THE APPALLING RACISM DURING THE CONFLICT IN THE ASIAN THEATER OF WORLD WAR II
By
Charles
Modern China and Japan
Karen Garner
December 13, 2006
"In the United States and Britain," According to Dower, "the Japanese were more hated than the Germans before as well as after Pearl Harbor. On this, there was no dispute among contemporary observers. They were perceived as a race apart, even a species apart -- and an overpoweringly monolithic one at that. There was no Japanese counterpart to the 'good German' in the popular consciousness of the Western Allies."
Beside the genocide of the Jewish, racism is still one of the larger ignored subjects of World War II. "Anti-Semitism was but one manifestation of the racism that existed at all levels in the United States and the United Kingdom." It is clear that the Allies were predisposed to racism even before fighting broke out with Japan, while criticizing Germany.
This analysis of Nazi racism by Western scientists and intellectuals was ironic, for it uncovered the hypocrisy of the Western Allies to the rest of the world. "Even while denouncing Nazi theories of ‘Aryan' supremacy, the U.S. government presided over a society where blacks were subjected to demeaning Jim Crow laws, segregation was imposed even in the military establishment, racial discrimination extended to the defense industries, and immigration policy was severely biased against all nonwhites."
This racism built into the structure of American society caused the U.S. government after Pearl Harbor, to incarcerate tens of thousands of Japanese Americans commonly referred to as Japanese Internment or Japanese American Relocation.
John W. Dower War Without Mercy (New York: Pantheon, 1986), 8.
2 Ibid., 3.
3 Ibid.
The Germans as well as the Japanese used the United States' racial inequalities against them during the war as well. "The Germans pointed to the status of blacks in America as proof of the validity of their dogma as... [continues]
By
Charles
Modern China and Japan
Karen Garner
December 13, 2006
"In the United States and Britain," According to Dower, "the Japanese were more hated than the Germans before as well as after Pearl Harbor. On this, there was no dispute among contemporary observers. They were perceived as a race apart, even a species apart -- and an overpoweringly monolithic one at that. There was no Japanese counterpart to the 'good German' in the popular consciousness of the Western Allies."
Beside the genocide of the Jewish, racism is still one of the larger ignored subjects of World War II. "Anti-Semitism was but one manifestation of the racism that existed at all levels in the United States and the United Kingdom." It is clear that the Allies were predisposed to racism even before fighting broke out with Japan, while criticizing Germany.
This analysis of Nazi racism by Western scientists and intellectuals was ironic, for it uncovered the hypocrisy of the Western Allies to the rest of the world. "Even while denouncing Nazi theories of ‘Aryan' supremacy, the U.S. government presided over a society where blacks were subjected to demeaning Jim Crow laws, segregation was imposed even in the military establishment, racial discrimination extended to the defense industries, and immigration policy was severely biased against all nonwhites."
This racism built into the structure of American society caused the U.S. government after Pearl Harbor, to incarcerate tens of thousands of Japanese Americans commonly referred to as Japanese Internment or Japanese American Relocation.
John W. Dower War Without Mercy (New York: Pantheon, 1986), 8.
2 Ibid., 3.
3 Ibid.
The Germans as well as the Japanese used the United States' racial inequalities against them during the war as well. "The Germans pointed to the status of blacks in America as proof of the validity of their dogma as... [continues]
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