Also in the CSM (albeit from spring), there’s a thought-provoking column comparing the Japanese right’s moves to strike the nation’s wartime mobilization of "comfort women" and U.S. history textbooks’ pussyfooting around its own "comfort women," i.e., the mass rape of female African-American slaves during the ante-bellum period:
Take the example of Harriet Jacobs, who was born into slavery in North Carolina in 1813. She was sold at the age of 12 to James Norcum, who soon began making sexual overtures to her.
As Jacobs later recalled in her memoir, Norcum told her that "I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things." And so she was. Although Jacobs occasionally managed to escape her owner’s clutches, he did own her. To get sex from her, Norcum sometimes promised her new clothes and other presents; at other times, he simply held a razor to her throat. And that, my fellow Americans, is what we call rape.
You do the math. Between 1850 and 1860, the number of blacks in slavery rose by about 20 percent. But the number of enslaved "mulattoes" - that is, mixed-raced slaves - rose by a remarkable 67 percent, as historian Joel Williamson has calculated. To put it most bluntly: Black slaves were getting lighter in skin, because white owners were raping them. It’s really that simple - and that awful.
And in conclusion:
Let’s imagine that a coalition of West African countries - say, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast - staged demonstrations against American history textbooks, demanding that the books include our sordid history of sexual coercion against black people. I think most Americans would scoff at "outside interference" and invoke their own patriotic imperatives.
In other words, they’d behave just like the Japanese. Defending the omission of comfort women from schoolbooks, the Japanese society for History Textbook Reform argued that other nations have no right to define the Japanese past. Only Japan can do that, a statement from the society says, because history aims at "deepening love towards our country."
And that’s precisely the problem. Of course the Japanese should admit the terrible harm they inflicted upon Chinese and Korean comfort women between 1937 and 1945. But we also need to acknowledge our own African-American comfort women, who were sexually enslaved for more than two centuries. It might not make us feel more patriotic, but at least it would be true.
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Give me a break.
The difference is huge. Americans owned up to the slavery problem and did so quite publically. It was America that broadcast “Roots” throughout the world.
The thing is, America is a guilt-based culture while Japan is a shame-based culture. Americans dealt with slaver out of a sense of moral compuntion wheras the comfort woman issue is strictly a legal matter to the Japanese.
The same can be broadly said of Korea and several other Asian nations as well, by the way.
When I was in my graduate school, I happened to question the reason why American blacks were of lighter skin than African natives. I was naive. My roomate who was an AfricanAmerican told me the truth.
It is wrong to dwell in the past and racial hatred. However, America has matured enough and self-confident enough to recognize this fact. And, in some odd twist of history, this mulattoes actually helped to accept all Black people into American society. Different shade of black skin blurred the boundary between two races.
(Was Elvis a mulattoe? He has some black features.)
If Korea and Japan had more intermarriages, two countries would have been much closer by now. Yet, Japan with its superiority complex did not marry Koreans. They just enjoyed Gisaeng sex tours. Koreans with anti-Japanese attitude have not mingled with the Japanese. As the result, two countries are still very much apart.
This is just a lame example of a weak excuse.
Here’s another big difference: Look at the timeline. Many of the Japanese victims - directly affected victims are still alive and remember the incidents like it was yesterday. They have the right to bring their unresolved grievances forward. Of course the outcry in Asia sounds louder than what happened 200 years ago. Give it another 100 years, Japan would have completely forgotten that there were any comfort women (they’re only acknowledging it about 25% now, wait another 100 years), where as in the US, awareness of evils of slavery is taught in every classrooms of today. Japan equals America? Oh yeah right.
Yes, this post was a rather sad example of the “moral equivalence” argument that however bad something might be in the world, America has been worse. Hell, why not bring up the genocide of native Americans while you are at it? I mean doesn’t that prove that America was just as bad as Nazi Germany?
As other commenters have noted we have owned up to our evil deeds in the slavery era, and fought our bloodiest war to eradicate it. I was in grade school 35 years ago, and while I don’t think rape was mentioned we saw lots of pictures of lynchings and stories of the cruelty and depravity of slavery. More recently, the whole Jefferson/Hemmings relationship has been given wide play in the media, so its not like we are in denial about what slave owners were up to.
Our history is far from perfect, but we do tend to learn from our mistakes and are better for it. The Japanese tendenacy to deny their relatively recent atrocities is rightly subject to criticism from those who suffered the most, Korea and China.
the blacks in america at that time were slaves. if anyone really thinks that being a slave just means picking cotton, they are sadly ignorant.
slave owners raping slaves, branding slaves, whipping slaves, and treating slaves in any imaginable despicable way is not something that has been denied or covered up in any way in the US. in school, we read several books that discussed the horrors of slavery.
comparing the crimes of japan and the us is fine but comparing the way each country has owned up to those crimes is ridiculous.
even if you looked at american history around 1915 (50 years after the civil war), i doubt you would find any people that would claim the blacks volunteered to be slaves or that they were treated well as slaves.
even if you looked at american history around 1915 (50 years after the civil war), i doubt you would find any people that would claim the blacks volunteered to be slaves or that they were treated well as slaves.
In Disney’s “Song of the South,” we see happy, singing slaves, being buddy-buddy with little White kids. I’m not saying this is a bad film, but I’m saying little-kid audiences of the 1940s were given this kind of film that sidestepped the horrors of slavery in favor of happy, singing Negroes.
Anyway, if this analogy of American slavery versus Japanese aggression and atrocities has any hope of working, the entirety of America can’t be used. It was the South that had slavery until 1865, and it was the South that ended up going to war to preserve that way of life. And it is the South from which we have “the South shall rise again” and segregation until 100 years after slavery ended. IOW, the South (i.e., the former Confederate States of America) would be more appropriate for this analogy, and then what is happening in Japan might be a little clearer (though no more excusable).
A few days ago, while tutoring a Korean middle schooler in American History, I pointed out after a discussion on slavery that Korea used to have slaves, too. He didn’t believe me. Slavery is barely mentioned in Korean history books. Historian James Palais has angered Koreans with his published research on the existence of slavery in Korea.
We Americans are honest about our history because our multicultural population keeps us honest. I’d like to think that we learn from our mistakes; then I remember we are in Iraq, thirty years after we crawled out of Vietnam.
yes, kushibo, you are correct that disney has made some unrealistic films. but what about the book huckleberry finn? or uncle tom’s cabin? while uncle tom’s cabin (written in 1852) might not have been widely read by the youth, i am quite certain that huckleberry finn (1876) was read by most american kids (at least at that time.)
however, i don’t think it’s right to compare japan with the south. northern states also had slaves and i doubt they treated them any better than southern slave owners did. the south just wanted to keep them in slavery longer. and the statement, “the south shall rise again” does not mean that southerns want to enslave or oppress blacks again, nor does it mean that southerners want to secede again. it’s just meant to bring some pride to the southern way of life. and furthermore, it would be nice if when you refer to the reason that the south fought in the civil war, you don’t limit that reason to just keeping slaves. it was much more complex than that. i no more think that southern farmers were dying only to oppress blacks than northern farmers were dying only to free the blacks.
sorry for the rant, i guess i’m just a sensitive southerner who should shut his mouth now.
There’s a whole lot of historical amnesia on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line–granting for the moment that we don’t make it a point to highlight the mass rape of African-American slave women (see this, from Katolik Shinja) in the South, one wonders if Northerners remember some of the general nastiness they visited upon the South during the Civil War. If anything,it seems many on both sides remember only what they want to remember and toss aside the rest.
kidcharlemagne wrote:
yes, kushibo, you are correct that disney has made some unrealistic films. but what about the book huckleberry finn?
Wasn’t that book banned in some places?
or uncle tom’s cabin? while uncle tom’s cabin (written in 1852) might not have been widely read by the youth, i am quite certain that huckleberry finn (1876) was read by most american kids (at least at that time.)
But this makes the comparison more apt. Japan is not a country where everyone is denying imperial aggression and atrocities. There are millions of people very aware of it and some of them are spending a lot of time on it (even risking their careers). There is a dichotomy there, just as there was with slavery.
however, i don’t think it’s right to compare japan with the south. northern states also had slaves and i doubt they treated them any better than southern slave owners did.
Slavery was abolished in Massachusetts in 1783, before the U.S. Constitution was even ratified and five years before Massachusetts became a state. Other northern states had ended the practice long before the Civil War and they had ended it on moral grounds, not because people with overwhelming firepower forced them to stop.
Had imperial Japan ended its aggression not by force of arms but because people in Japan had gotten their own government to stop, then the comparison with Northern States would be appropriate.
But a defeated Japan, like a defeated South, gave up not on its own but by military force, and it continues to hold contrarian views on the matter and offer a rosier-than-reality view of its past wrongs.
the south just wanted to keep them in slavery longer.
The South didn’t want to give them up; the North had on its own on moral grounds. Two entirely different situations.
and the statement, “the south shall rise again” does not mean that southerns want to enslave or oppress blacks again, nor does it mean that southerners want to secede again. it’s just meant to bring some pride to the southern way of life.
They’re going to “rise again” and have mint julips? I agree it’s not a cry for the return to slavery, but what points of pride in the southern way of life is embodied in “the South shall rise again”?
and furthermore, it would be nice if when you refer to the reason that the south fought in the civil war, you don’t limit that reason to just keeping slaves. it was much more complex than that.
Yes, and the Japanese were fighting because America was trying to choke their country off. Again, the South-Japan comparison is apt.
i no more think that southern farmers were dying only to oppress blacks than northern farmers were dying only to free the blacks.
Or the Americans to free the Koreans, the Chinese, the Indochinese, etc.
sorry for the rant, i guess i’m just a sensitive southerner who should shut his mouth now.
But this is a good analogy to people looking back at imperial Japan. You know that bad stuff was done, but you don’t think it’s that simple and you want people to know that.
one wonders if Northerners remember some of the general nastiness they visited upon the South during the Civil War.
I was actually going to mention Sherman’s March to the Sea. Yes, I agree.
As a coincidence, both groups also demand monetary compensation to this day.
Does this mean I can demand big bucks from the British if my ancestors came over as colonial indentured servants? Can I demand big bucks from the Mongolians because Batu Khan sacked my hometown in 1241 and shagged my granny rotten? Will Egypt give me money because they made my grandpappy build pyramids and shit? How far back in time must we go before the lewd becomes ludicrous?
No Mark, that would be ridiculous if you asked for compensation because your ancestors were murdered by Mongolians in 1241. That’s unreasonable and no-one will take you seriously. That is what we call a ‘lame comparison’.
However if you were an 80 year old raped woman directly effected by the Japanese imperial army only decades ago, and you have not been properly compensated for the suffering that you had to endure, is it so outrageous that you want some compensation and some due recognition other then spittals coming out of Yasukuni?
So it’s 60 years, then? Good; let’s tell that to the Native Americans and African-Americans.
kushibo, you make some very good points and i can agree with you that the south in the civil war and japan in ww2 is a good comparison. and same with the aftermath of southerners looking back with rose tinted glasses and japanese doing the same.
however, i don’t see the comparison of japan’s comfort women and the south’s slaves. the original issue was that lots of slaves in the us were raped just like lots of comfort women (or more appropriately, all comfort women.) but how does that exclude the north just because they willingly stopped raping slaves by giving up slavery?
and by the way, mint julips taste great but that’s usually for women. southern men generally drink straight bourbon.
Kushibo, I’m afraid I must expand upon this statement of yours: “It was the South that had slavery until 1865.”
True, but the parts of the South under Union control kept slaves after the Emancipation Procolmation, which freed only those slaves in rebellious lands. Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant, for one, owned slaves during the war.
From A Jeffersonian View of the Civil War:
The Emancipation Proclamation was a “war measure,” as Lincoln put it. Foreign correspondents covering the war recognized it as a brilliant propaganda coup. Emancipation would take place only in rebel states not under Union control, their state sovereignty in the matter of slavery arguably forfeited as a result of their having seceded from the Union. The president could not abolish slavery; if not done at the state level, abolition would require a constitutional amendment. Slaveholders and their slaves in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Tennessee, and parts of Virginia and Louisiana occupied by Union troops were exempt from the edict. Slaves in the Confederacy would be “forever free” on January 1, 1863 ? one hundred days after the Proclamation was issued ? but only if a state remained in “rebellion” after that date. Rebel states that rejoined the Union and sent elected representatives to Congress before January 1, 1863 could keep their slaves. Such states would no longer be considered in rebellion and so their sovereignty regarding the peculiar institution would be restored. As the London Spectator put it, in its October 11, 1862 issue: “The principle [of the Proclamation] is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own him unless he is loyal to the United States.”
Let me recommend the best book I’ve read on the War Between the States, and the second best book on the US (after Toqueville): Orestes A. Brownson, The American Republic, written in 1865 by a pro-Union, anti-Slavery, anti-Abolitionist, ex-Transcendentalist, Catholic convert journalist and philosopher
“So it’s 60 years, then? Good; let’s tell that to the Native Americans and African-Americans.”
Again, Mark, why should YOU be compensated for what happened to your ancestors hundreds of years ago? That’s something different Mark, if YOU were the one who had to sleep with 30 Mongolian soldiers per day in the front lines. Then yes, you should be entitled to your compensation.
And yes, you should tell that to native Americans and African Americans.
Kushibo:
“In Disney’s “Song of the South,” we see happy, singing slaves, being buddy-buddy with little White kids. I’m not saying this is a bad film, but I’m saying little-kid audiences of the 1940s were given this kind of film that sidestepped the horrors of slavery in favor of happy, singing Negroes.”
This evidemces the huge chasm between progressive American thinking and tradition-bound Asian thinking.
The radical evolution of consciousness that America achieved in just a few decades stands in stark contrast to centuries of denial in Japan, China and Korea.
That’s a mighty big blanket, Mizar5. Yes, there are people engaged in denial in Japan, but there are many, many, many people standing up to them. For every Yasukuni-esque view, there’s a Hiroshima-esque view that underscores Japan’s culpability (and the terror it brought on the Japanese people, not just their neighbors).
And this “radical evolution of consciousness that American achieved in just a few decades” was preceded by eight decades of serious denial, then.
Japan (I’m avoiding bringing Korea into what would then be a long, long, long post because this was only about Japan and the U.S. originally) cannot be described in black-and-white terms as an atrocity-denying nation, and at the same time the U.S. at this point after slavery could not be described as whitewash-free.
It’s universal human nature to want to sweep embarrassing details of one’s past under the carpet. “Centuries of denial” does not just belong to Japan and its nearby neighbors.
Kushibo, in response to the comment that the civil war was more complex than clavery:
“Yes, and the Japanese were fighting because America was trying to choke their country off. Again, the South-Japan comparison is apt.”
Correction. The unprovoked attack on Peal Harbor was carried out to establish Japanese dominence over Asia.
The South, however, waged a civil war in defense of their way of life as opposed to an act of imperialist aggression.
Slavery was indeed the central issue, mush as imperialism was the central issue for Japan. Indeed, there has been historical whitewashing in both cases, human nature being what it is. However, slavery has not been omitted from American history books and the situation is very different.
Mizar5,
Why does any group of people do anything? What is the motive? I tell you, it is money. Why did the South want to keep slaves? Money.
Why did the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor? Money. To get more.
All these -isms(including Communism) are there for justification, but the real cause is “the love of money”. The root of all evil, as the Bible says.
People want to have more(of everything), so they kill. “Everything she sees is everything she wants”(wham!).
I don’t think the comparison is apt at all. In my personal educational experiences, whenever I’ve read or been taught about slavery or racial apartheid, I’ve always chalked it up to racist, backwards Southern crackers. Regionalism has made it a lot easier to deal with the slavery issue. I admit I do not know much about education in the South, but I’ve read accounts (in Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horowitz) which suggest to me that our treatment of slavery is a more complicated issue and not without it’s own problems.
I also agree with Sonagi’s point: being a multicultural society, we must coexist with those whom we’ve wronged. In the case of our historical treatment of slavery, the civil rights movement was ultimately successful in redefining political correctnesss- which made slavery-sympathetic views taboo. I feel that our discussion is mostly framed around America’s “guilt,” without consideration of the blood and tears that many people shed for us to have the consciousness about slavery and racial inequality that we do today.
Mizar5 wrote:
Kushibo, in response to the comment that the civil war was more complex than clavery:
“Yes, and the Japanese were fighting because America was trying to choke their country off. Again, the South-Japan comparison is apt.”
Correction. The unprovoked attack on Peal Harbor was carried out to establish Japanese dominence over Asia.
The South, however, waged a civil war in defense of their way of life as opposed to an act of imperialist aggression.
I think you misunderstood why I wrote that “the Japanese were fighting because America was trying to choke their country off.”
I was NOT stating my opinion but representing the opinion of the right-wing ideologues in Japan. America’s embargo and other acts were/are used as a justification for Japan’s war of aggression, especially by those who don’t like admitting Japan’s wrongs, just as states’ rights were/are used as a justification for secession and war by the South, by people who don’t like admitting that defense of slavery was a central feature of the antebellum South and the central reason for the war.
Defense of states’ rights, like Japan’s defense agains the embargo, were only proximal causes and issues glossing over the bigger issues of the South’s insistence on adhering to the cruel institution of slavery and Japan’s cruel invasion of the Asian mainland.
Slavery was indeed the central issue, mush as imperialism was the central issue for Japan.
With that I agree. I think I even stated as much somewhere up above.
Indeed, there has been historical whitewashing in both cases, human nature being what it is. However, slavery has not been omitted from American history books and the situation is very different.
Japan’s aggressions have NOT been ommitted from Japan’s textbooks. Including these in detail is part of the Good Neighbors policy of Japanese education (the result, in part, of Korea and others complaining about white-washed textbooks in the past).
The uproar over the textbooks since 2001 has been because right-wing publishing agencies are trying to REMOVE some of these or water them down. The uproar over various politicians comes from Japanese, too, because they KNOW that “Japan never invaded Korea” is a falsehood.
Korean confort women were getting money, they were not slave but pros.