Racism British Columbia Focusing on Essay

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... When a stranger comes into our presence, then, first appearances are likely to enable us to anticipate his category and attributes, his "social identity" ... We lean on these anticipations that we have, transforming them into normative expec-tations, into righteously presented demands. ... It is [when an active question arises as to whether these demands will be filled] that we are likely to realize that all along we had been making certain assumptions as to what the individual before us ought to be. [These assumed demands and the character we impute to the individual will be called] virtual social identity. The category and attributes he could in fact be proved to possess will be called his actual social identity (Goffman, 1986, p. 2).

During tense economic times or wartime, it is typical for the political powers to attempt a dehumanization of the enemy, making it easier to stereotype and box individuals as "evil, hunnish, commies, etc." rather than see them as individuals. The "enemy" loses its human characteristics and with it the morality that would usually make someone reasonable towards their fellow humans. Cognitive dissonance, then, it what makes it possible for humans to disassociate people from bias, and to learn to hate or kill based on race. We call them "towel heads" or "hajjis" similar to during Vietnam when the enemy was known as "gooks" or "Charlie," or in past conflicts "the evil Hun," "kraut," "Nazi Pig," "Commie," etc. (Dower; Talerico) Victoria, BC, for instance, was a town of immigrants. Many never differentiated the difference between Japanese and Chinese, which led to the "Chinese Question," whether Orientals should be shipped back to their home country because they degraded labor and lessened the opportunities of employment.

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Images of the enemy are created by national media propaganda (in complicity with governments) to prepare the minds of citizens to "hate those who fit the new category your enemy" (Racism Toward Immigrants, 2008).

This disconnect formed the basis of the confinement of Japanese Canadians in British Columbia during World War II. Historically, the American naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked in December 1941. Following this attack, the Canadian Federal Government, much like the U.S. Government, gave an internment order based on the "idea" that there would be sabotage and espionage by Canadians of Japanese descent, even though the Royal Canadian Mounted Police lacked any proof. At the time of the initial internment, the Canadian Government promised that any property and finances would be returned upon release, however, that never happened and most of the Japanese interred had their assets sold or transferred to governmental sources (The Internment of the Japanese, 2009). Ironically, despite the widespread fear that was fueled by the Canadian press, historical evidence shows that most in the Canadian Government, the RCMP, and the Canadian military intelligence units did not really believe the Japanese-Canadians were a threat to national security. First, prior to the war there were less than 30,000 Canadians of Japanese descent in British Columbia, and of those about 80% were already Canadian nationals. Canada had not welcomed these people with open arms; denying them the right to vote and barring them from several professions. Racism, it seems, was not new to this segment, and even during the 1920s and.....

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