Tokyo: We Are Coming

[Aiko]

Only thirty years before the release of “Lady Snowblood,” several million New Yorkers cheered a vast patriotic parade that streamed up Fifth Avenue for eleven hours in June 1942. The evident highlight was a float depicting a big American eagle swooping down on a herd of yellow rats. As historian John Dower has observed in War Without Mercy, this caricature captured the essential symbolic features of racist characterization of the American stance toward Japanese people – the strong individual versus an undifferentiated pack of vermin denied any acknowledgement of humanity – an embodiment of the iconic image of the yellow hordes of Asia.

Abundant contemporary imagery of rats, insects, monkeys or vipers was publicly invoked as justification for exterminationist rhetoric advocating wholesale slaughter of the Japanese. “Rodent Exterminator” was stenciled on helmets of many Marines during the 1944 invasion of Iwo Jima. The collection of body parts as trophies from dead (and living) Japanese was so commonplace that personnel returning from the Pacific theater were routinely screened for trophy possession prior to embarkation. In 1943 the magazine Leatherneck published a photograph of Japanese corpses with an uppercase headline reading “Good Japs,” while the following year Life published a full-page photograph of an attractive blonde posing with a Japanese skull. Another photograph showed Japanese skulls as ornaments on American military vehicles. Contemporary Japanese reaction was to view such material as indicative of the American character. For their part, officially sanctioned American perspectives endorsed notions that the Japanese were mad or crazy with a perverse wish to die, and deserved the death brought to them by Americans.

[nicholas]

It's regrettable that the mistakes of the past were made. Perhaps we can only learn from them. One has to be aware that during wartime both sides use propaganda to dehumanize the other.

I wonder though, what is your motivation for posting this?

Nicholas

[Evolved]

The government harness the pent up racial frustrations and dislike of the blacks, Hispanics, Arabs (and multiculturalism in general) at home and point it toward other races or countries. It is really sad to see self-proclaimed 'free thinking white people' buy into it.

[Vlad Cletus]

I guess you're informed about what happened in the pre-War time, and WW II. I thought Japanese students weren't told of the atrocities Imperial Japan committed during the War. From Manchuria and Unit 731, to South and SE Asia. From what I've gathered is that what's implemented in Japanese textbooks are a bunch of fabrications concerning the Pacific Theater.

The Racist propaganda is merely a motivation tool of hate, it encourages the Soldiers to be brave, to fight injustice and a "beast" at their maximum capabilities.

Propaganda always slanders the Enemy, you must remember that.

[Turificator]

TENNO
HEIKA
BANZAI!

[Newgrange]

The June 1942 Parade in New York City is offensive to you ? How about two months earlier in the Philippines. Bataan Death March "The Bataan Death March began at Mariveles on April 10, 1942. Any troops who fell behind were executed. Japanese troops beat soldiers randomly, and denied the POWs food and water for many days. One of their tortures was known as the sun treatment. The Philippines in April is very hot. Therefore, the POWs were forced to sit in the sun without any shade, helmets, or water. Anyone who dared ask for water was executed. On the rare occasion they were given any food, it was only a handful of contaminated rice. When the prisoners were allowed to sleep for a few hours at night, they were packed into enclosures so tight that they could barely move. Those who lived collapsed on the dead bodies of their comrades. For only a brief part of the march would POWs be packed into railroad cars and allowed to ride. Those who did not die in the suffocating boxcars were forced to march about seven more miles until they reached their camp. It took the POWs over a week to reach their destination. (49) Those on Corregidor would suffer the same fate as their fellow soldiers on Bataan did as they too were transferred to Bataan."

[Newgrange]

The government harness the pent up racial frustrations and dislike of the blacks, Hispanics, Arabs (and multiculturalism in general) at home and point it toward other races or countries. It is really sad to see self-proclaimed 'free thinking white people' buy into it.

Are you writing about 1942 America ? Your projecting present day political correctness terms on a time when I doubt Americans were worried about multiculturalism. In the 1940's Americans were involved in a a very real fight world wide to preserve their lives and freedoms.

[prophet]

i am new to this forum and am afarid i may be in the wrong place. is this not a white supremesist site?. if so some of the members seem rather liberal. multiculturalism is what is destroying the white race and stealing it's pride. those who don't see this are truly blind.

[Vlad Cletus]

The June 1942 Parade in New York City is offensive to you ? How about two months earlier in the Philippines. Bataan Death March "The Bataan Death March began at Mariveles on April 10, 1942. Any troops who fell behind were executed. Japanese troops beat soldiers randomly, and denied the POWs food and water for many days. One of their tortures was known as the sun treatment. The Philippines in April is very hot. Therefore, the POWs were forced to sit in the sun without any shade, helmets, or water. Anyone who dared ask for water was executed. On the rare occasion they were given any food, it was only a handful of contaminated rice. When the prisoners were allowed to sleep for a few hours at night, they were packed into enclosures so tight that they could barely move. Those who lived collapsed on the dead bodies of their comrades. For only a brief part of the march would POWs be packed into railroad cars and allowed to ride. Those who did not die in the suffocating boxcars were forced to march about seven more miles until they reached their camp. It took the POWs over a week to reach their destination. (49) Those on Corregidor would suffer the same fate as their fellow soldiers on Bataan did as they too were transferred to Bataan." Excellent, that's what I should've listed.

Excellent, that's what I should've listed. The Bataan Death March is a perfect example of an atrocity commited in SE Asia.

[ogenoct]

I agree as well.

Constantin