American culture is certainly denigrated by all corners, isn’t it? From the left wing, to the EVROPA morons, even West Point, the United States Military Academy, constantly shits upon and deconstructs the history of this nation that, despite occasionally making me want to put my fist through the wall, I do genuinely love.
A recurring theme you’ll see in modern American historiography is the notion that America was extremely bigoted and racist up until…about a month ago, and thus the entire nation has to have a national “mea culpa” and beg forgiveness. I am certainly not going to deny that the United States of America has committed wrongdoing in the past, of course it has. And longtime readers of my site will be well aware that in many cases American wrongdoings were, if only quantitatively, less so than comparable instances in other nations. But instead, I want to talk about something different today. Namely, the idea that America commits wrongdoing and then gallivants off saying “WE DIDN’T DO SHIT LALALALALALA.” Because, in many cases, a noticeable guilt complex and efforts to atone for misdeeds are evident long before the “woke people” taught us to do so.
Which misdeed are we going to look at today? Let’s do something a little bit smaller, but is yet something that I hear about a lot (perhaps due to my own personal background): the Japanese internment camps.
I’ve discussed this once or twice, but to reiterate: I certainly don’t approve of the way they were handled, but I feel that it is, unfortunately, a logical thing to do (my main issue is with the idea that people had to sell their homes and stuff at firesale prices—there were only 100,000 or so people in the camps, they could have easily held the estates in abeyance). I have also spoken in great detail about the heroism of the 442nd Infantry Regiment and 100th Infantry Battalion…and in a way, this is going to come up again. Kind of.
Part of the narrative that surrounds this unfortunate event is the idea that everybody in America just pretended it didn’t happen and it wasn’t until the 1980s that people even heard about it, thanks to the efforts of the glorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg. This, of course, is combined with the overarching narrative of America’s involvement in World War 2 that is growing in popularity; namely, that the war was a genocidal campaign against the Japanese and the atomic bombs were dropped for literally no reason.
Let’s ignore the fact that there were openly published newspaper articles and newsreels about the internment, and that popular culture was certainly not shy about mentioning it as a tragic necessity (hell, even the Batman film serial from 1943 mentions the internment)…as early as 1951 there were blatant film apologetics about it, rightfully lionizing the fighting men of the 442nd Infantry and explicitly criticizing not only internment, but racism on the whole!
Allow me to introduce you to the film Go For Broke, released in 1951, currently in the public domain and starring Van Johnson, AKA “that guy who Milhouse’s acting was favorably compared to in that one Simpsons episode”. The film tells the mostly true story about the heroism and valor of the 442nd Infantry during the Italian Campaign, and how their white commanding officer learned to overcome his prejudice against them, train them, and lead them to glory.
I’ll be honest with you…the movie isn’t particularly great. While it does appear to have a pretty reasonable budget for its time, the acting is kind of clunky (not helping matters is that many of the actors playing 442nd soldiers were actual veterans, and not actors), and frankly, I found the battle scenes to be somewhat unrealistic and corny—and it has nothing to do with the time period: movies like All Quiet on the Western Front and The Big Parade came out 20-25 years BEFORE Go For Broke, and those movies have battle scenes that are still to this day harrowing and grim.
But let’s not focus on the merits of the film itself—let’s focus on the “wokeness” of the film (hey, I could be a modern film critic!) And this film is pretty damn woke—from the opening scene explicitly lionizing the heroes of the 442nd Infantry (the film’s words, not mine), to scenes directly criticizing the racism of the time period, to the main character’s entire character arc involving learning to overcome his prejudice and see the Nisei as his fellow countrymen, I think it’s fair to say that the writer and director of this film were trying to make a clear point against racism.
And again, this movie was made in 1951, which completely defies the “Everybody in America was an evil racist baby eater until last month” nonsense. Which is, of course, a concept that I try to get across very frequently.
So go ahead and watch the film if you want, it’s on the internet free of charge. I just want you, the reader, to consider this idea the next time the chattering woke people start screaming at you about how you ought to be ashamed of yourself for merely existing. Consider that, while America has certainly committed its share of wrongdoing, America is also more than willing to say “We’re sorry, we fucked up.” And, if anything, does so too often. That’s a hell of a lot better than most countries are willing to do.