All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. Thomas Jefferson

I would like to preface this post by saying that the Japanese internment camps during World War II represented an inexcusable and sickening act of racism. I would not want this post to be interpreted in any other manner. Nevertheless, a ninety-year-old man said something fascinating to me yesterday. In his words:

(I know he does not look that old, but he is.)

“People don’t get it. Roosevelt rescued the Japanese. People hated them right then. Thousands of young, American soldiers had been killed by a sneak attack on a Sunday morning when people were supposed to be in church. People were ready to lynch those Japanese. Roosevelt did the best thing he could for them when he got them out of the way. If he hadn’t, things would have gotten ugly. Their homes would have been burned and neighbors would have hurt or even murdered some of them. I don’t know why nobody ever talks about that.”

The man in question is no fan of Roosevelt. He can’t stand F.D.R.even now, which is curious since he acknowledges the Christmas turkey came from government charity and many people he knew were working government jobs, after the Depression had taken away their livelihoods.

This post has little to do with education and if readers are baffled by my post, I am writing this down because I thought I might be hearing a buried historical truth. Maybe America ducked a bullet. Maybe those internment camps prevented America from coming face to face with the racism that can be stirred up in a susceptible population — prevented us from learning that as a group we might be capable of the kind of racism that can’t be buried in the past under the simple heading, “Japanese Internment Camps, an awful government mistake.” We can sanitize those camps, point our fingers elsewhere. It wasn’t us, we can say, just a relatively small group of bureaucrats.

It comes down to this: Who are we? What are we capable of doing when passions run high enough? Angry Americans have burned two mosques in Texas in the last month. We can’t let this fact disappear in thirty-second news segments.

Eduhonesty: I wrote this post to warn readers against complacency. Sometimes the best of us act as if the world will work out for the best. Kind, gentle people can be betrayed by kindness, by their inability to believe that neighbors across the street might hate an unknown group of people enough to torch a temple of worship. We have trouble believing in monsters on Maple Street.

Readers, please speak up against the racism of this time when the occasion arises. I would so rather watch a Dr. Who marathon and let the world flow on around me, but I feel compelled to follow current events at the moment and make my voice heard. Silence can imply consent.

As I warn former students, even those with papers, not to leave the country, I do not consent.

P.S. I know we’re all crazy busy. But please share this post if you have time.