Well, now I know there are at least two of us.
Michelle Malkin — whose tiny frame belies what a gutsy, scrappy woman she is — stood behind a podium recently at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and took the abuse. One woman, who claimed to be the daughter of Japanese-Americans interned in one of America’s relocation camps during World War II, told Malkin she was “dangerous.”
Another woman made an issue of Malkin’s race during the question-and-answer period: as an Asian-American woman who had come out against affirmative action, wouldn’t Malkin’s book sell better than if she were just some conservative white guy writing about the same thing?
The book is Malkin’s latest. It’s called “In Defense of Internment: The Case for ‘Racial Profiling’ in World War II and the War on Terror.”
Malkin believes, as I have for some time, that the relocation and internment of Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans during World War II wasn’t inspired by “racist hysteria” but was a necessary war measure based on sound intelligence that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had at the time.
“I start from a politically incorrect premise,” Malkin wrote in her book. “In a time of war, the survival of the nation comes first. Civil liberties are not sacrosanct.”
She’s danged skippy they’re not. That’s why, for years, I’ve believed the relocation and internment of Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans during World War II was completely justified.
I also believe President Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War helped the Union prevail, which led to the passage of amendments 13, 15 and that ever important 14th, which almost by itself has totally transformed American society.
Lincoln’s violation of civil liberties was more widespread than what happened to the Japanese, and, outside of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, I don’t hear anyone complaining about the results.
And I’d be the first to visit President Grant’s tomb in New York City and give that man his props. Grant suspended habeas corpus in South Carolina during Reconstruction and helped end the Ku Klux Klan’s reign of terror against blacks and white progressives. Nobody quibbles about those results either.
But on the subject of Japanese relocation and internment, there are plenty of folks who have put America on a guilt trip for years. The feisty Malkin is having none of it. She lets readers know that there were Germans and Italians relocated and interned as well; that over 4,000 Japanese left internment/relocation camps to attend schools in the eastern United States; that many Japanese spent not one day in such places and some voluntarily entered them; and others swore loyalty to Japan’s emperor and were, at their own request, repatriated to the land of their ancestors when the war ended.
That last fact didn’t stop America’s reparations bandits from demanding — and getting — payments for those devotees of the land of the rising sun. Germans and Italians who were relocated or interned got no reparations, of course. It would have been hard for those forces on the left promoting the reparations racket to call Japanese relocation and internment a racist-inspired chapter in our history if white victims could be found. And the Americans who were interned by Axis nations, before Malkin came along, didn’t even receive mention, much less reparations.
The same quandary about who should and shouldn’t get reparations has proved nettlesome in the debate concerning reparations for slavery in America.
When I find myself presenting the argument against slavery reparations in some forums — usually stacked heavily in favor of proponents — I always ask how can we justify having descendants of whites like Wendell Phillips and John Brown, who risked life, limb and reputation for black folks, to pay reparations while the black descendants of Peter Prioleau get paid.
Prioleau is the black man who betrayed Denmark Vesey’s planned slave rebellion to the authorities. He got paid for it. If black reparations advocates have their way, his descendants would get paid again. Descendants of Phillips and Brown would have to pay.
Malkin notes in her book that those Japanese loyal to the emperor terrorized, harassed and physically abused Japanese loyal to America in the relocation centers and internment camps. But all got equal shares in reparations.
Malkin’s book about Japanese internment — which contains a chapter on reparations — might prove cautionary reading for black folks in our own reparations debate.
