Takei Responds To Internment Comments
2 min read
After the terrorist attack on Paris, David A. Bowers, the mayor of Roanoke Virginia, made a statement that caught George Takei’s attention and the former Trek actor took to Facebook to call him out.
Bowers rejected the idea of Syrian refugees coming to the US and he referenced an event very close to Takei’s heart. “I’m reminded that President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor,” he wrote in a statement released yesterday. “And it appears that they threat of harm to America from Isis now is just as real and serious as that from our enemies then.”
Takei wanted to set the record straight regarding that internment of Japanese-American citizens. “The internment (not a ‘sequester’) was not of Japanese ‘foreign nationals,’ but of Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were U.S. citizens,” he said. “I was one of them, and my family and I spent four years in prison camps because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. It is my life’s mission to never let such a thing happen again in America.
“There never was any proven incident of espionage or sabotage from the suspected ‘enemies’ then, just as there has been no act of terrorism from any of the 1,854 Syrian refugees the U.S. already has accepted. We were judged based on who we looked like, and that is about as un-American as it gets.
“If you are attempting to compare the actual threat of harm from the 120,000 of us who were interned then to the Syrian situation now, the simple answer is this: There was no threat. We loved America. We were decent, honest, hard-working folks. Tens of thousands of lives were ruined, over nothing.
“Mayor Bowers, one of the reasons I am telling our story on Broadway eight times a week in Allegiance is because of people like you. You who hold a position of authority and power, but you demonstrably have failed to learn the most basic of American civics or history lessons.”
Takei then invited Bowers to come and see his show, saying “perhaps you, too, will come away with more compassion and understanding.”
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I’ve seen six year olds with guns in Afghanistan
…Well, that’s depressing.
Agreed, and well-said.
I daresay there are any number of disturbed individuals identifying as ‘Christian,’ ‘Jewish (faith),’ ‘Buddhist,’ ‘Atheist,’ ‘Republican,’ ‘Democrat,’ and any other group or label you care to name, who have committed horrific acts- bombings and shootings and the like. Whichever group(s) you may adhere to, are you out there ‘keeping them in check?’ How would you even do that, when you don’t know half of them are disturbed until they pull out a gun and start shooting or blow themselves up? And if- God forbid- America fell into the same kind of chaos that Syria did, with the same percentage of whack-jobs going on a rampage, would you want shelter and compassion for you and your family to be based on how well you were able to ‘keep in check’ other Democrats, or Republicans, or Christians, or Atheists, or whomever was out there on the streets murdering people while espousing beliefs similar in principle (if not in practice) to yours?
There might be something to be said about it being about money, no doubt about it. But you just implied that it was a racist and religious war against Islam. So which is it? You seem to have a hard time making up your mind. It’s clear that you’re a bigot that’s been blinded by your hatred against white people and Christians.
I tend to agree. If progressives hate Christianity because it’s too “conservative”, then they should completely be appalled by Islam (which makes Christianity seem like a left-wing religion by comparison). nnLike I said elsewhere, I have no problems with Muslims being in America as long as they don’t try and supplant American culture, law, and the constitution with Sharia Law. If they keep their religion to themselves and don’t force it on the rest of us, then they should be welcomed with open arms.