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10 February, 2003
Revisionist history lessons
It's amazing to think that in 2003, a United States Congressman can say that the internment of Japanese Americans was "appropriate," that it was done for the protection of these citizens, and besides which, some of them "probably were intent on doing harm to us."
 ''For many of these Japanese-Americans, it wasn't safe for them to be on the street.'' -- Rep. Coble on why the internment of Japanese Americans was justified |
It's one thing for Joe Sixpack, an average citizen who has personal beliefs that he espouses to friends at the corner bar, to believe that internment was the right thing to do. I know there are bigots out there, and I'm glad they don't intersect with my life very often. But for a man with such a high position of power and influence -- whose very power and influence can affect my citizenship in this country that I love -- to espouse such Neanderthal thinking is not acceptable.
Here's what happened:
On Feb. 4, Rep. Coble was interviewed on a call-in talk radio show in High Point, North Carolina, when a caller suggested that Arab-Americans should be interned. Coble disagreed, but then said he thought the Japanese American internment was the right thing to do in 1942.
''We were at war. They (Japanese-Americans) were an endangered species,'' Coble said. ''For many of these Japanese-Americans, it wasn't safe for them to be on the street.''
He made the point that like most Arab-Americans today, most Japanese-Americans during World War II probably were not America's enemies. Still, Coble added, ''Some probably were intent on doing harm to us, just as some of these Arab-Americans are probably intent on doing harm to us.''
Within just a couple of minutes, Coble managed to rewrite history with the same condescension, ignorance and paranoia that prevailed when FDR signed Executive Order 9066 on Feb. 19, 1942.
|
Extra reading Speaking Out for the Past -- This is the main story of a package that ran in the Denver Post that also includes this sidebar. The main story is about Camp Amache, the Japanese American internment camp in SE Colorado; the sidebar has profiles of area JA leaders. I've also added an extra article, about Dr. Satsuki Ina, and the powerful work she is doing with "The Children of the Camps." |
He thinks paternalistically that the poor Japanese Americans couldn't take care of themselves and were better off rounded up and imprisoned for their own protection, even if they lost their homes, businesses, farms and most of their personal possessions. That these people had to decide what they would carry with them to undetermined destinations with just a couple weeks' notice; that they lived in temporary detention centers for months that were usually converted race tracks where internees had to sleep in hastily whitewashed horse stalls; that they were moved to "permanent" concentration camps in remote places in the country's interior; and that the guards that Coble thinks were there to keep out the hordes of hateful Americans trying to kill the Japanese prisoners instead had their guns and bayonets pointed inside the camp, seems to have escaped the lawmaker's logic.
Never mind that thousands more Japanese Americans lived out their lives during the war in states away from the West Coast, including Colorado, where they may have faced prejudice but didn't need to seek shelter in a government concentration camp.
And he must have never been taught - since internment is still often skipped over in American history textbooks - that there was not a single case of espionage or sabotage linked to any Japanese American before or during the war. Not that it would matter if one, or two, or a dozen "dirty Japs" did commit treason - that still would not have been a reason to drag all 120,000 of them from the West Coast without reason other than fear, paranoia and economic opportunism.
Within a few days after the radio show, Coble's comments attracted only a little bit of media attention but a lot of Internet discussion. I received an e-mail from a concerned Japanese American in Boston who forwarded a link to a short Associated Press article about Coble. But the online referrals led to a condemnation from the Japanese American Citizens League and other civil rights organizations including the Arab American Institute, and suddenly the national media started paying attention.
The JACL demanded Coble resign from his position; the Charlotte Observer newspaper has been running an online poll asking whether Coble and Sue Myrick (another N.C. Republican Representative, who tossed out an offensive remark about Arab Americans during a speech, saying, "Look at who runs all the convenience stores across the country… every little town you go into, you know?") should apologize. As of this writing, 60 percent who have answered the poll say they should apologize and 36 percent say they shouldn't. The story even made an English-language news site in Japan.
John Tateishi, the JACL's national executive director, has been widely quoted in the media, and likened Coble's statements to those of Trent Lott last December, who was forced to resign his position as the highest ranking Republican in Congress after he endorsed the segregationist presidential platform of Sen. Strom Thurmond. "It is astonishing that yet another political leader would publicly embrace the racist policies of the 1940s," Tateishi said. "We are flabbergasted that a man who supports racial profiling and ethnic scapegoating chairs the (subcommittee)."
Floyd Mori, the President of JACL's national board, pointed out, "Rep. Coble's comments are outrageous and uneducated. To suggest that the government locked up 120,000 innocent people for their own protection is not only patronizing and offensive, but it is patently incorrect."
Rep. Mike Honda, a Democrat from California who was interned at Amache in Colorado as a child, spoke with Coble and told the AP, ''I'm disappointed that he really doesn't understand the impact of what he said. With his leadership position in Congress, that kind of lack of understanding can lead people down the wrong path." In reaction, Honda has introduced a resolution in Congress calling for national recognition for Day of Remembrance, Feb. 19 -- the date that President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which authorized internment.
With all this reaction, you might think Coble would rethink his position, but he hasn't.
Late last week, he announced, "I apologize if I offended anybody. I certainly did not intend to offend anybody. I certainly intended no harm or ill will toward anybody. I still stand by what I said ... that, in no small part, it (internment) was done to protect the Japanese-Americans themselves."
Why do people like Coble so often fall back on the "I apologize if I offended you, but that's your problem" defense? Why can't they just stop, think and admit, "I screwed up - that was a stupid, insensitive thing to say?"
His staff has said that he must not have offended people, since they've received very few complaints. Don't let this one run off your back, people. Get mad and let someone know you're mad. Contact your local Congressional representative and let them know how you feel. And send Coble's staff a note. His e-mail address is howard.coble@mail.house.gov.
It's sad to think that with Day of Remembrance just around the corner, we're reminded just how much of the lessons of the past have already been forgotten.
Vote in the Charlotte
Observer's online poll about Rep. Coble and Rep. Myrick.
Read the JACL's
statement about Coble's remarks.
Read the Associated
Press's latest article on CNN.com.
Click at JACL's Web site to contact
your Congressional representative to share your comments about this
issue.
Visit Rep. Coble's Web site.
And, call House Speaker Hastert and Judiciary Chair Sensenbrenner with the message that Rep. Coble needs to be removed as chair of the subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. Speaker's office: (202) 225-0600, Rep. Hastert's office: (202) 225-2976, Judiciary Committee: (202) 225-3951, Rep. Sensenbrenner's office: (202) 225-5101, Rep. Coble's office: (202) 225-3065