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U.S. History 1877-Present 9.5 Race on the Home Front 22 Views
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Description:
By this point, we can all agree that racism is about as American as apple pie and mattress sales. In hopes of a better future, here’s a bit of history.
Transcript
- 00:03
In some ways, World War II saw a big leap forward in America's
- 00:07
race relations. But in other ways--some really giant, glaring, awful ways--America
- 00:13
took a huge step backward. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Americans saw the [Man falls between two rocks.]
- 00:17
Japanese as their worst enemies. Unfortunately, they didn't restrict this
- 00:22
feeling to the Emperor and his generals because, well, that would have made too
Full Transcript
- 00:25
much sense. Americans also decided to hate on Japanese immigrants and even
- 00:30
native-born Americans of Japanese ancestry. Well, eventually, Roosevelt [Angry people protest.]
- 00:34
issued an executive order on the issue. The executive branch, in all its wisdom,
- 00:39
decided that the only thing for Japanese Americans to do was, well, be interned.
- 00:44
This meant the Japanese Americans were forced to leave their home and relocate [Three Japanese men stand behind barbed wire fence.]
- 00:49
to concentration camps. Yep, that's right: concentration camps in America. Not
- 00:54
Germany, not Poland... America. We'll give you a second to let the "uh, what?" sink in. The
- 01:00
victims were given little notice to pack up their belongings and sell their
- 01:04
property, and of course, they often didn't get any of it back after the war because [Masses of people with their belongings.]
- 01:07
all that sounds super fair and not at all racist. Fred Korematsu, an American of
- 01:13
Japanese ancestry, stuck up for his people. He pointed out the pretty obvious
- 01:17
fact that internment went against the Constitution, in particular the
- 01:21
handy-dandy 14th Amendment, which gives Americans equal protection under the law
- 01:24
as well as the right to property and freedom. What about that? Well, the US
- 01:28
Supreme Court disagreed and ruled in favor of FDR's internment order. Their
- 01:33
reasoning? The fear of Japanese spies outweighed the Constitution. Kind of [Spy with mask laughs.]
- 01:38
funny when their whole job is to make sure the Constitution doesn't get
- 01:41
trampled on. So, with no evidence of Japanese American treason, espionage, or
- 01:46
even dislike of apple pie or Chevrolet, judges ruled that this law wasn't in
- 01:51
violation of anyone's constitutional rights. Right, whatever helps you sleep at
- 01:56
night, there, judges. Some white Americans argued that locking up
- 02:00
Japanese Americans was part of a fight for survival. The San Francisco Chronicle [Two cavemen with spears hold man on burning stake.]
- 02:04
printed that people Japanese blood ought to prove their loyalty to the United
- 02:08
States by surrendering to exclusion orders. Japanese
- 02:12
Americans like Fred Korematsu argued that the US should prove its loyalty to
- 02:16
itself by not betraying its own basic principles... burn. [Lighter burns legal paper.]
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