Blacks in Society

Blacks in Society

A question of reparations

African Americans and Japanese Americans form an integral part of the American society. Their history is closely related to the development of the modern United States. The treatment of both these communities in the past has raised questions regarding the very values of the foundations of America. The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the life of African Americans prior to the civil rights era and the age of slavery have raised several comparisons. In some aspects, both of them have a clear relation while in others, they have totally divergent episodes.

The topic of the paper is however, limited to the excesses committed against Japanese Americans and the parallels drawn from it to compare them to the life of the African Americans during Slavery and pre civil rights era. A large number of the American Japanese community, numbering up to 120,000 was interned in ten facilities across the United States. This was in response to the Japanese attack on the Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Though, initially it seemed that this internment was based on suspicion of disloyalty towards the US, it soon became apparent that it was done on the basis of racial prejudice.

The basic difference between the racial treatments meted out to these two groups is the mindset of the authorities. Racism against the Japanese was targeted on the basis of economic reasons and the development of Japan as a great power. There were several anti-Japanese groups prevalent in the United States, long before World War II, which affected the general mindset of the American public. They advocated that the arrival of Japanese immigrants resulted in loss of jobs for the white majority. There were groups who called for segregation and expressed their fear that after the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese war, 'the brown people' would soon run over America. These misconceptions along with the failure of the political leadership led to the government swiftly passing laws for the internment of the American Japanese community after the Pearl harbor attack.

In contrast, initially the treatment of African Americans was essentially the relationship of a master and slave. It must be noted that slavery was more prevalent in the Southern States of the United States than in the North. Though, Lincoln's emancipation act completely ended slavery, this led to the birth of another evil: segregation, something which the Japanese Americans had also experienced prior to World War II. Moreover, the concept of physical torture was also something that was markedly different from the Japanese American internment experience (Painter, 2006).

The experiences of the American Japanese during the internment years also provide significant comparison material. The way the Japanese Americans lived during their years of confinement behind barbed wires is reminiscent of the segregation suffered by the African American community. Excluded from the rest of the society and much like the black community, the Japanese Americans were able to create schools for their children, create a few jobs for themselves and ...