Succeed Anyway

Having frequently driven by the Manzanar Internment Camp in California, I’m reminded of what fear of the “other” can do. Americans allowed the un-American incarceration of loyal Japanese citizens because of their ethnicity. At times, we have treated Jews and the Irish with contempt, distance, and ethnic racism.

Slavery was terrible and a blot on American history. But while slavery is still alive and well in parts of the world even today, America found a way to end slavery and affirm our values of equality for all. Of course, there is no total equality of opportunity or results anywhere. You are born to parents, in a place, at a time that can make the road tougher or easier. But Americans of any race or ethnicity have proved that this is a country where you can succeed anyway.

The Japanese, the Irish and Jews have been so productive in America in spite of the prejudice they’ve faced. All three lived out a mantra probably echoed by their parents countless times—“You are an American now. The best way to beat hate is to succeed anyway!” Instead of demonstrating in the streets and clamoring for government programs to right their wrongs, they worked together to support their own by encouraging and supporting the education and entrepreneurial initiative of their young.

Abraham Lincoln came from humble beginnings. He once said, “I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.” The greatest salt in the wound of blatant racism is not to demonstrate with shouts of your own, but to use such taunts to help fuel your drive to achieve and prove them wrong.

George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, and Martin Luther King, Jr. all challenged black Americans to use freedom to succeed on the basis of their character and skills. Black Americans can’t change history, but they can change their own future. Let the millions of successful and proud black Americans stand as a reminder that no one is limited by the past. Succeed anyway.

But it was meeting Brother Clarence years ago on a five-hour flight from Atlanta to LA that gave me a better understanding of the plight of today’s black Americans. Clarence was 98 years old and the son of a slave. I asked him what his father said about being born into slavery. Clarence confessed that he refused to talk about it, and always said, “You don’t need to know because you are free now.” He challenged him to leave Texas and make his way to California to make his own American dream.

Clarence did just that, and now he was returning for a family reunion in Fresno. When asked how his offspring respond to his father’s advice, he shook his head and said, “They don’t want to hear about freedom. They’re angry and won’t let it go.”

Being consumed by angry demonstrations and identity politics may have at one time helped the Democratic party stay in power, but it has never helped those who have allowed themselves to be locked into victimhood. Condemn racism wherever and whenever it occurs. Hold those committing violence and destruction of property responsible. Prosecute them to the full extent of the law. Let racist demonstrations of any color receive what they deserve—our disrespect.

When asked by CNN’s Don Lemon whether race is a factor in wealth distribution in the U.S., Morgan Freeman said, “Today? No. …Why would race have anything to do with it? Put your mind to what you want to do and go for that. It’s kind of like religion to me. It’s a good excuse for not getting there. If you talk about it (racism), it exists. It’s not like it exists, and we refuse to talk about it. Making it a bigger issue than it needs to be is the problem here.”

Rosey Grier, preacher and former LA Ram, once wisely observed, “All too often, minority kids never hear about anyone other than athletes. They don't know the living you can make with your mind. When I hear the same thing in black schools as white, kids talking about becoming doctors and lawyers, I know the ghetto will disappear.”

Forget Affirmative action quotas and start broadcasting affirmative examples of black Americans who have made America work for them. Let all Americans learn from their success and keep them involved in mentoring aspiring black youth. And most important—help them succeed anyway!

Having frequently driven by the Manzanar Internment Camp in California, I’m reminded of what fear of the “other” can do.

Lets get to the hear of the matter. This was war. Our citizens were rounded and put in camps in japan also.

Why? For several reasons. One big one was prisoner exchange. There was a lot of negotiation for prisoner exchange. In Fact, Japan demanded we round them up and protect them or else.

I AM SO TIRED OF THIS LIE ABOUT THE POOR JAPENSESE PRISONERS AND THE CAMPS. Many were given a chance to prove themselves as American citizeds and did so.

“I AM SO TIRED OF THIS LIE ABOUT THE POOR JAPENSESE PRISONERS AND THE CAMPS. Many were given a chance to prove themselves as American citizeds and did so.”

I think you need to have walked in their shoes. My son-in-law is half Japanese. His mother was born in that internment camp. His grandparents, loyal American citizens, were stripped of all their possessions and their business taken from them as they were carted off. Yeah, you can talk about it in terms of national security and the time of war and all of that, but internment destroyed people’s lives unnecessarily. And yes, my SIL’s family did come back, but it took the rest of their lives to do it. So from what I have learned by personal experience with my extended family, I would say what you wrote was largely bull$hit!

“I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s not a n*gger or a Chinaman. Uncle Will says that the Lord made a White man from dust, a n*gger from mud, then He threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice, I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion Negroes ought to be in Africa, Yellow men in Asia and White men in Europe and America.” ~ Democrat President Harry Truman

“His grandparents, loyal American citizens, were stripped of all their possessions and their business taken from them as they were carted off.”

No. Although there were certainly injustices, the interned were given time to dispose of their property as best they could. Smaller items they could carry with them.

You make it sound like SS troopers crashed in on them as they slept, and tossed them on trains like so many bales of hay. That’s not how it was done.

Further, while your SIL’s grandparents may very well have been loyal American citizens, there were spies and saboteurs among them. Don’t ever imagine that there weren’t.

“Further, while your SIL’s grandparents may very well have been loyal American citizens, there were spies and saboteurs among them. Don’t ever imagine that there weren’t.”

So I take it you are from the “let’s kill all of them and let God sort them out” school?

White folks stole their property, their businesses and nothing was ever really done to help them recoup what was taken. I guess you don’t believe that all citizens deserve the protections of the Constitution either. There were other ways to find the bad people.
Islam is a very different problem in that it isn’t a single country that is at war with us. The fact of the matter is that today, ALL of them are here to trying and subvert our nation and deliver it to Islam, which is an entirely different proposition than the Japanese-Americans were.

“So I take it you are from the “let’s kill all of them and let God sort them out” school?”

Let me take a moment to speculate on your reasons for beginning your post with a groundless insult. Nothing I wrote could reasonably lead to that conclusion. Besides that, internment and killing are by no means the same thing. I must speculate that you think anyone who disagrees with you on this issue must be a bad person.

Who else do we see acting like that on a daily basis?

“White folks stole their property, their businesses”

That’s one of those egregious, obstreperous lies that can sneak up on a person and provoke him to anger, if he’s not careful. You should get down on your knees and beg America’s pardon for such slander.

“There were other ways to find the bad people.”

Even if there were, and there weren’t, that was not one of the purposes of internment. It was determined that the bad guys could not be identified quickly enough to prevent harm and death. Internment was both to protect us from the spies and saboteurs among that population, and to protect people of Japanese ancestry from Americans who were, to say the least, upset at Japan’s conduct.

War is Hell, bucko, and we had no idea if we were going to win that one or not. In one of his few correct decisions, FDR decided that the Constitution is not a suicide pact. In fairness to him, he had even people of his own social class confined to a mental institution for the duration of the war as security risks.

“ALL of them are here to trying and subvert our nation and deliver it to Islam, which is an entirely different proposition than the Japanese-Americans were.”

Which is why I advocate the immediate expulsion of all muzzies.

“White folks stole their property, their businesses”

Well, it the case of my SiL’s grandparents, they had a car dealership and they never got it back.

“ALL of them are here to trying and subvert our nation and deliver it to Islam, which is an entirely different proposition than the Japanese-Americans were.”

Which is why I advocate the immediate expulsion of all muzzies.

Well, at least we can agree on that score!

“Well, it the case of my SiL’s grandparents, they had a car dealership and they never got it back.”

Your SIL’s grandparents were given a bit of time to liquidate those assets. It goes without saying that they were at such a disadvantage that they were unable to arrange fair prices for anything. One must assume that they took a huge loss, including the rights to the dealership itself.

That was extremely unfortunate. However, the circumstances of the war demanded it, just as they demanded that some men be forced to enter the armed forces and give up their very lives.

That said, I do think we should have done a better job of making the internees whole when the war was over. However, not proceeding with the internment would have been unconscionable.

Over a seven-day period, from December 18 to 24, 1941, nine Japanese submarines positioned at strategic points along the U.S. west coast attacked eight American merchant ships, of which two were sunk and two damaged. Six seamen were killed. It was the first and only time during the three years and eight months of war to come that more than one Japanese submarine appeared at the same time off the American coast.

Twelve I-type submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s 1st Submarine Squadron had taken up position in Hawaiian waters by the evening of December 6, 1941, anticipating an attack on U.S. Pacific Fleet ships if they broke out of Pearl Harbor the next day. So successful was the December 7 surprise attack that for two days not a single American ship was spotted at sea.

On December 10, the Japanese learned that an American Lexington-class aircraft carrier was heading for the U.S. mainland. Nine of the 12 subs were ordered to pursue and sink the enemy carrier, then take up positions at designated sites off the Pacific coast and begin attacking American merchant ships. As a climax to the operation, around midnight on Christmas Eve all nine subs were to shell selected U.S. coastal cities and lighthouses. After expending all of their 5.5-inch shells, they were to retire to Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands.

The nine submarines sent to shell the U.S. coast were all launched a year or two before the war began. With only slight differences, all had a range of approximately 15,000 miles, a surface speed of 23 1/2 knots, carried as many as 18 torpedoes, mounted a 5.5-inch deck gun, were over 355 feet long and carried a complement of 94 to 100 men.

You keep missing the point that these were citizens.

You cannot be suggesting that all of these families dumping their businesses and assets on the market at the same time would garner them a fair price? That is exactly what the Germans did to the Jews.

I understand “why” they did what they did. It doesn’t change the validity of the policy.

If anything it is an example of what happens in a declared war...and why we haven’t seen that action in a long time. Neither side trusts the other enough to give them that kind of power.

“You keep missing the point that these were citizens.”

Some of them were, and so were the bluebloods that FDR held in the mental hospital. I’m not missing a thing.

“You cannot be suggesting that all of these families dumping their businesses and assets on the market at the same time would garner them a fair price?”

So, you haven’t actually read what I wrote, but are just spewing talking points.

“That is exactly what the Germans did to the Jews.”

Oh, that is despicable. You compare internment the the Holocaust? Vile, vile slander. Any conservative Jews care to weigh in on that?

“I understand “why” they did what they did.”

Apparently not, because you still think they shouldn’t have done it. If you understood, even a tiny bit, you’d see that they had to.

Oh, enough with the drama.

The Jews were stripped of their property and they could not own businesses. They were forced to sell, or they would get nothing.

Tell me how that is dissimilar to what we did to the internees?

And you talk about not reading the answer. If you were more interested in learning something, and not so blind in your defense of our past stupidity you might learn something.

But your country, right or wrong. That’s the kind of thinking that ends up with people in camps.

“Oh, enough with the drama.”

Don’t bring none, won’t be none.

“The Jews were stripped of their property and they could not own businesses. They were forced to sell, or they would get nothing. Tell me how that is dissimilar to what we did to the internees?”

The Japanese internees were not “stripped” of their property. They were not “stripped” of cash or valuables; their jewelry was not stolen, their gold teeth were not pulled, the women were not made into sex slaves, they weren’t starved and worked to death, they weren’t gassed and made into lampshades...

Similar? Really? Not in this universe.

“If you were more interested in learning something, and not so blind in your defense of our past stupidity you might learn something.”

My wife is Japanese, which means that my six children are half Japanese. Having a personal interest in this matter, I have studied it in depth, even researching original documents.

No one should learn from your simplistic, inaccurate version of events. This is the kind of crap I would expect to see on DU, not FR.

“But your country, right or wrong. That’s the kind of thinking that ends up with people in camps.”

Again, despicable, vile slander. You think that’s why FDR ordered the internment? You need to try and elevate your thinking above the level of a brain-dead liberal.

“Because all the internees were given advance notice. That is the way it was done.”

Yeah, that’s fine to say, but there was, in many instances, not enough time to conclude one’s affairs. Plus some turned over going businesses to whites for “safe keeping” only to find that those same people simply expropriated what was put in “their care.” Any way you slice it, war, or no war, what was done wasn’t Constitutional, no matter how you choose to spin it. Furthermore, it would not happen today. Either you believe in what the Constitution says, or you don’t. And in the case of the Japanese and WW!!, our government chose to ignore the Constitution.

Well, clearly you cannot have a discussion.

You cannot get past the fact that we screwed over an entire race of our own citizens. We locked them up. We took them away from their homes by force. We ruined businesses.

Sure, “we gave them a chance to show they were patriotic.” What kind of an asinine statement is that. Were their wives, moms and daughters given that chance.

Their story is not the “Dirty Dozen”... you don’t get to prove your loyalty to get out of prison.

But, I guess because your wife’s family didn’t suffer, it’s OK. Perhaps your wife’s family used some of the riches they got selling their stuff to bribe their captors.

One story does not correct a wrong the size of this one. And if you don’t see that, then you are probably so old you are going senile.

I love my country, but we continue to make bonehead mistakes. You are willing to wave it off as something that happened long ago. But one mistake leads to another. And then another. And here we are: A government so dysfunctional it’s pathetic. Our country is great in spite of the mistakes you embrace and condone.

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