Japanese Internment Camps 1942

December 7,1941 a day which will live in infamy. These words marked the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States entry into the war. Fear brewed in the general American population as the war waged in the Pacific and in February 1942 Executive Order 9066 was passed to relocate 122,000 Japanese Americans on the west coast into internment camps to locations being: Topaz Internment Camp (Utah), Colorado River Internment Camp (Arizona), Gila River Internment Camp (Arizona), Granada Internment Camp (Colorado), Heart Mountain Internment Camp (Wyoming), Jerome Internment Camp (Arkansas), Manzanar Internment Camp (California), Minidoka Internment Camp (Idaho), Rohwer Internment Camp (Arkansas), Tule Lake Internment Camp (California). These camps were made as a means to increase surveillance against potential espionage. The WRA (War Relocation Association) hoped to have life in these camps normalized with their own form of governmental body with voting, jobs, and an inmate security force.

Unfortunately, hindsight is always 20/20. Looking back, the actions we took out of fear of the Japanese became eerily close to what the Nazis did to the Jews. These people that were put into these camps were in many cases unable to pay for their mortgages and defaulted on their homes and properties during this time of confinement. When they were eventually released from these internment camps, they found themselves unable to go back to their old jobs. Even if they were to work in an internment camp, they would only be paid a fraction of the average American wage. They had to live in military style barracks and had to live off rationed food.

Japanese internment camps were a clear example of discrimination based solely on race in American history. This blatant discrimination and harassment toward these people have largely been overlooked by the de facto reasoning that America were the glorious victors of World War 2, they were the ones that saved the world from imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. However, this is far from the truth. It is important to recognize that during times of war a nation and its people often turn to extremely racist and bigotry measures to secure their own safety.

The relocation of Japanese Americans is eerily similar to the relocation of Native Americans, yet the former is often glanced passed in American education, while the latter has gained much notoriety and significance.

Sources: 

Kessler, L. (1988). Fettered freedoms: The journalism of World War II japanese internment camps. Journalism History, 15(2-3), 70–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/00947679.1988.12066665

National Archives and Records Administration. (n.d.). Japanese-American internment during World War II. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved November 18, 2021, from https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation. 

Indian Government Outlaws Caste System

Jawaharlal Nehru Signing the Constitution of India, 1950

The Indian government outlawed discrimination on the basis of caste in 1948, after decades of movements and protests. This ratification became part of an amendment to the Indian constitution, with article 15 prohibiting discrimination based on caste and Article 17 declaring the practice of untouchability to be illegal.

The anti-caste Dalit movement began with Jyotirao Phule in the mid-19th century, who worked to abolish the idea of “untouchability”. Figures such as B.R. Ambedkar and Gandhi also became prominent through advocacy for the abolishment of the caste system. Ambedkar campaigned for greater rights for Dalits in British India beginning in the 1920s and 30s, continuing even after independence in 1947, and during the national movement, Gandhi began using the term “Harijans” (God’s people) to refer to the untouchable class. He believed it to be a moral issue that could be abolished through goodwill among Hindus of the upper-caste.

In 1935, the British Government of India came up with a list of 400 groups considered untouchable, including many native tribes, that would be afforded special privileges in order to combat historical discrimination. The groups included on this list became known as the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the affirmative action plan established by the government. The Scheduled Castes are comprised of communities considered to be of the lowest in the social hierarchy, and the Scheduled Tribes include those communities who rejected the caste system in favor of living isolated from society in the jungles, forests, and mountains of India. These groups are eligible for preferential policies with reserved seats in legislatures, government jobs, public sector enterprises, and state-supervised educational institutions. Unfortunately, however, only a relatively small proportion of the lower castes have benefited from these preferential policies due to continued hostility and violence against the lower class in many parts of India even today.

The Constitution of India

Further Reading

Image Source: “Jawaharlal Nehru Signing the Indian Constitution, in 1950.” Wikimedia Commons, 3 Aug. 2020, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jawaharlal_Nehru_signing_the_Ind.... Accessed 10 Nov. 2021.

The Feminine Mystique and the Second Wave of Feminism

The Second Wave of Feminism is after the ratification of the 19th amendment in 1920, which allowed women to vote. After this, feminism seemed to slow down greatly. During this time, there was the Great Depression and then World War Two took place. Women have always worked outside of home but never in the great numbers as during WW2 when the men were overseas. After the war, most women returned home, and let go of their jobs to the men. Over this time, there was activists fighting for women’s rights but the next greatly significant feminist movement is believed to have been started in the 1960s.  This second wave of feminism broaden the debate of issues: sexuality, workplace, reproductive rights, and legal inequalities.  This took place along with other social and political movements. Historians view the end of the second-wave feminist era in America to end in the early 1980s due to intra-feminism disputes over issues as pornography ad sexuality.

Ten years after the publishing of "The Second Sex", “The Feminine Mystique" was published by American feminist writer Betty Friedan in 1963.  She builds up the foundation of Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas and implemented the philosophical thought into her own personal experiences.  Friedan was a writer, journalist and activist but she then got married and had children.  She was a housewife in the suburbs for years and was unhappy and saw society’s pressure for women to be pink-collar workers, mothers and homemakers. Friedan wanted to see if she was alone in her feelings so she conducted interviews over 5 years to white middle-class women and they all felt the same dissatisfaction. These women felt trapped and unfulfilled in a world where men monopolized the positions of power and autonomy.

 In the book she criticized that the separation and constraint of motherhood and homemaking, were just to women. When in comparison to men, they were allowed to excel in power, politics and work while women were trapped. Friedan encouraged women to fight gender oppression, which she called “the problem that has no name”. Also, she wanted women to pursue careers that were “the life long commitment to an art or science, to politics or profession” (Friedan). Although there was a blind spot with “The Feminine Mystiques” with her not taking account systemic barriers especially towards working-class women and women of color where having a job isn’t a choice but a necessity. Although her book brought great attention to the disparities of the work force and the realization for women’s efforts to reform and realize the needed new rights at the workplace. This then helped make gains though civil rights and labor movements.

Works Cited

Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 286, 289. On women’s responses to the book, see Stephanie Coontz, A Strange Stirring: Th e Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s (New York: Basic Books, 2011

Turk, Katherine. “‘To Fulfill an Ambition of [Her] Own’: Work, Class, and Identity in The Feminine Mystique.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, vol. 36, no. 2, 2015, pp. 25–32. EBSCOhost, doi:10.5250/fronjwomestud.36.2.0025.

The Harlem Riot of 1964

July 16, 1964: James Powell was fatally shot by officer Thomas Giligan, sparking a six day long string of riots. Gilligan stated he heard glass break and inspected it to find Powell wielding a knife, and held this story through his trial where he was cleared of any crime. Witnesses claim they did not see Powell holding a knife, and people in the Harlem Community believed this was an act of police brutality.

 July 17, 1964: The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) showed up at the scene the morning after his death. They were met by 50 NYPD officers carrying night sticks as they chanted, “Stop Killer Cops!” They called for discipline against the police for this act. 

July 18, 1964: James Powell’s funeral was held, and 250 people attended. The crowd called for the arrest of Gilligan as they were met with shards of glass and garbage lids thrown from residents of rooftops above them, and the swinging clubs of officers. The rioters looted over 22 stores, 19 people and 12 police officers were injured and 1 rioter died. 

July 19, 1964: Hostility between the community and the NYPD grew as rioters continued. A Black Citizens Council was held, and speakers tried reasoning with rioters for a peaceful protest, but members of the crowd disagreed. The crowd moved to Delaney Funeral Home, where a service was being held for Powell. One person threw a glass bottle at an officer, and he threw it back into the crowd. From this point on, bricks and bottles began to be thrown off rooftops into crowds. The ferocity ended at around 1:30am. By the end of the night, 45 stores were looted, 93 citizens and 27 police officers were injured, and 108 people were arrested.

July 20, 1964: The President of the New York City Council, Paul Screvane announced that a Grand Jury would investigate the killing of James Powell. A United Nations demonstration was held in protest of terrorism against African Americans, and a riot followed this event. A march was planned for Monday by the Brooklyn CORE, and later they set up a rally where police eventually charged the mob without distincting innocent civilians and rioters, this continued until 7am on July 21.

July 21, 1964: Black Nationalist speakers spoke to a large crowd. The crowd grew more emotional after each speech, and after one speech in particular a riot broke out, and the police charged the crowd as rioters threw bottles at them. The situation was calm again at 2am Wednesday, July 22.

Sources:

New York's 'Night Of Birmingham Horror' Sparked A Summer Of Riots : Code Switch : NPR

The New York Riots of 1964: Violent history with a haunting familiarity - The Bowery Boys: New York City History (boweryboyshistory.com)

Remembering James Powell and the Harlem Riots of 1964 | by darryl robertson | Medium

CITY TO INCREASE NEGROPOLICEMEN ON HARLEM DUTY; Killing of Boy by Officer Will Go to Grand Jury Today, Screvane Says; WAGNER IS RETURNING; Backs Steps to Ease Tension — Rulings on Brutality Charges to Be Studied - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

July 18, 1964

James Powell’s funeral was held, and 250 people attended. The crowd called for the arrest of Gilligan as they were met with shards of glass and garbage lids thrown from residents of rooftops above them, and the swinging clubs of officers. The rioters looted over 22 stores, 19 people and 12 police officers were injured and 1 rioter died.

Investigations Begin

The President of the New York City Council, Paul Screvane announced that a Grand Jury would investigate the killing of James Powell. A United Nations demonstration was held in protest of terrorism against African Americans, and a riot followed this event. A march was planned for Monday by the Brooklyn CORE, and later they set up a rally where police eventually charged the mob without distincting innocent civilians and rioters, this continued until 7am on July 21.

Black Panther First Appearance

Although superhero comics have been around since 1938 with the debut of Superman, it would be another 30 years before the debut of the first black superhero. In 1966, the superhero Black Panther made his debut in Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four #52 as a guest character. In 1969 Marvel debuted the 2nd ever black superhero, the Falcon, a sidekick to Captain America. The Falcon became a popular character but never surpassed the popularity of Captain America. Brown states,  he was destined to remain in the shadow of Captain America; their often unequal relationship was seen by some as an unintended metaphor for the black experience in white America (20).

 Brown, Jeffrey A. Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans Milestone Comics and Their Fans. University Press of Mississippi, 2000.

Black-Owned Communications Alliance PSA

‘‘if the child is Black and can’t even imagine a hero the same color he or she is.’’

Brown claims that this advertisement's concern is clear, that children are impressionable and learn from what they see (3). At this point in time there were hardly any black superheros that children could identify with. Brown later says, "for comic book readers of different ethnic backgrounds there were no heroic models that they could directly identify with, no heroes they could call their own. Instead, they were required to imaginatively identify across boundaries of race since the only depiction of visible minorities in most comic books were the nameless criminals and barbarous savages that the real heroes defeated month after month (3)." This ad calls attention to the need for more diverse role models to reflect the diverse audience that is comic consumers. 

Brown, Jeffrey A. Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans Milestone Comics and Their Fans. University Press of Mississippi, 2000.

Luke Cage

At this point in comics history, publishers were looking to other forms of media for inspiration, clearly taking inspiration from the Blaxploitation films of the era to emulate into comic book characters. Both of the two big comic publishers, DC and Marvel, tried and failed to create long-lasting black superheros. Brown claims the reason for this is that their black characters were too closely identified with the limited stereotype commonly found in the blaxploitation films of the era. 

In the introduction of Frances Gatewar and John Jennings' book  The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art, they claim that comics traffic in stereotypes and fixity, often portraying black superheros in a positive light due to their physicality and nothing else. They claim that black characters have inherent issues built into the very conventions of the genre due to the fact that the Black Body has historically been linked to physicality and not intelligence. 20 years from now, Milestone Comics will set out to reverse this sterotype, creating characters that are centered around their compassion and intelligence rather than their physicality. 

Brown, Jeffrey A. Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans Milestone Comics and Their Fans. University Press of Mississippi, 2000.

Gateward, Frances K., and John Jennings. The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art. Rutgers University Press, 2015.

San Francisco Bisexual Center's First Press Conference

On June 30th of 1977, the San Francisco Bisexual Center has had it's first press conference. The speakers of the conference included one of the co-founders Dr. Harriet Leve, and others including Dr. Benjamin Spock, Dr. Phyllis Lyon, Ruth Falk, and Dr. Claude Steiner. These people have spoken up against the anti-gay activist and singer Anita Bryant, as she desired for homosexuals to never be allowed to become school teachers, which is what the speakers are fighting for. 

They have also discussed other civil rights issues as well, but it was Dr. Harriet Leve's goal to get across the fact that "It is imperative for bisexuals to support and form a unity with our gay sisters and brothers in order to demand what's rightfully ours" (Rubenstein 228). This powerful sentiment has perfectly demonstrated what the center is all about, which is the inclusion of every sexual identity and that they all deserve peace and freedom. 

The conference has been broadcasted on two local news TV programs and was reported and talked about by several radio stations all around San Francisco. It has also been included in many newspaper articles, such as The San Francisco Examiner, The Oakland Tribune, and The Bay Area Reporter, all very prominent sources of news during this time. Because of the popularity the conference has created, the Bisexual Center has seen a large increase in it population. Four Hundred and Thirty Five people have joined the center in just a month after the conference has taken place. The San Francisco Bisexual Center was on it's way to prominence. 

Sources

Rubenstein, Maggi. “A Profile of the San Francisco Bisexual Center.” Journal of Homosexuality, 18 Oct. 2010, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J082v11n01_13.

Gindorf, R., and EJ. Haeberle. “SAN FRANCISCO'S BISEXUAL CENTER AND THE EMERGENCE OF A BISEXUAL MOVEMENT.” BAY AREA BISEXUAL+ & PANSEXUAL NETWORK, 1998, https://www.babpn.org/sfbc.html.