George Schuyler Quotes
Now there will be suspicion hatred, and intolerance between those of Japanese ancestry ... and the other natives. There will be divisions among the Japanese Americans themselves, because some are citizens by right of birth while those born in Japan are subjects of the Mikado. The Japanese Americans are overwhelmingly loyal, but they have always borne the burden of white American suspicion, and that burden will increase. Thousands may be penned in camps.
This statement shortly after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, was remarkably prescient. The last sentence was exactly what happened although at the time some criticized him for being too paranoid about racial matters.
George Samuel Schuyler, 1895—1977, Author, Journalist & Social Commentator, Satirist & Science Fiction Writer, New York State Conservative Party Nominee for U. S, Senator, December 1941
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This racist officer was the impetus for one of the terrible wrongs in American history but most of the national establishment and FDR himself signed off on it to his everlasting disgrace. See {587961} and {635792}.
The Proclamation was a belated admission of the disgraceful internment of loyal Japanese Americans during WWII. See {587961}. “Evacuation” was the euphemism for rounding up Japanese American citizens and putting them in internment camps. Not a single Japanese American was involved in any effort to sabotage or undermine the United States. The same cannot be said about the German Americans where a few did work against U. S. interests and yet the German-Americans were never rounded up. The explanation of the difference has been long debated. Racism was a part of it; California paranoia, another. And unfortunately, Japanese Americans owned very desirable land in California and when they could no longer make their payments some interests gobbled up the land and that was a motivation for some. Regardless, it was one of the low points in American history, and warranted this Presidential and national apology.
This report was submitted to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who accepted the recommendation and signed Executive Order 9066. The Japanese on the West Coast were then rounded up and interned by DeWitt in what was one of the lowest and disgraceful points in American history. A national apology was made 34 years later. See {635792}.
Initially when the World War II idea of evacuating Japanese Americans from the West Coast was proposed, General De Witt and replied, “Damned nonsense!”
Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor:
While the Western nations were doubtless guilty of blatant racism and anti-Asian discrimination, the Japanese protest was tainted with a substantial degree of hypocrisy. At the Versailles Peace Treaty negotiations the Japanese argued strenuously for equal treatment of Japanese by the West but did not favor extension of the equality principle to Koreans, Chinese, Thais, Chomoros, and other Asian peoples. Japan itself, led by its Emperor, considered other Asian people racially and culturally inferior. Thus they were the inherent leaders of Asia and all Asian people.
After the war Donitz was found guilty of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare and using thousands of slave laborers in his shipyards. He was sentenced to 10 years, one of the lightest sentences if the German War Crimes Trials.
the attack on Pearl Harbor
Througout political history, including in America, opportunistic, unscruplous politicians have appealed to the prejudices and hates of subsets of the population for others (usually minorities) to get elected or obtain support for legislation and administrative action. In America this has been an element of all populist movements—an enemy. This quote is particularly enlightening in that it shows that the real need is to have a minority to focus the public against—which one is not as material as the fact that there is one.
This classic quotation illustrates several things. First, the degree of racism that existed in 1944 in West Virginia. Second, not how young Robert Byrd immediately leaped from the possibility of integrating our fighting forces to interracial sex. That has been typical of white racism in America—a preoccupation with race and sex. Last, Byrd who became a member of the KKK, completely changed his mind over the year and ended up supporting the things that, as a youth were worse than the demise of the nation. He matured and grew on the race issue as much of the country did and ended as a strong supporter of equality and civil rights—including affirmative action.
1st Viscount Shibusawa. Not only was there gross discrimination—mostly in the Western States—against the Japanese, but they were subjected to physical harassment and violence.
This proposed Amendment would also have repealed the 14th and 4th Andmendments
George Samuel Schuyler was an African-American author, journalist, and social commentator known for his conservatism after he had supported socialism.
