Brian’s Reflection: Friday, Dec 18, 2009

"We're charged with wanting to get rid of the Japs for selfish reasons.
We do. It's a question of whether the white man lives on the Pacific
Coast or the brown men… If all the Japs were removed tomorrow,
we had never miss them in two weeks, because the white farmers
can take over and produce everything the Jap grows. And we do
not want them back when the war ends, either."

Austin E. Anson, managing secretary of the Salinas Vegetable
Grower-Shipper Association, told the Saturday Evening Post in 1942.
On this date, 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the wartime re-
location of Japanese-Americans


Think about this today. It has so much to say about human fear, about the ability of the powerful to destroy the lives of their fellow human beings. About the willingness of citizens to act against their fellow citizens – and I don’t think it is just because of fear. It’s about the innate deep zenophobia we are capable of. Given a moment of societal anxiety, the dominant majority’s racism, hate, fear, distrust comes out in spades. Shameful – and deeply against the then prevailing Christian allegiance of Americans, who should have known more about the Gospel and about the amazing ethical radical life that the Gospel calls people to.

We live in such times. It would be easy for the same thing to happen again. We see evidence of it throughout our American “culture” all the time. McCarthy played on this thread in the American psyche. The Republicans are doing it now, and their minions in all the right-wing movements that are proliferating like crazy in our country. Don’t believe me? Read the magazine of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Are you a follower of Jesus and His great commandment of Love? Of the Buddha, who calls upon all persons to do no harm to others? Of the Prophet, who demands fairness justice for all persons? Keep a close grip on your heat, on your fears and anxieties. Mostly, on your commitment to honouring and respecting your fellow human beings.

Jesus says there are no “Japs”. No “brown” or “whites”. Just human beings who are all equally God’s family.

It’s time we started living up to this standard.

Brian+