[brilliantcode]

The Japanese pre-Cold War were treated unfairly but this pales in comparison to the many hell the Asian region have suffered under Japanese Imperialism.

At least they didn't get gassed like the Jews did. At least they didn't get bayonetted like the Chinese in Nanjing en masse in graves or a military unit performing live surgery on them or forcing hundreds of thousands of young Korean women to sexual slavery.

It didn't help that there was heavy animosity towards Japanese from Chinese & Korean Americans who felt compelled and directly/indirectly suffered as a result of Imperial Japan. There was probably deep desire for schadenfreude that contributed to Japanese Americans downfall.

But all that aside is clearly a small drop in the bucket. The view of Japanese and Asian Americans were explicitly racist. Nazi Germany was bad but the same elements of racial white superiority is a continuing theme even until the late 60s, where African American celebrities were forced to sleep in trailer parks while their white co-actors would lounge in swanky hotels (particularly angering Frank Sinatra).

There has been a miniscule effort from Reagan handing out 20k and an apology for the immense inter-generational trauma directly caused by the USG. There's little apology for Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims. This suggests to me a serious lack of reflection and it's evidenced by the fact that Muslim Americans today are facing a similar treatment.

I love the US but shit like this makes me pause for a bit. However, it still is nowhere near the atrocities committed by Imperial Japan & Nazi Germany. But it's curious to see the stark difference in the way Japanese and German Americans were treated. German Americans weren't sent to interment camps and had their assets seized in the same manner as the Japanese Americans.

All in all, a tragedy and showing that a melting pot we-are-all-americans is a flawed policy-where everyone is American but some less American than others. Canada is no better off as they also had Japanese interment camps and showed little remorse.

Sometimes I wonder as Asian Canadian, are we truly accepted by the mainstream North American society? It makes me question what the Canadian/American dream. I think about just how much easier it is when your skin color matches the mainstream crowd and you don't stand out or have any biases held against you. The Japanese interment camp is just one of those many items that raises existential questions of being in North America, and it's not all that clear whether it's in the rearview mirror seeing how Muslim Americans are being treated today in the West.

I still do think North America is relatively a very accepting and open place. It's hard to fathom such level of integration in Europe or Asia.

[adewinter]

"However, it still is nowhere near the atrocities committed by Imperial Japan & Nazi Germany."

The only question I have is: So?

Why do you feel the need to compare what the US did to other atrocities? You can always find something worse to compare a bad act to.

Nothing you said changes the fact that what the US did here was just plain wrong, it definitely shouldn't have happened, and we should do everything in our power to ensure it doesn't happen again. If you feel the need to make what the US did look slightly "less bad" by comparing it to other heinous events in the world, it might be worth reflecting on why you feel that need.

[brilliantcode]

I'm not trying to minimize or say what the US did was less wrong but I'm arguing against people that use this as a crutch to support their what aboutism that attempts to paint the US in the same light as Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. Clearly is night and day difference.

[tptacek]

In fact, the exact opposite is the case: attempting to compare one of our national disgraces to the actions of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan is itself an appeal to whataboutism --- the article we're commenting on is about the internment of Japanese-Americans, not about the Nazis.

[brilliantcode]

yes I'm aware of the article's topic my point was a response comparing Nazi Germany's holocaust to internment of Japanese Americans. That isn't whataboutism, it's a fact. Japanese Americans weren't gassed or killed en masse by USG and that changes the equation. You are attempting to hijack the conversation into a circular argument by simply negating what I'm saying without considering the stark difference between genocide and politically motivated discrimination.

Very different things. Neither are good but it's pretty clear which countries were the worse at offenses.

[tptacek]

It's hard to understand where you're coming from, given that the topic of the article is Japanese-American internment.

[kibwen]

I don't think anyone's trying to argue a strict equivalence between Japanese internment and the Holocaust or the Rape of Nanking. We can identify injustices without forcing them to meet the standards of history's greatest atrocities, especially if we want to pretend that we hold ourselves to higher standards.

That said, it's chilling to wonder what would have happened if command had ordered the mass execution of the imprisoned. Would the military have had the integrity to refuse the command? I can't imagine that it would have been impossible to find friends or family of the thousands of Pearl Harbor victims who would have been willing to carry out such an order.

[Koshkin]

< this pales in comparison

What would be the point of such comparison? If it is not to somehow justify the acts committed, then it is, no doubt, to try and make them look insignificant, unnoticeable, that is, to hide them.

And what did the Japanese Americans have to do with Japanese Imperialism?

[brilliantcode]

Japanese Americans were the victim of Japanese Imperialism but in a case against whataboutism that says the US = Nazi, I argue that Jews, Koreans, Chinese have gone through far far worse conditions which puts America in a different class than Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.

[tptacek]

Japanese-American citizens are, as the name suggests, American citizens, and aren't answerable to the crimes of the Empire of Japan, and so the actions of the Axis powers aren't germane to the discussions.

[brilliantcode]

Yes and that's the biggest tragedy of this whole situation. However, Chinese and Korean Americans certainly didn't think so along with the rest of the American society. You can't fault them for the connect they saw as you see how much Muslim Americans are vilified along with Sikh Americans who are incorrectly associated with Islam.

[tptacek]

I don't understand this at all. Muslim-Americans were no more culpable than Sikh-Americans.