African American Internment

On February 19th, 1942, former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. From 1942-1946, Japanese-Americans, whether they were born in the United States of America or not, were sent to internment camps in the Southwest regions of the United States. Reportedly, the order was issued to keep the Japanese-Americans safe from rising biases and violence against the group, but many believe it was to quell the mass paranoia surrounding Japanese-Americans being spies for Imperial Japan. To Kill A Mockingbird shows the fear that is struck into the hearts of African Americans in the deep South by a select white citizens due to the mob mentality that comes along with racism. At the same time, though not fictionally, the Black populous

Though the Japanese and African American experiences would be wildly different, their treatment by the general public would be generally the same. Having to live in fear of violence and high racial tensions would be very typical and, unfortunately, expected. Both the groups were widely discriminated against on almost equal levels as both attracted the majority of hate from White America. African Americans attracted it due to the age old racism that came from the slavery era in America, and Japanese Americans attracted it due to “…[Japan] bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941, rumors spread, fueled by race prejudice, of a plot among Japanese-Americans to sabotage the war effort” (Foner). Black Americans had suffered for centuries at the hands of White America, and their lifestyle was outlined as a “’… terror era shaped the geography, politics, economics, and social characteristics of being black in America during the 20th century,’ Mr. Stevenson said...” (Robertson). Moreover, they were faced with not only discrimination, but also decimation of their communities and families. They both had to face on a daily basis the terror that White America could inflict upon them, due to the mentality that white people were overall better than ethnic groups. As mentioned before, in 1942, Japanese Americans were moved to internment camps in the southwest regions of the country and were forced to live

Kohlberg states, “We look beyond laws and decisions by the authority members to the rights and principles that our society is based on… i.e. ‘All men are created equal” is a principle that we might try to live by even if it is contradicted by a particular set of laws or customs” (Kohlberg). The American experiment was more hypocritical because of the laws, which adds insult to injury of the mob mentality of the White America. In To Kill A Mockingbird, a black woman, Lula, at Calpurnia’s church is rude to Scout and Jem when they visit the black church. She says, “’You ain’t got no business bringin’ white chillun here – they got their church, we got our’n. It is our church, ain’t it, Miss Cal?’” and it’s their country too, not just ours