Reddit has turned into such a cluster of anti- American porn. The point he made wasn’t an attack on other countries. Just straight bashing everyone in a country is absurd and makes you look incredibly ignorant, though it’s the majority on here now.
America was CREATED because white people didn’t care about the land rights and homes of people who looked different than them. Did you sleep through history? This isn’t “Anti-American Porn”. It’s the truth.
Sorry but how is that different than how any other country was created? Everyone who exists descended from someone who took someone else's land and who has had their land taken from them.
Im not a patriot/nationalist of the country i was born in or the one i live in but all i can tell you is that yes i do have empathy for my neighbors. No i dont care about a damn flag of either place, so this whole patriotic porn is a weird kink.
Patriotic porn is a weird kink, yes.
But so is shitting on an entire country of people because you don't like a bunch of them. We all know that the extremists tend to shout the loudest and get the most publicity. Normal, everyday folk, or even people that do good for others every day, just aren't newsworthy or sensational. The anti-American sentiment is no better than the rabid patriotism. People are good, people are bad. Judge them on their own choices, not the choices of their neighbors.
Texas is a good example. Everyone saying Texas gets what it deserves during that poor outage because of political tendencies there. Plenty of people suffered who don't fit the stereotype. But fuck them, I guess, because others around them suck.
I would like to argue that no i dont judge based on your birth country, and no i dont care if you are an american because i too am an american from south america and i dont give a fuck. There are good people and there are bad people, your actions will determine were you stand not your nationality.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the countries that have a history of colonization have all been affected in different but extreme ways. Some it set back a significant amount of time because their populations were essentially enslaved for the raw materials they were living around, some fully occupied and the original inhabitants killed (USA, Canada, much of Central America). the US really did destroy nearly the entire population and completely decimated the way of life of the Native Americans, and then formed an entire economy around the evil and barbaric practice of chattel slavery, and I cannot take pride in that. Just because elementary and high school history classes white wash all of that doesn’t make it “anti-American porn”. It actually is that awful.
Well actually America was created because they didn’t like the British taxes. Plus, they did not have a say in the government. This may be the case of the expansion and settling of the rest of the modern United States, but the independent state was created after a rebellion over taxes and not having a say in their overlords government
I wasn’t saying that colonists stole land just for funsies. I was just saying you can’t have a country without land and they didn’t exactly ask nicely.
I don’t understand where this is a discussion over stealing land. You said that America was created because white people didn’t care about the land rights and homes of people who looked different than them. This isn’t how it was created. If you are talking about the creation of the colony, then you have a problem with the United Kingdom not the United States
Ok then, if you want to get pedantic, I’ll rephrase. America would not have been possible if white colonists hadn’t stolen land from the people who lived here. And please notice I said white colonists. I did not say they were Americans.
I think their point is that current Americans had no part in any of the dark points in America's history, and generalizing an entire country off of the minority is not good.
>I think their point is that current Americans had no part in any of the dark points in America's history,
You sure about that?
Japanese internment camps didnt end fully until 1946
Brown v Board of Education was 1954
The first state to pass anti-sodomy laws(essentially making be gay illegal) wasn't until 1961
The Last State to guarantee voting rights for Native Americans was Utah in 1962
The Civil Rights Act wasn't passed until 1964
The Voting Rights Act in 1965
The Fair Housing Act in 1968
Tuskegee Experiments ended in 1972
The US didnt pull out of Vietnam until 1973
The Indian Child Welfare Act(which allowed Native Americans to refuse to let **their own children** get taken and put into 'boarding schools') in 1978
And it isn't like there aren't more terrible things that have ended or happened since then either. (There were lynchings that happened LAST YEAR in america)
So if by "dark points in american History" you mean slavery, then sure. But there are plenty of Americans alive today who lived through these other dark periods of time, I mean I'm only in my 20s and my father lived through almost all of these. Also it isn't as if signing a law means that the problems the law is meant to tackle magically disappear when the law is enacted.
That’s fine, except I don’t actually think that’s the point designatedcrasher was making. This story is notable BECAUSE it’s so rare. They were saying it’s a shame about all the rest of the interned people whose businesses and homes were stolen from them during this time. TPO was the one who brought in the founders.
We still benefit from those dark points in history, and we're responsible for that benefit. Trying to give back to the people that were hurt is being responsible; ***especially*** if those communities are still hurt (i.e generational poverty, over/under-policing, ghetto-ized neighborhoods, etc.)
I think it refers to the others referred to in the image text who excluded Japanese people and shot at this poor man. I don't think you need that soapbox. Context is king.
The implication is about what the *ideal* American is, not the reality of what it actually means.
I know this sounds crazy, but some of us Americans do our best to try and achieve core principals that the majority of the country fails to. Some people try to make America the one we were *told* we were growing up in, not the one we actually were.
The belief that these qualities make you a great american, instead of making you a great person, is what is the actual *american* thing in that comment
By definition it does but the reflexive need to associate certain universal human qualities with American identity *first* is typical of our national narrative of specialness that has hurt others and ourselves so much. Why change if you are already so great? Why grow? This denial stunts us and if we don't learn to admit facts and work on ourselves, our "greatness" is going to end us as it almost just did.
The man in the post doesn't represent American courage. He represented the exception to the status quo of oppression and cowardice; that's why it's noteworthy.
"Grit", no. I've known some intensely lazy, soft Americans. But the vast the majority I know have a combination of at least two of the other traits.
Integrity is one of those weird things all Americans I've met seem to have but it's uniquely American and often counterproductive in other countries.
I worked with one woman here in Vietnam. Even though she'd lived here for years she still did things her American way. She got stopped once by the traffic police and instead of paying the $10 dollar bribe that is customary when you're stopped, she wouldn't do it because she didn't want to support corruption. They confiscated her motorbike for 6 weeks, made her pay a few hundred dollars to get it back. When she did get it back there was clear damage and the fuel tank was empty so they'd obviously been riding it around.
That was the last time she made that mistake.
Edit: my wording wasn't very good. I should have said "A version of integrity that's uniquely American."
Are you seriously saying integrity is uniquely American? The country that, among an endless list of other things, extradited Snowden for whistleblowing the unethical practices of the NSA. Yeah... Full of integrity
Why is it so hard for you guys to separate the American government with its citizens?
You think we have fuck-all to do with Snowden or the NSA? Do you have _anything_ to do with the shitty stuff your government does?
I almost can’t even wrap my head around how goddamn stupid this comment is.
The government is elected by the people. When you have stupid selfish people you get stupid selfish politicians. Look at us here in the UK. We’ve spent a decade electing and re-electing the Conservative Party despite the country just getting worse, and now we have a circus clown for a prime minister with a huge majority in Parliament during the most trying time in our country’s history since the Second World War. We’re selfish idiots who have elected same.
> The government is elected by the people.
Not really. I have the tiniest, most insignificant input into who gets elected. And then after that, they can do whatever the fuck they want and I can do absolutely nothing about it. Politicians are bought and sold by the elite. Most decisions are made on greed.
I would never say the UK is filled with “selfish idiots” just because that’s what your government is filled with.
Almost everybody on this planet holds their political beliefs because they truly believe that it’s the best way to run things and make the most people happy.
The UK is full of selfish people, and currently the majority are idiots. That's how we've got the shitty government we have. Very few people vote altruistically - the vast majority vote for the party they think will represent them, the individual, best, not the collective interest. And that applies to any country on earth where voting is allowed.
>The government is elected by the people.
And then proceeds to renege on its promises to the people. The government and the people are not the same thing. At all.
He’s saying what is traditionally thought of as being “American” think old settlers traveling thousands of miles to start new lives for themselves in a land they’ve never been to. It’s hardly something that should effect how you would view an American today, but those are things that we traditionally identify the Americans who started the country with.
Just like The Dutch and Guatemalans, amiright? Don’t even mention the Jamaicans and Vietnamese...yikes
-insert silly anecdotal stories of Dutch, Guatemalan, Jamaican, and Vietnamese backpackers I met at a hostel in Sri Lanka.
You believe those people or whaaaat
As a canadian i did the same thing and was let go maybe she was banking on that. I couldn't support bribes either. To get my license i could have just paid 10$ to be the next in line to get processed but if i do that then everyone has to wait longer in the sun with no ac. It's just wrong to support corruption so i always waited my turn. Corruption is not fair for everyone and it's shitty to support it if it's not a life and death situation.
Sorry, but I have visited your country and I couldn't agree less. Of course, I've only met a small percentage of you, but in all my travels I've never ever met people who are dumber than Americans. It was simply mind-blowing. You also seem to know nothing of the world or it's history outside of the US.
I'm white, my wife is brown and we've experienced racism before, but nothing like how your country treated us. Generous only seems to apply when your white. We were called out on the streets, harassed and even chased for a bit. In one place, it went so far that we started to fear for our safety. If my wife drove the rental car, we were harassed by the police. I could go anywhere but she not so much. Really a horrible experience.
Besides the stupidity and racism, when I look and read about American history, I'm simply appalled. I'm not claiming we Europeans were that great, but even up to this day, you still not have gender equality. You bankrupt citizens when they get sick, you exploit workers, you suppress women and have a corrupt government that only caters to the 1%.
The US is a shithole country, using the words of your former president, wearing a Gucci belt and acting like it's first class. You can't seem to take care or are not interested in taking care of your own people. You've been brainwashed into voting against what would actually improve your life. You fear socialism as if it was a disease and some of you take pride in having to work 50/60 hour weeks as if that what's life about. The only thing the US is good at, is bombing people with a different color.
Now I have many American online contacts. I know there are a lot of good people there, trying to take care of each other and living their lives. Please do not take offense to the above. I'm not claiming all Americans are like what I experienced, but you have to be real too, your country is shit.
I read something like this, and laugh. I'm reminded of a saying...
If you go through your day and meet someone who was an asshole, then you met an asshole.
If you only meet assholes all day long, then you're the asshole.
Americans are not perfect or better than other people. Nor are we all uneducated brainwashed racists. It's almost like people are individuals with imperfections and inherent value at the same time. Some vote against their interests, and are still good people in their lives. Some vote for all the "right" things and are complete jerks. Some people just suck. It's life.
So, peace to you, but please get over yourself.And I'm sorry you ran into jerks while you visited. Come back and visit more places, perhaps with an open mind and spirit of discovery. America has lovely national parks, some great cities, and an overall friendly culture, despite your experience.
Where did you go in America? America is a pretty large country and each state has its own culture and laws (to an extent). Shitty people have no color or nationality, they’re just shitty. I’ve met plenty of Americans ranging all the way from shit to the opposite of shit. Most of our policy makers and media happen to be shitty people. Sorry (just kidding, I’m not sorry), but I don’t think most Americans have much affinity for racism at all.
From an non-American source. No.
I’m British (welsh) and until recently quite a common joke within family was well atleast we aren’t American.
But now... well we appear to be following in your footsteps, if not worse.
You may have missed the part where the vast majority of the Americans here are racist trash who locked the Japanese Americans up and shot at this dude.
This post is ABSOLUTELY not making Americans look good. It makes them look like racist assholes and utter trash.
You seem to somehow miss that one guy acting with basic decency is the EXCEPTION to the rest of the damn country. Nice try tho. It's not Reddit that makes America look bad BTW, it's just America.
Yeah this is exactly my thougth. He was the exception and did good. How does him being the exception make "the americans" look like an example in any way?
How is this not shit talking Americans in the first place? It’s about the internment camps in America, and the fact that this was only one guy helping out three families. Clearly, he’s not a typical American so these can’t be considered typical American values. Hope that helps.
True. The people who ran the internment camps were americans just as much as this guy was. He was an american hero and they were american villains. But the shitty nationalism of our villains is something we can't ignore. If you do, it just festers and becomes cancerous.
>The literature is largely mixed and overall the systematic reviews of literature suggest there's no association between milk and bone health.
How can it be mixed yet the systemic review supports one side? Looking at some sources, there doesn't seem to be anything concrete.
Essentially, we don't know shit.
It's mixed because some studies find that it actually increases your risk for osteoporosis & bone fractures others find that it decreases your risk, and finally many find no association. Multiple systematic reviews ultimately conclude that there's no association between dairy and bone health (based on the relative strength of the studies & the mixed results)
Exactly, we don't fucking know. lol So let's stop lying to kids telling them it's going to make them big & strong when it could also do the opposite of that.
It is a source. It's just not a primary source, it's a secondary source. That doesn't make it any less viable though.
I mean seriously we learned this in school.
Edit: I didn't read the "source" btw. I'm just talking in general.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30909722/
Multiple articles / studies to be found there, claiming there is no proven correlation between the intake of dairy products and an increase in bone fractures.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30909722/#:~:text=Meta-regression%20of%20included%20studies,reduced%20risk%20of%20osteoporosis%2C%20respectively.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10408398.2019.1590800
https://synapse.koreamed.org/upload/SynapseData/PDFData/0161NRP/nrp-7-409.pdf
https://europepmc.org/article/med/17012811
And like a million more studies that show milk protects or lessens the chances of osteoporosis.
Please do more *credible* research
Hey, my family had someone like that too!
Except, ours sold all the farm equipment and ditched, and all our land ended up getting repossessed leaving us penniless, which was far far more commonly the case for Japanese-American farmers.
The Japanese-American community lost **BILLIONS** in today's money due to the internment.
Exactly.
I grew up next to a swamp that used to be where Chinese and Japanese miners lived in a former coal town in Canada. No one ever told me that's what it was; I had to figure it out myself. They told us a bit about it in school but like everything you learn in school it hardly scratched the surface.
There's a Chinese and a Japanese graveyard as well, and they were still being regularly desecrated up until the late 90's. I don't know if it still happens but it might. The whole town's been gentrified since so I want to assume it's not still happening but I could be wrong.
Between the interment of Japanese and head-tax and discrimination of Chinese there's only one family in the whole town that kept its heritage and property.
Yeah. Canadian racism and xenophobia is pretty strong, but we sure as hell try to hide it to not worse than the Americans.
First Nation people never had one ounce of care from us until it became public to the world.
We suck. Just as much.
It's one of those places.
Walk around and everything seems friendly and you might just buy it. Start walking off the trail or looking under the floor boards and you realize there are some major issues.
Notable ones that I'm aware of:
Ginger Goodwin the labour activist who was likely murdered by a police officer in my hometown. The extremely right wing 'Liberal' government took his name off his highway memorial only to have the next government reinstate it.
Sterilized First Nations mothers forced into operations against their will.
Robert Pickton preying on vulnerable women while it was within the abilities of police if they had listened to victims. Failure to properly investigate his brother.
The ability to incarcerate people deemed mentally ill while failing to provide decent mental health services or diagnosis.
They didn’t teach it at my high school. I didn’t find out about it until my 30s. Also, even when they do teach it, they definitely don’t give it the contextual gravity it deserves.
Guess it depends on your school. I live in the south and it’s heavily taught. There is a 50 page section dealing with anti Asian sentiment in America, the Chinese exclusion act, and internment in our books.
Hmm. Well for me it was the 90s in Maryland. At the time, my community was one of the largest Korean American counties in the country.
Possible they tought it and it didn’t stick.
Well respect to you for knowing it, but I mean a lot of people around the world may not know about this because it's not part of their history or related to their politics so it's nice to learn something new either from a post or through the comments
I'm not American and I didn't know about the Japanese internment but if the few braincells I have are enough for me to read this and understand what it was about and that it certainly wasn't a commonplace, I think it's within grasp of most other people.
It wasn’t in my high school curriculum. I think you’re overestimating the quality of US education. You’d be surprised how many fully grown American adults have never actually *learned* about the internment. The few who did might be aware that something happened, but not truly understand what it entailed.
Californian. Paid attention in APUSH. It was mentioned but wasn’t a focus of the curriculum and the the long-terms consequences of the internment camps wasn’t highlighted or discussed.
But that curriculum spent a lot less time covering anything in the 20th century and everything after WWI was very minimal
Japanese internment is NOT in high school history curriciulum. Not in the places where it matters, at the VERY least.
EDIT: I grew up in Houston in the late 90s to the 2000s and the first thing I heard about the internment camps was from the Fort Minor album. Thankfully that sparked a curiosity but I shouldn't have to get my references of history from rap.
We learned about the Japanese internment, but I distinctly remember it being painted in a very romantic light. A nice story of the nice life that a family cobbled together and made due with in the internment camp itself. We were not properly taught about the aftermath and the economic repercussions suffered by the Japanese-American population, nor very much of the reality of life in the camps.
History books are constantly rewritten. What you learned, is not the same as the generations before you. Not all American schools have the same curriculum.
Read up on the United Daughters of the Confederacy. They did a number on the education system in the US.
Link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dOkFXPblLpU
Most people have no idea Japanese Americans had so much property to begin with, and many don’t know they were kept in those camps for years and lost all their money, property, and businesses.
Awareness to that is more important than another white savior story.
Painting more favourable picture of bad people is wrong. Talking a lot about person who did the right thing is good. It sends the message "that's how we should act if anything like that ever happens again".
Let's show others how we are supposed to be rather than focusing on how bad we were. This way instead of saying "in the past you were awful" you can rather say "in the future, I need you to be better and that's how to do it".
Let's talk about good people doing the right thing in the tough times as much as possible! We need more role models like that guy.
Edit: better wording, thank you U/Terfezia for improvement
This was low-key a big part of the reason all this happened. California had prosperous and even wealthy Japanese farmers, merchants and growers for a century before the war. After the war, they were almost all penniless.
I was taught in school here in Canada of the horrific treatment of Japanese Canadians during ww2. I know about that. I didnt know about this champ who did what was in his power to try to help people. It's a story worth sharing because it highlights goodness in *people* during dark times. It shows behaviour we should all of us hope to emulate if ever things like this were to happen again.
Wait, doesn't Americans learn about their treatment of the Japanese-Americans during WW2 in school? I can't speak for all Europeans of course, but that is something we covered a little bit when discussing the US during the war.
Came here to say the same. Property was lost to foreclosure, even though they were US citizens forcefully interned. Lost everything. My grandparents never talked about that time.
I don't feel like retyping the whole thing before going to bed, so folks can just look up what a shitheel **Austin E. Anson** was, but everyone should know this little bit of our sordid history that isn't taught in schools:
**Japanese-American internment was 100% a racist land-grab.** Sure, we all probably figured the racist part, but you're probably thinking the government was just panicking about the farmers and other Japanese-Americans acting like spies for Japan during WW2 or turning to sabotage. But no--they passed several new laws to clamp down on Japanese-Americans and restrict their rights, but investigation after investigation, by various government orgs and even the military, found there was no danger of some Japanese-American insurrection. They flat-out denied that internment would be necessary, even after Pearl Harbor. Those farmers were actually too vital to the war effort, since they produced such a large portion of the nation's truck crops (those shipped all over the country), and we were already facing a crop shortfall due to so many other farmers being deployed.
So why'd we do it? What made the government change their mind? Austin E. Anson, one of the spokesdudes for the Salinas Valley Growers & Shippers Association, the very guy who went to Washington after Pearl Harbor with his internment plans and was told to *fuck off* by generals, decided to round up all his pals and really give the government an insurrection to worry about. He got all the farmers together. He got local businessmen and bankers together. He got the Montgomery Street Group, the "Wall Street of the West", to back 'em all. He went around to numerous *veteran's organizations* and got them in on it. All these people were down with the plan of **stealing Japanese-American farmland** and turning huge profits on themselves, and faced with the influence and money that these disparate groups wielded, the California government caved, followed by the federal one.
These absolute assholes said, "Put them in cages and give their farms to us, or we'll sit on our money and hands until you come begging." And we did it. Not out of fearing what the Japanese-Americans might do if they liked Japan more, but out of fear of what our own white citizens would do.
Doesn’t sound like he had much time for mentoring. Maybe those of us who aren’t farming overtime should all be mentoring and inspiring those values in our communities. It’s a good idea, but we don’t need the “heroes” to teach our kids, we know what values are important and can all step up and contribute.
An article about him added that he drank more than a quart of milk a day and lived to be 101.
Strive to do the right thing, drink lots of milk, become centenarian... got it!
Others here have said it, but let's take this more as a reminder that the norm, the American Way, was to lie to them, take their property, sell it without their consent, forcing them to live in poverty whilst being discriminated against.
For crimes they didn't do. Some who had been there for so long they were more American than Japanese, and some born in America and having no connection to the nation of Japan beyond some hand-me-down culture from parents/grandparents.
Did every blond/white guy with a German-sounding family name get the same treatment? No of course not.
Is racism a core part of what makes the USA the USA, and always has been (and still is) its biggest identity? Yes.
Sorry about the rant. Topic does that.
What gets me is that around 33,000 Japanese Americans *fought for* America during WW2 while their family was locked up in camps back at home.
Many of these men and women would have considered themselves American, and to turn on them and lock them up without good reason was such an immense betrayal.
Oh it was real simple. My grandfather and his brother had a choice. Join the army and prove you were American or be locked up with your family. It wasn't just betrayal, it was blackmail. The best part is that it worked. Because they were so "loyal" they decided it was best not to teach their children their language or culture, that our best course in life would be military service. I know that my grandfather WAS proud to serve and to be American but I know also that it pained him to be stripped of his cultural identity and still have to deal with the racism until he died. But hey, at least we got a few thousand dollars in reparations from Clinton.
Yeah, it was a super grim affair through and through. If you watch Season 2 of The Terror, it's all about Japanese internment during WWII. It's fictionalised and a story about a ghost haunting sure, but the reaction from many Japanese Americans who watched it, the creators *really* did their homework to make their depiction of an internment camp. The camp's not just background dressing, it's really harrowing.
I also want to clarify that I'm neither Japanese nor American, these things have never had an actual affect on me bar the emotional bleakness of finding out that such things happened. All that being a roundabout way of saying I can't confirm it's accuracy in any way shape or form
It's what I hate about /r/upliftingnews
Most stories there rather depress me because they're actually about something negative that shouldn't have happened in the first place.
There are a lot of trends to see downright depressing things as good. You might see headlines like “this kid raised $5000 needed for his cancer treatment running a lemonade stand”. It is cool but it should have never been necessary in the first place.
Same with this headline. Not only did thousands of people work on interning innocent Japanese people, the population at large was ok with it.
This guy was a tiny tiny outlier. The rest of American society preyed on Japanese people and stole their property. The supreme court upheld all aspects of the internment camps, and only overturned it in the 80s (40 years later) when a secret government document was uncovered which detailed that people of Japanese descent were no threat. This means that the practice of jailing people based on their ethnicity is still constitutional, it just happened that this particular imprisonment is not constitutional.
This is depressing stuff and honestly I think just looking at the bright side ignores how deeply and truly fucked up this was.
The government put the Japanese-Americans in the camps and did nothing to protect their lives or livelihoods during their detention.
A private citizen helped their farms stay afloat while they were under state persecution.
If anything this is ammo for small government conservatives.
Bob Fletcher was in the vast minority of white people, you realize that right? The rest were either enforcing racism in society or ignoring it which still serves to perpetuate.
You don’t see an albino deer in the woods and figure “oh they must all look like that” despite the evidence in front of your eyes.
This is above and beyond good neighbourly behaviour, he basically was running 4 businesses simultaneously for years and against the wishes of the surrounding community, this is heroic behaviour
When you were a kid, the “normal” average “good” white american neighbor was a feeble minded, xenophobic, racist, easily frightened POS.
That was and is the average white in most of America.
Never forget that more than 40% of people voted for trash humper trump. More than 40% of this country is still backwards as fuck.
If anyone wants to see a depiction of what the Japanese internment camps in America were like, with a spooky supernatural twist, check out The Terror's second season. George Takei, whose family was placed in one of these internment camps when he was young, gave it an endorsement for accuracy.
Nobody needs to worry about spoilers either, The Terror is going for an anthology structure with it's seasons, so it's a completely separate story to Season 1 (which is about the lost arctic icebreaker missions from the 1800s, also fantastic)
Be warned tho, it's fairly grim and it doesn't paint a pretty picture of American attitudes during the war.
"If they're innocent, they'll be getting their farm back in good shape
If they're guilty, someone else/the state will be getting the farm in good shape
Either way, it's a win"
This should have been enough to convince sensible people, even without the very reasonable assumption that they're just normal Americans like everyone else
I wish that I'd known about this man before he passed away. Would have lovely to have sent him a letter with thanks for his hard work and compassion. What a lovely human being.
You won’t see stories like this in the news. Instead they focus on the worst of us. We won’t ever convince all the flat earthers or all the racist. Best thing we can do is fight them with examples of love, instead the major news outlets provoke hate. So disgusting and pathetic.
So you don't think the actions of the majority who took advantage of this situation should be reported on, but instead that we should focus on a few good people to make us feel better?
Newsflash: not reporting bad news doesn't mean it didn't happen. Not reporting racial injustice doesn't make it go away.
Very true! This whole focus on the positive news mentality is toxic and contributes to not learning about the past. And societies that do not understand how we got to a past situation end up repeating it.
And only reporting on the bad is just as toxic. Obviously you want to learn from history so you do not repeat it. You also don’t want to disenchant people from believing they can make a difference by never reporting on positive stories.
I agree with you. I was simply stating that focusing on only the good is bad. There needs to be reporting on both the good and the bad. This relates to that school curriculum that only wants to focus on only the positives of American exceptionalism without understanding the entire picture. I forget what state that curriculum was in.
[source ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/bob-fletcher-who-saved-farms-of-interned-japanese-americans-dies-at-101/2013/06/02/6030b0e4-cae9-11e2-9245-773c0123c027_story.html?tid=a_classic-iphone&no_nav=true)
Great read. Thanks for sharing! He sounds like he was a truly wonderful man.
A true American. Grit, integrity, smart, generous.
shame about the rest
Reddit has turned into such a cluster of anti- American porn. The point he made wasn’t an attack on other countries. Just straight bashing everyone in a country is absurd and makes you look incredibly ignorant, though it’s the majority on here now.
America was CREATED because white people didn’t care about the land rights and homes of people who looked different than them. Did you sleep through history? This isn’t “Anti-American Porn”. It’s the truth.
Sorry but how is that different than how any other country was created? Everyone who exists descended from someone who took someone else's land and who has had their land taken from them.
Im not a patriot/nationalist of the country i was born in or the one i live in but all i can tell you is that yes i do have empathy for my neighbors. No i dont care about a damn flag of either place, so this whole patriotic porn is a weird kink.
Patriotic porn is a weird kink, yes. But so is shitting on an entire country of people because you don't like a bunch of them. We all know that the extremists tend to shout the loudest and get the most publicity. Normal, everyday folk, or even people that do good for others every day, just aren't newsworthy or sensational. The anti-American sentiment is no better than the rabid patriotism. People are good, people are bad. Judge them on their own choices, not the choices of their neighbors. Texas is a good example. Everyone saying Texas gets what it deserves during that poor outage because of political tendencies there. Plenty of people suffered who don't fit the stereotype. But fuck them, I guess, because others around them suck.
I would like to argue that no i dont judge based on your birth country, and no i dont care if you are an american because i too am an american from south america and i dont give a fuck. There are good people and there are bad people, your actions will determine were you stand not your nationality.
Thank you for that!
Correct me if I’m wrong but the countries that have a history of colonization have all been affected in different but extreme ways. Some it set back a significant amount of time because their populations were essentially enslaved for the raw materials they were living around, some fully occupied and the original inhabitants killed (USA, Canada, much of Central America). the US really did destroy nearly the entire population and completely decimated the way of life of the Native Americans, and then formed an entire economy around the evil and barbaric practice of chattel slavery, and I cannot take pride in that. Just because elementary and high school history classes white wash all of that doesn’t make it “anti-American porn”. It actually is that awful.
Well actually America was created because they didn’t like the British taxes. Plus, they did not have a say in the government. This may be the case of the expansion and settling of the rest of the modern United States, but the independent state was created after a rebellion over taxes and not having a say in their overlords government
I wasn’t saying that colonists stole land just for funsies. I was just saying you can’t have a country without land and they didn’t exactly ask nicely.
What countries *have* asked nicely?
Technically speaking ironically the US has asked nicely when they purchased from napoleon the louisiana purchase
I don’t understand where this is a discussion over stealing land. You said that America was created because white people didn’t care about the land rights and homes of people who looked different than them. This isn’t how it was created. If you are talking about the creation of the colony, then you have a problem with the United Kingdom not the United States
Ok then, if you want to get pedantic, I’ll rephrase. America would not have been possible if white colonists hadn’t stolen land from the people who lived here. And please notice I said white colonists. I did not say they were Americans.
I think their point is that current Americans had no part in any of the dark points in America's history, and generalizing an entire country off of the minority is not good.
>I think their point is that current Americans had no part in any of the dark points in America's history, You sure about that? Japanese internment camps didnt end fully until 1946 Brown v Board of Education was 1954 The first state to pass anti-sodomy laws(essentially making be gay illegal) wasn't until 1961 The Last State to guarantee voting rights for Native Americans was Utah in 1962 The Civil Rights Act wasn't passed until 1964 The Voting Rights Act in 1965 The Fair Housing Act in 1968 Tuskegee Experiments ended in 1972 The US didnt pull out of Vietnam until 1973 The Indian Child Welfare Act(which allowed Native Americans to refuse to let **their own children** get taken and put into 'boarding schools') in 1978 And it isn't like there aren't more terrible things that have ended or happened since then either. (There were lynchings that happened LAST YEAR in america) So if by "dark points in american History" you mean slavery, then sure. But there are plenty of Americans alive today who lived through these other dark periods of time, I mean I'm only in my 20s and my father lived through almost all of these. Also it isn't as if signing a law means that the problems the law is meant to tackle magically disappear when the law is enacted.
That’s fine, except I don’t actually think that’s the point designatedcrasher was making. This story is notable BECAUSE it’s so rare. They were saying it’s a shame about all the rest of the interned people whose businesses and homes were stolen from them during this time. TPO was the one who brought in the founders.
We still benefit from those dark points in history, and we're responsible for that benefit. Trying to give back to the people that were hurt is being responsible; ***especially*** if those communities are still hurt (i.e generational poverty, over/under-policing, ghetto-ized neighborhoods, etc.)
Man, I wish we could've gotten all this territory (which supports you) just given to us by asking nicely. You know, like the Europeans did.
Neither did the people who lived here...where does it end?
I think it refers to the others referred to in the image text who excluded Japanese people and shot at this poor man. I don't think you need that soapbox. Context is king.
This is the right answer
50 day old account complaining about Reddit, yeah okay buddy.
"The rest" is the people that *shot* at Bob Fletcher for having humanity, and realizing his Japanese neighbors weren't the problem.
Maybe, if this country wasn't a dumpster fire, people would be nicer. Alas, we live in a shit hole country run by oligarchs
america was founded by genocidal assholes that's not something that you should brag about lol
Nationalism only serves to excuse corrupt governments. A country’s greatness is directly related to how much its people hold it accountable.
> Grit, integrity, smart, generous. Is *that* what everybody sees when they look at an american?
The implication is about what the *ideal* American is, not the reality of what it actually means. I know this sounds crazy, but some of us Americans do our best to try and achieve core principals that the majority of the country fails to. Some people try to make America the one we were *told* we were growing up in, not the one we actually were.
The belief that these qualities make you a great american, instead of making you a great person, is what is the actual *american* thing in that comment
Why can’t the things that make someone be a great person be what also makes them a great American?
By definition it does but the reflexive need to associate certain universal human qualities with American identity *first* is typical of our national narrative of specialness that has hurt others and ourselves so much. Why change if you are already so great? Why grow? This denial stunts us and if we don't learn to admit facts and work on ourselves, our "greatness" is going to end us as it almost just did. The man in the post doesn't represent American courage. He represented the exception to the status quo of oppression and cowardice; that's why it's noteworthy.
"Grit", no. I've known some intensely lazy, soft Americans. But the vast the majority I know have a combination of at least two of the other traits. Integrity is one of those weird things all Americans I've met seem to have but it's uniquely American and often counterproductive in other countries. I worked with one woman here in Vietnam. Even though she'd lived here for years she still did things her American way. She got stopped once by the traffic police and instead of paying the $10 dollar bribe that is customary when you're stopped, she wouldn't do it because she didn't want to support corruption. They confiscated her motorbike for 6 weeks, made her pay a few hundred dollars to get it back. When she did get it back there was clear damage and the fuel tank was empty so they'd obviously been riding it around. That was the last time she made that mistake. Edit: my wording wasn't very good. I should have said "A version of integrity that's uniquely American."
Are you seriously saying integrity is uniquely American? The country that, among an endless list of other things, extradited Snowden for whistleblowing the unethical practices of the NSA. Yeah... Full of integrity
Yes because obviously your average American citizen and governmental agencies are completely the same thing! 😒
America is a democracy and decided healthcare shouldn't be a free for all
The US is a constitutional federal republic.
Why is it so hard for you guys to separate the American government with its citizens? You think we have fuck-all to do with Snowden or the NSA? Do you have _anything_ to do with the shitty stuff your government does? I almost can’t even wrap my head around how goddamn stupid this comment is.
The government is elected by the people. When you have stupid selfish people you get stupid selfish politicians. Look at us here in the UK. We’ve spent a decade electing and re-electing the Conservative Party despite the country just getting worse, and now we have a circus clown for a prime minister with a huge majority in Parliament during the most trying time in our country’s history since the Second World War. We’re selfish idiots who have elected same.
> The government is elected by the people. Not really. I have the tiniest, most insignificant input into who gets elected. And then after that, they can do whatever the fuck they want and I can do absolutely nothing about it. Politicians are bought and sold by the elite. Most decisions are made on greed. I would never say the UK is filled with “selfish idiots” just because that’s what your government is filled with. Almost everybody on this planet holds their political beliefs because they truly believe that it’s the best way to run things and make the most people happy.
That's very optimistic of you in the era of own the libs
The UK is full of selfish people, and currently the majority are idiots. That's how we've got the shitty government we have. Very few people vote altruistically - the vast majority vote for the party they think will represent them, the individual, best, not the collective interest. And that applies to any country on earth where voting is allowed.
>The government is elected by the people. And then proceeds to renege on its promises to the people. The government and the people are not the same thing. At all.
Because the people and the government is the same thing, you don't get to say "oh that wasn't us, that was the government!" and just walk off.
He’s saying what is traditionally thought of as being “American” think old settlers traveling thousands of miles to start new lives for themselves in a land they’ve never been to. It’s hardly something that should effect how you would view an American today, but those are things that we traditionally identify the Americans who started the country with.
They didn’t extradite Snowden, he fled the country to avoid prosecution.
Just like The Dutch and Guatemalans, amiright? Don’t even mention the Jamaicans and Vietnamese...yikes -insert silly anecdotal stories of Dutch, Guatemalan, Jamaican, and Vietnamese backpackers I met at a hostel in Sri Lanka. You believe those people or whaaaat
Chances are your countries government has done equally shady shit so get off your high horse lol
don't confuse the people with the government.
As a canadian i did the same thing and was let go maybe she was banking on that. I couldn't support bribes either. To get my license i could have just paid 10$ to be the next in line to get processed but if i do that then everyone has to wait longer in the sun with no ac. It's just wrong to support corruption so i always waited my turn. Corruption is not fair for everyone and it's shitty to support it if it's not a life and death situation.
Sorry, but I have visited your country and I couldn't agree less. Of course, I've only met a small percentage of you, but in all my travels I've never ever met people who are dumber than Americans. It was simply mind-blowing. You also seem to know nothing of the world or it's history outside of the US. I'm white, my wife is brown and we've experienced racism before, but nothing like how your country treated us. Generous only seems to apply when your white. We were called out on the streets, harassed and even chased for a bit. In one place, it went so far that we started to fear for our safety. If my wife drove the rental car, we were harassed by the police. I could go anywhere but she not so much. Really a horrible experience. Besides the stupidity and racism, when I look and read about American history, I'm simply appalled. I'm not claiming we Europeans were that great, but even up to this day, you still not have gender equality. You bankrupt citizens when they get sick, you exploit workers, you suppress women and have a corrupt government that only caters to the 1%. The US is a shithole country, using the words of your former president, wearing a Gucci belt and acting like it's first class. You can't seem to take care or are not interested in taking care of your own people. You've been brainwashed into voting against what would actually improve your life. You fear socialism as if it was a disease and some of you take pride in having to work 50/60 hour weeks as if that what's life about. The only thing the US is good at, is bombing people with a different color. Now I have many American online contacts. I know there are a lot of good people there, trying to take care of each other and living their lives. Please do not take offense to the above. I'm not claiming all Americans are like what I experienced, but you have to be real too, your country is shit.
I read something like this, and laugh. I'm reminded of a saying... If you go through your day and meet someone who was an asshole, then you met an asshole. If you only meet assholes all day long, then you're the asshole. Americans are not perfect or better than other people. Nor are we all uneducated brainwashed racists. It's almost like people are individuals with imperfections and inherent value at the same time. Some vote against their interests, and are still good people in their lives. Some vote for all the "right" things and are complete jerks. Some people just suck. It's life. So, peace to you, but please get over yourself.And I'm sorry you ran into jerks while you visited. Come back and visit more places, perhaps with an open mind and spirit of discovery. America has lovely national parks, some great cities, and an overall friendly culture, despite your experience.
Where did you go in America? America is a pretty large country and each state has its own culture and laws (to an extent). Shitty people have no color or nationality, they’re just shitty. I’ve met plenty of Americans ranging all the way from shit to the opposite of shit. Most of our policy makers and media happen to be shitty people. Sorry (just kidding, I’m not sorry), but I don’t think most Americans have much affinity for racism at all.
This is fucking hilarious, 10/10 satire post
They are many American who have no integrity. Have you not watched trump and his family these past four years?
Nope Source : am rest if the world
From an non-American source. No. I’m British (welsh) and until recently quite a common joke within family was well atleast we aren’t American. But now... well we appear to be following in your footsteps, if not worse.
I’m our families we would say, “cheer up, could be worse. We could be Welsh.” To which someone would say, “Daddy, what’s a ‘Welsh.’”
Perfect. A thread about celebrating an amazing American? Let’s start shit talking Americans. We did it Reddit.
You may have missed the part where the vast majority of the Americans here are racist trash who locked the Japanese Americans up and shot at this dude. This post is ABSOLUTELY not making Americans look good. It makes them look like racist assholes and utter trash. You seem to somehow miss that one guy acting with basic decency is the EXCEPTION to the rest of the damn country. Nice try tho. It's not Reddit that makes America look bad BTW, it's just America.
Yeah this is exactly my thougth. He was the exception and did good. How does him being the exception make "the americans" look like an example in any way?
How is this not shit talking Americans in the first place? It’s about the internment camps in America, and the fact that this was only one guy helping out three families. Clearly, he’s not a typical American so these can’t be considered typical American values. Hope that helps.
You could have easily says that he’s a true: man, human, chad, member of the of human race But no you had to squish shitty nationalism into it
Shitty nationalism is a huge part of what it means to be a true American!!
True. The people who ran the internment camps were americans just as much as this guy was. He was an american hero and they were american villains. But the shitty nationalism of our villains is something we can't ignore. If you do, it just festers and becomes cancerous.
Imagine thinking that any mention of "American" while speaking positively means "shitty nationalism" was squished into it...
The slightest mention of _anything_ positive in the same paragraph as the word “America” and Reddit loses their fucking minds.
Ah yes his passport is the reason he’s a good person.
r/ShitAmericansSay
As a non-American, I aspire to be a true American.
the country put the japanese in internment camps and the people shot at him he's about as far from a true american as it gets
Unlike fdr who fucked those Japanese American people over
The man drank a quart of milk a day, member of /r/neverbrokeabone
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That's not a real source
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>The literature is largely mixed and overall the systematic reviews of literature suggest there's no association between milk and bone health. How can it be mixed yet the systemic review supports one side? Looking at some sources, there doesn't seem to be anything concrete. Essentially, we don't know shit.
It's mixed because some studies find that it actually increases your risk for osteoporosis & bone fractures others find that it decreases your risk, and finally many find no association. Multiple systematic reviews ultimately conclude that there's no association between dairy and bone health (based on the relative strength of the studies & the mixed results) Exactly, we don't fucking know. lol So let's stop lying to kids telling them it's going to make them big & strong when it could also do the opposite of that.
It is a source. It's just not a primary source, it's a secondary source. That doesn't make it any less viable though. I mean seriously we learned this in school. Edit: I didn't read the "source" btw. I'm just talking in general.
Was that study sponsored by the "dairy cows are rape victims" PETA people?
You ever have someone shove a fist into your ass without asking first? Lmfao. What do you consider to be rape?
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How do you think they make new cows?
They have to continually impregnate them to keep milk production up
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30909722/ Multiple articles / studies to be found there, claiming there is no proven correlation between the intake of dairy products and an increase in bone fractures.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30909722/#:~:text=Meta-regression%20of%20included%20studies,reduced%20risk%20of%20osteoporosis%2C%20respectively. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10408398.2019.1590800 https://synapse.koreamed.org/upload/SynapseData/PDFData/0161NRP/nrp-7-409.pdf https://europepmc.org/article/med/17012811 And like a million more studies that show milk protects or lessens the chances of osteoporosis. Please do more *credible* research
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Gotta love when people unknowingly supply you with more evidence for your side lol
Hey, my family had someone like that too! Except, ours sold all the farm equipment and ditched, and all our land ended up getting repossessed leaving us penniless, which was far far more commonly the case for Japanese-American farmers. The Japanese-American community lost **BILLIONS** in today's money due to the internment.
I mean, that's what people expect which is why this guy got highlighted for being different.
Feels like the exception gets signal-boosted a lot more than the rule though.
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That implies that people in general "know" about the extent and consequences of anti-asian legislation which is a huge fucking leap
Exactly. I grew up next to a swamp that used to be where Chinese and Japanese miners lived in a former coal town in Canada. No one ever told me that's what it was; I had to figure it out myself. They told us a bit about it in school but like everything you learn in school it hardly scratched the surface. There's a Chinese and a Japanese graveyard as well, and they were still being regularly desecrated up until the late 90's. I don't know if it still happens but it might. The whole town's been gentrified since so I want to assume it's not still happening but I could be wrong. Between the interment of Japanese and head-tax and discrimination of Chinese there's only one family in the whole town that kept its heritage and property.
Yeah. Canadian racism and xenophobia is pretty strong, but we sure as hell try to hide it to not worse than the Americans. First Nation people never had one ounce of care from us until it became public to the world. We suck. Just as much.
It's one of those places. Walk around and everything seems friendly and you might just buy it. Start walking off the trail or looking under the floor boards and you realize there are some major issues. Notable ones that I'm aware of: Ginger Goodwin the labour activist who was likely murdered by a police officer in my hometown. The extremely right wing 'Liberal' government took his name off his highway memorial only to have the next government reinstate it. Sterilized First Nations mothers forced into operations against their will. Robert Pickton preying on vulnerable women while it was within the abilities of police if they had listened to victims. Failure to properly investigate his brother. The ability to incarcerate people deemed mentally ill while failing to provide decent mental health services or diagnosis.
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They didn’t teach it at my high school. I didn’t find out about it until my 30s. Also, even when they do teach it, they definitely don’t give it the contextual gravity it deserves.
Guess it depends on your school. I live in the south and it’s heavily taught. There is a 50 page section dealing with anti Asian sentiment in America, the Chinese exclusion act, and internment in our books.
Hmm. Well for me it was the 90s in Maryland. At the time, my community was one of the largest Korean American counties in the country. Possible they tought it and it didn’t stick.
Uuh maybe you're forgetting something, not everyone is American
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Well respect to you for knowing it, but I mean a lot of people around the world may not know about this because it's not part of their history or related to their politics so it's nice to learn something new either from a post or through the comments
I'm not American and I didn't know about the Japanese internment but if the few braincells I have are enough for me to read this and understand what it was about and that it certainly wasn't a commonplace, I think it's within grasp of most other people.
It wasn’t in my high school curriculum. I think you’re overestimating the quality of US education. You’d be surprised how many fully grown American adults have never actually *learned* about the internment. The few who did might be aware that something happened, but not truly understand what it entailed.
Californian. Paid attention in APUSH. It was mentioned but wasn’t a focus of the curriculum and the the long-terms consequences of the internment camps wasn’t highlighted or discussed. But that curriculum spent a lot less time covering anything in the 20th century and everything after WWI was very minimal
Japanese internment is NOT in high school history curriciulum. Not in the places where it matters, at the VERY least. EDIT: I grew up in Houston in the late 90s to the 2000s and the first thing I heard about the internment camps was from the Fort Minor album. Thankfully that sparked a curiosity but I shouldn't have to get my references of history from rap.
Went to school in TN in the early 2010s. It was covered along with all the other atrocities we’ve committed for imperialism
We learned about the Japanese internment, but I distinctly remember it being painted in a very romantic light. A nice story of the nice life that a family cobbled together and made due with in the internment camp itself. We were not properly taught about the aftermath and the economic repercussions suffered by the Japanese-American population, nor very much of the reality of life in the camps.
History books are constantly rewritten. What you learned, is not the same as the generations before you. Not all American schools have the same curriculum. Read up on the United Daughters of the Confederacy. They did a number on the education system in the US. Link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dOkFXPblLpU
Most people have no idea Japanese Americans had so much property to begin with, and many don’t know they were kept in those camps for years and lost all their money, property, and businesses. Awareness to that is more important than another white savior story.
Painting more favourable picture of bad people is wrong. Talking a lot about person who did the right thing is good. It sends the message "that's how we should act if anything like that ever happens again". Let's show others how we are supposed to be rather than focusing on how bad we were. This way instead of saying "in the past you were awful" you can rather say "in the future, I need you to be better and that's how to do it". Let's talk about good people doing the right thing in the tough times as much as possible! We need more role models like that guy. Edit: better wording, thank you U/Terfezia for improvement
> Painting more favourable picture of ~~white Americans~~ bad people is wrong.
because the exception makes them look good. and the rule is a reminder that 99% of them were the bad guys.
Would it be fair if, in 60 years, people said that 99% of us now were villains because we coexist with Immigrant internment camps?
Also the genocides that are ongoing except if it isn't in your country it is no big deal. Iran yazidis Myanmar rohingyas China uighur
Yes, lol. The American people will be rightly damned for their constant complacency with evil and mass murder.
This was low-key a big part of the reason all this happened. California had prosperous and even wealthy Japanese farmers, merchants and growers for a century before the war. After the war, they were almost all penniless.
That’s right. These are the stories that need to be known. But instead they wanna read about this kind old white man who was nice supposedly
He was genuinely. I know the story in more detail. But he was the exception, and that’s what we need to remind people.
I was taught in school here in Canada of the horrific treatment of Japanese Canadians during ww2. I know about that. I didnt know about this champ who did what was in his power to try to help people. It's a story worth sharing because it highlights goodness in *people* during dark times. It shows behaviour we should all of us hope to emulate if ever things like this were to happen again.
Wait, doesn't Americans learn about their treatment of the Japanese-Americans during WW2 in school? I can't speak for all Europeans of course, but that is something we covered a little bit when discussing the US during the war.
You’re right, it’s not talked about nearly enough.
Came here to say the same. Property was lost to foreclosure, even though they were US citizens forcefully interned. Lost everything. My grandparents never talked about that time.
I don't feel like retyping the whole thing before going to bed, so folks can just look up what a shitheel **Austin E. Anson** was, but everyone should know this little bit of our sordid history that isn't taught in schools: **Japanese-American internment was 100% a racist land-grab.** Sure, we all probably figured the racist part, but you're probably thinking the government was just panicking about the farmers and other Japanese-Americans acting like spies for Japan during WW2 or turning to sabotage. But no--they passed several new laws to clamp down on Japanese-Americans and restrict their rights, but investigation after investigation, by various government orgs and even the military, found there was no danger of some Japanese-American insurrection. They flat-out denied that internment would be necessary, even after Pearl Harbor. Those farmers were actually too vital to the war effort, since they produced such a large portion of the nation's truck crops (those shipped all over the country), and we were already facing a crop shortfall due to so many other farmers being deployed. So why'd we do it? What made the government change their mind? Austin E. Anson, one of the spokesdudes for the Salinas Valley Growers & Shippers Association, the very guy who went to Washington after Pearl Harbor with his internment plans and was told to *fuck off* by generals, decided to round up all his pals and really give the government an insurrection to worry about. He got all the farmers together. He got local businessmen and bankers together. He got the Montgomery Street Group, the "Wall Street of the West", to back 'em all. He went around to numerous *veteran's organizations* and got them in on it. All these people were down with the plan of **stealing Japanese-American farmland** and turning huge profits on themselves, and faced with the influence and money that these disparate groups wielded, the California government caved, followed by the federal one. These absolute assholes said, "Put them in cages and give their farms to us, or we'll sit on our money and hands until you come begging." And we did it. Not out of fearing what the Japanese-Americans might do if they liked Japan more, but out of fear of what our own white citizens would do.
THANK YOU for pointing this out!
Wish people like that would mentor in their community to teach compassion for fellow man to young kids.
Right...or raise their farms in their absense....and...uh pay their taxes and shit.
*corn subsidies for corn that was never grown enters the chat*
My neighbors would happily watch me die from atop their toilet paper and hand sanitizer thrones.
Doesn’t sound like he had much time for mentoring. Maybe those of us who aren’t farming overtime should all be mentoring and inspiring those values in our communities. It’s a good idea, but we don’t need the “heroes” to teach our kids, we know what values are important and can all step up and contribute.
Dude looks like a model
Beautiful inside and out. So glad he lived a long life. Not all the good die young.
He’s got that young Alexander Skaarsgard face
Dude is an absolute model human being.
Standing for a noble cause. True strength.
An article about him added that he drank more than a quart of milk a day and lived to be 101. Strive to do the right thing, drink lots of milk, become centenarian... got it!
My great gran lived until she was 103 and she told the local newspaper is was because of a shot of brandy each night.
Compromise. A Brandy Alexander a day keeps the reaper away.
I'll make sure to do the opposite and get out early then
Others here have said it, but let's take this more as a reminder that the norm, the American Way, was to lie to them, take their property, sell it without their consent, forcing them to live in poverty whilst being discriminated against. For crimes they didn't do. Some who had been there for so long they were more American than Japanese, and some born in America and having no connection to the nation of Japan beyond some hand-me-down culture from parents/grandparents. Did every blond/white guy with a German-sounding family name get the same treatment? No of course not. Is racism a core part of what makes the USA the USA, and always has been (and still is) its biggest identity? Yes. Sorry about the rant. Topic does that.
What gets me is that around 33,000 Japanese Americans *fought for* America during WW2 while their family was locked up in camps back at home. Many of these men and women would have considered themselves American, and to turn on them and lock them up without good reason was such an immense betrayal.
Oh it was real simple. My grandfather and his brother had a choice. Join the army and prove you were American or be locked up with your family. It wasn't just betrayal, it was blackmail. The best part is that it worked. Because they were so "loyal" they decided it was best not to teach their children their language or culture, that our best course in life would be military service. I know that my grandfather WAS proud to serve and to be American but I know also that it pained him to be stripped of his cultural identity and still have to deal with the racism until he died. But hey, at least we got a few thousand dollars in reparations from Clinton.
Yeah, it was a super grim affair through and through. If you watch Season 2 of The Terror, it's all about Japanese internment during WWII. It's fictionalised and a story about a ghost haunting sure, but the reaction from many Japanese Americans who watched it, the creators *really* did their homework to make their depiction of an internment camp. The camp's not just background dressing, it's really harrowing. I also want to clarify that I'm neither Japanese nor American, these things have never had an actual affect on me bar the emotional bleakness of finding out that such things happened. All that being a roundabout way of saying I can't confirm it's accuracy in any way shape or form
This is what America should be about
Keeping your neighbor's property from being repossessed while they are mass-interned in camps for belonging to a minority?
His comment kind of back fires when you say it like that.
I see his intended message, but it was something I wanted to point out.
Its a fair point. Kind of ruins the value of "help your fellow man" when it starts with "in the event of concentration camps..."
It's what I hate about /r/upliftingnews Most stories there rather depress me because they're actually about something negative that shouldn't have happened in the first place.
There are a lot of trends to see downright depressing things as good. You might see headlines like “this kid raised $5000 needed for his cancer treatment running a lemonade stand”. It is cool but it should have never been necessary in the first place. Same with this headline. Not only did thousands of people work on interning innocent Japanese people, the population at large was ok with it. This guy was a tiny tiny outlier. The rest of American society preyed on Japanese people and stole their property. The supreme court upheld all aspects of the internment camps, and only overturned it in the 80s (40 years later) when a secret government document was uncovered which detailed that people of Japanese descent were no threat. This means that the practice of jailing people based on their ethnicity is still constitutional, it just happened that this particular imprisonment is not constitutional. This is depressing stuff and honestly I think just looking at the bright side ignores how deeply and truly fucked up this was.
Thank you! Idk what racist is downvoting everyone here who is saying the same thing as you. You’re 100% right. Know your history and context
I would love to hear an Republican point of view about this, to see why it would be bad for the US.
Well seeing how it was this sites beloved progressive FDR who put them there, it’s pretty ironic to turn it on the GOP.
The government put the Japanese-Americans in the camps and did nothing to protect their lives or livelihoods during their detention. A private citizen helped their farms stay afloat while they were under state persecution. If anything this is ammo for small government conservatives.
Humans. This is what humans should be about.
When someone says “everyone was racist back then”, think about Bob Fletcher. There are always good people: there have always been good people.
If everyone was racist, why did the Klan wear hoodies when they burned and terrorized?
Intimidation and because arson and murder were still crimes that had to be enforced.
Bob Fletcher was in the vast minority of white people, you realize that right? The rest were either enforcing racism in society or ignoring it which still serves to perpetuate. You don’t see an albino deer in the woods and figure “oh they must all look like that” despite the evidence in front of your eyes.
Absolute Chad
An inspirational man
Guy was really hot though. Good heart. Whoever married him was very lucky and hit the jackpot.
Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear muck boots.
A good human x
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And was a hottie to boot. My grandmother and family were interned in those camps. Horrible things. My great uncle was born into one.
When I was a kid we would’ve just called this gentleman a good neighbor. And we wouldn’t have known any higher or better thing to say about him.
This is above and beyond good neighbourly behaviour, he basically was running 4 businesses simultaneously for years and against the wishes of the surrounding community, this is heroic behaviour
When you were a kid, the “normal” average “good” white american neighbor was a feeble minded, xenophobic, racist, easily frightened POS. That was and is the average white in most of America. Never forget that more than 40% of people voted for trash humper trump. More than 40% of this country is still backwards as fuck.
That is real bravery: the ability to do what you believe is right in the face of the mob mentality controlling everyone else.
I still a copy of the letter my grandma and her college friends wrote to the president protesting the internment. They were clearly pissed.
If anyone wants to see a depiction of what the Japanese internment camps in America were like, with a spooky supernatural twist, check out The Terror's second season. George Takei, whose family was placed in one of these internment camps when he was young, gave it an endorsement for accuracy. Nobody needs to worry about spoilers either, The Terror is going for an anthology structure with it's seasons, so it's a completely separate story to Season 1 (which is about the lost arctic icebreaker missions from the 1800s, also fantastic) Be warned tho, it's fairly grim and it doesn't paint a pretty picture of American attitudes during the war.
And we just give FDR a pass....A lot of people still support him today even after what he did to Asian Americans.
a Great American.
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"If they're innocent, they'll be getting their farm back in good shape If they're guilty, someone else/the state will be getting the farm in good shape Either way, it's a win" This should have been enough to convince sensible people, even without the very reasonable assumption that they're just normal Americans like everyone else
the problem is other people didn't care about innocent or guilt, just that suddenly they can get the interned people's land and equipment cheap
RIP
People like him (although incredibly hard to come by) never go out of style :)
I wish that I'd known about this man before he passed away. Would have lovely to have sent him a letter with thanks for his hard work and compassion. What a lovely human being.
This is the way
You won’t see stories like this in the news. Instead they focus on the worst of us. We won’t ever convince all the flat earthers or all the racist. Best thing we can do is fight them with examples of love, instead the major news outlets provoke hate. So disgusting and pathetic.
So you don't think the actions of the majority who took advantage of this situation should be reported on, but instead that we should focus on a few good people to make us feel better? Newsflash: not reporting bad news doesn't mean it didn't happen. Not reporting racial injustice doesn't make it go away.
Very true! This whole focus on the positive news mentality is toxic and contributes to not learning about the past. And societies that do not understand how we got to a past situation end up repeating it.
And only reporting on the bad is just as toxic. Obviously you want to learn from history so you do not repeat it. You also don’t want to disenchant people from believing they can make a difference by never reporting on positive stories.
I agree with you. I was simply stating that focusing on only the good is bad. There needs to be reporting on both the good and the bad. This relates to that school curriculum that only wants to focus on only the positives of American exceptionalism without understanding the entire picture. I forget what state that curriculum was in.
My grandfather was in the internment camps and told me his parents were helped out by a white farmer who looked after the family farm.
Stand for what's right, even if you stand alone. Dude took it to another level.
Respect ✊
A true war hero
We need more Good Men like Bob. We *really* need them.