Posted on 08/01/2005 7:21:44 PM PDT by satchmodog9
You may infer anything you like. I doubt there was an American anywhere, including Roosevelt, whose reasoning was, "I hate these people. Let's fight them." Yet, I can tell you from many discussions with people that were right on the point of the fighting that Americans with guns were happy to kill Japanese by the bushel (as G. C. Scott would have said).
I believe American fighters respected the Japanese without any love lost for them. In fact, I think so many Americans hated the Japanese like the devil hates holy water.
I don't think the Japanese had much respect for anything that wasn't Japanese.
Context is key. Some terms are more derogatory than others, and have narrower contexts in which they're not offensive. I can imagine situations where "Jap" wouldn't be offensive to someone of Japanese ancestry, but it would have to be from someone who shares that ancestry or from a close friend.
The context in which we use words depends on whether we're inside or outside the group described. Someone in a wheelchair who calls himself a "gimp" is making a different statement from someone standing on two healthy legs using the same word. It's a question of a label that is chosen, often for mocking and ironic reasons, as opposed to one that is imposed.
I don't hate Japanese people, so I don't see how calling someone a Jap is any worse than calling someone a Brit as long as you don't hate that person or group.
I don't hate black people, but they don't automatically know that, so they are unlikely to take "n---er" in a friendly spirit unless I'm a close friend, and they already know how I feel about them.
To me, racial slurs are a form of obscenity. Even in the Jim Crow South, when blacks were clearly second-class citizens, my grandmother would never use the word n---er, because she knew her mom would swat her for it. Racial politics aside, it's a rude, ugly word not befitting use by decent people.
I'm comfortable talking trash with my friends, but would never call a stranger a M'F---er unless I wanted to offend him and wanted him to know that I wanted to offend him.
I call Germans "Krauts" even though I have German ancestry. A "Kraut" was (and maybe still is) considered very derogatory fifty years ago.
"Kraut" is archaic enough that the listener is likely to assume it's mocking and ironic, like Frog or Limey. Like the "Fenian" usage I mentioned in my earlier post.
Remember the race merchants feel perfectly fine calling certain groups "people of color". But if you called someone a "colored" person, you'd be accused of being a racist by those same people.
The two aren't comparable. "Colored" is a term foisted on people of African ancestry by Caucasians. "People of color" is a term chosen by many non-Caucasians (inclusive of African, Asian, American Indian, etc.) to describe themselves.
And whether calling someone "colored" will brand you a racist depends largely on your age. If you're "of a certain age," it will be assumed to be habitual -- after all, Thurgood Marshall referred to himself as a "Negro" well after that term fell out of favor, and possibly to the end of his life. I can't, as the Brits like to say, be arsed to look it up just now.
To come back to my example, being called a "Fenian bastard" by a fellow inebriate in high-spirited joshing is very different from the same phrase spoken by an RUC magistrate with a plexiglass shield and a truncheon during marching season.
Context matters, because it matters not just what you say, but what the listener hears and how he reads your intent. I'm not talking about excessive political correctness or hypersensitivity, just the kind of reading people out that works in 99.9% of face-to-face human interactions (the Internet is different, lacking body language, and "emoticons" are a piss-poor substitute).
I agree. I think it boils down to a difference in culture. Thanks for the post.
"You may infer anything you like. I doubt there was an American anywhere, including Roosevelt, whose reasoning was, "I hate these people. Let's fight them."
Then why do you call it a racist war ?
Are you saying the racist feelings of both sides were the cause of hostilities ? yes or no ?
Of course not. The war in the Pacific was caused when the Japanese put imperialist notions into practice starting in China together with the fact that they hated just about everything that walked or crawled that wasn't Japanese. Then the United States started applying pressure on trade commodities to try to rein in some Japanee aggression. Then the Japanese retaliated by attacking the United States.
There is so much nostalgia regarding the D-Day invasion on the Normandy beaches and the heroism of the miracle of the infantry as Stephen Ambrose liked to call it. When you compare the casualty rates of D-Day to invasion after invasion in the Pacific, it says right here that Normandy was, by comparison, a walk in the sun.
I simply feel that the ferocity of the campaigns in the Pacific was the result of the Japanese first treating all non Japanese worse than they would treat a bacterium. Then they would rather die to the last man than lose to such subhuman creatures.
I never noticed most white folk I have known dwelling on natural white superiority. The fact is, I can't imagine most white folk even thinking such a thing. Yet I have talked to white folk that were in as front of the front lines in the Pacific as you could go without joining the Japanese Army. The ones that I talked to felt you could never kill enough Japanese to satisfy worldly necessity. These people hated the Japanese in kind. Those in Europe that felt that way about the Germans were the exceptions. I believe those in the Pacific that felt that way about the Japanese were the rule.
Yes, I do believe that the war in the Pacific was a racist war or one that race was a factor in how the sides behaved.
Do I think the Americans were as vile as the Japanese? I think the facts speak for themselves unless there was some secret site in Wyoming for using Japanese for guinea pigs for medical experiments (or a litany of other items) that I am oblivious to. However, I think most Americans shared Halsey's thoughts on a "good Jap."
I also think when the hostilities ended the Americans generally set aside their behavior. Americans have generally had difficulty maintaining the intensity of hatred for the long haul. My Dad who was at the front of the front at Iwo Jima and the back of the front at Okinawa even has a friend who is Nisei. Yet I know he is still uncomfortable with the "concept" of Japanese. I bet he isn't alone.
Well, I can concede the point that you are making that there were racist feelngs on both sides once hostilities WERE UNDER WAY, but it was not that way prior to the war at least on the American side.
When you call it a "racist war" your characterization/desrciption by default, means a war caused by, driven by, or fought for reasons of racism. It can only mean one thing. It's a description that distorts and paints the entire struggle on both sides, as one where the participants were driven to war by racist feelings as their primary reason. It's simply not true.
In fact I'd say it was just the opposite for the USA. We sent the AVG over to China to protect, fight and die for their cause. We defended ourselves and took the fight to them, to put a stop to Japanese aggression. Whatever feelings towards the Japanese that came out of that on our side, were a byproduct of the war and not the cause.
You wrote "The war in the Pacific was caused when the Japanese put imperialist notions into practice starting in China together with the fact that they hated just about everything that walked or crawled that wasn't Japanese. Then the United States started applying pressure on trade commodities to try to rein in some Japanee aggression. Then the Japanese retaliated by attacking the United States."
Instead of calling it a racist war I would describe it as a war that was caused when the "Japanese put imperialist notions into practice", while the USA was just trying to defend itself and "rein in" and defeat "Japanese aggression"
I guess you agree with me, thanks.
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You are correct of course.
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