2002年09月01日 日曜日
Hate, American Style
by Joichi Ito
Politics
A piece in the New York Times Op-Ed section about racial hatred in the US. The article compares some of the organizations with extreme Islamic organizations.
You need an account on the NYT web site to read it, but it's free so I suggest you sign up...
Hate, American Style
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOFAST PEORIA, Ill. - My interview with the Rev. Matt Hale, America's scariest hatemonger, got off to a rocky start.
As he picked at a fruit salad in a restaurant here in East Peoria, his headquarters, he recalled an incident in childhood that first led him to regard nonwhites as vermin: At a dance, he saw white girls "betraying their race" by kissing black boys.
"I felt nauseous," he said solemnly. "Interracial marriage is against nature. It's a form of bestiality."
A moment later, I disclosed that I had betrayed the white race and married a Chinese-American. It was, I felt, an awkward moment.
Posted by Joichi Ito at 2002年09月01日 07:51
Comments
On the topic of racisms, here is story from our Tokyo Mayor Ishihara who is also a notorious racist/nationalist.
<a href="http://www.ezipangu.org/english/contents/news/naname/ishihara/ishihara2.html#Anchor-31612">http://www.ezipangu.org/english/contents/news/naname/ishihara/ishihara2.html#Anchor-31612</a>
Ishihara told Nathan a story about the war. When he was in the seventh grade, he was living in Zushi, on the coast in the flight path of enemy aircraft heading out to sea. Ishihara described Nathan: �gThe Americans could see that we were kids, but they would strafe us anyway, for fun. One day I had to throw myself into a barley field. As I lay there, the Grummans and P-51s came roaring over me, flying low, and I could see that they had pictures of naked women and Mickey Mouse painted on the fuselage. I couldn't believe my eyes! I was scared to death, and angry but I was also thinking what a place America must be, what a culture, and how different from Japan. Then I heard other planes but no machine guns this time; they were Zeros in pursuit, and their insignia was the Japanese flag. I felt like reaching up to embrace that rising sun.�h
It appears that people seem to refer to childhood experiences when trying to justify their racism. I have a variety of childhood experiences that make me feel VERY uncomfortable talking about racism, but I don't hate American's because of those experiences...
I think this topic is awkward to to talk about, but I think we all need to get used to talking about it. Ignoring it won't make it go away. The thing about racism is... It is very difficult to fight. I haven't heard of anything really effective against it, especially if it is very deep rooted emotionally. What is the answer?
I think the answer is to live and work with people from different races and cultures, so that you come to know at a very deep level that all humans have the same potential for good or evil, and that both exist in every culture.
Unfortunately, in some cultures xenophobia is encouraged. Fortunately, even then you can always find a few cool people of that culture who don't follow the crowd... :)