan https://www.amazon.com/dp/146962897X/re ... 0TSMS5VZ6G
Last edited by Typical Lax Dad on Sun Nov 28, 2021 8:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Farfromgeneva
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

Post by Farfromgeneva »

DMac wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 8:05 pm No, TLD, you're twisting and distorting here. The discussion has been about racism and its influence, or not, on the decision to drop the bombs. My end of story comment is not about the death and destruction caused by the bombs, but that the decision to drop the bombs was based on an enemy who was killing our people. End of story. I've said it was ugly and inhumane but that's what you get with war. It'll be talked about for another 75 years too, but who they won't talk to about it are any of the GIs who were in the foxholes worn to a pulp and fearing for their lives. It might be quite a different conversation (about the decision to drop the bombs) if those were the people discussing it.
There are like a hundred movies on the topic such as band of brothers and the one with tom hanks. Pretty nice memorial in the mall in DC that was built when I lived there too. Not to say it isn’t earned but the second to last sentence ignores a lot of memorialization of it. And, of course, history is written by the winners.

Ive made my comment that war should be full on blitzkrieg. Do the dirt you need to do and get it done as fast as possible. So I’m not even getting involved in this “did we have it out for the yellow skinned dudes unlike we did for the white, blonde haired blue eyed barbarians” debate. But it probably makes sense to take a hard look at ourselves and for the ability to do better in whatever way in the future simply be willing to admit that some not so nice or unfair biases may have influenced our decision making back then. Our country is 250yrs old. Past the point of “faking it until we make it”.
Last edited by Farfromgeneva on Sun Nov 28, 2021 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Typical Lax Dad
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

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The “yellow peril” prejudice was clearly a powerful force pushing politicians to call for Japanese American internment. This attitude can hardly be more crisply articulated than by the US army’s West Coast commander, Lt. Gen. John DeWitt. “In the war in which we are now engaged racial affinities are not severed by migration,” he wrote in a report in 1941. “The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and third generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship have become ‘Americanized,’ the racial strains are undiluted.”

Race probably played no role….who would have noticed a difference?
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

Post by DMac »

Typical Lax Dad wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 8:12 pm GI’s don’t make the decisions. They take the orders. Politicians made that call. My father in law was on a bomber by the way. He was only there because he couldn’t get a decent job in Boston. He was stationed in Japan. My father was in the air force for the same reason. He was stationed in Germany for a time. Go figure.

Prompt and Utter Destruction, Third Edition: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan https://www.amazon.com/dp/146962897X/re ... 0TSMS5VZ6G
I'm out, I've had quite enough of your condescending tone. Besides, my indoctrination is reason enough to discount my view and opinions, so what's the point? No schidt GIs don't make the decisions, and what you would say here is, who said they did?
What your f-i-l and father did has nothing to do with the discussion. GIs were getting killed and we retaliated bigly. Good for us, GO USA.
Carry on with your second guessing and criticism. Frankly, I'm good with the outcome.
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

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DMac wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 8:46 pm
Typical Lax Dad wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 8:12 pm GI’s don’t make the decisions. They take the orders. Politicians made that call. My father in law was on a bomber by the way. He was only there because he couldn’t get a decent job in Boston. He was stationed in Japan. My father was in the air force for the same reason. He was stationed in Germany for a time. Go figure.

Prompt and Utter Destruction, Third Edition: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan https://www.amazon.com/dp/146962897X/re ... 0TSMS5VZ6G
I'm out, I've had quite enough of your condescending tone. Besides, my indoctrination is reason enough to discount my view and opinions, so what's the point? No schidt GIs don't make the decisions, and what you would say here is, who said they did?
What your f-i-l and father did has nothing to do with the discussion. GIs were getting killed and we retaliated bigly. Good for us, GO USA.
Carry on with your second guessing and criticism. Frankly, I'm good with the outcome.
Man I just stated the obvious. We were talking about why the bomb was dropped and if racism could have played a role and you brought up interviewing the GIs…. It had just occurred to me that my father in law and father were in Japan and Germany. It hadn’t crossed my mind until then. No big deal. Anyway, you are closer to it than I am. I don’t have a strong emotional attachment, one way or the other, about them bombs being dropped. This form of communication is not conversational so nuance gets lost. I don’t like text exchanges for that reason. Not sure I have said anywhere I disagree with you. What I have said is there were multiple factors and its an unknowable, really. You know definitively race was a non factor? I don’t. Not sure many people know definitively one way or the other….I am good with the outcome too. You think I root against the USA?
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MDlaxfan76
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

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old salt wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 3:04 pm
MDlaxfan76 wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 10:01 am
DMac wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 10:02 pm Geezuz, shipmate, I'm sayin' that's one helluva good post.
BZ
Except that he also denies that racism was driving the Japanese mass incarceration, just as he has denied racism as a factor defining any other part of American history. No. I think it was a factor which made it more acceptable to the public. Not the primary cause..

Uh huh. As always with you.
:roll: :lol:

What's he actually afraid of, DMac?...all he can do in response is claim "virtue signaling" instead of acknowledging that there's a reality in our history that is uncomfortable.OK, you tell me what I'm afraid of.

I don't know what you or any other American who frequently denies racism is afraid of. It's why I ask. And yet you have no answer.

the best that I've been able to get anyone say is that they think that admitting racism's role is to somehow make them 'guilty' of something for which they obviously had no control...yet continue to want to perpetuate now, IMO.


He also ignores that Midway was in 1942, yet mass incarceration continued until 1945, indeed not entirely ended until 6 months after the end of the war...typical from him to ignore the actual discussion.The threat did not end after Midway. It took years to rebuild our Navy to the point that we could extend the war to the W Pacific & still defend home waters, the Panama canal, counter the u-boats in the Atlantic & support the invasion of Europe.

Right, not immediately, but certainly not taking until 1945. We had their navy on the run, pretty much '43 on.

And he ignores the much greater potential threat from German Americans relative to the Japanese Americans.
No I don't. There was no threat of a military attack from Germany for them to enable.
obtw -- some German & Italian - Americans were interred, just in far fewer numbers.
Yes, a tiny proportion of Germans and Italians were locked up, almost entirely not citizens. Very, very different treatment.

And what you are saying is that because the Germans only could get subs in our waters, that's the only threat from espionage or other acts to be concerned about??? What a crock. There was all sorts of risk of bombs or other acts that could well have disrupted the US war effort, indeed American citizens were warned to be on the lookout for such. and there were a heck of a lot of Nazi supporters in the US, as well as those Germans and Italian born or US citizens of German or Italian extraction. Certainly as great or greater than any conceivable threat of such from Japanese Americans. But keep on denying racism was determinative...just like everything else, there's an element of 'they deserved it' in any discussion with you about race.

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MDlaxfan76
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

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DMac wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 8:46 pm
Typical Lax Dad wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 8:12 pm GI’s don’t make the decisions. They take the orders. Politicians made that call. My father in law was on a bomber by the way. He was only there because he couldn’t get a decent job in Boston. He was stationed in Japan. My father was in the air force for the same reason. He was stationed in Germany for a time. Go figure.

Prompt and Utter Destruction, Third Edition: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan https://www.amazon.com/dp/146962897X/re ... 0TSMS5VZ6G
I'm out, I've had quite enough of your condescending tone. Besides, my indoctrination is reason enough to discount my view and opinions, so what's the point? No schidt GIs don't make the decisions, and what you would say here is, who said they did?
What your f-i-l and father did has nothing to do with the discussion. GIs were getting killed and we retaliated bigly. Good for us, GO USA.
Carry on with your second guessing and criticism. Frankly, I'm good with the outcome.
DMac, I think it's entirely reasonable to be "good with the outcome". But as you say, the discussion has been about race, not whether you, or GI's who might have had to fight longer, applaud the decision, whether bomb one or bomb two. We're discussing whether racism played a role in various actions, from the use of the nuclear bombs to the mass incarceration.

Now if you want to say those 'yella Jap bastids' deserved to be lit up as many times as it took, we understand the sentiment. As you say, a whole lotta folks felt exactly that way. My dad did pretty much up until the day he died, best I know.
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

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MDlaxfan76 wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 11:57 pm And what you are saying is that because the Germans only could get subs in our waters, that's the only threat from espionage or other acts to be concerned about??? What a crock. There was all sorts of risk of bombs or other acts that could well have disrupted the US war effort, indeed American citizens were warned to be on the lookout for such. and there were a heck of a lot of Nazi supporters in the US, as well as those Germans and Italian born or US citizens of German or Italian extraction. Certainly as great or greater than any conceivable threat of such from Japanese Americans. But keep on denying racism was determinative...just like everything else, there's an element of 'they deserved it' in any discussion with you about race.
I'm pointing out the factors which caused the public to panic to the point that FDR would feel the need to resort to internment. The public's panic was not necessarily rational, but the politicians responded anyway.

We were more vulnerable to a military attack on the W coast than on the E coast. The successful attacks on HI & AK, + the sub attacks against land targets, heightened that panic. There were no comparable attacks on the E coast. Acts of sabotage were theoretical. The Japanese attacks were actual events which drew public attention & were widely reported.

You underestimate our naval vulnerability after Pearl Harbor & the Aleutians. The Japanese had been at war since 1937. They had conquered, occupied & were exploiting a vast Asia-Pacific empire. We were ill prepared & caught flat footed. Most of our naval & air strength was massed on the E coast, focused on the looming threat of war in Europe.

We did not expect Japan to strike as far E as HI & AK. Our limited Pac defenses were concentrated on protecting the PI & our other W Pac island bases.

In 1941, Adm Yamamoto became ascendant. He convinced the war cabinet to approve his strategy of bringing the war to our shores. He succeeded in the first phase. Had our aircraft carriers been in port on 12-07-41, he may well have succeeded in launching air strikes on our W coast, forcing us to chase him over the entire Pacific with limited naval air assets.

https://www.historyonthenet.com/war-in-the-pacific

https://www.historyonthenet.com/panic-p ... arl-harbor
^^^ listen to the embedded podcast. Fear among the public & politicians was the primary motivating factor.
Racial insensitivity allowed it to happen. .
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

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old salt wrote: Mon Nov 29, 2021 1:14 am
MDlaxfan76 wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 11:57 pm And what you are saying is that because the Germans only could get subs in our waters, that's the only threat from espionage or other acts to be concerned about??? What a crock. There was all sorts of risk of bombs or other acts that could well have disrupted the US war effort, indeed American citizens were warned to be on the lookout for such. and there were a heck of a lot of Nazi supporters in the US, as well as those Germans and Italian born or US citizens of German or Italian extraction. Certainly as great or greater than any conceivable threat of such from Japanese Americans. But keep on denying racism was determinative...just like everything else, there's an element of 'they deserved it' in any discussion with you about race.
I'm pointing out the factors which caused the public to panic to the point that FDR would feel the need to resort to internment. The public's panic was not necessarily rational, but the politicians responded anyway.

We were more vulnerable to a military attack on the W coast than on the E coast. The successful attacks on HI & AK, + the sub attacks against land targets, heightened that panic. There were no comparable attacks on the E coast. Acts of sabotage were theoretical. The Japanese attacks were actual events which drew public attention & were widely reported.

You underestimate our naval vulnerability after Pearl Harbor & the Aleutians. The Japanese had been at war since 1937. They had conquered, occupied & were exploiting a vast Asia-Pacific empire. We were ill prepared & caught flat footed. Most of our naval & air strength was massed on the E coast, focused on the looming threat of war in Europe.

We did not expect Japan to strike as far E as HI & AK. Our limited Pac defenses were concentrated on protecting the PI & our other W Pac island bases.

In 1941, Adm Yamamoto became ascendant. He convinced the war cabinet to approve his strategy of bringing the war to our shores. He succeeded in the first phase. Had our aircraft carriers been in port on 12-07-41, he may well have succeeded in launching air strikes on our W coast, forcing us to chase him over the entire Pacific with limited naval air assets.

https://www.historyonthenet.com/war-in-the-pacific

https://www.historyonthenet.com/panic-p ... arl-harbor
^^^ listen to the embedded podcast. Fear among the public & politicians was the primary motivating factor.
Racial insensitivity allowed it to happen. .
You almost got there. "insensitivity" ain't the word though.

You keep trying to claim that I don't understand the actual threats. You're wrong about that. I do understand the rational aspects of the fear.

I also understand, and am willing to admit, that it was a heck of a lot more than "insensitivity" that drove the fear to paranoia. And indeed, paranoia in that moment was understandable as well...it's that this paranoia persisted well after the rational threat had subsided, and this persistence was deeply racial. That's how it was expressed, in both words and deeds.

And there was not the same sort of paranoia about the internal threat from German Americans, though the actual threat from those Americans was every bit as great as from Americans of Japanese descent.

Why sugar coat this, why 'excuse' this as merely 'fear'?
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

Post by DMac »

The name of the Harry S. Truman Veteran's Hospital needs to changed along with all other memorials built in this racist POS's honor. Probably had a Japanese maid who washed his schidt stained underwear too. He didn't give a schidt about winning the war he just wanted to kill a bunch of Japanese because....well, because they're Japanese.
While we're at we need to expose Col. TIbbets and crew for the racist phukks they were too.
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

Post by Typical Lax Dad »

MDlaxfan76 wrote: Mon Nov 29, 2021 9:15 am
old salt wrote: Mon Nov 29, 2021 1:14 am
MDlaxfan76 wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 11:57 pm And what you are saying is that because the Germans only could get subs in our waters, that's the only threat from espionage or other acts to be concerned about??? What a crock. There was all sorts of risk of bombs or other acts that could well have disrupted the US war effort, indeed American citizens were warned to be on the lookout for such. and there were a heck of a lot of Nazi supporters in the US, as well as those Germans and Italian born or US citizens of German or Italian extraction. Certainly as great or greater than any conceivable threat of such from Japanese Americans. But keep on denying racism was determinative...just like everything else, there's an element of 'they deserved it' in any discussion with you about race.
I'm pointing out the factors which caused the public to panic to the point that FDR would feel the need to resort to internment. The public's panic was not necessarily rational, but the politicians responded anyway.

We were more vulnerable to a military attack on the W coast than on the E coast. The successful attacks on HI & AK, + the sub attacks against land targets, heightened that panic. There were no comparable attacks on the E coast. Acts of sabotage were theoretical. The Japanese attacks were actual events which drew public attention & were widely reported.

You underestimate our naval vulnerability after Pearl Harbor & the Aleutians. The Japanese had been at war since 1937. They had conquered, occupied & were exploiting a vast Asia-Pacific empire. We were ill prepared & caught flat footed. Most of our naval & air strength was massed on the E coast, focused on the looming threat of war in Europe.

We did not expect Japan to strike as far E as HI & AK. Our limited Pac defenses were concentrated on protecting the PI & our other W Pac island bases.

In 1941, Adm Yamamoto became ascendant. He convinced the war cabinet to approve his strategy of bringing the war to our shores. He succeeded in the first phase. Had our aircraft carriers been in port on 12-07-41, he may well have succeeded in launching air strikes on our W coast, forcing us to chase him over the entire Pacific with limited naval air assets.

https://www.historyonthenet.com/war-in-the-pacific

https://www.historyonthenet.com/panic-p ... arl-harbor
^^^ listen to the embedded podcast. Fear among the public & politicians was the primary motivating factor.
Racial insensitivity allowed it to happen. .
You almost got there. "insensitivity" ain't the word though.

You keep trying to claim that I don't understand the actual threats. You're wrong about that. I do understand the rational aspects of the fear.

I also understand, and am willing to admit, that it was a heck of a lot more than "insensitivity" that drove the fear to paranoia. And indeed, paranoia in that moment was understandable as well...it's that this paranoia persisted well after the rational threat had subsided, and this persistence was deeply racial. That's how it was expressed, in both words and deeds.

And there was not the same sort of paranoia about the internal threat from German Americans, though the actual threat from those Americans was every bit as great as from Americans of Japanese descent.

Why sugar coat this, why 'excuse' this as merely 'fear'?
This covers it:

The “yellow peril” prejudice was clearly a powerful force pushing politicians to call for Japanese American internment. This attitude can hardly be more crisply articulated than by the US army’s West Coast commander, Lt. Gen. John DeWitt. “In the war in which we are now engaged racial affinities are not severed by migration,” he wrote in a report in 1941. “The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second and third generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship have become ‘Americanized,’ the racial strains are undiluted.”

Probably an outlier.
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

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DMac wrote: Mon Nov 29, 2021 9:31 am The name of the Harry S. Truman Veteran's Hospital needs to changed along with all other memorials built in this racist POS's honor. Probably had a Japanese maid who washed his schidt stained underwear too. He didn't give a schidt about winning the war he just wanted to kill a bunch of Japanese because....well, because they're Japanese.
While we're at we need to expose Col. TIbbets and crew for the racist phukks they were too.
This is the sort of reaction that I think typifies the fear of historical examination of the contributions of racism.

I'd asked Salty what he was afraid of...perhaps part of the answer is a fear that we can't do so with any nuance, and recognition of historical context. That we can't weigh the positive with the negative, and celebrate the positive, but will rather insist on erasure of anyone touched by the stain of racism.

I think it's incredibly important that we insist upon that nuance.

And I think we need to insist up differentiation. For instance, we can study the tactical brilliance of Confederate general or the bravery of men who fought in that war, without accepting statues built to them in the public square designed to intimidate and to whitewash history with a false narrative. Nuance.

And we can look at a Jefferson and acknowledge his personal failings with slavery while celebrating his contributions to articulating the ideas by which we have continuously sought to perfect American democracy. Nuance.
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

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cradleandshoot wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 12:04 pm
MDlaxfan76 wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 10:01 am
DMac wrote: Sat Nov 27, 2021 10:02 pm Geezuz, shipmate, I'm sayin' that's one helluva good post.
BZ
Except that he also denies that racism was driving the Japanese mass incarceration, just as he has denied racism as a factor defining any other part of American history. Always an excuse. Always with the handwaving.

What's he actually afraid of, DMac?...all he can do in response is claim "virtue signaling" instead of acknowledging that there's a reality in our history that is uncomfortable.

He also ignores that Midway was in 1942, yet mass incarceration continued until 1945, indeed not entirely ended until 6 months after the end of the war...typical from him to ignore the actual discussion.

And he ignores the much greater potential threat from German Americans relative to the Japanese Americans.
To quote Ronald Reagan... "there you go again" My grandfather was 1st generation German immigrant. His biggest danger to the US was drinking them dry of good beer and outplaying all these upstate NYers in their own game of euchre. There of course was a large contingent of German Americans that supported the Nazis. They all vanished like a fart in the wind once Hitler declared war on the US. Many of them actually went back to Germany and joined der Fuehrer in his quest for world domination. You keep comparing oranges to apples. The American people were justifiably angry at Japan. They started a war with us in a most devastating and humiliating fashion. My dad caught considerable flack for being an American soldier that spoke fluent German. I believe "kraut" was the slang term hurled at him by some of his fellow soldiers. My dads ability to communicate with captured German soldiers was much appreciated on the front lines. A pack of Camels and some K rations and some friendly nattering with these POWs was usually all it took to get them talking. You are aware of the Japanese unit that served with incredible valor in France, Belgium and Germany. I guess there was not quite enough prejudice to forgo them the opportunity to go and die for their country. They did die in great numbers on the battlefields of Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Inf ... 20War%20II.
..... the case against C&S having been indoctrinated rests!! :lol: :lol: There were Saki drinking Japanese grandfathers that represented no threat to the US that ended up in the camps on the west coast. :roll: If your grandfather had been Japanese, where would he have spent the war?

MDLAX is correct, OS waves his hand at the threats posed by German descendants, 5th columnists, Uboats and German spies on the east coast. They were real, as real as the threat posed by Japanese descendants. No person of Japanese ancestry living in the United States was ever convicted of espionage or sabotage that I can find through a quick Google search (before or during the war). The National Park Service makes a similar statement in an exhibit at the Presidio museum in San Francisco.
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

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MDlaxfan76 wrote: Mon Nov 29, 2021 9:15 am
old salt wrote: Mon Nov 29, 2021 1:14 am
MDlaxfan76 wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 11:57 pm And what you are saying is that because the Germans only could get subs in our waters, that's the only threat from espionage or other acts to be concerned about??? What a crock. There was all sorts of risk of bombs or other acts that could well have disrupted the US war effort, indeed American citizens were warned to be on the lookout for such. and there were a heck of a lot of Nazi supporters in the US, as well as those Germans and Italian born or US citizens of German or Italian extraction. Certainly as great or greater than any conceivable threat of such from Japanese Americans. But keep on denying racism was determinative...just like everything else, there's an element of 'they deserved it' in any discussion with you about race.
I'm pointing out the factors which caused the public to panic to the point that FDR would feel the need to resort to internment. The public's panic was not necessarily rational, but the politicians responded anyway.

We were more vulnerable to a military attack on the W coast than on the E coast. The successful attacks on HI & AK, + the sub attacks against land targets, heightened that panic. There were no comparable attacks on the E coast. Acts of sabotage were theoretical. The Japanese attacks were actual events which drew public attention & were widely reported.

You underestimate our naval vulnerability after Pearl Harbor & the Aleutians. The Japanese had been at war since 1937. They had conquered, occupied & were exploiting a vast Asia-Pacific empire. We were ill prepared & caught flat footed. Most of our naval & air strength was massed on the E coast, focused on the looming threat of war in Europe.

We did not expect Japan to strike as far E as HI & AK. Our limited Pac defenses were concentrated on protecting the PI & our other W Pac island bases.

In 1941, Adm Yamamoto became ascendant. He convinced the war cabinet to approve his strategy of bringing the war to our shores. He succeeded in the first phase. Had our aircraft carriers been in port on 12-07-41, he may well have succeeded in launching air strikes on our W coast, forcing us to chase him over the entire Pacific with limited naval air assets.

https://www.historyonthenet.com/war-in-the-pacific

https://www.historyonthenet.com/panic-p ... arl-harbor
^^^ listen to the embedded podcast. Fear among the public & politicians was the primary motivating factor.
Racial insensitivity allowed it to happen. .
You almost got there. "insensitivity" ain't the word though.

You keep trying to claim that I don't understand the actual threats. You're wrong about that. I do understand the rational aspects of the fear.

I also understand, and am willing to admit, that it was a heck of a lot more than "insensitivity" that drove the fear to paranoia. And indeed, paranoia in that moment was understandable as well...it's that this paranoia persisted well after the rational threat had subsided, and this persistence was deeply racial. That's how it was expressed, in both words and deeds.

And there was not the same sort of paranoia about the internal threat from German Americans, though the actual threat from those Americans was every bit as great as from Americans of Japanese descent.

Why sugar coat this, why 'excuse' this as merely 'fear'?
Good grief man, the Germans did not conduct a sneak attack on our nation. You seem to see racism lurking behind every tree and every bush and under every bed. For the first time that I can remember someone has just declared FDR and Harry Truman guilty of being racists. You are walking in rare air here my friend.. You are way overthinking this issue. It ain't all that complicated to figure out my friend. America was angry at Japan and the events preceading Dec 7 did not help diffuse that anger one little bit. The Bataan death march didn't help that resentment at all. You say you understand the anger but your only explanation is it was racism. At at least you are consistent in what you say.. :roll:
I use to be a people person until people ruined that for me.
jhu72
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

Post by jhu72 »

... what do you call declaring a state of war? The Germans struck first. Sinking American shipping, no American lives lost there. :roll:
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DMac
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

Post by DMac »

The Japanese vessels had to follow in the wake of the US and Brit vessels because...well, because they're Japanese.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us ... d=msedgntp
jhu72
Posts: 13876
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Re: Is America a racist nation?

Post by jhu72 »

Without resorting to concentration camps, the reaction to Germans in WWI was very similar to the reaction to Japanese in WW2. That is also a very interesting period of American paranoia, racism and xenophobia. German descendants suffered much greater then than they did in WW2.
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