The internment of Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor illustrates the quick tendancy we all have to judge and stereotype. With no evidence, the United States government assumed that all Japanese were a threat and acted on assumptions.
I understand that they wanted to take precautions, but they should have at least established a system to to verify that they were imprisoning people who were threats. It is indeed ironic that the Japanese who lived closest to the Pearl Harbor tragedy were not imprisoned. Could it be that those Japenese were actually known for who they are, instead of being abused because of their skin color?
Several years ago I read "Snow Falling on Cedars." The novel by David Guterson paints a story about a Japanese man wrongly charged with murder and of his people sent into exile for no reason as their neighbors watched. Stories like that remind me of how tragic and unjust prejudice is. We all know it. I hope we can all live like we know it.
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